November 28, 2013 – Lovely County Citizen – Page
The Village Writing School What would you tell your village if you had one last opportunity to speak your heart? In this piece, Jody Stephenson imagines her own final say.
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What to say
e have a rule in writers’ group: no disclaimers. No excuses before you read. So I’m treading in a gray area when I admit my fear that I have nothing worthwhile to impart to you. Because the first rule in writing is that the writer must have something to say. So for this piece, I tried to imagine that if this were the last speech of my life, what would I want to say? What would there be that I could say to you, my fellow pilgrims on this journey through our collective lives--except thank you. Thank you for living alongside me in our beloved Eureka Springs. Thank you for your example. Thank you for your care and concern, your creativity and compassion in making this community what it us. I’ve learned so much from you all. It helps me to live better. We teach each other how to live. We learn how to love and be loved in our shared experience of life. Yeah, yeah, we have some squabbling in local politics, some disagreements on issues, and some problems. So what? That’s what makes it interesting. Our lives are open books in this fishbowl of a small town. But when things get tough, we seem to manage to pull together. I hear all the time about your random acts of Good Samaritan kindness. I watch you volunteering at food banks and free clinics, fighting Swepco to preserve our beautiful habitat, tending public garden spaces, expending your lives to keep local history alive, and contributing to our local version of catastrophic health insurance: the benefit auction where you, who often struggle for your own economic survival, band together to raise needed funds for someone in trouble. There are a thousand other examples, and most of them I don’t even know about. Many of you serve this community without ever calling attention to yourselves. I learned about service in church, not from sermons on serving, but by watch-
ing one woman faithfully in the kitchen week after week at our Sunday evening church free meal. For almost a year, I chatted with her while she worked— from the other side of the counter. I said goodnight to her as I walked out the door while she was still doing the dishes (dishes I had eaten from). I watched her serving others while her own life was in a season of great tragedy. One night it hit me: Oh my God, I should be helping her. And I have been, ever since then. It was her example that inspired me to change, to become better than I was, to see that there were things that were important to do, and that they had my name on them. Jesus trained his band of followers by example, by living a daily life of love in their midst. It was his model for changing the world. Pretty straightforward. Somewhere along the historical path, it got overcomplicated. Really the best way to show appreciation for someone else’s generosity is to follow their example. The appropriate way to thank God for the gift of life is to live in his love, and then let it spill into the lives of those around us. And I thank you all for your example of true humanity. Let us never take it for granted that we are privileged to live here. What other town has a history like Eureka Springs? A town founded on reports of the miraculous, people getting cured of their ailments and diseases by the magic healing waters. They came here because they believed. When they stopped believing, the reports of miracle cures dwindled. I believe this town’s rich heritage of health and healing is still in the air, and people experience a bit of its magic whenever they visit. People come here to experience what we have. Perhaps our way of life can inspire them to go back home and be their best selves. Then, maybe someday, the rest of the world can be as vibrant as Eureka Springs.
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To support our local writers, the Lovely County Citizen is providing space each week to showcase a student of The Village Writing School. For more information, email alisontaylorbrown@me.com or call (479) 292-3665
This Week’s Writer:
Jody Stephenson Jody Stephenson is an artist and the author of Faltering Towards Perfection: Art, Faith, and Everything In Between. Jody and her husband, Ron Lutz, live and work at Studio 62, their gallery in beautiful Eureka Springs, Arkansas. They are proud to be a part of this thriving artists community. Jody’s work has been represented by many fine galleries and is collected all over the country. What to Say was originally presented at “Food for Thought,” a quarterly performance of works by the Eureka Springs Christian Writers Group.
Village Writers capture Holiday Stories
Village Writer Cris Senseman interviews Miriam Jaschke
14 writers from the Village Writing School have been interviewing residents of Peach Tree and Green Acres retirement communities to help them preserve a holiday memory. Some of the stories are funny, some are dramatic, but all are important to the resident, who has cho-
sen this memory from hundreds of others. The stories will be suitable for the residents to give to their descendants as a holiday gift, if they choose. Some will be published in the Lovely County Citizen during the month of December.