The Life of Cardboard

    The homeless remind me of the homeless we have at home, but it’s hotter here. They’re under bigger overpasses, but the cardboard is the same. It’s in from the Chinese Pacific Silk-road on giant cargo shirts, protecting trillions of dollars worth of stuff, offering small but real protection to products as they float waiting for a useful place. 

    Trees have rings like cardboard has grime; you can tell how how far down the consumer chain by the unreadability of its letters and the scars it bears. The same may be true about those who now use it as a sleeping mat, under the sprawling overpass, beside the GAP store. It still offers small, but real protection to the people as I float by in the Paris of the South.  

Biting a Horse in Tokyo

For all its bright lights and crowded streets, Tokyo is a quiet town.

The malls are full and airports worse, but Tokyo is a quiet town. No one speaks except to friends... and no one sings, or shouts, or stomps... because Tokyo is a quiet town; a busy, hustling, bustling, moving town, but never a "scene in public" type of town.

So, when I bit the horse and felt his leg against my tongue, no one yelled, or whined, or whinnied (Tokyo is a quiet town), which was not what I expected.

American horses are on the plains or in a paddock on the farm, but this old horse was on a plate (did not complain), because Tokyo is a quiet town.

Wanting Movement p1

I find myself wanting to be on the move almost continually. I can feel my body vibrating and only seem to find relief while in motion. It's been simmering under the surface for years; my wife has described it as a wander-lust, but (in recent weeks) I've been intentionally digging under the tension.

Is it the entertainment, the knowledge? Thanks to Netflix and the rest of the internet, I can watch TV anytime regarding almost any subject, but the information soon saturates and the light from the screen soon gives me a headache.

Thanks to my tendency to be more and more sedentary, my legs hurt if I sit too long. At 37, my body fat has begun to distribute to my belly instead of being a butt pad. Hence, sitting also makes my butt hurt. I can only read my Kindle for so long; I have to get up and move.

I could do dishes or through another load of laundry on, but something else still nags my subconscious and makes me want to leave the chair, leave the house, drive a round and get lost at the coffee-shop, the church study, or my bro's place for a few hours until the jitters settle.

Parts of the equation, I already know. More than place, I crave people and (more than that) I crave the interaction, not necessarily their noise. 

They Sat on the Ground with Him.

When my father had his heart attack, the family rushed to Cleveland to sit by his bed and congregate in the waiting room outside of the cardiac wing of the Clinic. We waited for two days: through his stabilization in the emergency room, the initial assessment and first battery of tests, the consults with specialists, and finally the intervention. His surgery was actually delayed by a few hours because Robin William's cardiac surgery was taking longer than expected and they shared the same doctor. In spite of that, Dad made it home safe and sound and a few years have gone by in relative cardiac heath, minus the salt and extra gravy.

From that, the Vega family learned to appreciate the phrase, "as serious as a heart attack." As bad as it could have been, it's amazing how far medical technology and treatments have advanced in the last few years, let alone the last twenty. They now not only stop your heart and divert all blood from your chest to a machine, they cool your body down to morgue temperatures only to revive you after the surgery with a slow thaw. All that in the name of progress and a few extra saved brain cells. 

Despite all the progress and advances made in medicine, things that were unthinkable even a few years in every field of science, nothing still spells terror like the diagnosis of cancer... and, at Grace Fellowship Church (and in my own life), we have had more than our fair share or cancer cases; some of them very recent and still ongoing. What do you say to someone who is actively suffering the diagnosis, treatment, and uncertainty of cancer? For that matter, what do you say or do for anyone who is suffering real anguish and pain?

In the first few chapter's of the Biblical book of Job, the writer describes an ongoing bet between God and Satan regarding the namesake of the book and the horrible series of events that befall him. "But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."

Consequently, all of his belongings are stolen, his children die in horrible accidents, and his own body is stricken with "painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head." Nothing is left except his life, but even his quality of life is destroyed. His friends could hardly even recognize him when they see him for the first time after all of this had happened. If you've seen anyone who has undergone chemotherapy, has been slowly wasting away, or has an advanced liver disease, you may have a better understanding of how Job looked to his friends, shocking.

For all of the commentary indicting the three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) for their presumptuous commentary in later chapters, I think the final paragraph of chapter two (had it been all they did) is the most beautiful example of friends offering solidarity in regards to the suffering of a friend and loved one:

"When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him;they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was."

What do they do? Nothing that seems heroic, but it is amazing.

1. When they hear about Job's suffering, they gather together and go to check on him. 
2. When they see his suffering, they show genuine emotion and concern.
3. Without explanation or rationalization, they share in what they can of his suffering. They sit with him. 

How often do we make the later mistake of the friends and open our mouths to pontificate... when what we should be doing is the simplest of acts, just being with the one who is suffering?

Let them speak if they choose. Let them ask if needed. If they do, then speak or act. Be patient, open, and available. That's the amazing part we all too often forget and, because of that, end up doing more harm than good.     

I may never know or fully understand the true magnitude of anyone's suffering, but I can share in it and sit on the ground with them. 

Dying, But No Faster Than the Rest

I've done it before, but it never seems to get easier: They ask, "How is my [loved one] doing?"

I reply, "How much do you know?... They're dying."

Some of them know it, but can't say it. Some of them get blind-sided. Some of them just cry. None of them react the same, but they all get that look on their face when the light-bulb goes off in their mind. That tears me apart, the moment they see the expiration date on their loved one peaking out from the blanket at the foot of the bed.

I've given up giving false hope, agreeing with the thousand excuses and miraculous scenarios the person asking is hoping I'll tell them. Yes, I believe, but I've seen death more than miracles and the signs are often clear... if you choose to see them. The trick is in how you show them, prepare them, bring them together and help them navigate the inner (and sometimes outer) fights.

They think I'm the expert, not the loved one who's ready to let go and be with their long dead spouse. Sometimes, the patient just knows they can't hold on and is looking for permission from the loved one. In the midst of that, I'm supposed to be the sign post or the weather channel, the portent that signals life or death, the one to tell the family (often) what they already know.

I have to be the first to say it, to make it real or banish all the fears. What's more, the family never wants to ask it in the room or in ear-shot of the patient. They seem to think it's escaped the patient, the one lying in bed. They say things like, "Let's not talk too loud just in case they're listening."

Who? The patient, angels, death?

Even if family never shows up, I know. I mourn. I carry it with me. Each one sticks with me. Each one makes me remember my own mortality and the ones I'll leave behind.

Some nurses get drunk, some get mean, and (worst) some go numb. Personally, I write and always cry, not in front of the family, the lover, the friend, the rest of whoever, but I do cry. I've cried in the stairwell, the break room, the locker room, in bed, or at the solitary bedside of the comatose patient while doing my assessment or hanging medication. I've struggled with God. I've yelled at God in the car before going in the house late at night to go to bed. I've lost faith and gone down dark roads.

But I come back. So far, I've always come back. Sometimes all I can do is put one foot in front of the other until I can look up again, but I look up again. That's what I tell them: the patients and their loved ones. Not all of it, but enough to let them see I care and know a bit of what they feel. Forget the tag you see hanging off the patient's toe or the one you infer on your own toe.

We ask, "Will I ever see this person again, or do I lose them forever? What about my other loved ones? What is the point? What am I doing with my life? When will I die?"

When we're honest with ourselves, we answer, "Yes. We will die. Maybe no faster than the rest, but we are all going to die."

The moments before imminent death, that infinitesimal point in eternal history, make us question life and after. It can rip your psychological well being from its roots. It happens to the patient. I'm sure it's happening to the loved ones I interact with at the hospital. It happens to me, but experience lets me weather the storm with a strong face. At some level, we're all going through the same questions, anxiety, and angst.

What can you do? What can I do?

So far, nothing I can do as a nurse providing care, administering medications, observing what is happening and trying to anticipate what will happen can do anything more than delay the inevitable. Nothing the doctor can do as a physician can stop the end. No amount of family bickering, anger, bargaining, or finger-pointing can affect the past, but we can affect the present.

Discuss what's bothering you, be open, enjoy the moment. Spend now with who you can, when you can. Tell the air if you have to. That's all you can do, but you can miss the opportunity to do it.

Nurses know. Doctor's know. Your loved one who's dying probably knows better than all of us. Do you?

Don't Believe in Charms

The second greatest gift that God gave man is "common grace." Everything good comes from God and He is not limited in His means or by whom He chooses to use.

The theologian Calvin expressed it thus, "that we... cannot do any thing that is good without thee [God]." Even a non-believer glorifies God by their good intellect and/or the products of their hands. Their skill, music, writing, thoughts, actions, and even that which they don't do is temporarily elevated, allowed to exist in a greater plan of good. 

So... Why do some choose to put the Ichthys on their business cards? Is it in hopes of elevating their work? I find that is hardly the case. Instead, quite the reverse. It is used to lull those that think of the symbol as a charm, a speak-easy knock, the secret knowledge that will ensure an honest job from the person who's card it's on. Only charlatans have need to lull their prey and only the naive should believe it.

"Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds." I don't need a charm, nor do I care for those who do. Any reminder I carry is for myself.




  

Glass Aquariums

I feel a compulsory need to gain their attention, talk to them, and then... tamp them down, slow their role, control their outbursts. Why?

He came to church. For Easter, he got dressed up and came to the church he remembers. He was late, but, then again, we've changed times since he was there last. He sat next to a guy he knew and we talked during one of the songs. The conversation wandered from a smiled greeting, to the bike trail, to the song we were singing, to the woman up front at the microphone.

He made me nervous. I waited for the tell tail sign that makes our conversations awkward. Sooner or later, the other shoe always drops. It always has. His neural circuitry tends to loop in inappropriate areas and I have to fight the associated embarrassment when the tic comes out.

Why not say it? They make me nervous, but, as people, I find them (him) engaging. As a medical professional, I find them (him) interesting, fascinating.

I had spent the last four days on a family vacation with my daughters and wife. On the second day, we visited the Newport Aquarium and beheld the wonders of the ocean and the swamp: sharks, sting rays, a school of piranhas, a hundred year old snapping turtle, and a twenty-foot alligator. We stood and watched, tried to touch them (behind glass) as I pontificated to the girls about their habitats, life-cycles, wonders... and dangers. It was fun, it was interesting... it was safe.

Standing next to him in church, talking with him, it hit me. Why was I afraid of him? Why was I wasting all of my attention and energy trying to put a tank of glass between him and myself: to better study him? Was I treating him like a wild animal... an animal?

I was! I repented. I still had to actively focus on the worship going on. I had to force myself not to worry, but, for the next hour, I began to enjoy his presence as a fellow believer.

Social norms... the glass tank we swim in. Perhaps the glass tanks at the aquarium aren't just to protect the tourists? They protect the animals too!

Then it hit me again. I wasn't trying to protect him, I was trying to protect myself. He was as broken and forgiven as I am. He still waits and longs to be made whole again with the resurrection, but can't hide behind social norms like I can. He couldn't put on the protection like I could and he wanted to swim in my tank, sit by me, talk to me, and interact on my turf. That's what scared me. Would I have to do the same? Would I have to take down the glass wall between him and I? 

Would the others in church see my untamed side, my viciously unSunday side? The side of me that enjoys a bawdy joke, that enjoys an occasional beer, that connects and (more than that) empathizes with his daily struggle?

Yes and yes.

I still have boundaries, especially with my daughters in the seats beside me, but I did, will, and do want to swim with the other fish.

The first step: I will not be embarrassed. I will deal with it as it comes... if needed, but not before. I will not be "anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving" enjoy the people God puts in my life.

As my older patient's tell me when I ask them, "live life while you can and live it now." Damn the glass tanks!