Category Archives: The Stories

Help Needed

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Hello WordPress Family. I am sending this word out to all 707 WordPress followers plus my 500 Facebook Friends and 121 Twitter Followers in hopes that at least one of you can help me.

As some of you know I am in the process of publishing my first novel. It is a coming of age story and one of the characters in it is a nun who has left her order for the Protestant church. My publishing editor has given me a list of to-do’s as we begin the editing process and one of the things on this list is to interview a sister who has left her order in the Catholic church and has joined the Protestant church.

Here is how you can help. If you have walked this pathway or if you know someone who has could you possibly make the introduction with the possibility of an interview. It can be done in person, via phone, in written form or using Skype.

Thanks JE

Friday Fictioneers:Escape

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PHOTO PROMPT -Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Rochelle has given us this prompt to create from this week. You can see how others created stories from this photo at

https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/13-february-2015/

Escape

By JE Lillie

The heat of Florida was unbearable. I was a week in hospital recovering from heat stroke. The tornado in Texas blew my home to pieces. My place in California was gorgeous. That is it was gorgeous until it tumbled down the canyon in a mudslide. In Wyoming I was trapped in my house for two days running by Grizzlies.

I really thought that I had hit the jackpot when I bought the Colonial in Massachusetts. This winter we have had  seven feet of snow in four weeks. Snow seemed so harmless compared to those other things. I died of frostbite after I slipped in my drive. At least I don’t have to  move to Europe.

In Other Words: Finishing The Island Lady

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In Other Words

Here is a new challenge I am taking over at Patricia’s Place. You can participate by going to…

http://patriciasplace.me/2015/02/11/13074/

Patricia has given us a quote and has asked us to write a new piece between 250 and 500 words.

Here is the quote and my newest story

Where there is great love, there are always miracles.”
Willa Cather

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Finishing the Island Lady

By JE Lillie

Andre was determined to make his mark on the world. His parents were even more determined that their son would succeed in his ambition. The family moved out of the tenements in lower Cleghorn when Andre was five and  found a low rent apartment in a nearby suburb. It meant commuting in a beat up old truck for Andre’s father and working in the Dollar Store for his mother but they considered the sacrifice for their son worth it all.

Andre was no genius in the classroom but there was nothing the boy couldn’t create with a paintbrush. The word “prodigy” was tossed around throughout Andre’s high school career. That and a dozen blue ribbons from around the state and a full scholarship to the Boston School of the arts made him a shoe in as one of Massachusetts up and coming artists in gallery shows around the Commonwealth.

But Andre’s mark was bigger than a name on a canvas, bigger than money in the bank. When the boy started teaching art classes at the Boys and Girls club in Lower Cleghorn he knew he had come home. He trained a dozen young men and women in the art of painting.

For his Senior project he got permission from the City to begin painting murals over several of the graffitied walls in the center. Andre was warned of the danger of painting over gang tags. When he was interviewed he told the papers he was not challenging anyone’s authority, that his only goal was to revive a love for beauty in the downtrodden village called Cleghorn.

The gang’s did not see his work as beautiful. They shot and killed Andre on a Wednesday as he was finishing the outline of a mural he called, Island Lady.

Andre’s memorial service was held at the site of the outlined portrait. A hundred artists from around the state agreed to finish the Island Lady and to paint over every tag in the city as tribute to one of their own. The broken heart of love can breed anger. Used right that anger becomes resolve. When resolve meets hope and hope meets God that opens the way for many miracles.

Going Back

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Transporter.”

The Daily Post has asked us to…Tell about a sensation — a taste, a smell, a piece of music — that transports you back to childhood.

As a child I spent nearly every Friday night at my grandmother’s house on Packard’s Pond in Orange MA. The house was a converted camp resting in the shadow of Tully Mountain. My grandparents had settled there as they neared retirement. It was all pine trees and mountain air.

On Friday nights my father would take me and my sister over to a ham dinner and then on Saturday my grandmother would wash clothes and do the grocery shopping around  Saturday morning cartoons (my shows) and Saturday afternoon bowling (my grandfather’s shows). She often threw open all the windows on Saturday (except in the dead of winter) to air the camp out.

To this day the scent of a pine candle (the smell of the lake air), the smell of cilantro (the scent of clean laundry) or the fragrance of cloves (a cooking ham dinner) drive me back to the days of my boyhood.

No Thanks Gatlinburg!

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “No, Thanks.”

The Daily Post has asked us…Is there a place in the world you never want to visit? Where, and why not?

I guess it is not that I never wanted to visit Gatlinburg. In fact I wanted to and did visit this spot tucked away in the Smoky Mountains. It’s a place I never want to visit again!

We arrived on a Tuesday and were slated to visit until Thursday. The hotel we were in offered a suite. It backed up onto the mountain and as we tracked around to the mountain- side of the building where our room was, the mountain itself imposed such a shadow that  we lost all the light even though it was midday. Walking across the second story porch to our room was possible only because the night lights were on 24/7. That was creepy enough but when we saw the cardboard sign tacked to the railing that read “Don’t feed the bars.” written in black magic marker, we   realized we had left civilization completely behind.

Our room smelled like hornet spray. Dried spaghetti stuck to the walls in the kitchenette, and when I went to wash the dust of the road off I discovered the shower curtain was filled with cigarette burns. Good golly! How addicted does a person have to be to smoke in  the shower?!?

We opened the TV console for the kids but the TV was gone. Somebody had put it in the fireplace behind the decorative grate. I ask you why? Why would someone do that?

Needless to say we did not stay the two nights. When I checked out the next morning the lady managing the front desk had a giant wolf-dog with her at the counter. I had to step over the creature to cancel my reservation for the night. I thought I might lose my leg as I stepped back over the dog to leave the building.

My wife and I thought we might redeem the mini vaca by taking a gondola ride up the side of the mountain. But pine beetles had infested the forest leading up to the skating rink  at the summit called Oberammergau. Our trip up the mountain consisted of lots of scenery of dead pine trees and $7.00 hamburgers at the top.

Maybe it was just a perfect storm of bad luck. But seriously once is enough for me!

His Story

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Do or Die.”

The Daily Post has told us…

You have three hundred words to justify the existence of your favorite person, place, or thing. Failure to convince will result in it vanishing without a trace. Go!

My first love is Christ. It is for Him I live because He has died for me. So great was His love for me that He gave His life for me while I was still His enemy. I suppose there are some who would say that what needs justifying is not God’s love but His very existence. I think if the reality of  God is established then The expression of His love goes without question.

Here’s the thing, I cannot prove the existence of God. I do not need to. He is quite capable of defending His own honor and proving His own reality without me. In fact were I to turn and disparage His existence He would only become more real.

Voltaire declared that within 100 years of his life the gospel and God would fade into the shadowy world of fairytale. His house became a center for Bible distribution. Jesus’ reality and reputation  has withstood the onslaught of  detractors and dishonorable supporters without becoming tarnished or faded in the least. He is the Alpha and he shall be the Omega. HE has already died and resurrected so nothing anybody says or does will change or remove His place from the history of mankind. It is after all HIS STORY!

All’s I’m Left With Is James

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Burnt.”

The Daily Post has asked Remember this prompt, when your home was on fire and you got to save five items? That means you left a lot of stuff behind. What are the things you wish you could have taken, but had to leave behind?

“You couldn’t save anything?” Melanie asked.

“Sorry Honey. Nothing.” I returned

“You couldn’t save Great Gramm’s sewing machine?”

“Nope.”

“What about the cool decorative wine bottles that belonged to Grampa Jack?”

“Not a one.” Was my reply.

” The little monk salt and pepper shakers that Gramma Lillie bought for her first apartment?”

“Sorry honey.”

“Tell me you at least saved the dining chairs for our new apartment.”

I shook my head in the negative.

“Well at least you have copies of all James’ Graduation pictures. We’ll have something to hang on our walls.” My daughter beamed

James groaned at the prospect that his own picture had now become his inheritance.

At Least I Know James Is Safe!

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Burning Down the House.”

The Daily Post has asked…Your home is on fire. Grab five items (assume all people and animals are safe). What did you grab?

My son-in-law and I actually joked about this on the day of his wedding.

I awoke to the sound of the  alarms going off in the hall. Thick black smoke already engulfed most of the stairway. So I kept low clutching my little dogs close to my chest. Mom and my sister were already at the doorway and headed across the porch. I handed Jacopo and Mercedes to Brenda while mom carried Snug. I tried to launch myself back through the door to save what I could from the house but the old place was a tinderbox. There was no saving anything that was inside. We were glad to escape with our lives.

It was at that moment that I was glad I had saved all my pictures and all my words to several thumb drives in several locations. I would not want to lose any of my photographs or stories. Most precious of all are the pictures I have of my son-in-law James. There are few of these and he really hates them all.  A father-in-law can never have too much leverage.100_3788

The Daily Prompt: Connecting the Dots & The Blood Of the Martyrs

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Connect the Dots.”

The Daily post gave us this instruction today,

Open your nearest book to page 82. Take the third full sentence on the page, and work it into a post somehow.

Pg. 82 of the book nearest to me read, “As new tombs were needed the tunnel was lengthened and new chambers were excavated on both sides…

Here is a short story based on the book this was taken from, The Blood Of the Martyrs.

The House Of Worship

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by JE Lillie

It had been a month since I had seen daylight. The catacombs were not just the place we buried the dead. They had become our sanctuary in every sense of the word.

The number of martyrs grew by the day. Johanan had been fed to the lions a week ago and then his wife Cybele had been burned at the stake as her children watched just two nights later. Nicanor and Lavinia had been sold as slaves in the market, confirming my mother’s decision to stay below ground with the dead.

The dead or what pieces of them could be salvaged were brought to our little family sheltering in the catacombs and we saw to their Christian burial. The hidden cemetery was filling fast so  “As new tombs were needed the tunnel was lengthened and new chambers were excavated on both sides. My hands did some of the digging.

My fourteenth name day came and went while I dug away in the catacombs making a space for the newest family of martyrs. In the process we were told to make a chamber wide enough for the church to meet in.

I still remember the night we Christened that new section of tunnel. We, the soon to die, sang hymns among the dead and relished the thought of the Coliseum if only it would take us into the sun and out of the musty, dirty darkness that had become our house of worship.

Uncle Tom and the Gift Of Tongues

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The Daily Post has asked us to…Describe a memory or encounter in which you considered your faith, religion, spirituality — or lack of — for the first time.

You can see how others met this challenge at

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/in-good-faith/

As a boy of thirteen I had an intense spiritual hunger. I suppose I had always leaned toward the spirit world.  Growing up the first books I remember borrowing from the town library were stories of the Greek gods and the writings of Uri Geller and other famous psychics.

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in the supernatural or in a higher power but my search for that higher power began in earnest at the end of my eighth grade year. I remember telling my mother that I thought some day I would become a minister. She scoffed at the idea because at that point no one in our immediate family even really believed in the biblical God. My grandparents were believers but they didn’t wear their religion on their sleeves or anything like that and their pastor at the time was more in tune with Universalism than Christianity.

I met a girl in school whose family members were committed Jehovah’s Witnesses and she began witnessing. Through a series of events my parents found out and insisted that if I was really interested in church then I was going to go with my Uncle Tom. They thought he was crazy but at least they knew he was harmless  and crazy.

So began my journey into the Christian faith and away from the neo-paganism I had known. The story is long and convoluted but suffice it to say the first time I heard someone deliver a message in tongues and another person give the interpretation, I was hooked. Uncle Tom and the gift of tongues showed me the way to a real personal and supernatural relationship with God through Jesus Christ. God can and will use anything to bring a seeking soul to Himself.