@story MARCUS COKER

St. John’s Episcopal Church in Fort Smith invites the community to join them this Sunday, December 4, at 5 p.m. for Lessons and Carols, a special service marking the beginning of the Advent season. Advent, the time period leading up to Christmas, begins the fourth Sunday before Christmas and has a twofold meaning. First, it represents the original waiting for the birth of Christ, and second, the waiting for His return.

Tim Hess, organist and choirmaster for St. John’s, says, “The service will be presented with scripture and song.” The scripture lessons will be read by Angela Covey and David Sims and will focus mainly on the expectation of the coming of Jesus. Between the lessons, music will be sung by both the church choir and the congregation. “We’ll sing Advent hymns like O Come, O Come Emmanuel and The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns,” says Tim. “We won’t do actual Christmas carols until Christmas Eve, because Advent is about before, the time leading up to Christmas.”

In addition to St. John’s choir, a few guest singers have been invited to participate in Lessons and Carols. Sopranos Dr. Sharon Kenney and Louann Dooly will sing I Will Magnify Thee, O Lord, and Cameron Law will sing Once in Royal David’s City. The service will both begin and end with organ music and prayer.

As participants enter the back of St. John’s this Sunday, many will be struck by its beauty. Built in 1900, the church has vaulted ceilings, supported by heavy beams that arch from one side of the church to the other. Stained-glass windows depict the birth of Christ, as well as His resurrection and ascension. Also notable will be unlit Chrismon tree—a variation of the Christmas tree—that is decorated with symbols of peace.

According to Tim, much of what St. John’s does is symbolic. Because Advent focuses on the time before the birth of Christ, the tree will remain unlit until the time of Christ’s birth. Once Christmas Eve comes, the tree will be lit as a symbol of celebration. Likewise, the nativity scene will be found this Sunday at the back of the church. As Advent progresses, the nativity will move closer to the front of the church, signifying the arrival of Christmas.

Lessons and Carols will last approximately an hour and will be followed by a reception in the Parish Hall. Nursery will also be provided.

For more information:

St. John’s Episcopal Church

215 North 6^th Street

Fort Smith, AR 72901

479-782-9912

stjohnfs.org

When we announced our flash fiction contest, we thought it was only fair that our writers try their hand at the genre.

We found it a little harder than we expected.  The word count is 100, and the shortest stories we EVER write are 450.  But we did it.  Are they all happy stories, you ask.  Why, no they're not.  That surprised us as well.

Sometimes it's good to stretch your creative muscles.

So read away!  And let us know what you think.

Forgiving Dad

@story Marcus Coker

Dad loved Jack Daniel’s more than Mom loved Jesus Christ, if that’s possible. He used to come home, put on a Bob Dylan record, and drink until he either passed out or slammed me against the sheetrock. Meanwhile, Mom cried and read the Bible. I quit believing in God the morning I woke up in our bathtub covered in my own blood. My nose was broken, and all I could do was hate. Mom said that I should forgive, so I started listening to Bob Dylan and drinking Jack Daniel’s, which was the only way I knew how.

Reunion

@story Anita Paddock

 For a moment, she forgot about her knees, her stiff shoulder, her knobby-fingered hands.  She was twenty again, and he sat watching for her to enter the restaurant.

He stood when she waved, and he motioned to a chair.  "It's been a long time," he said.

He was tall and tanned by the Santa Fe sun.  He wore a blue shirt with a country club emblem on the pocket.  "You look wonderful," she said.

He didn't reply, so she decided not to tell him about their grandchild, a doctor.

Shroud

@story Buddy Pinneo

She’s terrified of reflective surfaces. Avoiding them is more important than breathing. If one should enter her periphery, she pivots violently, no matter the situation, or how awkward it might seem to strangers. All that matters is getting away. Going someplace dark. Someplace cloaked in thick draperies and cigarette smoke. Someplace she can drink. And forget. And focus on napkin ink. Just be careful of the glass. One look could destroy. She must not see. She must never know what it was that made him leave. He never said. But her deepest fears knew just what to do with that.

Hat Opinions

@story Doug Kelley

The ball cap, tan with a red bill, had accumulated dirt and sweat stains from a thousand days of cutting wood, digging holes and building decks and barns. Dirty, filthy, but wonderfully comfortable.

I was quite attached to that hat.

One day while mowing, it blew off my head.

I rode back around to pick it up, but our dog was already happily chewing away the crown. The salts from the sweat and grime were too tasty to pass up, I guess.

Later, my wife sneaked out, gave him a pat on the head. And a pork chop.

Desire

@story Marla Cantrell

Outside Epperson’s Grocery, a perfectly acceptable wife fumbles through her purse.  Her husband looks across the avenue at the blonde.  She stares back, taps her lips like she’s practicing Morse Code. She turns, so that all he sees is her sun-bright hair, the soda-straw heels of her shiny shoes, the sliver of light glinting through the kick-pleat of her skirt.

Let’s hope it stops.  But say she crosses over, brushes past him and goes into Abbott’s Cleaners that’s owned by the husband’s best friend.  Now there’s a trail for him to follow.

And he will follow.  They always do.

Redneck Romeo

@story Tonya McCoy

He sprayed some Aqua Net, flicked his Bic and in a thunderous explosion a spud soared over his chicken houses. Standing on the porch to his doublewide he hoisted the pipe onto his rebel flag tattooed shoulder - reloaded and ready. 

Here winter didn’t deter the flies. They zipped around dozens of emptied Busch cans. After a six pack or two he put on his volunteer firefighters uniform, complete with helmet. Dressed to impress, he leaned with a hand on the side of his old Dually while he peed on the tire. She would never internet date again.

I didn’t know Thelma Maurine Hickman Speer, who was born on November 17, 1926.  I didn’t attend her church (First Presbyterian in Fort Smith) or send my children to Hobson Preschool and Kindergarten, where she once taught.  But after reading her obituary on Friday, I feel like I know a lot about her.

I’ve puzzled over the long-form obits that have become popular in recent years.  They are little stories covering big lives, filled with the crippling energy of the newly bereaved, who want to get it right, who need for you to know that Uncle Joe had been called “Do Good Jones” since he returned a pocketful of penny candy to the dime store when he was six.  They want you to know their mother loved parrots, or orchids, or bingo, or gambling.  There is even a stone in a cemetery in Alma whose slick granite is marked with these words: Gone to Walmart.  One line that tells you most of what you need about a life lived in the state where Sam Walton built his empire.

My interest in the obituary column sent me to the library where I scoured through microfiche copies of newspapers from the 1800s.  There writers penned lines like, “He was torn from the bosom of his worldly hallows while still in the pale of early manhood.” Or, “Earth could not hold the kindness and beauty of her tender heart.”  

From there, we somehow managed to grow sterile in our treatment of death.  For decades the obituaries listed family members blocked by semicolons: aunts, children, parents.  The “begats” did little to fill in the blanks.  There were not anecdotes, no cause of death, just birth date, death date, immediate family, end of story.

Joan Didion, author of The Year of Magical Thinking, dissected grief and dying in this book that turned a microscope on her life after her husband’s death.  Life changes in an instant, she said.  And it does.  Each of us holds two passports; one for life and one for the afterlife.  We just don’t know when the former will be revoked.

Is there a lesson in all of this?  Sure there are.  What Thelma Maurine Hickman Speer taught me was in this paragraph in her obituary: “Her three great-grandchildren demonstrate her love of living in the present.  Recently one of the great grandsons decided he no longer wanted to take afternoon naps because he would ‘miss it.’  His mom asked, ‘Miss what?’  He replied, ‘The whole world.’ Thelma Speer, the wife, mother, teacher, grandmother and friend would have agreed.”

Don’t miss the whole world.  Live in it, make a mess of it if you have to, and then clean it up and start again.  But don’t miss it.  Whatever you do, please don’t miss it.

Marla