a journey

Originally, the spot on today's calendar was blank. Instead, I met a guy who is dying.

I traveled about an hour to his house. His daughter is one of my church members and she wanted to make sure he had a preacher and that he's not afraid to die. I think mostly the whole family is anxious about the changes that are obviously moving closer to reality.

There was a point when the rest of the family pointedly left the room so the dad and I could talk. I had no idea what I was going to say. I jumped off into the void trying to articulate those fears in such a way that he knew I wasn't going to question his salvation and, at the same time, gracefully name the unnamed fears. When he put out his hand so I could put my hand in his, I knew that God found a way to speak the peace.

Like the third verse of the Servant Song

I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you;
Speak the peace you long to hear.

It may sound odd but those are the moments that I wouldn't trade for.

I am blessed to be a part of this sacred journey.

Friday Five: Nothing but the tooth from RevGalBlogPals

Friday Five: Nothing But the Tooth

We are in the throes of what will (hopefully) be the final set of braces in this family, and so my mind is on the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth.

Please share your thoughts on the following:

1) The Tooth Fairy Delivery fogotten too many times, can we grow out of it yet? And I didn't even get a visit when all four wisdom teeth were pulled at the same time. It was Dec 30, 1999. Quite eventful and gross but no tooth fairy.

2) Flossing A good thing, always and everywhere. Because of the arthritis and the meds that go with it, I'm more likely to have dental problems. Some very intentional flossing reversed a downward trend. So, if I wasn't before, I'm a believer. And I love the Reach thingy!

3) Toothpaste Brands Way too many choices, especially with children standing next to me. We have often used the sample size to try out the flavor before committing to the "real" deal. Personally, at home, I use Mentodent. But for traveling that's too bulky so I use one of those samples, usually, Aquafresh.

4) Orthodontia for Adults For right now, I'd rather live with slightly crooked than pay any amount to change the alignment of my teeth. After the wisdom teeth came out, they did straighten some on their own.

5) Whitening products Due to meds, the whitening wouldn't last long. So why bother? If we're talking about the over-the-counter stuff, I'd rather have new Nikes. I can't afford the professional version but really don't have any desire to save for it either.

Renoir and RA

I have had Rhuematoid Arthritis most of my life. I was diagnosed at 15 months. So I get to take some really expensive medicine along with some moderately priced medicine and some really cheap medicine, too. I am convinced that the "healing" miracle for me is that I am very functional and most of the time no one would guess I have this debilitating disease.

I avoid using a cane on Sunday morning. I just hate it when I need the cane for worship. Right now the pain it pretty well controlled so there are no obvious signs. But I am really struggling against the fatigue. It's the kind of fatigue that is like when your kid is sick and you haven't sleep more than two hours in a row for three days. Except the fatigue is there even when there has been 12 hours of sleep in the last 24. I hate waking up thinking about the next time I can go to sleep. I hadn't looked far enough down the calendar to realize I was "running out" of my IV medicine that costs thousands of dollars. I got my 2 hour dose today. I slept through most of it. The nurse said, "You've never slept through all of the infusion before." Yeah. So in a couple of days, I'll have more energy again and I won't be calculating sleep opportunities at every turn.

With all of that, I am quite thankful for the medical options available to me. And I am so impressed with Renoir who continued to paint (including this picture) after he had to have someone strap the brush to his arm because his hands were too crippled and too full of pain to grip the brush. What a gift to say: "The pain passes, but the beauty remains" and "Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world."

I'm looking for a Renoir calendar to help me remember the beauty.

Maybe I'll dream about it.

registration

Given that I get at least a "B" for the two classes I'm in now, I registered for the 3rd and 2nd to last classes for my PhD today.

For Spring 07, I'll be taking "Grief and Bereavement" -- probably has some use for a preacher -- and Advanced Qualitative Research Methods -- use for preacher: 0, use for PhD: priceless?

Ironically, the last class for Grief and Bereavement is scheduled for May 08, 2007. The 25th anniversary of my father's death. He died when he was 40. That's how old old is.

it was my birthday

I am not quite old plus a week. So last week I turned old. Most of the people in church laugh when I say that. We had a great party, mostly put together by my sister from out of state. She had a little help from a church member with organization and a few folks pitched in at the last minute with serving and clean up. There were about 60 people. It was WAY cool. And the cards from folks who couldn't come where way cool, too. I didn't want the day to pass as just another day. It didn't. And I am so glad my sister is my sister.

She got my mom to put together two poster size collages of pictures from childhood through fairly recent. One guy, looking at young childhood pictures of me, said, "Wow, you look like SportsQueen in this picture and you look so like the Entertainer in this picture. And they don't look that much alike. How about that?" Yep, those are mine. And we look alike and not alike all at the same time. Funny thing is the same could be said about them and their dad.

And the same could have been said about me and my mom and dad. But there were no pictures of my dad for anyone to see. Or anyone on his side of the family. I was struck by how much my mom put together the stuff that was important to her. Most of it was important to me too but there were huge gaps related to the important stuff for me. Only one softball picture, no basketball at all -- I lettered in basketball. Only school choir, not church -- you know, where I got to be Mark in Celebrate Life (and Jesus). No pictures from church camp or youth group.

She had a picture of my 16th birthday cake. It was a driver's license with a Mazda RX7 (I wanted a 280zx, she could only remember that it had both letters and numbers.) Hotwheels on it. Under the Hotwheels was the real car key for the Gremlin I actually got to drive. After basketball practice, I came in the backdoor, like always, and I walked in behind my friends who were looking at the front door. I said "surprise" and scared them while they waited to surprise me. I really loved that!

For my, turning old party, we made huge pots of Texas chili and had so many compliments on it. I couldn't believe how many people said they loved the chili.

I. hate. to. cook.

Compliments on the chili? and a bunch of people to eat it? whoo hoo! happy birthday!