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Okie Noir

*Rise Up by Leslie Christian*

December 31, 2021 by Faith Phillips

Rise Up tells the raw, true-life account of what it feels like to mourn a child lost to tragedy from the perspective of an entire family and their community. This is a story of what it feels like to suffer unspeakable grief and still cling to your faith.

Good morning, Frequenters of the Flog! What a year, eh? I reviewed my journal entries this morning and I must say this was one that defied prediction in so many good and bad ways, as life happens. We’re decidedly ending 2021 with The Good by announcing the opening of our pre-sale period for Leslie Christian’s “Rise Up”. This sales period is exclusively for subscribers to ReadBooksBy.Faith and the Leslie Christian Facebook Group, “Rise Up” until January 3, 2022, when sales will be opened up to the general public. The book is 125 pages long. Pricing includes shipping costs. Copies will be shipped out in order of purchase. Our first printing is a limited series of just 250 copies shipped out January 31st. Please be sure your shipping address is accurate on your PayPal account. The pre-sale link is live here and now!!! Click below to be the first to order:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rise-up-leslie-christian/1140911569

This was a year of great change. My students became #MMIW activists, appeared on Frontline PBS, published their own books, placed Cherokee poetry in the Chicago Field Museum, debuted an original stage play, and basically just slayed, in general. My teaching career came to its conclusion in May and I returned to my true love: writing. But before that, I wrote in April: “I’m writing a screenplay about my teaching experience. Mark it down, dude, we are going to make a film.” I had no idea those words would come true within a matter of months. I signed my first contract with a production company in June.

The students lit a fire in me to figure out some way to continue serving our community and showcase the overwhelming talent of our people. I brought in a number of stakeholders from the Adair County community and the Oklahoma Arts Council to make a plea for an Arts District. The response was immediate and overwhelming. Watch for major, exciting announcements about this in the first quarter of 2022.

We suffered devastating loss this year. Our grandmother died in June, taking with her a source of light and pure joy that, for us, can never be replicated in another human being.

My friend, Lindsey Wise Spirit, who took me in and made me her sister at Standing Rock, died of COVID-19 after many weeks in the hospital. She leaves behind a grieving husband and four precious babies. They are my family. The pandemic continues to wreak havoc in society. Perhaps even worse than the virus is witnessing our fellows tear each other apart in political and religious hatred.

In the face of grief my answer is clear. Lean in and love. Do all things in love. Work to unify even when it seems impossible. That’s what I’ve been sent to do. I am a peacemaker. Above all things this year, this book by Leslie Christian has taken precedence. That’s because its ultimate message is one of love, service, and unification. Consider this excerpt:

Facebook Entry, Leslie Christian:

August 31, 2020 – 6:04 a.m. 

We are so humble and thankful for every prayer, word, deed, and financial support. They pour into our broken hearts. 

Kayden’s lungs are struggling. We knew this might be the road but watching the struggle unfold is scary. These words give our family sustaining breath when we are not sure how to breathe. 

More than anything, we desire this horrific time to have eternal meaning. So share, speak up to lost people, ask each other and yourself, “If I die today, where would I spend eternity?” If you cannot without hesitation say, ‘In heaven, because I ask Jesus to forgive my sin that separates me,” then today is the day. We are so thankful Konner only knew love and that God holds him for us until we meet again. 

“God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved when morning comes.” Psalm 46:5

These words! One more for Jesus.

Facebook Entry, Jody Pruitt:

August 31, 2020 – 7:32 a.m. 

We all have a habit of taking life for granted. We all wake up and proceed with our day thinking, “there will always be tomorrow.” As we know, that is not always the case. Our days are given to us as a present and never promised. 

I unfortunately found this out the hard way, ten years ago, when I lost my baby brother to an accidental drowning. 

I have learned since then to love my children day in and day out. I make my life around them so that they know if anything was to happen to me or them that their mother loves them until her last dying breath.

To see the Miller family going through what they are going through right now breaks my heart and makes me even more open to letting my kids know that they are never unloved, nor a mistake in my life, nor an option. It makes me realize that there are more things that I need to correct in mine and my children’s lives. We need to be a child of God and draw closer to him.

It is sad that it takes a tragedy to open people’s eyes, but sometimes it does. You have to take it and learn. You have to grow and realize that your life and every life around you is a gift. You are to conquer everything God throws at you.  Know that he gave it to you for a reason. You will not know that reason right away but it will soon come to light. 

Just remember your life may be hard today. It may be hard tomorrow. But God loves you and He is teaching you. He’s teaching people around you, maybe using you as an example. Just be strong and pray every day. Love your family, show them you love them, tell them you love them. Never take one day for granted, because it might be your last.

Ok, that’s all for now, my friend. I am always grateful for your love, trust, and generosity. Let us meet again in 2022.

Donadagohvi, Faith.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: cherokee nation, Cherokee writer, Christian, grief, Okie Noir, Oklahoma, Rise Up

Burning All The Time

October 13, 2021 by Faith Phillips

Christopher Murphy’s short fiction collection, Burning All the Time, feels like pulling back a curtain to peer in on a strange and hidden world. The collection of twenty-three shorts, with stunning cover art by Roy Boney, bursts with all things NEOK: dark humor, deep affection, wonder and dread. The book is delivered with an undertow, much like this land that keeps pulling us back, even against our own will at times. 

Within these contemporary sketches the reader comes to understand characters on an intimate basis. Murphy manages to capture the people of NEOK so well that we know them. The reader continues to mull over the possibilities long after the book is closed. Was it her, one wonders? 

Burning carries a mysterious thread throughout its pages, with a distinctive style akin to Ondaatje’s Billy the Kid. Its secrets are interwoven with skillful technique, sometimes apparent and other times camouflaged, providing the reader with a satisfying intellectual pursuit. Murphy’s powers of observation prove exceptionally keen here. He captures our families and friends, even our enemies, with such precision that it almost feels embarrassing. He caught us. He got us down. 

It is written that a Joycean epiphany is “showing forth” a disclosure of one’s authentic inner self. That masterful literary technique is on full display here, with the writer disclosing his affection for the flawed gem of this land and her people, even as he lays her bare. This is a work from an observer who’s been around long enough, invested enough tears and blood of his own, to have earned a turn at the mic to speak on the subject. Murphy doesn’t waste time or words getting down to business from the first turn of the page.

Herein, we experience Tahlequah and northeastern Oklahoma as a landscape with a hole; a figurative exploration of concealed caves where once there existed a shallow sea. We know because we still find the fossils of those old sea creatures in our hills. It is representative of the holes and fossils left behind in us, bored by generations of grief and trauma that we constantly seek to fill. It is a collection of broken hearts rendered too tough to do anything about it except to rage. We experience this place as one of isolation and concealed honor. He takes us on an outsider’s tour of the Trail of Tears exhibit and helps us understand the emotional complications of the experience. For some, the subject is too complicated to fully unpack. It’s ok for Murphy to say it out loud because he has soldiered alongside. He gets to tell the truth, fiction as it may be.

The English professor’s grasp of technique is awe-inspiring. He builds sentences like skyscrapers, grand in scope yet meticulous down to the element. One such example: “There are elements in this town like carcinogens: everything is literal; there are pocket cruelties, apathies and disenfranchisement; distrust in general.” How did he do that? 
Our very own dark humor is on display here – the kind of jokes we make about our own families but, by God, nobody else better. Sometimes the work is naught but pure, ecstatic joy: “they vaped moon pie weed until it steamed roaches out the wall“.

Christopher Murphy demonstrates in Burning All the Time that while he is, by definition, an Observant Transplant here, his words feel like the kind you’d allow from an uncle. He has witnessed it all: Del Rancho, e-coli, Tyson chicken houses, Travis Meyer and Jose’s Mini-Video …

It’s too late now, y’all, we have been exposed. “A weary world rejoices.”

Burning All The Time is published by Mongrel Empire Press. http://mongrelempire.org/catalog/fiction/BurningAllTheTime.html?fbclid=IwAR2NtpC4zppKPQm8pccLXSLXZ9VnkDkGnYSf_TWma6b_6QYMxGIgBcotA-A

Filed Under: okienoir Tagged With: cherokee nation, Literature, Okie Noir, Oklahoma, Oklahoma Author, tahlequah

Holiday Flash Sale!!

November 24, 2020 by Faith Phillips

A holiday book set from ReadBooksBy.Faith

Holiday flash sale! From now thru December 18th ReadBooksBy.Faith offers a signed & wrapped complete book set for $55. That’s four books, including our latest release “2020 Visions”! The book set covers all the bases: a fiction supernatural thriller, a true crime novel, a hilarious collection of true mishaps, and the memoirs of a new teacher and her students negotiating the year 2020.

Order now and we guarantee your gift-wrapped present will arrive just in time for giving. Buy local unless you live far away and then go ahead and buy far away! 🙂 Order details included below #okienoir #2020visions #cherokeewriters

Place your order for a signed box set right here for $55.00, includes shipping!

https://paypal.me/FaithPhillips?locale.x=en_US

2020 Visions

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Cherokee artists, Cherokee Writers, Okie Noir, shop local, small business saturday

Dispatch from a Red Zone

November 1, 2020 by Faith Phillips

The intercom sounded overhead. Students recited the pledge of allegiance and remained standing afterward, heads bowed in a moment of silence. This community is a religious one; we are a Christian majority. We are also unabashed in our rural identity. Another notable fact is that Adair County is the only minority-majority county in the State of Oklahoma. Our population largely descends from Trail of Tears survivors. As a proud borough in the Cherokee Nation, our suspicion of the federal government and its motivation lingers.

School staff members gathered beneath stately pine trees at the beginning of August. There, masked in a socially distanced circle, many of us prayed together. We were one of the few Oklahoma schools to open in person on the first scheduled day. The school board made that decision, prompted by an overwhelming majority of political will from the community. 

My faith wavered that day. I stood just outside the circle, unnerved by the real plausibility of exposure. My husband, a diabetic and a heart patient, is at high risk for complications from Covid 19. Almost a year ago I said a vow to honor and keep him, in sickness and in health. I meant what I said. Some of our most highly skilled, veteran teachers are high risk, too. They show up anyway.

My other confession is that I never believed there was a chance, not a single chance in hell, that we would make it past the first three weeks of school in the midst of this pandemic. I anticipated a massive outbreak in the beginning. That did not happen. I was wrong. For that, I owe some people an apology, including my colleagues and the administration. 

One of the arguments against coming back to school was that it was ridiculous to expect high schoolers to wear masks every day. Guess what? They did it. These students, when presented with an optional quarantine, did not choose to exercise that option. They want to be here. They need to be here. They will do whatever it takes to have a routine, to experience some semblance of normalcy in a time when there just is no such thing. Two of my advanced creative writing students recently appeared on a statewide news program for an interview about their political views. One part of the poll asked about their hope for the future. These two students happen to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum but they engaged each other with civility and respect. They recognize the dignity inherent in one another. The journalists remarked that the students conducted themselves with much greater decorum than the presidential candidates during recent debates. What a statement. Res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for itself. 

I prayed in July that school would not resume in person until a vaccine was available. It was a selfish prayer because I knew without a doubt if school officials voted to return, I would report back and finish my obligation to the school and the students. There was no way I would bail on these people, my people, when the deal went down. The school feels very much like a microcosm of society right now. Some of us believe wholeheartedly that a mandatory mask policy is the only way to sustain this remarkable feat and then safely return home to our families at the end of the day. Many others remain equally convicted that masks are a blatant political infringement upon fundamental freedoms. They wear their masks and show up anyway. Unspoken tensions exist. We don’t discuss politics in the hall. It feels a bit like whistling past the graveyard. Yet we come together day after day for the students and do what has been asked of us.

My reverend explained it like this, “ask yourself one question. Are you willing to die for your students?” It’s that simple. Every person I work with made that decision, although many would never frame the issue in such dramatic terms. Whether or not we agree politically, that is the one place where we stand united. I would stand shoulder to shoulder with these people to defend our community. But what do you do when the invader is already on the inside? 

Am’re Ford, a teacher in a metropolitan area on the other side of Oklahoma, wrote this last week:

“Things I’m juggling as a teacher rn:

Teaching content

A pandemic

My mental health

Students mental health

Coworkers mental health

Canvas not working like it’s post to

6th graders who are adjusting to middle school and online learning

Hella missing assignments

Adults concerned about aforementioned missing assignments

Remembering there’s a pandemic and that I need to extend grace

Planning content to teach

Incentive program

Making orchestra fun

Students that still don’t have materials

Prolly 4 other things that I can’t remember becaws all the things

It ain’t a pity post but some folx don’t realize all the stuff we be doing”

Mr. Ford nailed it up there on the wall for all to see; everything in one post. Back here at home we are about to enter week thirteen of in-person instruction and it appears the viral surge is upon us. Many people in our community have comorbidities. We’ve lost elders. Is it survival of the fittest now? Are we ok with applying that concept to our fellows? On the other hand, are we ok with sending students home, knowing full well that some will receive neither adequate nutrition nor instruction? Our people are extremely resilient. Yet in a community that is already at war with poverty, addiction, crime, and associated health issues, an education is one of the only sure tickets to rise above it all.

Another colleague of mine is a rare gem of a human being. He is one of about 2,000 living Cherokee speakers.  His life is dedicated to teaching the language to our students, the population of which is 82% indigenous. I knew at the beginning of the year he would be especially susceptible. I confided my anxiety about him early on. About a month ago, my nightmare came true. He was walking across the parking lot and I was leaving for the day. He said, “Ms. Phillips, I had a sniffle so I went for a test. Now they want me to quarantine.” 

Not long afterward he wrote to say his test came back positive. I feared the worst and prayed for the best. He suffered at length with Covid and later explained that in the most frightening moments of the virus, he sensed a dark presence in his home and hallucinated, alone. Everyone who lives through Covid has a different experience. Already, as we enter the fall, some of us in the community have not made it out alive.

The word “fear” gets tossed around like a hot potato just lately. We’ve used it as a weapon against each other. I’ve been guilty of saying “no fear” to insinuate that I operate my life without ever experiencing the chains of that basic human emotion. But that was a facade. I do feel fear. Fear for my colleagues, fear for my family, fear for my students. I read somewhere that courage is feeling fear, knowing something is more important than fear, and taking action anyway. I hope that’s true. I desire so much to be a courageous woman.

It feels trite to say it out loud, yet the question remains, have we passed the point of no return? For the sake of these students, we must say no. Won’t we unify for each other? The ultimate test should be this: will we be able to look each other in the eye when all this is over? Did we love and look out for each other? Did we fulfill the promise? 

Yesterday I heard the most difficult question of my short tenure as a teacher:

 “Ms. Phillips, is this the end of the world?” 

My student was dead serious, in search of comfort and assurance. It’s past time now to step up, show leadership, provide real hope, and bandage the wounds of our fellows. The election happens in two days. Our young people are looking to us in this moment. I don’t feel safe at school right now. I don’t believe we should be there. But we are there and we will continue to be until we get sick or officials say it is time to go home. I’m grateful I don’t have to make the call and I pray for the ones burdened with that heavy decision. It’s time for empathy now. It’s time for hella grace. We are all in this together and the time is now.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 Visions, cherokee nation, Cherokee writer, chrome dreams, Okie Noir

2020 Visions: Show Me Your Life Belt & I’ll Show You Mine. April 20 – 23

April 22, 2020 by Faith Phillips

This is my life belt: growing up in the hills of Adair County with family, married in Vegas, my baby Jaxon, law school, divorce, working in Ardmore (oil and gas), Africa, writing books and then teaching books with you, the feather represents my wedding at the creek and the restoration of my heart. The arrow pointing up represents my faith. What does your belt look like?

Monday, April 20

No man ever followed his genius until it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, —that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality … The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. 

~Thoreau, Life In The Woods

Passage highlighted in one of the books found with Chris McCandless’s remains. 

We were supposed to come back to school on March 23rd. We learned on Thursday, March 19th that we would not be coming back. Shortly thereafter, it became clear that we would not be meeting again in 211. We didn’t get a chance to finish up some of the things we started. 

Journal: What did you think on that day when you knew for sure we would not go back? What made you feel that way? Have your feelings changed in the time since? If so, how have they changed today?

Tuesday, April 21

For more than eight months after he said good-bye to McCandless, Franz remained at his campsite, scanning the road for the approach of a young man with a large pack, waiting patiently for Alex to return. During the last week of 1992, the day after Christmas, he picked up two hitchhikers on his way back from Salton City to check his mail. . . ‘I started telling them about my friend, Alex, and the adventure he’d set out to have in Alaska.’ Suddenly, the Indian youth interrupted: “Was his name Alex McCandless?”

‘Yes, that’s right. So, you’ve met him then–’

“I hate to tell you mister, but your friend is dead. Froze to death up on the tundra. Just read about it in Outdoor magazine.”

In shock, Franz interrogated the hitchhiker at length. The details rang true; his story added up. Something had gone horribly wrong. McCandless would never be coming back. 

~Into the Wild, Chapter 6 

The “new normal” is something we hear so often these days. Social isolation is another. American society is slowly and grudgingly adjusting to the “new normal” of people staying home, working from home and quarantining themselves to protect against this disease. 

Journal: Have you found “new normal” to be a challenge? What problems have you encountered? How had your life changed, if at all? Is there anything about it that you enjoy? 

Wednesday, April 22

Into the Wild

Chris McCandless meets an old Christian man out on the road who takes him in, feeds him, gives him shelter and teaches him to hand tool leather. So McCandless (who, by this time, had changed his name to Alexander Supertramp) hand tools a leather belt to display the story of his wanderings. On one end was his new name “Alex”, then his old name’s initials “CJM” which framed a skull and crossbones, a 2 lane blacktop, a No U-Turn sign, a thunderstorm producing a flash flood that engulfs a car, a hitchhiker’s thumb, an eagle, the Sierra Nevada, salmon in the Pacific, the Pacific Coast Highway, the Rockies, wheat fields, a South Dakota rattlesnake, the Colorado River, a canoe, and finally at the end the letter “N”, presumably representing the direction North where he would go on to meet his demise. I can picture this belt in my mind. Like all great art it made me think about my own life. What will matter enough to go on my belt?

Journal: Create a belt of your life. Draw pictures to represent the most memorable moments (both good and bad) that you would want to put on your own hand tooled belt. You can draw this and take a photo of it, send the picture to me via email or text, with an explanation of each symbol. 

Filed Under: okienoir, Uncategorized Tagged With: Cherokee writer, chrome dreams, Okie Noir

Strawberries in the Death Capital?

March 2, 2020 by Faith Phillips

When I agreed to teach literature this year I couldn’t have known just how intense it would prove to be. More on that later. Today my students celebrate the culmination of two months of research in just twelve minutes. Here, they call on our community to come together and begin making moves to tackle issues they didn’t create but are determined to resolve together with a coalition of our fellows. We are all in this together and the time is NOW.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are ecstatic to present you with the NPR Podcast Challenge submission from the Stilwell High School Senior Class of 2020: Strawberries in the Death Capital. A story researched, produced, written, recorded, and published by students.

Listen to Strawberries In The Death Capital by faif on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/user-427794673/strawberries-in-the-death-capital

Listen to Strawberries In The Death Capital by faif

Strawberries in the Death Capital?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: cherokee nation, Death Capital, Okie Noir, washington post

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