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Posts Tagged ‘health

Mar

Getting Uncomfortable

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: challenge, comfort, correction, discomfort, falsehood, God, health, ideas, illusion, Jesus Christ, truth

Germany, Young man lying in hammock and reading a magazine

Before Word #1 appears on this page, I have to settle in at my desk and get nice and comfortable.

Before my car’s engine roars (politely) to life, I make sure I am quite comfortable there in the driver’s seat.

TV viewing in the evening for me is always preceded by strict attention to the comfort of my position on the couch.

And then, at the end of the day, when it comes to that most essential human activity, SLEEPING!, I devote a great deal of attention to seeking out a position of maximum possible personal comfort.

In fact, I would be willing to wager that if someone showed me a scientific study of the amount of energy I devote daily to comfort-seeking, that number would make my eyes bug right out of my head.

And what about you, friend? Are you likewise afflicted with CCSS (Compulsive Comfort Seeking Syndrome)?

I think we can all agree that no one will win a Nobel Prize in sociology for announcing the discovery that, “Comfort-seeking seems to be a universal human pursuit.” Cave people didn’t come up with the idea of fire just so they’d have a way to cook their brontosaurus burgers, you know.

But I wonder… despite its ubiquitousness, is it possible we can get a little too carried away with this urge toward comfort seeking? Is the Dr. Scholl’s Company really telling us the truth when they contend that “Comfort is EVERYTHING!*”

In fact, I think there is a good case to be made that runaway, unexamined, “comfort seeking” is at the root of a whole host of human maladies. To wit:

Avoiding the difficulty and discomfort of hard, physical work usually leads to flawed, “squishy” solutions.
People who don’t feel “comfortable” in the presence of people of different races, ethnicities, religions, or sexual orientations can very quickly become dangerous bigots.
My aversion to the discomfort of re-examining my core beliefs can keep me permanently locked on to a set of toxic assumptions about the world.

When Jesus talked to the folks gathered around and said, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free,” (John 8:32, NRSV), he didn’t add, “And I promise; knowing the truth will be painless and easy-peasy.”

As essential as it seems to be to life on this planet, I am not sure I will EVER be comfortable with discomfort… whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. I have to face the fact that I will continue to be “that guy” who grabs for the footrest and the extra couch pillow to put behind my back.

I think I can only pray that God will regularly grant me the strength to shove personal comfort aside in favor of some much-needed growth.

Whew! I’m glad I got that off my chest.

Now to go find a nice shady spot in the yard where I can lay down, sip an iced tea, and stare at the sky for a while.

Abundant blessings;

Not the actual slogan of the Dr. Scholl’s Company, by the way.

Jul

“We’re All In This Together!”

By revruss1220 5 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: advantage, compassion, COVID-19, eviction, God, health, homeless, hope, hopeless, Jesus Christ, joblessness, latino, NPR, pandemic, sorrow, spread, unemployment, uneven, unity, universal, unjust

Homeless latinos Yes, we are.

But in lots of ways, no, we absolutely are not.

This morning on NPR I heard the story of Daniel Garcia of Houston, Texas. (https://www.npr.org/2020/07/18/892593769/texas-man-on-what-its-like-being-evicted-during-the-covid-19-pandemic).

And it broke me.

Garcia is 46 years old. He was laid off from his job repossessing cars in April. Because Daniel’s wife is confined to a wheelchair, he is the sole breadwinner for his household. The Garcias also have a six-year-old son.

As I listened to his story, I found that Daniel also faces another obstacle in his effort to find a new job. He has a criminal record.

Two weeks ago, the Garcias were evicted from their apartment because they could not pay their rent. The housing court judge told Daniel he could appeal the decision, but that he would have to put up one full month’s rent first.

And so, Daniel, his wife and son packed their worldly belongings into a U-Haul and moved out. They were able to afford a few nights at a low-budget motel, but are now living in the back of their U-Haul, wondering what to do next.

My breaking point came when Daniel choked up on air and said, “I feel like I have failed my family.”

Yes, this pandemic has forced some unwanted changes for Joan and me. The Viking River cruise we planned to take in May from Nuremberg to Budapest was cancelled. We were not able to fly to Seattle this month to visit my siblings and 96-year-old stepmother. We have not been able to go to movies, see concerts, or watch live sporting events on television since early March. For a while, we had to use the order online, drive-up pickup service for grocery shopping.

Boo hoo! Poor us.

We still have our house and our cars. We still have food in our fridge. We still have our health. Since we are both retired, our employment status has not been affected by the virus at all. In fact, we both decided that had we each still been working at our previous jobs when the pandemic struck, we would probably have been able to continue working.

The presence of this virus on every continent, in every country, in every state, and in every community on earth gives this moment its shared and universal flavor. In reality, though, there is a wide, wide variance in how the virus is affecting people.

But what if…

… what if this moment helped us realize the vulnerability we share as human beings?

… what if we figured out how to use this moment to rekindle our compassion toward our neighbors?

… what if this moment helped us appreciate anew the quantum advances in the delivery of health care since the last pandemic a century ago?

… what if this moment led us all to a new kind of humility in the face of mystery of Creation?

… what if the “haves” suddenly realized that the “have nots” are actually their brothers and sisters?

… what if the existential anxiety of this moment caused us all to search for a deeper, more timeless, more unshakable narrative about the nature of the universe?

… what if this moment helped us realize that love can be just as communicable as this virus?

What if?

If any of that happened, my friend, we would ALL truly be in this together.

Abundant blessings;

May

Frozen People

By revruss1220 2 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: age, beauty, birth, blessings, Botox, death, frozen, God, grandchildren, grandparents, health, Jesus Christ, life, love, mortality, old, reality, temporal, wisdom, young, youth

Young and old I knew it was coming, just as surely as the next episode of The Lone Ranger on Saturday morning TV.

When I was a wee lad and we made the 415-mile trek to see my dad’s parents in St. Louis, Missouri, the first words out of my grandmother’s mouth were guaranteed.

She would grab each one of us, give us a big hug, hold us out at arm’s length and say, “Well just look at you! Look how you’ve GROWN!”

Of course, I always smiled and blushed, but inside I was thinking, “Well, DUH! We haven’t seen one another in over a year! Did you think I would stay the same size FOREVER?”

Nowadays, of course, I do exactly the same thing to my own grandchildren. Joan and I just drove back to Kansas City for the first time in six months and MY… how those three girls had grown! And I didn’t hesitate saying so!

I know that part of my reaction stems from genuine shock. I have clearly forgotten the explosive power of hormones between the ages of nine and 13… especially in girls in that age range.

The last time we saw her – in February – middle grandchild was a little girl. By some strange magic she is now a young woman.

The other part of my stereotypical grandpa reaction – I’m sure – is a kind of wistful sadness… sadness at the fact that my grandchildren are growing up. Somewhere inside me, irrational as it is, lives a desire to freeze them at their cutest, cuddliest ages and experience them that way forever.

But here is the truly weird thing; I do the same with EVERYONE. I expect every person in my circle of relationships to be exactly the same today as they were the last time we met. For example, when Joan tells me that her daughter (my stepdaughter) is dropping by for a visit, I fully expect to see a bright, young, 17-year-old woman coming through the door.

In reality, she is a 40-year-old medical doctor… a partner in a thriving practice here in Fort Collins, CO.

As Keenan Thompson, a.k.a. Diondre Cole might ask, “What’s up with that?”

What’s up with that, I believe, is a robust urge to evade the reality of mortality. By any means possible I long to be able to pretend that time does not advance… that bodies do not age… that physical death does not wait around the corner for me and everyone I hold dear.

All of which, of course, is utter nonsense. And yet a whole bunch of us continue to pretend otherwise.

The psalmist knew this truth over 3,000 years ago when she/he wrote, “The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” (Psalm 103:15-16, NRSV).

And yet even when people know of and even accept their mortality, finiteness, and temporality it doesn’t mean they are happy about the state of things.

It is time to face the truth; in the midst of a decaying, mortal world, we have to see that it is foolishness to freeze grandchildren, shoot up with Botox, or hop on a skateboard at the age of 75 (although I have no doubt some do exactly that. More power to them!).

There is nothing we can do to stop the inevitable march of time.

What we CAN do… indeed, what we MUST do is to hang on to the One who stands beyond time itself.

Only in God’s loving embrace can we find the infinite that we so desperately seek. As the psalmist continues, “… the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.” (Psalm 103:17, NRSV).

Abundant blessings;

Apr

Take Hope

By revruss1220 2 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: baseball, confidence, COVID-19, culture, death, despair, disease, distance, God, health, hope, interdependence, Jesus Christ, joy, life, pandemic, resources, return, selfish, social, world

“But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?” Romans 8:24, NRSV.

Hope is a precious commodity these days.

On some days, it can be harder to find than that ever-elusive toilet paper.

We squint and look at the road ahead and yet see nothing but mist and blur. No one knows with any certainty (even if they say they do) when we can once again be care-free about who we hang out with and in what quantities.

Today we hope for the best while we prepare for the worst.

So let me ask: in those moments when you allow yourself a rose-colored glance into the future, what do you find yourself hoping for? My first thoughts about hope are colored in a very self-absorbed hue; I hope for the safety of my friends and family. I pine for the return of restaurants, concerts, air travel, and baseball. I long to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other congregants in church on Sunday. I hope the stock market stabilizes and stops imitating some kind of psychotic carnival ride.

This kind of hope, I soon realize, is rooted in nostalgia. It is a hope for a return to life, “as it once was.” In that sense, it is a very backward-looking hope.

At other times, I catch myself hoping that this present time of crisis will perform a work of transformation… on me and on the world around me. Once the “all clear” has been sounded, I hope I continue to value solitude and times of quiet contemplation as I do now. I hope I will still eagerly look forward to evening walks with Joan and the dogs, sharing thoughts, jokes, and news of the day.

[Just to clarify, I mean Joan and I sharing those things… not the dogs and me.]

I hope – is this too wildly ambitious to put out there? – that we all might continue to call the people stocking grocery shelves and picking up our trash “essential.” I hope that we would continue understanding and applauding the heroic nature of those who care for our health (and the utter insanity of tying healthcare to employment status). I hope we will walk away from this pandemic with a renewed awareness of just how tightly interdependent we are and how much MY well-being is directly tied to YOURS.

I hope people will stop dying from COVID-19 and that our eyes will be permanently opened to the life-and-death consequences of institutional racism and economic discrimination.

I know that some of these hopes of mine will not come to fruition and others will. But even if two out of three of my hopes fall to the ground with a sickening THUD, I will continue to hope. Like an excellent major league hitter, I am going to be thrilled with a success rate of one out of three.

Over the course of the next few days, my goal is to share stories of hope in this space. I aim to share stories that illustrate the power of hope in the midst of bleak and apparently hopeless circumstances.

If you have one such story, I would love to hear it. Otherwise I will be harvesting them from friends, family, and the World Wide Web.

For today I will just wrap up by reminding us all that sometimes – just as the verse at the top reminds us – hope is not terribly rational. Hope is often that seed dropped onto a hard concrete sidewalk that – by God – is determined to germinate and grow.

It is also a good time to remind us all that hope which is rooted and grounded in faith, is one of the most powerful forces in all of nature. As Paul reminded the wayward worshipers in Corinth, I will also remind us: “[Christ] has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us…” 2 Corinthians 1:10, NRSV.

Abundant blessings;

Sep

The real emergency

By revruss1220 3 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: accident, awareness, bankruptcy, compassion, debt, doctor, emergency, examination, health, illness, insurance, nurse, practitioner, shoulder, stories, X-ray

Me in the ER Settling in, I was struck by how quiet and calm it all was.

For a room whose first name is EMERGENCY, I had visions of wailing sirens, screaming people, racing doctors, and slippery pools of blood on the floor, visions, no doubt fueled by TV and movies.

Instead, I saw a slightly built Hispanic couple huddled together on a couch, the man tenderly holding the woman’s arm. Over here to their left was an older woman sitting quietly in a wheelchair, searching without success for something in her purse. A young man – whose name I found out later when they paged him was Nathaniel – sat with a worried expression on his face, all alone.

People came in the automatic, sliding glass doors and calmly approached the reception desk. They explained the reason for their visit, filled out a brief form, and took the next available seat… preparing to wait for however long it took.

The doctors, nurses, and assorted hospital helpers ran the demeanor gamut from professionally concerned and solicitous, to utterly bored, to flippant and jokey, depending on the patient. I am sure it helps contain the anxiety of the help-seekers to see their rescuers taking a firm hold of the rudder of the ER, succumbing to neither fear nor frustration in the face of pain and illness.

I had checked into the ER ten minutes earlier, hopeful they would approve my application for patient status. In the fifth inning of my old man softball game earlier that evening, an inadequately stretched out hamstring felled me as I barreled down the first base line. I landed full on my elbow, jamming my upper arm up into my shoulder joint.

It hurt like the dickens, but the diagnosis – after an exam and X-rays – was a “first degree (the mildest variety) shoulder separation.” The recommended treatment plan is a sling and ibuprofen for a week.

So the softball season has come to an early end for me. Not that I actually contributed that much to our team’s success you understand. But it was always a good time on Monday nights to hang with the guys and pretend to have some athletic ability for an hour or two.

But this isn’t really about my shoulder injury and me. I’ll be fine. I have a wonderful wife to help me out and a good constitution to ensure swift healing.

It is really about my fellow ER occupants and their stories. Who are they? Where do they live? What happened that led to them being here tonight? How are they going to respond?

When I commented to one of the nurses that it seemed very busy that night she replied, “Oh you know… it’s a Monday. The weekend is done and it’s after dinner, so now is the time to come into the ER,” which struck me as both surprisingly callous but also a little bit insightful.

Her off-hand comment showed me one of the nagging realities of health care in this country today. People use the emergency room as their doctor. They don’t have health insurance – for whatever reason – and as a result, don’t seek out the routine care of a physician. They wait until something gets really serious and scary and then head to the ER. Emergency room docs are ethically bound to see and treat everyone who walks in, insurance or not.

Questions are asked, tests are done, X-rays are taken, treatments are prescribed, and bills are sent equally to everyone. Some get paid, many don’t. The latest figures show that more than 2/3 of the personal bankruptcies in the U.S. today are due to the crushing load of health care costs.

It caused me to stop and realize; while we were in the same place at the same time last night, most of the others in the emergency room lived in a VERY different healthcare universe than the one Joan and I occupy.

Today, as I pop my ibuprofen and try to type with this sling on my arm, I will be thinking about my friends from the ER. I will wonder how last night turned out for them. I will wonder if they will be back again tonight with a different complaint. I will speculate about how high their healthcare-related debt is.

But then, sadly, I will probably move on with my life and continue not thinking about them, just like I did before.

“And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”(Matthew 25:40, NRSV).

Apr

Where is the Justice?

By revruss1220 1 Comment

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: accident, birth, blessings, cancer, delicious, Easter, freedom, gifts, God, gratitude, health, injustice, Jesus Christ, justice, meal, Panera, resurrection

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

– Isaiah 55:8-9

Panera bread pic Yesterday was a truly gorgeous day here in the Kansas City area.

Yes, the weather was a perfect 78 degrees, sunny, with a gentle easterly breeze, rustling the newly leafing branches of the trees.

THAT was a genuine delight.

But what made the day especially lovely was the news my wife and I heard from her oncologist.

Yesterday we found out that after five months of chemotherapy, major, invasive surgery, and untold hundreds of prayers, Joan’s scans showed NOTHING.

As in, NADA, zero, zip, bupkis tumors or cancerous presence in her body.

It was the result we had been hoping and praying for but had not dared speak aloud.

THANK YOU, JESUS! And thank you SCIENCE! And thank you wonderful, caring medical professionals!

And so, since we were only two blocks away from a Panera Bread store – and since it was nearly lunchtime – we decided to celebrate with a fresh, tasty lunch.

And then as we finished our lunch and stepped outside, back into the beautiful day God had provided, I thought about my great-grandparents.

Honestly, I am not sure why they entered my mind at that moment. As far as I know, I never met any of my great-grandparents.

No matter why I thought of them, here is HOW they entered my framework at that moment. As Joan and I stepped out the door of Panera I thought, “Wow! We have just received a clean bill of health from a disease that only three generations ago would have probably been a death sentence for someone. And we followed that up by rather effortlessly enjoying a delicious, well-prepared meal… a meal that would have required monumental efforts by my great-grandparents to prepare.”

I then realized that the only difference between MY outcomes and my great-grandparents’ outcomes was the entirely accidental timing of my birth.

1951 vs. 1851.

And I thought, “Oh, what a MASSIVE difference 100 years makes.”

Faced with such a disparity in outcomes – based on something as arbitrary and capricious as a birthday – the natural question I was prompted to pose is: where is the justice?

How is it that such a minuscule span on history’s timeline can mean such a huge discrepancy in overall quality of life? How does that square with any notion of fairness?

Or we could widen our lens a bit and ask the question of geographical justice. We could ask, “How is it that a child born today in one part of the world can have such an enormously higher chance of survival and good health than a child born in another part?”

Or in an example that hit very close to home for us this week: “How can it be even remotely just that a family member who has successfully battled back from breast cancer can suddenly die in her sleep from cardiac arrest?”

Or – apropos of yesterday’s news – how cruel and unjust was it to watch the great cathedral of Notre Dame burning on the Monday of Holy Week?

What did ANY of these people do to earn these outcomes… either the good ones or the bad ones? How do any of us hope to understand the notion of JUSTICE in such a twisted setting as this?

And alas… I find that the longer I sit and stew over this question, the further and further I drift from any sort of answer. The paltry power of these three pounds of grey matter inside my skull is clearly no match for this cosmic conundrum.

As reason escapes, I find I am left only with a decision; the decision of how to live in a world like this. Will I choose to live as if I am forever the butt of some cruel joke… always looking around, expecting either the chair or the rug to be pulled out from under me, for the amusement of some Celestial Prankster?

Or will I choose to live in faith… accepting the reality of the utter unsearchableness of the universe, yet confident that behind all of it there is a loving, compassionate Hand that holds me, protects me, provides for me, and comforts me… even in those times when nothing seems to make a lick of sense.

The message of Easter is ALWAYS relevant, but maybe it becomes even more relevant during times of confusion, heartache, and a temptation toward cynicism.

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”
– Luke 24:5, NRSV

The message of the empty tomb is meant to remind ALL of us that the worst thing is never the last thing… that even when we can’t see it or understand it, we are surrounded and sustained by love.

… and that there will never be anything in the world more powerful than LOVE.

Holy Week blessings to each of you.

Nov

“Just Kidding!”

By revruss1220 1 Comment

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: argument, dignity, hate, health, James 3:8-9, Jesus Christ, name-calling, nasty, opponent, politics, respect, soul, tongue, words

Political opponents I had gone out to play with my friends after dad finished giving me my every-two-week haircut. His barber chair was right there in the living room of our home.

With five kids at home – four of which were boys – my folks were always looking for ways to cut costs. Home haircuts were a huge help to the budget.

Dad was efficient with his barbering, but not always deft. My homemade haircut looked… like a homemade haircut. And as I met my friends in the field that day, my best friend Robbie pointed at my hair, laughed, and said, “Hey, Rusty… nice haircut! Did your dad put a bowl on your head before he cut your hair?”

And then he laughed, playfully punched me in the arm and said, “Just kidding!”

Of course, he was. But the initial sting of the joke stayed with me… because I knew he was actually not kidding at all.

In less than a week the mid-term elections will be over. We will all finally know the results of these watershed votes. Half of the candidates will win and pump their fists victoriously. Half will lose and go home to lick their wounds and ponder their next moves.

But the REAL blessing of next Wednesday will be the blessed disappearance of all of the political TV ads.

Thank you, eight pound, 10-ounce baby Jesus!

After the election dust clears the men and women who have gone on the public airwaves for the last three months, hurling the most vicious, degrading, debased, and insulting remarks at one another will step back, grin sheepishly at each other, and say, “JUST KIDDING!”

They will each call for a time of reconciliation and “coming together” in the name of the country/state/district/county/school board.

The rest of us will wake to discover that the predicted horror and disaster of electing a (REPUBLICAN/DEMOCRAT) to high office has actually not quite materialized.

We will see that electing a Republican did NOT actually lead us straight to a fascist state run by self-enriching oligarchs. We will also see that electing a Democrat did not – in fact – kill the economy, roll out the Welcome mat to bands of bloodthirsty terrorists, or usher in the new age of socialism.

Yes, we will all pause and realize that the vicious attacks unleashed in the campaigns were not REALLY serious charges. They were all “just kidding.”

But I can’t help but wonder; what is the price we pay for listening to this non-stop venom, in terms of the health of our nation’s soul?

All throughout the Bible, we see that it has some strong words to say about… strong words. Jesus, for example, said, “I tell you, on the Day of Judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned.”(Matthew 12:36-38, NRSV)

James, Jesus’ brother, warned us about the dangers of the human tongue: “… but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it, we bless the Lord and Father, and with it, we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.”(James 3:8-9, NRSV).

Lord, as I listen to the election returns, help me be humble in victory and gracious in defeat. And help me – and ALL of us – heal from the wounds inflicted over the past few months.

Remind me that red or blue, left or right, you call me to love as you love.

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Posts Tagged ‘health

Getting Uncomfortable

“We’re All In This Together!”

Frozen People

The real emergency

Where is the Justice?

“Just Kidding!”

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