Hi Friends! Welcome to Part 4 of my short(ish) story A Fortress for Aeda. This story has become so much more than I originally intended it to be, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. To start at the beginning, go here to find Part 1.
And thanks for stopping by.
You’re the G.O.A.T.
Or the wolf, whichever you prefer.
A Fortress for Aeda is currently under construction. Come back later for some exciting news.
When I started this little blog experiment, I made a promise to push past the hardships and the apathy no matter what. I’ve failed at that more than I have succeeded, including this week.
Ever feel like you can’t focus? And you start to do something productive, and then you find yourself on facebook or netflix or amazon video (insert any website here, really) more times than you can count?
Welcome to the last week of my life as it applies to writing. I just didn’t feel like it. And when I tried to write, I really didn’t like what was coming out. And now that I’m about to hit the “publish” button, I’m still not that happy with it. But it’s Saturday and it’s the best I can give this week, and sometimes I realize that, in of itself, is enough.
If you’re new to the story, you can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Enjoy friends.
A Fortress for Aeda is currently under construction. Come back later for some exciting news.
Hi friends! Thanks for stopping by and giving me your time! If you’re new here, this is
Part 2 of my 6(ish) Part short story entitled “A Fortress for Aeda.” You can find A Fortress for Ada Part 1 here. If you’re not new, you may have noticed I changed the spelling of my characters name. Yep, yes I did. That’s all I have to say about that. 🙂
So, sit back. Drink your cup of coffee. And enjoy the next section of Aeda’s story.
A Fortress for Aeda is currently under construction. Come back later for some exciting news.
For Part 3 of Aeda’s Story, click here.
Lewis was the first writer I ever fell in love with. He’s the one who taught me to love theology. He’s the one who showed me the power of a story. And so when I came across this quote in a Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War, I knew I had to do something with it. There truly is nothing better in the world than sitting around a fire with close friends. Add in s’mores and and twinkling lights, and you’ve found my happy place.
Look for a blog post coming soon on my takeaway from the book, called “Creating in Community” and the second part of my story “A Fortress for Aeda” coming on Saturday! (If you missed the first part, you can read it here).
Feel free to download and print Lewis Fire Quote and share it with your friends.
This is the beginning of a story that’s been forming (consciously) in my heart for over four years, but I like to think it’s been writing itself for much longer. I didn’t intend to start Aeda’s story at this point in my life. This story deserves a better writer- a kinder one- a more clever one than myself. So, my plan was to obviously wait until I was older and wiser (so, like 27?) but I can’t really keep it quietly sitting in my heart any longer. But instead of giving you the ever growing 17 page document that currently saved to my desktop, I’ve decided to edit and “publish” it a few pages at a time. For the next 6 (ish) Saturdays, I’ll be posting the next installments of Aeda’s story.
So, today, with much anticipation and excitement in my heart, I bring you…
Update: A Fortress for Aeda is currently under construction, but you may find an exert from the story below.
She was sitting on the floor lacing her boots when she heard it: the crack of a tree limb. Her hands stilled as she listened to surrounding forest. Leaves crunched beneath footsteps like war drums growing louder with each new beat. Careful not to make a sound, she stood up and slipped silently across the dirt floor.
Someone was in the forest.
She was found.
She peered out the window and waited for the noisemaker to appear, squatting down low so that only her eyes peered out through the small slits in the wooden shutters. Her fingers brushed against the smooth wood of her bow as she loaded it with an arrow. She took a deep breath in through her nose and exhaled through her mouth.
“Animals know when there is danger around,” he father had told her the first time he took her hunting. “But if you can control your breathing, they won’t sense anything is wrong.”
A tree branch filled with bright yellow leaves pulled back and a man emerged from the thicket. His deep brown cloak and hunter green tunic made it seem as if he were one with the forest, a small tree who had just decided it would rather stand in the clearing. He crossed his arms and studied the dilapidated cottage, as if considering what might be inside.
This was not the first traveler who had passed by her cottage in the last three years she had lived there. Perhaps if she had met him earlier, she would have thought twice about the signet ring he wore on his right hand or the golden crest pinned on his cloak. But now she only concerned herself with details she thought were necessary: Was he armed? And how could she overcome him? Nothing else mattered.
He wasn’t a particular well built man, rather average. His soft brown beard was well trimmed, and his hair, though well combed, contained spots of grey. This knowledge brought the smallest grin to Aeda’s face. A well groomed beard meant that this man was no woodsman or farmer, but rather a comfortable gentleman. She had defended her cottage against men far bigger and rougher than this man.
He took a step towards her, and she snarled. He could not have come at a more inconvenient time. She had made a rather fine plan to go hunting and chop wood today. She didn’t have the time to be bothered with this stranger. She would scare him off quickly and then she could resume her plans.
“You’ll find no hospitality here,” she called out. “It’d be best if you kept walking to the next village. If you hurry, you can make it there before dark and I won’t have to waste an arrow on you.”
The man halted in the middle of his step and held his hands up in the air.
“You must be Aeda.”
I’ve known Emilee for almost two years now. I met her at an after school program I worked for my first year in Birmingham. I always knew I liked her. She just radiates cool, but in that non-threatening, “I could be friends with her” way. We share a passion for telling kids about Jesus, and as we recently discovered, a passion for writing. Her vulnerability when she writes in truly heartbreaking, but in the best kind of way. When she writes, I feel what she feels. I see the picture she is painting with her words as if I had experienced it myself. And when I read this poem of hers, I knew I had to post it on my blog. While reading it, there were numerous times when I said, “YES! that’s exactly how I felt. that’s exactly what I would do.”And I’m challenged to be just as vulnerable in my writings as she is in hers.
Thanks for being my friend, Em, and for reminding me of the beauty found in opening our hearts and minds to others.
Emilee Rogers is a wearer of beanies in the summer, a paper airplane maker, and a recent graduate of Samford University. For more of her writings, visit her blog where she posts way more frequently than I do.
I walk towards your altar and stand with my brothers in a line.
Each step bringing us deeper into the chorus.
“Miserere mei, Deus, secundus magnum misericordia tuam“.
Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness.
In turn, I kneel down before the altar,
bowing my head and mouthing the words along with the Father
“You are but dust and to dust you shall return.”
He takes his thumb and marks my head with ashes
a visual reminder of the truth I now understand.
I have not loved. I have not been patient. I have not spoken truth.
I am but dust, and to dust I shall return.
At this altar, I have been forced to confront my own reflection
and to face the ashes and dirt I have tried too long to hide.
And as I resign myself to a prison of isolation,
I am invited to feast on your own flesh.
But I have seen who I am and the glory that You are.
And I am hesitant to approach you-
to be near one so Holy- so fully other than who I know myself to be
Still like a magnet attracted to it’s opposite,
I am compelled forward towards the altar once again.
Stepping between the ranks of your saints pouring water into my thirsty soul.
“The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: long-suffering and of great goodness.”
Their words are slow to seep in, so they repeat them over and over again.
“The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: long suffering and of great goodness.
“The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: long suffering and of great goodness.
Yes! “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: long suffering and of great goodness.”
And as they reach their final forte, I fall to my knees
and the mercy I have been withstanding washes into me.
Head bowed and hands open, I can do nothing but receive.
If you are willing Lord, you can make me clean.
Bread is placed in my hands but I dare not look up.
I simply raise what is offered to my starved lips.
“This is the body of Christ broken for you.”
And I eat of it.
The cup is raised to my mouth and I taste of the wine.
“The blood of Christ spilled for you.”
I taste the bittersweet mercy of your broken body
miraculously making me whole.
I feel the blood you shed wash over my ashes
replacing them with new life.
And I stand knowing that I am yours and yours alone.
This wretched sinner whom you have called your own-
No longer made of ashes but an eternal soul.
When I was in fifth grade, I tried to make all my valentine cards by hand. No bueno. This was before the color copies (wether it was or not I have no actual idea, but I know for sure that 10 year old Bekah had never heard of one). 40 Valentine Cards by hand is asking too much.
But I’m happy announce that roughly 15 years later, I finally did it. I made my only Valentines Cards (shout out to Office Max for your overpriced color copies). I’m a Pre-K teacher, so yes, I still celebrate Valentines Day (and Groundhog day, and any Holiday that I can decorate for).
I drew and watercolored this little guy originally, then scanned him into my computer for some more editing. I’m really happy with the whole process. Card-making might just become my next venture. Who knows?
This past fall, I drove by myself to Chicago. It’s my second time doing this, and I think I-65 might be one of the most beautiful drives in America.
When I came to Illinois, it was past 10pm and out of nowhere come these bright red flashing lights. It’s eery. And they go for miles and miles and miles. But on the way home, I always meet those same wind turbines with the early morning sun, and it’s sheer beauty. Just look at those colors. The feeling I get is completely different, even though I’m looking at the exact same thing- only the lighting changes.
So, out of that thought, I wrote this poem, cleverly titled “Wind Turbines.” Making a movie was never my intention, but I had some footage from the drive that I thought would make a cool addition, so that’s kind of how this all came together. If you’re a film person, I apologize in advance. 🙂
This is my best friend Katrina Kessler. Besides being one the best people to walk the earth, she’s an amazing writer. In fact, she’s the one who got me started on this whole creative experiment. And… (drumroll please) I finally talked her into joining me here on the blog to share one piece that she recently wrote. She makes me a better writer (and person) because she sees things so differently than I do. She sees people more clearly and loves them more deeply. As a result of her friendship, I’m learning to see and love people as she does. So, instead of continuing my sappy rant, I’m going to let Katrina do the talking with her poem, entitled “Scattered.”
______________________________________________________
Scattered by Katrina Kessler
“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” – John Green
“Hear the word of the Lord, you nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’” – Jeremiah 31:10
She looked in the mirror and saw herself –
All knobby knees and flailing elbows,
A tangle of arms and legs and freckles and torso
Too much length and not enough curve.
She sat on her bed amidst the piles of clothes, piles of papers, piles of books,
Chesnut drawers ajar, with a sleeve and a pant leg spilling out over the edges
Making their escape.
Wall hangings knocked just a little bit crooked
Everything in disarray, not quite where
It’s supposed to be.
She thought of middle school – of the backpack and the lunchbox and the jacket
and the extra book and pencil pouch
Of always having one too many things to carry
Of always bursting in the door a couple minutes late,
A jacket sleeve or a lunchbox strap trailing behind.
She tugged on the bottom hem, then the right shoulder,
the left sleeve, back to the hem
Never getting the sweater to hang quite right, to fit quite snugly enough, to look quite like
It’s supposed to
And her room and her clothes weren’t even the half of it, the eighth of it
Of the constant mess in her mind, a mind prone to wander
The half-created worlds, theories, ideas, information, feelings
That were always expressed in half-finished sentences
A maze of winding hallways, dusty books half read,
Ideas flying around, bumping into each other, rolling away
Prayers that were part liturgy, part praise, part cry,
All quirks and twitches and stutters and fidgets
Too much inspiration, not enough focus or follow through
She pictured herself standing on the edge of entropy
Peering just over the cusp of a dark chasm
Just one unanswered email, expired milk carton, unfolded shirt away
From falling in
Sometimes it was too much
There were too many thoughts out of order,
Too much mess and chaos to handle,
And she sat on the bed and pulled up the long legs and knobby knees
Fitting just under her chin, encircled by lanky arms and tapping fingers
And repeated,
“Fearfully and wonderfully made
Fearfully and wonderfully made
Knit together in my mother’s womb
Fearfully and wonderfully made.”
But she could hear it, always hear it
Like a broken record playing in the background
“But why like this?
Why so lanky and knobby
So scattered and messy
It didn’t have to be like this.”
Like Adam and Eve fidgeting awkwardly under fig leaves
Jacob holding the bloody, mangled multi-colored coat
Martha and Mary draped in black, mourning at Lazarus’ grave
Why, Lord? It didn’t have to be like this
But other times
A crack of light shone into the darkness
The scattered stars aligned suddenly into constellations
An unspoken hope materialized in an answered prayer
A theme emerging from the scattered thoughts and a friend’s words, a pastor’s sermon, an author’s plea
A time of being late and messy and scattered –
Yet landing in just the right place with the right people and the right words to say
A divine appointment
A quick glimpse from the Maker, the Father,
Tugging on her sleeve, whispering:
“Look, my child”
As for a brief moment he tears open the veil
Folds back the stars like a sheet
To reveal heaven and earth meeting
Hosts of nations returning from Babel to bow and praise
“This doesn’t end in entropy, in chaos, in darkness, in pain,
I have not scattered what I will not gather,
There is nothing broken that I cannot redeem
Nothing is hidden that I will not find
I am doing a great work in your time that you cannot believe.
Behold, I am making all things new.”
Even me.
______________________________________________________
Katrina Kessler lives in Wheaton, Illinois and is currently the Research Assistant at the Forum of Christian Leaders where she enjoys hiding in libraries while sipping a splendid combination of hot chocolate and coffee and wearing fanciful hats.
rebekah.eckard 