Trippin' On A Sick Day

My second-grader stayed home with a fever today.  If you don't have a 7-year-old at your elbow, you should look into renting one.  The conversations are often thought-provoking and always entertaining.  Just last week, on his way out the door, he excitedly announced that class-jobs were going to be assigned that day.  But, right afterward, like any grown-up thinking things through, the nagging afterthought tumbled out, "I hope I'm not the caboose." 

Do you ever expect anyone to say "caboose"?!  Goodness, me.  He had me laughing all day at the thought of it.  That afternoon proved that wishes come true sometimes, but not always.  At least it was only for one week. 

Today's conversation included the question of which super-power I would choose.  You know...flying, breathing underwater, teleporting, or going back in time?  Flying, for me.  As much as I'd love to breathe underwater, I just don't think I'd use it as much as flying.  He chose going back in time.  Back in time, really?!  Yeah, like back to before school started.  Oh, I see.  Like a week ago.  Yeah, and back when you could fly and breathe underwater.  Wait a minute...is it possible to cheat in this game? 

But, then it occurred to me that it would probably be very difficult to be happy wherever you were, if you could always be somewhere else.  Especially if you went there by simply thinking about it.  If only I were at the ocean...

The ocean is beautiful, but it sure is hot.  If only I could be somewhere cooler, or with shade.  Like on a mountaintop...hillside...riverbank...you-name-it...if only...

And what if, in addition to always wanting to be somewhere other than where you were, you could only travel alone?  Even if you could manage to be content in one place, you'd probably be sad after a while, unless you're a super-duper introvert and never needed another person to enjoy life.  Ever. 

I mean, that sounds great, for a little while.  It reminds me of a trip I took by myself to Galveston some years ago.  That 24-hour-trip was the fruit of a little Mommy-math, which was the realization that I had three little boys at home and I hadn't been alone for 24-hours in five years.  I was overdue. 

I sat on the beach and read until I couldn't sit and read anymore.  I played the guitar.  I took myself to dinner that night and spent the hour at my table, watching a family with small children at their's.  The next morning, I was ready to go back home.  I learned a valuable lesson on that trip.  Sometimes, it's good to leave, just so you can be ready to come home again.

So, I'm grateful for my little mind trip today and the second-grader who bought my ticket, 'cause here I am - as happy as I can be on the sofa in my living room, with nowhere to go and nothing to see, but some kid-show-on-TV and a little boy in a recliner with a cold rag on his forehead. 

From Hobby Lobby to the Dentist: All You Need to Know About Parenting

Today was the perfect day to describe parenthood in all its wonder.

Event #1:  I was at Hobby Lobby with my three boys to spend my gift card on some twine they needed to make bracelets.  Of course, each boy found some great clearance item they couldn't live without, so I agreed to chip in $5.00 for each one, and they would pay the rest.

On our way to check out, I bumped into an old friend, who had three kids in her cart and one by her side.  We talked about summer, school, her working out and me not, and the like.  During this conversation, her children didn't make a peep nor show one ounce of impatience, and her oldest is one year younger than my youngest.

Meanwhile, my boys were playing grab-ass, which ended with nutcrackers on the floor (Yes, Christmas stuff is out already), some very misplaced blame (Me!), and an embarrassed and ticked off someone (Me, again!).

I commended my friend for her well-behaved children.  She graciously thanked me and said that they often behaved more like mine, and we parted ways.

My boys and I had an emergency meeting the next aisle over in very hushed tones, the fruit of which was a silent march back to the clearance section, a return of all items that minutes before couldn't have been lived without, and a long, quiet ride home.

Parenting conclusion #1:  My boys are unbelievably ill-behaved and not at all suited to going out in public.  I am definitely doing something wrong.

Event #2:  After arriving home from Hobby Lobby, I assembled a birthday gift for my niece.  While I was doing so, my youngest decided he wanted to give everyone in our neighborhood a gift, to make them happy.  (I think after leaving Hobby Lobby empty-handed, he was acutely aware of how much the world at large was in need of happiness)!

I told him a note would accomplish the same thing and he instantaneously became an author, illustrator, Santa Claus, mailman, and delinquent.  He wrote and illustrated notes, walked to the neighbors' homes, rang the doorbell, dropped his happiness, and ran!  Fortunately, I'm friends with one of these neighbors on Facebook, so I copied his picture from his post thanking whoever it was.  He tagged me, so I guess he had a pretty good idea...                                          



Parenting conclusion #2:  I have one very thoughtful son.  Maybe I'm not totally failing as a parent.

Event #3:  4:00pm.  Dentist appointments for all three.  For the first time ever, I didn't go back with them - probably because I was still recovering from Hobby Lobby.  So, I stayed in the waiting area, availing myself of the Keurig-love and pretended I was on vacation. When they were all finished, the dentist and her staff came out to brief me, and they all gushed about how well-behaved and polite the boys were, and could I teach them how to train their kids like that? Ha!

Parenting conclusion #3:  I'm the best parent in the world!!!  Not really.  More like, don't trust the dentist!  Not really.  More like...my kids are like me and all of our fellow earthlings...Not as bad or as good as they seem in any given moment.  There but for the grace of God, go we.   

If You Wouldn't or Couldn't Anymore

Do you ever have those moments when you receive everything you already have as a gift anew?

For the last six weeks, I've had a knot and swelling under my left arm.  For the last two weeks, I started to worry.  This week, I had a mammogram, ultrasound, and blood work and all is well. 

All.  Is.  Well.

I work with and for people who have a story that ends much differently than mine, but begins much the same.  I see them in the hospital, sometimes abandoned by the ones they love, fighting for their lives against cancer or other life-altering diagnoses.

In my work, I always try to imagine what it would be like to be in my patient's "shoes", although they are seldom wearing any.  Usually, something more like non-skid socks. 

For the last couple of weeks, my imagination has been very busy doing what imaginations do.  But, I've been imagining for myself, as well as all of the others.  I don't consider myself to be a hypochondriac, but I definitely know enough to have a dangerous thought life.  Even without a medical background, Google can scare the hell out of anybody. 

In its bleakest moment, my imagination leaves kids behind and prior to that, imagines being on the outside of the life I've created, looking in.  Too sick to participate, but well enough to see.  This is confirmed in the stories of people I've visited with - people whose imaginations have been laid off because reality has no need of them. 

What if, what if, what if...

And in the middle of a string of what ifs, I remembered a very special patient who was struggling with cancer and has since passed away.  She told me when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, that she invited God to "show off" in her.  She gave Him total permission to use everything about her suffering for His Glory.  So, I borrowed her prayer, in my not-knowing.

Only God is not "showing off" in my suffering, but very hopefully, through my health.  How often is our health "wasted" on carrying out the activities of daily living?  Not wasted because we're doing things that don't need to be done  (Lord knows that dishes and laundry and grocery shopping and all the rest have to be done!), but because we're not grateful that we're able to do them!

Can you imagine yourself in a hospital bed for a day?  A week?  Months on end?  Can you imagine coming home afterward, restored and rejoicing in your ability to do the same things that you loathe doing today?

I can and I am. 

And this is why I'm writing today - To live in the reality that in a moment, we would give anything to have what we already have and to do what we're already doing, if only we thought that we wouldn't or couldn't anymore. 

  

Outskirts of Heaven

I met another one today.  Somebody who has been to the outskirts of Heaven.  At the time, she was 12-years-old.  She had a high fever and was wondering why the ice her body was packed in didn't feel cold.  Shortly thereafter, she traveled through a beautiful valley, saw somebody she knew to be her grandmother (though they'd never met), and heard a resounding voice tell her, "It's not your time.  You must go back." 

Some fifty years have passed.  She recalls her trip to the outskirts as if it were yesterday.  She has no fear of dying and anticipates her entry into eternity with great confidence and joy.  She urges the dying to shake off their fear, and the grieving to cry only for themselves. 

Working as a hospital chaplain, these kinds of stories are finding their way to me and I couldn't be more grateful.  But tonight, I wonder again, if I have a role beyond courting gratitude.  Is my privilege of listening to these encounters part and parcel of my responsibility to join these blessed ones in their very-clear-mission-to-tell?.  ...Everyone to whom much is given, of him much will be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.  [Luke 12:48]

Last week, I met a woman who was touched by Jesus on her left shoulder when she was intubated and struggling to breathe.  She knew it was Him because she recognized His sandals, His shining robe and His beard (although it was longer than she expected).  She saw everything except His Face.  She was up and walking around three hours later.   

It made sense to her that she would have to wait to see Jesus face to face, as she recalled Exodus 33:21-23:  And the Lord said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand upon the rock; and while my glory passes by...you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen."

She said the Lord tells her who to tell about her experience.  I made the list, so she assumed I was skeptical and needed her story to bolster my faith.  I assured her that my faith was indeed bolstered, but that I was not at all skeptical.  

One man was stabbed multiple times in his youth.  He visited the outskirts and is now an elder in his church and a beacon of hope to all of the young men in his impoverished neighborhood.  Young men who need every reason to believe, but have (almost) every reason not to.

Yet another, and perhaps my favorite story, was a man who was helping his younger brother one afternoon.  His brother was dying of leukemia.  During their time together, his brother asked him, "Do you hear that?!"  He didn't.  "I hear trumpets," he said.  A little while later..."Do you see that?!"  He didn't.  "The angels!  The angels are coming for me."  His brother died the next day.

A couple of decades later, the man who told me this story "died" during his first of several strokes.  He saw his brother who heard trumpets and saw angels, sitting with another brother on a hill of the greenest green.  They beckoned for him to cross the valley separating them.  But, he knew it wasn't time.  He shook his head no.  He had to come back to earth...to tell.

A few months ago, in another post, I reviewed The Other Side by Michael H. Brown - a collection of experiences and encounters of those who have visited the other side.  Every story I have heard in person matches up with all of the others I've read about.  While their modes of transportation seem to vary, their experiences are exactly the same in the beauty they describe, the peace they felt, the voice or knowing that it wasn't their time to stay, a complete absence of desire to return to earth, an overwhelming conviction they'd been to Heaven (or at least the outskirts) when they returned, and an unmistakable sense of mission to tell about this other reality, and Jesus who abides there.

I'm so very grateful... for my job, which provides the opportunities to hear these stories and to meet the people who carry them.  To have my faith edified daily.  To share their gift with others, and hopefully, to help them fulfill their God-given mission...to tell. 

Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever  Amen.  [Book of Jude, v.24] 


 


 

One Shade of Grey

I don't really like the color grey and I magically disappear during discussions of how many shades of it there might be.  For me, there is only one shade of grey.  Grey and not grey.  Grey and the opposite of grey - blatantly obvious.    I much prefer blatantly obvious.  Remind me to write Crayola. 

My favorite color is actually green (which would be good to know if you're writing a book), but today, grey abounds. 

When too much grey is hanging out upstairs, I have to sort it out.  Sort of like brain laundry, I guess.  As much as I wish my basket full of grey could be separated neatly into two piles, preferably one black and one white, the best I can do is throw the laundry on the floor and decide...What is grey and what isn't.

For today...

Grey is... standing in for an absent ordained Protestant minister when you are a lay Catholic woman.  Who said God doesn't have a sense of humor?

Grey isn't... a room full of people expecting a church service, who don't care one iota who shows up or what they show up with.  They are simply ready to receive what is offered - without judgment and overflowing with gratitude.  Being empty and hungry is not grey.  It is beautiful.  Especially to those who are neither empty nor hungry.  Blessed are the poor in spirit...Matt 5:3  

Grey is when you've been married for forty years, your husband is ready to die and giving him your support means you will be without his, for the rest of your life.

Grey isn't... the love that can endure that kind of self-sacrifice.

Grey is...telling someone you love them without clarifying why or being at all sure they love you, too.

Grey isn't...having no regrets if time runs short, or opportunities run out. 

Grey is...being stranded on an island and wondering if you're offending your God by paddling back to the Mainland with the wrong colored paddle, when it's the only one you have.

Grey isn't...the God who created islands and paddles.

 

Dying Well - It's In God's Hands: A Tribute to Manley Burchett

As Mitch Albom writes in The Five People You’ll Meet in Heaven, “part of the secret of heaven is that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.”  

Last weekend, I had an awesome opportunity to celebrate the life of a godly man, husband, and teacher, Manley Burchett.  He has been a patient of mine off and on over the last several months and he left this world for another on May 11, 2016.  He was 82-years-old.  His wife, Carol, has given me permission to share him and his never-ending teaching spirit with you.  

I wasn’t surprised when Carol told me that Manley liked Psalm 23.  He lived it to the very end.  When we talked about how his story might end over several hospitalizations, he would hold both palms up and serenely say, “It’s in God’s hands.” 

Can you walk through the valley of the shadow of death while sitting in a recliner, hooked up to an oxygen tank?  Undoubtedly, Yes.  I saw Manley do it and I saw Carol sitting by his side.  He had no fear.  None.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil;

For thou art with me;

I came across a story which I cannot verify, but it said that Jack Nicklaus was beaten one time by a blind golfer.  It cost him $5,000.  He said as he wrote out the check, “I met a person who refuses to let fear control his life.”  If Manley were blind, I would have wondered if he was the nameless man in that story.  In fact, just the week prior to his death, he told me, “Fear and faith are diametrically opposed.  They cannot exist at the same time.”  I was certain that was never more true than in his hospital room.  

When there still seemed to be choices on the table for treatment, Manley held them with an open hand.  Not with a clinched fist like you might expect.  He considered pursuing surgery, even with severe side effects like not being able to eat or speak again, just for another shot on the green or a cast in his favorite fishing spot. 

For a man who, in his own words, had “a lot of living left to do”, you would have expected to sense a little desperation at the possibility of time running out.  It would only be natural…But, try as you might, you couldn’t find that desperation.  A few more moments or years to live seemed to be all the same to him, and his wife shared this "holy indifference". 

They were completely abandoned to the will of God.  Abandoned, as in yielding (oneself) without restraint.  And it was this abandonment that was Manley’s final gift to me.  

In Our Greatest Gift – A Meditation on Dying and Caring, Henry Nouwen discusses watching his sister-in-law, Marina, die from cancer.  He writes, “As I have seen Marina prepare herself for death, I have gradually realized that she is making her own dying a gift for others – not only for my brother, not only for her family and friends, but also for the nurses and doctors and the many circles of people with whom she has spoken and shared…Having taught all her life, she now teaches through her preparation for death.  It strikes me that her successes and accomplishments will probably soon be forgotten, but the fruits of her dying may well last a long time…She has shown me, in a whole new way, what it means to die for others.  It means to become the parent of future generations.”  

It is in this way that Manley has become a parent to me and I imagine, to as many people as have met him.  I didn’t know Manley as well as I would have liked, but maybe I know enough.  If it is true that we die like we live, then he lived very well, indeed.  He showed me what faith in action looks like.  It looks like abandonment to Divine Providence, even and especially when it is life and death.  It looks like Manley in his recliner with his palms turned skyward, saying all the while, “It’s in God’s hands.” 

An Unraveled Hem - A Tribute to Mothers Who Have Been Left Behind For Now

Mother's Day.  My children are all alive and live under my roof.  I talk to my mom every Wednesday on the phone, have a stepmom who loves me like her own, and live two doors down from my mother-in-law, whom I adore.  I don't think I've ever been more grateful for these richly layered blessings, and on this Mother's Day, in particular. 

Over the past year and a half, working as a hospital chaplain, I've had a most privileged view of motherhood.   There has been more good than bad, but the good is expected and the bad is really bad.  Really bad, in that it is really hard to make sense of and impossible to forget.  In the world, there are probably more children losing mothers to old age than mothers losing children of all ages, but not in my world.

Only a mother knows that an 11-week old fetus can be born with hands that look like they're folded in prayer, and that this same child who lived secretly within her will largely remain a secret.  Others carry their children into labor along with their dreams for them, only to never hear them cry.  Even once.

Some have their children long enough to see them grow into successful college students, marry, or become parents of young children and then...they're gone.  How can God take them now?  Just when...

As proposed by a meditation whose source I can't recall, I agree that whenever possible "What now?" is a much more fruitful question than "Why?!".  Stack all of the good things that can come from the death of a child (or anyone we love) as high as the stars, and it will likely still be too short to satisfy our why.  So, what now? 

Children are always on the brink of starting something new.  Elementary school, middle school, high school, military service, college, being married, having babies, a new career, retirement, grandchildren...

Every day is a "just when" day when you're a mother.  That's who we are.  We anticipate the good things that lie ahead for our children, as we should.

These women who have lost children, young and old, come home with me.  They show up in my tears when I tuck my children in at night and stand invisibly near our table during mealtime prayer.  Psychological jargon will tell you this has a name.  Transference.  Wikipedia defines it as "a phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another."

Yes.  Maybe.  Maybe it is unconscious in the beginning, but not for long.  I carry these mothers with me consciously and intentionally.  They are my heroes.  They make me a better mother and help me to stay present.  They remind me that when I am not overwhelmed by the demands of motherhood, I will grieve the absence of them.  These women are honest (yet, great actresses, too), courageous, generous, and humble.  They know their limitations, which they feel poignantly.  They are the greatest proof that living when you'd rather die is not only possible, but beautiful - and empowers others for whom living may be hard, too - whatever the reasons.

These women do not belong to me, but I want to keep them close and hold on to the hem of their garment.  I want to feel the flow of strength they cannot feel, but that I can see, so vividly.  I'm not sure, but I think everyone can.  You may be one of these women and wondering why strangers keep pulling on your clothes.  If not, you undoubtedly know one.

If you can, please join me in saying,

"Thank you, Moms, for letting us remain near you and for your example.  Sorry about the hem.  You should probably find a good seamstress, 'cause we're not turning loose any time soon..

For you, we eagerly await the day that you are with your children who have gone before you, and all will be well in your world once again.  May God continue to grant you grace sufficient for the moment, as we continually and unfailingly see Him doing, in you.  Happy Mother's Day."