Sometimes
the first thing I notice
is how I’ve started to
clench my jaw
or slow my breath
and then I know
to pause and ask
where is the pain
written 7-13-09
Today is another headache day–probably part weather changes, part whatever else. It’s currently trying to move from nuisance to mild on my personal pain scale. Some rest, some medications, some dark and quiet, and I’m hopeful it’ll either diminish or disappear. In the meantime, I’ll be taking deep breaths and trying not to clench my jaw.
This week has been my week here at Camp. The priest who originally had this week offered it to me when I got my job. It has been a good week, and I’ll have more to say about it later. (And maybe a few pictures.)
Today Jon over at ASBO Jesus posted this:
And I laughed. This was the lesson we tried to tackle Tuesday. And it was hard. Hard to explain, hard to get the kids into. Jon captured it for me.
If you don’t visit his site already, please do. He’s very talented and has a great sense of humor.
Faith and Pop Culture
Chrisitianity Today International Study Series
Thomas Nelson Publishing
125 pages, 8 week discussion series.
Christianity Today has compiled this 8 week study series about how faith and culture do and should intersect. Each of the eight week’s sessions are set up with an article about the topic and a series of questions. The questions are divided into sections more appropriate for the beginning, middle, and end of the discussion. I was deeply impressed by the fact that the authors of the articles at no time prescribed how Christians are to interact with culture and media, instead they raised important questions and invite the readers to ponder these issues with them.
Overall I was deeply impressed with Faith and Pop Culture. Christianity Today selected excellent authors and articles that invite real thought and discussion throughout the 8 weeks. Reading through the questions and suggested small group activities, I thought that I might choose a slightly different approach or question from time to time. At the same time, the thoroughness of the questions would make it possible for less or in-experienced leaders to work through this with a small group. I found this study deeply interesting and would recommend it.
Yesterday was a headache day in my life. I’ve actually been having mild (no drugs needed) headaches a lot frequently. And yesterday I decided to try eliminating caffiene to see if that helps. I’m not a huge caffiene person, but at Camp, it is a warm, readily available drink in the mornings. So I often have a cup–heavily doctored with cream and sugar. Well, the headaches weren’t because I’ve been having more caffiene than usual.
It wasn’t bad–at least not on my scale of what a bad headache is. Drugs could and did take the worst of the edge away. But there was still headache. And, because I could and the work needed doing, I took a nap and then went back to work. Then I bowed out of evening programming and went to bed early.
The point of all of this? It’s not to relate details of my headache. The point is yesterday while I was working I could feel the difference–not just in the amount of pain, but in the clarity of my thought processes. Yesterday I had to really think through steps that I’m handling with ease today. Yesterday things were annoying that I don’t even find distracting today.
Persistant, significant pain clouds my thinking. I can’t imagine that I’m alone in that. It’s one of the many things that I struggle to communicate to the people around me while it’s happening. It’s one of the things that I don’t know is understood by people who have never experienced it.
A headache, even a headache that would only earn a low medium rating, disrupts my life. It affects where I want to be (cool, dark places where I can be still). It affects how I think.
I once heard a Bishop say that he (this Bishop was a guy) had a friend who had told him that he had been ordained for the salvation of his soul. I did not understand that comment then. I still could not explain it. But I now know why someone would say that.
I am ordained because I feel called to the work of a priest. I am ordained because I was willing and able to persevere through The Process. But most of all I am ordained because this is who I am. I am a priest. While I could live a happy life outside of Holy Orders, I would not be living my life to the best of my ability.
I began to better understand this deeply ephemeral truth while I was visiting some newly married friends of mine. I have known both parts of this couple for years and years. I have known them separately and together. And I knew that they deeply loved each other and would flourish together. But even still, even knowing all of that, having seen them together for years, they were somehow more together and more individually complete now that they were married.
I looked at them and I saw this truth and thought, “That’s how I feel about ordination.” And then I spent several weeks trying to find the words. I think these are the words:
I am secure and strengthened in the knowledge that the truth of who I know myself to be is recognized, affirmed, and declared by my community at large.
My keychain looks different this week than it did last week. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. I know how I want to feel: happy, relieved, unconcerned. But I’m not quite there yet.
After surgery#2 there was a period of time when I lived with adrenal insuffiency. This meant I needed a mid-afternoon dose of corticosteriods. So I started keeping that dose in keychain medication holder, because then it was easy to have with me. After surgery #3, I bought another keychain like that so that I could keep pain medications with me.
At first it was just to keep up with normal post-operative pain. And then the headaches started. That was when I started keeping ibproufen and excedrin migraine in little bottles (they sell them in little tubes and I refill those) and my prescription pain relievers on my key chain. During The Headache this was necessity. Without medication I couldn’t function. Afterwards it was precaution.
Last week I took the keychain medication holder off of my keychain.
My headaches have been less frequent and less severe. So I’m hoping that I will not need that level of medication. But I’m still scared. So the keychain with it’s medication is floating in my purse. My unwillingness to be separated from pain medication tells me just how bad The Headache was. I have a reason to be afraid of that kind of pain again. I’ve lived with it once.
So, I’m still scared. I am concerned about getting caught with a headache and without medication. But I am also hopeful that when I next clean out my purse I might be willing to take out the prescription pain medications.
Just not today. You see, I’m still recovering.
the orange/red edges
wave and dance, delighting
above blackening wood
holding, protecting the white/blue
center as it flared off future embers
and I smell smokey air
and smile at the ever-changing shape
and hear my great-grandmother’s voice
behind me, just as it once was,
lower, softer,
slightly gravelly from cigarettes,
“When I hear the crackle, I always know it’s caught “
and I smile, knowing that
some things are still true
written 6-25-09
Things I love: Campfires, my camera
Tonight I’m sitting out on the porch reconnecting with the world that is Not At Camp, enjoying the last few minutes of sun shine. Our first campers come tomorrow and there is a subtle air of excitement and tension. After a few minutes, I was joined by this lovely creature.
This is not the first year there has been a nest there and mama (I assume) bird was happy to let me get just close enough for a good shot. Then I retreated back to my original spot on the other side of the porch.
One of the many great blessings of life at my Camp are the wildlife sightings. Tonight I took my camera out to record the sunset, and I did, but mostly as a background for our osprey.
At first I was using the osprey nest as a foreground object.
Then I noticed the osprey head poking out. Then to really make my day, the other parent arrived. (One of the things I enjoy about osprey is that Mom and Dad help raise the young.)
And when I realized that the osprey had settled in for awhile. I began to head back, because the sunset was past. Then I was spotted.
Apparently I was not deemed a threat. I was holding very still.
The deer was willing to walk only a few feet away from me.
I’m currently serving as priest at a summer camp and loving it. However, 14 hour days make the rest of life challenging and I’m learning that balance. Last night, in a staff sanity exercise, many of the staff participated in a game of Ultimate.
I made it down to snap some pictures after a spectacular battle with some piece of office equipment. The mosquitos and I both enjoyed my presence.
Life could be worse.
