Kevin LaRose

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  • Beyond Words Day 6

    DAY 6
    From the devotional book BeyondWords by frederick Buechner

    “HE LET THE Times fall to the carpet beside him. It was the usual recital–a new tax plan, the danger of oral contraceptives to women over forty, the mayor’s special committee on child abuse. He pushed his glasses back on his forehead and with his thumb and forefinger massaged the loose flesh under his eyes. Through the club window he could see a fat woman in slacks waiting for a bus, a boy with a ponytail walking a dog. Somebody had the TV on in another room, and he could hear the rise and fall of canned laughter. He lit a cigarette and let the smoke drift out of his mouth without exhaling it. The city sky was turning brown with the approach of dusk. Then suddenly, as if it had been only yesterday, he remembered Eden.

    The leopard…the starling…the rose–he remembered giving each its name, remembered the green river, the shy, green girl. He could no longer remember why it was he had felt compelled to leave it except that it had something to do with asserting his independence. Beyond that, he had only the dim sense that somehow a terrible injustice had been done, or possibly a terrible justice.

    He saw the flame of what must have been the sunset flash like a sword in the upper-story windows across the street. When the old steward brought him his third martini, he called him Pete. Actually, his name was Angelo.

    Genesis 2-3

    See also Eve.”

    My Reflection This is the first of these devotionals that I feel like went over my head. Buechner seems to enjoy using allegory, and this devotional is definitely allegory. He seems to be envisioning Adam as an older man, his better days behind him, perhaps contemplating on what might, or could, have been. Come to think of it, I’m having those types of thoughts these days. Why not, I’m getting to be of the certain age where, for some people, at least, they are quite common, or at least can be. If only I had done this. If only I hadn’t done that. If only, if only…But in this allegorical tale Adam only has a hazy memory of the Garden. There’s a slight hint that there might be some diminished brain capacity at play, but I don’t want to overthink. I might revisit this one for my own edification. Reflecting on it now, it seems to me that Buechner’s point may have been that it wouldn’t do Adam any good to dwell on being expelled from the Garden. That was in the past. All he can do now is do his best in the present. That seems kind of weak to me, but I’m going with it.

  • Beyond Words Day 5

    Note When I started this project it was my intent to post a devotional a day, as they are shown in the book Beyond Words. However, yesterday life happened, and I wasn’t able to post Day 5. So here is Day 5, a day late. I hope I won’t have to do this very often, but as we all know, life is life.

    DAY 5
    Taken from the cevotional book Beyond Words by Frederick Buechner

    ALMOST FROM THE START, Absalom had a number of strikes against him. For one thing, he was much too handsome for his own good, and his special pride was such a magnificent head of hair that once a year when he had it trimmed, the trimmings alone tipped the scales at three and a half pounds. For another thing, his father, King David, was always either spoiling him rotten or reading him the riot act. This did not promote stability of character. He murdered his lecherous brother Amnon for fooling around with their sister, Tamar, and when the old war-horse Joab wouldn’t help him patch things up with David afterward, he set fire to his hay field. All Israel found this kind of derring-do irresistible, of course, and when he eventually led a revolt against his father, a lot of them joined up.

    On the eve of the crucial battle, David was a wreck. If he was afraid he might lose his throne, he was even more afraid he might lose Absalom. The boy was the thorn in his flesh, but he was also the apple of his eye, and before the fighting started, he told the chiefs of staff till they were sick of hearing it that, if Absalom fell into their clutches, they must promise to go easy on him for his father’s sake. Remembering what had happened to his hay field, old Joab kept his fingers crossed, and when he found Absalom caught in the branches of an oak tree by his beautiful hair, he ran him through without blinking an eye. When they broke the news to David, it broke his heart, just as simple as that, and he cried out in
    words that have echoed down the centuries ever since. “O my son Absalom, my son, my son,” he said. “Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son” (2 Samuel 18:33).

    He meant it, of course. If he could have done the boy’s dying for him, he would have done it. If he could have paid the price for the boy’s betrayal of him, he would have paid it. If he could have given his own life to make the boy alive again, he would have given it. But even a king can’t do things like that. As later history was to prove, it takes the King himself.

    2 Samuel 13-19

    my reflection Another Bible story I’m unfamiliar with. This one is pretty straightforward. Clearly Buechner is drawing parallels between the story of Absalom and Jesus. And he is not wrong. David definitely deeply loved his son Absalom, though he was wayward, rebellious, and ultimately traitorous. Still, if he could have died in his place, he would have. That is parental love. I myself have a daughter. If I could do anything to ease her burden in life and take it on as my own, ease her pain and take it on as my own, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But, of course, I can’t. Nobody can do that for anybody. In all of history, only Jesus, the King of Kings, has been able to pull this off. And He does it for all of us, forever and all time. And in the end that was Buechner’s point in this devotional.

  • Beyond Words Day 4

    DAY 4
    Taken from the devotional book Beyond Words by Frederick Buechner

    “IF A SCHLEMIEL is a person who goes through life spilling soup on people and a schlemozzle is the one it keeps getting spilled on, then Abraham was a schlemozzle. It all began when God told him to go to the land of Canaan, where he promised to make him the father of a great nation, and he went.

    The first thing that happened was that his brother-in-law Lot took over the rich bottomland, and Abraham was left with the scrub country around Dead Man’s Gulch. The second thing was that the prospective father of a great nation found out his wife couldn’t have babies. The third thing was that when, as a special present on his hundredth birthday, God arranged for his wife, Sarah, to have a son anyway, it wasn’t long before he told Abraham to go up into the hills and sacrifice him. It’s true that at the last minute God stepped in and said he’d only wanted to see if the old man’s money was where his mouth was, but from that day forward Abraham had a habit of breaking into tears at odd moments, and his relationship with his son Isaac was never close.

    In spite of everything, however, he never stopped having faith that God was going to keep his promise about making him the father of a great nation. Night after night, it was the dream he rode to sleep on–the glittering cities, the up-to-date armies, the curly-bearded kings. There was a group photograph he had taken not long before he died. It was a bar mitzvah, and they were all there down to the last poor relation. They weren’t a great nation yet by a long shot, but you’d never know it from the way Abraham sits enthroned there in his velvet yarmulke with several great-grandchildren on his lap and soup on his tie.

    Even through his thick lenses, you can read the look of faith in his eye, and more than all the kosher meals, the ethical culture societies, the shaved heads of the women, the achievements of Maimonides, Einstein, Kissinger, it was that look that God loved him for and had chosen him for in the first place.

    “They will all be winners, God willing. Even the losers will be winners. They’ll all get their names up in lights,” say the old schlemozzle’s eyes.

    “Someday–who knows when?–I’ll be talking about my son, the Light of the World.”

    Genesis 12-18; 22

    See also faith, Hagar, Isaac, Lot, Sarah.”

    my reflection Today’s devotional is all about faith. Faith is something, I must admit, I have trouble with sometimes. I suspect I’m not alone in this. In the Book of Hebrews faith is defined as things hoped for but not seen. That’s hard stuff for a lot of people. Working toward a goal not knowing that you’ll succeed, or even come close, would be unfathomable to some. Coincidentally (or are there really such things as coincidences?), I’m currently reading the book Do I Stay Christian? by Brian McLaren–a book I highly recommend, by the way. The chapter I just finished reading this afternoon dealt with this very issue in relation to the church. McLaren posits that, for people disappointed or disillusioned by Christianity, there are four choices: stay compliantly, leave quietly, leave loudly, or “stay loudly.” The fourth option is the most risky one and the one least likely to bring instant results. By staying loudly, he means to essentially work for change from the inside, not being silenced or swayed by those who are content with the status quo. It is the most likely option to give you bumps and bruises, both figurative and, in some cases, literal. But it’s these people who are the most likely to bring about change in the long run. Think about it: Jesus chose Option 4. In the short term, it was a terrible move for him personally. In fact, he paid the ultimate price. But, he also started the ball rolling down the hill, and it’s still rolling down the hill to this day. Like Abraham, he had faith. Those of us who want to affect change in the church need to have that kind of faith as well.

  • Beyond Words Day 3

    DAY 3

    SPEAKING AGAINST ABORTION, someone has said, “No one should be denied access to the great feast of life,” to which the rebuttal, obviously enough, is that life isn’t much of a feast for children born to people who don’t want them or can’t afford them or are one way or another incapable of taking care of them and will one way or another probably end up abusing or abandoning them.

    And yet, and yet. Who knows what treasure life may hold for even such children as those, or what treasures even such children as those may grow up to become? To bear a child even under the best of circumstances, or to abort a child even under the worst–the risks are hair-raising either way and the results incalculable.

    How would Jesus himself decide, he who is hailed as Lord of Life and yet who says that it is not the ones who, like an abortionist, can kill the body we should fear, but the ones who can kill body and soul together the way only the world into which they are born can kill unloved, unwanted children (Matthew 10:28)?

    There is perhaps no better illustration of the truth that in an imperfect world there are no perfect solutions. All we can do, as Luther said, is sin bravely, which is to say, (a) know that neither to have the child nor not to have the child is without the possibility of tragic consequences for everybody, yet (b) be brave in knowing also that not even that can put us beyond the forgiving love of God.

    my reflections And today we venture into the extremely thorny territory of abortion. Buechner, I think, handles the topic extremely well, and I can’t disagree with him on anything he says. My own view on abortion is, well, I think the best word is complicated. For most of my adult life, I was squarely in the pro-choice camp, no question. I felt very strongly that nobody, particularly male elected officials, had the right to tell a female to do or not to do anything where her own body was concerned. Then, in the spring of 2003, I sat in a doctor’s office and heard my daughter’s fetal heartbeat. From that moment on, I was incapable of seeing a fetus as just an impersonal grouping of cells. Yet my feelings about politicians and others meddling in the very personal decisions of females, or for that matter anyone else, still remain with me. We are recently seeing the law of unintended consequences play out again and again in states which have implemented draconian abortion restrictions. Some hospitals have delayed treatment of ectopic pregnancies due to legal concerns. Pharmacies have denied to fill prescriptions of needed medications for some women because they “might” become pregnant. The uncomfortable fact is, there is no black and white where abortion is concerned. At the end of the day, it’s a medical issue between doctor and patient that’s extremely complicated and often heartbreaking. Trying to legislate things just makes things multiple times worse.

  • Beyond Words Day 2

    DAY 2

    WHEN KING DAVID was nearing the end of his days, not even his electric blanket could fend off the ominous chill he felt rising in his bones. The fires of life were all but out, and in an effort to rekindle them for the old man and at the same time preserve their own jobs, the establishment enlisted the aid of a beautiful young woman named Abishag. In the hope that she, if anybody, could start his blood coursing again, they persuaded her to join him in the sack. By this time, however, the old man was past rising to the occasion, and not long afterward–perhaps as the result of his unsuccessful attempts to do so–he died. When one of his sons offered to make an honest woman of Abishag by marrying her, the establishment turned him down on the grounds that by taking over his father’s girlfriend, he was just making a play for taking over his father’s throne. What finally became of Abishag is not recorded, and perhaps it is just as well.

    This sad story makes it clear that in peace as well as in war there’s no tragic folly you can’t talk a nation’s youth into simply by calling it patriotic duty.

    1 Kings 1-2

    my reflections I have to admit to being completely unfamiliar with this Biblical story. I can understand why it doesn’t crack the list of most-sermonized passages. Actually, the story made me feel a bit creepy. It’s like something you might find in a bad romance novel. And, honestly, I was completely at a loss to know what Frederick Buechner’s point was in even including this as a devotion, until I got to the final sentence. Buechner was using this story as an allegory to illustrate his over-arching point. “This sad story makes it clear that in peace as well as in war there’s no tragic folly you can’t talk a nation’s youth into simply by calling it patriotic duty.” Oh how true that is, and not just with youth. We’ve sen so many recent examples of this that I don’t even think it’s worth singling any of them out. Patriotism in general, and faux patriotism in particular, is as far from Godlike as it is possible to be.

  • Beyond Words Day 1

    DAY 1

    MOSES WAS THREE YEARS YOUNGER than his brother, Aaron, but starting with the day Pharaoh’s daughter fished him out of the bulrushes and adopted him, Moses was the one who always got the headlines while Aaron got the short end of the stick. Even when Moses had to clear out of Egypt for doing in an Egyptian Jew-baiter, he landed on his feet by marrying the daughter of a well-heeled sheep rancher across the border.

    Aaron, in the meanwhile, went quietly off into the ministry, where in the long run he didn’t do so badly either, except that the only people who ever heard about him were the ones who turned to the religion section on the back pages. Moses, on the other hand, was forever making the cover. The payoff came around the time Moses hit eighty, and out of a burning bush God himself voted him Man of the Year. As usual, Aaron had to be content with playing second fiddle, which he did well enough until he got the break he’d been waiting for at last, and then he blew it.

    With Moses lingering so long on Mt. Sinai that some thought he’d settled down and gone into real estate, the people turned to Aaron for leadership, and in no time flat–despite an expensive theological education and all those years in denominational headquarters–he had them dancing around the Golden Calf like a bunch of aborigines.

    Nobody knows whether this was Aaron’s way of getting even with his kid brother for all those years of eating humble pie, or whether he actually believed with the rest of humankind that a God in the hand is worth two in the bush.

    Exodus 32:1-4

    my reflection Nobody knows more than me how easy it is to get one’s head turned from what’s important. Aaron spent all his life doing what was right, living life the right way, and here his little brother was, getting to bask in glory time after time. I think even the most humble person would struggle with that, at least internally. And then Aaron finally had his chance for his place in the sun, and in the dazzlement of the moment he forgot living life the right way. He went after the accolades instead. I see some echoes of the Prodigal Son parable in this devotional. It would certain be understandable, though not right, for Aaron to harbor some resentment and jealousy toward Moses. In the end, it really didn’t matter; as Mr. Buechner said, Aaron got his chance, and he blew it. At some point, I think, many of us will get our chances, perhaps when we least expect it. For my part, I plan to do everything I can to not blow mine. I’m hoping I’m successful.

  • Why I Write

    Why do I write? I do sometimes ask myself this question. Many people, my wife included, are prolific journalers. I’ve traditionally been terrible at journaling. I’ve always thought it was due to inherent laziness, but I’m beginning to realize that it might be a problem of difficulty focusing due to undiagnosed ADD. My PCP and I had a disagreement about this recently, but he did put me on a medication that appears to be helping, at least for now. So the bottom line is, I’ve left no journals for posterity. 25 or so years ago, I started a weekly writing endeavor called Ramblings and Rumblings. It was an Email I sent out with some personal stuff and also some musings on current events. I think blogs were just beginning to be a thing, but I wasn’t even aware of the term. Anyway, at some point, like most things throughout my life, I stopped sending out the R & R. Ever since then I’ve made sporadic attempts at blogging, with now being the most recent. But the question remains: Why do I write? I have found that, if I don’t write, my feelings remain bottled up, and my overall health suffers, both physical and mental. This is especially true now, with so many things going on that are so wrong and frankly so terrifying. There was a time when I wanted my writing to be noticed. I would have liked to have been one of those people with tens or hundreds of thousands of readers who avidly followed what I said. In short, I wanted to be an influencer. I realize now that this was just an ego thing. I’ve actually built up a pretty sizable following on Twitter, and I’ve learned that it really doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things. It’s gotten to the point where blogs are a penny a dozen, and I have made peace with the fact that anything I say in public is somewhat akin to the guy on the bus carrying on a monologue with himself. So, circling back for a minute, with all that in mind, why don’t I just journal? Once again, there might be some ego or self-importance or whatever in this way of thinking, but I still want people to see what I write. I know people do read, even if they don’t comment. Something I’ve noticed on Twitter is how little interaction there is. It’s actually kind of astounding; I have more than 6,500 followers, but most of my tweets barely register, getting maybe a few likes. This has become enough for me. I know I don’t interact with everything I see; if I did it would turn into a full-time job and then some. So I guess the ultimate answer to the question why do I write? Could be summed up this way: I primarily do it for myself, to get my feelings out in a hopefully constructive way. And, in doing so, I hope I will have an impact on others, no matter how small.

  • Futility?

    I chose to not watch the Jan. 6 hearings Thursday night. It’s not because I don’t care; I very much do care. In fact, I might care too much. The reason I didn’t watch is because I don’t need to be convinced how historic (not in a good way) the goings-on were on that day. I was convinced in real time. That day is as etched in my memory as 9/11 and the day of the Challenger explosion, the other two huge news events of my adult life. I remember tuning into CSPAN at the beginning of the roll call of states. When they got to Arizona, of course, there was a challenge, which caused applause to break out in the chamber. It was then that Sarah convinced me to turn it off and lay down for a nap. I think it wasn’t much more than a half hour later that my texts started blowing up. I woke up enough to grab my phone to look, and the first text I saw said “They’ve breached the Capitol.” Um, wait, what? Who? I learned soon enough what and who. I was glued to every news source I had access to (we have no TV in the house) for the rest of the day. The best description I can come up with for how I was feeling was gut-punched. I’ve read about the British invasion of DC during the War of 1812. I never thought anything like that would ever happen again, and this time it wasn’t even foreign enemies, it was Americans. And, all of America was united in horror and revulsion, for maybe 24 hours. I think it may have been the very next day I saw my first Facebook post where someone claimed this was just a peaceful protest that got a bit out of hand. And maybe it was Antifa. Or it was Nancy Pelosi’s fault, though I’m at a loss to know what an 82-year-old lady could have done in the face of a mob bent on mayhem. Nevertheless, all these alternate narratives took hold in certain segments of the public, and they’re still held very strongly. At this point, even if Donald Trump himself was somehow convinced to add narration to the film footage complete with audio description for the visually impaired, it wouldn’t make a dime’s worth of difference to these segments of the public. They’ve turned their eyes away and put beans in their ears long ago. The older politicians learned lessons from Watergate. I think at least some of them probably think now that if they had just held on longer with the third-rate burglary narrative, the public would have either been swayed by their arguments or just simply tuned out. And maybe that’s who I’m the most angry with right now; those who just can’t be bothered, who think it’s just all politics. I can’t totally blame them; that’s how much of the media has portrayed the past 1.5 years. Rather than the attempted coup it was, it’s been seen as just another mud-slinging contest between the parties. Yawn. Sadly, this is another segment who will never be convinced with hearings like this, because they’re skipping them in favor of Netflix or binge-watching Gilmore Girls. I fear we have reached a point where nobody cares enough to change anything anymore. This will probably lead to the Republicans taking over control of the House and Senate in the November elections, which means the next 2 years will be nothing but an ongoing circus in DC, though I have no doubt some will enjoy the spectacle. And, when 2024 rolls around, enough people will decide, you know, Disantis really isn’t that bad, at least he’s not Trump. And then, as Don Meredith used to sing during blowouts on Monday Night Football, turn out the lights, the party’s over. And that is when certain segments of the population will finally wake up saying hey, wait a minute! This isn’t what I wanted! Sorry. Too bad, doodad, too late. So, I’m very thankful that the Jan. 6 Committee has done all this work. I salute their efforts. The things I’ve read about Thursday’s hearings have been mostly very positive. But, in the long run, has all this work been futile? Will it all come to naught in the end? Very sadly, sitting here on a mostly sunny Saturday morning, my gut is telling me yes. With every fiber of my being, I hope I’m wrong.

  • If It’s Not One Thing It’s Your Mother

    Actually this missive will have nothing to do with mothers. Julia Sweeney, an SNL alum who I remember working at the Fox Theater in Spokane when I was a teenager, wrote a book with that title, and I loved it so much I always say that instead of if it’s not one thing it’s another. Anyway, that’s how today went. I didn’t get a bloody thing done that I wanted to. Between plumbing issues, requiring our handyman to go in and out of the house multiple times, along with making loud electric toolish noises that scared the cats, grocery delivery, all of which happening at the same time, I didn’t handle things very well. I have issues with chaos and pandemonium. So I did what I felt I had to do. I went to lay down and had a big old nap. I’m happy to report that it did help. But nothing concrete got accomplished. Well, okay, I did make a pretty darn yummy meat loaf, and I’m writing this blog post, so I suppose I can put those two things in the plus column. I have committed to writing in this blog at least three times a week. There is, of course, a part of my brain that’s saying oh sure, we’ll see how long that lasts. We’ve been here before. But I’m feeling different about it this time. For one thing, I don’t always have to be profound. I won’t always have political and/or cultural takes. Sometimes my posts will be like this one, more personal in nature. And you know what? That’s okay. I already know I’m not going to get millions of views (heck, I’d be happy with dozens), so I think I can consider this my personal writing space. If you’re reading this, thanks for joining my flight of fancy. I hope you find something to enjoy along the way. Catch you all on Friday, if I can keep up the schedule.

  • Wear Our Values

    I’ve had enough! More than enough, actually! I’ve had enough of breaking news alerts talking about an active shooter in whatever school in whatever community. I’ve had enough with the live news feeds from behind police barricades with reporters who don’t know any more than we do. I’ve had enough of sobbing parents whose hearts have just been ripped out and can’t have even a second of privacy because there are cameras stuck in their faces. I’ve had enough of body counts going up, and up, and up. And, in particular, I’ve had enough of the completely meaningless thoughts and prayers. Don’t misunderstand me; as a Christian, I know there is a lot of power in prayer. I’ve seen it firsthand. The thoughts and prayers I’m talking about are coming from the mouths of feckless, craven politicians. If you have it in your power to do something, to make a situation better, but you do absolutely nothing, then your thoughts and prayers are empty and meaningless. I have seen this movie so many times I’ve literally lost count. Shooting happens. Multiple children dead. Huge emotional reaction not only in the country but throughout the world. But then the politicians start flapping their gums. No, the problem isn’t guns. It’s mental illness. It’s violent video games. It’s because we kicked God out of schools (spoiler alert: Nobody kicked God out of anywhere). It’s the woke agenda. And on and on. Also, it’s too early to start politicizing this terrible tragedy. So, ultimately and predictably, the furor dies down, particularly when something else starts dominating the news cycle, usually within 1 or 2 days. And it’s all buried—until the next time. Our politicians are failing us in so many ways. Whenever even the most reasonable and sensible gun legislation is discussed, the tropes immediately come out regarding slippery slopes, government tyranny, jackbooted thugs kicking down your door to take your guns, etc., etc. Most, if not all, of this can be blamed on what a friend refers to as the nation’s most beloved terrorist organization, the National Rifle Association. They pass out money to lawmakers like it was Monopoly money, expecting them to do their bidding, and they always do. We’re told over and over that nothing can be done, this is the price we pay for freedom, blah blah something something liberty yotta yotta. And the beat, and the shootings, go on. As an ordinary citizen with no money and zero influence, I feel powerless. All I have is my vote, and sometimes I have to wonder if even that’s worth very much. But I will continue to vote, because that is what I can do. Also, today on Twitter, a friend suggested something else we could do, something that would be visible and couldn’t be missed. They suggested wearing black armbands in protest of the gun issue in particular, and America’s apparent march to authoritarianism in general. They’re not an influencer, nor do they want to be, so there’s no expectation that this will take off like some other campaigns have. But maybe those of us who choose to do this can add up to a decent number. The hashtag on Twitter is #WearOurValues. I ordered two black armbands this afternoon, one for myself and one for my wife, and I, at least, plan to start wearing mine as soon as it gets here tomorrow. And, if anyone asks why I’m wearing it, I will tell them. Again, it isn’t much, but it’s something this one person can do.

  • Four Years Ago

    Tonight I’m remembering Election Day four years ago. Nov. 8, 2016. My bride and I had flown back to Indiana from visiting family and friends in Washington State the day before. Throughout election season, I was pretty confident Hillary was going to win in a landslide. How could it be otherwise? Donald Trump had shown us all who he was, again and again and again. Surely, with all that we knew, most people couldn’t actually vote for him, right? There were some little signs in the last few weeks that maybe it wouldn’t be as much of a beatdown as I thought, first and foremost being the infamous Comey news conference. But, even as I awoke on Election Day, I wasn’t terribly worried. So the win wouldn’t be as epic, but a win was still a win. I was still holding my optimism around noontime when I began to see that exit polling wasn’t going exactly as planned. No matter, good would still prevail. When the polls closed at 8 PM, I was at my computer, ready to check returns as they came in. And then…Hillary’s expected lead wasn’t materializing. In fact, she was running behind, at least in the electoral college numbers. And then…it did not change. I think it was around 11 PM, when the polls closed on the West Coast, that I figured out the unthinkable had happened. At that point the bottom dropped out of my stomach. What? How? How did this happen? How could this happen? This was one of the first times my faith in the basic goodness of people was truly shaken. Many of my friends, no doubt trying to be helpful, told me not to panic, there were checks and balances, Congress would rein him in, nobody would let him run roughshod, etc. We all know how that turned out. Now we find ourselves staring down the barrel of another Election Day, seven days from now. I hope, and I pray, it won’t be an instant replay of four years ago.

  • Choose Life

    Up until this week I don’t recall ever hearing the name Kate Spade. And then a couple of days ago she blew up my Facebook timeline. Apparently she was a fashion designer of some renown, and she chose to end her life this week. Then, today, I learned of the suicide of Anthony Bourdain, who I definitely had heard of. Celebrity suicides do have the effect of making one ponder: What would drive someone who is appearing to live the dream and has everything to live for to end it all? Of course that question is unanswerable, as we can’t get into another person’s head, particularly when they’re not around anymore to ask any questions. While I haven’t seen any statistics, based on what I’ve been witnessing I have a strong inkling that the suicide rate is on the rise. Now, I have often said that suicide is nothing more than a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I have also said that it is the ultimate selfish act. Everybody has to deal with the consequences except, of course, you. But I can’t judge anyone who chooses to take that route. How can I? How can I when I, myself, am a suicide survivor?

    You know, even writing those words still sets off some alarm bells of shame in my head. That is what we have done with the discusssion of suicide in today’s society. We don’t talk about it. We ignore it, avoid it, stuff it way down deep. As a result, those of us who have walked in the valley of the shadow of death hardly ever bring it up because it’s a taboo subject. I think it’s time we started talking about it.

    The details of my particular story—what led to it, my ultimate decision to not go through with it and summon help before it was too late, etc.—aren’t really important to this discussion. It happened in 2007, after which I went through a brief period of hospitalization. It took me a long time but I was able to climb out of the valley. I’ve had some periods of slipping back over the years, but for the most part I’ve had steady progress. Make no mistake, I have rotten days from time to time, just like anyone else. But the good far outweighs the bad, and I don’t regret for one second my decision to choose life.

    And that’s the advice I’d give anyone who finds themselves staring into that deep dark place. Choose life. No matter how messed up things might seem, no matter how hopeless you might feel, there is hope. Even if you don’t feel any of it, hope is there. Reach out. Talk to someone. Nobody knows better than me how alone those feelings can make you feel, but you are not alone. Give your friends the chance to be true friends to you. If nothing else, call the suicide prevention hotline, 800-273-8255. They can hook you up with local resources that can help you get started on those first tentative steps out of the valley. My wife has a saying: As long as you are breathing there is hope.

    I’m not saying any of this will be easy. You might have to face some pretty tough things and have some very hard conversations. But I assure you, it’s worth it. Life is a precious gift, and it’s meant to be lived. As I said, I don’t regret my decision to choose life. I hope and pray more people choose to Do the same.

  • What I Did Last Week

    It’s time for me to sit down and write down some reflections on my trip to the NFB convention in Orlando last week. Overall, I have to say I was rather surprised with what I took away from it.

    The week did not get off to a bang-up start. The flight to Orlando and even the Uber ride to the hotel went pretty much without incident. The fun began when we stepped into the lobby of the hotel. The line for checking in was very, very long, and the staff seemed to be having various issues with various people. After around 45 minutes, I finally made it up to the front desk, gave my name, produced my method of payment…and was told that our room wasn’t ready yet. At this point it was well past 4 PM, we had been traveling pretty much all day, and we were hungry, among other things. Luckily we had friends who allowed us to crash in their room until our room was available, roughly an hour and a half later. On the up side, I can say this was the low point of the week. It was mostly upward from there. We had a pleasant dinner with friends old and new in the hotel café, and we then retired to our room to get situated and get prepared for Monday.

    Monday was pretty much uneventful, at least until the evening. With not much going on, much of the day was spent in the room, as I described it to a friend, getting my sea legs. I had one command performance in the evening; as this was my first NFB convention, I attended the event for first-time convention goers, which had the monicker of the Rookie Roundup. So off I went, got myself hopelessly lost, had to get bailed out by my eternally patient bride, but I made it. Upon the conclusion of the event, I got myself mired in the worst tangle of humanity I had ever gotten myself into. I attended a Beach Boys concert at Albi Stadium in Spokane in 1982, and that mass of humanity was tame compared to this. I had an impenetrable crowd of people in front of me, to my left, to my right, and behind me. I found myself in the throes of a full-fledged panic attack. Once again thanks to my bride and some other very good Samaritans, I got myself out of the scrum. At this point, as we made our way back to our room, I emphatically told Sarah “Never again. Never ever again.” I had had enough. By the end of the week, my turne had changed.

    I need to backtrack really quick and relate something I did Monday afternoon. I participated in two research studies dealing with making graphical images accessible using audio output. My takeaway was while this is a worthwhile endeavor and I hope work on it continues, at this point it’s got a long way to go.

    After Monday night’s shenanigans, Tuesday turned into pretty much a down day for me. By this point we had discovered that we had forgotten to change a patch I wear for blood pressure maintenance. This explained a whole lot about my panic attack reactions on Monday, as my blood pressure and anxiety levels shot sky high. Because of this, I had to seriously curtail my planned activities to minimize my stress levels. So, as I said, Tuesday turned into an off day.

    Wednesday I ventured out to attend the meeting of the NFB in Communities of Faith group. Sarah has become active in that chapter, and I might follow suit. Earlier in the day, we had spent some time in the exhibit area, where we bought a whole lot of coffee and some raffle tickets (we did not win), and while we were there we were able to meet up with one of Sarah’s dog trainers, who is now a mutual friend, and we had an enjoyable conversation with him over coffee. And that for all practical purposes was all she wrote for Wednesday.

    Thursday began the business portion of the week. Because of my medical issues I for the most part participated vicariously via streaming. I will say there were several things on the agenda that were interesting to listen to. For me the personal highlight of Thursday was babysitting for a friend’s dog for a few hours. He was a very good boy, and it was kind of fun to hear a dog snore again.

    Friday night was pretty eventful. First I met with an old friend I hadn’t seen in 15 years. It was great to catch up, and for me it was a reminder of how precious friendship is. Then, I attended the talent show in which Sarah sang. While it went rather long, there is no denying there is some very superior talent in the NFB.

    Saturday was the last day of Convention Week, and I have to admit that for me the highlights of the day didn’t really have anything to do with the convention itself. In the afternoon we were fortunate enough to have a very pleasant lunch with a family member who had driven two hours to see us. It was actually the first time we had met in person, and it was a wonderful time. Thanks, Cousin Becky! Then, in the evening, we had dinner with a friend of Sarah’s she hadn’t seen in many many years. That, too, was a wonderful time, and a good way to wind up the week.

    The less said about Sunday, travel back home day, the better. The important thing is we made it home safe and sound.

    Now we come to the part of this missive where I give my general reflections. I need to concede that, because of my medical struggles, I really could not give a completely fair assessment. I was unable to participate at nearly the level I had intended to. Because of this, and some other things, I feel it is important that I give the convention another shot when I am properly medicated. What I saw, I have to say, I was quite impressed with. I admittedly went into the week with a whole lot of preconceived notions. I have been to 15 national conventions of the rival advocacy organization, the American Council of the Blind, so I was probably thinking some rather unfair things. Over the course of the week, many, if not all, of my preconceived notions were dispelled. The Federation is full of first-rate people doing some great things, and while I certainly don’t agree with everything they do that can’t color my overall perception. I am still, and will probably always remain, uncomfortable with how some of what goes on in sessions resembles, at least to me, a cross between a pep rally, camp meeting and fundraiser. But I know now there is way more to the organization than that. So, with all that in mind, if everything breaks right and all the planets align and the Fifth Dimension sing about the Age of Aquarius, I’ll be back in Orlando next year. And, for all who helped me last week and bade me welcome, all I can really say is thank you.

  • Dignity? Priceless

    I am writing this from the perspective of someone who has multiple disabilities who is married to someone who also has multiple disabilities and chronic illnesses. We both receive Social Security Disability and Medicare. As a result, recent developments in health care and the budgetary process have us on the verge of panic.
    On Election Night, when it became apparent that Trump was going to win, I remarked to my wife that things were probably going to change for us in ways we couldn’t even comprehend. When I said this elsewhere, I was accused of being hyperbolic and hysterical. Now, seven months removed from that night in November, I haven’t seen anything that would prove me wrong. I could go on and on chronicling the countless ways Mr. Trump has proven himself to be unpresidential, but my focus, my main concern, is what he, and by extension the Republican Party, are trying to do with benefits for the disabled, elderly, and the poor. I have seen numerous justifications for the current proposals, ranging from budget constraints to government overreach to waste, fraud and abuse. But I believe there is an underlying feeling out there beneath all the political niceties. Nobody will speak it, unless of course Trump gets his way and “political correctness” gets thrown out the window. I have come to the conclusion that many people believe those of us with disabilities and other vulnerable populations have actually had it too good all these years, and this alleged largess has come at the expense of the average, hard-working, taxpaying American. While I can only speak for myself, I’d have to say neither my wife or me feel like we’re on anything even resembling a gravy train. We are certainly thankful for what we get, and we’re doing okay, but that’s as far as it goes. No lobster dinners for us. Our benefits give us a certain level of self-respect and, something even more important, dignity. Dignity is something you can’t put a price tag on. As the old credit card commercial used to say, it’s priceless. Shredding the safety net would put a huge damper on our dignity, not to mention millions of others. Yet for some, dignity isn’t nearly as important as supposedly balancing budgets. Try and tell the elderly lady able to live in her own home thanks to in-home support services that Medicaid cuts will force her to move to an institution that her dignity is negotiable. Try and tell the young adult with multiple disabilities who has worked their tail off and managed to move into their own apartment that they must move back in with Mom and Dad because of the budget. This is so wrong on so many levels. And I know the people in Congress know this, which is why they’re going to ridiculous extremes to avoid their constituents during legislative recesses. I don’t think the average GOP congressperson is really a cruel heartless person; they just know what side their bread is buttered on. All the same, it would be incredibly gratifying to see at least some of them actually do the right thing, even if that would mean losing some lobbyist dollars. Sadly, however, I don’t see that happening. So I’m afraid we’re stuck with the possibility of losing at least some of our benefits because we haven’t sacrificed enough. To which I call baloney. Dignity should never be negotiable or find itself subject to a budget balance sheet.

  • Public is a Choice Too

    I have often cited my Jesuit education as a huge reason for how I have become whom I’ve become, and I will continue to keep citing it. But of course there’s more to the story. I didn’t enter parochial school until the seventh grade, so I was in public school up until that time. I attended; Monroe School, Campbell, CA, kindergarten and part of first grade; Norkirk Elementary, Kirkland, WA, part of first and part of second grade; Lakes Elementary School, Lacey, WA, part of second through fifth grade; and Bancroft Elementary, Spokane, WA, sixth grade. In addition, after my entrance into Jesuit middle school and high school, I continued to receive disability-related services through the Spokane Public Schools. Eternally thankful as I am to the Jesuits for giving me moral grounding and honed critical thinking skills, I was also shaped in innumerable ways by many public school teachers who came before. I’m painfully aware that I didn’t always make it very easy; some would also rightly contend that this continued into adulthood. But, rest assured, your lessons did indeed take. Some just took longer than others to take root. Yes, school choice is important. My parents made great choices that worked out great for me. But it’s also important to not let the public school system wither away, because there are times where public school is the best choice. So, even though many will never see it either because they don’t follow me or because they are sadly no longer with us, I want to thank Ms. McDonald, Ms. Little, Ms. Howe, Ms. Andrews, Ms. Maherrin, Mr. Hulbert, Mr. Franzen, Mr. Stevens, Mrs. Marschner, Mrs. Smith, Miss Paff, Mr. Maywalt, Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Sullivan, and others I no doubt left out due to failing memory for being great exemplars of public school education, and for playing a huge part in teaching me how to be.

  • So What’s Next?

    Day nine.

    I’m happy to say there’s some improvement. The depression that weighs me down like a wet blanket has not been in evidence all day today. I’ve been able to read things about the transition of power without having the overwhelming urge to hurl my keyboard into deep space. Rest assured, though, that this does not mean I’m down with this, because I’m not. It is what it is, and I accept it as a factual matter, but I will never like it.

    At this point, I’m wondering what I can constructively do moving forward. Sitting here all day every day sharing tidbits of Trump’s awfulness is feeling more and more counterproductive. The point has been made, and it probably isn’t necessary to beat the dead horse into dust. Joining a street protest is impractical for any number of reasons, although admittedly there’s a significant part of me that would love to do so. Upon reflection, it seems to me that one way I can do something positive is by doing what I’m doing now, writing. Nobody knows better than me how saturated the blogosphere is these days, and I know I won’t ever be on par with the likes of John Pavlovitz or Rachel Held Evans. Nonetheless, I do have things to say, and if I can reach even one person, then I’ve accomplished something great. I’m also planning to embark on a study of Dietrich Bon Hoeffer. I think much of what he said and wrote is quite pertinent to this day and time. The important thing is, I wish to be a productive voice, even if only a few might hear me.

    I want to say a word or two here about my societal leanings. yes, Virginia, I am a liberal. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that word made at least one person stop reading and leave the window in disgust. You know what? We don’t bite. Liberals are just as human as conservatives, complete with hopes, fears, likes, dislikes, and all the rest. Even now, after subjecting myself to far too many flame wars in Facebook comment threads, I really don’t think there’s as much distance between liberals and conservatives as it seems, if we would just listen to each other and stop running our mouths. So yes, I have a liberal bent. I hope that doesn’t make me toxic for you.

  • On Groups and Tribes, Among Other Things: More Election Results Processing

    I believe I have settled down enough to at least attempt to do some writing on my feelings about what happened last Tuesday. Thus far my random musings have been pretty much confined to random snipes on Facebook. So, here goes nothing.

    Here’s a brief recap of my reactions, more or less in order. Tuesday night, I was numb, in disbelief. It really didn’t feel out of the realm of possibility for me to wake up Wednesday morning to discover it had all been an epic nightmare. Wednesday and most of thursday, I was in a very deep, somewhat debilitating depression. I really didn’t want to do anything. After that, I went into analysis mode; Where do I go from here? What do I do now? Which gets us to where I am now. Right now, the dominant emotion I’m feeling is anger. Yes, sports fans, to put it into somewhat vulgar vernacular, I’m royally pissed. Please understand this, I’m not angry because the candidate I voted for lost. I voted for Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry, and after all those elections I grumbled, griped and groused aplenty, but ultimately I moved on. But that doesn’t seem possible this time. Reagan, Bush Sr. and Jr. did not represent seismic shifts in so many things, first and foremost being plain, garden variety decency. No matter how much I disagreed with the Presidential candidates I voted against on policy and other things, I at least had an idea that they were decent human beings. Honestly, I don’t get that feeling from Trump. He has stomped around like the proverbial schoolyard bully for the past year and a half, making it very clear which groups of people he wants to stick it to once he got elected. And guess what? He did get elected. No, this is not sour grapes, being whiny, or anything else those of us who have spoken out have been accused of. In my instance, at least, it boils down to one specific thing–fear. Absolute terror, if you want to get technical. I’m afraid that Trump’s win has unleashed forces that we’ve never seen before in this country and can not be bottled back up, even if we try. The part of me feeling the white-hot anger just wants to get in the face of Trump voters and say “You voted for this! How could you vote for this?”

    Rationally, I know it isn’t as simple as that. I know Donald Trump didn’t embolden 59 million plus Americans to give their inner bigot free rein. There are many Trump voters I know who are kind, decent human beings who would be horrified if anything bad ever happened to a family member or loved one. And therein lies a huge part of the problem. Society has sorted all of us into several different subgroups; male, female, white, person of color, gay, straight, just to name a few. Some people belong to multiple subgroups. I am a white male, which feels a lot like stepping into the batter’s box with a 2 and 0 count already up on the scoreboard. But I am also a disabled person, which puts me in that subgroup as well. We are also a tribal society, meaning we all have tribes made up of family and friends. If we are a member of a marginalized subgroup, oftentimes our tribe lose sight of that. They do not, however, lose sight of the subgroup in general. The result of this is, the generalizations people make about certain marginalized group do not apply to members of their tribe. So when they step into the voting booth, they’re not thinking of their friend or family member who happens to be female, a person of color, LGBTQ, disabled, or any and all of the above. What they are thinking about are those “others”. Humanity is lost, and they can minimize anything Trump has said or did, who he actually is, everything else, because by golly he’s going to make America great again. How do you suppose that makes your friend or loved one feel?

    It’s probably going to take a while for me to work through the anger I’m feeling, and once I come out on the other side I probably won’t be feeling any sort of acceptance. As I said in my blog post yesterday, like it or not he is my President, and he needs to remember that. He needs to remember that me and those like me deserve as consideration as much as those who voted for him.

    One last thing…I know some of you voted for Trrump based on abortion, gun rights, or other related issues. Maybe you felt like you didn’t have a choice. Thing is, you did have a choice. You knew what type of man he was, everybody did, but you voted for him anyway. You voted for him knowing the things that might happen, despite what it might mean for me and those like me. I do fervently hope and pray things won’t turn out as dark as I feel they could. I know anything is still possible. But all I can go by is what I’ve seen up to now, and it isn’t encouraging, particularly when I look at who he is tapping for leadership positions. All I can say is, you got the whole package, not just the parts you think you liked. Hold on with me, it’s probably going to be a bumpy ride.

  • Yours, Mine and Ours

    I want to start right here and say this: Nobody is more horrified and freaked out than me about the looming Trump Presidency. I fear it will have dire implications for many of us. With that said, I want to direct a few words to my fellow freakouters.

    I have lost count of how many times I’ve seen the phrase not my President over the past three days. It’s a hashtag that probably blew up Twitter, and for all I know is still blowing it up. But here’s the thing: While I completely understand the sentiment, I can’t go along with it. Nobody can deny facts, and the fact is Trump is my President. He is your President. Expanding it further, he is the President not only of the 59 odd million people who voted for him, but also the 60 odd million people who voted for Hillary, and the 200 plus odd million people who didn’t vote at all. He is the President of all of us, like it or not. I don’t, but it doesn’t make it any less true. We can’t go by just what we want or what we think should be, we have to go with what is.

    Since he is President of all of us, he needs to take all of us into consideration. He needs to take into account the wants, needs and fears of those who disagree with him along with those who agree with him. I don’t know whether he will do this or not, but I do know saying “not my President” will give him the ultimate excuse to not.

    The important thing is for us who feel things slipping away from us to stay engaged. We need to stay active in the arenas of discourse and action. We need to talk, Email, call, everything we can do, to maximize our voice so it is heard. We need to tell our stories as often as it takes for people to listen. It’s going to take a lot of elbow grease, and it will probably feel like trying to roll the rock perpetually uphill, but if we keep at it we can accomplish something. There’s almost no doubt in my mind the next four years will be rough, but if we all keep doing our part we will come out on the other side, perhaps a bit battered and bruised but nevertheless in one piece. Yes, he is my President, and I intend to do everything in my power to make sure he remembers that. If enough people do the same, maybe, just maybe, he’ll hear us.

  • What’s Happening Here?

    As I write this, it is late Saturday night, October 15. Right now the plan is for Sarah and I to vote this coming Thursday, and Election Day itself is 24 days away. I have some thoughts I need to express on this point.

    For the past week or so Donald Trump has become pretty much unhinged, firing up his base with talk of rigged elections and conjuring up fevered visions of rampant voter fraud. None of this, of course, is based in any semblance of reality, but there are some of his followers that are eating this up. I’m seeing reports from his rallies that there are some of his followers that are using words like revolution, bloodshed, and other words that bring the term sedition to mind. Make no mistake, at this point I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance Mr. Trump will actually come out on top in the election. What I do think, based on what I’ve seen recently, is there are those who will believe that the election will have been stolen from him, regardless of how lopsided the outcome might be. I have a lot of fear about what might transpire around Election Day. I’m not speaking metaphorically; sitting here, at this moment, I feel actual, bona fide, measurable terror. I know in my heart that 99.9 percent of what is being thrown around right now is nothing more than bluff and bluster. There is no doubt in my mind that most so-called “patriots” out there are nothing more than paper tigers who will shrivel up like wilted lettuce at the first sign of any pushback. But it only takes a few idiots with firepower to do damage. I’m hoping cooler heads will prevail, but at this point Mr. Trump, far from discouraging this dangerous talk, seems to be fanning the flames. All I can do is pray we get through this, and we can somehow find our way back again from this terrible brokenness.

  • ABAPITA Files: Spontaneity is Not an Option

    For the benefit of those who may not know, ABAPITA is an acronym for aint blindness a pain in the, um, anatomy. Substitute any word you like beginning with A. I don’t spend much time harping on it, but there are times when my blindness is a serious impediment to my enjoyment of life. Recently it occurred to me that it might be therapeutic to write about how this might manifest itself. Because I understand not everyone will be interested in reading such personal missives, I have chosen to label these types of post with the ABAPITA title, so those who wish to skip and move on can do so. Anyway, with that explanation out of the way, here is my beef for today.

    Because of my blindness, most experiences that require leaving the house and going anywhere require at least a modicum of planning ahead. This makes spontaneity well nigh impossible. Case in point…I am very interested in seeing the movie Risen while it’s in theaters. It looks like it could be very interesting, to say the least. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible for me to wake up on a given morning and say Gosh, today’s the day I go and see the movie. It requires finding someone else who might like to go, coordinating schedules, etc., etc., etc. It takes planning at least a day ahead of time, often even more than that. And, in this example, things are more complicated by the fact that both Sarah and I would like to see it with audio description, which would require a trip to Indianapolis. This is true of any number of other examples, big and small, every day. I suspect this is a huge reason why I have grown to view spontaneity in general in a very negative light. I apologize if this comes across as so much whinage, because I promise that isn’t my intent. I’m just attempting to convey the frustration I feel from time to time. It is what it is, it will continue to be so, and I will continue to deal with it the best I can.

  • Report From Sick Bay

    We are now in the time of the hospital stay that’s kind of stressful. Not that it’s a bed of roses in the best of circumstances, but there are things that raise stress levels more, particularly toward the end of the stay.

    The fact is, I could probably go home right now. I’m feeling pretty good, my breathing is much better, and while I’m still coughing fairly frequently it isn’t as deep. So if I was sent home with medication and continued my aggressive regimen of breathing treatments there’s no reason why I couldn’t continue to improve in my home environment just as much, if not more, than here. But, as always, there is a catch. My oxygen levels are lower than what the doctors would like to see. In the grand scheme of things, it’s probably not a big deal at all, only a point or two below what they’d like to see. But my doctors are very conservative, and so they’re watching this closely. Best case scenario, I’ll be out of here tomorrow, and both Sarah and I will do whatever we can to make that happen. It’s time to go home to start the true healing process.

  • Life Is What Happens

    Since I have some at least temporary freedom from my IV drips, I figured I would try and give you all at least an abbreviated report of what has happened over the past few days. It certainly fits into the life is what happens while you’re making other plans department.

    Okay, I should probably begin with last week, when I started feeling like I was coming down with something. Last Wednesday it hit me in full force. I assumed I had the full-blown crud. My temperature peaked at 100.9 Thursday night, and Sarah and I agreed that if it was still up Friday morning we’d be heading off to the doctor. Luckily (I thought), my fever broke overnight, and I was actually feeling significantly better on Friday. So I figured I had dodged the doctor bullet. In the meantime, Sarah started feeling rather puny on Saturday, and Sunday she was worse. I still felt reasonably okay, good enough to put together my extremely yummy meat loaf Sunday night. During all this time, Sarah was telling me my breathing wasn’t sounding right. I didn’t outwardly notice anything, so I continued on as usual. Sarah decided it would be a good idea for both of us to go to the doctor Monday morning. I went along, kicking and screaming, because even though my chest was still congested I thought I could just ride it out. So off we went. It turns out Sarah has strep. The doctor gave me a breathing treatment in her office, and it was then that my blood oxygen levels took a precipitous swan dive. That, along with my utterly horrendous peak flow levels, earned me a ticket into the hospital.

    That’s the very short version. Some things have happened subsequent to me being here that I really shouldn’t write about in a public forum, but suffice to say none of it was conducive to rest and recuperation. Things are on the upswing, though. I have a nice big room to myself, it’s reasonably quiet, and I can get whatever rest I can in this environment. It turns out I have full blown pneumonia, so I’ll be here for at least the next few days while they whip me back into shape. I don’t have much energy, and probably won’t for a while, so there’s a good chance you won’t be hearing a lot from me for at least the next week or so. Once I’m back in the saddle again, so to speak, I’ll expound more on this journey. One thing I have learned beyond all doubt at this point. Sarah is almost always right, and while I can’t promise to not kick and scream in the future I will always acquiesce if she feels a trip to the doctor is warranted.

  • Thoughts on Healing (From the Archives)

    I just finished a book called Jesus > Religion (yes, the greater than is part of the title) by Jefferson Bethke. It’s a fairly short book, and I think
    it’s well worth a read. The author is not a theologian; he appears to be a fairly typical recent college graduate who nonetheless has some very insightful
    things to say about today’s Christian culture. I know he has gotten my contemplative juices flowing. One of the issues he touches on is the topic of healing.
    He doesn’t spend a whole lot of time on it, but healing is something I’ve been ruminating on for a long time, and I think it deserves some enlightenment
    here.

    As a person with a physical disability, I am no stranger to the concept of faith healing. I have been prayed over on a few occasions. One incident bears
    mentioning, as it left an indelible mark on me. At this particular time I was attending a Pentecostal church. At this point in my life I found many aspects
    of this church—the speaking in tongues, the yelling of the preacher—very off-putting. In the midst of one Sunday night service, during a time when the
    Spirit appeared to be very much in evidence, somebody approached me and, with no warning whatever, laid hands on me and started speaking in tongues. To
    me, this just sounded like nonsensical babbling, and besides I didn’t give permission for this person to put their hands on me. My initial impulse was
    to yell at them to get the hell away from me. Thankfully my sense of decorum had not totally deserted me, and I didn’t do anything. Nevertheless, this
    experience did much to cast a negative light for me on church in particular and, to a great degree, religion in general. For a long time after that, although
    I did attend church sporadically, my soul wanted absolutely no part of it. Much time and a lot of experience, however, have drastically changed my perspective
    on the issue of faith healing. For one thing, I understand now in a way I didn’t then that the person who laid hands on me meant absolutely no harm. To
    the contrary, they were trying to give me what they saw as a great gift. That does not change the fact that it was administered in completely the wrong
    way. At the time it made me feel, at least in a way, personally violated. I can’t help but wonder how many other people have come away from similar experiences
    feeling the same way, and as such come away as embittered with religion as I was. Time and experience have shown me that, while it was done in the wrong
    way, the intent was sincere. But there was another factor that this particular person, and others who prayed over me, did not seem to consider. Whenever
    people have prayed for my healing, it almost always centers on my physical disability. Here’s a hard question: What if my physical disability isn’t the
    part of me that needs healing? For all practical purposes, I’ve been blind my whole life. It has been every bit of a hindrance, an inconvenience, a huge
    pain in the butt, and everything else that goes along with that. Despite that, I have lived my life. I haven’t always been great at it, but be that as
    it may here I am, in the middle of my fiftieth year, still in their pitching. I might still get shelled from time to time, but I still take the mound,
    and will continue to do so. The bottom line is, as crappy as it might be, I made peace with my blindness long ago. Right now, when I think about the parts
    of me that need healing, I can say with relative certainty that my physical blindness wouldn’t even crack the top ten, maybe not even the top twenty. There
    are many, many parts of me that are in need of repair, and the physical needs are a vast minority. The fact is, in the recent past there has been some
    healing happening for me. It’s inner healing, the healing of my soul, the healing of my heart. Just like physical healing, this will continue to be a long
    and laborious process, with much rehab involved. But I’m glad to say it is happening. Perhaps my physical body will follow suit at some point, perhaps
    it won’t. That’s not important to me right now. I’m making every effort at this point in time to concentrate on the healing that really counts. Once that’s
    done, the rest is just pretty much gravy. There’s nothing wrong with praying for physical healing. Over time, I’ve seen enough evidence to know there is
    a lot to it. I do think, however, that there are other kinds of healing that are just as important, if not more so, and in keying so much on one type of
    healing we may lose touch with the other type, to our huge detriment.

  • Holiday Classics Revisited

    Every year at this time, it has become more or less of a tradition for me to read Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and watch the movie It’s a Wonderful
    Life at least once. They have become an integral part of the season for me. Over the past few years, however, and especially this year, it seems to me
    that the negative protagonists in these stories, Ebeneezer Scrooge and Mr. Potter, could be mainstream individuals in this day and age, and might even
    be praised by some.

    Charles Dickens makes no secret of how Scrooge is viewed in A Christmas Carol. He goes to great length to paint Scrooge as, to say the least, not a nice
    guy at all. In fact, it’s safe to say he’s universally reviled, and for good reason. And yet, I can’t help but wonder how Scrooge would come across in
    this day and age. I’ve seen modern-day individuals who act very similar to him get glowing write-ups in Business Week and Fortune and get glowing profile
    treatment on CNBC and FoxNews. Much of what he did is now considered simply “good business”. I could very easily see him lauded as someone who “single-mindedly
    sticks to the business model”. Scrooge’s attitude toward the poor, exemplified in his encounter with the men who came into his counting house soliciting
    for charity, is sadly indicative of the attitude of many today toward the poor. And, so far as I know, Marley’s ghost is very scarce these days.

    Much of what I said regarding Scrooge could also be said about Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. Less than ten minutes into the film, Henry F. Potter
    is labeled as “the richest and meanest man in the county”, and he subsequently proves the point throughout the film. Yet, if the same movie were made today
    by some, Potter would be the right-thinking man of business, and George Bailey would no doubt be portrayed as a pie-eyed idealist who doesn’t understand
    the real America and is probably a Socialist besides. In the last scene of the movie, where the whole town is gathered joyously in the Bailey’s living
    room, I could see Mr. Potter bursting in and saying “hey, what about that $8,000?”

    I don’t know if overall perception has shifted that much, or if I’m way off base. I suppose both could be true. Whatever the case, I’m going to continue
    with my tradition and enjoy the book and movies in the true Christmas spirit. Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

  • And Now For Something Completely Different

    I haven’t had much to say as of late. It isn’t that I haven’t been tempted; it’s that I’ve been tempted in the wrong ways. There are so many words being put out there by so many, and the best I can say is there isn’t anything I can add at the moment that would be the least bit productive. So, with that in mind, I’m switching gears and sharing with you all one of my first Christmas memories.

    A hospital is really not the best place in the world to spend Christmas. This is about a million times more true if you happen to be four years old. This is the rather dismal state of affairs I found myself in. It had been a tough year for me all around, to say the least. Among other things, I had my left eye enucleated due to a staph infection, and this and other issues kept me at Stanford University Hospital pretty much nonstop for a lot of that year. Things were not as enlightened then as they are now where hospital stays for children were concerned. Visiting hours were strictly enforced, which meant that many nights were very hard for me. Mercifully, I don’t retain many conscious memories of that time. But I do remember Christmas morning, for the right reasons.

    I woke up that morning to the sound of wheels on the linoleum floor. This was a sound I was all too familiar with—but this time, it wasn’t the food tray or a medical cart pushed by someone about to give me yet another one of those infernal shots. Accompanying the wheels were the voices of my mom and dad, my sister, and my cousin who was living with us at the time. They had rolled in a red wagon full of my presents. All these years later, I couldn’t tell you what a single one of those presents were—except the wagon, of course. I suspect I was the same, bratty four-year-old I always was. Hey, give me a break, remember where I was! What I do remember, these 2 score and 7 years on, is the sound of the wheels on the floor, and the voices of my family, which meant I wasn’t alone. I think it’s important to remember that many times the best Christmas memories have nothing to do with the awesome gifts one gets. Sometimes it’s all about the experiences that don’t actually cost anything.