The Least of These...

…could be a homeless guy in the final stages of sepsis (where the infected body has literally become a plugged toilet, incapable of flushing itself).  He might also have head to toe bruising and "mystery rash," and black nails resembling thick talons.  No amount of bathing will clean him.  He is everything that turns the stomach.  Everything I look away from.  A product of his own "choices...?"

The danger with this type of patient is to value him at the same level he has, obviously, valued himself.  There is the temptation to provide the bare minimum of care for him, while I lavish the darling patient – the sweet little 80 year old grandpa – with my best.  But…aren't we all "dirty" in the final analysis?  

When somebody shows up with the veneer of “culture and cleanliness” torn away, I am faced with the reality of how God must see me apart from Jesus.  Under the visible surface, the homeless man and I look identical to God.

Without Jesus, I believe we are terminal and septic.  I am drenched in arrogance.  I flounder in hypocrisy.  It swirls through and rots me.  I am incapable of flushing the toxin from my soul.  Only Jesus can.  So I pray...

"Save me Jesus.  I am, on the surface, put together.  This makes me forget the ugliness I harbor.  Makes me feel proud and separate from those who appear worse on the outside.  Forgive me please. 

Please clean and flush my soul.  Help me to remember long and well what I been saved from.  Help me to see with your eyes, hear as your hear, love as you love, and speak your words.  Put healing in my body that pours into the lives of my patients, and those around me.  

Help me to always remember that you are the source of all that is good within me, lest I fall back into pride.  Please help me to avoid the scraping self-hatred of false humility, while retaining a healthy sense of who I am apart from you. 

Please give me opportunities to be love in a world that scarcely recognizes it anymore.  And when I catch glimpses of you, help me to freeze those moments, and worship you in the midst of them...amen."

More or Less Obvious

There’s a lot of death in nursing - - pushing back against it, holding fragile hands through it, helping people find life and hope in the midst of it.   But ultimately, nurses value and treat human of life – regardless of where their patients fall in the spectrum, or whether their patients even value their own lives.  We do.  Some days this is more obvious than others.

Rectal Tubes and other Mealtime Topics

I'm a registered nurse in a neuro/surgical intensive care unit, so my patients have a variety of really bad things wrong with them.  Sometimes that can mean they are unable to control their bowels - - which can be managed by inserting a soft clear tube connected to a collection bag into...well, you know.  As bad as this sounds, the loss of bowel control is usually caused by the REALLY, REALLY bad thing that's actually wrong with them, or the medication they're taking for it.  So the obvious problem (pooping into a tube/bag) is really the least of their concerns.

Why in the world is this worth discussing?  Well, it reminds me of how I am so quick to assume that the very worst thing I can see about somebody is their "real" problem.  Imagine that awful  person who lies, and acts stupid and terrible most of the time...you know -  the people who end up on the news and reality TV shows.  In my way of thinking, the visible ugliness of this person is like the bowel incontinence of a rectal tube patient...it's just a symptom of the true brokenness that's driving all that visible shit, if you will.

One thing Jesus did while he was here was to heal lots of people.  He said and did mysterious things.  Like when he healed a man who was paralyzed, he didn't say anything about fixing his neurological connections - he just said, "Your sins are forgiven."  And the guy got up and walked.  So Jesus saw the paralysis as the "rectal tube" and the sins as the underlying condition causing it.

I really hope I can remember this the next time I'm faced with my own personal ugliness, or that of another...that we're all just really broken, hurt, sick people who need Jesus to fix what's underneath the surface and causing us to make such messes on ourselves.

Going Home Again

I just got back from visiting my family and was looking through my videos.  This one caught my eye because it perfectly shows the wonder and wonkiness of my hometown.  Much like my childhood, it's made of contradictory layers all juxtaposed and mashed together.  I love it.

Family Breakfast

Disclaimer - this is fiction, and contains explicit language.  It's appropriate to the story and not meant to be gratuitous.  Peace.

_____________________

            She would already be there, smoking and pacing - my twin sister Ellen - and I was late for our awkward, semi-annual breakfast.  We couldn’t have been more different if we had tried.  In seventh grade I had stayed conscientiously right, while she hair-pinned left like a bat out of hell – eventually falling off some unmarked deep end.  Yet, somehow, she always managed to pin herself together for our meetings, where I assumed her main goal was a free breakfast.  Mine was to verify her pulse, and avoid the obvious.

            My name is Jill Scarapelli, but she called me Jelly since we could talk.

            “Jelly, Jelly Scratch-yer-belly!”  She would scream at the top of her lungs, while chasing me through the pasture with a handful of cow poop, a dead squirrel, or a snake…she was my funny crazy sister.  I adored her back then.  That was before life had grown us up into these wary strangers - with nothing in common besides a shared vein with family blood, and childhood stories milked so hard, nothing but woody pith remained.

            This morning would be no different than all the others.  We were well versed in our roles.  We would crunch tentatively through toast.  Paltry banalities would be sipped with extra cream in our coffee.  An hour of accomplishing nothing more than not rubbing noses in obvious messes, rehashing the same  “remember when’s, have you heard’s, and that’s nice’s,” would end with me picking up the tab, and gushing that we really needed to do it much sooner next time – wincing in anticipation.

________________

            Even from a distance I saw the dinner plate-sized smile she always had for me. 

            “Ellen, it’s so good to see you!”  I was only half lying.

            As we got closer for hugs, I noticed bruises caked white with cover-up, and a new gap in her dental skyline.  She used to be pretty.   How did it come to this?  What happened to us Ellen?  What happened to you?

_________________

            Growing up, certain kids were labeled as “discipline problems, failures...troubled.”  They were discussed behind the fronts of hands.  Adults beat them to break them straight.  Nowadays, we medicate them, and call them bi-polar - she just figured out the medication part sooner.  It began as “The Great Cough Syrup Disappearance of ’78” when my Dad stormed in yelling (he did that a lot), to find the Robitussin DM.  Ellen slid an unusually lazy eye towards me, and winked crookedly.  While Mom and Dad harangued the house sideways, Ellen couldn’t seem to stop giggling, and sweating.

            I’ve heard people talk about “gateway drugs,” but in 1978 pot was the biggie, and cough syrup was still the domain of family medicine cabinets.  Nonetheless, she darted through that gateway - and might as well have found a frozen river, for as fast as she skated out of our reach.  But we all stayed shivering on the banks, because she would sometimes flash by for a minute, before skating off again to God only knows where.

                                                ------------------------------------           

             “Yes, we’ll have coffee.  Thanks.”   I was all poised to begin reciting tightly rehearsed lines, but Ellen knocked me loose by breaking the rules and getting personal.

            “Mike fucked me up again. “  Defiance graffiti’d her vulnerability.

            Whoa Nellie. 

            “I’m sorry…are you sure you want to talk about this?” My cowardice flapped nude and obvious.

            “Yeah, I want to talk about it, he’s a fucking bastard and I need to get out of there!”

             “Ummm, I don’t know what to say Ell...”

            Only partially true – I definitely knew what I wanted to say.  Strident words about “choices” strained like barely contained Dobermans.

            “Can I stay with you awhile?”  She mumbled quickly and vulnerably, before fascinating herself with the sticky plastic tablecloth.      

            “Uh-oh.” I thought frantically.   “Wow…Ellen…uh…I…uh… don’t know…”  I shenaniganed around.  She looked up with quickly hardening brown eyes. 

            ”Doesn’t that church of yours say something about taking in homeless people?”   She continued with a disdainful snarl, “I never ask you for shit.  And when I do…oh, whatever.  You’re such a goddamn hypocrite.”

             The Dobermans got loose and I growled, “Yeah - my church says I’m supposed to be good to ‘poor people.’  It also says people get what they choose.” 

            “Jelly, don’t fucking preach at me!  Do you actually think I chose this?”  She gestured to her bruised face.  Part of me did.

            I leaned forward, words ricocheting out in one breath.  “Ellen, I’m not a flophouse - Mike scares me -  If you really want to change, get some rehab...”  I was dizzy and churning like a crooked spin cycle.

            “Why should I want to change?” she mocked - "So I can be just like you?”  Her dirty spit landed on my forearm.  “I wouldn’t want to be like you in a million years!  You’re a total bitch most of the time!”

            “And you’re not?  The only time you ever want to see me is for an hour when I buy breakfast.”  I spat right back at her.

            “Jelly, the only difference between us is that you have more money and you’re a goddamn fake!  Maybe someday you’ll stop being so fucking judgmental and we can be real sisters again.  You don’t know anything about me…you don’t want to.”  She said this while struggling to get out of the booth.

            Standing up, she swayed and leaned right into my face.  I smelled the nicotine, coffee and rot as she yelled, “Fuck you!  I’m happy the way I am…Well, not always…but at least I know who I am!”  She flipped her hair one last time and continued, “Excuse me – I don’t need you…sister, my ass!”

            “Get some Prozac, you freak!”  I hollered at the stiff middle finger she was waving as she slammed noisily out of the, now, very quiet restaurant.  Embarrassed and shaking, I ignored the rubber-neckers by sipping my coffee and re-stacking the packaged jams.

-------------------------

            An hour later I felt awful, but didn’t know how to get ahold of Ellen - she always called me whenever she wanted to see me.  Such as it was, it was our first real conversation since burying our parents after their accident ten years ago.  The line I had painted boldly between us was understandable, given our vastly different life choices.  But for the first time in years, it didn’t feel protective.  It felt mean.  I found myself really wanting to talk to her.  I wanted to listen to her.  I never got the chance.   Two days later a man in a beige uniform knocked on my door to tell me my broken sister was found snapped and twisted unnaturally into a moving box, and left under a bridge.   

              After her memorial service, I sat alone next to her casket – another horrible moving box - leaching a lifetime into a single handkerchief.  She was right, I was right, we both were wrong.

-----------------------------

            It’s been a couple days since the service.  It’s raining, and I’ve just left the police station where they handed me Ellen’s things in a plastic zipper bag.  I was shocked to see her old scuffed diamond and gold promise ring mixed in with a lighter, a snapshot of the two of us, and her empty wallet.  The promise rings were a gift from our parents when we turned thirteen, and promised to be “good girls.”  I still wear mine – it’s shiny and cared for.  I assumed Ellen’s had been pawned years ago. 

            As I come to a stop at an intersection, a homeless man with a dirty Moses beard, a ragged sign, and a shivering dog-on-a-rope steps boldly up to my car.  Ordinarily, I would stare piercingly ahead, while making pretend phone calls to avoid his gaze.  For reasons I can’t explain, I slip off my shiny promise ring, look right into his cloudy hazel eyes, and hand it to him before driving away. 

            I don’t know his story, or what it feels like to wear his skin.  For all I know, he will pawn my shiny “good girl” ring for his next fix of whatever.  But I don’t know that for sure - nor do I really care anymore.  I fish through the police zip lock bag, find Ellen’s dirty ring...and slide it on where mine just was.   

            I really miss my sister.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P58tNCBlr3U - great song by Imogen Heap...seems fitting.

___________
Writing this made me think about "safe distance" and what that really means. What do you think?

        

The Funny Thing About Chasing Butterflies...

In my laundry room, on a wall above the chest freezer, is a "vintage inspired" print.  It's bold with an orange butterfly dominating the 3 ft. by 3 ft area, and huge metallic letters that say, "Follow Your Dreams."  At the time I bought it, we had moved from CA to TN to do just that.  Back then, my dreams seemed crisp and defined - with each segment on my road to success clearly spelled out.  Segment 1 - move - check.  Segment 2 - finish degree - check, check.  Segment 3 - make appropriate connections and take the music business by storm...uh, hmmm.  Segment 4 - complete a breathtakingly perfect demo of my "A list" songs that will, of course, ultimately earn me a grammy for songwriter of the year...uh oh.

The butterfly taunts me every time I mundanely do laundry or dig a frozen pizza out for dinner (don't judge, it happens sometimes).  I remember when I first bought the print - still flushed with adrenalin and reeling with disbelief that we had actually moved all the way out here.  It glistened at me from the wall at Pier One, and I bought it.  It was my muse, the summation of what we were doing, and the mantra I quoted with giddy enthusiasm when people marveled at our bravery.  So how, in three years, did it go from a place of honor over my piano, to the wall space over the freezer, next to the detergent?

We are a culture who values the maverick, that dashing daredevil who takes mad risks - we love to watch their shows and cheer them on while sitting on the couch eating microwave popcorn.  We are bombarded with flickering images of what we should be "dreaming of," and we work ourselves to death chasing it.

I've chased this dream of being a hit songwriter through one of the top music publishing companies in the world, and one of the biggest artist management firms in Nashville.  But I'm discovering the marriage of the music business with my creative process, feels a lot like putting a heavy harness on a riding pony, and asking it to plow the back forty.  Its being crushed.

I suppose learning you don't love the music business is a good lesson.  But when it's the butterfly you've chased 2500 miles, only to discover it's not what you want - - it's hard to know what to chase next.  But thousands of years ago, a shepherd carried a harp so he could write songs as he tended his flock.  Inarguably, the book of Psalms is the all time #1 collection of hits.  No business, no pressure, no guts or glory, just honest vulnerability, and a heart completely dedicated to God.

So I guess I'm grateful for this maddening butterfly chase that has brought me to where I am.  I've become more refined and emptier of false illusions and wrong motivations. I don't know anymore what I'm supposed to "do" with my songwriting.  I will always write songs, because I love to - and maybe that's actually the point.  But no longer does a plastic coated canvas with a mass produced slogan, and a kite sized fake butterfly define how I feel about my life.  It's not that simple.  Following a dream implies you're asleep, maybe even sleepwalking?   I think I'm awake now, and waiting for what's next.  Perhaps in the quiet it will softly fly in an open window, land small and fragile on my hand, and slowly fan its powdery wings in the glistening sun.  Real.

The Potluck

I used to love church potlucks as a kid.  Surprise casserole, mac and cheese, au gratin potatos, and noodle salad bled into ambrosia and jello - all topped with a jaunty french bread beret and balanced on a flimsy paper plate.  It was a chaotic, double layered food lump that barely held together on the walk to the dining table.  I would dig into the pile with as much gusto as my doll sized spork would allow - and always managed to leave room for brownies and cake.  Plus, I got to be with all my friends (unless my mom made me sit and talk with the elderly missionaries who told odd stories, and smelled faintly of sandalwood).  After eating, my friends and I would play tag in the parking lot, sneak into the little kids classrooms, portray un-biblical scenes with the flannel felt story board people, and play chopsticks on the badly tuned piano.  It was glorious!

I'm not precisely sure when I became critical of this long standing staple of church culture.  It may have been when I got old enough to notice the food-height snotty noses of all the sneezing kids filling their plates ahead of me, or the people who would sometimes forgo serving utensils in favor of their noticeably dirty hands.  Maybe it was after a few surprise casseroles didn't turn out to be good surprises.  Regardless of what caused the tipping point, all of a sudden, potlucks made me feel vulnerable.  You can't control who shows up, what they bring, or how they behave in line at the community food table.  If you want control over these things, you're not talking about a potluck - you're talking about having dinner - by yourself.

Which, oddly enough, brings me to relationships.  After moving away from CA where we had a lifetime of friends and family, we moved to TN where we knew nobody.  We have been here three years.  During that time we've moved three times, bought and renovated two houses, my husband has started a new job, and I've finished my Bachelor's.  When we first got here, I had a rough start with a particularly nasty "southern church lady" type who hurt me deeply in a moment of great vulnerability. Since then, I turtle-shelled safely away in the armor of studies, going to school with kids half my age, and endless house projects - but it's been lonely.  When school ended and all my house projects started getting finished, my armor fell away leaving me with no more excuses to avoid reaching out and building close friendships again. 

So about six months ago, I began praying for God to weave us into a network of great friends - and four months ago He moved in Sergio and Jackie and their four kids right next door.  They are a big, rambunctious, bunch who are used to living "in the midst" of community.  When I made a miscellaneous FB post about being sick, I was surprised by a knock on the door and a hand delivery of chicken soup and crackers.  Who pays that kind of attention anymore?  A few weeks before, homemade cookies along with a hand signed card from their kids helped us welcome the Olympics.  When we needed help tearing out a brick patio, two pairs of extra hands showed up and shortened the job by half the time.

These precious new friends have now introduced us to Jason and Rachel and their kids.  Tonight, Rachel heard we were exhausted from a huge yard project and showed up with a full dinner for us.  I'm not used to needing people - it's a weakness of mine.  Turns out, admitting we need people is an important cultivated skill and requires vulnerability.  So I've opened my hands and asked God to connect me and Kraig to others, to help us be good givers AND receivers, and to make us and bring us great friends.  I'm praying for a scrumptious "friendship potluck" where everybody gets the joy of bringing not only their best - but also their most wounded parts, where love and acceptance are the main dish, where nobody is concerned with getting messy, we invite all sorts of people (including those who smell funny), and we learn to relish surprises and the joy of being together!   A potluck represents community living at its finest!  Where's my flimsy plate and spork...I'm going in!

Regarding training wheels...

I remember my Dad teaching me to ride without training wheels.  I had a tiny red bicycle and my big Dad easily ran alongside me while I pedaled furiously - his big hands clamped on the back of the white vinyl banana seat.  Yippeee!  No training wheels!  Of course, I failed to realize Dad was holding everything up.  That is, until he let go...without my knowing... and just ran alongside me.  Faster and faster I pedaled until I realized he wasn't holding my bike anymore. 

"Keep your eyes on the road, Janie.  You're doing great!"

Craning back to see him waving at me, I promptly ran into the neighbor's parked orange pinto.  In the split second before I registered the chrome bumper coming at me - I remembered the exhilaration of flying on my own with my Dad smiling and waving encouragement.

There's nothing like blacktop to scrape away every layer of exhilaration, knee,  and elbow skin.  My Dad picked me up, cuddled me close, and later - bolted my training wheels back on - because I begged him to.

"You just let me know when you want to take them off and try again," he said.  

I was sure that would be never.  But my Dad is wise...he respected my fear, but didn't reward it.  As long as I needed trainers, I was limited to riding around the back patio.  "But..." he said, "As soon as you're ready for the open road, we'll get those things off."  After a few turns around that familiar patch, the same camellia bushes and ice plants took their toll on my boredom.  I craved the freedom of a stretch of road where an orange pinto could still take a bite of your shin and black tar gravel could chew holes in your knees - but adventure and newness were around every corner!  A few more turns around the patio and my baby sister came out and started chasing me with her tricycle... humiliation trumped fear.

"Daddy, I don't want to ride on the patio anymore."

Before I knew it, the trainers were off - and I - road tested and wiser - took to the streets again.  I lost a few more bets with the pavement.  But in the process, I learned how to dodge orange pintos, and got to feel the wind on my sun-browned forehead.  My bicycle took me far beyond the confines of the yard patio.  It was my ride to the creek where I picked blackberries and turned my teeth purple, the public swimming pool where I fell in love with the golden boy lifeguard and the high dive, the library where I read myself into mythical romances and epic adventures...all because my Dad helped me want more than my fear could ever give me.

Why do I bring this up right now?  I've been thinking about the times in my life when I've made bad decision based on fear.  I've hung onto things I should have let go of.  I've stayed when I should have gone - a career that was sucking the life from me, but I was afraid to let it go...relationships that were limiting and harmful, but they were the evil I knew...or a scary new adventure with high failure potential, where I wimped out and told myself I didn't really want to do it anyway. 

I have seen God, time and again, behave just as my Dad did.  He allows me to "putter around the patio" of my fear, and deal with the consequences and limitations of those fear-based choices...but the moment I'm ready, he takes the training wheels off and runs alongside me - waving and shouting encouragement.  Unfortunately, I often revert back to my "training wheel" choices - sometimes multiple times.  But I have NEVER experienced disgust or hatred from my Father...just the limitations my choices bring.  And when I'm ready again...we go like it's the first time...and I feel His warmth like a sunshine smile on my summer brown skin.

Extreme Revenge & Forgiveness

So - Evidently Osama Bin Laden is dead.  As usual, the media is dishing up heaping servings of extreme reactions.  First with the folks being displayed as "true patriots - - Really?  It's alright to run through the streets with an American flag, screaming, "USA, USA!" at the top of your lungs to rejoice over somebody's death?  Should we all buy apple pies and Chevrolets to celebrate even more?  A bad, bad man has been killed.  That's good, right?

But wait - what about the schmaltz I've heard condemning the US, saying everybody needs to just forgive and forget so we can fill our hearts with love?  Seriously? Do you actually believe that? What an insensitive reaction! I very much want to ask them, "Is forgiveness that easy for you? If somebody murdered your loved one could you apply that easy-schmeasy forgiveness, and then promptly walk away, forgetting it ever happened?"

I don't mean to poo-poo on the "don't-revenge-feel-great" parade or mock the hand holding "kum-ba-ya" singers - but I hope that between all the hyperbole, happy-dancing, newly hatched conspiracy theories, media jaw flapping, uber-patriotism, and uber-weirdness...folks get sick of the silly merry-go-round, vomit and get off.

Revenge can never repay an uncollectable debt like a lost life.  It creates a vortex of hatred and a viscious cycle where the victim becomes the perpetrator ad nauseum.  On the other hand, forgiveness is costly to the one granting it.  To cheapen it by saying otherwise only suggests that the person making the comment has never had to forgive somebody for something horrible.

Today, can the rest of us (the silent majority who never have antics worth putting on TV) examine our attitudes on forgiveness and revenge?  Can we vow to avoid the extremes of vengeful thinking or the cheap and cheesy comments on "fauxgiveness"?  Neither is right. 

If the death of Osama Bin Laden causes people to rethink their ideas of revenge, justice and the cost of forgiveness - that would be great - it would be the finest thing he ever accomplished. But please, don't make his death something it's not. It will not redeem any of the evil he did, it will not bring back anybody who has died.  There will still be wars, rumors of wars, more terrorism, and more injustice. 

The only man who ever spilled 10 pints of blood that meant anything significant to history or the human race was Jesus. The one who had the power to exact the greatest revenge, instead paid the costliest price for forgiveness. 

The rest of it  - well, it's just more blood on a planet already slick with it.  I pray for peace and the truth of forgiveness to pierce our hearts and transform us.