InnerDorothy

Hmmmmm......

2012-01-10T15:58:00.002-06:00

We watched "Contagion" yesterday (good movie - creepy, but good) and one line stood out for me. One character had a sort of "expose the truth" blog about the outbreak. One of the CDC directors said in an off-the-cuff sort of way..... "Blogs are just graffiti with commas."

Are they? Is the day of the blog over?

I sometimes wonder. Every time I think I've made up my mind, I read an amazing piece of writing on someone else's blog that either makes me laugh when I need to laugh, makes me feel less alone in my vocation, my struggles with chronic illness and just generally connected to other people in the world.

Then I remember the amazing people I've met in person, at conferences or just visits (hello Texas!)......people I would never have known without InnerDorothy leading the way. I have been tremendously blessed in this place. At times I don't think there is much more to say about myself. It's all here, pretty much.

I try to keep this place friendly for everyone. I stay away from political opinions as much as possible. It's pretty tough to stay away from theology, as that is the life and vocation I live every day. It's the water I swim in.

I love, love, love the posts that I read from other migraine/chronic pain sufferers. They inspire me and keep me uplifted when I need it the most. When I post about my own head pain, I try really hard to stay away from that fine line that crosses into whining and the always enjoyable pity-party. But it's VERY difficult to talk about without coming across as whiny, especially to those who haven't experienced chronic severe pain. I wish I was as skilled at walking that fine line as some of my favourite headache bloggers. Still, I do the best I can to be honest without being self-indulgent.

This blog started as a journal. It was an addition to the hand-written journals I have kept since high-school. I still have hand-written journals. They serve me well, but are for my eyes only. I recall the old adage:

"If I should die before I wake, throw my journals in the lake"

I disagree with the statement from the film. Blogs - good ones - are so very much more than "graffiti with commas." they can connect people who in any other way would have no knowledge of just how much they share in common, or just how much they can BE for one another.

I thank God every day for my friends, the ones I know and see often who live around the block. I also give thanks for wonderful friends I have never met in person, but would turn to in a heartbeat in a time of need, and would go to help if they needed me. my friend the Rev. Richard Bott spoke via Skype to our Presbytery in September and pointed out (thanks again Richard!) that he considered me one of his best friends, and yet we have never met face to face. I think that says it all.

That's not graffiti.

It's grace.

Happy 2012

2012-01-07T22:12:00.005-06:00

This wish comes a bit late, but is heartfelt.

It's been a rough start to the new year. All uphill from here, no question. On Boxing Day I started feeling a bit "funny" and chalked it up to exhaustion from the season. The next day, The Plague of 2012 hit in full force. (For the record: that is the LAST time I am shaking hands at the door on Christmas Eve.)

Yep. Happy New Year everyone.

Here's to the rest of 2012 - may it be grand!

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-22T15:30:00.002-06:00

I can't quite believe we are just a few days away from Christmas Day. It's been a busy time, but no more than usual. A few blips such as mysterious hives are not enough to dampen the season.

I've watched "It's a Wonderful Life" twice, decorated our little tree, and I've enjoyed our annual family dinner out (always nice when P can join us and no one has to clean up after the meal), the Cantata was fun and added so much to the whole Christmas season. So, it's all good.

The next few days are going to be very full, but as always, filled with blessings. If I don't get back here before then - a joyous Christmas to all!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

The Musical Dispensing of Myth

2011-12-17T13:49:00.005-06:00

For pretty much my whole life, I have believed that I could not sing. A lot of factors played into that, not the least of which was my own certainty that I could not sing my way out of a paper bag. Add to that a family myth that says NONE of us can sing (so not true, we ALL can, it's just a matter of having something to sing about and wanting to sing) and well, I've spent most of my life enjoying other people's voices and shushing my own at every possible opportunity.

Well, guess what?

I can sing.

I can sing a really good alto line.

After three years in the choir, I've nailed the Cantata for tomorrow's worship. "A Tapestry of Light" is a lovely Cantata. It is not an easy one. Our wonderful director admitted the other night after practice that she had not anticpated the amount of work it would take to get this one done - but she also added high praise for all of us. We've got it. There were definitely a few nights when that was really in question. The weeks were ticking away and we were quickly discovering that "Hey, this music is NOT easy!!!!" Ack!!!

Thursday night I was feeling like a bag of wet sand after a two day fight with my head, overwhelming nausea, and exhaustion....but there was just no way I was going to miss our final rehearsal.

We made it through, start to finish, with excellent solo work and narration, plus a wonderful team effort.

Wow. This is a beautiful piece of music.

Someone asked me recently if choir added to my work/stress at this time of the year. My answer: "Absolutely not. Choir is not 'work' in any way - choir is on my own time, not work time - and it has become one of the best parts of the Christmas season."

In my first couple of Cantatas, I kept it pretty quiet. I knew the part but didn't have the courage to sing out.

Tomorrow morning at Little Church on the Corner, our amazing Director will lead us through a powerful worship of praise.

And I'll be in there with the altos, singing my heart out.

Because I can. Because it is good to sing praise to God. Because God is good.

Praise be.

"Nollaig shona" (Merry Christmas in Irish Gaelic, apparently) :)

May your heart sing this Christmas!

Why yes, it's Advent!

2011-12-08T22:26:00.004-06:00

It's been a busy time, to say the least. It has been over six weeks since my Freezer Smackdown That Ended Badly. I still have days of total exhaustion and X-treme nausea. It's as if my body says, "Ok, enough already, I'm going to remind you that you're healing."

The good news is that I am healing. I still have a constant ringing in my left ear, but apparently that's normal and will eventually go away. I look forward to that day! In the meantime, I fall asleep to "white noise" (as in, in between FM stations) to block out the high noise piercing through my brain when the house is quiet.

Headache-wise: most days I'm running somewhere between 4-6, which is tolerable and doesn't interfere much with work and necessary errands. Most evenings, my pain level ramps up to 7-8 which requires, at the very least, a non-working (whenever possible) relaxing evening and some ice. OTC pain remedies don't work anyway, so I don't bother with them, and have nothing else to take in their place. So, ice it is. My extended health care has been used up in the massage therapy department, so once I hit January, I can go back for more massages. They really do make a difference. For now, I'm just toughing it out.

I have an appointment for another nerve block in Toronto for late January. Good news!!!! OHIP now covers the medication used for the nerve block. Yay!!!!!!!!

P was a dream come true this week when he decorated the house for Christmas. I honestly did not know when that was going to happen prior to Dec 25th. It just wasn't on the calendar for me. He is, as always, amazing. So many people dream of having a life as good as mine - I know without question how deeply blessed I am.

It is Advent, so life is insanely busy. One day perhaps I will actually "experience" Advent, without that bizarre feeling of wanting so badly to be in the moment, but in reality being about two weeks ahead of schedule. It's as if my brain has this capacity to be present enough to make things work NOW, and still run through the TO DO list that plays like an endless tape in my mind.

I'm not sure if that makes sense, but it's like conducting worship and enjoying it entirely, and yet a part of my consciousness is already processing the following week and the week after that. It's an odd "bracketing" thing that is refined over years of ministry. My brain's "filing system" has been a bit messed up over the past six weeks or so, but I think I'm slowly getting back on track.

The choir Cantata is going to be great. The practices have been fun and I've learned a lot. I'm no vocal expert, but at the very least, I understand music more than I ever thought I would.

So that's pretty much what's happening around here. That, plus I've made it to Level 5 on Angry Birds. I thought you would all want to know that. Because heaven knows, the destruction of those little green pigs with helmets on is important.

I like to think I do my part to keep the world spinning on its appropriate axis.

You're welcome. *snerk*

Humbling

2011-11-18T17:21:00.002-06:00

When I have a difficult time "turning off" my ever-ruminating brain so that I might, you know, sleep and stuff.....I find Tara Brach - both her messages and her voice to be profoundly relaxing and meaningful. She has a great sense of humour but also the deep wisdom of the ages. She is a practicing Buddhist, but I find almost everything she says to be perfectly applicable to Christian life and spiritual practice.

I've been listening to her a lot lately.

Since my recent head injury, I have found that I need to respect and listen to my body more than ever. Tara speaks often about the wisdom of the body and our own need to show the same lovingkindness to ourselves that we so willingly offer to others.

My body hasn't given me much choice in terms of listening over the past two weeks. To be clear, all three docs that I saw over the course of my injury said the same thing: My recovery could happen in a week, or in six months. No one has the magic ball to see and know how my brain will heal itself. In the meantime, the more I can rest my brain, the better. (reminder: that means no tv, no books, no computer, nothing - it's the only way the brain can heal itself. Yes, I'm turning off the computer after this.)

It's been a very humbling experience to be sure, but I have certainly learned more than I ever thought I would know about listening to my body. What I've found over the past two weeks since returning to work is that when I'm done, I'm seriously done. In other words, when those waves of nausea and profound "Every Cell In My Body Is Screaming For Rest" moments occur, I could not ignore them even if I wanted to.

I still have "Foggy Head". Most things take twice the time to do, especially if they involve thinking or problem-solving.

After six years of "toughing it out" with excrutiating head pain, it is an entirely different dynamic when the body just says "No Way!" It used to be that I could make one more visit, or respond to a few more emails, or read a few more chapters of material relating to Sunday's sermon.........and THEN rest up with my favourite ice pak.

It's hard to believe that I actually found that limiting!

Now, it's not a matter of choice. When the brick wall hits, the only thing I can do is reach for some peppermint tea for the nausea and STOP.

Thankfully, this will pass.

Going back to Migraine-Life will feel like a walk in the park by comparison. Who would have every thought?????

My perfectionist tendancies have taken a serious hit over the past few weeks. I've had to take notions of myself as "not enough" or "not good enough" and let those go. Letting go is a challenge for me. I like to meet goals. I like to do my best. Not quite reaching the bar on either of the above has been humbling to say the least. But it will pass, and God-willing, I will have learned something from it all.

Lesson #1: Stay out of the kitchen unless absolutely necessary.

Lesson #2: The bar will always be higher than any goal I can ACTUALLY meet. Why do I do that to myself, even when I'm feeling healthy and good? Why can't I just be good enough the way I am at any given time?

Hmmm........food for thought that will become much clearer over time. For now, I'm sleepy again and need to nap. Again.

But that's okay too.

I don't have a cast on my arm or a sling over my shoulder, but I am just as injured as anyone who might have those things. Acknowledging that is both humbling and liberating. I don't have to reach the bar right now because I simply cannot do it. What I AM able to do has to be enough.

When my body heals and speaks that healing into my soul (thank you Tara), I'll be ready for more. Until then, I remain a humble, if somewhat broken, servant of Divine Love, Holy Mystery, the same God who created me in Love and holds me in Love - no matter what.

What Happened

2011-11-02T13:30:00.002-05:00

Twelve days ago, something fell out of the freezer when I opened the door.

That's it. Frozen things tenderly balanced on top of each other tend to do that.

I bent down to pick up said item. As I made my way back up to standing position, the freezer door (which had obviously been open) was rather forcefully insisting that it ought to be shut.

The momentum of my head moving upward and the freezer door moving toward it caused one nasty concussion. At the moment the door hit my head (top/left part of my head) I wasn't "thinking" anything. I just crumbled to the floor, holding onto P's wheelchair on the way down.

Once I hit the floor, I thought "Oh look, stars!" Everything is a bit fuzzy after that, but I remember both P and I chuckling because we had warned each other so many times about how quickly that door swings back into place.

I lay on the floor for a long time feeling perfectly awful while P talked to me and told me not to get up off the floor yet. When I finally did, I was much more nauseous and sick than I had been on the floor. Bleh.

Then I did exactly what one should NOT do with a head injury. Because I'd been barfy, I took a few gravol and went to bed for several hours. BAD IDEA. If you hit your head, don't do this. When I woke up later in the evening, I told P that I just didn't feel right at all. It was more than nausea now - I felt - for lack of a better term - discombobulated. Nothing in my time and space orientation was right.

It was as if I knew I was standing in our condo in the living room, but I also felt like I was watching myself stand there. Something about that "spectator" feeling creeped me out enough to think I should get this egg-sized bump on my head looked at.

I should mention that the injury was not on the same side of my head where I generally feel like a hot knife is piercing my right temple. The injury was left-sided and felt very different. The pain felt like it was pouring down the left side of my head, throbbing on the way down. Delightful.

So I did exactly what I should NOT have done (please, seriously, don't try this at home) - I drove myself to ER to have it looked at. I fully expected the doc would say I had a bump on my head and send me home.

He did not.

I did not like the look on his face AT ALL as he did my neuro checks and asked me all the standard questions about what day it was and who the Prime Minister is....

After a few minutes, they checked my vitals AGAIN (fourth time since arriving), checked my eyes AGAIN, and said I had a classic concussion and needed to be off work for at least 4-5 days. This simply did not compute. It was about 4:00 am (I think) and all I can remember thinking is "I have to be at the church in a few hours"

I must have said this out loud because the doc took me by the shoulders, looked me directly in the eyes and said "Susan, you are not going anywhere. You need to go home and rest your brain. You do nothing. No tv. No computer. No books. Nothing. You're brain in injured and needs time to heal."

He opted to skip the CT scan that night, but said if any of my symptoms (a list of nine) worsened, that I should call my family doc or return to ER. The nurse asked me on discharge "Have you got a way to get home?" I didn't think twice about it. "Yes", I said. It was true. My car was right outside. It made perfect sense to me to drive home, which I did. AGAIN - do not do this. Ever. Bad Idea. In hindsight, I wonder why the nurse didn't dig a little deeper and ask "how" I was getting home. It was a busy Saturday night, so I totally understand why she didn't, but still...

So I drove home on empty streets (thankfully) and was home within five minutes. Another five minutes and I was asleep.

I slept for 20 hours. P had to wake me every 2 hours for the first 48 hours. Poor guy. He was awesome. He diligently did his "poke the sleeping girl" routine and tried his best to find food I could or would eat.

After four days of pretty much constant sleep and extreme nausea, combined with total body sweats, forgetting conversations, and just feeling entirely horrible, I called family doc. He thought I should head back to ER and ask about a CT scan. This time I asked a friend to drive me. :)

Thankfully, there was no bleed going on that could be detected by the scan. The second doc gave me some IV fluids for dehydration and IV gravol for the Ick. Then he said, "No work for you for another seven days. No tv. No computer. No books. As little stimulation as possible."

Okay, now this was getting creepy.

All of the above weren't a problem when I was sleeping 20 hours out of every 24. When I started to stay awake for longer periods, I realized how much time I spend everyday taking in information from various sources. With none of those options open to me, I had to mimic my cat's day and just BE. Before any of this happened, I had been reading a book about meditation and healing. One of the tools used in that book was a Buddhist practice called metta chanting.

If I understand it correctly, metta is the sending of positive energy and compassion to either oneself or others. So I used repetitive soothing words like "let this wound be healed" and "may peace come to me and give me patience". The second one was a huge deal. I'm not the most patient patient.

I saw my family doc who reinforced what the others had said - concussions are serious. Concussions take their own sweet time in healing. Nothing can be done to speed up that process.

Jill Bolt Taylor PhD in her book "My Stroke of Insight" says:

Your body is the life force power of some fifty trillion molecular geniuses. You and you alone choose moment by moment who and how you want to be in the world. I encourage you to pay attention to what is going on in your brain. Own your power and show up for your life. Beam bright!

I'm not sure I've reached the beaming brightly part just yet, but I do feel better.

If nothing else, this kind of brain injury makes one's limits REALLY clear. When I've done all I can do, that's it. I'm done. It's not like I have the choice to push a little further. I can't. If it's time to rest, my brain will make it happen.

Like now, for example. Writing this has wiped me out. I'm going to nap.

So, there you have it.

That's what happened.

Friday Five: Ages and Stages

2011-10-21T13:38:00.005-05:00

Over at the RevGal site, Jan challenges us with this Friday Five:

Since it is almost my birthday and because my spiritual direction peer group is reading Living Fully, Dying Well by Edward W. Bastian and Tina L. Staley, I am thinking of my life in stages. For the latter group, we filled out a form dividing our life into 7-year increments, documenting "significant moments," then "people who guided and influenced me," and ending with the question, "What did this phase contribute to the continuum of my life?" This was a life Review Exercise devised by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

For today's Friday Five, I am suggesting that we each divide our age into 5 sections. You don't have to say your age or ages for the different parts, unless you want to. In each of the 5 points, please describe a memorable and/or significant event, either good or unpleasant.

Ok Jan, here goes:

Birth to Highschool. I really had an idyllic childhood. We lived in a Baby Boom neighbourhood with LOTS of young children, so there was never a lack of people for a game of baseball, hide and seek, whatever. I remember spending a lot of time outdoors on my bike when the weather was good, and on my skis through the winters. Back in the day, a 15 minute drive could get you to any one of 5 ski hills, so that was where I spent a lot of time. I remember my Mom used to make the best soup ever and have it ready at the end of a ski day. Mom was also a voracious reader, and taught me early about the world that opens up to us when we turn the pages of a book.

On the not so great side, I was painfully shy and found school to be a difficult, anxiety-inducing place to be. I was very small for my age, extremely inept athletically and therefore always picked last for any given team. I also put up with a fair bit of teasing over the years.

Highschool to Work. About halfway through highschool, I realized that my dream of being invisible was not going to come true, despite my deepest yearnings. I was blessed to meet P at a church youth group night (he was the minister's son. I had actually met his Dad - now my father-in-law - months earlier). How I ended up at that church is a whole other post! God does indeed work in mysterious ways....

I remained extremely shy, so when I started thinking about what to do after highschool I found myself in a dilemma. My greatest passion was literature, specifically Elizabethan poetry. My 17 year old brain could only trace that career path to an impossible outcome. To study literature in university would ultimately lead to one thing: Teaching. The thought of speaking to a classroom full of students was enough to make me nauseous (kind of funny, when I think of it now. I've since spoken to groups of 1200+ without any difficulty at all).

So, I saw my sister's work in the hospital lab as the ideal work. It was interesting, important, helpful to a patient's health and well-being - everything that was meaningful for me. AND the lab was in the basement of the hospital where I did my training. Seriously - we were as far away from the rest of the hospital as one could get without standing out on the street. Perfect.

3. Work! Babies! Friends! I was so fortunate to secure a job at the same hospital where I trained in medical laboratory technology. I worked in the Blood Bank department, where we ensured that the blood being transfused into patients was compatible with their own. I really loved that job. I worked with wonderful people and I was good at what I did. The on-call time and the bizzaro shift changes weren't the best, but hey, I was young. I doubt I could manage it now, but at the time it was just life.

We had our two wonderful boyz during the time I worked at the lab. I had the best of both worlds as I worked half time. I found that just when I had grown tired of Sesame Street's letter of the day, I had a few days at work to recall what adult conversation was all about. It wasn't always easy. P had the same wacky schedule in his work as a funeral director. We had on-call time, odd shifts, and complicated child care pretty much all of the time. Thankfully, we had family and two dear friends who were especially helpful on those nights when I would meet up with P at 3:00 a.m. in the hospital corridor and ask him "Where are the boys?" Inevitably, they were at home with one of our friends who so kindly slept on the couch while P and I did our thing.

We were, and continue to be, really blessed.

4. From Volunteer to Student to Ordinand. In 1988, both of the boyz were in school all day, I was still working half time, and I thought I might use some of that time to volunteer - somewhere. I had nothing specific in mind, it was really just the seed of a thought. Then I happened to be walking in my favourite local business area one afternoon and happened upon an Open House at what was then called The AIDS Committee of Our City. I went into the closet-sized office space, met some amazing people, learned a whole lot in a few hours, and that was it - I stuck with this remarkable non-profit until I began my university studies in 1992.

At some point in those years, someone put a camera in my face and asked me some questions (I think it was about the AIDS Quilt project). To my surprise, I did not die. Rather, I discovered a whole new aspect of being me. I had the capacity to speak to more than two people at a time - provided the subject matter was drawn from my own passion and compassion.

Go figure.

I grew up feeling a bit like a fool. All three of my sisters had skipped a grade. I had not. I think that was all due to a lack of understanding at the time of Multiple Intelligences and how they apply to learning, but that's another post as well. In 1992, the same year that my beloved Mother died with multiple myeloma, and P was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (after ten years of symptoms) - I decided to sign up for a course in philosophy at our local university. Mostly I thought I would just prove to myself that I really wasn't very smart so I could put all of the "what-ifs" to bed.

I got an A+ in Philosophy 101.

The rest is history. I finished my BA in 1995, quit my job, and headed to "Canada's Ivy League" university to work on my MDiv. In 1998, I graduated, gave the valedictory address and a few weeks later was ordained to a ministry of Word, Sacrament and Pastoral Care. None of it would have been possible without the support and care of my family - P and the boys, and most especially P's parents - so, ya.....I am so very blessed.

* I should note that the jump from the BA to the MDiv is also an entire post for another day.

5. Now! This has turned into a long post, so I will just say that this stage of my life, especially my recent years at Little Church on the Corner, have been filled with ups and downs. There is no question that P's health is not what it was ten years ago. He is no longer able to work, and yet, we are so fortunate to live in a condo where his independence is maintained and he can live and enjoy life with as little difficulty as possible.

My right temple has had a metaphorical hot knife in it - all of the time, to at least some degree - since Sept 2005.

On the other hand, we have two amazing sons. These are young men that I would be proud to know even if I hadn't given birth to them. Both seem to have survived our "trial-and-error" parenting method quite well!

And, in the midst of all that, I have a great church family. Our Little Church on the Corner really epitomizes for me the best of what contemporary church needs to be. We are welcoming but not smothering, open and Affirming, a community that is consistently seeking out new ways to experience the Holy in every corner of life. God is good.

Whew! I don't think Jan intended for such lengthy stages, but there you have it.

Now - back to sermon writing. It's almost done, just needs some touch-ups at this point. Happy weekend everyone!

What I Know

2011-10-02T17:31:00.007-05:00

Just over 13 years ago, in May 1998, the Conference in this part of our vast country saw fit to ordain me to a ministry of Word, Sacrament and Pastoral Care.

That warm day in May was the coming together of many years of study, CPE, verbatims *shudder*, reading assignments, final papers, internships, a valedictory address, a graduation, a degree, and too many interviews to count. But those were only the practical parts of all that led to that moment of ordination.

The other part is much more difficult to articulate. Hours, days, weeks, months and years of personal spiritual discernment took place before, through, and following all of the above. I don't think anyone ever told me that discernment in ministry was a discipline that would never end. It was not a process that began with a spiritual nudge that said, "Hm. Ministry? Seriously God?" and ended with an alb and stole. Discernment is an ongoing dynamic in ministry.

Here's something I know: If you don't have days when you wonder if being a librarian might have been a wiser choice than congregational ministry, you're probably doing a good job of avoiding the deepest challenges of ministry. No offense intended. There's nothing really wrong with that.

It just means that scripture implies that you need to dig a bit deeper. It's sort of like a workout - if you're too comfortable, you need to step it up. There is servanthood undone and it needs to be done. I think a guy named Jesus said something like that a long time ago....he really did not call his disciples to a life of comfort and ease. I also know that this very thing is what makes finding a healthy balance of life and life in ministry one of the greatest challenges of all.

Here are a few other things I know....

1. On October 1, 2001 I led worship for the first time at Little Church on the Corner.

2. On October 2, 2011, ten years later, in the same sanctuary, I led worship again.

3. It is hard to believe that ten years have passed!

4. A dear friend mentioned the occasion in celebration time. Thank you!

5. I know that in these ten years I have given LCotC everything that could have possibly been given by any mere mortal. I have done ministry through physical pain, through times of great joy (Affirming!!) and times of discernment and challenge for our church family. I continue to do so with the best leadership skills I can muster, pain or no pain.

6. I know that there have been many times when ministry has trumped my personal physical health, my time with friends and family, and my capacity to recall bizarre concepts such as "fun."

7. I know that I would do it all over again.

8. I know that I love my church and the people in my congregation. They are my spiritual family in the best sense of the word. Our church family is special.

9. I don't really expect them to understand me anymore, though at times I still secretly wish for it, sort of as one might wish that hobbits were real and second-breakfast would not apply itself directly to one's thighs.

10. I know that only a small number of people in my church truly understand what I do between Sundays.

11. I know that those are the people who have over the years invited me to stand on the holy ground of their greatest joys and deepest tragedies. These are the people who called in the night so that at least one person in the hospital room would not be crying from a place within them so deep and full of hurt that until that night they did not know they could even survive it. They needed me to be the person to bring, if nothing else, a symbol of hope to a seemingly hopeless situation.

12. I know that it is simply wrong to hold a baby shower before a child is born. Just. Wrong. No one will ever convince me otherwise.

13. I know that I can put on my "game face" and get through even the most difficult funeral and work through my own grief on my own time.

14. I know that is no small task, and I'm good at it.

15. I know that the longer I am the pastor of LCotC, the more difficult the funerals will become.

16. I know that I am up to that challenge. One of the most important parts of my ministry is preparation for the celebration of someone's life. I can make a mistake of some kind on a Sunday morning and make it right the following week, but I have ONE, and only one, opportunity to do right by someone who has lived a life on this earth. And every single person's life is worth celebrating simply by virtue of being the life of a child of God. I know I can do right by all of these good people, because I am never alone. God is with me. Thanks be to God!

17. I know that I am a good preacher.

18. I know that I have rarely worked LESS THAN or ONLY the 40 hour week described in my terms of call. I'm pretty much always beyond 40 hours. Some weeks, I just stop counting....

19. I know that no one has ever demanded that I do so. Mostly, circumstances have done so.

20. I know that people grow when they try to accomplish things that they thought were impossible.

21. I know that it is never too late to figure out #20.

22. I know that my sabbatical this year will be good for both me and our congregation in many ways.

23. I know that our Manual says I should have already had one sabbatical already, but this will be my first.

24. I know that I will learn something, perhaps many things, on this time away from congregational ministry. At the very least, I will have a study report to bring back. I suspect I will also bring back to our church a fresh perspective, lots of creative ideas, and most definitely enthusiasm.

25. I know that there are still a few church seasons to navigate before sabbatical time, and I'm up for the task.

26. I know that these ten years have been good. Very, very good. So much of what I do is by necessity "invisible" ministry....time spent reading, praying, counseling, helping where help is needed. In the end, I suppose it doesn't matter who knows how all-encompassing such work can be - because God knows.

27. I had no idea that I knew so many things!

Travel Tales

2011-09-22T23:04:00.002-05:00

September is almost over. I can't say I'm sorry.

I think that some people are just hard-wired to be better travelers than others. I find it exhausting. I'm puzzled by the phenomena that occurs when sitting and waiting for airline flights, and then sitting on the flight itself, perhaps making a connection and sitting some more - it all makes me feel like I've spent days walking through rugged hilly countryside. Seriously. My body responds to it all with aches and groans pretty much everywhere.

Today's drive to our Fall meeting of Presbytery was, by contrast, perfectly delightful. We saw the fall colours along the road. We stopped once to stretch and have a snack.

Even better was the fact that I had wonderful company for the trip (as opposed to the person on EVERY flight who didn't get the memo about covering one's mouth when coughing). Perhaps the biggest mistake I have made recently was seeing the film Contagion before all of September's air travel. Bad idea. I already viewed planes as large metal flying petrie dishes of doom. The movie only affirmed that view and increased my ongoing need for hand sanitizer.

I've had great travel experiences once the petrie dishes have landed. That's good news. Ottawa was great. Toronto was awesome. I had a visit with a friend and the author of The Camino Letters - a wonderful and inspiring book.

The next day I saw the doc at the pain clinic. That was Monday. I lost count of the injections, but it was over twenty. I felt kind of puky most of the week, but tonight is Thursday and I'm feeling much much better.

Headache pain, even this late at night (when it's usually at its worst), is non-existent. It's an odd feeling in many ways. I've been sitting here this evening relaxing and habitually waiting for the other pain shoe to fall. It hasn't. I get to go to bed feeling good. Feeling right. Feeling like "normal" people feel when they shut off the light and experience the perfect rest of body, mind and spirit.

Travel. I may not be great at it. But wow - has it ever been worth it this month.

Even so, come Sunday, I'll be home if you're looking for me!

Warp Speed

2011-09-16T20:27:00.002-05:00

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I think Truffle definitely needs one of these cool cat houses. She's pretty awesome already, but this would put over the top in Cat Koolness.

I cannot believe it is only Sept 16th! I've only been back to work for two weeks, but it's been a bit of a horse-race since Sept 1st.

It feels a bit like ministry at Top Warp Speed. There isn't a single thing I can do about it. Things happen. People become sick, families need pastoral care, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else but helping to meet those needs. Some of those needs require the sad but sacred privilege of standing with people through dark days, but such is ministry.

I had an opportunity to make a presentation to another Presbytery re: becoming an Affirming ministry. It was a delight to share our Presbytery's experience, and also a chance to see some folks I haven't seen since seminary. I also had the deep privilege of being present as a friend was ordained as a Deacon in the Anglican Catholic Church. His ministry will continue to be a blessing to his congregation and to our community. Administratively, I've had Remit reviews, Triennial Report reviews, countless phone calls, emails, and (so far) a meeting of one committee.

Warp Speed or not, I would not want to miss any of these experiences (though, to be honest, if next month is bit slower in pace, that would be okay).

Next week I go out of town for another medical treatment re: my ever-troublesome daily migraine pain. I've been quite literally counting the days until this appointment, so I'll be glad to get there. Later the same week, it's off to our own meeting of Presbytery which is being held in a beautiful part of our region. Especially at this time of the year, the travel to Fall Presbytery is a visual gift. Here's hoping the meeting is as well!!

I'm all about positive thinking - in all of my years of ministry, the last time we held the meeting in this particular location, it was, without question, the BEST Presbytery meeting ever. I know a few other Presbyters who would agree!! *grin*

So, it's been a few busy weeks. A good kind of busy, the kind that reminds me of why I love ministry and all of its twists and turns......the kind that reminds me of the deep blessing of being where I am, living in the knowledge that I am not alone. God is with me.

Thanks be to God!

Six Years

2011-09-04T21:04:00.007-05:00

I know. I know. The last thing anyone wants to hear is yet another whiny post about my ever-inflamed-ice-pick-in-the-right-temple head pain. But for posterity alone, I thought I would mark the 6th, yes 6th, anniversary of the beginning of said pain with some kind of post.

In September 2005, right after Labour Day weekend and a lovely month of holidays, I woke up with the sharpest pain I've ever felt in my head. I was initially just surprised. I wasn't a person who experienced headaches. So, I took a few ibuprofen and a gravol for the overwhelming nausea. I decided to go to work, on the assumption that by the time I got there, the ibuprofen would have kicked in and I could get on with my day.

Not so much.

And here we are six years later. It's been quite a ride. The ibuprofen and gravol turned into numerous pharmaceutical cocktails, none of which had much of an impact. I've been from over the counter, to a brief period of 'old-skool' migraine meds, to the newest ones, and everything in between. Some were just ineffective. A few were nightmarish.

I presently take one prescribed med - Axert. It works about half the time, which is an improvement over the last triptan (ie migraine med) that I was on.

Aside from Axert (which I cannot take too often as it causes Rebound Headaches if taken to excess) - I take nothing else. I save the Axert for the worst of the worst of the worst nights, when I REALLY don't want to hit the ER.

My last ER visit was in 2009....not because I've had no pain since then, but because I will do almost anything I have to do in order to avoid the ER. Since 2005, I have made a total of 5 ER visits, all of which were made as a last resort when nothing else would push back the pain. I really resist taking up an ER bed if there is any way at all that I can manage at home. Sometimes that involves a very dark quiet room, LOTS of ice, and gravol. If I can push the storm away with that and avoid an ER visit, I feel oddly victorious.

Other than meds, I am blessed to have a family doc who is SO thorough that pretty much every rock that could be turned over has been turned over. Sometimes more than once. I've had all of the high-tech tests, seen several specialists, been approved for medically necessary massages on a regular basis (they really do help), and have had enough Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to teach the stuff. Seriously. I've got that part covered.

I've done physio, acupuncture, structural integration, massage, Reiki, Healing Touch, yoga and regular exercise. Yep, I've pretty much done it all.

Ok, I haven't seen a chiropractor. There's a good reason for that. I don't feel any need to explain that here.

My ever-present source of support and ice - my beloved - found a great clinic in Toronto about a year ago. The Rothbart Clinic has 14 CPS certified physicians who specialize in pain medicine. The policy of the clinic is that if you are using opiates of any kind, you cannot be treated there. They firmly believe that almost ANY other kind of treatment will be more effective. I heartily agree. I have been to the clinic twice now and will be returning again later this month.

My treatment will be trigger point injections with Botox (Medical - a very different formulation from the kind that rids one of wrinkles). The last visit involved just over 20 injections into my head and neck, resulting in about 4 weeks of greatly-reduced (if not absent) pain. This visit? More Botox. Results? We'll see.....

After all this time, here is what I know that I did not know in 2005:

* I have a combination of Intractable Migraine and Myofascial Pain Syndrome.

* Neither of the above came about because of anything I did or did not do. In other words, it's not my fault. That is HUGE for me. While it's true that excessive amounts of stress do not help my headache pain - stress did not CAUSE this wonky combination of symptoms and diagnoses. I am no more responsible for this pain than P is for his MS or Diabetes. It just is what it is.

* I don't know when - if ever - it will go away. At this point, I spend more time trying to be diligent about my self-care and much less time wishing it away.

Granted, there are times when the waves of pain and nausea are greater than my resolve, but mostly I just tough it out and keep on living.

What else is there to do? To give in to the despair and hopelessness that this kind of pain can induce is to allow it to win. I don't want to see that happen. I will stand nose to nose with this thing for as long as I'm taking in those deep relaxing breaths to fight it off. If I let my guard down and allow this Thing to define me, or to take me down, then it wins and I get lost down the rabbit hole (cf "Alice in Wonderland" written by migraine sufferer Lewis Carroll).

No way. I have waaaaaay to much in my life to be thankful for, to enjoy, and to celebrate..........

Yes, there will be times when my self-care takes a nose dive and I pay for it in pain. It happens. But I'll pick myself up and start over, and try to listen to my body when it screams at me by hammering at my right temple.

I think mostly what I've discovered over six years of this whole pain thing is that I am so very much stronger than I ever thought I could be.

No, it's not exactly the best way to find that out, but hey, it is what it is.

Six years, eh? Huh. Who ever would have thought?????

Big Night 2011

2011-08-20T13:21:00.011-05:00

If you didn't follow the play by play report of my experience in Nashville on another social media location, I'll do my best to sum it up here.

I spent last week in Nashville TN fulfilling one of my "Bucket List" items - to see Amy Lee's band Evanescence live in concert. The band has a new release that is due out on October 11th. Why Evanescence? I think the music just speaks to me and I'm not sure I can articulate exactly why. Musically, they are the best. Amy is classically trained (she learned to play the harp last year!) which means that there is often an undercurrent of orchestral and choral sound in the middle of all the standard rock/metal sound. It makes her sound unique. Her vocals are outstanding. Her lyrics are dark, deep and passionate. Also, I can now say without question that she is just as good in concert as she is in the studio.

Their tour has already begun, with the first stop being Nashville's War Memorial Auditorium and I had the good fortune to be there!!!! The venue itself was small, which is typical for this band. They tend to start off a tour in a smaller setting to share the new songs with their die-hard fan base (that would be me!). I'm pretty sure that the venue was smaller than our very own auditorium here in town, so it felt very intimate and there literally was not a bad seat in the house.

I arrived the day before the concert.

Nashville is HOT in August. Just thought I would mention that.

I decided that dreams that come true require flowers, so I bought some for the hotel room:

The day of the concert, I walked across the street to check out the venue and discovered some wonderful fans who had tickets for the floor area and arrived early to ensure a spot near the front. It was uber-hot, so I went to a nearby dollar store and cleaned out their stock of bottled water for these great fans. I mean, really, they sat out there for twelve hours!!!!

I walked around the downtown area before returning to the hotel. I was missing my RevGal friends whom I had met on my last visit to Nashville. I visited a lot of the same places we saw, such as the Ryman Auditorium.

When I returned to the hotel, I saw the bands arriving with all of their equipment as the set-up began. I also went back to see how the early-birds were doing. They were still there and had been joined by another 100 or so fans. I met some really great people from all over the USA who had come to town for the concert. I didn't meet any other Canadians however. I did meet one woman who works in university radio who was pretty sure she had met our son at a conference. Small world? Yep.

Security around the venue was intense. Lots of people talking into their sleeves, police on bicycles, motorcycles, squad cars and horses surrounded the place all afternoon. I saw Amy Lee arrive but wasn't fast enough with the camera, so instead I have a great shot of the horses.

Then it was concert time. Initially it actually felt a bit surreal to be in the line going into the auditorium. Then I thought "Wow! I'm actually here!" So I decided to just soak up every wonderful minute of it and not miss a thing. It was amazing to let go of everything else and just celebrate the great blessing it was just to be there.

First up was a local Nashville group called Fools for Rowan. They were awesome!!! Here is a youtube version of their video for "Dead" which they also sang at the concert:

They also sang a classic that you will recognize:

The next set was "Art of Dying" - meh. Really, really heavy metal guy band. They were good, but not as good as the other two acts.

Then: EVANESCENCE!!!!!!!!!!

They started the 1.5 hour set with "What You Want", their new single. They played some of their older music as well as FOUR of the new songs from the upcoming album. It was all just amazing. Most of my pictures are a bit blurred, but this one isn't bad....

I looked for some good youtube versions of the new songs (and yes, I know there are copyright infringements like crazy with these, but what can you do when 1600 people have camera/video capacity on their cell phones?) Welcome to the new world. They didn't allow big, professional looking cameras inside, but they didn't stop anyone from bringing in either cell phones or digital cameras. I actually think it's part of the pre-release press. When 12,000 or so people have heard your song on youtube before it's released, they are more likely to buy it. It's a way to use the enthusiasm of the fans for promotion of new music. In any case, here are a few of the better quality shots that I found. Unfortunately, some of the sound is lost on "The Other Side", but it's still worth a listen.

This is "The Change"

As I mentioned, not the best sound, but the last part is the best if you want to skip ahead. This was the last encore.

Here is the same song but with better sound and great still shots from the concert:

*Interesting trivia: Two members of the band have the same name - Will Hunt. I'm sure that doesn't make rehearsals confusing at all. Another bit of concert trivia: Kelly Clarkson was in the audience for the Evanescence concert.

Anyway, that was the highlight of my Nashville trip. The day after the concert I wandered around town some more and spent some time at the Country Music Hall of Fame (very interesting!).

AND....if you're not completely bored by now, here's an interview with Amy about the new release.

So there you go. One Bucket List item checked.

What's next? Hmmmm........:)

Let the Bucket-Listing Begin!

2011-08-15T20:39:00.003-05:00

I'm packed and ready to go! So exciting!

Later folks. Be well and I'll catch up next week.

Less Than a Week!!!!

2011-08-11T13:17:00.004-05:00

....and I'll be in Nashville to see Evanescence LIVE.

This is the new single, which is not surprisingly amazing.

WHAT YOU WANT by Evanescence
Do what you what you want, if you have a dream for better
Do what you what you want till you don't want it anymore
(remember who you really are)
Do what you what you want, your world's closing in on you now
(it isn't over)
Stand and face the unknown
(got to remember who you really are)
Every heart in my hands like a pale reflection
Hello, hello remember me?
I'm everything you can't control
Somewhere beyond the pain there must be a way to believe we can break through
Do what you what you want, you don't have to lay your life down
(it isn't over)
Do what you what you want till you find what you're looking for
(got to remember who you really are)
But every hour slipping by screams that I have failed you
Hello, hello remember me?
I'm everything you can't control
Somewhere beyond the pain there must be a way to believe
Hello, hello remember me?
I'm everything you can't control
Somewhere beyond the pain there must be a way to believe
There's still time
close your eyes
only love will guide you home
Tear down the walls and free your soul
Till we crash we're forever spiraling down, down, down, down
Hello, hello, its only me
infecting everything you love
Somewhere beyond the pain there must be a way to believe
Hello, hello remember me?
I'm everything you can't control
Somewhere beyond the pain there must be a way to learn forgiveness
Hello, hello remember me?
I'm everything you can't control
Somewhere beyond the pain there must be a way to believe we can break through
Remember who you really are
Do what you what you want.

Evanescence.com
©2011 Wind-up Records

Srsly

2011-07-29T13:41:00.000-05:00

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Vacation Ponderings

2011-07-28T11:44:00.003-05:00

When I was in theological study, the words “self-care” were tossed around almost as much as words like “solidarity” and “growing edges.” Self-care was part of the New Green Ministry Personnel lexicon.

Of course, most of us did not have the first bit of a clue as to what those words meant, or why we might ever need to cling to them like a life boat. Or perhaps I was the only one who thought self-care meant ensuring that I get my day off every week and that once I had accomplished that, I had it all figured out.

I am a slow learner. It has taken me roughly thirteen years to figure out what it means to say: “Me” time makes me a better person for “We” time. (Sorry, but I cannot remember where I first read that quote) As a true Introvert in every sense of the word, that “me” time is more important than I ever thought it might be.

Life in the church can be very seductive.

For anyone with:
1. a need to be liked,
2. a need to feel needed,
3. a need to be indispensable,

....well, the church is your ticket to happiness. Let’s take a look at each one of these potential life changers....

1.You will always be liked. On the other hand.....You will always be disliked.

Keeping those two things in perspective is more than important – it is vital. Without that perspective, trust me, your shelf-life will be fairly short. I make a point of reading this article by Gordon Atkinson (formerly known online as Real Live Preacher) at least once a month.

"There Are Twelve People Who....

His primary thesis that we must not put too much weight on either being liked or being disliked is brilliant. It reminds me that thinking you are the worst person in the world is just as arrogant as thinking that you are the best person in the world. Both of those extremes are costly to one’s soul. Knowing ourselves, our skills, our “growing edges”, our frailties, and our best qualities is the work of a lifetime of inner reflection. In ministry, it is by necessity a work in progress. I would also consider it to be vital self-care.

2.You will always be needed.

The task of ministry is never done. The level of pastoral need, administrative need, exegetical and hermeneutical reflection on biblical texts, ongoing spiritual feeding of your soul so that you have something left to share with others, and of course locking up the church after Sunday worship – these tasks and so very many others, will always stand as a grand mountain in front of you.

Again – perspective.

There are two ways to see that mountain:

One – as an impossible task that you are determined to complete before you die, even if it kills you. And it can.

Two – an ever-present incarnation of opportunity for moments of sacredness. This second perspective is the very reason you ever thought this ministry thing might be a good idea. It is the essence of your call to serve God within the church. Yes, those tasks listed above are pieces of the mountain, but the real mountain that you were called upon to climb with the blessing of God and the church is the one that takes your breath away with its sheer beauty.

It is that moment when the most achingly shy child in your congregation takes time during the week to make a picture with your name on it. It is that moment when someone whose essence is slowly retreating into the horror of Alzheimer’s disease sees you and speaks your name. It is the moment of silence in the room when a family has gathered to see a loved one move from this life into the life after death that reaches beyond our imagining. They have asked you to be present with them when a quiet voice asks, “Could we pray?” and you have the unspeakable privilege of speaking into the holiness of the moment. Such sacredness, to stand on that holy ground, is our call and our blessing – at times a heartbreaking one – but a blessing indeed.

In the midst of the joys and sorrows of life in the church’s shared ministries, we are constantly called back to the center of our spiritual selves. We are constantly being invited to take another look at the mountain and see it for its beauty and privilege. If we fail to do so, we may discover that the ministry we began with such earnestness has become a Sisyphean form of self-injury. We berate ourselves for all that we are not able to do instead of thanking God for the ability to offer even a bit of solace, a bit of God’s joy, to the people who need it the most.

Perspective and constant reality checks – these are the key to what we call “self-care.”

3.You are dispensable.
Our ministries are shared with capable and faithful people of God who have their own ministries to carry out as well. If we begin to believe in our own myth of being indispensable, we are not only being highly arrogant, but just plain wrong. To acknowledge and nurture the spiritual gifts of the people around us is more than just part of the job description. It is a sacred duty that we owe to one another.

You will do your congregation a huge favour by setting appropriate boundaries.

I will begin my annual vacation next week. I tend to take most of my holiday time at once, so I have a month to dedicate to my partner and all of those friends who understand why I don’t see them as much as I would like to during the year. My partner loves his barbeque, so I will happily leave that task to him while I read some good novels, go for long walks, and fall into that lovely “holiday mode” where I sleep when I’m tired and eat when I’m hungry. This time is vital for my continuing ministry.

Boundaries matter.

I believe that being available 24/7/365 disengages the ministries and spiritual gifts within the congregation. What are we saying about those gifts if we feel that we are indispensable for a month? Personally, my congregation managed quite well for the eighteen months without paid accountable ministry personnel before my arrival here. I am absolutely certain that they can take care of things for a month!

I do not set these boundaries to avoid others, but to re-acquaint myself with myself. Doing so means that when September arrives and the campers and travellers return along with me to our weekly worship and activities, my energy, my imagination, my creativity, and my personal spiritual well will be filled to overflowing. Then, by the grace of God, we will celebrate God’s presence in our midst with great joy and with songs of praise – all of us refreshed and ready to carry out our ministry together!

Truffle summer 2011

2011-07-25T18:11:00.004-05:00

Hanging out on her favourite shoulder:

"Who put that plant in my window??!!!!!"

She's actually kind of getting used to the plant now. Thanks R!

I Wish....

2011-07-22T13:22:00.003-05:00

*side note - this is my 2000th post! Yup, 2000.*

It's true. Despite many years in ministry, I still come across so many situations where I wish with every part of my being that I could do some serious "fixing" to relieve the suffering of people I so dearly love.

Intellectually, I've known all along that my call and my service in God's name is not to fix anything, but to simply be there. In CPE *shudder* language, it's called the Ministry of Presence. So why is it that in so many cases it just doesn't feel like enough? Why can my mind understand what my heart cannot come close to comprehending?

I suppose this is why I never make a pastoral visit without the words from Philippians whispering out of my lips as I walk down the hallway or knock on a door:

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus"

When the going gets rough, I can stay when others might leave, whether out of fear of their own mortality or something as simple as not wanting to say the wrong thing. I can sit in the muck and mire of the human condition and absorb just enough of someone else's grief so that I can feel true empathy without falling into a million broken pieces.

But really what I want is to fix it all.

There. I said it. Confession is good for the soul and all that.....

This morning I was trying to make something nearing "presentable" out of my disastrous hair, and this song was playing over and over in my mind. It's a beautiful song on its own, but combined with the current yearnings of my heart for people I know who are suffering, and my own eyes staring back at me in the mirror..........it turned into a modern day parable about just how much I need my God and my Creator - the Author of all that is good in this world and the only One who can truly make right all of those things that on the surface seem to be so very broken.

Any Face, Any Place

2011-07-21T18:32:00.004-05:00

....could be smiling behind severe pain. Why? Because if every pain of every person living with a chronic invisible condition let each ripple of pain stop them in their tracks, most of us wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. In any given crowd of people, you can be assured that at least a few are silently living out their own personal form of lonely torture.

Of course, there are different levels of pain for each individual person, but all of it is a struggle in its own way. Today a US politician with hopes for a presidential run in 2012, Michelle Bachmann, spoke openly about her migraine disease. Now, I'll be honest. I disagree with pretty much everything this woman has to say politically. No, make that everything.

On the other hand, I found her comments today to be very brave. To speak openly about an invisible illness is not easy. It takes courage. It takes profound trust in the people around you....a deep and abiding faith that they will believe you, support you, and never assume that your pain is little more than a reason not to work or function in the world. The people who love you the most will see that shade of grey in your skin and the black circles around your eyes and know better than to question the veracity of your suffering, but others will always wonder.

Michelle is not alone in coming clean with her illness. Others, such as Serene Branson whose atypical migraine symptoms were demonstrated on national television and Percy Harvin, wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings - are putting a face on an otherwise unnoticed issue.

I am really glad that Michelle Bachmann spoke out today. She made it very, very clear that her condition is:

1. Treated with appropriate medication (I'm guessing one of the migraine-abortive meds such as Imitr*x) and responds to that medication well.

2. Monitored properly by her personal care physician.

3. Rarely gets in the way of her energy level and work day.

I also consider her to be one of the fortunate ones. Not all migraineurs are so blessed. It's true - some simply cannot keep a job because of too much down time. Some cannot afford the ridiculous cost of the meds mentioned above. They average $15-$20 per tablet up here in Canada. I'm not sure what they would sell for in the US. If my extended health care plan did not cover these meds for me, I simply would not be able to take them. Also, in my case, they only work about half the time, so the money would not necessarily be well spent.

Given her political leanings in general, and her homophobia in particular, I don't see this woman as a good choice for the 2012 elections. But I will give her this much. She is honest, and stepped up to the plate with a condition that the media would have dug up later anyway. They would have made a huge deal of it and she would have been made to defend herself in a profoundly unfair way.

She would likely have been accused of "hiding" a part of her life that could potentially make her unable to serve in office. She would have faced accusations of "using" her illness as an excuse to bail on campaign activities. Some would have claimed that her medical history only proves that women's "frailties" should keep them out of positions of power (because women have more migraine disease than men), taking us all back a few centuries to Victorian England and women with the "vapours."

Michelle did not wait for that obscene media sweep. She faced it with the confidence gained from knowing her own body better than anyone in the mainstream media. The truth is, she did not ask for migraine disease - no one does - so she should never have to defend her ongoing journey down that particular rabbit hole.

None of us should.

EEeeeeeeee!!!!!!

2011-07-13T20:32:00.003-05:00

Sooooooo exciting!!!

When I'm on vacay in August, I will be checking off a box on my Bucket List. I will be heading to Nashville for a preview concert of the band Evanescence!!!!!!!

I've always wanted to see them in concert, and now I will get to do that! It's a smaller venue (seats about 1700) with tickets available to only fan club members (yes, I'm fifty-something and a member of a fan club - so shoot me - it got me tickets!!!!).

I can't wait!

From the first song to be released in early August:

Like a pale reflection. Hello, Hello, remember me? I'm everything you can't control.

It feels as if (so far at least) a lot of the new music from Amy is about creative freedom. Ya gotta love that!

Wow.

2011-07-12T21:52:00.002-05:00

I've read and researched a whole lot about Reiki, but had never had a treatment until today. It was done in conjunction with an excellent massage. I left feeling like a fully cooked noodle....in a good way.

I may just make it to September after all. Ya, it's going to cost me a bit, but it's worth every penny. I was just astounded at how much better I felt after my massage/Reiki. I wasn't hurting terribly when I got there, but it was a humid day, and the early hints of a bad evening were beginning to show up.

After a short nap following supper, I woke up feeling pretty good. Not 100% pain-free, but I don't really expect that anymore from any treatment. A person has to be a little bit realistic about these things. For me, anything that registers under 4/10 doesn't count as pain.

The moral of the story..... to hit 11:00 pm and not be heading to the freezer for ice - now THAT is a good day!

Eclectic Hope

2011-07-10T21:51:00.003-05:00

Eclectic Hope: Sounds like a garage band name. A Christian garage band. Is there such a thing?

Anywho, as requested, here are the two playlists that I burned on to CDs for my friend/parishioner in hospital. For all I know he may have made them into frisbees by now. I was very clear that he was under no obiligation to enjoy them, only that they were songs I listened to when I need a boost in my mood.

The first is called "Hope Won":

1. Afraid – Heather Small
2. Ancient Words – Michael W. Smith
3. Anyway – Martina McBride
4. As the Deer – Mandate
5. Ave Maria – Canadian Tenors
6. Be Thou My Vision – Mandate
7. Because You Love Me – JoDee Messina
8. Breathe On Me, Breath of God – Elizabeth and Scott
9. Bridge Over Troubled Waters – Glee Cast
10. The Climb – Miley Cyrus
11. Coming Home – Gwyneth Paltrow
12. Country Road – James Taylor
13. Don’t Rain on My Parade – Glee cast
14. Don’t Stop Believin’ – Glee cast
15. Ease Your Troubled Mind – Heather Small
16. Fix You – Coldplay

Yes, I know the Miley choice is totally lame. So shoot me. Also, "Fix You" isn't exactly uplifting, but something about its softness speaks to me. It also puts some perspective into those days when I want to make all the people I love just....better. Healthier, happier, joyous, blissful...all that and more. But then there's that whole annoying "being human" thing that gets in the way. Either way, I still like the song.

The second CD is called "Hope Too":

Hope Too
1. Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah – Robin Mark
2. Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy – Glee cast
3. Lean on Me – Glee cast
4. The Lord’s Prayer – Dario Marianelli
5. One Love/People Get Ready – Glee cast
6. Over the Rainbow – Glee cast
7. Pie Jesu – Jackie Evancho
8. The Riddle – Five for Fighting
9. Song of Blessing – JW Pepper
10. Tears of an Angel – RyanDan
11. Temporary Home – Carrie Underwood
12. Unforgettable – Nat King Cole/Natalie Cole
13. Wherever the Road Goes – Heather Small
14. Be Thou Near Me – Selah and Amy Perry
15. Footprints in the Sand – Leona Lewis
16. For Good – Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenowith
17. Hallelujah – kd lang

P and I danced to "Unforgettable" at our wedding, so it's pretty special. And I simply love Dario's cello rendition of "The Lord's Prayer." It is a thing of beauty.

Summertime Friday Five

2011-07-08T23:16:00.004-05:00

The Friday Five over on the RevGal site asks:

Share five things that are happening in your life, personally or professionally or some of each, in this season of life.

1. Summer visit. Our son who lives Out West is in town for a visit. He's here for a week and it is delightful to have him home! We had a great visit at my sister's home this evening with family and friends. Lots of laughter and stories. All that, and the evening was just warm enough without being too warm, and the bugs were elsewhere. Yup. A wonderful summer evening.

2. Hospital visit. I visited a friend/parishioner in the hospital on the way to the family gathering. I made a few CDs for him to listen to. I picked the most hope-filled songs on my iTunes library and put them on two CDs called "Hope Won" and "Hope Too". I hope my friend enjoys my eclectic - very eclectic - taste in music!

3. Self-care. I am surrounded by wonderful people who care about me and call me to task when I don't take care of myself as well as I know I should. One gave me a wonderful gift this week (see post below) and another reminded me that if I was going to get a massage next week, I would need to actually pick up the phone and make the appointment. She even wrote the phone number down for me and put the post-it in my hand. Yes, sometimes I need a bit of a nudge, but I am so greatly blessed to have people around me who will kick me in the bee-hind as needed when I need to do something good for myself so that I can be in better shape to help others.

4. Sermonizing. In 13 years of ministry, I've never had a July like this one. So far (yes, I know it's only the second week and things could nose-dive big time) I'm feeling really good about both last week's sermon and the one I have prepared for this week. What's up with that?????? Typically, and unfortunately, my July sermons have a history of being a bit dry. Maybe no one else notices, but I do. In other years, I've drawn on theological and spiritual fumes to get those summer sermons written. This year? So far, so good! Go figure.

5. Hurting. ~sigh~ You knew this one would be here. My appointment at the pain clinic is set for the Fall, so hope is on the horizon, but in the meantime, most nights I fall asleep on an ice pack. I'm doing the best I can to take care of myself through it - see "self-care" - and I know that's all I can do. When I get low, I need only look around me and see how fortunate I am, given the kind of suffering that is happening in the lives of so many people that I care about. Perspective is everything.

That's my summer so far. Vacation time is August!!!

Pace, Patience, and Pondering

2011-07-07T12:55:00.007-05:00

I've definitely hit that season of the year where pacing myself is more important than ever. Unfortunately, that theory does not generally mesh with reality. You see, when other clergy types go on well-deserved vacay, I gladly cover for them because when I go away in August for my vacation time, they do the same for me. So, what one might think of as a "quiet" time for churches is not necessarily so for pastors.

But that's okay - it just is what it is.

The key is pacing. July is a marathon, not a sprint. Imagine, it's only taken me 13 years to figure that one out! Slow-Learners of the World - Unite!

In other July news, our son who Lives Away is coming for a visit this week. Yay!!!! Later in the month includes fesitivies with other fambly members from Away. It's all good.

My head? Not so much.

Ice is once again a good friend. Evenings are generally rough. After my last set of injections, the first headaches that returned seemed so much worse than they had been prior to the Botox. I still haven't determined if that was just one of those tricks that our primal human brain plays on us (like the way women forget about childbirth pains so easily) or whether I just became briefly unaccustomed to hurting.

Either way, ouch.

So I called to go back and get another set of injections. I've already got the Botox sitting in the freezer at the clinic in The Big City, so I'm all set. Unfortunately for a multitude of reasons, I can't get there until September 19th. Sigh.

Patience is apparently about to become one of my strong points.

In the meantime, I have a massage coming up, and August vacation. I've been doing my physio exercises from back in the day and trying to remember to breathe deeply and enjoy the good days as much as possible. The bad days will pass, and in an odd way, just knowing that in September I can anticipate a time (4 weeks was nice - more would be even nicer!) of relief.....well, most of the time that's enough comfort to get through a rough night.

The problem is Teh Tired. It's July, so my energy tank is on fumes anyway. The cost of taking most of your holiday time in one block is that it's a long time before those holidays come around again! Add in pain and oy - I could sleep pretty much any time of the day or night.

So, there you have it. I'm digging pretty deep, but I'm hard at it until July 31st. Despite the pain/tired combo (no fries thankyouverymuch), I'm getting as much done as I possibly can. I am surprising myself on occasion with bursts of energy that nicely make up for the days when I have trouble finding my shoes.

I'm doing some heavy duty praying these days. For friends grieving, or ill, or in pain, or facing so many of life's most difficult decisions. I look at the Big Hurt going on around me in so many ways, and suddenly I see Perspective staring me square in the eyes. Yesterday a friend gave me a gift that there are simply no words of gratitude that can express what it means to me. Her kindness and generosity in the face of her own suffering moves me to tears. I am so deeply blessed.

In other words, even on the days when I feel like I'm running in mud, I'm feeling so much better than an ever-widening circle of loved ones who are experiencing life in a way that is much, much worse than my own. May God's peace shower down like summer rain on all of you my dear friends.

Truffle's most excellent day

2011-07-02T14:38:00.003-05:00

Today our little girl kitteh has:

1. Watched "Cats 101" - her favorite show.

2. Played with her pink soccer ball - her favorite toy.

3. Visited with her California friends (seriously, that bubble-envelope is going to be on our coffee table forever).

4. Had a good snack of Brand! New! Treats! (apparently these are slightly hallucinogenic, as she followed with a long game of "made you look" where she stares at the ceiling until we look and then runs away.)

5. Is napping.

That friends, is a good cat day.

It's Been Awhile

2011-07-01T21:03:00.003-05:00

I haven't done a "Friday Five" for the RevGal circle for some time. I can't really say why, I just haven't. But today's challenge is interesting and introspective. So, here goes...

Here are the questions:

1) Have your blogging (writing/reading) habits shifted since the days of yore? Definitely. I find I have less to write about, or perhaps just less that I think anyone else would find interesting. I also find that I have less time to write.

My blogging habits shifted a fair bit during 2007-2008 when my chronic pain started to haunt me with that "I'm never going away" message night after painful night. Light sensitivity meant that the computer wasn't always my friend, so I used it mostly at work in the mornings when my pain was at its lowest. This is often still the case. Thus, less blogging.

The difference now is also that I don't feel like I need to say anything terribly wise or important if I say it on facebook. Here, I feel more of an obligation to say "something" of substance - after all, that's why I started it....to hone my writing skills and create something of a personal journal.

2) Do you have some favorites that you miss?
I have several blogs that I enjoyed checking in on daily. Even now, they remain on my bookmarks and I stop by occasionally in the hope of finding a new post. Usually there is nothing there and I am reminded that time has passed and people have moved on. That's okay. That's life, it evolves.

I have new places where I check in with some regularity. I worry if someone doesn't post for awhile and hope that they are well and just busy with life.

3) Are there some blogs you still put in the 'must read' category? Definitely.

4) If we gathered at your knee, what would you tell us about those early days of blogging? First, I would get you a chair. Then I would tell you how delightful it was to discover a circle of women and men in ministry who shared so many of the same experiences - joys and sorrows alike - and were so gifted in storytelling. Our circle of friends made me laugh and cry and created a community like none other I had ever experienced. Meeting some of these friends in ministry at preaching conferences and other events was fun, enlightening and simply wonderful.

5) Do you have a clip or a remembrance of a previous post of yours or someone else's that you remember, you know an oldie but goodie?
I do. It's a response to a question from a friend in 2006 re: Why Blog? I'm having trouble with blogger giving me the actual link, so I'll be annoying and re-post it instead. What I find interesting about it is that it is as true today as it was then.

Why blog?
I've been at this blogging thing for quite some time now. I began in March 2005, treading carefully into the blog world, consistently surprised that anyone out there was actually reading what I tried to capture here.

A good friend who has recently discovered my blog asked me today, "How does it feel to do that?" How does it feel to blog? Well, it seems to me that an appropriate answer to that question begins with another answer to another question -- Why blog? So here is an attempt to answer both parts of the question regarding this phenomenon we know as the blog.

Why blog?

1. Writing. My blog began only a few months after my official writing gig for the preaching resource "AHA!" ended. I no longer had a commitment to produce a huge amount of material for my editor by a certain date on the calendar. I felt a bit at a loss. I had several other writing projects on the go, but all of them were fairly "loose" and unstructured. I needed a forum for writing. Blogging has provided me just such a forum.

2. Journaling. I have kept journals since high school. They were usually lined notebooks of various types, though in recent years the covers became much prettier. I work things out with words. It's always worked for me, and still does, the difference is that now I change my template instead of my notebook. (On the other hand, I still keep a notebook journal by my bedside. There's some stuff even you dear readers don't get to see.)

3. Community. In July 2005 -- One year ago this week!!! I happened to visit the wonderful blog of our friend and matriarch St. Casserole. A discussion was happening there about creating a web-ring - a circle of web friends - connected by vocation and interests, by humour and heartache. Out of this discussion, the RevGalBlogPals emerged, and we haven't looked back. The circle now has over 160 women and men who walk together in faith and seek to serve God in their lives. We have produced and sold two devotional books with proceeds going to Hurricane Katrina relief and we have a line of RevGal clothing the proceeds of which are sent to the Heifer Project. (Yes, I own the t-shirt that says, "Does this pulpit make my butt look big?")

I cannot begin to articulate the gifts that the amazing people in our webring have brought to my life in the past year. They are my friends -- the ones I know in "real life" and the ones I know through their blogs. The RevGals, and so many other bloggy buddies have been a deep blessing to me.

How does it feel to blog?

1. Like catching up with friends. At least one good reader out there has expressed a feeling when he reads my blog that he is somehow being voyeuristic. Pish-tosh! (Does anyone say that anymore???) In any case, I don't put anything on the blog that I don't want people to know about me. Sure, I would prefer to sit down personally with each person who is reading this and share a cup of coffee (mmmm....I remember coffee) and make eye contact and part with a big hug. But if that can't happen because of geographical distance or life's busyness, then this is another way to stay connected.

2. Like a spiritual discipline. Writing is a very spiritual exercise for me, partly because my primary writing task each week is a sermon. In addition, the only writing I have had published and have been paid to do was a weekly creative reflection on three lectionary readings. So, virtually all of the professional writing I have done has had a spiritual aspect to it. When I hit those Blog blocks where I just don't have a single cogent thought to post, I delve into the same spiritual place of searching that I do when a sermon is not coming together, or when I was nearing a deadline with the magazine and feeling dry. I navigate that spiritual desert using various forms of prayer.

I hope that has in some way answered my friend's question from earlier today. It was a good question, and I'm glad this evening to reflect on it.

Homiletics 101

2011-06-29T09:09:00.001-05:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Sigh. If only it were that simple.... :)

Back to it.

Holy nap time with kitteh

2011-06-26T12:24:00.001-05:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

ETA: written by our Son, who totally gets the whole nappage thing.

Today's reading from the book of Modern Acts 6:13 : And so it was in that time that with the power of an MDIV, a mighty testamur and a one-point charge, that the word was preached to the people and it was great. And great too was the holiest of naps that occurred later in the day of worship, with a television on at moderate volume and a cat who has authority to interrupt as she sees fit. and may it always be so.

A modern day prophet if I ever heard one....

Massage Day

2011-06-24T11:00:00.003-05:00

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh...................

ETA: For anyone who is wondering, yes, I've been working on a sermon this morning, and yes, it will be finished by late this afternoon. In the meantime - bring on those candles and get the knots out of those muscles! Yay!!!

An Amazing Woman....

2011-06-23T19:23:00.003-05:00

Last week I started reading Nicole Hemmenway's "No, It Is NOT In My Head: The Journey of a Chronic Pain Survivor from Wheelchair to Marathon." When I began reading her story, I immediately knew I was on a learning curve. I did not know anything at all about CRPS - Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome. By the end of the book, I was beginning my days by adding to my daily prayer list EVERYONE who lives with this horrifying condition. I continue to do so.

Nicole's story is simply inspiring. As the title tells us, she literally went from being a disabled person who was wheelchair-bound as a result of more visits to hell and back than any one human should have to endure - to completing a half-marathon!

I'll be honest. And I'm not proud to say this at all, but confession is good for the soul. I started reading Nicole's book on the day that marked the first truly excruciating day since my last round of Botox injections. I've had some pain in the (almost) eight weeks since my injections, but nothing like this. My usual pain scale didn't quite cover how hyper-sensitive I was to not only the usual feeling of a hot poker being stuck in my right temple and stopping to burn right behind the middle of my eye......but to EVERYTHING.

I just was not myself. The cat jumping on the bed was making me cringe, because (of course!!!!) I would have to move to make room for her, and moving made me more nauseous. Light - impossible. TV - no way. Sound - ugh....the sound of my own breathing was annoying me. Poor hubby did his best to stay out of my way and I felt so badly because he has his own pain these days in his shoulder (probably from repetitive stress from transferring from the wheelchair).

Out of sheer boredom with myself, I started reading Nicole's story. My hypersensitive editorial red-pen-of-doom noticed every misplaced comma. Sometimes I can be such an a*s.

The truth is: The book is perfect.

It is a story of victory, strength, empowerment, persistence, family love, and overcoming the worst kind of agony imaginable. And I noticed grammar and editing. Gah. I am a serious jerk when I am in pain.

Which is all to say: READ THIS BOOK. If you suffer from chronic pain or know anyone who does, Nicole's story will make even the hardest times fill with her contagious hope.

Ironically, two friends have recently told me about a wonderful Reiki therapist in town. Nicole had a wonderful experience with Reiki, just as my friends have. This has inspired me now to give it a try.

Honestly, over the past (almost) six years, there are very few therapies that I have NOT tried, but Reiki is one of them. Because my doc and I agree that narcotic meds are a very bad idea, I've turned to alternative therapies. I've had cranial sacral therapy, physio, occupational therapy, spiritual direction, structural integration (formerly known as Rolfing), trigger point injections, acupuncture, Thai Yoga Massage, healing touch, and of course deep tissue massage. I have a massage tomorrow, TBTG!

But I haven't had Reiki. Now I will, thanks to my friends and to this author whose book I literally had to read a few pages at a time with my right eye partly covered and an ice pack on my right temple.

Who says miracles can't happen from thousands of miles away?

Oh, and that half marathon? After two years of having a membership at my favourite gym, I found out this week that I had moved far enough up the wait list to have a locker!! Of my very own!!! I guess that means I need to re-acquaint myself with the elliptical machine, right? :) And, of course, the treadmill.

Thanks Nicole.

What a day can bring...

2011-06-22T14:40:00.002-05:00

If I have learned nothing else over the past (almost) 6 years of chronic pain, it is that no two days look the same. After my recent trip to the Big City for trigger point Botox injections, I had several comparatively good weeks, pain-wise.

The doctor who is treating me there told me to anticipate a return of the pain.......she had not had a case in her memory in which the first set of injections resulted in permanent remission. So, not surprisingly, I have had a few horrible days - ok, more than a few. Now I just need to determine when I will go back for further treatment. It's a big deal to get there. It means organizing the trip around my Sunday afternoon/Monday days off, booking flights and hotel accommodations, plus a small mountain of Provincial paper work (thank you Northern Travel Grant, but your forms hurt my head!).

In other words, one day will be so bad that all of the above seem small compared to getting some relief. Then, the next day I feel a lower level of pain, and I am back in "wait-and-see" mode again.

Yesterday I felt great. I got a LOT done. I spent the morning in the office and the afternoon out and about making visits. I felt almost "normal". I remembered how much I love days like that, when ministry feels like breathing and no part of the day is a struggle.

By 9:00 last night, I was hurting. I took my new migraine-abortive medication, but to no avail. I was awake for much of the night. Everything was too bright (tv, computer, iPad) so it was just me, ice, and the darker the better. So, I'm home today.

48 hours.

Like night and day.

More than just a name....

2011-06-11T21:18:00.003-05:00

Our Little Church on the Corner became an Affirming Ministry in the United Church of Canada several years ago. Since then, we have occasionally paused to ask ourselves what that really means. We try to make our status as an open and welcoming congregation as public as possible, and I tend to find myself in plenty of places where I am able to do so.

This past week, our City had its first-ever Pride Week. The week began with worship in our Little Church on the Corner. We had plenty of guests and a feeling of safety and celebration all around. It was good.

The week proceeded with more activities and events than I can possibly name here. It was remarkable - art shows, literature readings, movie presentations, union workshops, a Walk for Healing, a Drag Show Extravaganza (which our son happened to win!!!!), a family picnic with children's activities, displays, food and plenty of music, an Electro Dance night and a closing worship tomorrow at the Unitarian Fellowship. Whew! That is only part of the whole week. It was a smashing success.

Thursday night's Walk for Healing began in the outdoor labyrinth of an Anglican church, with opening words from the (female) priest of that congregation along with a traditional aboriginal smudge. We walked in silence to a Presbyterian church. As the group of fifty or so people made their way into the church I could feel the hesitancy in some of the people. It made me sad to think of how many of those who had come to honour those they had lost, or who continued to suffer from violence, bullying and suicide in their community....felt as if they had walked into a very unsafe space - simply because it was a church.

Our small planning group quickly set the tone for the evening and the shift in the feeling of the space was palpable. One by one, those who felt so moved came to light a candle to shine some lightness on the darkest places of grief, fear and discrimination. They took away a flower as a sign of hope and beauty. We departed silently.

Today at the picnic in the park, I can't even guess at the number of people of all ages (but mostly my son's age) who came to thank me for being a part of that evening. For making a church a safe place for them to be on Thursday night, even though it wasn't my church. They felt safe enough to be themselves. To be real.

One young woman thanked me for a message I gave at a rally for a young gay man who was horribly beaten in our city a few years ago. She said she still remembered my words (and she quoted me word for word): "My God does not discriminate. My God does not punish. My God does not inflict pain, for any reason, on any person. My God cries with the rest of us when one of our community is so brutally harmed. That is the God I worship. And the only God I will serve."

I was speechless.

Two years later - she remembered EXACTLY what I had said. All I could do was thank her and give her a hug.

That, friends, is what it means to be an Affirming Ministry. That is why we worked so hard to become the congregation that we are. Because we need to be a part of creating safe and welcoming space everywhere we go and in every way we can. Our God is continually calling us to the power and privilege of this ministry. May it ever be so.

And the people said...........Amen!

Still here...

2011-06-09T15:22:00.002-05:00

I'm still around, just uber busy.

Almost every day since Sunday has involved fast-moving weather systems that are wreaking havoc with my brain. Pain level nowhere near a friendly level. Also, it's Thunder Pride week with lots of great events, so that is a good kind of busy!

Add to that a few burial services and Pentecost and a Grant Proposal that is very nearly ready to send on it's way, and there you have it. Life. Busy, but good.

Thankfully, after four tough days, my head appears to like again. All I have left is that leftover echo of hurt that I'll take any day over the real thing.

More later.....happy spring everyone!

Is There a Line in the Sand?

2011-06-03T21:42:00.003-05:00

There is a very interesting conversation happening on another forum regarding a United Church of Canada individual who is in paid-accountable active ministry and has a very busy speaking schedule. What is his/her topic (I would prefer not to advertise for this person)? Something called "Progressive Christianity".

This person came to our church a few years ago, because honestly, we do not exclude. We are open to new ideas and a wide diversity of theological perspectives and as such, we were willing to listen and learn.

I asked this person directly during the Q&A: "Where does Jesus fit into your Progressive Christianity?"

The response: "He doesn't."

Period.

My next question about why this movement within the United Church could possibly be called a form of Christianity when Jesus is not considered to be a part of it remained unanswered. The speaker danced around that one until I turned out the last light and locked the doors to close up for the the evening.

So my question is this: Is there a point at which a paid-accountable minister is no longer in "essential agreement" with our Basis of Union? And when that person has reached that point, should they be looking for another forum in which to preach their message? I have no problem with the path this person has chosen, because it is right for her/him. But if it is closer to Secular Humanism or perhaps Unitarian Universalist faith, would that not be a more comfortable happy place for this person to preach?

I LOVE the fact that our denomination hosts such a wide diversity of beliefs. I think it is one of finest qualities of our faith. That someone with a very-far-to-the-right conservative faith can sit in the pew next to someone with a very left-of-center ideology and theology is a beautiful thing to see. That is the United Church I love and serve within.

But it seems to me that there has to be a common thread of some kind. That thread may look a bit different to each person in the pew, but it is still there. For me, that thread needs to be Jesus. We are a Christian denomination - the largest one in Canada. Who are we if we decide that Jesus is no longer a part of it, and if this is what we believe, then how can we, with any integrity, still dare to use the word Christianity?

What the people in the pews believe is not in question. People are free to believe as they see fit. I'm talking about church leadership. If Jesus is no one special, or may not have existed at all, to the person in the pulpit - then what have we become?

As a professing and confessing church, and part of what we sign on to when we are ordained, commissioned, recognized or admitted from another denomination is that we agree - we are in essential agreement - that we believe in God, Creator, Christ and Spirit. Jesus is part of our common thread. At the level of our church Courts (Presbytery, Conference, General Council) we begin the proceedings with a statement which includes the words "...Jesus Christ, the true head of the Church."

If we really believe this, then how can a paid-accountable minister preach the non-existence and lack of relevance of this One true head of our church, and still retain the status of clergy?

Sorry folks, but I just don't get it. I don't understand.

Conference meeting

2011-05-28T08:41:00.002-05:00

I'm sitting in a freezing cold arena in Northwestern Ontario. It is May 28 and 6 C outside. Temperature about the same inside the hockey arena we are meeting in, but at least we're out of the wind.

Good meetings so far - interesting discussion re: various proposals, none of which are terribly newsworthy, but good for dialogue nonetheless. Report from the First Nations community in northern Manitoba re: Manitoba Hydro and Treaty 5 land. Also good but unfortunate news about Immigration Canada getting in the way of our Zambian partners coming to see us. Dear Minister of Immigration, please sense us our friends.

Disappointing moment: overheard a conversation that went like this (at the table next to ours)

Where is "person X".

"oh, he went home with a (insert air quotes here) migraine"

.......laughter.....

I turned and very calmly told the two people that as a migraine sufferer I could assure them that people as a rule do NOT fake a migraine and I was sure that their friend would much prefer to be sitting at table group with them than to be suffering back at the hotel.

*crickets*

Sigh.

Chronic Invisible Pain - the last remaining acceptable discrimination? Perhaps that's too strong.....but that kind of attitude helps no one, so I felt obliged to call them on it. Because we are in a safe space, I was sure to do it in a Christ-like way, but it did sting a bit as I thought of all my fellow migraineurs.

Onward to day three!!!!

Onward and Upward

2011-05-25T20:49:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow morning a bunch of us will convoy to a city West of here (only 600 km!!! Bonus!!!) for the Annual Meeting of the Conference of Manitoba & Northwestern Ontario.

For the first time in a lot of years, I'm actually kind of excited about it. For so long it has been a very long, very exhausting weekend that I simply had to "get through" one day, one hour, one minute at a time. I would arrive home on Sunday ready to sleep in a dark room with my ice for days.

I don't know how I will respond to the schedule, as it is quite intense and involves extremely long days of both business and keynote addresses. I know that messing up my sleep patterns triggers my headache, so I'll need to be sure to do the early to bed, early to rise thing for sure. I will need to watch what I eat and be aware that while I have so much more energy than I have had in past years, I still need to be vigilant about self-care as the weekend unfolds.

In an odd way, it feels like my first Conference visit all over again.

The best part will be on Sunday when a dear friend has asked me to one of his two representatives to lay hands upon him as he is recognized as an ordained minister in the UCC (by transfer from another denomination). I had the privilege of laying hands on another friend as she began her ministry as a Designated Lay Minister. These are powerful moments. If the United Church had another sacrament, I would say this is it - the recognition, commissioning and ordaining of new ministries.

Catch ya on the other side. Have a good weekend everyone!

Compared to What?

2011-05-19T14:47:00.005-05:00

My trip to our Nation's Capitol was very very good. I had a lovely visit with my sister and her family (who introduced me to Marcel the Shell, and whose answer to pretty much anything is "Compared to What"?) and had the wonderful opportunity to meet my sister and brother-in-law's grandbabies!!!

I had some good interviews with Military Chaplains who were very helpful in terms of pointing me in the right direction for my sabbatical research. I'm only just getting started and already I'm seeing that I will need to focus my three months of study to a very narrow part of the broader subject of the relationship between the Church and the Military. There is a LOT of material out there. It's all interesting and I would love to investigate it, but I only have three months next year to work on it, so I'll have to pare it all down to something more manageable.

My trip home was interesting, to say the least.

My cell phone was off (or out of battery power), and the airline (WestJet) was trying to reach me to bump me up to an earlier flight because of a "situation" in Toronto, where I had to make a connection to get home.

They couldn't reach me on the cell, so they phoned hubby at home, and he called B-I-L who then called my niece, who was with me in the afternoon. When I arrived, a WestJet agent was looking for me and put me in front of the line immediately so I could catch the early flight.

For the "inconvenience", I have a 50% off voucher for my next flight with WestJet. How awesome is that????

To make it even more fun, the pilot came out of the cabin prior to lift-off to introduce himself and the staff, and noted that one of the flight attendants was a contestant on last year's "Canadian Idol" - cool. Then he told some lame jokes and we took off. The best part was when the pilot said "We're having some runway issues at The Center of the Universe" With snickering apologies to my dear Toronto friends, I had to laugh at that one..... come on......who doesn't know that Toronto has a bit of a collective ego????

I heart WestJet. Seriously, when the competition (Air Canada - ick) has an unofficial motto that says, "We're not happy until you're unhappy" - to see such great customer service is so delightful.

It's good to be home. Now I have pull all of my info together over the next few days and get my grant application ready for submission well in advance of the due date. Yes, I was always that annoying person who handed in term papers two weeks early. Whatever....it helps me sleep at night.

I took ONE headache-avoiding med the first day of my trip - mostly because I was up from 4:30 am until midnight. Sleep interruption isn't good for headachy types.

I loved seeing my Ottawa relatives again - it was wonderful!

Truffle is seriously unhappy with me. It will take a few days until I'm forgiven for going away and returning with the scent of someone else's cat all over me. She'll get over it. It could be worse....

Truffle: "Oh ya, compared to What?"

:)

ETA: I also had a chance to visit with some friends from Queen's on Monday!!! Thanks T & M - great to see you and to meet da boyz.

Also, not that this should come as any surprise, but my sister and I have the same shower curtain. In the past we have had the same bed linens and dishes. And we live a few thousand kilometers away from each other. Thus, bed linens and such are genetically hard-wired into us at birth. You heard it here first folks. ;)

Up and Away

2011-05-16T04:18:00.000-05:00

Catch you later in the week. For now - airport time!

Rain List

2011-05-13T15:34:00.002-05:00

While the rest of North America has been (tragically in some cases) experiencing far more rain than rivers and tributaries can hold, we've had a relatively dry spring so far. Even so, the clouds are hovering this afternoon, so I looked through my library and discovered a few songs about rain.

So, not that anyone asked, but here's my "rain" playlist:

1. Over the Rainbow (Glee Cast Version)
2. Let it Rain (Amanda Marshall)
3. Bring on the Rain (Jo Dee Messina)
4. Don't Rain on My Parade (Glee Cast Version)
5. Right as Rain (Adele)
6. Set Fire to the Rain (Adele)
7. April Rain (Delain)
8. Fire and Rain (James Taylor and Carole King)
9. Can't Stop the Rain (Jennifer Hudson)

What's your favourite "rain" song?

Strong

2011-05-06T16:19:00.005-05:00

I watched this movie last weekend. It's called "Country Strong." I'm not necessarily a huge country music fan, but I do love Gwyneth Paltrow, so I watched it. This song, plus "Coming Home" are the best two songs on the soundtrack. I've read other reviews, but I think GP pulls this one off both in the acting and the singing department. I would buy her CD for sure if she had one.

What really struck me about the movie (and I won't give any spoilers away) was the main character's fighting spirit. She had so much working against her, so many mountains to climb, so many internal battles blazing away inside her at every turn....but somewhere in the midst of it all she had a glimmer of hope. A tiny glimpse of what she could still reach for, even in the hardest of times. So she reached. And when that didn't work, she did it again.

There were people around her who told her it was over. Give up, you've done your best, but it's over. There were others who did not see her brokenness, only her gifts. In between, were thousands who didn't know much about any of her actual life, only the veneer that her publicists and "people" allowed for public viewing.

I cannot imagine a life like hers. It's the last thing I would ever choose.

But on some level, I connected with her. It's taken me a week or so to figure out why this movie, as opposed to the others I've seen lately, has stayed with me. It's her strength in the face of SO many troubles and her ability to access that strength when everyone else says it's not there. How many people do you really know who can do that?

I know one.

Me.

I was raised to be typically Canadian and make as little of my own strengths as possible. I was raised to apologize when someone steps on my foot. It's the Canadian way. To be bold enough to actually *name* what your good at, what you've overcome, and how that resiliency makes you - oh goodness, but this is hard to type - proud of yourself......so NOT Canadian.

But you know what? I've been through a heck of a lot in almost six years. I've spent most of those days in the kind of pain that would undoubtedly send the average person to the nearest ER or walk-in. In six years, I've gone that route only five times. Otherwise, without the benefit of pain-killers (aside from otc's), I've just darn-well toughed it out.

Yes, I've had the odd repreive. Yes, I've become de-sensitized to pain. No, that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt. It just means I go on living anyway.

It means I'm a lot stronger than I, or anyone else, ever suspected. It means I have a special perspective on clients and parishioners who live every day in pain. I want to wave a magic wand and make it go away for them. But I can't. I can only tell them to hang on. That we're tough. We're made of tough Canadian stock that is stronger and more resilient than the ice we live on for 8 months of the year.

Tonight my head doesn't hurt.

It's an odd feeling, to be honest. But it reminds me of days when the pain wasn't there. It reminds me that I've discovered a lot in six years. About myself. About the people around me. About strength, and how much it takes to access it in the deepest, darkest moments in life when we need it the most. I found out that "No" isn't an acceptable answer for me. I've found out that when one practioner has run out of ideas and is honest enough to say so, I am utterly respectful of that, and I move on to the next possibility.

I'm strong. And I'm much stronger because of my family support than I ever would have been alone. P has been amazing, along with my boys and extended family. I've been deeply blessed.

So I'm "Canadian Strong." That just is what it is. Today.

In another four months, I go for another set of injections. By the time that happens, I probably won't be back to daily pain, but a few days a week won't surprise me or my pain doc.

In the meantime, I'm giving myself a major pat on the back. Because I can. If anyone thinks that's too much like bragging, too un-Canadian, well....too bad.

For now, I'm going to do some stuff I couldn't do when my head was exploding and the Pain Monster had me in its grips. It's time to make up for some lost time.

And I'm strong enough to do that too.

Still in the Game

2011-05-05T23:55:00.003-05:00

First,let me say that setting my alarm clock for any time prior to 5:00 a.m. for two days in a row is a generally bad idea. I theory it is bad, in practice it is utterly ridiculous. Someone remind me of that next time.

Second, I know I shouldn't be complaining. My head doesn't hurt tonight. First time in a while. Or I should more accurately say that it doesn't hurt the way it always has - like a dagger in my right temple. Tonight I have more generalized achy injection- site pain which the doc told me to expect along with some possible flu-like symptoms.

Yesterday I went back to the clinic in Toronto for injections similar to those I had six weeks ago. The difference is that this time the doc injected Botox instead of buprovicaine. Same injection sites, new expectations. Ideally, when the neurons do their usual thing and tell my right temple to hurt, they will be disappointed to discover that from the occipital area up to the area above my right eye, as well as other geographical side-routes, they will find none of those muscles responsive to their signals. Ha! Take that pain pathways!

Apparently, the Botox gets the nerves so messed up that, hopefully, over time, they forget how they functioned for almost six years, night and day. While she was injecting the 22 injection sites (I counted), the doc told me that I should expect a longer result this time around and look at early to late autumn for a possible return. I can live with that.

In the meantime, I need some sleep.

It would have been nice if even a few of the injections had done something about the signs and lines that six years of agony has emblazoned on my otherwise youthful mug. Whatever....

Seeking Simplicity

2011-04-29T17:30:00.004-05:00

The world, life, ministry, but mostly life - well, it's complicated. I'm making a concerted effort to make it less so.

P and I have become increasingly minimalist as the years have passed. Our move to the condo was a good opportunity to re-assess what we *need* and what we *want*. BIG difference. Ultimately, everything in the condo and storage locker will have either practical or significant sentimental value to us. Everything else will go to someone who actually needs it.

My winter photo-organizing project was in large part due to simplifying and creating order out of the chaos that was our photo collection. I'm really proud of that project. I'm not a craft-inclined person. A person cannot be good at everything. Even so, I managed to organize our life in photos in a fun and even pretty way. Imagine!

On the other hand, there are things that I know without a doubt that I *am* good at, and I take pride in doing those things. Not in a boastful way, but in a way that says "God blessed me with some gifts, and I'm happy to share them."

Here's what I know:

I'm good enough.

It is possible, of course, to complicate that confidence with insecurity and self-doubt.....and for a lot of years I did exactly that. I let other people decide who I was. But at some point that shifted in a seismic sort of way. It occurred to me that I had to clear away that outer locus of identity and figure out who *I* was, and who God created me to be.

That's still a work in progress, but then it is for everyone isn't it?

Over the years of sorting through what was true about me and what was not, I learned to shake off the stuff that had stuck to me like barnacles on a ship's hull. The stuff that all of the bullies in grade school had teased me about......that I wasn't smart enough, or pretty enough, or athletic enough, or just....enough.

When I think of how very difficult it must be for a young person these days, one who doesn't make it into the "cool kids" safety net, well, it breaks my heart. It was hard enough for me to hear all of those cruel things at school and come home to a place where I was loved unconditionally. I had the luxury of leaving the teasing at school. Imagine coming home and hearing it all over again on texts and facebook. God protect all of the young people out there who face today's particular brand of bullying. It is truly horrendous.

What I wish I could say to all of them is this: "Remember who you are. Love yourself as much as God who created you - with a love that has no limits. Seek out your strengths and be proud of them. Don't let anyone else determine who you are. Be yourself - because that is enough."

Life can be complicated, and at times those complications cannot be avoided. But even so, it is possible to keep what you need and what is life-giving to your soul. The rest of it....the things that chip away at your self-worth like waves wearing down the rocks along the sea shore.....the things that have no life-giving value, all of that can go.

Simplicity. Minimalism. In a culture that encourages us to always have more, more, more of everything, these can be lofty goals. But they are not out of reach. It's about understanding what it means to have enough of the things that really matter, and letting the rest go.

Enough.

Simply put - I *have* more than enough and I'm thankful for that blessing every day.

I *am* enough, and I'm thankful for that too.

Yet another reason to love NTV

2011-04-28T15:37:00.001-05:00

We love watching the nightly news report from St. John's NFLD (hubby's birthplace, aka The Rock, aka The Holy Land) for its sheer entertainment value.

Tonight's lead story:

A 58 year old Newfoundland woman was attacked at a gas station. While definitely not a pleasant situation, she handled herself in typical Newfie fashion. Unfortunately, her attacker knew very little about sturdy Newfoundland women.

He was lucky to get away with only a broken nose and a couple of black eyes. As the constabulary took him away, he did look a tad sheepish. I don't think he'll be robbing anyone anytime soon.

That'll learn ya buddy!!

Study Leave

2011-04-28T13:38:00.003-05:00

I am on study leave this week. So far, it has been a " best of times/worst of times" sort of week. I really needed a quiet week. As rich and fulfilling as I find Lent, Holy Week and Easter to be - it is a bit exhausting. I had more stamina for it when I was first ordained, but now a nice quiet week to nurture my inner Introvert is good for me.

I believe that falls nicely into the category of "live and learn."

I spoke earlier this week with my former faculty advisor for a reference regarding a grant application in support of next year's sabbatical leave. It was so lovely to catch up with him and find out how things are going at the old alma mater. He also had plenty of good ideas re: people to contact for interviews and great articles for study.

The cat is very happy to have me home. Or at least she was until earlier today when I took the garbage downstairs and happened to meet a nice couple in the elevator who had (gasp) a dog with them. I am presently being shunned, as I smell of "dog." Oh, the shame......

Last night was rough. By mid-afternoon my head was screaming for mercy and by the time my dear and concerned friend called to see how I was doing, I'm afraid I wasn't actually fit for human interaction. Sorry R - you know I love you, right? I had a case of the "For corn's sake, enough already!!!" re: this stupid brain of mine. Next week I head back to Toronto for another set of injections, slightly different and hopefully more lasting than the ones I had done in March. Though, really, the return of Teh Hurt has been mercifully gradual.

By the way, "for corn's sake" is completely stolen from a dear friend - you know who you are. LYMI. :)

On a lighter note: the snow is gone from the patio!!!!!!

BBQ season may just arrive yet. Yay!!!!

Very cute...

2011-04-28T11:10:00.001-05:00

No, I do not have one of these knitting kits. Bazinga! As if.....

TV coverage begins at 4:00 am here. Let me know how that goes, 'kay?

If you know me, you know that I would totally do this...

2011-04-26T22:15:00.001-05:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Alleulia!

2011-04-24T07:18:00.004-05:00

Christ is Risen!! He is Risen indeed!

Another beautiful Sunrise service this morning. Cold, but not unbearably so. Trust me - we've had worse! Representation from all five churches on our side of the city, plus a few others who I think came simply to enjoy Easter morning from the most beautiful place in the city. We even had a fly-by courtesy of two Canadian geese.

I'm feeling profoundly blessed.

Easter in your soul...

2011-04-20T11:33:00.002-05:00

I had the great blessing of spending the morning with colleagues from several denominations for a time of retreat and feeding of the spirit.

This wasn't part of the morning's reflections, but during one of the silent prayer times, this reading from Elizabeth Goudge's |The White Witch (London, 1958) came to mind. I hadn't thought of it in a long while and I found myself thinking (because I'm so, you know, eloquent), "Huh."

.....from "The White Witch"

"...she had long accepted the fact that happiness is like swallows in spring. It may come and nest under your eaves or it may not. You cannot command it. When you expect to be happy you are not, and when you don’t expect to be happy there is suddenly Easter in your soul, though it be midwinter. Something, you do not know what, has broken the seal upon that door in the depth of your being that opens upon eternity. It is not time for you yourself to go out of it but what is beyond it comes in and passes into you and through you."

A Gift

2011-04-18T21:58:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, a retired pastor from another denomination invited all of the active local clergy in every denomination to a one-hour clergy retreat on Wednesday morning. He said that he remembers all too well the demands of this week on busy pastors. The extra visits, extra services, and way too many things to remember for the weekend...all of it.

His invitation was to simply come and BE in the presence of others who understand the pressure - some of it self-imposed to be sure, but some of it simply a result of the season - and to remember that each of us needs to honour what this Holy Week is all about as well.

What a wonderful thing for him to do. He didn't have to do this for us. He's been ill in recent years, and has relied heavily on Paul's letter to the Romans to get him through some hard times. When I read that part of the invitation I knew I had to attend. Romans strikes me in a very visceral place as all the best of what Paul intended to be as a follower of Jesus. Yes, there are points I don't agree with, but at the core of it, the gospel is truly reflected there.

I have so much respect for this gentleman's intellect, but mostly his compassion leads me into this week with the knowledge that while the end of the week will be a whirlwind, for one hour on Wednesday morning, our host, my colleagues from across the city, and the apostle Paul will make me remember what the Passion and the Joy of Easter dawn is really all about.

Faith.

Redemption.

Love.

Servanthood.

All for an itinerant preacher who likely, at times, felt just as overwhelmed as most of us do this week. I think that's what those ventures out into the middle of the lake were all about. Even Jesus took moments of retreat. Tonight I'm looking forward to mine and feeling very grateful for someone who remembers - and cares.

Actual Conversation

2011-04-18T17:37:00.003-05:00

After worship yesterday....

* Note: announcements regarding shared worship through Holy Week have been made in church, newsletter, and power point for at least six weeks.

Me: Good morning! It's lovely to see you!

Other Person: So, you're not doing anything for Holy Week then.

Me: (showing back of worship bulletin) All of the services for the week are listed here, and the vigil sign up sheet still has a few free spaces left.

OP: No. I mean You. *You* aren't doing anything *here*.

Me: As I mentioned earlier, we're sharing services through the week with churches X, Y, Z etc.... The Good Friday service is a Cantata at X and it's going to be really great. All of the churches are taking part.

OP: *shrugs* In other words, nothing here.

Aaaaaaaaand scene.

That's one person who will not be at any shared services. And someone who will NOT be happy about the inevitable changes happening all across the church right now.

And yes......one more soul who actually believes that I only work on Sundays and that this Holy Week is like a week off for me.

That sound you hear is the sound of my head hitting the desk.

Therapist Kitteh

2011-04-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

This therapist kitteh looks just like our now departed and much beloved "Fluffy". He was a good therapist too....

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Well, golly....

2011-04-16T14:48:00.002-05:00

It just isn't Easter until the snow falls and the minister gets sick.

Seriously. It's been a week of sniffling, snuffling and cough drops. It happens.....

Every.

Single.

Year.

The good news is that the sick is over for the most part. I'm still an octave lower than usual, but even that is improving today. Yay!!!

Today I'm getting ready for tomorrow's service and trying to clean up the place a bit to celebrate Son's birthday dinner tomorrow (he's had Teh Ick much, much worse than I. I'm just glad he's finally up and about, poor guy....)

I think I'll need some java inspiration. I have a kitteh warming herself on the other side of the laptop, so we're all set to go.

But first, a prayer, courtesy of Cute Overload:

O blessed coffeemaker, benevolent bringer of caffeine, whose warmth elevates our speech above the level of prehistoric guttural mumbling, whose full-bodied flavor makes open our eyes that we may locate our desks without stumbling into the supply closet again, let thy mountain-grown richness flow into our veins, so that we may endure the weekly all-hands meeting without slumping into a coma…

Winter project and a Hail Storm

2011-04-11T15:31:00.004-05:00

Check this out! These are photo boxes and memory boxes that I picked up at the craft store (yes - I was in a craft store - you may stop laughing now) in January. The boxes are filled with pictures dating back to well before I was born, all in chronological order and labeled with tab cards. The memory boxes have years and years of school pictures from the boys, who are also in the framed picture above on the couch. This is one of favourite pictures of the boyz together. They are wearing sweaters that my Mom had made for them and they just look soooo sweet. But I'm hardly biased at all, right?

The bigger boxes also hold selected artistic brilliance from both boys as well as scool awards other special memories.

It took a long time to go through the numerous albums that were holding all of the photos, but in the end, it was well worth it. Some of the pictures had already started to yellow from those old albums with the sticky pages with clear covers. I hope I managed to save them in time. I feel like I've done the boys a massive favour. They won't have to fish through buckets and buckets of pictures and edit out the good ones long after I'm gone. All they need to do is divide up what is already sorted for them. I even wrote names and dates on the backs of pictures if I thought they might not recognize the people in the picture.

You're welcome boys!

We had a *really* good hail storm yesterday afternoon! I was even happier than usual to have an underground parking spot.

Busy

2011-04-09T16:10:00.002-05:00

About two months ago, another RevGal preacher and writer posted about busyness. It resonated enough with me so muh that I saved it to look at later. This week I read it about ten times. It was a good way to center myself through these busy, yet reflective times.

The quotes are from Tara Gentile at her blog. The entire article is worth a look for anyone who feels like they cannot get off the hamster wheel. Tara gently but firmly tells us that this simply is not true.

Our time, and how we spend it, is generally under our control. And even on those rare occasions when the way we spend our time is *not* under our control, surely the way we respond to it is very much our own doing - indeed our own responsibility.

Here's what she says:

When you tell me how busy you are, that’s not what I hear you say. I hear you say that you’re afraid to stop, to try something different, to pause for no reason, to reflect, to jump forward. I hear you say that you fear you have no original ideas, that the world won’t accept your true passion, that the world will fall apart if you don’t just keep moving.

Ouch. Tough love, but it may answer the awkward question of time management, Sabbath keeping, and what really lies beneath it.

Further, our RevGal colleague says:

Now, there’s more that can be said about busyness that’s not all shadow side. When we live a life of connectedness and relationship, that costs us something in time and energy. People depend on us for real, tangible things. A person who’s not needed by anyone else is living a sad existence.

Ministry means that there are times when my physical presence and energy are not only needed, but a significant part of another person's path through this life. What a privilege! What a gift! And yes, at times, a burden. But it is one I would not trade in for anything. If, on the worst day or best day of another person's life, I can be present on that holy ground in the name of Christ - well, I will show up and do whatever I am equipped and empowered to do - recognizing the blessing for what it is.

This E.B. White gem perhaps says it best:

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

In these next few weeks, my deep hope is that I can find that delicate balance between both improving and enjoying the world around me.

Self-talk, prayer and the treadmill

2011-04-09T12:28:00.003-05:00

I've been heading back to the gym with much more regularity since the worst of winter has passed. It's not like I workout outdoors, but there are times in the middle of winter when the days are so short and so darn cold that I will come up with a multitude of reasons why it's just smarter to go home to my warm living room. Frankly, it really doesn't feel great to emerge from the gym at 5:00 pm and see that it is pitch black outside. In the hour I spent on the treadmill, day turned into night. Oh yay!

Anyway, it's much easier these days. I'm even planning to do an outdoor evening walk on Wednesdays for the next few weeks.

While I'm on the treadmill, I spend a lot of time being my own coach. My inner self-talk elevates to a laughable point. I set my program at the beginning of my workout (usually after a short warm up on the elliptical) and off I go. My music is playing, feet are moving and after the first 20 minutes or so, I need some encouragement. Insert "Coach Voice" here.

"Sue - you set the program, so you have to finish it. If you didn't think you could possibly do it with that incline, speed and run intervals, you would have set the machine to an easier program. Now quit your whining and just do it."

And I do. Thank you Running Shoe With a Wave, for the slogan that plays in my head and gets the workout done. We will talk about your out-sourcing and labour practices another time.

It is Lent.

At the beginning of Lent, I set a program of spiritual discipline for myself that involved written prayer - every. single. day. Well, guess what? About halfway through Lent, my Inner Coach kicked in. It was on a busy morning at the office when I thought "Can't I just start my day as I always do, with prayers for the day and for people I know to be in need of God's healing presence? Isn't that enough? Do I really have to write it down?"

Yes. I had set the program. I have to see it through to the end. So I picked up the pen and continued my spiritual discipline.

When that happened, I thought about how small a thing that was to grow weary of doing. It is just another kind of prayer. It's not like I don't start my morning that way anyhow. And yet, I wanted off the Lenten treadmill. I was getting tired.

Lent is a long season. This year in particular has been filled with some especially challenging moments. But I have managed to maintain the discipline I set for myself. Instead of feeling puffed up about that, I feel quite humbled. I understand why the disciples fell asleep on the job when Jesus asked them to stay awake for one lousy hour. One hour! They were exhausted.

Jesus is exhausting. Especially when we make a deep spiritual committment to stay with him all the way to the cross. But as I have long believed, if we won't or don't do this, then it is really a form of cheap grace to show up for all the joy and celebration on Easter morning.

The first glimpse of a New Day on Easter morning is so much more meaningful when one has spent the last 40 days (plus Sundays) on the treadmill called Lent. When we have truly tasted, even a bit, of the arduous journey to the utter injustice of the cross, that open tomb all but shouts to us the sheer joy of having arrived at grace itself.

Hang in there friends. We're almost there.

Mama Bear

2011-04-07T23:16:00.002-05:00

Rough week.

There is a part of church life that I like to call the "stuff under the rock." I understand it as a necessary framework in which the Church (big C) must operate, and I celebrate the many people who are excellent at the work of the church's structures and committees.

But.....

.... and you knew there was a 'but'.....

When said system of order and structure does something that is not good for my congregation and the faithful, hardworking people in it, I will bring That. System. Down. (insert Sandra Bullock voice from Miss Congeniality)

Today I found out about an unfortunate injustice imposed upon our little church that almost immediately got my Mama Bear juices flowing. In other words - if you're smart, don't mess with my peeps.

I did not freak out.

I gathered all of the pertinent information so that all of my facts were correct, then I got busy. The particular committee that made a
rather massive mistake - one that made our church look really, really bad and stated outright that we were not in compliance with The Manual - well, that person heard from me. I remained calm but unyielding. "The problem is to be fixed, and here is how it is going to happen"

And that was just the beginning. I listed the ways in which this issue is going to be repaired. I left no room for excuses or delays. Because when you diss my people, my church family, people that I love...... you WILL hear from me.

I have long been fascinated by styles of ministry leadership. Most of the time I lead quietly from the middle, encouraging the gifts of the faithful people around me. Sometimes though, in some situations, my style becomes that of the Mama Bear - if you're going to go after them,
you will have to get past me first. And you don't want to do that.

I'm really not just posturing here and trying to sound all tough. I was as surprised as anyone to notice how calm and determined I was when I realized my primary task for the day was to defend my congregation. In a really odd way, it was almost like watching myself "do" ministry in a way rarely experienced (TBTG) up to now.

Maybe wasn't really such a bad day after all.

Lunch time break....

2011-04-06T11:31:00.005-05:00

My head is swirling with Easter Communion Liturgies. Decisions, decsions.... so I thought I would ponder it over lunch.

Even better, I'll free my over-Eastered grey matter from the whole thing until after lunch and post a good old-fashioned "Getting to Know You" post (which I completely stole from another blog - well, the questions at least)

Here goes:

1. Do you weigh yourself?
We have a scale at home, but I stashed it in the back of the linen closet about a year ago. I was weighing myself every morning and if I didn't like what I saw, my day started with some pretty harsh self-assessment. Something about that felt a bit unhealthy, so I hid the scale. Now I only weigh myself at the gym, which is about three times a week at best. It's just better that way.

2. What's the nastiest thing you've ever eaten?

Mussells - no question. Slimy, gooey, ick.

3. Snail mail or email?

Both. I love getting actual mail in the mailbox. It's so delightful to get something in the mailbox that isn't a bill or a political pamphlet. On the other hand, email is just easier in so many ways that I always use it as my default communication.

4. Do you have any irrational fears.. what are they?
Several. Naturally.

Bridges - if I'm not driving, I just shut my eyes and hold my breath until we're over the bridge. I've decided that a fear of driving over bridges is actually a fear of being in a car that goes underwater. I have that one too. But then, I'm not crazy about walking over bridges either.

Crowded places with a lot of people and no windows. Perfect example: Those Big Stores where you might save a few bucks, but is it really worth it if you're hyperventilating? If I have to go to a grocery store, I go to the ones that have big windows, so that I can see the real world at the end of every aisle. I know, it's odd, but it is what it is. It's the same reason I'm not super crazy about malls. Too many people. No easy escape hatch.

Clowns. This one really needs very little explanation. Right, Mindy?

5. Do you play an instrument?
Nope. I used to play in a handbell choir, but I usually only played middle C and D, so I don't think that counts as an actual "intstrument."

6. Would you rather be bitten by a snake or attacked by a bear?
Given that I live in Canada where we have very few snakes that can actually hurt you, I'll go with the snake in a heartbeat. Bears? We have plenty of those and they can do some serious harm if they really want your pic-in-ick basket.

7. Do you ever go braless in public?

I almost didn't include this one. I am 51 years old. Unless you consider my annual mammogram (ladies, don't forget to book yours!) to be "public", that would be a definite negative. Even as I type this, I'm trying to erase the awful pictures in my mind of what virtually every outfit I own would look like without the correct and properly fitted undergarments. And you *all* know how I feel about proper fitted undergarments. Trust me, they will make or break a look.....

So, that would be no. Not even at home on my day off. Not going to happen.

8. Today I am thankful for...?

A bunch of things actually.

1. That P doesn't mind when I wake up uber-cranky like I did today. (I had the hiccups while I was brushing my teeth, and it started my morning off really badly - wah - I guess you had to be there) He's so sweet when he just sips his coffee and tries not to notice. :)

2. For clean clothes to put on.

3. For a job to go to - a good one that I love.

4. For no snow today!!! The sky is actually blue!

5. For my family and friends. They make my life joyful.

6. For an (almost) pain-free head. It's only at about 4/10, which is as good as pain-free for me. Yay!

7. For our beautiful Good Friday Cantata that I'm listening to on iTunes.

8. For you!

Lunch done. Back to work!

'Tis the Season!

2011-04-03T13:17:00.005-05:00

Peep season that is....

Here are a few of my favourite Peep Dioramas, created by people who have time on their hands. Clearly. :)

The first is "The March of the Peeps"

and of course....The Wizard of Peeps.

*the second one is by Kate Braggs. Not sure who created the first one. Both are delightful. Google "Peep Dioramas" and you're in for a real treat!

April

2011-04-01T23:15:00.007-05:00

Is it really April already?????

Diana over at "Somebody Heal Me" has posted the headache carnival topic for April. Diana asks "What do you find the most frustrating thing about headache disorder or migraines?"

I hardly know where to begin.....

1. Nostalgia. It can be really difficult to remember how different life was before September 2005. I try to remember that the same is true for anyone with a chronic illness, including my own beloved P. Even so, I remember when I could go out at night and have fun without that feeling of doom hovering around reminding me that the change in my schedule/routine is going to cost me in pain. I used to be able to eat pretty much anything - now I live with so many food triggers that I'm the world's worst dinner guest. I used to go to movie theaters. I know - these aren't big deals. But they're mine.

2. Imposing. I really don't like being anyone's problem. I've seen so many mainstream and alternative medicine specialists and they are initially quite interested and are quite sure they have the answer to my prayers. See "the hammer and nail" dynamic in that post.

If a particular solution doesn't work, I get the shrug and the "I've done all I can do" and I move along to the next hopeful possibility. Don't get me wrong - I completely understand the Shrug of Frustration. If I were that specialist's patient, I too would be frustrated. I completely understand why these folks usually just want me out of their office after determining that they cannot help me. I get that.

Unfortunately, the People-Pleaser in me feels something like guilt or shame when a treatment or medication doesn't work. I feel like I should apologize, but I know it isn't anything I have done at all. It just is what it is.

And yes, it can be frustrating.

3. Energy. It's almost as if my body decided in September 2005 that it would no longer offer me an unlimited amount of energy. Like a strict Victorian Nanny, it would allow me to play for so long, and then it would clap its hands and order me back inside for a time of rest. (Not that I have any problem with napping, but it would be nice if it happened on my schedule, as opposed to that of my achy head).

4. Blame Game. It doesn't seem to matter how much I try to let these past five years teach me lessons that are good for me to learn, or how much I look for silver linings (such as a better understanding of others who also have chronic pain) - in the end, it comes down to one thing: It's my fault.

It doesn't matter a bit that this isn't true. I know it isn't. Everything in my intellectual mind tells me that I did not cause this Headache Beast, any more than P caused his own health troubles. Still, in the wee hours when my otc meds haven't touched the pain and my right temple appears to be melting my ice pack in fast forward, none of that occurs to me. All I can think of is "what is wrong with me that I can't get rid of this?" I've got all the Cognitive Behavioural tools I need to deal with those negative thoughts. The frustrating part is that in the worst of the worst pain, the last thing that comes to mind are those tools for coping. Argh.

5. Money. I know this probably sounds really trite, but this sucker has cost me way too much money. Compared to my US counterparts, I recognize that I have little right to gripe, but I will anyway. (Hey, my blog, my content, right?)

I've traveled out of town in Ontario several times now. The Northern Health Travel Grant program has paid me back in full for any air fare, and it covers accommodation and meals up to a certain amount. I just about always go over the allotted amount for food and hotel costs, because hey, my head is screaming - so I'm simply not spending the night in a cheap stinky room with bed bugs. Also, I made a trip to the USofA for a new treatment (that worked well for awhile, actually) - not much of which was covered, unfortunately. Bottom line - I've spent a bit of money.

Then there were 12 sessions of Structural Integration (not covered by OHIP) and acupuncture sessions which are also not covered, and it adds up quickly. I know I'm extremely fortunate to have OHIP as well as an excellent extended health care plan that covers all of my physio and massage therapy. I do not pay for any prescription meds, including the very costly migraine abortives (whew!). But I've still spent a bunch of coin on this darn head of mine.

Unrelated Occipital Nerve Block Update: Monday will be two full weeks since my ONB treatment. I've done well, I think. Only three headaches that I really "count" as headaches - which means the pain level was over 7/10 where 10 is the worst it could be. Last night was the first night I hauled out the ice pak since before my injections, which is really good!!!! Prior to the injections, I needed ice every night. I'll take what I can get!

RevGal Friday Five: Spiritual Disciplines

2011-03-25T17:49:00.003-05:00

I haven't done one of the Friday Fives for a long time. Here goes:

Over on the RevGal site, here is this week's challenge. It's a great one for Lent, so hat tip to Mary Beth for this one!

For today's Friday Five, please share with us five spiritual practices or disciplines from your experience. They can be ones that you have tried and kept up with, tried and NOT kept up with, ones that you flirt with at various times, or even practices that you have tried and found are definitely NOT your cup of tea. Let us know what's worked for you...and not.

1. Prayer. This isn't only a Lenten discipline, but one that I try to maintain throughout the year. I find that my spiritual well can run dry fairly quickly without that ongoing conversation with the Holy. I have varying types of prayer that shift and change over time. Sometimes it is more formal and spoken, other times it is a conversation on the treadmill, or while I'm on a walk around the neighbourhood. Mostly though, it's about feeling God's presence. When I don't stop and make time to do that, I feel the hole that is left behind.

2. Journal. Right now, I'm writing every day during Lent, using Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with my Pen by Rachel Hackenburg. I'm really enjoying it a lot. Some days I fill the page with words, other days I write one or two BIG words, and one day I drew a picture (though I'm hardly an artist, it made the point I was intending to make). I'm really enjoying how the poems and prayers inspire the written prayer that I journal.

3. Daily Devotion. I use two resources for this. One is The Upper Room Disciplines and the other is Words for Today. Both have been gifts from my beloved father-in-law for years. I really enjoy both resources a lot. They are probably intended as morning devotions, but as most of you know, morning is not my best hour. Most of the time I sit down with my books after supper. It's a great way to settle my soul after a full day.

4. Singing. Yes, I know I'm not much of a singer. But I sing with joy, and that to me is just as important as skill in terms of spiritual "fuel". Singing is another way to pray, and I just plain like it. The people around me will just need to understand that. :)

5. Exercising. Any form of exercise - walking, running, yoga, pilates, weights....it all helps me focus and it brings me back into my body. I tend to spend a lot of time in my head. Sore calves remind me that there is a body attached to my brain. It also reminds me that I have the capacity to focus when I need to. If I have five more minutes of running on the treadmill, I can assure you, I am totally focused on that five minute clock. Pretty much everything else disappears while I gasp my way to that magical 10 second countdown. I looooooooove that focus.

A blessed Lent everyone.

"Uncharacteristically Complex"

2011-03-24T21:07:00.002-05:00

That's what the chronic pain doc in Toronto said to me after six hours. Yes, I spent 6 hours with the same doctor. I did the talking, she did the writing, and the injecting (Occipital Nerve Blocks). I really, really like this doc. She is a chronic pain specialist, so she wasn't frustrated with me and in a hurry to get me out of her office. Honestly, that isn't necessarily an indictment on other docs in general, but let's face it - sometimes if all you present is a problem without a solution, you do get that sense of "don't let the door hit you on the way out" at times.

There is also the hammer and nail problem. Every specialist/alternative medicine expert I've seen in five years (almost six) has been utterly convinced that ONLY they can fix what is broken in me. If you happen to be an acupuncturist, chances are ONLY acupuncture is going to make all things right in my universe. If you are a dietician, ONLY the removal of certain foods will fix things. You get the idea - if the health-care provider is a particular kind of hammer, then you simply must be the proper nail. If you are not, then you are not participating in your own healing and YOU are the problem.

I've been the wrong kind of nail for more practioners of every kind than I can be bothered to name here.

This doc in Toronto doesn't blame me for my chronic pain.

She doesn't think I'm getting in the way of my own healing.

She understands that in some cases, management of symptoms is more important than diagnosis, and a "cure" may not be out there.

She does believe that for me, there is a strong likelihood of Myofascial Pain Syndrome as the predominant cause, with some migraine-like characterstics at play as well. Thus, the complexity.

She has enough notes to write a book. I think I really fascinated her, actually. I don't say that to brag, but she was so engaged and writing furiously as I told her my story. I did take along a six page time line of various treatments - medical/pharmaceutical/alternative/dietary etc. She appreciated that. Plus, she had already poured over the very comprehensive file sent by my local doc along with the referral - the highlighter pen had been at work.

Day one and two - pain free. Day three - got the flu, the nasty barfy kind. Today my head hurt.

So - I honestly don't know what to say.

Did it work?

~shrugs~

I think time will tell. The best part is knowing that I have a doc who totally "gets" chronic pain. She has ideas for future treatments. And she never gave me false hope, which I really appreciated. She never once said "If" you're pain returns. She continually said "When" you're pain returns.

She was quite open about that. She understands that a complicated case like mine is not going to be a "one-injection-and-voila!" type of case.

I don't feel like I need sad faces or sorries in the comments, though I appreciate your concern and understand your lack of anything else to say about it. Heck, I'm running out of things to say about it! My head hurt today, but I feel better than yesterday when my tummy was, well, revolting. Maybe the headache today was the end of the flu bug. Maybe not.

Either way, the trip to Southern Ontario was a success.

I found someone who listened - really listened - and if nothing else, finds me to be a rather fascinating specimen.

I'll take that for now. So don't feel bad for me. It was worth every minute of the trip. Even the flu, which I think I picked up on the flying petrie dish in the sky (seriously, I never used to mind flying, but now I get sick every. single. time.)

Early day tomorrow, so it's off to bed.

Bonus good news: No need for the ice bag tonight. My head's a little sore, but not enough to cuddle up to any ice.

Progress!!!!!

Catch Ya Later...

2011-03-20T07:29:00.002-05:00

First it's off to church, then to the airport. I'll be offline until Thursday. The people who really need to find me will do so as needed.

Here's hoping for a great week with an even greater outcome.

Buh-bye!

Brainz

2011-03-19T23:22:00.005-05:00

What curious creatures we human critters are. We have so many complexities: physical, psychosocial, emotional, spiritual and so much more. I don't think that modern medicine for all of its advancements has come anywhere close to figuring out what we can, or should, do with our physical bodies. We're still trying to discover how and why we are made the way we are made (quite wonderfully and beautifully according to the Psalmist in 139) - so at times it feels a bit arrogant to think we know how to fix *us* when we're broken.

And yet, what can we do but try?

So try I will. Yet again. As with any and every other pain treatment, I approach it with a "Hope Smoothie" because it isn't all "strawberries and whipped cream happy place" time when you walk into yet another doc's office, tell your story yet again, and then wait. You wait to identify a few things. First, does the doc let you speak, or is he/she waiting for one word answers because the waiting room is full? That's a biggie for me. Second, does the doc or his/her assistant explain everything that will happen to you from start to finish, including all possible risks and what they will do in the event of an unfortunate outcome? Third, and most importantly, will it work?

Like your average breakfast smoothie, my Hope Smoothie has some stuff mixed into it that wouldn't taste as good without the strawberries and other goodies in there. It's mixed with a teensy bit of cynicism developed over close to six years of trying this that and everything in between. There is a dash of healthy skepticism in there, because I've never been one to hand myself over to the medical system like a broken transmission in my car and say "Here, fix this." I am part of the healing that I'm hoping for, right down to my last tiny bit of DNA.

Mostly, I go with hope, lots of it. I really, truly want this to work. But I also don't want the sour taste of despair if it doesn't. Therefore, the Smoothie, so I can go to Toronto and receive my treatment with the sweet taste of Hope holding me much more firmly and strongly than the bitter taste of disappointment. And if I come home broken, or it doesn't last as long as I had hoped, the bitterness will have already been tasted along with the sweetness.

And I'll know that I've tried. Again. And that nothing is going to stop me from seeking out a life that does not include a fuzzy brain that any decent zombie would send back to the cook. :)

Neglected

2011-03-17T15:05:00.003-05:00

I'm reading Lisa Genova's new book called Left Neglected. The main character is a busy, busy woman with a bunch of children, a 70-hour a week job, soccer practices etc.... leaving little time for herself.

At one point in the book she refers to her gym membership as her largest charity donation every year.

I saw far too much of myself in that paragraph of the book. And I don't work 70 hours a week, nor do I have three small children.

My excuse? Of course - Teh Headache. I'm not sure what happened there, but a year ago I was into a really great rhythm of ending my workday with my trip to the gym arriving home just in time for supper. Before the gym, it was yoga three days a week, including a hot yoga class (which I haven't returned to since the time I passed out. That was hardly embarrassing at all.) So what happened, aside from the unplanned lack of consciousness?

Old habits, that's what happened.

As the July nerve block started to lose its effectiveness, Teh H returned a few times a week, then more, then every day. By mid-afternoon, I was still functioning, but slowly and intentionally. Everything I did took longer and used more concentration and energy to finish.

Including a walk/run on the treadmill. Unfortunately, that has often resulted in the end of a work day where there's just nothing left for the gym. I don't think my favourite shoes will recognize me when I get back and open my locker. It was so much easier to go home, find some ice, have dinner and call it a day.

Hopefully after next week, I can get back into a pattern of exercising. I'm not going to aim too high. The last three months have drained me pretty dry. I'm thinking three times a week is a good start. A half hour on the elliptical, half hour on the treadmill, and maybe some light weights if I still feel good. Also, if winter ever ends, I may actually walk outdoors. Shocking, I know! I still have a perfectly wonderful bike in the downstairs storage room as well. Who knows? Maybe this summer it will see some action.

The story of my life...

2011-03-17T12:16:00.000-05:00

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One Week

2011-03-14T17:52:00.004-05:00

A week from today I'll be in Toronto at this place having an evaluation and occipital nerve block. My last onb resulted in three months of relative pain-free living.

Seriously, I'm so excited to be going to Toronto (which is frankly not my favourite city in the world - sorry Toronto readers - big city, not my thing) - one would think I was headed to a five-star resort in the Carribean. Trust me, this trip, if successful, is so much better than any beach, I hardly know where to begin.

When I can start the day without having to consciously block out the haze of pain that is just *always* there, it's like a little slice of heaven.

I'm reading a book by Jennette Fulda called "Chocolate and Vicodin."

The author manages to slip in some humour as she describes her experience of chronic pain. What I found especially fascinating was how important it was for her to have a visual sign of her pain when she had an IV in place for five days if treatment with Kepra. It was a tangible sign to her co-workers and family that *yes* there is something wrong with her.

I can sooooooo identify with that feeling. I can't tell you how many times I've wished that there was a cast on my arm or a pair of crutches to use that would shout to anyone looking at me "Cut her some slack, she's sick!" The other part of Jennette's story that fascinated me was her experience with topamax. It was almost identical to my own horrible side-effect-ridden experience.

Some people might say "Stop reading about other people's pain, and just get on with living with your own" - but I can't tell you how much it means to know that I'm not the only one who has to think twice about committing to evening events, has trouble going to movie theaters, needs to watch sleeping/waking times carefully, thinks three times about everything I eat, and has become a bit of a recluse - all because of pain.

Thanks Jennette. You don't know me, but you sure know how I live. That I could read your story and find a bit of humour and a lot of truth means the world to me.

One week. Just one week - then the possiblity of relief.

Possibility.

I don't count any chickens before they've hatched. I just hope and pray.

Live and learn. Live and learn.

Fly On the Wall - Saturday in Oz

2011-03-12T15:09:00.004-06:00

This post could also have been entitled "You Know You've Been Married 30+ Years When..."

Actual Conversations:

P: "Why hasn't anyone made "Einstein, the Musical?"

Me: "Be my guest"

*****************************

(Listening to "Sittin' at the Dock of the Bay")

Me: Otis....

P: Redding.

******************************

In other news:

* Teh Headache is slowly (very slowly) waning. I'm using my best distraction techniques to try and ignore it. These include watching curling, college basketball - bracket selection is tomorrow night - and reading. Also, I've been listening to our Good Friday cantata, which is going to be amazing. It's a Pepper Choplin piece called "We Were There" and it has some beautiful pieces in it.

* I realized that while P likes Kentucky, I always like Gonzaga. I think it's only because I like saying Gonzaga.

* Truffle is still enjoying the DVDs we bought for her last week. They are called "The Cat Sitter Trilogy" and include footage of birds, gerbils, squirrels and fish. She appears to like the birds the best.

* What? Don't all cats have their own DVDs playing on their own tv sets? That's harsh. She lubs her some birdies.

* My opinion about cruises remains unchanged. I do not need to spend that much money to throw up in another country. Apparently, there is very little doubt that this would indeed happen. Bring on a good resort event, and count me in.

* time changes tonight - don't forget!

* back to my book. Happy Caturday everyone!

Four Hours +

2011-03-08T17:26:00.003-06:00

I hit the wall this morning. Day Three of "worst of the worst" pain was all I could manage. So, off to ER. It wasn't awful this time.

Not bad at all, actually.

This was my first visit to the ER since 2008. The doc was a little puzzled by that. "So you hurt every day, don't take any regular pain meds, and you haven't been here for three years?" I told him I didn't like to trouble anyone with my same old, same old pain. He said I was the kind of patient they *want* to see - the ones with legitimate pain and no pleading for narcotics. (I had already asked him if he could find something to give me that did not contain opiates, as I haven't had any for so long, and would prefer to keep it that way).

Start to finish took just over four hours. I was given a metric boat-load of gravol, some super-powered version of triptans by IV, and an anti-inflammatory of some kind.

I'm home and the pain level has dropped a few notches which is good. The staff were so wonderful this time around. Trust me, that's a blessing. I've had other unfortunate visits that have not been at all pleasant. Today I was treated with respect and compassion.

Now - sleep.

The Best Laid Plans....

2011-03-05T12:38:00.000-06:00

That visit to the gym today? Um, not going to happen....~sigh~

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More than a little tweaking required

2011-03-05T00:00:00.005-06:00

The March Migraine Blog Carnival topic is:

"Life Hacks: Tweaking Work & Life to Deal with Migraines."

I hardly know where to begin on this one. I feel as if I've spent five and a half years "tweaking" my life and every part of it in order to accommodate pain in one way or another. The means by which I've accommodated the Big Hurt has shifted considerably over time. I haven't chosen the particular skill of dealing well with pain, in fact, it is one I would rather not have at all. I like to think of it as rolling with the punches. Sometimes the punch is a little nudge, other times it's a knockout that lays you flat on the mat.

I work full time and have done so for nine and a half years. In October it will be ten years at the same church (Little Church on the Corner). For the first three years of my sudden-onset head pain, I had this irrational notion that because I hurt virtually all of the time, I must be doing less work than people with no pain. Therefore, I must compensate by working more, and working harder.

Hey, I said it was irrational. And it was.

My primary goal at work for those three years was to make sure no one knew I was in pain. It was only through excellent Cognitive Behavioural Therapy with an incredible therapist that I could really stand back and see how ridiculous my work ethic had become. I was in a vicious cycle of working harder out of irrational guilt, only to increase the pain because of over-work.

After a six month medical leave that became necessary out of utter exhaustion, I returned to work on a gradual basis. I discovered that my best work performance and life balance (ie I actually got to spend some time at home with P) happened during the time that I was working a 30 hour week. My doctor agreed with me on this one entirely. Upon returning to a full time 40 hour week, that balance shifted again to less self-care, more compulsive overtime, and yes, more pain.

If I were still seeing my Wonderful Therapist, I know exactly what she would ask me right now. "When do you have fun, Sue?" And I would have to dig pretty deep to find an answer. Every now and again I go out with the girls, but I always pay a price for going out in the evening, especially after a busy week.

I also don't workout as often as I should (though I've promised myself that I'm going tomorrow) - usually because my days are too long. By the time my workday is done, I'm done. For some reason, last winter I managed to finish most workdays by going to the gym at 4:00. Now I'm lucky if I get home by 5:30. That needs to change.

I felt so much better a year ago than I do now. I think the workouts make a big difference. Getting back to the gym will make a huge difference on the path to a better sense of balance in my life.

The other helpful discipline/tweaking is journalling. I have two kinds of journals.

1. Work journal. I have nine years worth of these. I record every phone call, every visit (with initials only, for confidentiality), every administrative task, every meeting. I've done this since my ministry began almost 14 years ago. I find it helpful to look at the week behind me and see where I've tipped the balance too far in one direction or another. It helps me plan the week ahead.

2. Personal journal. I still find it really helpful and healthy to write (yes, write - with an actual pen!) about life in general. What made me happy today? What made me feel good, or overwhelmed, or just blah? Did I stop and give thanks for my great life today? If not, why not? If so, that's good.

Hmmmmmm.........what else? Well, I'm trying to eat entirely gluten-free now. It doesn't actually seem to change the frequency (daily) or intensity (some days worse than others) of the pain - but I do feel better overall when I remove wheat gluten from my diet.

Also, and this is important..... I only use over the counter medications for my pain. I haven't had anything stronger since my last ER visit in 2008. It's not that I wouldn't gladly take something stronger on a really bad night of pain, but my doc and I both agree that when the pain is daily, so is the need to medicate. It becomes far, far too easy to make stronger prescription pain meds a habit I don't want to deal with.

Massage: My best means of coping with daily pain. A really good deep-tissue massage of my neck and shoulders will give me some level of relief for a short period of time. Otherwise, ice is my best friend. Without my ice packs, I wouldn't have had a whole lot of sleep in the past five+ years!

Occipital Nerve Block: the last one worked for over three months. I have high hopes for the next round later this month.

The Most Important Tweak of All: I don't let the pain win. It's always there, hovering around everything I do, everywhere I go, and every moment of the day to one extent or another. But I make a point of ignoring it - really it's more like not indulging it - until I hit about 8/10 on a pain scale where 10 is as much as you can take without puking. Once I hit 8, I need to take an aleve (the only otc med that does NOT cause rebound headaches, according to the Mayo Clinic) and find a dark room and some ice.

Until then, it is simply a part of my day. I push it aside because my life is more than my pain. I am more than a person with pain.

I will not let it win. Ever.

I will continue to live my life as best I can, always with the hope that one day it will go away as quickly as it showed up in Sept 2005.

Until then, I occasionally find a good article to show my doc. I look at new and innovative treatments for myofascial pain syndrome and migraine disease, but not obsessively.

I relegate pain to a low place on my day to day priorities of living.

Pain will not make me a victim. I will tweak whatever I have to in both my work life and my personal life in order to maintain a life of balance, wellness, fitness, happiness and the hope that one day this will be a memory of a period of years in my life that challenged me and showed me just how strong I really am.

“I could never say in the morning, "I have a headache and cannot do thus and so". Headache or no headache, thus and so had to be done.”

(Eleanor Roosevelt)

Thought-provoking topic

2011-03-03T16:18:00.005-06:00

Diana over at "Someone Heal Me" posted the topic for the March Migraine Carnival. At this point, I have no words of wisdom. I'm still resting up from a very busy but fulfilling week.

Hopefully, over the next few days, I'll find something approaching brilliant (although simply readable would do just fine) to contribute.

Here's the topic....

The theme of the March 2011 Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival will be "Life Hacks: Tweaking Work & Life to Deal with Migraines." As always, feel free to interpret this topic however you like.

For Good

2011-02-28T12:15:00.003-06:00

A wonderful woman first introduced me to this song, but it's playing on "replay" in my brain today as I prepare for tomorrow's memorial service.

As I try to find the right words to honour such a unique and wonderful man, I know that his life made the world a better place - not only for me - but for everyone who knew him. Of course there were years when I didn't see him so often, but in the past ten years or so since I've been at our Little Church on the Corner I've come to know him and love him all over again.

It's true that to love someone, anyone, is a risk. The risk is that at some point there will be a day like tomorrow, when life and love are celebrated in the midst of deep grief. But, you know, for my money it's all worth it. Or, as Khalil Gibran put it:

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Khalil Gibran

Anyway, here's the song that's playing in my brain today: It's from a song in the musical "Wicked" called "For Good". Here are some of the lyrics:

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

TGFC

2011-02-26T06:38:00.001-06:00

Thank God For Coffee.

Presbytery Day 2 - time to break bread and pour the cup.

But first, Teh Coffee.

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Painful Privilege

2011-02-24T15:29:00.005-06:00

This is going to be a tough one.

A member of our congregation passed away this morning. I was called and was able to be with the family for most of the day as the shock of such a sudden loss began to sink in.

Almost a year ago, I conducted a funeral for another much-loved gentleman, also an important member of our faith family, who had died suddenly leaving that surreal feeling for everyone who mourned (and continue to mourn) his loss. That was a terribly hard funeral to conduct, because I knew how much I would miss this wonderful man. But I can keep it together and be professional.That is my call and vocation. I do my grieving on my own time.

The gentleman who died this morning has known me literally my entire life. His surviving wife was one of my Mother's dearest friends. We lived across the street from one another for years. He was one of very few people in my life who ever called me "Susie" and got away with it. :)

And now he's gone.

I will conduct his memorial service early next week and I will experience profoundly the privilege of being on such holy ground with his grieving family, just as I did a year ago. It is indeed, a deep and powerful gift to be asked to honour someone's life in worship. When that person feels like family, both the privilege of it and the pain of it run that much deeper. This is a life to be celebrated for its richness, grace and faith. His family is comforted today knowing that in some Mysterious way that none of us really understands, he is at peace and is in the presence and power of Holy Love, the Source of all goodness.

So, at the service, I will keep it together through the remembrances and celebrations of his life, through the hymns and the choir anthem, the homily and the prayers. After the committal and the luncheon I will go home.

And I'll need to be alone for awhile. Not for long, because that isn't how he would want it.

But I will need to find my own way to say goodbye....in a way that is not liturgical, but personal.

Wow.

2011-02-18T14:10:00.004-06:00

I hate to be a drag and talk headache again, but this story is simply fascinating to me. All signs pointed toward this reporter Serene Branson, having a stroke as she reported on last week's Grammy awards.

In fact, it turns out she had what is being called a "complex migraine" reaction. In other words, her garbled speech were not far off from the zig-zag lines and arrays of colours that migraineurs call "aura".

Here is the report:

Over the course of more than five years, I've had more diagnoses than I can count. Right now, the most likely of them all is a combination of Myofascial Pain Syndrome combined with some migraine symptoms. Frankly that fits best with my symptoms and the results of various treatments.

Interestingly, I always thought my occasional migraine symptoms were lacking aura. However, recently, I've had the most unusual experiences of viewing things in my peripheral vision that clearly no one else could see. Just the other night, I ran out of the bedroom (shutting the door behind me of course) and into the living room to tell P that there was a bat in the other room. I was SO certain that I had seen a bat fly past me on the left side, that I searched the ensuite and then assumed that the little beast was hiding.

Guess what?

No bat.

Then it happened again the next night.

Why am I not surprised that the first definitive auras I've experienced have looked like bats?

Yep. Abracapocus.

Challenge Accepted

2011-02-18T10:31:00.002-06:00

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You know I love my LOL Cats.

Well, this post, and this LOL Cat post, both follow quite naturally from yesterday's post about "Truth." Here's the reason for that:

I have almost exactly one month to wait until my next round of Occipital Nerve Block treatments. This time they will take place in Toronto, as opposed to the USofA like they did last time. After July's injections, I had about three months of pain-relief, by which I mean I had considerably less pain. Not zero pain, but so much less that it may as well have been zero.

Needless to say, since my pain level is back up to a daily process of "getting by and getting through" - the anticipation of relief has me counting sleeps as if I were going on some luxurious vacation, not a clinic in Toronto. Either way, I'm thankful that I can receive the treatment in Ontario, and that the wait is so short.

That said, the next month will be a challenge about as big as that ball of string. The difference between now and, say, three or four years ago, is that I know I can do it. I have much more confidence in my capacity to cope than I did back in the day. That is in large part due to the tools of my excellent cognitive behavioural therapist and also, let's face it, my own stubborn strength.

On the subject of Truth, however, I am aware that I need to be careful about how much truth people can handle. (insert Jack Nicholson voice here)

Last night I was explaining to some friends that last Saturday night I had the truly tough call of "ER or not to ER" which is bad enough any night, but on a Saturday night, it becomes a lose-lose decision. I can either go the ER, wait for a few hours and get home by 3:00 or 4:00 am, quite possibly without having received any relief at all AND being exhausted for worship. OR I can stay at home and manage it the best I can by myself.

Last week I opted for the latter. Here's what I did: Around midnight I realized that I had to decide one way or the other. So, I took this: a benadryl (because that's what they would start me off with at the ER anyway), two gravol for the nausea, an aleve, a maxalt, and a tylenol. Then I grabbed two ice packs and prayed I would get some sleep. Once I get even a bit of sleep, I am almost always assured to wake up with the pain dropped down by at least a notch or two.

Now, I realize that sounds like a lot of medication to put in my body at once. It is. But my body is so used to over the counter desperation that I didn't understand the shocked looks on my friends faces while I listed off the "Saturday night ER at Home" treatment. I really didn't expect their response.

I'm OKAY.

You need to know that. Every now and then I have an exceptionally bad night and the above is necessary. I am not taking these meds every night. I promise.

All I knew was that last Saturday night I had to get it together for Sunday. And I did. I eventually drifted off to sleep and grabbed a few more winks of sleep than I would have if I had hit the ER. I know my home method sounds extreme. But really it isn't, when you think of the alternative. At the ER, they would tried the "benadryl only stronger" med combined with gravol. When that didn't work, they would have gone to maxeran. When that didn't work, they would have waited ANOTHER half an hour and possibly given me morphine, or perhaps not. The morphine might have helped the pain but I would have been one sleepy puppy on Sunday.

I made the right choice. I'm okay. I can and will accept the challenge of facing the next month with whatever level of pain it may bring. I've done it before, I'll do it again. I'll get massages, rest when I can, work as hard as I am able but not beyond my capacity. I'll make it to the 21st of March and hope for the best.

And that's the truth.

Truth

2011-02-17T11:46:00.002-06:00

A colleague shared this in another forum, but I liked it so much, I thought I would post it here. It is from Rachel Held Evan's blog. Check out her site, it's awesome.

Here's what Rachel has to share today. I'm not sure how she managed to get inside my brain, but she did. She wrote it all down with much more eloquence, but everything here is so relevant....

Dear Pastors,

Tell us the truth.

Tell us the truth when you don’t know the answers to our questions, and your humility will set the example as we seek them out together.

Tell us the truth about your doubts, and we will feel safe sharing our own.

Tell us the truth when you get tired, when the yoke grows too heavy and the hill too steep to climb, and we will learn to carry one another’s burdens because we started with yours.

Tell us the truth when you are sad, and we too will stop pretending.

Tell us the truth when your studies lead you to new ideas that might stretch our faith and make us uncomfortable, and those of us who stick around will never forget that you trusted us with a challenge.

Tell us the truth when your position is controversial, and we will grow braver along with you.

Tell us the truth when you need to spend time on your marriage, and we will remember to prioritize ours.

Tell us the truth when you fail, and we will stop expecting perfection.

Tell us the truth when you think that our old ways of doing things need to change, and though we may push back, the conversation will force us to examine why we do what we do and perhaps inspire something even greater.

Tell us the truth when you fall short, and we will drop our measuring sticks.

Tell us the truth when all that’s left is hope, and we start digging for it.

Tell us the truth when the world requires radical grace, and we will generate it.

Tell us the truth even if it’s surprising, disappointing, painful, joyous, unexpected, unplanned, and unresolved, and we will learn that this is what it means to be people of faith.

Tell us the truth and you won’t be the only one set free.

Love,

The Congregation

(*photo credit to Ian Britton)

Love this...

2011-02-13T13:02:00.002-06:00

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Our Sweet Man - one year later

2011-02-10T12:31:00.002-06:00

I couldn't bring myself to post this yesterday. I'm sure that folks who are not cat/pet people won't understand how sad I felt on the one year anniversary of the loss of Ouzo. I have the perspective in place - I know it's not the same as missing a person who has passed away. I get that.

But he was our little man, and our home isn't the same without him. We still miss him.

This is a repost from last year February 9, 2010

May the angels take you gently to your rest little man. We love you.

Ouzo was a good boy.

He met me at the door every day after work as if he had been waiting there all day for my return.

He put up with Truffle's diva behaviour with much patience and let her use him as a warm cushion for nap time.

He watched Italian Soccer with P every Sunday while I went to church. (only Italian Soccer would do, otherwise, he would leave the room).

He loved to play fetch with his sponge ball toys.

He loved tuna.

His favourite toy was a grey string that used to be on one of my hoodies. We would drape it over his back and he would spin around until it fell off. After the vet gave him the medication this morning, Pillar tied Ouzo's grey string around his neck in a nice bow.

To the end, he lived a good life, with people and another cat who loved him. Now he's crossed the Rainbow Bridge where there is no more pain, no more car rides, and no more visits to the clinic. Go well, little man...

A Short Winter's Rest

2011-02-08T15:51:00.005-06:00

I headed South of here for a few days of solitude and spa time. This was the view outside my room. It was so lovely, but oh, so very cold! I took a lovely walk through the trail along the lake, but I didn't stay out for long.

Here is a picture of the place where I stayed.

And here are a few pictures along the lake....

After a cold walk outside on the trail, I spent some time in the tub with the fire blazing. aaaaaaahhhhhh..........

I spent a day at the spa being massaged and pampered and covered in mud (that was interesting and new for me - for some reason I was expecting it to be more grainy than it was). The whole day was delicious and left me relaxed like a cooked noodle. Totally wonderful.

I had an interesting border crossing on the way there. The fellow checked out my passport and asked the usual questions, but simply could not conceive of my traveling alone, with no intention of meeting friends at my destination, to simply BE. I tried a few times to explain what I would be doing during my time in the US of A, but he just didn't get it.

Actual conversation:

Border Guy: So you're alone. And you're not meeting anyone there, correct?
Me: That's right.
BG: So why are you visiting the United States?
Me: To relax. I'm going to a spa.
BG: By yourself.
Me: Yes sir.
BG: Are you carrying any firearms, tobacco or alcohol?
Me: No sir.
BG: Any food?
Me: Just a bit of chocolate sir.
BG: Nothing else?
Me: No sir.
BG: Could you open the hatch please ma'am?

At which point he opened everything in the car. My suitcase, the glove box, the bag with the cheesy entertainment magazines and chocolate - everything.

Eventually he kind of shrugged, handed me my passport and said I could leave. I've never had such a thorough search, including those that I've had upon *returning* from the US.

I hope he sends his significant other (if he has one) on a spa weekend.

My return check-in to get back into Canada went very quickly, likely due to the fact that I was sneezing and oozing icky goo from my nose (I managed to wake up Wednesday with a dandy cold). I think the woman at the border was happy to see me drive away with all my germs.

Being alone for three days = pure heaven. I set my own schedule, did what I wanted when I wanted to do it (I'm talking about more than your average nappage here). It was delightful.

When I came home, I worked on my photo organizing project. I managed to get all of our photos from 1987 to 1995 in photo boxes, minus cat pictures. Cat pictures will require a separate box. Yes, there are that many, why do you ask? :)

It was a good week.

Summer in the City

2011-01-30T16:01:00.007-06:00

Our little church knows how to have fun. No question.

Today we opted to take a morning off from Winter. Not that there's anything wrong with winter, of course. It's just that about this time of year, it starts to feel a bit old. When the winter tires are on the car from October to April, it makes for a long season. So we immersed ourselves in Summer this morning and it was such fun!

We invited another United Church congregation in town to join us and they had a great time. They were totally engaged in the theme - one woman wore a grass skirt and another came with caracas ready to make some noise during the hymns.

We had extra musicians, a men's choir singing a wonderful version of "Imagine" with excellent and appropriately theological lyrics written by our music director.

We had a little beach, bubble-making fun for the children, and our offering was collected in plastic pails with little shovels on the side.

One of our scripture readings this morning was Bobby McFerrin's Psalm 23 via youtube. It was lovely.

Yup. A lovely, if different, kind of worship. It felt like an oasis in the middle of our longest season. We shared in a lovely coffee-time after worship with delicious fruit and goodies for everyone. When our little church (and our guests) want to make worship a celebration of life and laughter and God's blessings in every season, we do it well.

ETA: I'm on VACATION for the next week. Not planning to turn on the computer or check email. If I were Jack Bauer, that would be the equivalent of "going dark." But I'm not Keifer, or Jack, so I'm just out of cyber circulation for a week or so. Catch ya on the flip side.

Counting Sleeps

2011-01-26T10:55:00.006-06:00

Next week I'll be using my final week of vacation. I'm heading to a lovely place not far from here, to enjoy some "me" time. I am long past the time in my life where that feels self-indulgent or worse, selfish. It is not.

Recently, someone wrote: "ME time makes me a better person in WE time." So very true.

I'm tired. Advent and Christmas were wonderful, life-giving and appropriately busy for anyone in ministry. But I've been waiting throughout January for that feeling of "bouncing back" and finding that renewal of energy to no avail. I need to rest. As a solid and unquestionable Introvert, I need to reclaim that energy in solitude. I love being around people, sharing with people, and mostly - serving people. That is my vocation and my call and I wouldn't want it any other way. But even the most devoted servant needs some alone time, and I am no different.

So, I'm off to this place....

...with no computer, only some good (fun) books that I've been wanting to read. I plan to sit by the fire and read and look out on the lake...

...nap when I feel like napping...

...and spend a day at the spa where they have a pool and a full day of spa activities including a mud pack, massage, and facial.

If you need me next week, you know where I'll be. I love you dearly, but I'll love you better when I love myself back into being that much closer to whole.

Ha.

2011-01-20T12:34:00.001-06:00

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A Day in the Life

2011-01-18T12:09:00.004-06:00

0730 - stoopid alarm clock wakes me up after about four hours of sleep. Sleep being a major issue these days, today is not unlike most work days. The lovely people at CBC Radio are probably saying something I should know about, but I don't really care. I slam my sleepy fist on the snooze button.

0739 - stoopid alarm clock taunts me again. Slam.

0748 - stoopid alarm clock taunts me again. This time the cat joins in by running her whiskers across my nose. I gently remove said cat, turn off the alarm clock and swing my legs off the bed. For a moment I stop and in my sleepy haze, give thanks for the gift of putting my feet on the floor. Not something I take for granted. Ever.

0750 - head to master bathroom to brush the teeth, wash the face, apply "Hope in a Jar" liberally, followed by "Eye Believe" - all in the vain hope that I really don't look as horrid as that Great Big Mirror is telling me. Gah!

0800 - P rolls by after turning on the coffee machine (yet another reason to love him). We console one another with a shared "Morning Bites" mumbled grunt as he heads toward his own bathroom. Thirty one years of marriage and we are still not morning people. I'm thinking we never will be.

0815 - what to wear.... This is Tuesday, so it's grey trousers, black shirt, purple sweater. I may be in a rut. Must check that out later.

0820 - Coffee. Weather Network. It's -25C today. Thank you underground parking, I heart you. P and I laugh at the "Outside the Station" weather guy from Toronto who whines every time the temperature drops below zero. He wouldn't last an hour here. We would find him curled up in fetal position in the camera van. That would be good viewing actually....

0840 - The beginning of the "I guess I should get moving" liturgy begins. P locks the door behind me at around 9:00 because heaven knows, every time I leave the condo, I must have both arms and hands full of highly necessary stuff. He tells me he loves me and to have a good day. I'm at the elevator before my brain registers all of that and I say to the elevator door "I love you too."

9:10 - I flip the light switches in the office, turn on the computer and take my coffee downstairs to check in with office admin. Not much news there and I'm clearly in her way, so it's back upstairs to work.

9:30 - Massive Loud Yawn.

9:35 - Draft two of Annual Report is actually in process. I may finish this today. Things are starting to look a bit less fuzzy, so I must be waking up.

10:00 - 12:00 - work on annual report and service for Feb 13th, with occasional stops to stretch and drink the rest of my allotted morning coffee.

1:30 - still at the office realizing that I need some lunch before I go out this afternoon.

1:45 - 3:00 - eat granola bar with water while making afternoon calls, visits, picking up of worship supplies for the 30th, and doing other minister stuff I can't share here. Or anywhere for that matter. I find it interesting that the most enriching and life-giving aspects of ministry are the very things we can't talk about. That isn't a complaint, by any means, but it does explain why people think I only work on Sundays.

3:00-ish - headache starts to register. Oh it was there at the slamming of the alarm clock, but only at about 4/10 (I know it's there but it's not interfering with my day). Now I'm reaching 7/10ish and I still have a long meeting to get through. If that 7 turns into an 8, I won't be of much use at any meeting. Realize I have nothing with me to take - not even my magic, non-rebound causing Aleve - OR my "Origins: Peace of Mind peppermint lotion." Sheesh.

4:00 - a quick stop at home for both of the above mentioned "Get me through this meeting" supplies.

4:30 - 6:30 - meeting with other groups in the city who are planning Pride Week for early June. A good, but lengthy meeting.

7:00 - dee-lish supper with P who really didn't have to wait for me to get home to eat, but he did anyway because he's just sweet that way.

7:20 - feeding of the tuna to one very hungry kitteh. (she gets a bit of tuna every night after supper)

8:00 - watching tv with the usual after-supper exchange of hot magic bag/ice pack. Watching Biggest Loser and What Not to Wear for those who are keeping score at home, but not really paying attention to either. Aleve and peppermint cream no longer effective. Time for a soak in epsom salts, then another Aleve and a Maxalt (which IS rebound-causing, but I haven't had one in a week, so I'm good).

9:20 - snoring cat behind me in her pretty princess pink cat bed. She inspires me. Computer screen getting brighter by the minute. Lights out.

And that was my Tuesday..... I hope yours was good too.

RevGal Friday Five: Up and Ready to Start the Day

2011-01-14T11:57:00.005-06:00

Over on the RevGal site, the Friday Five asks the following question:

Share five things that made getting out of bed worthwhile for you today!

1. Sermon. My congregation agreed early in my ministry with them that it would be more productive overall if I were to stay at home to work on Fridays. I usually take anywhere from 6 to 10 hours to research, contemplate and finally write a sermon. Working at home, where it's just P and I and the cat is a bit monk-like in its quiet solitude. I find it much easier to concentrate here and get the process rolling along. So, today being Sermon Day, it drew me out of my cozy bead.

2. Teh Kitteh. She sleeps on my side of the bed and likes the fact that I provide considerable warmth during the night. No electric blanket needed here - I provide enough warmth for the whole neighbourhood. Truffle adores being warm, so as the night goes on, she cuddles closer and closer. By morning, my knees are usually touching my chin as I'm rolled into a tiny ball somewhere in the vicinity of my pillow, and Truffle is cuddled up as close as she can get to me. Yes, this means that most of the bed is un-used at this point. I would love to get a video of an overnight sleeping exercise, just to see exactly how she manages to move a human being in a sound sleep. She only weighs 7 lbs. And yet, she completes this exercise every night. Curious.

3. Massage. I find one of the few things that really helps with my sore head is a good massage with lots of deep tissue work in the right sub-occipital area. As soon as I post this, I'm on my way!

4. Hopeful heart. There's a song by Sarah Slean called "Hopeful Hearts" that I think of on those days when getting out of bed doesn't sound like my best option - usually because of pain, but sometimes because of mood. Here is a sampling of the lyrics:

hopeful hearts are moving targets
I don't know how I survive
we go out like birthday candles
then like suns we rise, we rise...

fiends and devils in the garden
take their fill and leave me scarred
but I still have my secret weapon
this my brave and hopeful heart

5. Pillar. He makes even the toughest day, the worst pain, or the darkest mood somehow less than it is. My hopeful heart is merely a tiny mirror of his. In every way, he is my inspiration every day. If he can get himself up everyday and transfer to his wheelchair, I can most certainly get out of bed to march into whatever the day will bring.

Thankfully, almost everything I march into daily is both gift and grace. I am truly blessed.

Sunday wisdom

2011-01-09T12:33:00.001-06:00

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RevGal Friday Five: Holiday Redux

2011-01-07T10:06:00.004-06:00

Over on the RevGalBlogPal site, kathrynzj asks:

And so partly to give us all a record and partly to give us all a chance to reflect on the 2010 Holiday Season now that we are out of it, I ask you this:

1) What food item was one of your favorites this year - a definite keeper? I'll cheat here and name two, though there are more. Scotch eggs (my sister makes them - yum!) and Seafood Casserole on Xmas Eve.

2) Was there a meal or party or a gathering that stands out in your mind from this mose recent holiday season? We had a wonderful evening at a great restaurant with my immediate family. It's great every year, but this one was especially lovely.

3) Were you involved in a jaw-dropper gift? Were you the giver or recipient or an on-looker? Hubby and I were the recipients of definitely jaw-dropping gifts from both of our sons. Seriously, they went WAY overboard on the gift thing. It's almost as if they like us or something..... :)

4) Was there at least one moment where you experienced true worship? Definitely. Cantata Sunday. It was amazing.

5) What is at least one thing you want to make sure you do next year? Live in the moment. It's really easy during a high season of the church year to get ahead of myself and be two weeks ahead in my mind at any given moment.

BONUS: What is something you absolutely must remember to do differently... or not at all! Balance. Somewhere between "Tasmanian Devil Spinning From One Task to the Next" and "Getting Enough Sleep So You Can Function" is the perfectly balanced Advent.

One day I'll get it right!

Night Resolutions

2011-01-06T01:24:00.003-06:00

These are the sort of New Year resolutions that one is likely to read the next morning and think "Well, at least it's only a blog post. I didn't buy some expensive online trinket that I don't need, and well, no one was harmed in the creation of this post. I probably killed off a few more brain cells, but such is life in the wee hours."

My late night resolutions for 2011:

1. Pray more.

2. Be more grateful. Sounds easy, right? I have a supportive and wonderful family. I have a job. I love my church. It's not perfect - but I love it anyway. I'm not perfect and they seem to like me well enough, so I guess we're a good match. I have a beautiful little girl kitteh who loves me, though she will deny it if you ask her. She has an attitude of utter superiority to maintain.

3. Have more pain-free days. More massages, and a possible trip to Toronto for a repeat Occipital Nerve Block. Hubby found an awesome clinic that is really committed to treating intractable migraine/headache pain without pharmaceuticals. I've done all the other stuff - the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, the physical therapy, acupuncture, massage, spiritual therapy, psychiatric work, and even a referral to a recreational therapist (indicating only how exciting my life is - that I need a lovely twenty-something young lady telling me I need to get out more.) Ya. Kinda sad isn't it? The last ONB was effective for three months. I'm hopeful the next one will last even longer.

4. Exercise. Yes I know, everyone says this in January. But I've had my gym membership for about 18 months now and have made good use of it for the most part. I fell off the treadmill wagon once summer hit, but I've slowly been making my way back. Once the place clears out a bit in late January, I'll get back into making it part of my workday. I like going to the gym at the end of the day. There aren't many people and it's a great way to wind down after a busy day of church admin stuff, visiting, wedding or funeral planning....whatever the day brings.

5. Be Hopeful. In September it will be 6 years since the Pain Monster made its first introduction to me. It was, and remains, an unwanted guest at my life's table. Seriously Pain, you may leave anytime you like. You are so dead to me. I'm tired of talking about pain. I'm tired of thinking about pain. I'm tired of worrying about pain. I'm tired of telling every new doc, therapist, care provider, about my entire history. But I do it anyway because if I stop, it means I've given in and given up. It means the Pain has won. After all the rocks I've turned over to peek underneath for a way to fix my head, how can I give it up now and let It win? I can't.

6. Have Fun. I did pretty well with this one last year. I had a couple of fun trips to see concerts/performances and I found more ways to make my work both rewarding AND fun. I want to keep that up for this year.

7. Live Today. Pain makes me want to think too far ahead. It has since 2005. I feel it laughing at me when I do that. When those thoughts pop into my head like "What if it never goes away?" I can feel it winning the day and offering up an evil laugh at my expense. So my task, every day, is to live as abundantly and productively as I possibly can even in the context of daily pain.

8. Balance. I love Sundays. I also love Sundaes, but that's for another day (see number 4). I get energized on a Sunday morning in a way that I truly cannot describe. It is a sweet mystery that no matter how much pain I'm in when I arrive at the church, when I begin the service, the pain gets somehow "bracketed" and re-appears later in the day. But the truth is that for all the joy of a Sunday worship, if I overdo it, I pay for it in pain. That just is what it is. So I try to balance the constant flow of work demands with the constant need to be vigilant about my personal health. I'm no good to anyone when I'm nauseous from pain and in need of a dark room and some ice.

It's all about Balance.

9. Sleep. I'm going to try the bed again. This time, hopefully, with less tossing and turning. A fresh ice bag might help. Or sheer exhaustion. Either way would be fine with me. If someone would hit me on the head with one of those big ACME anvils from the Road Runner cartoons, that might work too.

Is it just me, or do I sound a tad desperate?

Ugh. Must. Sleep. Now.

Actual Conversation

2011-01-02T17:06:00.004-06:00

I'm reading a book while the football game is on...

Me: "I'm stuck."

P: "Wha?"

Me: "I'm stuck. There's no period at the end of this sentence. The editor went for a coffee break or something."

P: "Aaaaannnddd....????"

Me: "Well, I can't keep reading until I put the period at the end of the sentence. Do you think that's odd?"

P: ~crickets~

Me: ~gets the pen to add the period.~ "Oh, and look here. A sentence ending in a preposition. How awful!"

P: "Uh-huh"

Me: "There are probably hundreds of students that are glad I didn't become an English professor."

P: "Don't sell yourself short. I'd say there are thousands."

Aaaaand............scene.

Love this

2011-01-01T15:27:00.002-06:00

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The reason this is so funny is that one of my personal New Year resolutions actually *is* to start wearing my glasses. They're only readers, but I need to buy stronger ones every other month or so, and I've brought home more expired milk than I care to admit.

Yes, I do need them more than I think. My arms simply refuse to get any longer so that I can see a menu. How annoying.

happy new year everyone! Despite both of us feeling really really awful last night, we did manage to stay up until midnight, but only because we watched the annual Air Farce and Ron James specials on tv. Both were excellent (though I did miss a good bit of each, they were still good).

New Year

2010-12-30T22:55:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow marks the end of 2010 and the beginning of a New Year for all of us. Tomorrow is also a full day, so I'll post my New Year's wishes now.

Wishing one and all the blessings of the season and all the best for the coming year.

Because we are approaching the first Sunday of the New Year, I feel somewhat compelled to share the words of Charles Wesley’s Covenant Prayer, with the usual pre-emptory apology for the lack of inclusive language. Some things, like the King James Version of Luke's birth story of Jesus, you just don't mess with. The language is as it is meant to be.

As I enter the year of 2011, I re-dedicate my faith with the words of Wesley:

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

(as used in the Book of Offices of the British Methodist Church, 1936).

Thanks to RLP

2010-12-30T01:47:00.003-06:00

A man I deeply respect as an online buddy and colleague who previously went by the name Real Live Preacher, Gordon Atkinson, wrote the following column some time ago. I've kept it handy for days like today when I need this particular bit of wisdom.

Thanks Gordon. I owe you one.

There are 12 people who...
by Gordon Atkinson

I have a friend named Sarah, who is a very wise person. She once told me something that I’ve never forgotten. She said that in this life there are about twelve people who will hate you, no matter what you do. It doesn’t matter how good or bad you are. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to be nice. These twelve people are going to hate you. Who knows why? Maybe you remind them of someone else. Maybe there’s something about you that rubs them the wrong way. There’s no figuring this out.

It’s good to know that these twelve people are out there, because occasionally you’re going to run into one of them and it won’t be pleasant. So it’s good to know that ahead of time. These people will assume the worst about you. They might be passively or actively aggressive. They may spread false rumors about you. They might actively work against your happiness. So when you meet someone like that you can say, “Oh, this must be one of the twelve people who hate me.”

It’s actually a relief to realize you’ve run into one of the twelve, because you can relax and stop worrying. If you've made a good effort to be kind to someone but the relationship doesn't improve, you can let go and get on with your life. It's very Christ-like to return love for hatred and to be kind to people who dislike you. But remember that Jesus also suggested the time may come for you to shake the dust off your feet and move on. Letting go makes it possible for you to forgive this person and stop trying to figure out what you did to deserve this. He or she is one of the twelve who hate you. So be it.

Sarah also said that in this life there are about twelve people who think you’re the greatest person in the world. In their eyes, you can do no wrong. They will think that everything you do is a work of pure genius. So when you meet someone who is a little over-the-top in their praise of you, say to yourself, “Oh, this must be one of the twelve people who love me too much.”

The twelve people who love you too much are more fun to be around than the twelve who hate you, but make no mistake about this: they are every bit as dangerous. Don’t take their praise too seriously. Don’t start believing what they say about you. Don’t worry too much about trying to pay them back by saying something as nice about them. Just smile, say thank you, and don’t believe them for a minute.

Sarah’s wisdom helps me remember that while people's opinions of me do matter, I can never let other people have the final say about my worth. Only God has the right to do that. Sarah’s wisdom does not release me from my responsibility to be kind to others and to be Christ-like in the way I treat them. Sarah’s wisdom does not give me permission to stop trying to make relationships work.

But Sarah’s wise words remind me that only God has the right to judge us. Others have opinions about us. Some will be healthy opinions and others not so much. We are human beings, which means even our judgments are broken and fallible. We cannot make an idol out of what others think about us.

Sarah’s words also remind me that I have no right to pass absolute judgment on others. I do not want to be one of the twenty-four people for anyone else.

More Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T16:29:00.004-06:00

I don't know about you, but I see a gift theme here: :)

Some photos from the church before the decorations go back in the box. This year we had memorial angels on the tree. It was quite beautiful.

Holy Nap Time: Boxing Day Edition

2010-12-26T15:28:00.001-06:00

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Happy Christmas Everyone!

2010-12-24T23:14:00.002-06:00

It's after midnight, so it's officially Christmas!!

Best wishes to one and all for a wonderful, wonder-filled day.

This year for my Christams gift, I decided it was time for new bedding. The pictures here don't really do it justice. It looks far more "blingy" in the pics than it really is. It's actually just a nice muted black and mossy green with a little bit of silver "flourish" here and there. We've ordered new curtains because, of course, the curtains have to work with the bedding. Of course. The curtains will add a splash of deep crimson to the room.

Yes, that is a large pile of reading on my night stand. It multiplies exponentially over time. There's nothing to be done for it.

Truffle was a tad troubled by the new bedding. She's not great with change.

Good news!!! (this will come as a shock to kathy a - who had a parallel childhood to my own - I was allowed to open ONE gift tonight and it was.....

.....wait for it....

....pajamas!!!! Yay!!!! (kathy, they weren't red. P went way off the charts and bought me blue jammies - imagine!)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Because it's Christmas...

2010-12-24T11:13:00.004-06:00

I can't resist a few of Sara's now infamous "Cavalcade of Bad Nativities." Be sure to go and check out the whole collection.

"When baby Jesus gets to 0 your cookies are ready."

"Herod's always messing with me Lucky Charms."

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T10:51:00.002-06:00

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

2010-12-20T17:37:00.001-06:00

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Anyone Who Has Ever Owned a Cat Has Seen This Face....

2010-12-19T21:18:00.001-06:00

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Yup. Happens around here every day. Her highness does not appreciate late dining. Just sayin...

InnerDorothy

Hmmmmm......

Happy 2012

Happy Christmas!

The Musical Dispensing of Myth

Why yes, it's Advent!

Humbling

What Happened

Friday Five: Ages and Stages

What I Know

Travel Tales

Warp Speed

Six Years

Big Night 2011

Let the Bucket-Listing Begin!

Less Than a Week!!!!

Srsly

Vacation Ponderings

Truffle summer 2011

I Wish....

Any Face, Any Place

EEeeeeeeee!!!!!!

Wow.

Eclectic Hope

Summertime Friday Five

Pace, Patience, and Pondering

Truffle's most excellent day

It's Been Awhile

Homiletics 101

Holy nap time with kitteh

Massage Day

An Amazing Woman....

What a day can bring...

More than just a name....

Still here...

Is There a Line in the Sand?

Conference meeting

Onward and Upward

Compared to *What*?

Up and Away

Rain List

Strong

Still in the Game

Seeking Simplicity

Yet another reason to love NTV

Study Leave

Very cute...

If you know me, you know that I would totally do this...

Alleulia!

Easter in your soul...

A Gift

Actual Conversation

Therapist Kitteh

Well, golly....

Winter project and a Hail Storm

Busy

Self-talk, prayer and the treadmill

Mama Bear

Lunch time break....

'Tis the Season!

April

RevGal Friday Five: Spiritual Disciplines

"Uncharacteristically Complex"

Catch Ya Later...

Brainz

Neglected

The story of my life...

One Week

Fly On the Wall - Saturday in Oz

Four Hours +

The Best Laid Plans....

More than a little tweaking required

Thought-provoking topic

For Good

TGFC

Painful Privilege

Wow.

Challenge Accepted

Truth

Love this...

Compared to What?