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 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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| Why do people get offended? Particularly, why do some people get offended so easily? I only have a few minutes, so I'll just play around with the idea. If something smells offensive, I either avoid it or hold my nose. If the offensive odor can be eliminated or disguised, I might complain to someone who can do something. The On-Line dictionary defines offended this way: To cause displeasure, anger, resentment, or wounded feelings in. I can't think of a lot that offends me. Okay, I wouldn't like to be made fun of. I probably would be offended if, in a group, I were totally ignored. Depending on the group. I'm offended when someone talks to me like I'm stupid. I'm not offended by people's religion, lack or religion, or politics-- unless they suggest by word or action that anybody with any sense should believe as they do. Maybe that's it, the reason my friend Arlene is offended by Qi Gong and Buddhism. Maybe she feels that the rest of us think she should be open to those things too, not afraid of them the way some fundamentalists are afraid of anything that smacks of New Age as a work of the devil. That would make sense, because I do think she, as a professional, should be open to new ideas. So her response, to be offended is defensive! Aha! I've always thought that there was a connection between being offended and being defensive, and not just the obvious connection between the words. I'm talking about the way people act out their feelings. What do you thinkk? What offends you? What makes you feel defensive? They're not always the same, but sometimes, yes sometimes they are. |
| I called a new patient yesterday to make an appointment to come see him for the first time. His son answered the phone and, when I'd identified myself as a chaplain, he said they weren't religious. I assured him that was all right, that I would be coming to offer support. I've learned to avoid saying "spiritual support" when someone sounds that opposed. It tends to mean the same thing to most people, whether they're for it or ag'in it. I also try not to say, "That's not important," even though I mean it isn't important to me that he be religious for me to come visit. I don't want to go around saying religion isn't important, because that would be very offensive to many people. Anyway, after that short discussion he warned me that I needed to know the rules, that there were certain words they didn't use in their house. Well dumb me-- I didn't ask what they were! I thought he meant religious words, considering the rest of the conversation. I was pretty sure he didn't mean swear words, because it didn't seem likely that he'd think he'd have to warn me about those. When I got there today it became apparent quickly, fortunately for me, that the patient is hoping to get better and that his son is fostering that hope by not using the words death, dying or the like. I suspect the patient is not entirely fooled by this. When he told me how uncomfortable he'd been, how difficult it was to breathe (although he wanted to talk regardless,) I asked him if was good to be out of the hospital and at home. He was positive about that, but said he wasn't getting better. His son disagreed, said he was much better than last week, and at the same time made a gesture, hidden from his father, of a downward spiral. I had noticed an restored old VW bug in the carport, and asked him if he did it himself. He began talking about it, and several others he and his son had done, and about other hobbies and jobs he'd had, which were many and varied. Several probably contributed to the asbestiosis that he's dying from. The house they live in is small but immaculate, and very tastefully decorated with an up-to-date color scheme. The pots by the front window held, among other things, avocado and nectarine plants that they'd started from seed. The whole feel of the place, and the father-son relationship, was one of tender, loving care. Later today I went to the office to preview a video about the need for caregivers to take care of themselves and some of the ways they can do it. The chaplains and social workers get together every Wednesday at noon to check out a video and discuss it. We are a diverse group: two Adventists who have been there longest; me, an Episcopalian; a Methodist; and, the newest staff member, a Buddhist. The film today was a good one and one we will purchase. Arlene, the social worker has been here longest, said she really liked it until the topics of Yoga and Qi Gong came up. She was sure many people would be offended by that, but thought there were several other valuable points concerning self care that came afterwards. She was afraid people would quit listening and miss them. I could see that she was offended by the Qi Gong, as she is by many things the Buddhist says, and probably things I say too, now that I think about it. It was the first time she has sounded defensive about her literal beliefs, and probably is fearful of other understandings of the Bible and other faiths. The woman who demonstrated the Qi Gong talked about people getting in touch with their life force as she did these lovely, slow movements. She went on to talk about the importance of people becoming mindful of what they are doing rather than multi-tasking. I asked Arlene if she couldn't visualize the Qi Gong as a kind of prayer, because, to a Christian, what else could it mean to get in touch with the life force? She seemed surprised by that, but thoughtful, and evidently accepted the possibility. She suggested we start a group for caregivers; but if we showed that film, she said I'd have to explain that part to make it palatable. I think those two men I saw earler were in touch with the life force, whether they know it or not. |
| Bill surprised me this morning with a new oven. He bought it at an auction for $400, and it's brand new. As I read the booklet, I discovered it has a feature I'd never heard of: the Sabbath feature. It is for use on Sabbath and Holy Days when orthodox Jews can can't do any work. Pushing the buttons to turn the oven on constitutes work. With this feature, the oven will come on when it's supposed to automatically. Now I wonder how a person gets around the work thing without at least opening the oven door and placing the meat, in a pan, inside. Surely you aren't supposed to put the meat in a day ahead too? Oh well, it looks like I don't need to worry about it. The oven measures 27", as does the one we have that doesn't have a working timer any more. The problem is, the hole behind it is only 24". This new oven is considered a 30" model, for a 27" hole. No, I don't know why they list it as 30" when the measuring tape says 27". They must count the trim.) Now, how to get rid of it and get our money out of it? Other than that disappointment, it's been a beautiful day. We went to the airport, where Bill installed a new ELT battery in the plane, then drove around to see how the new stretch of Highway 12 is coming, and bought some fresh asparagus. yum. Then the usual things, balance the checkbooks and stuff. I cleaned out a cupboard and made more room for some casserole dishes. That was good. Filled the hummingbird feeders. Intended to color my hair this morning, but then we had the oven drama to contend with, so it was delayed. Maybe tonight? Nah, not likely. We have a funny movie to watch, Hot Fuzz (not for those who are easily offended,) and I'm reading a good book, Wicked. Enough for now. Happy Sabbath to you all. Hope you don't need to cook and can't.  Oh, the answer to the riddle I saw at the lady bartender's house? (check the previous blog if you missed it.) If you were at a baseball game, the score would be five to four, the bottom of the fifth, one out and nobody on.  |
| No wonder no one commented on Seamus in his shawl! I set last Friday's blog to Private access. I'll post it again at the bottom here so you can see. The crusty old bartender lady I met a couple of weeks ago as a new patient has grown on me. She has a tender heart in there after all, and a lot of determination. She is legally blind, and last week she had me helping her with recipes she'd written large with magic marker. She wanted to get them separated out to give different people. As I identified each recipe for her, she'd rave about it, swearing that I'd never tasted anything as good as her oxtail soup, or her rhubarb cake, or her zucchini bread. This week she wanted the social worker to help her get a will made, and he passed on to me her request for a priest to hear her confession. I was about to make the call when I heard she'd fallen and would be taken to a nursing home where she would probably die soon. I couldn't find a priest anywhere, so I took my prayerbook out and read through the confession with her while I waited for the ambulance. She slept through it all. Since she has no family, I'm really sorry she didn't get the will made. She has a very old house, which looks dilapidated from the outside but is quite charming inside and neat as the proverbial pin. Along with her recipes was a stack of "funnies"-- visual jokes she'd tack up behind the bar that were always a little raunchy but usually funny. One was titled, "You're at a baseball game. What's happening?" Beneath the words were pictures of a clock with the big hand on the eleven and the short hand on the four; a whiskey bottle upturned with the last drop coming out into a glass; a woman with one strap of her dress off the shoulder, revealing a breast; and a toilet. Can you figure out the message?  Here's Seamus in drag, wearing his granny shawl to keep him warm. He seemed to like it, but finally let Bill take it off him today. Bill thought he was hot underneath, but I know he'll be shivering again tonight if I don't put it back on.   I misquoted the pastor's comment to my blog about truth. Here's what he really said, truly: "I will limit my comment to the observation that facts and truth are two different things, and that facts are often very unreliable indicators of truth." |
| Just got home from the weekly grief group and a quick trip to the grocery, and there are only nine minutes till the witching hour EDT. So that's not much time for a quick entry, and then I'll go put the stuff away. I love to shop in a place called the Grocery Outlet. It's a chain of stores, but I don't know how extensive, so maybe it's unfamiliar to you. They specialize in typical outlet merchandise: promos, promos nobody wanted, packages that have since been revamped and so have outdated coupons, etc. It's a great place to find name brand cereals with their labels in Sanskrit or who knows what, and a variety of strange things. I love it. I knew I'd find a good buy on canned diced tomatoes, and on milk and English cheese, and also salad makings and limes. Limes are 69cents in the regular stores, and 6/$1 at the Grocery Outlet. They're small, but not that small! One of the things I've found there is a spray KY lubricant, probably sold in drugstores everywhere. The strange thing about it is its placement. Since there isn't a whole shelf of like items, they always place it near the perfume. Next to it on the shelf were bottles of kiwi cherry flavored scented depilatory for personal hair removal. That's pretty funny in itself, since I've seen hairy kiwis but never...oops, won't go there! But think how awful it will be when someone who can't, or doesn't, read the labels gets them mixed up! |
| Okay, so I didn't get up till after 8, so we didn't get an early start to fly to Ritzville for breakfast. But, by the time we fiddled around getting ready, adding some air to the tires and stopping for gas, we did get there in time for an early lunch. It gave my daughter and her family time to drive down there and meet us, and that was great. They hadn't seen Bill with his Admiral's whiskers, and when they walked into the restaurant they were all laughing. Wish I'd had my camera ready, because they weren't expecting it and they really appeared surprised. The sky looked very clear, no clouds anyway, but it was actually pretty dusty and gusty, not good enough visibility to take pictures. That's okay. It all looks the same on that route, except for the river, and I've taken lots of pictures on previous trips that direction. On the way from the airport to home we stopped for a new filter for the fish pond pump, and Bill worked on that this afternoon. The fish all survived the winter with no new progeny this year. It's been too cold for them to surface for food, but I think they'll be happier now with clean water again, not that it seems to bother them before. While Bill worked on the pump, I planted lettuce and onions, two things I've never tried before. We'll see how they go. There are some zucchini sprouts coming up already in the freshly tilled soil, the little upstarts! I always hate to pull them out, but this year I'm going to be tough. Yeah, right. |
Here's Seamus in drag, wearing his granny shawl to keep him warm. He seemed to like it, but finally let Bill take it off him today. Bill thought he was hot underneath, but I know he'll be shivering again tonight if I don't put it back on. I misquoted the pastor's comment to my blog about truth. Here's what he really said, truly: "I will limit my comment to the observation that facts and truth are two different things, and that facts are often very unreliable indicators of truth." |
| Ah, thanks to Bugzy, I now know how to find the precious words (snicker) I've sent to others, hiding in a sent file inside a folder. It's harder to get into than a zip lock bag! So, for what they're worth, this was a comment I made in reply to a comment on the 23rd. Confused? I agree that truth is better than lies. Truth, motherhood and apple pie. And I remember being aghast when I first figured out that America disseminated its own propaganda to our own nation regarding WWII. I guess I thought propaganda had only been used by the enemy. So is there a difference between propaganda and putting 'a spin' on the news? Is it possible to have completely objective news? When 'the spin' bolsters our egos in unhealthy ways to do violence on others, it's bad. When it promotes and encourages our best efforts, it's good. Is that how it goes? In the first story, the person felt victimized by the lies. Undoubtedly. It has undermined her ability to trust. In the second, the man at first felt betrayed when he learned the stories were archetypal, then grew into a greater understanding of their deeper meaning. In the third, the family accepted the new story as an explanation of truth that had not been revealed to them before. Does it help if we ascribe motive to the 'spin' doctors? That is a way to look at the ethics of the deeds. The first man told his stories to look good. The second, the tellers and writers of the the stories, did so to tell a story that was larger than life. The third, to give a family peace. The third, the evangelizing church members, believed the story they told. The second, the writers of the Old Testament, coming from so many sources and over such a time span, probably did too. Maybe even the father of the first story grew to believe he was telling the truth, but that doesn't seem to be a virtue. A pastor friend made the response to me, not listed here, that all that is truth is not necessarily fact, and vice versa. Sounds like another blog topic in itself. I'll try to post a picture of Seamus in his fuschia shawl. He must like the way it feels or he'd probably have it off by now. I did get him to stay inside for part of the night last night, only by dragging him in and hiding the cat though. About two o'clock he was ready to go back out, and he stayed there on his heated pad. |
| Is it still possible to find your sent mail? Or only if you've stored it intentionally in a sent mail folder? Beans. I thought I'd continue last night's topic with the replies I made to some comments, and now I don't have them-- at least not where I can find them. Poor Seamus got a haircut yesterday, and the groomer said it will be his last. It was too hard on him to stand up that long. I suspected that might be the case a couple of haircuts ago, but she never said anything then. When I made his appointment, about the time of his embarrassing accident, the weather was warmer. Now it's cold again, and so was he. He won't come inside much any more. I think the cat intimidates him. When he does come in, if he sees her he turns around and heads back out. He has his heated pad on the back porch, and I covered him up with a raincoat liner, but of course it fell off during the night. So this morning I wrapped a fuschia shawl around him and pinned it on. He was warmer, and didn't seem to mind at all. Maybe he even thought he looked classy! |
| How do we become who we are? I remember a small group question that asked what our families told us about their hopes for us before we were born. A co-worker, who is now a hospital chaplain, said that his mother dreamed that he would be a man who would lead people to God. The first stage of faith development, according to several theories, is learning who we are. Are we safe? Are we loved? Are we a Smith, or a Jackson, or a Robison? What does it mean to be a member of that family? Does our family have hopes and dreams for us? Three stories have run through my mind today. One is that of a blogger we all know and love who told about the stories she grew up with about a dad who was her hero, until she found out they were lies. The second story is about a man who was in a group I mentored. He had previously belonged to a fundamental sect and believed the Bible to be factually true and the inerrant word of God. As we studied Hebrew Scripture, the Old Testament, he was appalled to read that seminaries teach that Adam and Eve were not two particular, real people, and that Moses didn't really write the first five books of the OT. He said that he felt like an orphan, that all the old Bible characters had been like family to him and he'd just found out he was adopted. It was truly a painful experience for him, but one that was necessary in order to grow. The third story is about a baby who was born in Seattle a few years ago. She had a congenital condition of the brain that meant she would not survive, would not ever progress beyond infancy; in fact she was had not been expected to even be born alive, but she lived for six months. The family had previously been a part of a fundamentalist church, but they had moved and had not made any connection locally. The other children in the family made friends, and the parents of those friends heard about the situation. They offered help, compassion, emotional and spiritual support, and the family joined their church. When the baby died, the family had found a sense of meaning in this tragedy: the baby's mission, from God, was to convert this family to this religion. Here's the question: are any of these people worse off for believing something that was not, or may not be, true? |
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