Words for Recovery--Tomorrow Can Be Better

I’m a balcony person for a couple months.  The numbness in feet and legs compelled me to do what I had avoided so long:  surgery on the back to replace a disc and to correct the badly aligned vertebrae which caused the issues. That meant leaving my interim ministry for at least two months.  The experience has given me a few insights that are worth sharing (hopefully):

1.  Listen to the stories of others.   As soon as you say “I’m having back surgery,” you open yourself  to the gift, or curse, of hearing many stories of  others.  Most of those stories are inspiring, such as Dave’s, whose medical history could fill volumes, who said “When it is really painful, just say to yourself  tomorrow can be better.  I like his advice better than the person who told me “back surgery did not help my pain, and my toe nails eventually fell off!”
2. No BLT’s—That is an acronym for no “bending, lifting, or turning.”  I am glad I can still eat BLT sandwiches and do so without bending, lifting, or turning.
3. My wife is patient but appropriately slow.  Bless Betsy’s heart, she took two weeks off from her work at the hospital to be my nurse at home.  I will not complain if she does not get what I ask immediately.    I think that nurses learn in school that there should be a minimum time of fifteen minutes between a patient’s request and its delivery.  That helps build my patience when I have to wait a little for something I could do in two minutes IF I could only bend, lift, or turn.
4. There are some side effects from surgical anesthesia. One is short term memory loss.   There are also some side effects from surgical anesthesia.  One is short term memory loss.
5. Every chaplain or pastor should have surgery and experience the pain of surgical recovery before entering the ministry.  I now have much greater compassion and understanding of those who have any kind of surgery—minor or major.   And by the way it is true that there is no “minor” surgery when you’re having it!  It is also true that “minimally invasive surgery” is not minimally invasive.   It just means that they stuff a camera, scalpel , harvested bone fragment, prosthetic disc cage, titanium screws and rods and a few other things inside a smaller than usual incision.

7.   Another side effect of surgical anesthesia is temporary confusion.   Now what was I saying and which point am I on? Is this a sermon?  If so, I have exceeded my three points, but have yet to include my poem.  So here it is: “…to sleep, perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub…”    This is from either Shakespeare, Bishop Will Willimon, or Governor Christie.  Not sure which right now.

8.   Be thankful.  I am thankful to be in a place where there is excellent medical care.  I remember living in third world countries where patients had to bring their own bed linens to the hospital, then go across the street to purchase medicines (if available), and ask for friends or family in the United States or Europe to send needed medicines as they were unavailable  in that country. I am glad for accessible and affordable  health care in our country,  and for the many who dedicate so much of their own time to be healers and menders. Sure they are paid to do this, but at a cost, quite often, of much they must give up personally in order to bring others the care they need.

 

Lessons from Rocks, Water, and People: The Holy Land

It was a trip of a lifetime.   I’m glad I did it.  I’m not sure I’ll go back.  After a week and a half of recovering from the red eye flights to Israel and back, plus nine full days of visiting sites,  I’ll try to assess my gleanings: 

1.       I learned that you can take 454 photos of all the sites in the Holy Land, and when you return home to look over them they all look like pictures of rocks in 454 varied arrangements.  Some of the rocks have people posing in front of them.

2.      I learned to go easy on the Israeli breakfast.  Diving into assorted salads and smoked fish, especially the whole sardines, at 6:30 a.m. on your first day may not be the best idea, especially when traveling on a bus over the hills and valleys of Galilee.

3.      I learned that drinking from Jacob’s well, dipping my hands into the Jordan River, and drinking tap water in Bethlehem might have contributed to something which feels like little giardia now poking around in my gut.

4.      I learned something about trust.   Our bus was an Arab owned bus, driven by Mohammed,  an Arab Muslim, and guided by Samuel, an Arab Christian whose parents are of Egyptian Coptic and Greek Orthodox backgrounds. Not only did Mohammed drive us through some pretty secondary winding roads up and down the Golan Heights, he and our guide took us into Palestinian West Bank territories. Here was an Arab Muslim who cared for the safety of his passengers.  If we ever thought that all Arab Muslims were terrorists or suicide bombers (and I hope none in our group did), Mohammed helped dispel that fear.  He could have done us in with one wrong turn of the steering wheel.

5.       I learned the plight of so many Palestinians who are without a homeland and who feel trapped and hopeless.  We entered West Bank areas where only a Palestinian Arab bus and driver could go, and where the Israeli government prohibits its own citizens from entering due to danger and the fact that it is against their own law.   We saw Palestinian refugee areas and felt the hopelessness of so many in Bethlehem who are weary of the captivity and isolation of living within the walls and barbed wire fences which surround their city. 

6.      While I loved the pilgrimage aspect of our trip, including the singing of hymns and reading of Scripture at the many holy sites, I realized that what makes a place, person, or thing “holy” is not the location, or the proximity to where Jesus or the disciples walked, but how God chooses to utilize people and places for God’s unique purposes wherever they are.  So while I enjoyed, appreciated, and felt inspired by these Holy sites, I kept finding the “holy” in the faces of the children, both Israeli and Arab, Muslim,  Christian, and Jew, who await a better and more hopeful future for this problematic area of the world.

7.      I learned that visiting the Holy Land does not in itself make me more holy.   I become more “holy”  (i.e. utilized by God) when I realize that the land on which I stand, wherever that is, can be holy ground where I open myself to God’s good purposes. 

I suppose I learned that I am more an anthropologist that archaeologist.   I looked for hope in the faces and personalities of the people I met, trying to see the “holy” possibilities  in each of them, then looking deeper into my own soul for the “holy” in me.

 

Meghan Bunn--A Starbust of Hope

   

“Starburst—Something that looks like rays of light streaming out from the center.”—Miriam Webster definition.

When I first met Meghan Bunn, then age ten, she was awaiting surgery to remove what would later be diagnosed as medulloblastoma.   That brain tumor, plus other spots on her spine, would qualify her for numerous rounds of some pretty potent chemotherapy over the coming year.

On that pre-surgical visit I asked her what her favorite candy was.   In no time, I was in the gift shop hunting for and finding Starburst candies.  I rushed back to her room saying, “If it’s o.k. with your parents, you can have one now, but save the rest for when you are able to eat after the surgery.”

An experienced chaplain had once told me that one way to communicate hope to a child facing surgery is to say, with confidence, “the candy will be here waiting for you.”

What I never expected was how this child would become a “starburst” of hope for a church, a community, and for other children and families experiencing illnesses like hers.

It has been about a year and a half since that surgery.  I have had the joy of seeing Meghan return to Church, sometimes with casts from broken bones weakened from the chemo, a scarf for her bald head, and a smile broad as a shooting star!

She has been featured on numerous television and radio programs, in newspapers, at community events, and honored by her favorite team, the N.C. State Wolfpack

She has so impacted her friends that one friend asked that in lieu of gifts for her birthday party, that donations be made to Meghan’s medical fund.

Church members prayerfully followed every one of her crises and recoveries, crying with her pain, then celebrating her recovery.

Her family welcomed the birth of another sister during the course of her chemo (Meghan now is older sister to three beautiful girls).  Those little sisters certainly have a star to look up to.

And most people in Granville County now know Meghan’s name and when they speak it, they speak with more hope and with a lot of pride.

I don’t see Meghan and her family since I no longer am their interim pastor.  But it delights me to see her smiling face on Facebook, and to read about her from time to time in the media. I always feel more hopeful when I see her photo.

I think I now know why Meghan’s favorite candy is Starburst!   That’s pretty much who she is, “something that looks like rays of light streaming out from the center”!

 

 

Questioning an Attack on Syria

As the last of four children I had to learn early in life that pacifism was not always a bad thing.  As the skinniest kid in my class, I also learned that it might be wiser and safer to outsmart my opponents, make friends with bullies, and sometimes walk the other way when I saw danger. I am aware, also, that sometimes bullies do need confrontation and sometimes I might have to defend myself physically. 

At Sunday School, I learned about some sayings of Jesus.  I knew that turning the other cheek was a virtue, that loving my enemies was not an option, and that going the extra mile was something I ought to be willing to do when necessary.

My understanding of the ways of Jesus confound me today.

Atrocities of war are all around us.  Today I see images of children suffering and dying in Syria from chemical warfare.  As gruesome and revolting as these are, I still have to wonder if bombing  Syria would only add to the misery. I wonder who to trust in deciding who had these weapons.  I  also wonder where the concern is for children who are starving, who are homeless here and around the world, or who are victims of domestic violence and abuse in many places.   Where is the outrage about how violence affects children in the streets of Kiev, or the homeless boys and girls in Ecuador, or the girls and boys who are trafficked for illicit sex to our own country?

Yes, I am outraged by the exploitation of innocent victims, many of them children, in Syria, and Afghanistan, and Iraq, and wherever there is violence.   But I cannot for the life of me see how bombing more sites and the “collateral” damage, i.e. death of innocent children (which we may not hear reported in our news media for some time) will help bring about the peace and safety we seek for all our children.

The bombing and airstrikes may occur soon.  And perhaps there will be some positive result that I cannot imagine.  I will happily eat my words and change my opinion.   I know the arguments:  “Someone had to stand up to Hitler and force his hand….someone had to put Idi Amin out of power…someone had to stand up to slavery in the U.S. and stop it…” And those arguments are just.  And I am glad for the final results of all those noble efforts to confront evil, tragic as the loss of innocent life may have been in most of those cases.

John F. Kennedy’s undelivered speech in Dallas, Texas, contained these words: “We are the watchmen on the walls of freedom.  We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility; that we may achieve in our time and for all time, the ancient vision of peace on earth, good will to men.   That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength.”

It is becoming increasingly difficult for us to be the watchmen on the walls of freedom in every corner of the world.   We should expose every crack in that wall and every damage to it.  The question is how do we restore every wall?  And how do we enable others to do that when we cannot?   Can we be the watchmen, but not always the repairmen?

Is the attack on Syria really a punishment of another dictator, or an introduction of more troubles for innocent citizens?  Is this the way toward peace, or an ill fated trip to save the reputation of the United States?       

 

 

           

 

Out of the Balcony; Back in the Pulpit (for a while)

August 26, 2013

At Church yesterday several people asked me if I would give up my “Balcony” blog now that I am an interim pastor again.   I’ve thought about it, but decided I would continue blogging, knowing that I will rejoin the balcony gang again in a few months.

Besides, there are a few things I am resolved to speak about which I have learned in the balcony of Church:

1.       There are hungry people around us.  I have just written my councilman, mayor, and chief of police noting that I disagree with the city ordinance in Raleigh which requires a permit to feed the hungry.   That’s right!   My councilman wrote back that he has asked the city manager for a report on this ordinance .  Also, WRAL is giving coverage to an attempt by Raleigh Police to prevent  LOVE WINS MINISTRIES from distributing biscuits to hungry people in Moore Square last Saturday.   As a balcony person at FBC Raleigh, I had the opportunity some time ago to distribute  biscuits at the same place, but didn’t realize I could be arrested for it!  Sometimes you need to get out of the balcony and talk to your mayor and councilman, maybe just invite them to come with you to distribute biscuits to the hungry.

2.      I am resolved to let everyone know, on this first day and each day of the school year, that we need to support our public schools, teachers, and students.  North Carolina ranks 48^th in per student spending and 48^th in average teacher pay.   The Governor has signed legislation to cut the budget for education resulting in fewer teachers.  Our children and their education are important enough for us to do something.  I can’t stay in the balcony on this one. Ignorance is a moral issue.   And there appears to be plenty of that in our state legislature and governor’s mansion right now.  We don’t need more ignorance in our schools.

3.      Finally, I guess I feel I need to say something about what the Church is and what it needs to be doing.   Perhaps we need to open the doors wider and raise our voices louder in defiance of a culture which tells us that Church and Christians, specifically, are the problem.   We can be the problem in so much as we don’t speak to the problems of injustice, basic rights, and unless we follow the example of Jesus who fed the poor, reached out to include the social outcasts, and confronted the establishment when they were hurting people rather than helping people.

Well, I’ve gone to preaching.   Good-bye balcony for a while.  Hello pulpit.

           

 

 

 

Back Porch Winners and Losers

I am still sore about losing the Back Porch of the Year Award three years ago.  The local newspaper asked for photos of our back porches.  Their leisure section editors would select the best back porch and feature it in the newspaper.

I had sent in my photo of my porch highlighting an old oak rocking chair I had refinished sitting next to a milk can from my in-laws’ dairy farm.  All of it was against a Carolina blue porch wall that coordinated with a floral print rocker cushion that Aunt Cille had made decades ago.  For good measure I had placed a glass of iced tea on the table next to my rocker.   Who could resist such a beautiful back porch setting?

Evidently the editors, whom I deducted by the photo of the winning entry, were looking for something of a New York City Fifth Avenue terrace rather than a Raleigh back porch.   They rejected my down home porch with its screen door that I had carefully designed to be like that of my youth, i.e. banging as the rusted spring pulled it closed after a squeaky opening. Perhaps they didn’t like my naturally aged wooden floor or the table scavenged from an old church Sunday School room  and painted blue by my daughter when she was fourteen and enduring a summer of discontent at having to move to a new city and state .

 Or perhaps they didn’t like the natural clay pots of shamrock and Jerusalem cactus, or the fact that I had painted the milk can the color of a ripe August plum, or that I displayed the sea shells my grandkids and I found at Oak Island the summer before.

As I said, I’m still sore about losing the contest.  I really think the winner was a never-at-home traveling executive who took a photo of his air conditioned, enclosed porch (from what I could tell of the photo in the paper.)  With its vases and crystal it looked like a living room to me! I suppose I should be more gracious about losing.  I should give the editors/judges some slack.   How could someone born in New York City as recently as a couple decades ago really appreciate a back porch?   Can they hear the crickets chirping at night on that winning porch?   Can they catch a glimpse of the curious raccoon come up to investigate on their high rise terrace?  Can they allow their grandkids to drip homemade ice cream all over the Italian marble floor?  Can they let a screen door bang closed and evoke the feeling of 1955 in North Carolina?  They can’t help it, I suppose.  They just aren’t old enough to know better.

I’ve decided not to feel bad about losing the contest.  My back porch is a winner and no Better Living -House and Garden- Southern Living- News and Observer editors from NYC can convince me otherwise. 

And if they ever visit my porch and don’t like it… well… “ just don’t let the screen door hit y’all on the way out, please.”

Retire the Green Weenie

It’s time to retire the Green Weenie.  I’m not talking about the New York mayoral campaign, but about the use of old and dangerous church vans and buses.

I was in the balcony yesterday when the minister reminded the congregation to pray for the associate pastor for youth and the senior class youth who were on a trip. 

This morning I heard of a Church van accident in Indiana which claimed the lives of several people.  Such news seems to happen more frequently these days, or perhaps my years in church work have taught me to be more attentive when such accidents occur.

As a youth minister decades ago, I drove a church bus called the Green Weenie.   It was old, badly maintained, yet we would pack on thirty teens for a trip of two hundred miles to the youth camp at the beach.  Traffic was not as bad then, still the old bus did not need lots of traffic or speed to pose a danger.  With a youth minister (me) who had hurriedly studied for a chauffeur’s license, we would take off with a prayer and few worries about the dangers involved in driving a bus badly maintained and with an inexperienced driver.

As pastor over many years since driving the Green Weenie, I have encouraged churches to get rid of old vans and buses, even new ones, which usually sit in a church parking lot for months at a time.  Some are used for local trips, but the long trips on interstate highways once or twice a year test the limits of a church committee’s ability to adequately maintain a safe vehicle.

Many churches think it is a bargain when Aunt Lucille gives the Church money designated for a van, or when another Church hands over their Green Weenie to a smaller church.   Fact is, these are not bargains.   A reliable rental agency can provide the buses or vans with insurance and safety features which could save lives. In most cases rentals save money in the long run.

Yes, I’ll pray for the church youth who go on trips on the church vans emblazoned with the name of the Church and often with a message like “Go with God.” Too often, that’s exactly what can happen.  Just like our bodies that we can tattoo with “Jesus loves me,” we must realize we are not immune to illness or accidents because of our faith.  What we can do is sell the Green Weenie and be responsible in how we send our kids to summer camps and retreats.  It’s just the right thing to do.