The power of discontentment

I had a cancerous kidney removed a week ago. When I posted to Facebook that I was taking a vacation, checking into a place with full service amenities -- breakfast in bed, uniformed staff available at the push of a button, etc. -- a friend said she was jealous. She was joking, of course. Still, it's amazing how discontentment with what we have can make another person's lot seem so very attractive. Even the idea of having major surgery can seem like a treat to someone who has to get up every morning and trudge off to another day of work. 

 I'm lounging at home right now, with a to-do list to die for. 1. Nap. 2. Heal. 3. Recover. That's it. Oh, I should probably take care of a few physical needs. Eat. Toddle off to the bathroom now and then. That sort of thing. But it's still a pretty short list. And I hear that people pay good money for the pills I have sitting beside me. Ah, mine is the life of luxury. And all it has cost me thus far is one kidney, some pain, and a pittance of copay for drugs and lab work. (I'm sure the bills will start showing up soon.) 

 There is huge power in both contentment and discontentment. I am truly blessed. I have no complaints with life. But I could if I chose discontentment. Contentment is definitely a choice. When I choose it, it's not difficult to count my blessings. When others choose discontentment, they discover they have drawn the short stick in terms of blessings. Then they see me and all my blessings and are truly envious, regardless of my actual lot in life. If I were homeless and living in rags but able to count enough blessings to be happy, there would be discontented people who would look at me with envy, wishing they could chuck all the burdens of responsible living and join me in my carefree lifestyle. 

 A number of years ago, I was serving time in my least favorite room in the house while others were lounging in the living room waiting for me to produce food for them. I was highly displeased with this arrangement and railing against it in my mind. After all, I was as tired as those people. I deserved to relax as much as they did. 

 The question that came to me was: Are you really so overworked? 

 Overworked? Well, compared to everyone else around here ... 

  NO! Not compared to everyone else. Compared to an absolute scale of exhausting physical demands. 

 Uhm... well, no, not really. Not when you include the physical demands that come with slavery or other types of servanthood on the scale. It has actually been a pretty easy day. And life. I could expend much, much more energy in a day if I worked up to it and kept myself at full physical capacity. And if the people in the other room were swinging pick-axes and carrying rocks, I would feel quite blessed here in the kitchen. 

So why are you complaining? 

 Hmm... it's amazing how things look different when those lucky others are taken out of the picture. I am blessed to have discovered the secret to being content with the lot I am handed. I wish I could pass that secret on to others who are sure they could also be content with my lot but are not nearly to blessed by their own.

Agh! When was my last back-up?

So I'm convalescing on the couch, laptop on lap. Life is good. But one can only spend so much time staring at a computer screen. I close the laptop. It heads into suspend mode as I lower it to the floor beside the couch. My arm doesn't quite extend far enough. One end of the computer is on the floor, but the other end drops a couple of inches. The hard drive heads are still engaged. End of hard drive. Gone. Dead. All my lovely files. I notice the drop and wince, but don't realize the significance until next time I open the computer, at which time it starts making little whimpering sounds.

I wait for the panic. This is far from my first hard drive crash. I have been through this before with all the classic steps of grief.

1. Denial -- it can't be. Maybe it's not really dead. Surely someone can bring it back for me.

2. Anger -- in this case, at myself. Why did I drop a valuable piece of electronic equipment on the floor? Why didn't I have a decent backup?

3. Bargaining -- HOW much does it cost for data retrieval on dead hard drives? Can I pay someone to bring back my lost files?

4. Depression -- The pictures I will never see again. The data lost. So devastating. So hopeless. So valuable and yet not worth the money to bring them back, even if it were possible.

5. Acceptance -- yes, my data is gone, but life will go on. I won't pay for resurrection. I will accept the loss and start a new collection of data on a new hard drive. I will survive.

So I wait for the panic. Arghh! My hard drive is dead. My data is lost. Let's see. What did I lose?

Uhm... well, I did a new blog post earlier today. Yes, and it's safely stored at blogspot.

Uhm ... mail files. I have lots of AOL mail files and this computer is the official storage spot for them. Yes, and the most recent ones are still on the AOL mail server. Is there really that much value in the old ones?

Data, surely I had valuable data on here. On a laptop? Why would you store your valuable data on a piece of equipment that can walk away in a moment? All the most essential files are stored other places, remember? Haven't you started storing most stuff in dropbox?

Pictures. I have pictures on here that may not exist anywhere else. Maybe, but aren't most of them pictures someone sent you via email? It's not as though you have the only copy in existence.

But always before I've missed most the little things, the files not worth backing up. The applications with no supporting media. What about those? Name one.

Hmm... so, still, I'm convalescing. I can't be expected to sit at a desktop during my time of need. So bring your work laptop home and use it.

That's it? No grief other than the value of the hard drive and the Windows license? This is certainly a change since the last hard drive tragedy.

(Placeholder for summary last line -- I'm still on my mental break.)

Taking a mental break

My surgery is over. The growth on the kidney was a non-typical cancer. It's now gone -- the cancer (hopefully), the growth (for sure), and the kidney that was hosting it. I'm recovering quite nicely. The blessings are many. Despite my last post, I'm not listing them. That would require organizing my thoughts, lining things up, managing my thought processes, prioritizing my goals for the day. I'm taking a break from all that. This is a stand-alone post, not one of a series, not part of a plan.

I'm surprised. I arranged to take some time off from life while recovering from surgery. I have 22 staples holding things together northwest of my navel (if north is up and west is to the left). That's the part I can see. I have no clue what lies beneath the surface. There's some pain involved in all that. No surprise there. What surprises me is the message I'm getting from within and without that it's fine to stretch the limits on my physical activities. The only restrictions I have involve driving and lifting over ten pounds. Walking is fine. Climbing steps is fine. The way to return to full health is to be as active as possible physically while getting plenty of rest and not ignoring the messages my body is giving me.

It's the mental process that is surprising me. It was around 18 hours after I arrived home from the hospital and was settled comfortably on the couch with my laptop when someone suggested a little project I could take on while convalescing. It was a project that wouldn't require a lot of mental energy. Gather some information, make a phone call, or maybe just send an email. Nothing much. And it could result in a $50 refund for an event my husband and I will miss this next week. Little effort; tangible reward. What's not to like?

Except my brain declined the assignment. No, I'm taking some time off. I'm not doing research and gathering information. I'm not focusing on completing a task. Not this task. Not the thousand other tasks that would fit this same model.

Here's a short list of things I could do while convalescing:

1. Catch up on email for home and work. Read the new stuff, sort through and delete the old stuff. All from the comfort of my couch.

2. Organize files. Grab a couple of folders out of a drawer and take as long as I want to sort through them.

3. Make a list of topics to research in Google. Spend just one hour a day doing that research.

4. Make some progress on the pile of books and magazines waiting my attention.

5. Learn something new.

6. Write thank you notes for all the many kindnesses coming my way.

The pattern here is tasks that require almost no physical exertion, just mental exertion. After all, it's my body that has had surgery. Why would my mind need time off? It should probably be kept active so I stay sharp.

But no. I don't think so. Life is far from stress-free for me. My various to-do lists for work and home and outside activities regularly threaten to overwhelm the time available for doing them. I think I need a mental break. I can't afford to take a lot of time off, but I think I can afford another week of letting go of my mental focus and giving my mind a vacation. Then perhaps I can ease my way back into regular life while considering ways to perhaps settle at a slightly lower level of stress.

People hear about my surgery and encourage me to lie on the couch for as long as needed for recovery. Taking a mental break while recovering physically is a little more of a challenge, but I think it will be worth the effort.

I would wrap this post up with some summary thought, but that always requires significant mental energy. So I'll just quit.

Blessing in the Thorn

Phillips, Craig, and Dean sing a song called "Blessing in the Thorn" that has been a blessing to me. Having encountered a thorn in my life, I am once again seeing the beauty of the blessings in the thorn. To briefly state the "thorn" (so scholars won't have to spend centuries trying to figure it out), my left kidney has a lesion on it and is scheduled to be surgically removed the day after tomorrow. I'm not sure I can even begin to catalog all the blessings I am encountering in this thorn, but thought I would record at least a few of them. 

1. Symptoms. Thinking back, I wonder how many I ignored before some showed up that drove me to my doctor. What a blessing that they escalated to where I couldn't ignore them any longer. Yet, once I had appointments made and was committed to getting to the bottom of them, they subsided almost completely, allowing me to resume my normal schedule between doctor visits. 

2. Modern medicine. I won't even try to be more specific than that. What amazing miracles of healing happen every day in medical facilities around the world. 

3. Timing, both the big picture the small. On the big side, it looks like I'll be able to make it to my daughter's wedding in five weeks. It wouldn't have had to work out like that. On the small side, I do bookkeeping for two organizations. My surgery is on the 15th of the month at the start of the least intensive time for bills. In between there are multiple blessings in both the timing of the surgery and how that timing all came together. 

4. Friends. It's great to know people care. 

5. Prayer. What a gift it is to have people remember me in their prayers. 

That's just a start. Maybe I'll find time to add more in the next days and weeks.

Missed Moments in Time

Tuesday I joined the church ladies group at the local restaurant for lunch. I arrived a little early and stopped to chat with a man sitting by himself at a table that could have accommodated the entire ladies group. It was the first time I had seen him since he had taken a public tumble and become a topic of our small town news. His arm was in a sling. I stopped briefly to chat. He has medical tests scheduled for next week. I would have enjoyed learning more and catching up in general but wasn't sure he would appreciate being joined by a bunch of women so I moved on to claim an empty table. I was then sitting by myself for several minutes and he was still sitting by himself. As I gazed across the room, I pondered the options that would have allowed me to chat with him a little longer. He was a member of my church years ago before moving out of the area and then to a nearby town. It's always nice to catch up with him.

That was Tuesday. His 38-year-old daughter was pronounced dead of a heart attack on Wednesday morning. My husband and I are going to the funeral home for visitation tonight. It will be a tragic scene. No parent should ever have to bury their child. And for reasons I won't go into, this is, if possible, even worse than most cases of daughters dying too early. (Perhaps all cases are worse than most cases in one way or another.)

Ever since I heard, I have gone back over that scene from Tuesday. There he was, sitting alone, dealing with his own health issues, unaware of what lay in his immediate future. There I was in the same room, sitting alone, waiting for other companions. It could have been one of them who met with tragedy in the hours to follow. It's not that I made the wrong choice, the curtain was simply drawn on the future and I didn't know it was the last chat I would have with him before unfathomable grief moved in to become a permanent fixture in his life.

Still, it's a terrible reminder of how precious our moments with people are.

Life -- The Database

I like databases. They're wonderful ways to organize things. My favorite example of something begging for a database is a baseball card collection. You can organize your actual cards by only one method. You might sort them by team, by date of acquisition, by value, by field position, or any number of ways, but they can have only one order. If you choose a different criteria for sorting them, you lose the order you already had.

A database, on the other hand, allows unlimited sorting options. And filtering options! You can make a list that includes only pitchers and sort them by their statistics. Or you can list only the cards above a certain value. Or only the rookie cards sorted by year. Oh, the fun you can have organizing your baseball cards once you have entered them into a database!

What I want is a database for life. I just got back from a library conference and am pumped up with new ideas for things to do in the library. Right now they're banging around in my head or on a couple of pages of notes and some handouts. I added a few of them to my standing to-do list for the library -- at the end.

What if a had a database for all these ideas? I could assign each task a value, estimate the time investment needed, put them in categories, give them a start and finish time. I could do the same for my home to-do list. When I got up in the morning, I could run a report ranking my priorities for the day. I would have a field for date of completion and run a report of completed tasks at the end of the week. New ideas would be entered in and given a place among existing obligations. Tasks that went beyond the time available could be reviewed to see if they could wait or needed to bump another task off the list. I could customize each day's list to reflect my schedule for the day -- work tasks for work hours, home tasks for evenings and weekends.

I could also use my database for memory assistance. I could record the news from someone today that he just had cataract surgery. Next time I see him, I could pull up the record of the surgery and ask if the operation on the second eye went well.

I could use my database for a diary and calendar, recording tidbits from all aspects of my life -- diet, exercise, menus, recipes to try, service contracts purchased, schedule for auto service, for health check-ups. Sure, I have ways to do these things now -- calendars, journals, reminders here and there -- but wouldn't it be wonderful to have them all in one place?

Of course, if I'm going to use my database for memories, I would need to add a "fade" factor similar to the one my brain uses. After all, I don't want the memory of the stupid thing I did today to be just as sharp and painful two years from now. It needs to be softened around the edges. Good memories need to sweeten with time. Bad memories need to blur. I would simply build this into the database.

Ah for such a database. How long would it take to develop it? How much maintenance time would it require? Would I have time for living with all the time investment needed for data entry and manipulation? Let's see -- get up (record rising time); check breakfast menu; eat breakfast (record food consumed, update household food inventory and shopping list to reflect food used); watch the news (record the days' news items and my reaction); etc., etc. Something tells me this isn't really going to work out too well. I need some sort of automatic data entry system.

I guess this is what my brain is for. If only it were better organized and let fewer things slip through the cracks.

Oh well, one can always dream.

Gratitude

So ... a friend has a laptop that had slowed down to a crawl, to the point of being almost worthless, particularly if the wireless card were turned on. My husband had looked briefly at it and didn't want to mess with it any more. He figured it was a virus and recommended finding a good computer repair shop.

I was only vaguely aware of the problem until the discussion of repair shops came up. I volunteered that if our friend couldn't find anywhere to take it, I could take a look at it. He was leaving town without the laptop for a couple of days and took me up on the offer.

Several hours later, I had eliminated a bunch of background processes, cleaned up the registry, uninstalled some extraneous programs and had it running like a top. (No sign of a virus, just junk processes eating up the CPU resources.) Although it required a significant time investment and I had to reinstall the printer with driver software that wasn't quite a match for his printer, I was generally pleased with the outcome and returned it with the satisfaction of having done better than I expected with it. I figured I could tweak the printer driver later if he came up with software for it.

Next time I saw the laptop owner, I asked him if it was running all right. He didn't know yet, having not returned to it, but made a comment about me knowing all his secrets. Huh? I told him I knew he used to have a weather desktop utility, that I had simply been interested in the running processes on his computer, not his files.

A few days later, I happened to see him with the laptop and asked how it was doing.

Fine.

Just fine?

Yeah, it's doing all right, even starts up quickly.

Fine? That's it? If his car had been coughing and sputtering and would barely start and someone took it and tuned it up and returned it starting and running flawlessly would he say in an offhand tone it was running fine? Would he ask if the generous mechanic had rummaged through all the stuff he kept in his trunk?

I think I'm going to add up my time and send him a bill.

Nah, not really. I'll just make a note that the gratitude one receives for a gift is not necessarily going to reflect its worth in the general marketplace. And continue to give gifts as I am able.

Sometimes it goes the other way. A simple act of service requiring little time or effort will be received as a precious jewel. This wasn't one of those times.

Lessons from the garden

Saturday evening I was out in my garden. As often happens, Charlie the cat inserted himself between me and my plants with a need for attention. I gave in to his demands for petting and ran my hand down his left side. With a snarl, he turned and bit me, just barely breaking the skin. He bit me! It was totally unexpected. Charlie is an old cat and not given to playful wrestling. Something was seriously up. After attacking me, he lay where he had fallen in my garden bed, claws extended, mouth open in a snarl. I walked away to bind up my wounds.

Sunday evening, I ran across someone at church wearing full body armor. I could find no cracks. When I tried to discuss some scheduling she informed me that anyone could work with the current calendar if they had sufficient desire, that participating was a choice that might take some sacrifice but could be done. No surrender, no quarter. Take it or leave it. Leaving it seemed like a pretty good choice in light of the hostility being displayed, but I saw no need to stir up any more defensiveness by saying so. I let it go, thinking it would be easier to work with the other parties involved.

Monday morning, back in the garden, along came Charlie the cat. I said, "I'm not petting you. You bite!" and continued with what I was doing. Not offended at all, Charlie rubbed his head against my elbow. When I ignored him, he moved a little closer and kept rubbing against me. I put my hand toward him and he rubbed against my fingers. I went ahead and petted the part of him that he offered to me. Rather than biting, he purred.

I think there's a lesson here. Apparently, Charlie has a sore spot on his side. If I touch it, he communicates his pain to me by causing me pain. If I play a more passive role, he will let me know what parts are all right to touch. I wonder . . . how can I apply that lesson as I interact with the wounded people around me?

Under lock and key

I have been locked out. Somebody messed with the settings on the church sound board. Maybe it was children. Or maybe it was the musicians.

I am a musician.

The musicians come and practice during the week and insist on using the sound system during practice. Come Sunday the sound board is messed up. Knobs have been turned that should not be turned. Or maybe sliders have been slid. I'm not sure. No one has ever clearly pointed out to me which parts of the sound system are off limits.

In frustration, the sound man built a wood box, installed a lock, took one key for himself, and entrusted another to the pastor in case of emergency. Everything is set. All the musicians need to do is flip the switch on the outlet strip. No adjustments are needed. Thus, there is no need for the musicians to have access to a key. Problem solved.

Enter an additional musician needing an additional microphone. The sound system is locked. One microphone is available for one singer. If another singer is needed, the musicians are welcome to contact the sound man and he will come and turn on an additional microphone. After all, the musicians are prime suspects as the ones twisting the forbidden knobs. They are not to have access to a key.

Oh, brother.

With great effort against strong resistance, the musicians now know where one of the keys is stored. With greater knowledge comes greater responsibility. They will be held directly accountable for any knob-twisting that happens. The very fact that they insist on knowing where to find a key to the sound system implicates them as knob-twisters. People with respect for knobs that should not be twisted would not insist on having access to those knobs.

There are two people behind the lock-and-key decision. There are no more than a dozen people ever involved in music or sound for the services. Did the two people ever consider gathering together everyone who is ever in a position to need to adjust the sound and sharing the secrets of the sound board? How weak does a person have to be to deny access to responsible adults rather than communicate important issues to them? Are the musicians incapable of understanding even the most basic elements of the sound equipment?

I have a secret. The musicians also adjust the thermostat during their practice sessions. Sometimes the church is too cold for the musicians' delicate fingers. Sometimes it is too hot for their frenzied preparatory musical celebrations. The musicians have been known once or twice to forget to return the thermostat to the "unoccupied" setting. Thus far, these occasional lapses have been tolerated with a simple reminder that we need to be more responsible. But now that it has come out that the musicians are compulsive knob-twisters controllable only by blocking access to the knobs, I suspect the thermostat is in line for locking. A programmable thermostat can be installed and programmed to temporarily adjust the temperature for the regular practice schedule. Rescheduled or extra practices will need to be cleared with those holding the keys.

Long ago I figured out there are two rich sources for learning that can never be fully tapped. One source is those who provide positive examples to be incorporated into one's life. The even more prolific source is those who provide negative examples to be avoided. As I have been locked out of a system for which I have had almost no training and which I seldom touch, I am struck by the message behind the lock. It says I am a person who is unteachable and untrustworthy. Rather than insisting that I (and the other musicians) either learn to use the sound system properly or quit messing with it, those making the decision to lock us out swept us aside as hopeless knob-twisters. Not exactly the most edifying message I have ever encountered.

I wonder ... how many responsible adults (or children) am I locking out in mistrust rather than giving them the tools and opportunity to act in a trustworthy manner?

Thought to remember #7: "Life is reflective ... choose your source."

Only my commitment to Christian living prevents me from making a strong negative response to this message of mistrust. My baser self makes such helpful suggestions as locking up the musical instruments and walking away with the keys. Or maybe locking the door to the room where the music is stored so that only the "official" musicians have access to it. Or bringing in our own amps and bypassing the locked sound system.

In my experience, the pull to treat others the way they treat you never quite fades away. The thing to remember is how much better it is to treat others as you are treated by the most loving people in your life (and by a loving God) rather than as you are treated by those who are weak and have few resources for communicating and building relationships.

It's worth repeating and remembering. "Life is reflective ... choose your source." I refuse to reflect this attitude of mistrust and disrespect for the learning ability of others which could so easily spread through the entire church. I will acknowledge the weakness which the lock and key demonstrates and respond with compassion and grace.

How fortunate I am to have encountered grace in my life that operates at a level worth reflecting. O to be able to consistently reflect that grace to those who lock me out.

Competence Is a Heady Thing

This week I fixed the laser printer at the library. I had googled for hints on fixing it and found a place that described the exact problems we were having and offered to sell me replacement parts that would cure those problems. Two problems, two parts, $50.

The first part came with written instructions. It was a quick and easy repair. I tackled it soon after the order arrived and the printer was then functional. The second part came with an instructional dvd. It was to fix a less essential function -- the bypass tray. I procrastinated on that one until Wednesday afternoon when I needed to print material for a workshop the next day and wanted to use both sides of the paper, something most easily done using the bypass tray. I decided the time had come and stuck the dvd in my laptop next to the printer.

An hour later, after removing and replacing five parts and two springs to get to the problem piece, the printer was working but I had one part left over -- a paper-clip type wire spiraled into a spring. I knew I was in trouble when it went boing as I removed the bypass tray. I didn't see where it came from and couldn't figure out how it was supposed to work. The video didn't show that spring at all and the tray worked fine without it. But it bothered me to have a part left over.

Mechanical devices are not my specialty. I have a terrible time remembering how things came apart so I can put them back together. I generally try to avoid taking them apart, particularly things that suddenly fall apart without warning, such as spring-loaded devices. I had spent significant time on that spring without success and everything else about the printer was working. Should I throw it away? Store it someplace until I received sudden inspiration to replace it? I sat and studied it a little longer. It needed to be happy when the tray was in an upright position and experience mild stress when the tray was open. Study, study, back to the printer to look for possibilities. Then - voila! -- I saw how it went. Success! The printer is now fully repaired and all of its parts back in their proper place.

Fixing the printer made me quite pleased with myself. It was a significant accomplishment.

Meanwhile, a coworker made a call to take care of a matter for her adult son. She said, "Someday he's going to have to stand on his own two feet." Obviously, that wasn't the day. I remembered that he was in the library recently and wanted me to figure out a website for him. I had no familiarity with the site and he was the one who needed to learn how to use it. I told him I would simply be poking around the same as he could do himself and walked away. Eventually, he figured it out. Did he have that same sense of accomplishment in handling something himself? He tends to ask me for help every time. Does "standing on his own two feet" have no appeal to him?

Later, that same coworker told me about a call she got from an inmate at the county jail wanting her to assist him in gaining release -- attend his bail-reduction hearing, maybe contribute something toward his bail. The man is 50 years old. What's he doing in jail in the first place? How many years does it take a person to assume responsibility for staying on the right side of the law or for dealing with the consequences of failing in that endeavor?

It made me feel good to fix the printer. Capable. Competent. I can get around most internet sites without assistance. I can live well enough within the law to avoid getting stuck in jail hoping for a bond reduction or someone who cares enough to bail me out. (I've at least managed to escape that fate for over 50 years.)

What is it like to depend on others to bail you out of the tight spots you stumble into? Does such a lifestyle feel right to people with a particular personality and history? Would the thrill of competent living leave them hooked on accomplishment if they could manage to live competently?

I wonder.

Adventures of a Domestic Rabbit

This is a story with a happy ending. The rabbit is back. It's not the end I expected.

On the evening of October 8, I heard a squeal in the woods outside my bedroom window. It was the panic scream of a rodent. My first thought was that it sounded like a rabbit. I thought of the wire cage housing my "Easter bunny" and was comforted by the confidence that no predator could get to her. I decided it must have been a hapless chipmunk.

The next day, my daughter discovered the empty rabbit cage. The door was propped open. The rabbit was gone. I was somehow distracted the previous day and left the door open and the rabbit, naturally, went exploring.

As I remembered the previous night's squeal, my heart sank. What had discovered and attacked our domestic rabbit, so ill-trained for wilderness survival? I had intentionally fostered goodwill between the rabbit and the dogs and cat, trying to persuade our household predators that the rabbit was "family" rather than prey. Had those attempts resulted in disaster in the absence of healthy fear on the rabbit's part and my restraining hand on the dog?

The rabbit was a gift, a pedigreed 4H show bunny. How could I admit to my generous friends that I lost it by leaving the cage door open? Even though the empty cage was discovered as I was rushing out the door for a meeting, I took time for a brief and futile search -- no rabbit, dead or alive. It was gone. The dogs took a "no comment" position. I wanted to cancel the meeting, but, really, it was only a missing rabbit. It's not like rabbits are hard to replace. Male rabbit plus female rabbit and you have a whole litter to choose from in thirty days. And it's not as though the lost rabbit was particularly affectionate. Any time we let her loose in the house, she would lead us on a merry chase as she evaded capture. Still, the panic scream echoed in my head and my gut ached as I visualized the fate of our pet due to my carelessness.

As I waited for time to ease the initial shock of what I had done, I wondered... How many parents are haunted by a child's scream -- a child hit by a vehicle, maybe theirs; a child losing his or her grip and falling or being swept away by current or wave. How can they endure the endless echoes of that final scream of pain and panic? How do they ever go on with life? What would it be like to multiply the grief I felt for the rabbit by the huge value factor involved with a child. I can't begin to imagine the pain and suffering.

A week after the rabbit escaped, my husband captured her in pixel form sitting not far from her cage by the kitchen door. As soon as he touched the doorknob, she was gone. I wouldn't have believed it but the rabbit in the photo he printed was definitely ours. A few days later he found her by the woodpile. Three of us closed in on her. She let us get close and then disappeared under the wood. A flashlight revealed her at the end of a long hollow run, far beyond reach. The day after that, she let Dave touch her nose when he was out feeding the wood furnace. And a few hours later she sat still by the entrance to her woodpile "burrow" and let me catch her.

Was twelve days enough for the rabbit get her fill of life in the wild and decide to resign herself to being caged in exchange for protection from the dangers of the world along with daily food and water? Did the change of diet from pellets to greens leave her without enough energy to run? Who knows what goes on in the mind of a domestic rabbit? She seems lighter and more appreciative of being a pet, easier to catch in the house, less determined to get away when carried, more inclined to come close to fingers reaching through the cage wire. The failure to fight capture could be simply a lack of energy, but it doesn't take much energy to avoid fingers coming through the cage wire.

I'm pretty sure the scream I heard that first night was the rabbit. It must have escaped from whatever was after it and found a hiding place. What blessing there is in happy endings. Oh that all the endings could be happy endings. My heart still aches when I think of all the many tragedies for which there is no happy ending.

One more blog post

Five months. Almost. That's how long it has been since I have added anything here. As I have mentioned before, it turns out a blog can continue to exist and attract visitors based on existing material rather than requiring constant updates. Still, I fear that blogspot may someday notice that I'm not writing on a regular basis and "weed" me out just as I weed books from the library shelves.

There's hope for more. My garden is winding down. I'm gradually emerging from the crushing to-do list that ate up the summer. I even went to Google reader today to see who else continues to blog and who has fallen silent. It turns out not everyone has wandered off to twitter.

I wonder how substantial additions need to be to stave off the weeding fork. I think I'm past 140 characters now. Is it enough?

Now I just need to come up with some things to publicly ponder before the holidays move in like an elephant in a small room and leave me crushed against the wall.

Fighting heresy

I was reminded again this week that fighting 'heresy' is a delicate operation.

A number of years ago, I left the library at about the same time two days in a row and caught a few seconds of a radio preacher. The first day, he was ranting about the false teachings of "Sanders and Boyd." I turned the radio off. The second day, he was still going on about how wrong "Sanders and Boyd" were. Apparently, these two people were making some pretty big waves. I listened a little longer and came easily to the conclusion that I would find more to like about "Sanders and Boyd" than the one trying so hard to refute their views. A little research led to a more complete identification of John Sanders and Gregory Boyd, proponents of open theism. I bought and read The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence by John Sanders. Sanders' views fit well with my beliefs and the book was profitable. I wondered if I should write a thank you note to the radio preacher who introduced me to him.

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a link to a website exposing the 'heresies' of the emerging church in America. Her son had the dubious honor of being noted as a student leader on this road to heresy. As I looked around the site, I found some of my favorite Christian writers highlighted, along with other names I had not previously encountered. I have left the site open in a browser tab and revisit it now and then. There is useful information there -- links to sites connected with the emerging church, spiritual formation, and contemplative prayer. I don't know of another place on the internet that does so well in pulling together such an attractive set of resources. Being well-practiced at overlooking offensive tirades from the established church, I'm not overly bothered by the negative words that surround these resources.

What is/are the person(s) behind the site thinking in presenting all of these open windows into the ways God is working in the 21st-century Church? Am I supposed to look at them and immediately agree that they must be of the devil? Is that an obvious conclusion to the site manager(s)? Is there any fear at all that visitors such as me will follow the links and embrace what they find rather than joining the "ain't-it-awful" crowd in rejecting them?

The book of Acts in the Bible contains the account of a zealous young Pharisee named Saul who witnessed the execution of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and then went on to persecute the early church. In chapter 9, Saul is off to Damascus to round up followers of Jesus Christ in that city when he encounters a blinding light and a voice that says, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the pricks." (KJV memory version) There's a short conversation and then Saul gets up and becomes just as zealous for Christianity as he has been in opposing it. It strikes me that such a complete turn-around didn't start when that light flashed, that at some level Saul (later to become the apostle Paul) was already beginning to wonder if he might have it all wrong and be working against God rather than for Him. Perhaps part of his zeal was designed to squelch the doubts that had begun to nag at him.

I wonder about the person(s) behind the Lighthouse Trails Research blog. Are they so blind to the appeal of what they are presenting that they are confident that no readers will be drawn to it? Are they struggling to maintain their position of disdain while nagging doubts erode away their convictions? Alternatively, is the site maintained by someone only pretending to oppose this stuff and banking on the theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity? (I would seriously entertain this idea if honesty and transparency weren't a strong value among people embracing spiritual formation.)

Perhaps we should all stick to supporting the stuff we love rather than risk spreading the word about the stuff that strikes us as wrong-headed in our attempt to fight against it.

Let me tell you how it is.

(How's that for a subject with no keywords?)

This morning I was sitting in a hotel lobby using my laptop. A businessman settled into a nearby chair with his laptop, and he and his companion discussed the availability of internet access. When they couldn't get an immediate connection, the companion decided to go get a jump drive rather than waste time trying to get connected. As I continued with what I was doing, I thought I saw the man left behind with his laptop glance my way a couple of times as though he were curious about my success in obtaining internet access. It occurred to me that maybe I could help him get connected but I pushed aside the suggestion. After all, what was I really going to do?

The day before, I stood in a Metro station in Washington, D.C. waiting for a train. A family disembarked from another line and came up to study the map beside me. The mother said they needed 7th & C and thought they would emerge at that intersection if they walked to their left. They discussed it a while and then started that direction. But the mother turned around to check the map one more time to make sure. At that point, I said, "I just came from 7th & C. You were headed the right direction."

I've been taking some training for library software. It's sort of a learning together process. Those doing the teaching are only a little ahead of the students. Questions are welcome. Sometimes I have questions. More often, it seems, I have observations, maybe a helpful tip to offer. In other situations where I'm supposed to be a learner, such as in Bible studies, I might put my observation in the form of a question, such as, "Where in the Bible does it say what you just told us?" Interpreted that sometimes means, "I don't agree with what you said and am quite certain that there is no biblical support for it. I'll let it stand rather than challenge your authority, but I'll at least cast a shadow of doubt over it." It's not really a question.

Ah, the attraction of being an authority. Let me tell you how to get connected, where to go. Here's a tip for doing this computer process. This is what I know about the Bible.

Sometimes I'm the one on the receiving end when other people are eager to share their expertise and help me out well before I've indicated any interest in being helped. Sometimes it truly is helpful and I welcome their input. Other times, it can be quite annoying. In those times, I tend to quit responding while I wait for them to run out of words and go find someone more appreciative of their help. I figure no response beats a negative response.

So when is the right time to offer help to a family trying to find themselves on a map and when is it better to wait for them to look around and ask? Are there times and places in this world for offering unsolicited help? Is this urge to help those around me a character flaw or a gift to be honed and used to bless others?

Just pondering.

Note to self

It may not be a good idea to link from a post here to a blogger update. The link gets listed below the update and attracts far more strangers wandering through than usual. Site traffic is up. A bunch of people who don't know me and aren't interested in knowing me now know what I think about linking my blog to my Facebook account.

As iron sharpens iron ...

Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another - Proverbs 27:17 (NRSV)

I have mentioned in recent posts some troubling things said to me about myself by friends. It might occur to someone that it's time to find new friends. And the truth is that some of my friendships are more challenging than others.

Some people are easy to get along with. They don't question my motives. If they don't understand what I say, they ask for clarification. They give me the benefit of the doubt. There are virtually no harsh words between us.

With other people, even my closest friends, I have occasional clashes. Something is taken the wrong way and brings a defensive response. Or I am labeled as selfish or insensitive. Or my friend speaks frankly about an annoying trait.

So why hang out with people who don't even like me part of the time? The verse from the Book of Proverbs at the top of this post might shed some light on this. Sometimes it takes sparks to sharpen a metal tool, honing it to a sharp edge.

If the people around me spoke well of me all the time, how would I become aware of character flaws? How would I work on my ability to handle criticism without falling apart emotionally? Who would challenge my thinking?

I like the comfortable times with comfortable friends. I also value friendships that have seen hard times and survived. Our friendship has been tested by the winds of adversity and we have chosen to hold on to it because the value we find in it outweighs the pain of the occasional conflicts between us.

A few years ago, some people walked out of my life by walking away from the church that provides most of my social life. I did an inventory around that time and realized that, with their departure, I was down to five people with whom I had occasional conflict, that I was getting along quite well with everyone else in my life. (The fact that the conflict prompting the departure of those people had absolutely nothing to do with me was encouraging -- apparently, I wasn't the only one with whom they had conflict.) A couple of years later, two more of those people walked away leaving me with just three friends with whom sparks sometimes fly, three very good friends whom I love. They make my life richer and challenge me in ways that are good for me. I am blessed.

Wounds from a friend can be trusted ... -Proverbs 27:6a (NIV)

Invisible People

Classic literature has given us two books entitled The Invisible Man. From the pen of H. G. Wells comes the story of a man who discovers the path to true invisibility. In contrast, the main character in Ralph Ellison's book is quite visible -- people just don't see him.

A more recent addition on the subject of invisibility is Neal Shusterman's book for young adults The Schwa was Here. It is a humorous-yet-sad story of an 8th-grade boy who blends in so completely with his surroundings that people don't see him. The narrator of the story befriends him and relates the challenges and opportunities this feature provides.

I have felt invisible many times in my life. I even experimented once in high school to see how invisible I truly was. On the evening of a "Youth for Christ" meeting/party, I determined to speak to no one unless that person either spoke to me first or looked directly at me in a way that invited me to say something. The only person who came close to providing that minimal level of invitation was the mother of the host student. She didn't know me, but greeted everyone at the door, including me. The only words I spoke all evening were a response to her greeting and a word of thanks as I exited. The rest of the evening, I sat quietly in the shadows, and not one person appeared to notice I was there.

My own experience with invisibility is partly what motivates me to be deliberate in my effort to see people. It can be hard work. People move in and out of my line of vision. Sometimes I notice them; sometimes I don't. There are various factors that contribute to a person's invisibility to me. Perhaps the hardest to see are quiet, ordinary children whom I don't know in a group that includes more flamboyant personalities. Or maybe it's the people who appear to be so far outside my usual social circle that interaction with them doesn't strike me as worth the effort.

What has me pondering the idea of invisibility, however, is not the invisible child or the invisible stranger on whom I slap a label, but invisible friends. There are people in my life, people whom I see frequently and know relatively well, whose presence somehow doesn't stir up enough brain cells for me to remember that I have crossed paths with them. I can seldom remember if they were in this place or that. Was he part of that group? Was she in her usual place at church this week? Did I see him at a store sometime? Have I seen her in the library lately?

Working at seeing people prompts me to sort out those quiet children and learn their names. It prompts me to treat people as potential friends, even if I detect nothing about them that makes me think we have enough in common to sustain even a casual friendship. I keep working at seeing the invisible people. And generally, once I get to know someone, they are no longer invisible to me. Except a few, who continue to blend into the woodwork no matter how much effort I make.

I wonder ... Does invisibility go with the person, as in the books I mentioned? Are my invisible friends surprised when someone sees them? Or is their invisibility to me a flaw in my own vision? Maybe it's a little of both.

Blogger and Facebook

I see that I can have my blog automatically post as a note on Facebook. (Click here if you want to know how.) On the face of it, this seems like a nice feature. But it didn't take long to figure out that I'm not going to do it.

For more than a decade, I have moved between two different worlds. First, there is my "real life" world. The people who populate this world have faces and voices and talk not only to me but to each other when I'm not around. They know me by what I say, by my body language, by what I look like, by what others think about me. They hear my voice and enter my life with a physical presence. Few of them focus much attention on me specifically. Few of them care what I think about either Blogger or Facebook.

My other world is an online world. In this world, there are no voices, only typed words on a page. I type posts such as this and people show up to read them. Many are strangers coming in off the search engines. Others, I know only from the internet. Only a few are part of my "real life" world.

Facebook is a place where my two worlds intersect. It's actually a place where many worlds intersect for many people. It specializes in one-liners. "Marsha is typing a blog post." Does someone trying to keep up with 100 friends really want to know more than that? If they do, it's not hard to find this blog.

I have often told people that the key to survival in a small town is to be so boring that no one cares to talk about you. "Marsha who? Who's that and why would I care what she did? Don't you have anything better than that to tell me?" I find blogging to fit into that same pattern. Most people don't care to read my ponderings. Even though this blog is easily picked up by the search engines, I'm counting on the fact that only people who are truly interested in reading it because they have some level of appreciation for what I write will bother to come by more than once. Thus, I can share things here that I wouldn't necessarily share with everyone I know. Force-feeding these posts to my Facebook friends, whether from "real life" or from other internet settings, seems way too "in your face" for me. It's a neat concept that I can see would work for other people and I hope my mindset doesn't discourage you if you're interested in doing it, but I myself am not ready to invite that level of exposure.

So if you're here from a search engine, you're just getting in on some thoughts. If you're a regular visitor, thanks for coming by. I appreciate your interest.

Self-centeredness

I've been pondering the idea of self-centeredness. Selfishness. Self-focus. Whatever you want to call it. Being concerned primarily with me and mine.

Not too long ago, I suggested changing the schedule for something. Someone to whom I made the suggestion asked for supporting reasons. As I listed the advantages, she countered each with an objection. I was torn between doing rebuttals and arguing for each point versus continuing my list. Did she want to hear a brief summary of my reasoning or not? I became agitated and confused as my points were torn one-by-one to shreds and scattered to the wind. Then my friend uttered words that ended the exchange totally. She said, "I can see how you think this would be good for your group, but there are other people to consider. You're not thinking about others."

Whoa! That's a serious accusation. It's not that I'm thinking only of myself but that I have identified with a group of people and don't care about anyone outside that group. Group selfishness. I'm willing for everyone outside the group to suffer in order to accommodate the needs and desires of me and mine.

The reality was, I wasn't particularly sold on the idea I was presenting. I had picked it up from someone else for whom a similar change had proven beneficial. I was simply sharing that information and asking about the possibility of trying it in our setting. If the cons outweighed the pros for everyone involved, I was perfectly willing to drop the matter. I'm not sure how including factors that would benefit "my" group in my list of advantages revealed the proposal to be basically self-focused. I think I caught my friend at a bad time and should probably let the comment go.

As the scene described has impacted my thinking on selfishness, however, I've been thinking about the spectrum from pure and complete selfishness to pure and complete altruism. I'm not sure either extreme can exist in pure form. At the conference I attended recently, I heard the results of scientific research that support Jesus' words that "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Those who give reap significant benefits in terms of health, happiness, and longevity. Thus, there is no giving that doesn't involve receiving of some kind. Once someone experiences the pleasure of giving, would they continue to give if all the pleasure were removed or does self-benefit become a motivation?

At the other end of the spectrum, one might expect to find some purely selfish people who care for no one outside themselves. Maybe such people exist, but they aren't obvious to me. It seems that everyone has at least a "mine" outside of their "me" for whom they care. At what point does "me and mine" become something other than pure selfishness? How large does the "mine" need to be to no longer qualify as selfishness? Is it me and my family? Me and those who suffer as I suffer or once suffered? Me and my social circle? Me and my community? Me and my nation? Me and my world? Me and my universe?

In between the two extremes of pure selfishness and pure altruism, there is a whole spectrum of mixed motivations for actions -- good for me, good for you but not me except when doing good for you makes me feel good, good for us but not them, good for them but not us except when doing what's good for them turns out to be good for us. When giving up my life turns out to be the way to gain it, is it truly unselfish to give it up?

Mostly, it all makes my head spin, but eliminating the end points of totally selfish and totally altruistic does put a different perspective on being labeled as selfish when a proposal that I'm tossing around might be of more benefit for "me and mine" than for some larger group.

Facelift

OK, you may not notice, but I finally moved over to one of the new Blogspot templates with block editing. Maybe this will inspire me to keep the sidebar more up-to-date.