Next Sunday we will check in to the hotel across from Baylor and early Monday morning Dale will have another surgery, this time hopefully to reverse what they had to do previously. We would appreciate prayers for success, for an uncomplicated surgery and a complete recovery.

It’s beea a very long time since I have written any personal updates but it’s been a helluva year or three so maybe it’s time.

I was fortunate to retire before Covid hit and it was beyond time. I was physically tired and not working under ideal conditions. My work ethic was at odds with the status quo and I spent a lot of time angry and tired. It was a blessing to leave it behind when I did. My own health became a problem and dealing with a chronic condition makes me so relieved that I retired when I did.

We survived covid though I went a little crazy and lost friends. Politics are now like something out of a futuristic novel I would have read in high school only the circus that is going on is not the future and it isn’t fiction.

I will never forget that I got shingles the day before the world shut down. Our little country church managed to figure out live streaming very quickly and I worked the phone lines using my own phone number if necessary to get all our folks vaccinated. We also live streamed Celebrate Recovery but it just is not the same and isolation was not a good thing for some folks. We kept the food pantry going. Just utilized the drive through and social distanced. Clients could pull up under the portico and we would load their care and off they went. We served anywhere from 40 to 60 families once a month.

There is now a thing called Christian Nationalism which is completely incomprehensible but no one asked me. I find it worrisome and even some of my family seems to live on another planet than I do. Some Methodist churches are disaffiliating because they are afraid a gay person might serve in the pulpit. In the grand scheme of things it feels like there is so much more to worry about than that.

I have calmed down publicly about all of that because color me shocked, arguing on social media doesn’t change anyone’s mind. I honestly think I was in a state of extended shock and finally just got so very tired of it all.

I have learned more about white privilege and like all the other things we have given names to, I try to understand and just be kind.

People are now concerned about choosing their pronouns and there is an entire alphabet now to describe a person’s sexual orientation. I’m 68. I don’t want to know about what you do in private. Don’t care. Don’t really understand why other people care. Be kind . That is all.

We left cable behind and stream tv now. We watch a lot of British TV and also Dale’s favorite old shows like Andy of Mayberry. The best part has been that I have to intentionally go looking for the news. It no longer runs my life in the morning, at mealtime, and before bed. I am a lot calmer because of that.

People are doing something called “deconstructing” their faith. I think it’s an unfortunate choice of wording much like defunding the police. It seems like we make up words and phrases to make people mad on purpose. Defunding was not actually defunding, but reallocating money to people trained to deal with situations that police were not trained to do. People are not really deconstructing their faith so much as they are taking a closer look at the faith they have allowed others to tell them they have and rebuilding their faith from their own reading and study. I believe that the mainstream churches are in a liminal time and my prayer is that when the dust settles, we will all be better for it albeit the growing pains will not be pleasant.

Dale had two major back to back surgeries and in the middle of that were several visits to the ER at downtown Baylor where we waited 8 hours to be seen. There is an erosion of thoroughness in medical care since covid. Staffing issues and burn out I am sure contribute but when you are a complicated patient it becomes so important to have an advocate. Dealing with multiple specialists who seem unable or unwilling to communicate with each other, nearly killed Dale. He was septic twice. When he finally got to come home, I had to have a steroid shot to calm down m immune system because it went crazy and I broke out in something like hives. There was a lot of care to be done when he got home and I felt very unqualified. Then after all of my being careful, we ended up with cover that I am pretty sure we contracted at the hospital. My fear was always Dale being immune suppressed but he was barely symptomatic. felt more like allergies. I thought I had the flu.

I managed to not kill him and he is doing better but it’s been a journey and a struggle to continue to have a little bit of a life in the midst.

I have been steadily working on decluttering the house. The pregnancy center store in town has been the beneficiary of many boxes. I start a box and when it gets filled I move it to the trunk of my car. When the trunk gets full I make a delivery. I don’t know if we will remain in this house. We have looked around because the yard and home maintenance have become more difficult to keep up with. Then there are taxes and insurance. Unfortunately there do not seem to be any good and reasonable alternatives. We did a lot of work on this place during covid. Living blocks from Home Depot, we could mask up and be there when the door opened and get what we needed for whatever project and slip out before people who were “not living in fear” showed up.

I have lost touch with some old friends, but gained some new ones that have created a circle of support that has helped me survive. If you are an old friend and wander by here, I have not forgotten you. My circle and my world has just gotten smaller. I’m still here. I think I have come to realize that getting older means that many things that used to seem important, no longer do. But friends are always important.

Several years ago, while cover was still running rampant but teachers were having to return to teaching, I determined to pray a friend through the school year. It turned into me reading and praying over a verse or few verses at a time. posting it to social media and texting it to my group of friends in the morning has kept me accountable and as someone who is extremely good at starting things but not so good at finishing, I have made it nearly to the end of Isaiah. It has been my faith “construction” I have been a lay speaker at our church for several years now. First Sunday of the month is usually my slot though I have gotten to fill in, in a pinch on other Sundays. Following the lectionary and my daily readings has created growth. So often I have had to go back and reread something because I had either 1. Never read a piece of text before or 2. skimmed and not got the entire text in context. It’s been an eye opening experience.

It’s time for bed. I will rub my knees with cbd lotion and read a little bit of Richard Rohr’s Breathing Under Water and then some fiction on my kindle. I’m writing on my poor 2008 Macbook which randomly hiccups and goes to the login screen so i have been backing up important files. I bought her used and she has served me well, but like me, she is showing her age.

Goodnight folks. Be kind.

God you are faithful. You keep your promises. Teach us to be patient and to remember  that things happen in Your time, not ours. Help us to learn when action is needed by us and when we are to leave it in Your hands and just wait and trust. Amen

Dear God, You who controls the elements, paints rainbows in the sky, sends doves to show us there is safety in you, may we learn to trust that even when you ask us to do things that seem crazy (like building a huge boat in the desert) or things that make others think WE are crazy, that if we are obedient, you will eventually bring us home and we will see that rainbow and remember that you are always always faithful. Amen