In September of 1940, Nazi bombers and fighter planes regularly appeared over England. One day, Kathleen Rainer was working in a field in Sussex when enemy planes appeared. Fascinated, Kathleen watched as British fighters raced to engage the enemy. British Spitfires and German airplanes battled back and forth in deadly dogfights. Then, as Kathleen watched, a British plane took a deadly hit. The pilot bailed out. Kathleen sighed in relief when the parachute billowed open. Her countryman was safe. But then some German planes did the unthinkable – they flew straight at the dangling man, attempting to machine gun him as he hung defenseless in his harness! But moments later, Kathleen’s horror transformed into admiration:
“The other Spitfires began to circle the parachute, protecting the pilot from the German attack. As the pilot descended down, the rest of his squadron would spiral down with him, guiding him to the ground and protecting him.” *
World War II is long over, but life is still full of attacks. In this struggle, we can take “hits” from attackers, whether at work, on the ball court, even in the home. There are two ways to respond. We can live by the motto, “Every man for himself,” or we can imitate those brave Spitfire pilots who saw their sinking friend and rallied to his aid, even though they themselves became more vulnerable.
In this Christmas season, someone you know may be under attack by enemies. Sickness, loneliness, and heartbreak can hurt even more during holidays. Rather than shutting our eyes to enjoy our own holly jolly season, let’s be on the alert for those are sinking in silence. Your encouragement might be exactly what they need to survive!
*Kathleen Rainer, “Downed Pilots in Sussex,” www.bbc.co.uk.
Writing is like creating a snow sculpture. Before you can sculpt, you must expend energy amassing a big, ugly pile of snow. After you’ve done that, you can take spoons and butter knives and start shaping the mass into a statue. But you can’t simply pick up handfuls of loose snow and pat them one at a time into the final, completed sculpture. You need the intermediate stages as you chip away and shape the snow into a shape worth seeing.
characters, ideas, and plot are there, you go back with your writer tools and rework that rough manuscript into the story you envisioned. If you’re a normal writer, you’ll need to work through it multiple times before the final version emerges. Even then, you’ll want to retouch it here and polish it there to make your final creation shine!