Rockford and CPE Week 8

Three weeks left.  This experience that I spent so much energy dreading this last school year is coming to an end.  And, what an incredible experience it has been!

As I get more and more excited about leaving for Germany, I am also beginning to panic. How on earth am I going to go 11 months without Madelaine? I was pondering the other day about how much comfort critters bring. I wake up at night and look to see where Madelaine is. I am comforted when she is curled up on the pillow and pile of blankets next to the bed. When I reach out to touch her, she acknowledges me with a little squeak, and we both go back to sleep. Not only do they comfort us, they give grannies something to do and something to worry about. 

Granny and Elijah

I call my Granny and she says, "'Lijah follows me everywhere and he meows at me all the time."   What she doesn't say is that when he's not following her around meowing, she is following him around, needing to know where he is every 5 seconds.   I know how 'Lijah feels when she tries to lug him around and cuddle him...that used to be me being lugged.

Holy moments.  I was sitting with a 92yo lady during her last half hour in the hospital before Hospice came to pick her up. She couldn't talk much, so we just sat holding hands, her fading in and out. Every once in a while, she would open her eyes and sort of look at me and drift off again. Then she opened her eyes, looked right at me and smiled, then drifted off. Holy moments. Deep joy and deep sorrow. 

In moments like these, I am stripped of all the things that I hang my identity on. My eyes are opened to see the things that matter, what frivolous things we chase after.  I want to scream at the TV playing on the wall, the DIRECTV commercial playing between sections of some cooking show.  What does DIRECTV have to do with life?  So many things we chase after that really don't matter...


Pondering quote from "Open-Hearted Ministry":

"Authentic selfhood in God is about not denying or disregarding aspects of ourselves, but embracing our full selves just as God does." (Koppel, 48)

Pax.

Rockford and CPE Week 7

Time is flying by, I have more verbatims done than I have left to write.  As tough as CPE has been these last 7 weeks, they have been some of the most healing weeks of my life.  I think this past week, I sweated out all the stress, with our AC unit doing exactly what it was supposed to do:  keep the apartment 20 degrees cooler than the outside temp...so when it's 110 degrees outside, the apartment is a refreshing 90. Uff Da!  Iga, Madelaine, and I took Lynn up on her offer to stay in her cold basement one unbearably hot night.  Thanks, Lynn!  Today has been better, thankfully.  I even put a sweat shirt on.

Iga and I were laughing this morning.  I said, "We have no life.  All we can come up with to do on a Saturday morning is watch 'The Wizard of Oz.'"  Iga pointed out that "Most people sleep 'till Noon on Saturday."  So, I spent the morning psychoanalyzing Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow...and the Wizard, of course!  Thanks, CPE.

Nothing much to write about this week.  I'm still struggling with the question of where I can do the most good...in the church or out.  Same general thoughts as last post.

This week, my best story comes from an 80-some year old lady, absolutely full of piss 'n vinegar.  I was visiting with her and her daughter and the patient was explaining to me in great detail her troubles with diarrhea that day.  Then she paused and said, "You know, a couple weeks ago, I wanted to wear my white pants but I was afraid that something might escape out my back end.  Then I had this idea.  I lined the inside of my pants with Press 'n Seal.  It worked really well, but it was hot!"  Her daughter responded, laughing, "As long as you put it in the right way.  Otherwise it will stick to your ass."  Learn something new every day!  Actually, I'd never heard of Press 'n Seal before so I had to look it up!

Quote for thought from "Pastoral Care Emergencies":
"We...know that we're imperfect Christians, sinners ourselves, saved by grace, this strange mixture of those who want to follow Jesus, to serve our Lord by serving all of God's creatures, knowing that God loves all persons just as much as God loves me--but not really.
"Totally apart from what we believe and feel about homosexual persons, drug users, and prostitutes, can we serve them in the name of Christ when they are in need?" (Switzer, 95)

Organizing the Tupperware...somebody's got to do it!

Pax.

Rockford and CPE Weeks 5 and 6

Life didn't slow down after my long weekend over the 4th.  First, my fun visit of the week.  It went something like this:

As I am talking to the daughter of an 84-year-old patient, the nurse is trying to do some things with the patient.  The lady, struggling with dementia, is putting up a bit of a fight, saying, "No! No! No!" to everything the nurse is trying to do.  The nurse pauses and says, "What is your favorite word?"  The patient stops fussing, thinks for a moment and then says quite forcefully, "Shit."

Diving deeper into the struggles and pain of my own life in attempt to understand and be able to access them when situations call for deep empathy is draining, a lot of slow, tough, slogging through messiness.  I have my CPE group and supervisor to thank for being supportive listeners, though, it's these very people pushing me into the places I don't want to go!  I finished "Make Friends with Your Shadow" last weekend.  

Some quotes:
"How conveniently we block our demons from our awareness and end up devoid of authentic spirituality but saturated with slushy sentiment and syrupy self-righteousness." (Miller, 71)

"My ego would like very much to get rid of my shadow because of the power it has to embarrass me or get me into serious trouble with society.  While my ego is standing, facing society, looking through my persona, my shadow is regularly poking it in the back saying, 'Hey, hey, I'm here.'  And my ego, without turning around keeps smiling at society through my persona, all the while elbowing my shadow into the background of my psyche and muttering to it out of the corner of its mouth, 'Get back down there and shut up, you devil.'" (Miller, 83)

"To the extent that I have to be right and good, he, she, they, or it will become the carrier of all the evil, real and potential, which I do not acknowledge within myself." (Miller, 93)

Yes, my shadow is always attached to me, can't do anything about it.  If I think I can chase it away or squash it or just pretend it isn't there, I'm lying to myself and eventually, it will get the better of me.  Besides, it's a part of me, I might as well get to know it, right?  The things that annoy me about you are probably the same things that annoy me about myself.  Is this why I get annoyed by the teenagers partying in the parking lot under our apartment window at 3:00 AM?  Deep down, I wish I was out partying and drinking and smoking who-knows-what and whatever else is going on in the cars out there?  Hmmm...

I also read a good portion of Yalom's "The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy" over the last few weeks.  The combination of these two books has me thinking about group dynamics and the church.  So often I hear, "I'm spiritual but not religious." or "I'm not into organized religion." or "Church just doesn't do it for me." and the list continues.  What is it about the church that is turning people away? 

What if the church as a whole and each member that makes up the church "made friends with their shadows" and quit pretending to be "good Christians" all the time?  So often, we get caught up in how we are supposed to act and behave that we lose track of who we really are.  Sure, everyone can say, "We're all sinners that fall short..." but do we act that way?  Why are we always looking at others and saying how they sure don't act like Christians or comparing ourselves to others who make mistakes in order to make ourselves look better?  We get so caught up in making sure everyone follows the rules...the rules we decide are important. 

Someone decided that homosexuality is a sin (which I don't believe) and therefore homosexuals ought not be part of the church without willingness to "repent" and change (I believe even less!).  Ok, when was the last time you were late (or not even because you were late, just impatient!) and you drove 50mph in the 45 zone?  You got it.  That's a sin, too.  Breaking the laws our government provides is a sin, too.  Therefore, you shouldn't be allowed to be a part of the church either.  I'm included in that, not for speeding (if you know how I drive!) but for feeling quite pleased with myself for going the speed limit and irritating those who would like to speed, but can't because I'm in front.  So what makes one sin worse than another?  Your opinion.  My opinion.  It's the fact that we have all turned away from God that is the problem.  Our individual sins are only a symptom of just that.  Point is, the church IS full of hypocrites when we pretend we are "good Christians" when we are doing nothing but denying and repressing who we really are.

To bring in Yalom,
"In much of America the past two decades [This book was published already in 1970] have witnessed an inexorable decomposition of social institutions which ordinarily provide for human intimacy."  He goes on, "The institutions which provide intimacy in our culture have atrophied and their replacements--the supermarket, dial-a-prayer, and the television set--are the accoutrements of the lonely crowd."
"As the future comes upon us, a periodic social immersion--a rehumanization station (God forbid)--may become a necessity if we are to survive the relentless dehumanizing march of a socially blind scientific technology." (Yalom, 360)

Where I'm going with this is that the church, being so caught up in black and white, right and wrong, good Christian or non Christian, all too often and hypocritically fails to acknowledge its shadow.  There is no intimacy in this.  (Yes, I just called the church hypocritical.  Have a muffin and get over it.)  At a time when social intimacy is difficult to find, the church is  instead worrying about who is "good" and following the rules.  Imagine what the church would be like, what ministry could it could do if it focused on what people need rather than how people act... What is the church really about?  Love and grace, perhaps?

Ponder. Pax.

Rockford and a Crazy End to CPE Week 4

Saturday night was full of opportunities to think and reflect on life and death and fears.  It was a night on call that I hope never to repeat.  In between responding to pages and families grieving the death of their loved ones, it occurred to me for the first time, how much fear there is around dying alone.  I've heard it before, "I'm afraid to die alone." and "I just don't want my loved one to be alone to die."  but I've never connected with the fear this deeply before.  I guess, being 25 and living the lifestyle I am, I assumed that if I die in the near future, it will be a quick death and I won't have time to think about it.  I'd rather keep thinking this way, I like denial!  Yet, my denial does not include the fact that there is a chance life will be shorter than longer.  I will always remember the day in college when my professor said on the first day of class, "Alyssa, you are going to die falling off your horse and breaking your neck."  I responded, "Yeah, probably around 37.  That's fine as long as the horse walks away."  Don't be offended.  It's morbid.  That's okay.  Death is real.  But yes, thinking about it, I don't want anyone to die alone, two-legged or four-legged, furry or feathery or bare skin.  Four deaths Saturday night.  Three of them surrounded by family, the other had family arrive within minutes. 

I had a dream one night a few years ago that I was, at 22, diagnosed with some sort of illness that would be a long and painful road.  I was given the option of euthanasia, which I opted for, completely okay with being euthanized myself.  The point of telling this part of my dream is that I was surrounded by my family and friends who came to say good-bye and to grieve with me.  This is so true of my family, who even when we are states apart, never leaves my side.

Horse pasture and what used to be my deer stand.

It has also been a struggle this weekend to be here in Rockford while Grantsburg begins the long haul of clean-up and getting back on its feet after Friday evening's storm. Every news station and article gives a different number for wind, up to 109 mph. How sad that all those neat old oaks are gone, and that they did so much damage on the way down. It was all I could do to not get in the truck and drive home Friday night, but resisted, trying to convince myself that the world will keep turning even if I don't go home to help. Besides, Granny Pearl would have killed me if I was out cutting and hauling trees.

Pictures taken by my momma!

Granny's front yard.

House across the street from my grandma's.

Oh a happy note, my new best friend is my little bottle of Prednisone!  I could tell a difference in my ribs the first day on it.  Of course there's still a lot of snapping and popping going on in my ribcage, but the discomfort is much less.  Just hoping that the pain doesn't come back when I'm off it.  It's so frustrating to not be able to do anything.  The rule I got from both docs I've seen the last 2 weeks is, "If it hurts, don't do it."  So I come home emotionally shot from CPE but have no way of getting rid of my energy.  So I eat.  That's healthy, right?  (My lunch today is a bag of Double Chocolate Milano cookies...)

Speaking of emotional eating, while on call Saturday night, (before the chaos began) I found a DVD on the shelf called, "The Science of Meditation."  It was quite interesting and after watching it, I came across the "Tree of Contemplative Practices." 

http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/tree.html

I find this fascinating and fun.  There is a good explanation of each of the listed practices, but there is also a blank tree that one can fill out with different practices.  So many of these things are things we all do daily but we fail to be aware of what it is we are doing and how it affects us and others.  As silly as it sounds, there is something to the "mindful eating."  How often do we inhale our food without even knowing what it is?  Here's a snippet to spark your curiosity:  "Set your plate in front of you. Look carefully at the food.  Slowly place the food in your mouth, notice the explosion of flavor and sensation of the food in your mouth, on your tongue."  Check it out.

Pax.