Changing Churches (part 4, Episcopalized)

Tonight, I became a member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church here in Houston, which also means I have joined the Episcopal Church and, most significantly, have left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

I'm still a bit surprised to say that. I don't know how long it will be before I'll be able to say "I'm Episcopalian." That doesn't sound quite natural, yet. Even tonight, as they had us sit in the front row of the nave, I said to my neighbor, "I'm Lutheran. I don't sit in front pews."

Some thoughts, some serious, some silly:

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In the year and a half of attending St. Stephen's, I've had both moments of going, "say what?" and "oh, that's totally what I do/think/believe already." Some of the "say what?" moments come when I realize that this is, in fact, the church of the British Empire and occasionally it becomes apparent. 

I have issues with the British Empire, to say it simply. 

But I am also reminded that Martin Luther was successful with his revolution in part because he had the protection of a prince. If this isn't being touched by Empire, I don't know what is. And really, any communion of any size since Constantine knows something about Empire. This doesn't excuse the corrupting influence of Empire, neither does it mean I need to search on for the "pure" church. I have the feeling that many thoughtful churches are aware of this influence and are working against it, at some times more actively than at others, but self-awareness is a start. 

What I do like about the Episcopal Church (despite a little bit of suspicion about it) is that they don't really do systematic theology. Their theology is in the Book of Common Prayer, which is quite orderly but not exactly systematic in the way we think of systematic theology. And I say that having actually enjoyed my systematic theology course in seminary.

Having a theology that is shaped by prayer, however, makes sense to me and as I've long said that I was an "experiential theologian," I have sort of believed it and lived for a while now.

My seminary friend, the late great redheaded wild woman of God, Kathy Glenn, had accused me some time ago of having crypto-Episcopalian tendencies. I've found she was right. 

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Someone asked me after the service if I heard Martin Luther crying "Nooooooo!" from heaven. I said, no, he just grunted and said, "Ach, das ist adiaphora."

(Really, I don't mind saying that my Lutheran soul is slightly annoyed that the bishop has to come and receive me into membership. I would have joined months ago had it been allowed via some other means. Concessions. We make 'em.) 

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 There is some real and difficult sadness around this transition. For one thing, I do think of myself as Lutheran. "Luther" and "Lutheran" are words that permeate my history.

Luther League. Lutheran Campus Ministry. Lutheran Student Movement. Lutheran Seminary Program in the Southwest. Voting member of the 1991 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. Former employee of Augsburg-Fortress Publishers, the publishing house of the ELCA. I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting. 

And I've said a few times now that I'm not really leaving the ELCA so much as I'm joining St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, which seems to be a really good place for me. 

Having said that, part of what makes St. Stephen's a good match for me is that I brought to St. Stephen's my idiosyncrasies (a religious performance artist? art-making as a sight for theological reflection? who says things like that?) and it was one of the few times in my life that I wasn't looked at oddly. Even the few times I was listened to in the Lutheran Church, there was still a general confusion about what to do with me. 

But the rector at St. Stephen's not only listened to my ideas, she embraced them, encouraged them, and facilitated their implementation. Really, if my little company, Breath & Bone/Orts Peformance, manages to do much of anything, enormous credit has to go to St. Stephen's and the support I've received there. 

It makes me sad that I'm not saying that about a Lutheran congregation. But sometimes you have to follow the joy.

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I have mentioned to the rector the possibility of St. Stephen's joining the ELCA. She laughs as if I'm joking. So maybe she doesn't take me seriously in all matters. Still, the seed is planted . . .

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I think it's a really good time to be the ELCA. This also makes this transition hard. I think there are great things moving in that church body, on a national level. LGBT people are welcomed as clergy (well, officially, anyway). The first openly gay bishop was elected to a synod in California a few months ago. The first woman was just elected, a few short weeks ago, as the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA.  The excitement around her election electrified my Facebook newsfeed for a couple of days and I was excited, too. Something interesting and exciting is happening the ELCA. I hate to leave it. It, and it's predecessor body, the American Lutheran Church, has been my family for all my life.

But if it's a cliche that gay men often create their own families, well, I feel that's a bit of what is happening here. Having learned that I just sort of make the "old family" uncomfortable, I've gone and found a family that seems willing to take me, oddities and all.

I'm celebrating. I may look back wistfully now and then, I may have moments of sadness as I watch the old family do wonderful things without me, but I feel adopted into something new. And adoption is something to celebrate.

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Finally: Years ago, my friend Martha joined the Episcopal Church. I don't know if she remembers this bit of silliness, but she said that after her reception into, she swore that she could now see auras.

After this evening's service, I so very much was tempted to go up to Bishop Andy Doyle and say, "You know at first, seeing auras was a little disorienting, but you adjust really quickly, don't you?"

Ask Seek Knock and Vocation

Last week, a friend sent me an email with a question about the "ask, seek, knock" passage in the Bible (it appears in Matthew 7 and Luke 11, if you want to look it up real quick). Her question revolved around someone telling her that if she didn't receive what she asked for she didn't ask for the right thing, which led to some questions about some professional pursuits of hers. 

 

I hadn't realized, when I was answering her yesterday, that today's assigned Gospel reading was the Luke 11 version of the saying.That coincidence prompted me to look at what I sent my friend. What follows is an edited version of my answer to her:

First, I think a lot of first world Christians make the mistake of taking a verse or two of the Bible and then misapplying it. We might be misapplying it because we're out of a cultural context or we might not be reading enough text around the verse and expect the verse to apply to whatever we want it to apply to on it's own. There are sometimes socio-economic reasons for the misapplication, too.

I think this "ask, seek, knock" verse is one of those verses that gets misapplied for all those reasons. This passage appears only in Matthew and Luke.

In the Matthew account, it is part of the extended Sermon on the Mount, which includes the beatitudes and the Lord's prayer. Luke places this teaching right after teaching the Lord's prayer. In both cases, We're seeing Jesus in his usual mode of discussing the present-and-coming Reign (Kingdom) of God (as the Lord's Prayer asks for the Kingdom to come), while Luke's concern for the Holy spirit is also evident. (" . . . how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.")

So I'm not sure Jesus it talking about asking for a career or a car or a boyfriend, no matter what honorable reasons we might give God for asking for those things. ("Oh God, if only I had a car, just think of all the ways I could better serve you and the community!") I think we have here Jesus talking more about asking, seeking, knocking to see the Reign of God, where the poor are blessed, the mournful are comforted, the naked are clothed, and we receive our daily bread.

I understand how we get confused. The parable Jesus tells just before the ask-seek-knock passage (in the Luke account) is about a neighbor who bangs on the door in the middle of night, asking to borrow some bread for unexpected guests. The persistence of the neighbor is rewarded, eventually. And maybe there's something to that for those of us wanting a particular career---persistence not only in asking for it but also working for it.

But one commentator I read also points out that while we often associate God with the person who has already gone to bed for the night, Jesus is really saying that God is at least as good as the one disturbed in sleep and better. In the context of Jesus' larger message, however, I'm led to think that Jesus is really talking about seeking God's Reign. Ask to see God's reign, seek it out, knock on the door of God's Kingdom and we see it. Be persistent in the desire for the Holy Spirit, and God will not deny us.

But asking for something else, not getting it, and then thinking it's some kind of fault on behalf of the asker . . . well, it's not a wrong assumption, I guess, because the asker is seeking for something Jesus never promised.

It's also a little bit like treating God like Santa Claus. If we ask and receive, we were good, if we ask and didn't receive, we were naughty? It's God as magician and praying/asking correctly as incantation. A good number of American Christians seem to believe in this, I don't.

On the other side of the question, however, is the question of vocation or calling. If I'm called to be a ________, why aren't I more successful at it?

I think I can only talk about this from my personal experience.

I have an entry in my journals, from 1985, where I declared (in rather pious terms) that I felt the calling to be a performer and that this was a calling from God. Over the years, I'd let that go, not finding a way to pursue it in the way I felt called to. Realizing I was gay, I didn't believe I could pursue "Christian theater" (yeah, that was an interest at the time) and because performance is so dang expensive to produce, I turned to something else I'm fairly good at: writing. I think writing is, indeed, part of my calling, but for several years, I focused on that exclusively. I reconnected with performing in grad school, but even then I didn't take it seriously.

To be honest, both writing and performing have sometimes seemed like really frivolous callings to me. Mother Teresa had a serious calling. I felt like I didn't. But finding that journal entry from 1985 again, it hit me and hit hard. Well, shit, that's still it.

So I've put more energy into performing the last three years. It's difficult, it's full of hit and miss, I don't make a living at it. I'm also the most content I've been in a long time.

I think the thing about vocation is that we think that if God is calling us to something, we'll be successful. Of course, that depends upon definitions of "success." What I've come to realize is that following God will not necessarily make us successful in any kind of terms that includes a nice house with a swimming pool. I mean, it may, but that's not the point. I think we get confused about following our calling whenever we forget that to follow Jesus is to follow someone who ended up on a cross. On top of that, several of his first followers also ended up on a cross or were beheaded or fed to lions or in other unwelcome situations. The point of following a call isn't success. The point is the following. The following, the journey, whatever you want to call it, is the reward.

Which is all probably cold comfort, but I really believe it. The peace I've had since giving up making excuses for why I'm not performing seems like some sort of confirmation. Not that there aren't obstacles and frustrations and real fear and failure. I suspect it takes an awful lot of peace to be able to follow Jesus into a confrontation with lions.

So, whatever you're called to. follow that calling, recognizing the obstacles and dangers therein. Follow the calling with an eye and ear turned toward why you've been called to this task. (My own calling is currently being tested and refined by this). Do what you have to do to keep living indoors and eating and follow the vocation. I promise no bed of roses, but I think you'll find some sort of peace and maybe even some sort of success in that following.

Just be ready to have all your definitions of success turned upside down.

I Don't Want to Talk About Abortion

Let's start here: I'm a gay man. I will never be pregnant, nor will I ever cause a pregnancy. For this reason, I feel it necessary to tread lightly on a subject like abortion. An unplanned pregnancy is not something that will have direct impact on me.

Still, much is being said about abortion and most of it seems overstated, stated in terms that suggests that one answer fits all lives, or is based purely upon ideals and wishful thinking. And since so many of the people talking about it are men, who might be affected by an unplanned pregnancy but don't bear the physical consequences of it, I find the urge to add my voice. I do presume to speak for anyone, but hope I speak in solidarity and compassion with some. Not everyone will agree. Obviously.

A link that has been passed around on Facebook actually covers a good deal of what I would say, so I'll start with pointing you to this blog by Eric Folkerth.

The rest are my rambles, in no particular order.

Abortion is a Serious Matter

I do not hold with people who treat abortion as an inconsequential thing. My limited experience shows that women who find themselves in the situation of considering one understand this, but I also understand that some are a bit more cavalier about it. I think it is a serious matter to be considered carefully.

I say this not to induce guilt one way or the other, but to recognize one thing: Sex and sexuality are powerful. Even in non-procreative circumstances, I think it is full of vulnerabilities and emotional consequences. That sex can also cause a new combination of genetic material to come into being, this is mysterious and awesome and full of wonder.

At the same time, the fact that this happens is also just a matter of science, and often accidental, even when two people are trying to conceive. It happens every day and is ordinary and often full of flaws. It is fragile and many, many embryos "die" before the end of the first trimester.

I think we begin to make a fetish of the embryo when we treat it as something to be protected at all costs. It is not a person. It has potential to become a person, yes, but I cannot see how we can count an embryo as a person.

So somewhere between an accident of science and an occasion of mystery, there is a big room full of careful consideration. I do not advocate for capricious choosing of abortion. Neither do I think choosing one is murder.

The Bible is Not Clear on the Subject

Pastor Folkerth covers this pretty well. What I would say further is that the writers of the Bible, in a pre-scientific age, and had different notions of what even caused a pregnancy, much less when life began.

For one thing, so much depended upon the man. If you read the sexual prohibitions in the Bible, you will see things against a man "spilling his seed." That's because the best "science" of the day assumed that a man carried the seed for new life in his semen, and that a woman was merely the field in which he planted it---hence all the talk of a woman being "barren," an agricultural term for a field that could not produce good crops. It was assumed that that the "seed" was good. They had no way of knowing that semen actually contained numerous little swimming "seeds"---or not.

In that worldview, it was all about protecting the semen and "spilling" it (via either masturbation or "pulling out" before ejaculation) was tantamount to wasting heirs or descendents. This why the Roman Catholic church still has prohibitions against masturbation and condoms.

So, if we really wanted to have Biblical, pre-birth, "life protecting" legislation, we'd be focusing a whole lot more on men and their semen.

Otherwise, what Pastor Folkerth says about the "breath of life" is what I understand, too. I'll also back up his comment that saying life begins at birth is also problematic. What I would add is that part of living as a religious person is accepting some ambiguity about things. These things are not either/or.

Laws Restricting Abortion Mostly Affect the Poor

I think I can state this simply: A rich and powerful woman---or the mistress of a rich and powerful man---will always have access to safe abortion. Always have.

This is why I've said that if legislation is not a "war on women," it is certainly part of a war on the poor.

I'll leave that to be somewhat self-evident.

Women Get Pregnant in Many Awful Circumstances

I get the impression that most of the "pro-life" people think that women are just out having fun, getting pregnant, and not wanting the responsibility that goes with their actions. Even when I listen to women who are advocating for stricter abortion laws or abortion prohibition seem to be very far removed from situations like these:

Women are raped. Women can get pregnant via rape (which seems ludicrous to say, but apparently you have to say it). Carrying a pregnancy to term does not redeem the rape. Neither does an abortion. The rape remains a traumatic, life-altering event. Whether choosing to terminate or carry to term a pregnancy conceived in rape, the choice is fraught with many landmines, many laid in the very specific circumstances of a woman's life. How anyone can say that a woman who is pregnant under this circumstance must give birth is insensitive at best. A woman may, in fact, have the emotional and personality traits and support system in place to carry such a pregnancy to term. But however a women chooses, my immediate compassion is with the woman making the decision, not the embryo that some would place as more important.

Girls are forced into situations way beyond their control. There is such a thing as "survival sex." This may take form in prostitution, but it may also be just what a girl (or woman) has to endure to keep any hope of surviving to something beyond her current life. Homeless girls, poor women, women and girls who are geographically or emotionally cut off from protection . . . Is there no compassion for their choice to not want to bring a child into their situation?

Also, men have a history of violence. Not all men, of course, and there are any number of men who will and have stood by the women they've gotten pregnant. But there are also men who don't want to be a father and will do things like punch a woman repeatedly in the uterus until she miscarries---or worse. I'd much rather a woman trapped with a violent man (for whatever social, emotional, economic reason she may be trapped) to have the option of sneaking away to a clinic before he learns she's pregnant.

In short, we have to stop imagining unwanted pregnancies in situations where a heartwarming solution can be had. The world isn't that friendly. We've somehow gotten to the place where some people feel more protective of an embryo than of the fully formed person carrying it. It's easy to transfer all our happiness for our friends or ourselves over a pregnancy that we want, it's easy to think that because you wanted a baby everyone does, it's easy to think that "everything will work out fine" because it did for you or someone you know----but for this kind of thinking I have two words: Stop it. We have to look at real situations, real lives, in short, reality. We have to stop guilt-tripping women into decisions because of our ideals or wishes.

Men Need to Take More Responsiblity

I don't know how this can happen, and I'm certain it's not through legislation. But all those Facebook memes about stop telling girls to not get raped and start telling boys not to rape? That sort of thing is a good place to start.

We need to cultivate a society where sexual experience is not the mark of manhood, where talking (or worse, forcing) a woman (or another man for the gay men out there) into sex is not some sign of masculine prowess, where fatherhood is treated as some kind of achievement. Because sexual experience just makes you sexually experienced, talking someone into doing something they don't want just makes you a bully, and paternity, despite some individuals' specific experience, is remarkably easy to achieve.

I've toyed with all kinds of ideas for how to legislate male reproductive abilities in a way that corresponds to legislation that legislates women's reproductive choices. So far, I have nothing. But the fact that men have the "power" to procreate without the physical wear and tear (and thanks to modern medicine, we've forgotten just how dangerous pregnancy can be for a woman---read some history on mortality rates for women giving birth even a century ago), without the financial burden of medical care, often without the financial burden of caring for a growing child (despite laws in place to hold men accountable through child support payments).


I honestly don't know the answer to this problem. Other than to say to my heterosexual counterparts: Cultivate some responsibility already! (And those of you who have---you know who  you are---thank you. You are the real men of the world.)

I'm sure there's more to be said---the internet is full of people saying it. And I don't like talking about it.

But to sum up: Have more compassion for the person---the woman---who is fully formed and in crisis than for an embryo. I'm not pro-abortion. I recognize it's sometimes misused (as when parents choose to abort because they learn their embryo or fetus is the "wrong" sex---these stories particularly trouble me). But it is not a one-size fits all situation. And I'm convinced it is not the same as murder.

But let's keep the procedure available and safe for those who find it to be the best choice for their situation. And love the women, no matter what. Because, no matter what, their decision---either decision----will be with them a very long time.

Pride Eucharist

There is this thing that happens to me during church services (and other times). Without warning, I'll suddenly be fighting back from crying. It might be in a hymn or a reading---absolutely no way to guess when it'll happen, but I'll suddenly find it hard to carry on with the singing or whatever. All my energy goes into not crying.

That happened this evening. I into Houston's Montrose district for the Pride Parade. I was going to be walking with the truck that was carrying folks from the local Integrity chapter and St. Stephen's Episcopal, the congregation I'm attending.

Before the parade started, we celebrated the Eucharist. We were in our designated spot, some on the truck that was decorated for the parade, most of us milling about on the ground, #34 in line. The tailgate/lift on the back of the truck became the altar with the bread and wine set up. A priest from Trinity Church lead the rite.

The words are all familiar, nothing new to me. The context, however, was everything. On that noisy, chaotic corner, with parade floats and costumes all around us, music blaring, we gave thanks to God for being with us, for feeding us, for sustaining us for the work (and play) God has given us.

It surprised me that this affected me as it did. I won't attempt to explain it, other than to say:

It was indeed meet, right, and salutary.

Jesus Was Amazed

Some time ago, someone on Facebook shared a story about an x-ray of lungs that was shown to radiologists, who are trained to look for cancer nodules, which apparently show up as white spots. What few noticed was a gorilla "hiding" in the x-ray. It seems that when we are looking for one thing, we often overlook or miss even the most egregiously out of place things.

This fun little exercise took a sobering turn for me a couple of weeks ago. I was having lunch with a friend who told me the sad story of someone who had been waiting for an organ transplant. After months and months of waiting, they got a match. When the opened the patient up for the transplant, however, they discovered the patient was riddled throughout with stage 4 cancer mets. They didn't bother with the transplant. They closed the patient up and sent her home to die.

"How can they have been monitoring her health so closely for so long and not know she had cancer?" my friend asked.

I immediately thought of the gorilla in the lung x-ray and said, "They weren't looking for it." I hadn't thought about the dire consequences of not noticing the gorilla until then.

We don't see what we're not looking for.

I've written a bit about my own recent health issues and subsequent surgery. People have asked me what were my symptoms that they found this cyst on m pancreas.

I say, "It was an accident. We weren't looking for this."

What happened was this: I was doing my annual round of scans and such with my cardiologist. This year he did an echocardiogram (last year was the nuclear stress test---I suppose later this year, it'll be that again). He was content with with what he saw and asked if I had any other concerns. I mentioned some very vague, subtle symptoms, but I admitted I didn't think they were heart related, more likely gastrointestinal. He decided that, due to some minor thing on my echocardiogram, we should do a CT of the heart, just to make sure there wasn't anything more dire.

A few days after the CT scan, he called me in to give me the results. He said the heart all checked out just fine, no worries there. "That's the good news," he said. Then he told me one of the technicians, who run the machinery of the CT scan, noticed the mass on my pancreas and brought it to the attention of someone or another (a supervisor or doctor or somesuch) who said, yes, that does look unusual. They told my cardiologist, who told my primary care physician, who set up the dominoes that tumbled into my surgery.

I realize, now, how easily I might still have a cyst on my pancreas. Maybe my cardiologist---or someone else along the way---might have noticed the mass. Or he might have focused so much on my heart that he wouldn't have noticed. Who can say? What I know is that a technician, who saw CT scans all day everyday, noticed something going on where he wasn't focusing the machinery.

My amazement at my good fortune in all this grows.

This past Sunday, the lectionary brought us the story of the Roman centurion with a sick slave (Luke 7:1-10). This Roman had heard of Jesus and his healing ways and sent, first, Jewish leaders to Jesus, to advocate on his behalf that Jesus should come and heal the slave. Convinced to do so, Jesus heads towards the centurion's home and is then met by friends of the centurion, who tell Jesus that he needn't come all the way to the home, that the centurion was certain of Jesus' authority to heal from afar.

"When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him . . . "

In her sermon, the rector of the church where I'm attending, the Rev. Lisa Hunt, likened the centurion to a modern day member of the Taliban. She suggested that this was someone who was part of the bad guys, the occupiers of Israel, and so it would be like an American being asked a favor by a high-ranking Taliban official---albeit with the endorsement of some American leaders. "Yeah, he's Taliban, but he's a good Taliban."

Rev. Hunt pointed out that we have no word on what became of the centurion and slave afterward. We have no indication that he became a disciple of Jesus. It seems likely that he continued on as pagan in a pagan army. Still, Jesus found some sort of faith in this fellow and was amazed.

Jesus found something he wasn't looking for.  

I remember reading somewhere that on a quiet afternoon, just standing on (or in!) a corner, we are bombarded by so much information (even without electronic devices!) that so much of the work of our five senses is to weed out what not to pay attention to. If we were to take in all the information that is coming at us, we'd overload. We are hardwired to ignore things we aren't looking for.


This Sunday's sermon, my personal experience, my friend's story, and gorillas hiding in x-rays have been on my mind the last 48 hours now. How do we short circuit our hard-wiring so that we see what we aren't looking for?

I'm not sure. Maybe it's paying just a little more attention. Maybe it's the work of the Holy Spirit. Maybe it's a prayer we pray, asking for amazement, asking the Spirit to draw our attention to the life-giving thing we aren't looking for. 

Praying with Flannery and Angela

Angela Alaimo O'Donnell and I have been in the same room a few times, at a writer's festival that I haven't been to in a few years. It is through Facebook, however, that I feel like I've gotten to know her. It is also through Facebook that I learned that she's published a book called The Province of Joy: Praying with Flannery O'Connor. 

I think it's fair to say that just about any Christian who is interested in literature likes Flannery O'Connor. She was a writer that seemed to engage a religious imagination while also engaging the world around us. That is, she didn't sentimentalize the faith, she put it in the grit and pleasure of real life. If a Christian writer isn't at least a little bit envious (or even covetous) of O'Connor's powers in fiction, they're probably not paying attention.

So I was intrigued by Angela's book. I wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't really know what I was ordering when I ordered it.

What I found was a week's worth of devotions. The book is set up for two prayer times, morning prayer and evening prayer, with scripture readings and the innovation of readings from Flannery O'Connor's books, The Habit of Being and Mystery and Manners. After the actual prayer liturgies are completed, there is then a reflection on one of O'Connor's stories.

Last week, coincidentally the last week of the Easter season but I hadn't planned it that way, I set about the task of starting with Sunday morning and praying with Flannery (and Angela) for the whole week. The devotions are seasoned with the Roman Catholic faith of both authors, but not so much that this Protestant found it distracting. Each day had a theme and each day had repeated readings, mostly the scripture readings, for both morning and evening prayers.

I made a point of doing all the readings, repeated or not. I did my best to give into the rhythm of the prayers Angela arranged for us, and accepted the repetition as the gift that it often is. When I felt myself growing impatient with something I'd read that morning (or just a very familiar piece of scripture), I tried to slow myself down and read the text anyway, taking it all in as intentionally as I could.

What do I have to say about the experience? One, it did make me realize how much I miss the regular liturgies of prayer that I experienced in seminary, many years ago. Two, I found it a lovely thing to have a writer who was not writing scripture, not writing liturgies enter into the liturgy. I was struck by how much O'Connor wrote homilies, how she could have been a preacher.

And I found inspiration beyond the sort a reader of devotional material might look for. If I were to target an audience for this book, it would be the creative person of faith. As a writer and performer, I found what O'Connor had to say to be particularly worth pondering. I'm sure that people who don't write or otherwise engage in a creative endeavor will find much to engage their heart and mind in these pages, but from this point on, I'll be recommending this book to writers and artists of faith.

I realized late last week that I was "praying with Flannery" during the last days of Easter and that this was a fine transition into Pentecost. There were bits that felt renewing to my commitment to my creative endeavors, a stirring of the Spirit. But that's just an idiosyncratic experience. I wouldn't recommend that you wait a year until you pick up this volume. Far from it. In fact, I need to put on my calendar when I'll next spend a week with this book. It'll be well before next Easter season.

Mortality IV: Onward

It's been a month and two days since a very nice man cut into my abdomen and took out a big, heavy---but benign!---cyst.

I was not prepared for this. Maybe there was no way for me to prepare for this. I've not had anything like this before, and while I have been in the place of being around people who have and I hope I was kind, patient, and encouraging in those situations, I'm here to report that it's different when it's you, your own self, going through it. Empathy, compassion, only goes so far, it seems.

I guess that's one lesson to keep close to the surface.

Things I was not prepared for:

I didn't know how the brain gets discombobulated by anesthesia. I had this fantasy of laying up in the hospital and reading and writing. It's what I do otherwise, and if I was going to be laid up in the hospital, I was going catch up on those two activities. Except my brain couldn't process words so well. I tried a couple of entries in my journal while in the hospital, but putting pen to paper was nearly overwhelming. It wasn't even frustrating, it was just a fact. I couldn't read and write. And I guess it was more concentration than ability---I could certainly look at words and get meaning from them, I could certainly write a few words. It was just too much. A friend even brought me a couple of Archie comics (comfort food for the soul) and I couldn't quite manage that.

I was not prepared---and I admit this is kinda dumb---for how long an 8" incision on the abdomen, into the body cavity takes to heal. People keep reminding me I had major surgery and it is a bit of a reminder each time they say it. Oh yeah, bits were removed from my body and so this scar down my belly is actually deeper than the average cat scratch. My surgeon says that an incision of this type takes about 6 weeks to get to 90% of the muscles' previous strength. I still have 2 weeks to get there, but I'm annoyed how much this cut dictates how I move.

I didn't expect my appetite and general gastrointestinal system would be affected like it has been. My appetite is still weird. Eating is not fun. I'll save you the details, but I'll just add that the word "irregular" has specific meaning in this context. It's uncomfortable and I grow weary of it.

I could go on. I shan't.

Because, as per my previous posts on the subject, I remain grateful and in awe of my good fortune. This remains, as I may have said before, the happy ending to the story that begins with, "you have a mass on your pancreas."

And I'm surrounded by a good many gifts of people. I'm talking about Celina, who organized a group of people to bring me food the first week I was home, I'm talking about Lura, who came and fed my cat while I was in the hospital. I'm talking about the friends who visited in the hospital and walked with me to my mailbox after I got home. The nice man who brought me the Eucharist one Sunday. I dare not start naming too many, as I'll offend by omission, but my blessings involve more people than I (a bit of a loner introvert by nature) might have predicted or guessed.

This is another lesson I need to keep close.

But those are the people I knew before surgery. There were all the people who took care of me in the hospital. The nurses---can I sing their praises loudly enough? I've sent the 25th floor nurses station a thank you note, but it's inadequate. For example, there was one nurse who was particularly playful. When I was taking my first shower, she had put a rubber glove on my hand, over my IV ports, taped it up to keep water out of it, and said, "Okay, oh gloved one, you're ready." I responded with my best high pitched "ee hee hee" and three steps of a wounded moonwalk. We laughed and it became a running joke the rest of my time in the hospital. How do you thank someone for her willingness to play along? Really, I had a bunch of nurses who made being cut open the most fun it probably could be.

I also have had great luck in my surgeon. My base requirement for a doctor is that he talk to me, that he be present to me, answering questions. I fired a cardiologist over this. I now have a primary care physician who is wonderfully talkative (he has apologized for talking to much, which amuses me) and I appreciate him because he obviously loves being a doctor and making sure his patients understand what they need to do, what's at stake. I feel the same way about my current cardiologist. And I hit the jackpot with my surgeon. I remember one of his visits to my room in the hospital where he was doing his rounds, doing his surgeon things, and fairly business-like, all appropriately so. Then I asked a question and his body language did this remarkable thing. He relaxed into a conversation. It wasn't---or at least didn't read as---a heavy-sigh-great-he-has-questions sort of slump. It felt like a human being who was relaxing into a conversation. In my follow up visits in his office, it's been the same. He doesn't appear rushed, he doesn't appear to have more important things to do. He's there, talking to me.

As I said, I fired a cardiologist for not doing this. I won't have an ongoing relationship with this surgeon. Maybe another year with him? But I'm so thankful for him.

I had a conversation with a friend up in Chicago this week. She and I talked about this health scare, how these things can hit and be scary and change our lives. I think it's true that there is no "return to normal." There is no going back from here. Mortality has been highlighted for the last three months here. So has been grace. I ponder how I escape to much bad stuff, even as what I'm going through might be considered bad stuff.

I think of the hospital neighbor whose pain would not be managed. I think of people who suffer months and years of treatment for cancers. I think of friends with debilitating, degenerative diseases. I think of people without friends to lean on, who suffer illness and misfortune without visits and gifts of meals.

I have the abundant life. Going forward, I can't forget this mystery. Going forward, I have to watch for ways to respond to this mystery. There's no going back to not knowing how blessed I am.

Really, it's a knowledge to knock you to your knees, if not flat on your face.