The Faith of her Friends

I am writing a book. There, I've finally said it on the world wide web, so it is official and must be true.  It's a novel, actually. Not the story of my life, although I'm realizing more and more how much life imitates art imitates life, so nuggets of my soul and story are stubbornly embedded in it. But a major influencer is Jane Austen, so it is set in Scarborough, England, in 1829, and includes characters who are very much entwined in each other's lives, for better or worse. And yes, there is a romantic thread, and yes, it is as conservative and modest as Austen.  I am slowly letting family and friends read different drafts, because I need their feedback and perspectives to make it as great as it can be. May I be vulnerably honest? I really want it to be great - excellent, even - and have it published and make somebody-somewhere's top-10 list. I want it to be important and powerful and relatable and encouraging and mind-shifting and life-changing. I've written

I recently learned that I was losing my Medicare insurance coverage, and when I asked why, I was told that it is because of a change in my disability. This is very confusing, because I have had the same disability my entire life, and will continue to have the same disability until the end of my life; that's the weird and inconvenient thing about being diagnosed with a rare and incurable gene-based motor-neurological disease. So when I tried to correct that false assumption of a "change in my disability," I was told that my diagnosis didn't matter in this case.  ?? I'm sorry, what?? After feeling like I was in a Lewis Carroll story for a while, or like I was playing "Who's on First" with Abbott and Costello, I finally decoded that when the person was using the words "you are not disabled," what they actually meant was "you are employed." So in that context, they were correct: losing my medical insurance had nothing to do with my

 Last week I got to attend a conference for work and was a part of a panel discussion about social media and storytelling. I manage a lot of the content for  We Carry Kevan 's social media presence... not particularly because I'm skilled or passionate about that, but because in my role of Family (and Community) Engagement, I find that one way to engage our audience is to be active online.  One of the questions for the panel was "How to do feel about the term 'influencer' and the associated expectations?" Our moderator actually added this question after a pre-session powwow, in which all of us groaned at the mention of the word 'influencer.' In our culture, this is a loaded term, isn't it? It indicates that a person who is visible and vocal online is somewhat of an expert in their topic and is someone others should pay attention to... a person whose opinion and insight should influence the way you think, act, dress, eat, or believe. That person may

 My local church women's ministry has this tradition every spring to do a "progressive dinner." Ladies in three homes (in fairly close proximity to each other) volunteer to host different courses of the meal - appetizers, entrees, and desserts. The host ladies set up their space and provide sufficient food (in their designated course) for 30 women, who sign up ahead of time. The purpose of it is multi-layered... participants get to see and enjoy homes that they may or may not have previously visited, a meal becomes an event that lasts longer but is more active and engaging, and every time you arrive at a new house you have the opportunity to mix and mingle with different ladies. Sounds like fun, right?  Actually, for me it sounded stressful and awkward. That's because there are very few homes that I can easily access without a lot of fuss. It's just easier to host things at my own house or have a more public destination like the church fellowship hall or a restaur