Love is Saying You're Sorry

I attended a wedding on Friday. Gordon and Heather are members of the writer's critique group I belong to, so I got to watch their friendship blossom into love and engagement and, finally, marriage. But "finally" isn't the right word, because marriage is a new beginning rather than an end.

Although I don't consider myself an expert on marriage, I have been married for 31 years, so that's a good start. (The picture is Roland and me in 1979. How we've changed since then!) I've learned a few things in that time, so I'm passing on some words of wisdom to Heather and Gordon and all the other married couples out there.

First, be realistic. Marriage isn't nirvana. Even the best marriages have times when the spouses don't like each other much. (Yes, mine too.) Marriage requires hard work and compromise, but it's worth it.

How many of you remember the movie Love Story from the late 60s or early 70s? It's most famous line was, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." I completely disagree. We all disappoint each other at times, and the strongest marriages have two partners who are willing to say both "I'm sorry" and "I forgive you."

Second, remember that marriage is a partnership. That doesn't mean losing your individual identities, but it does mean working together to satisfy each other's needs.

There is one more key ingredient--and the main one. Roland and I are both committed to God, and He guides our lives and our marriage.

So here's my advice to Gordon and Heather. Put God at the center of your marriage and keep Him there.

And don't hesitate to say, "I'm sorry."

Dreams Take Work

Sleeping in the dorm. Eating in the dining hall. Walking across campus to attend class.

My college days? Well, that too. But I'm talking about a writers' conference I attended earlier this month.

The Write-to-Publish Conference is held annually at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. (I don't want anyone to confuse it with Wheaton College in Massachusetts. Write-to-Publish is held at the one that Billy Graham actually attended.) It is a four-day Christian conference that offers multiple opportunities for writers to improve their craft and make contact with editors and agents.

What did I get out of it? New friends. The joy that comes from worshiping with other Christian writers. Lots of good information on marketing my book and expanding my speaking ministry. The opportunity to submit my novel to a publishing house that doesn't take unsolicited submissions. Another lead for my children's book. (And yes, I submitted both the novel and the children's book two days after returning home.)

I try to attend one major writers' conference a year. This year is an exception: I'll be attending two. That's because I had already planned to attend Write-to-Publish when I discovered that American Christian Fiction Writers is holding its annual conference in my backyard this year. Or maybe not quite my backyard, but 2 and 1/2 driving hours away isn't bad. So I'll be going there in September.

Many of you don't see yourselves as writers, but all of you have dreams. We all benefit from time away to develop our skills and re-energize those dreams, whatever they may be.

So take some time to follow yours.

A Perfect Day

On the shores of Lake Michigan, a buttercup cocks its head and listens to the whispering wind.

High on the Indiana dunes, dry sand skips merrily along, looking for a place to rest.

The flag at the Munster Town Hall lifts halfway and stays there.

At Wrigley Field, the wind nudges a ball into the bleachers. Then the camera pulls back and shows white sails showcased against blue water.

And at the Hammond Marina, I am getting ready to join them.

Flinging the rope off the post, I give Freizeit her freedom. She backs out of her berth and heads for the marina entrance.

Freizeit means "free time" in German, and she is built for enjoyment. Sleek and white with dark green accents, she is rigged with one mast and two sails.

After we clear the marina entrance, Roland turns the bow into the wind. I raise the main sail and cleat it off, then raise the head sail.

"Let's go toward Chicago," Roland says as he turns off the engine and lets the wind take over.

We relax in our seats, soaking in the silence. Well, not complete silence. We hear a gentle "plash" as the waves caress the boat, and a soft "whoo" as the wind plays among the sails.

I watch contentedly as the Museum of Science and Industry grows larger and then smaller and the Chicago skyline becomes more pronounced.

All too soon, Roland glances at his watch and says, "We'd better head back now." Working in perfect harmony with the boat, we swing 180 degrees. Then we settle into our seats and let the wind take us home.

The azure water laps against the side of the boat, and the sun smiles down on us.

Soon the marina looms ahead. Roland turns the bow into the wind, and I take the sails down.

As we pull into our berth to tie up, the wind dies.

The camera panning the lake near Wrigley Field shows sails flapping. But the baseball fans are on their way home after a Cubs win.

The flag at the Munster Town Hall hangs limp.

High on the Indiana dunes, the grains of sand settle to rest.

And on the shores of Lake Michigan, the buttercup straightens its head.

The wind has retired at the end of a perfect day.

My Hero

My father would have been 100 on June 2nd.

Daddy married later in life, and I was only nine when I started telling my friends that my father was half a century old. (Yes, that gives you enough information to calculate my current age.) Daddy was 73 when he became a grandfather and a few months shy of 89 when he died.

The picture shows Daddy with his first grandchild (my daughter, Caroline), and it is one of the few pictures that shows him smiling. But this one is closer to real life, because Daddy smiled and laughed a lot.

My father was scholarly and strict and he watched every penny. He was also the kindest and most generous man I know.

Daddy valued education. He dropped out of high school but eventually worked his way through college and seminary. He also made sure that his children had the means to go to college. In fact, his example inspired each of us to get at least one postgraduate degree.

Growing up, I didn't appreciate Daddy enough. Yes, I loved and respected him, but I sometimes wished that he was rich, indulgent, and anything but a minister. Looking back, I can see how much he sacrificed for his family and what a rich legacy he left us, but I didn't see it at the time.

Do you appreciate your father the way you should? If he is still around, make sure you honor him this Father's Day (June 20).

On the Road With Laura Ingalls Wilder--Part III

Since Mama and I didn't want to backtrack, we vistited the Indian Territory site (Little House on the Prairie) outside Independence, Kansas near the end of our trip rather than near the beginning. In the books, Laura moved from the big woods in Wisconsin to Indian Territory and then to Plum Creek in Minnesota. In real life, the Ingalls family moved back to Wisconsin and stayed there for several years before moving to Plum Creek.

The place designated as the Kansas site for Laura's cabin contains a replica of the cabin; an old post office and an old one-room schoolhouse that are both original but were moved to this site and have nothing to do with Laura; and a hand-dug well. Mama saw most of it but decided not to walk the few extra steps to see the well.

At the cabin, a string fed through a hole in the door to open the inside latch. In Little House on the Prairie, Laura describes her father fixing up the string so he could pull it through the hole at night to "lock" the door from the inside.

I'm not sure if this is the real site, or if somebody just decided to call it that. Laura describes their homestead as being 40 miles from Independence and this place is only 13 miles away. But Laura did change the facts for drama sometimes, or her young memory may have gotten it wrong.

Our last Laura Ingalls Wilder stop was also her last. Laura and Almanzo moved to Mansfield, Missouri, while their daughter, Rose, was still young (On the Way Home), and they spent the rest of their lives there. Rose moved to California and eventually to Connecticut, but she is buried next to her parents in the Mansfield cemetery. That's the first place we went when we arrived. Unfortunately, the engraving on Laura and Almanzo's grave is almost the same color as the tombstone, so the writing doesn't show up very well in a photo.

From there, we went to Rocky Ridge Farm to see the house and museum. The museum contains lots of original Ingalls and Wilder items, including Pa's fiddle.

Our admission fee included guided tours of two houses. The farm house is still furnished with Laura's furniture and is pretty much as she left it when she died. The picture at the beginning of this post shows the house from the side. Almanzo built the part on the left first, and he added the part on the right later.

Rose had her own fame as an author (before her mother even wrote the Little House books) and as a newspaper correspondent, and she must have done okay financially. She wanted to give her parents a more modern house, so they let her build them a stone house (called "the rock house"). Laura wrote her first four books while living in the rock house.

After settling her parents in the rock house, Rose moved into the farm house. Eight years later, she decided she'd had enough of small town life and left. As soon as she vacated the premises, Laura and Almanzo moved back to the farm house, where they felt more at home. Laura wrote her other books there.

When we first arrived at Rocky Ridge Farm, I noticed that the parking lot was on the other side of the road and was worried that Mama wouldn't be able to walk that far. Then I saw a sign indicating that there was handicapped parking at the museum/farm house, so we went ahead and turned in there. We also drove past the regular parking at the rock house and parked much closer. The walk wouldn't have bothered most people, but we were glad for the handicapped parking (and yes, we did have a permit).

It was a good trip, and I recommend it for any Laura Ingalls Wilder fan. (And if you aren't one yet, get the books and read them.) But I'm grateful I could travel by car instead of covered wagon.

On the Road With Laura Ingalls Wilder--Part II

From Plum Creek, Mama and I traveled to De Smet, South Dakota, where we did our most extensive sightseeing. We started with a tour that took us inside two houses. The first was the Surveyors' House, where the Ingalls lived their first winter in De Smet (By the Shores of Silver Lake). That house (shown in the picture) is the actual house and has been restored to its original condition, although it is no longer in the same location. They don't let anyone upstairs, but they have it set up the way it would have been in Laura's time, and mirrors at the top of the stairs reflect the way the attic would have looked with the girls' beds in it.

The site also contained the school Laura attended (The Long Winter and Little Town on the Prairie) and a replica of the first school where Laura taught (These Happy Golden Years).

We then got in our car and followed the guide (in her car) to the Ingalls' house in town. This is where Pa and Ma and Mary lived until they died. Laura was already married by the time Pa built the town house, so she never lived there.

The town house is about seven blocks from the Surveyors' House, so I'm not sure if driving is the normal procedure or if they usually walk and were just accommodating Mama's 90-year-old legs.

The guide took us through the first floor, and I went upstairs as well. Mama couldn't climb the stairs, so the guide showed her a book with pictures of the second floor.

Next, we drove to the cemetery and saw the family graves (all in a row) for Pa, Ma, Laura's son (who died when he was just a few days old), Mary, and Carrie. We forgot to walk a few feet farther on to see the grave where Grace is buried with her husband, but it is there, too.

After that, we took another road to the site where Laura and Almanzo homesteaded after they got married (The First Four Years). All you can see now is a sign marking the spot. Actually, the sign says more about Rose being born there than it does about Laura and Almanzo. But it was close by and worth the short drive.

Finally, we drove to the Ingalls' homestead, where Laura lived in the summers until she got married. While at the homestead, I walked out to a replica of the Ingall's claim shanty, but Mama went no farther than the gift shop. The walking was easy for me, but it was over a gentle hill, and the claim shanty wasn't close to the parking lot. Then, as we left the homestead, we stopped and saw some cottonwood trees that Pa had planted.

Mama and I spent the next day in the car on our way to Burr Oak, Iowa. That's the one place Laura never wrote about. Her stay in Burr Oak came in the middle of the Ingalls' years at Walnut Grove. If you are interested in learning more about that time, I recommend Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Iowa Story, by William Anderson.

Friends bought the Master's Hotel in Burr Oak and asked Pa and Ma to help them run it. Since the crops had failed again, they agreed, but the Ingalls stayed only a little over a year before returning to Walnut Grove.

We took a tour through the original (restored) hotel and heard about Laura's time there. After seeing the main floor, we went outside and entered the lower level through a back door. (Everyone else on the tour went down the interior stairs, but the outside route allowed Mama to take a path with a gentle slope rather than worrying about stairs.) Mama wasn't able to climb to the top floor but did see pictures of it.

"But," you ask, "didn't Laura live in Indian Territory when she was young? And did she ever settle down for good?"

I'll answer those questions in next week's final installment.

And the winners are--

Congratulations to the winners of the drawing to celebrate my website launch.

Millie Samuelson won the grand prize: a Levenger bag filled with reading tools, an autographed copy of my book, and two packets of note cards.

Betty Anne Bantz and Ruth Mills each won an autographed copy of my book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court's First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion (FaithWalk Publishing, 2006).

Sandra King and Sandy Perez each won a packet of note cards.

I appreciate everyone who visited the site and left comments. Thank you!