Dealing with Pain

Thanks to Stephen Tremp, Alex Cavanaugh, Diane Wolfe, and Michael Di Gesu for putting on the Get Healthy Bloghop! I hope what you find today - whether in this post, or on another blog - will point you in the direction of wholeness.

Painful Living

There comes a point where you forget what it's like to live without pain.

Since September of last year I've been dealing with acid reflux, and at its worst, even water would flare it up into my throat.

I cut as much out of my diet as I could: milk, cheese, coffee - coffee - chocolate, anything spicy, caffeine, citrus. And until recently nothing seemed to make a difference.

The first week of February I went to a GI specialist to have a scope of my stomach and esophagus. My wife and I were happy to find out that I didn't have the early signs of cancer - if you have prolonged reflux, the cells in your esophagus may change and cancer is possible. However, the only other thing the scope revealed is what I already knew: my stomach and esophagus were messed up because of the acid bubbling up into it.

After the scope, I was put on a round of antibiotics plus a coating agent (the biggest culprit of acid reflux: stomach infection). And although the intensity of the acid decreased, and the pump inhibitor did seem to help too, the acid remained.

Each morning I would wake up to mild discomfort that would flare up when I took my meds. Even an empty stomach didn't like me.

Months passed. Frustration ensued. Some other things I tired along the way: ginger root, garlic, apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, raw milk - yes, I tried everything!

Relief - finally!

Just in the last couple weeks I've found some relief. I took yet another round of antibiotics, for a nasty congestion in my chest, and the acid has seemed to subside. I'm now taking a somewhat large amount of zinc and plan to try colloidal silver if the remaining discomfort persists.

What else I've learned

Throughout the last eight months I've prayed much, mostly to ask what this pain could be about. I realize that we live in a broken world, and that we get sick as a result. However, I also believe that God uses pain to communicate with us when we aren't paying attention as we should. He set this quote from L'Engle in my lap and I was humbled:

"...It is chastening to realize that those who have no physical flaw, who move through life in step with their peers, who are bright and beautiful, seldom become artists. The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain...Pain is not always creative; received wrongly, it can lead to alcoholism and madness and suicide. Nevertheless, without it we do not grow."

And so, with this in mind, that God does work through pain, through illness - even to get us to listen more deeply - I will attempt to allow him to move me to wholeness.

Thou Shalt Love Thy Terrorist

I read a news story yesterday about a man from Mullinville, KS named M.T. Liggett. Mullinville is a small town of 178 people - not much to speak of comes from a town like that.

Yet his offer of love toward the family of Tamerlan Tsarnaev has put the town on the map - and not to mention his name all over the net.

Tsarnaev is the deceased suspect of the recent bombing at the Boston Marathon. The offer to his family has to do with the fact that no cemeteries want to accept his body. And the statement there is a powerful one. They are not accepting what Tsarnaev has done, nor do the people running the cemeteries want his name associated with their own.

Point taken.

However, as of this week, the family of this man is in turmoil because according to their beliefs he has to be buried - cremation is not an option. So his body is rotting on a table while his family suffers.

And, again, maybe that's the point those refusing his body want to make: let him rot for what he did.

Liggett thought otherwise. In the article he made this statement, "They can have my [burial] plot." He then goes on to say that it's not our job to judge a dead man, nor is it okay for those of us who profess Christ to - and I'm paraphrasing - refrain from showing love.

I can't think of a better example of showing love to our enemies than this. Here's a terrorist who has killed, maimed, and scared our countrymen, our country! He plotted and he carried out harm. And what he did will echo through America's history for as long as we have breath. Yet this elderly man is showing love.

People will be angry with him.

People will say he might as well be a terrorist himself.

People will hate him.

Yet if I call myself a Christian, and I do, then my reaction to hate must be love.

When Jesus allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, hate billowed around him as though he was burned at the stake. His reaction? Forgive them. He told his followers to love their enemies, pray for those who persecute them.

He says that to me still.

Tsarnaev is my enemy if I am a U.S. citizen, and M.T. Liggett is my example of Christ's love if I intend to truly follow what my Lord commands me to follow.

May the Lord forgive me when my reaction to hate is hate.

And so the question remains: how do we treat the younger brother? Do we forgive? It is our choice.

Age of Distraction

Doing research for my unit on Fahrenheit 451, I ran across a quote from a writer named Cory Doctorow. I wanted information mainly about the culture of distraction that we all live in now, or are at least tempted to live in, and his discipline is informing my daily writing routine.

  When I'm working on a story or novel, I set a modest daily goal - usually a page or two - and then I meet it every day, doing nothing else while I'm working on it. ...Writing a page every day gets me more than a novel a year...Twenty minutes is a short enough interval that it can be claimed from a sleep or meal-break.

I decided to give it a try, so I've been getting up a little bit earlier - scorning the snooze button - and writing a page a day. It hasn't been a week yet, but I've already produced six pages. This is my schedule:

530: Wake up, stumble to the den; read, pray
600: Write
630: Breakfast
700: Prepare for work
740 - 330: School
335 - 830: Family time (play w/ Thing 1 & Thing 2; lug Thing 3 around; converse with my lovely wife, bedtime)
830 - 1030: Edit my first book, blog, have an actual conversation with my wife, sleep

A few years ago I wrote my first book in the wee hours of the morning, and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that process. The morning is quiet, and my thoughts have time to roam, and my pen has time to slowly create.

It's also a time free from technology.

At school I find myself glued to my computer when I don't have to be. That's the new habit, and if I don't make a time for myself to read, pray, and write - especially a time when all the noise hasn't begun - it won't happen.

The time is there. It's the shaping it for what we really want it for that's difficult.

Doing

The feeling that I have to do something to be someone is crippling. And it's a lie.

Truthfully, we were meant to rule, meant to sit upon the thrones of an unbroken Earth. In the mystery of that all but forgotten dream, men and women act together for the good of all things: soil, plant, ocean, animal, person, cosmos - all things.

Yet that is a dream, no, a nightmare. All of time pushes that memory on us. We know what we were made of and made for, at least if we mine deeply enough into ourselves, we know. But because we refuse to accept the Way back to real accomplishment - the kind that does good out of who we are, not for the sake of becoming good - we only seek to do great things in order to silence the nightmare that whispers we've failed.

And of course we have failed. Read one news article on the BBC, or any other news site about the state of the nations, and prove to me we haven't.

And of course I have failed. Shadow me for one day, or half a day, and note how I give in to bitterness and anger, and prove to me I haven't.

I have spurned the throne I was made to sit upon, and so have you.

The paradox is we attempt to rebuild that throne, though we use materials that melt in the noonday sun - really, by noon I'm too tired to hold up the mask of respectability I've constructed to wear in front of my students and my children; I wilt under the heat from heaven, and by the end of the day I'm sitting in the pool of my pseudo-throne.

Then, if I listen hard enough and submit to Christ, I stop doing for my own sake - I even stop doing anything at all. I'm still. The Voice I know reminds me of what He's making me, of who I already am in Him: His.

I see the throne I have broken; He's rebuilding it.

And on that day, the one when the dead will no longer be dead, He will finish His work so I can resume mine - and I will be fully equipped to do what He intended for me to do in the first place.

C.S. Lewis and Screwtape

Another good quote from Lewis*

Hang around long enough and you'll quickly learn that I won't go long periods of time without reading Lewis. His letters have been a great way to be in a state of perpetual immersion; I read a bit here and there, and I'm never really out to finish the three volume set, but only enjoy.

Lately, I've been reading The Screwtape Letters. It's my second time through, and I've surprised myself at how much of the book I've remembered. However, the more I think about why I remember so much, the more I realize it's because the book is so probing and accurate. It's a work every Christian has to read, and every non-Christian needs to try. Satirical, witty, and convicting, Lewis has me laughing one minute, and praying the next.

The book takes the form of a senior demon, Screwtape, writing letters to his "nephew" Wormwood. Each letter contains advice on how to tempt Wormwood's patient away from the Enemy, that is, God.

X is for Xylem

is for Xylem.

I am fascinated by the structure of a tree - and this may be cheating to talk about trees again, but I can't help it.

Xylem is basically wood, however, it's the part of the tree (or plant) that does the heavy lifting. Through the xylem, and the phloem, water is carried to branches and leaves.

Without this part of the tree, well, there is no tree. The xylem is why it seems trees can defy gravity by pulling water up from the ground. I remember doing science experiments when I was first learning about plants; we used dye and a young translucent plant so we could watch the water travel in what seemed like an impossible way.

J is for Jesus

is for Jesus.

(If you haven't read H is for Home, you may want to start there - this post will function as a part two.)

I suspect there will be many posts today about Jesus, and rightfully so. There are a million things to say about him, but I'll try and stick to one: this Man-God is what we ache for.

Throughout our lives we will try to fill that certain hole with whatever we can cram into it, and many of us even choose valuable things - like family and the idea of home. That idea is basically peace. We want to be at peace through belonging, security, and happiness. Yet even if we attain a wonderful house-full of family - loving family - that house is still only a house.

If we can't gain a home, a true home, why do we want one?

Quality or Quantity?

Last weekend was one for the record books. With the exception of June and July, I can't remember a recent weekend that was better for our family. We didn't do anything special, in fact there were times when we didn't do anything but sit on the floor and laugh at the silly antics of our boys.

Hmm...

The height of our rest together came Sunday night when we played hide-and-seek before bath time. It's the best when our two year old counts with his eyes open and runs to your hiding place with as much joy as if he didn't know where to look; or even better, he is so excited about his new ability to count to ten that he counts along while he's hiding nearby.

We haven't laughed like that as a family for months. It was quality time.

I'm wondering though, do our boys care whether we're laughing and having a grand time, or would they simply prefer the presence and attention of their parents?

Ordinary, Common, or Familiar?

Monday I mentioned that I'm reading Walking on Water, by Madeleine L'Engle. She is challenging me to think about my faith, and the reality of things, in a new way; she's presenting me, again, with childlike faith. It's been great to read this reflection on art and creativity right after reading Wind in the Door, which has in it some of the same ideas - however, in this nonfiction book she makes clear that ideas she presented in her fictional work are to her "probable impossibles."

Like time travel for instance, she presents it as a skill mankind has lost.

This line of thinking about what's real pushed me to think on the concept of ordinary things. We all have an idea of what is holy, what is acceptable to God, and what is common, those things we use for our own good each day. And what is it that makes us sort out the holy from the common? What is it about the lofty ceilings of a church that are so much more acceptable to God than a loft in a barn?

Well, nothing.

Refuse to be Random

I've not totally figured out why so many people are attached to the idea that being random is somehow beneficial. In high school several teachers had posters that read, "Practice random acts of kindness." At the time I thought that was cool, it made me think about doing things for others. Now I see the folly in it.

First of all the idea doesn't quite work. If you set out to do something random, it is no longer random. The thing you thought was random is now something you've set your mind to. And I guess that's the point: our random acts should instead be intentional.

Then there's the trickle of randomness into relationships - especially romance. If a couple is no longer spontaneous, their love must be dead. And the danger to most marriages is that people go into them thinking the romance will remain random, spontaneous, and "alive."

My marriage is alive, yet I don't think I've been spontaneous in loving my wife in years. And the truth is I can't afford to be.

Hide Yourself

There's no doubt in my mind that I'm unable to love; the simple and most important commandment is given to those who can't carry it out. At least not the way we are on our own.

Lately it's been hard to love anyone, my students, my boys, my wife; there was a haze settled all around me that I couldn't see through. The worst of it was that I couldn't even diagnose the problem. Usually you can at least attribute your lacking to something. This time it took me awhile.

Over the weekend my older son woke up from his nap and wanted to sit with me. "Will you rock me while I watch the letter movie?" He's all about learning his letters. So we rocked and watched a whole movie. What surprised me was that he sat through the entire show; he was still, and didn't ask questions. Only when the T.V. was off did he slide down and play.

It took awhile - again - to make any sort of connection, but it came.

Say It

Remember: you are dust

The last few days have been difficult as a dad; our older boy has been testing the boundaries, and yes, they're still there. I really don't enjoy bringing my son back to his senses, especially when for months he's avoided outright disobedience.

However, there's a freshness to it too. After he's cried and said he's sorry, and we've hugged it out and I've said I forgive him, we know something we weren't sure about a few minutes before. That is, I'm the dad and he's the son. And even though he's acted out for two straight days, part of me can't blame him. First of all he's four, and that's just his M.O. as the representative for his age group. Second, he reminds me of, well, me.