Telling the story

I read this quote sometime last week:

“Throughout history, the way women have gained control of the female experience is to talk about what is happening, and what it’s like. We see that women’s lives are more enjoyable, more full, and women are more able to summon resilience when women talk openly about their lives.”

It struck me, not because I feel that I as a woman am not allowed to tell my story.  But because I as a person who lives with chronic and repeated serious health issues am not allowed to tell my story.  I can name some of the reasons which are not unknown to us all: a cultural obsession with health, a need to not be vulnerable.  I can name some of the reasons which are less spoken of: a basic lasting stigma of illness, a desire to medicalize all things related to illness rather than approach the experience of them, the need for illness to be among the things in life that we can fix.  I know these things and I have already chosen not to let them dominate how I live with my illnesses.  And yet there are stories from this weekend that I want to tell, but haven’t started to write yet.  And yet, when I started this post it read, “I read this quote yesterday.”

Penelope Trunk, the author of the above quote, was writing about her decision to be open about her miscarriage.  She has taken some heat for that decision.  (Apparently miscarriages and potential abortions are to remain in the private sphere of life.)  Ms. Trunk has a tendency to be incredibly open about her life.  I don’t necessarily want to draw my boundaries where she has drawn hers.  But I do want to draw my own boundaries, not have them delineated for me.  So today I will post this and start writing the stories of the weekend.  Because I think I should.  Because they are stories a lot of people don’t tell or hear.  But mostly, because I want to.  This is my life.

this is what motion sickness must be like

I have always been able to read in the car.  On short car trips or miles of twisty windy roads, I can happily become absorbed in a world of words.  I love a nice boat ride.  Turbulence on planes doesn’t bother me.  Neither do any of the fair rides–roller coasters, zippers, anything.

But on days like this, days where my head hurts and my eyes can’t focus, days where I can’t quite figure out where the world actually is.  On these days I think I have begun to understand motion sickness.

~~~~~

It is the middle of a long 4 day weekend.  I knew that this was coming and I knew it would be long and wearing.  And I knew that headaches were a likely part of it.  Fortunately, the eye thing is currently more than the pain thing.    Better yet I will end the weekend with a friend who will let me crash and debrief and enjoy the amazing cable.  But right now, the world is not always where I see it.

11 years later

I was young when I first came to Diocesan Convention.  (Think yearly business meeting of the regional Church.)  I’ve come every year (except during seminary) since then.  I still remember watching all of the clergy process arrayed in albs and wearing stoles those first few times.  Ordained people were new and still slightly ‘other’ to me in those days.

Yesterday, I was one of those clergy walking in wearing funny clothes.  11 years after that first time I attended Diocesan Convention, I vested as a cleric of my Diocese surrounded by my peers, who have also been my friends, my mentors, and those strange people in the funny attire.  It has happened before.  It will happen again.

But today, this time, I was particularly struck by all that has changed since the first time I came to Diocesan Convention.  Parliamentary procedure is now familiar.  I recognize the names and faces and stories of many of the people here.  Many of the people here recognize my name and face and story.  I have confidence that I can and will speak and be listened to.  There is a deep sense of being at home with this community.  The clergy are no longer a strange, slightly intimidating group.  I am both more cynical and more hopeful about the Church.

National Healthcare Debate

I don’t spend a lot of time using this space to comment on current issues.  In fact, I could probably number the posts in which I have on one hand.  It’s not because I don’t care.  I do.  It’s because that’s never what I meant for this space to be.  I meant this space to be a lot less than it is now.  And I have an opinion.

A nation-wide debate has broken out over health-care.  Specifically over Obama’s proposed national answer to the problems that are in our current healthcare system.

As someone who has had three brain surgeries, as someone who remembers the over-the-phone debates with the PPO about covering her mother’s cancer care, as someone who is currently paying more than $600/month to maintain insurance coverage, I have an opinion.  (If you know me, I trust you are not surprised.)

I believe that every person has the right to be as healthy as they choose to be.  I believe that no person should have to weigh going to the doctor against being able to feed themselves.  I believe that emergency rooms should not need to be the first line of health care for the poor.  I believe that our children should receive the healthcare they need to grow into strong adults.  I believe that none of these things need to happen.  And I know that they do.

I know that nationally based health care solutions will cost money.  I also know that our country has spent the last 7 years (I’m being conservative)engaged in one or more military actions to the tune of billions of dollars a year.  We have chosen to allow our government to spend this money because we believed it was important.  If we decide that allowing every citizen the opportunity to be healthy is important the cost will not be the deciding factor.

This is a choice that the next generation will (rightfully) judge us by.  This is a choice that will affect the health of the next generation.

I believe that a single-payer system is a solution.   A solution that we can make a reality.  I believe that we can take actions that will make a difference.  I know that we need a public health care option.

I believe that all we need is to do is decide that health care matters.  That everyone should have equal access to a doctor, to medications, to tests.  That health is not optional or out of reach for anyone.

The question is: will we?

I’ve written my representative and senator.  (HCAN makes this easy.)

I’d like to think you’d all agree with me.  But, regardless, have an opinion.  Be informed.  Be upset or elated at what happens.

Decide if this matters to you.  Act.

Fearless by Max Lucado

Fearless
Max Lucado
180 pages (not counting discussion guide)
2009, Thomas Nelson Publishers

In Fearless Max Lucado covers the very timely topic of how and why fear can become the driving force in life. And why fear should never be the driving force in life. As Lucado himself writes, “Fear seems to be in the driver’s seat these days. People are troubled and anxious. Finances are tumbling, rockets are launching, and seemingly solid institutions are teetering. It’s tough for folks to know where to turn.” Lucado’s recommendation of turning to faith in God may be predictable, but his presentation lacks any hint of being shallow or cliched. Lucado is honestly presenting a map of how fear can entangle us and why we shouldn’t let it.

The caveats that I would offer to Lucado’s book are few. First, as Lucado mentions in passing, fear exists for a reason. It is our built-in method of knowing when to pay more attention because things are potentially dangerous. Healthy fear is not what Lucado is talking about, of course. Lucado is talking about excess fear. (My second caveat.) Excess fear is dangerous and should be avoided. Excess fear is also increasingly and depressingly common today. Lucado knows this and approaches this problem with a discerning and pastoral heart and pen. Fearless is a book worth reading for those caught up in the fears of their lives or for those seeking to understand this reality.

Health Care

On most issues, I understand that other people can have different, valid opinions that are not mine and potentially be correct.  This isn’t one of them.

Be informed.  Have an opinion.  I could be wrong.  But I think the country, especially the young and the old, need and deserve access to health care.  I think that when people are sick they should be able to see doctors.  I think people shouldn’t have to worry about affording the medications they need to be healthy or stay alive.

I’ve written my representative and my senator.  HCAN makes this easy.  Be informed.  Have an opinion.  Take part in this discussion.

The Cat

Sometimes she snarls when I pet her

in a method she has deemed wrong;

other times she growls in anger

seeing violence in the movement of my foot

back toward her–after she chooses

to sit behind my heels;

then there are the times when,

as we (it is a team activity) brush her matted coat,

she can howl as though we were skinning her.

These are when I wonder why

I let her sit on my bed,

only to watch her raise her head

meow happily and

move to sit next to me and purr,

content only to be so close.

written 8-17-09

The Cat is actually my brother’s cat, but I seem to have been accepted as a reasonable staff person.

On the Island

Camp is only a few minutes by power boat or a leisurely hour by kayak (I’ve not yet talked about the open-water kayaks Camp has, have I?) from an island which is also a state park.  We try to give the kids (and staff) the chance to enjoy that resource as much as possible.  This photo is from a day long trip I got to be a part of because we had an abundance of priests and thus one of us could go and celebrate Eucharist on the island with that small group.  I got to do this a couple of times and it was always great.  A small group, a necessarily and delightfully smaller and informal Eucharist, some sun, some water.  The kids also seemed to enjoy it.

I believe that this may draw to a close my pictoral remembrance of the summer.  There are more stories, of course, but none that I can tell, at least right now.  And I have a few other things waiting.

Boat and Sailboat

These are the two camp boats.  Actually this is the camp sailboat rescuing the other boat after its engine died.  I remember this evening clearly.  It was during one of our family camps and a couple staff members had taken some of the kids out on the boat for the evening.  Then the engine on our old, more than well used boat died and the sailboat went out to pull them back in.

Fortunately, the parents are all long time Campers themselves and took it all in stride.  When the boats got back, the kids all thought it was a great adventure.

It remains to be seen if we’ll get a new boat in time for next year.  We did get a new engine, though.  Well, a new used engine.

Collect Cake

If you grew up in the same parish as I did, these words from the collect for Proper 28 are very very familiar to you.  Which made the week we used this as our collect and covered Bible stories a lot of fun.  Because you can be sure that those kids also knew this collect by the end of the week.

When our amazing cook wanted some words to put on the cake he was making, I knew that we had to use these words.  Because it is still capable of making me smile.

(I have retouched the photo to make the name of the camp hard to read.)