For a Home That Lasts

You probably don't have to read too many of my blog postings to surmise that I am a bit of a nostalgic person.  I hang on to phases and memories, I think because I feel the overwhelming brevity of them. So sometimes I muse about my life as though I were an old woman or coming face to face with  my mortality in some way. Not that we aren't all to some extent...

 I was thinking the other day about my childhood home.  My family built that house when I was about 10 on a piece of property that also included my grandparents house and my uncles house.  Family commune and all that.  Anyways, we tiled it, roofed it, and stuccoed it. I even helped lay out the shingles on the roof. They wouldn't let me have a nail gun. I can't imagine why.

Since that time, as you can imagine, a lot of memories were made in that house. I grew up there, came back there during college breaks, and me and my sister (and a couple close friends) were married there in our back yard.  I have every inch of that house memorized. I loved walking across my grandpa's garden to find my grandma with her straw hat, muddy knees and bright smile. Or finding my uncle with his calloused hands and soft heart. Or being greeted in  my grandparents kitchen by wood burning stove, sweet pickles, and invaluable life stories and lessons.

 Being very probably the most nostalgic one of my family (and the only one that moved far away), I think it hit me the hardest when my parents decided a little while ago to move.  I don't know what it is. There is something about things from your childhood remaining unchanged for you to come back to that give your life a feeling of anchor.  Things are always adrift, but this will always be there, holding fast.  But this, of course, is an illusion.  Because nothing - not houses, not people, not cities, not nations- nothing truly lasts.  My own body is only a temporary home.  As is our beautiful planet. Nothing that is will always be.

But I can feel that longing, sometimes intensely, for that home. That lasting home, that will never give way to the pressures of time.  For the fullness of that hope that God will restore and remake.  As I watch the moments and years pass that I cannot hold on to, I remember that I'm not home yet. No, not yet.

The How and the Why

First of all, I'd like to take a moment to say you have no idea how fun it is for me to actually have somewhat of an audience for my many random musings. In the past they just bounced around, lonely in my brain, forgotten before I could really give them shape.  But now I get to inflict them liberally on any poor soul who follows my link! Mwahaha.

Anyways... what brings me to the keyboard today is thoughts on the tension between "religion" and "science". ( I use quotes, because those are both very broad, overarching terms.) Those two entities, supposedly standing in stark opposition to one another. You must ignore one to really believe in the other, or so the common logic now goes.  I, however, think this tension is somewhat unwarranted. 

Why? I'm so glad you asked.  Because I think the two exist to answer two different questions.  Science is about the how, about process.  Religion (and philosophy) is about the why, about meaning.  Often it seems the two get mixed up and start trying to answer each others Question, making things much more confusing then maybe they need to be.

Let's think about an analogy for a moment.  Say there is a married couple who loves each other so much, and now want to share that love with a child, made in the image of the two of them.  So they plan, and they prepare, and they come together and make a baby.  Years pass and this child gets older, and starts wondering about things.  He comes to his mom or dad and asks 'How did I get here?" "Well, dear" the parent replies, "we desired you and planned for you and wanted to share our love with you, so we came together and made you."  Later on this child gets into school and starts learning the scientific mechanics behind how human beings come about. The sperm and the egg and cell division and what not, and concludes that his parents are ignorant liars.

But both scenarios are true.  When the parents where questioned, they were answering the why question, and they answered truthfully.  If they had not planned, and desired, and come together that child would not have existed.  But of course the school books were correct too, only they were answering the question of process, not purpose.

No analogy is perfect, of course, so only take it for what it's worth.  But what I'm trying to highlight is that there are two questions that consume a lot of the human races' thoughts, books, struggles, and quests. And that is why are we here, and how does it all happen? And they are not mutually exclusive questions. Just because we get really good at describing how a process works, doesn't mean we need to throw out the Intention that brought it about in the first place.

The why question of course is much more abstract, which is why it sometimes gets the boot.  But just because something is abstract doesn't mean its unanswerable. Or that there isn't an answer that is actually real.  Perhaps that's why were were given the gift of logic (abstract thing that it is).  After all, if you take away the why, and leave only the how, subtract meaning from process, you take away everything that makes life as we know it truly, intrinsically worthwhile.

When God Says No

The other day I went to Costco with my kids.  My kids LOVE grapes, particularly my little boy (20 months), so I get a Costco sized package of them on occasion.  On the way back from the store, I put the grapes into the front seat with me intending on giving some to the kids to munch on for the drive home.

Now since the age of about 9 or 10 months, my son has been able to say or sign please.  He has been well schooled in the appropriate use and received much reinforcement.  On this particular day, he spots the grapes in the front seat and instantly begins screaming and crying "GAPES!!!" with his little hand held out. He saw, he wanted, he instantly began throwing a fit. I look at my little boy, a little taken aback at the sudden emotional outburst, and say "You have to say please Jackson. Say please and you get some grapes."  His 3 yr old sister has already said please and is happily munching on her grapes, occasionally looking over at her brother and stating, "You have to say please Jaxie. Say please."

But no. Jackson does not want to.  Instead he screams louder and more insistently, "GAPES!!! GAAAPES!!!" So goes the 15 minute drive back to our house.  Jackson screaming for grapes, punctuated by my occasional reminder that he gets no grapes until he tells his mama please!  Finally we pull into the driveway of our house, and I hear a quiet, tearful little voice mutter, "Pease."

 Here I had purposely bought grapes because my son loves them, had intentionally placed them with me so I could give them to him as a treat, and I wanted nothing more than to give them to him!  But because of his fitful, demanding, entitled attitude I had to hold out on him.  Because I care about his little heart more than I care about giving him something he desires.  I had to help teach and reinforce the appropriate attitude before I could give my child the good thing I had already intended to give him from the start.

As I considered the irony of that, it made me think about our dealings with God... and I started to wonder if sometimes God withholds something we desire (and maybe wants to give us!) from us for that very reason.  Because He knows our heart is in the wrong place.  Because we think He owes us this good thing and we demand it from Him and question His goodness if He doesn't immediately respond as we desire.  Maybe He knows that a particular thing or job or relationship or what have you would ruin us. It's possible that there are good things that God has in His hands for us that he desires to give us, but can't because our heart is wrong and giving it would only make it worse.  Just something to think about.  Maybe the times you feel God is silent or is saying No, are times to honestly examine your heart, your motives, or your attitudes to see if they are where they should be.

Projection

We've all done it, I'm sure -  Been frustrated or angry about some circumstance or string of events, and pinned it to the closest person possible, whether or not they were to blame.  I catch myself doing this from time to time.  Maybe I've had a frustrating day with the kids where everyone is whinny and nothing has gone right.  My innocent husband comes home, and I find myself finding reasons that my tightly wound, frayed nerves are his fault.  And our minds weave clever narratives.  They are very adept at coming up with reasons that sound plausible to justify an emotion, whether or not they really caused it.  Sometimes circumstances directly cause emotion, sometimes the emotion is there on it's own and we make up reasons why - often implicating someone in our current sphere.

Especially anger. To put it poetically, anger is a restless spirit searching for somewhere to rest.  It's funny how we can be happy without finding someone to credit it with, but we can't be angry without finding someone to blame.  Even when there is no one.  We see this very intensely in the ER.  If ever there was a perfect environment for combustible emotion, an ER is it. I'm sure every single one of my co workers has been on the receiving end of anger with no where to go.

People come in and are sick or in pain or already inconvenienced by "having" to come to the emergency room in the first place, and sometimes they have to wait. Or have uncomfortable procedures done.  Or stay overnight when they want to go home. Or stay in the ER because there are no inpatient beds.  People become volatile and angry, and since the anger feels it must go somewhere, it's often directed at the nurse.  Is it our fault the waiting room is full because we're seeing record breaking numbers? No.  Can we help the inpatient situation of limited space and staff? Nope.  Can I magically make IVs feel like angel kisses? Not really.  Are we working our butts off under difficult circumstances? You betcha!  But it doesn't matter.  You are a body and a face that's related to the situation making someone uncomfortable or afraid or restless.  I even had an old lady who was - probably - very sweet under normal circumstances call me a jerk one day when I was working triage because it was taking so long to get rooms.  I won't lie, it hurt my feelings.

And there is the challenge.  It takes a long of perceptiveness and emotional control to absorb anger sent at you unjustly without responding with it's cousin, defensiveness.  It's hard to feel like you are pouring out everything you have to help your patients, and yet they are angry with you.  Our natural defense systems rear up with force .  People with lesser verbal filters have been known to say things like "you're waiting a long time because you aren't actually dying and we're trying to help people who are." True? Often.  Helpful? Not really.

Although I can recognize when someone's anger at me doesn't have anything to do with me, it's much harder to control the anger I feel in response.  Because that too wants somewhere to go.  But it's my goal to become so full of God's grace that I can absorb and neutralize negative emotions directed at me and respond with kindness, instead of joining in a useless racquetball war of projection.  Sadly, I've got a long way to go...

Lessons From My Son

I love how my children view the world.  An ugly car lot to me is a marvelous scape of colored balloons to them.  While I am annoyed at a delay at a railroad crossing, they are ecstatic about the passing train. They rejoice in the majestic wonder of nature that is a bunch of crows sitting on top of a building ("Mama, look! Birds!!") while I see ugly birds.  To the pure all things are pure, and to a beautiful soul all things are beautiful.

Not too long ago, me and my kids were in the bathroom at Walmart.  I don't know what it is about Walmart that awakens my daughters GI system, but I swear 85% of our trips there involve her needing to "go poo-poos".  So we spend about 15 minutes (a girl needs time to relax after all!) in the bathroom, while I try and keep Jackson from feeding his little budding nervous system with tactile information from every germ ridden surface possible.

On this occasion, Kinsey was sitting in the stall while I walked Jackson around to try and keep him from squirming out of my arms.  A lady walked out of a neighboring stall looking a little bit like one of the stars of those "people of Walmart" photo albums.  I hardly realized the subconscious appraisal I was doing of all of her physical deficits when my son leaned out from my arms and gave her one of his award winning dimply grins and exclaimed "Hi!" in the sweetest, most friendly voice possible.  The lady smiled back with obvious pleasure and I felt the familiar pang of much deserved conviction.

No wonder the world loves babies.  A baby doesn't see old or young, ugly or pretty, fat or skinny, fashionable or tacky.  They see a human face and they want it to smile back at them.  I know that the time will come when my son will no longer just see a human face but will start adding judgements to it.  The seeds of brokenness will grow in time as they do in all of us.  As his mother all I can do is weed as many out as I can identify and passionately plant as many gospel seeds as I can while I can and pray they grow.  But how I love this time of purity and beauty.  And how thankful I am for how it convicts my own heart of the weeds I've allowed to grow there.

Something To Look At

A long time ago I had a patient with a horrible skin infection.  It had literally eaten away almost half of his face, leaving it raw and disfigured.  I've seen a lot as a nurse, and have learned to take in something awful with my eyes without letting it hit my face.  And I'm glad, because he turned out to be one of the sweetest patients I've had.  Gentle mannered, polite, and kind.

This patient's ER stay turned into a hospital admission.  It was back in the old days before our hospital had built us a snazzy new ER and there were no private elevators.  Patients being transferred on gurneys shared the same tiny space with the rest of the foot traffic going up and down in the building.  As I was pushing his stretcher up to the elevator there was a group of young women waiting.

They saw us instantly as we rounded the corner toward the elevators, and their facial expressions took no pause in reflecting their disgust at my patient's disfigured face.  They glanced at him and at each other making faces and whispering about how gross he looked.  I felt a distinctly protective anger at their reaction to him. I felt his exposure, laying there on the gurney with no where to hide, front and center. I couldn't see his face, but I felt his shame and his embarrassment.  I wanted to hit those girls in the face and tell them to learn some manners.  But instead, as I walked I nonchalantly turned the gurney backwards so they couldn't see him and so he wouldn't have to see them.  I stared hard at the girls as they stepped into an elevator.  There was room for us. I let the door close and waited for the next one.

It is understandable when someone's face registers momentary shock at seeing something about someone they didn't expect.  It's a human reaction.  But we have to remember there is a person in every broken and crippled body.  Take care to control your face and your words. A wounded body doesn't need a wounded soul too.

Thoughts on Suicide

Long before I began living under the rainy skies of the Pacific Northwest, I had heard the statistic: highest suicide rate in the country.  Not exactly something to list under "best place to live" categories. Working in an ER here, I can say I believe it's true.  It is a rarity it seems to work a shift where one to multiple patients are not there for either a suicide attempt or suicidal thoughts.  The attempts range from a few scratches on the wrist by a paperclip to a call from paramedics on our base station line alerting of one all too successful. One call I took was for a 15 year old boy. Another was for a 75 yr old man. Both surely unable to fathom the emotional wreckage they would leave behind them.

 I've lost count of the number of nose to stomach tubes I've threaded into unconscious (or conscious but uncooperative) young women to administer thick black charcoal with the hopes of absorbing some of the toxic chemicals from their medication of choice before it hits their blood stream.  I've watched people start thrashing around their stretcher from the "crawling out of your skin" side effects of a med they ODed on that they certainly didn't count on. The average person is no pharmacist, and often doesn't realize that what they are taking in the amount they are taking won't make them dead so much as seriously miserable.

This cumulative effect over the last 6 years of talking to patients with suicidal thoughts and aggressively trying to save others whose thoughts took form has caused to me to think a lot about suicide, and what causes people to attempt it (or say they want to).  There are three reasons I have noticed.

1. The obvious one. Despair.  An inability to see any way out of the pain or struggle of life.  They've been besieged by tragedy or unrelenting physical illness or pain and they just want out. This reason breaks my heart.

2. A call for help.  These are the people who don't really want to die, but are looking, consciously or subconsciously, for a way to make people notice they are not coping well with life.  This too makes me sad.

3. Manipulation. This is the one you don't hear about, probably because it sounds so harsh.  But it is so true.  These are the people that use suicide attempts to win the upper hand relationally.  Because the tortured soul on a ventilator or languishing on the stretcher in an ER is surely not the one to blame. Whoever did not care enough about her or realize she was so fragile is the one to blame.  And the guilt this generates will keep them in their place for some time to come.  These are the people who harm themselves intending for the real hurt to fall on others.  Deceiving and self deceived. Leaving suicide notes that make you cringe because they are so obviously manipulative.  These make me angry. And sometimes they succeed on accident.

Suicide is no escape. If the soul is eternal, there comes a time when we have to look back on the domino effect of our choices.  Feel the enormous pain and destruction that taking our own lives leaves. It's no romantic "lay me in the river at dawn" scenario.

For those who have considered suicide, for whatever reason, please remember that the pain inflicted on others by harming yourself will be no salve to your own wounds.  Working through our hurts and disappointments and pain is harder sometimes than the escape, but healing is possible. And there is Someone whose wounds are powerful enough to heal all of our own.  Don't extinguish a flame you didn't lite in the first place.