Read my introduction to Sarah from yesterday.

Sarah may or may not interact with the comments. It might be a little much for her. But I think she will read them.

*****

During Thomas’s illness, we have been cared for by a lot of people of faith. Of course they are burdened with sadness for us and for Thomas. There is a secondary grief, however, that seems to flicker behind our saddest conversations. Questions like, “Why weren’t our prayers answered?” or “Why won’t God make Thomas better?” are unsaid but present.

Those are good questions, ones that theologians have been arguing over for hundreds of years. I don’t have any good answers, but I’ve had a lot of bad ones suggested to me since Thomas became ill. There are a couple theories that I pretty sure are bull-oney:

Theory #1: “We didn’t pray hard enough / have a good enough attitude / enough faith.” This one makes me the angriest. Half the saints of the South have been praying for us with fasting, alms, and tears. If cancer was a popularity contest, one using prayers or good works as “votes,” Thomas would have won.

Besides, that whole theory puts God in a bad light. It sets God up to say things like, “Sorry, Christian moms in Darfur whose children are stolen, raped, and made into soldiers. You didn’t have enough votes. Your child loses, while all kinds of good and bad parents in the US get to raise their kids in peace.”

Now, I don’t mean to discourage anyone from praying. I just think that, at best, the process of being healed is a mystery. It always has been. The Bible says Jesus was a healer, it’s true. But if you read those stories as examples of Jesus rewarding people for extraordinary faith or good works, I think you’re reading wrong. The hero of those stories is Jesus, not the heal-ee.

Before evangelicalism evolved in the US in the 19th century, Christians believed that Christ identified most with those who were suffering. They believed – Theory #2 - that suffering deepened our humanity and thus our identification with Christ. I believe that suffering simply sucks, but at least this is one theory that doesn’t blame the victim.

The main trouble I have with Theory #2 is that it quickly warps into Theory #3: “God makes you suffer so He can teach you something.” Lord, I hope not.

I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons through the joyful events in my life. I also grew up believing that God was the source of creativity and wisdom. Theory # 3 would have me believe that God is slowly and painfully killing my son just to teach Thomas or the people who love him a lesson. I’m not buying it.

Sure, we’ve learned some things during this time. We’ve learned how to give intravenous meds; how to identify pain in an unconscious or sleeping child; how to make very, very sad phone calls. But there are plenty of people up at Children’s hospital who know these things and whose kids are going to get better, or who simply read about them in their medical text books. Suffering happens, and you learn things. But it’s clear that each can happen separately as well.

I’m obviously not going to wrap up the arguments over theodicy here. But what I do know for certain is that most people, religious and irreligious, are uncomfortable sitting with grief. I sure am. I’d rather believe anything else than the truth: this is happening; I can’t stop it; it’s going to hurt.

So this is my theory: Death is a mystery. Even for those who believe we’ll meet again in the sky, suffering and death are scary and sad. A thousand years may be a day for God; but for you and me, the space between the difficult now and the glorious hereafter is an awfully long time.

Interestingly, my bravest friends, be they Christian pastors or confirmed heathens, have tended to explain the least. Instead, they have quietly anointed us with their kindnesses. They have prepared meals for us in the presence of our bitter enemy. They are holding our hands as we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

They have been, I mean, like Christ. We’re all scared as hell, but I think this is the best we can do.

Sarah Bickle

I met Sarah McManus when she was in 8th grade. This would have 1990 or 91. I was invited by THE David Gentiles, to whom “Blue Like Jazz” was dedicated, to come to the church where he was the youth minister and participate in a weekend Bible study. I was the leader for the 8th graders.

Sarah was tall, with thick, beautiful, red hair. She was so peppy and full of energy. She ran around the house in her socks that weekend, as often as not on her tip-toes. Here is how I interpret her walking on her toes: There was so much energy and excitement wanting to burst out of this child that she couldn’t keep her heels on the floor. She was the perfect Anne of Green Gables, and I told her so. If L.M. Montgomery’s work hadn’t come first, I would have sworn she modeled the character on Sarah.

The next year I came back for the Bible study weekend and was assigned the 9th graders, so I had a second weekend with Sarah and her friends. Then our churches went to the same youth camp a couple of years, so I saw her during the summers. After that we loosely kept up with each other. By the time she was in college, email had come into its own, and we exchanged them now and again. I was always charmed by her intelligence, her passion for life, and by her sincere desire that her Christianity be a serious life journey and not just a cultural label.

Sarah met Scott in college. They married and she became Sarah Bickle. As I got to know Scott I could see that he was the right man for her. They lived here and there, ending up in Dallas. Sometimes Sarah and Scott would spend the night at our house if they were in town. We had children, and they would watch us put them to bed and do various parenting things. I imagine they were wondering what it would be like when they had children of their own.

Sarah sent me an email when she got pregnant. I rejoiced along with all of her friends and waited during the pregnancy.

His name is Thomas, and he is the first-born child of Sarah and Scott. It looked like things were working out just as I hoped they would. Sarah and Scott were young and happy. They were throwing themselves into life and parenting.

And then came the news that Thomas had a brain tumor. The news was a terrible shock to all of us that know and love Sarah and Scott and Thomas. What followed was two years of treatment and hopes and disappointments and financial struggle and pain. They take turns. One works and the other stays home with Thomas. They have lived on prayers and desperation and the unexplainable energy that mothers and fathers have when their child is sick. Nothing matters but doing everything for Thomas that can be done. All else has been put on hold.

They have tried everything, but in the end it appears that cancer will end Thomas’ life just as it was getting started. They have stopped treating his illness and are seeking to give Thomas the best life possible while there is time.

Life knows nothing of fairness. I don’t mean that life understands fairness and rejects it. I mean that fairness has no part in life unless you or I are imposing it. Humans want fairness and sometimes work for it, but it is no part of the natural order. That’s one of the reasons why believing in a just and loving God is so hard for many of us.

Because God had not forced fairness on life and nature, there will always be families like the Bickles who endure unthinkable tragedy and hardship. Parents who are losing a child live in a world that is unknown to those of us who have not. No one knows this terrible journey but those who have taken it. There have been times when I was talking to Sarah on the phone and my inability to say anything was painful to me. What can you say to this mother? To this father?

Sarah sent me something that she wrote. I asked her if I could post it here because her words are important. No one dares write about such things except someone who has lived them. I’ve had a few people stand in for me as guest bloggers. Maybe two or three. Sarah was the first one back in 2005. I looked at what she wrote here in 2005 and realized that she was pregnant with Thomas at that time.

Tomorrow Sarah will be a guest blogger here. I will offer no comment or addition to her words. I only wish that Sarah be heard.

rlp

Visit the Thomas Bickle blog.

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post. Due to a clerical error, I was without my depression medication for a time. I tried to pay attention to what was happening to me so that I could describe it clearly.

Calling it depression was a mistake from the beginning. What does that mean, exactly? Depression. My grandfather didn’t call it anything. He was just moody and lost his temper sometimes. When he was in “one of his moods” you stayed away from him. And when he got one of his “sick headaches,” he just endured it.

My mother never called it anything either. She had sick headaches too, and would go to bed with them. Sometimes her face would be slack and show no emotion. You sometimes saw that in photographs. Then she started slowly pulling away from everyone. At holidays you would see her in another room sitting quietly on the couch. If you went in there she would try her best to engage you and be a good mother. She would ask questions and talk to you, but you could tell she wanted to be alone so badly that it made her jittery.

Then there were phone calls where she would talk so fast you couldn’t keep up. And dad told us of nights where she stayed up cleaning the house, happy as a lark, laughing, thrilled to be alive. She would hardly sleep.

And then one of those highs caused her to have a psychotic break from reality. She didn’t know any of us or who she was. She went to a hospital, and they named it. They gave this demon a name. Bipolar Disorder, the doctor said. My mother started taking medicine, and it was like she had been born again.

In my case it was the sick headaches - the migraines - that got my attention. There were other physical symptoms. And I had become withdrawn and uninterested in life. My family noticed that part; I didn’t. It happens gradually. The doctor gave me medication, and it was like being born again. I remember thinking, “Oh yeah, I remember that this is how I used to feel and think.”

It was absolutely wonderful to be living again. And it’s been great all along. I’ve never stopped taking the medication.

So what do you want to call this thing? Depression? Depletion? Mental and emotional dysfunction sounds like it fits my experience. People who suffer from the many emotional disorders that we put in the category of depression often have a hard time describing what is happening to them. What follows will be my attempt to describe my emotional and mental state when I’m not being aided by medication. This is fresh on my mind, having spent some days without any medication recently because of a problem with insurance. This was actually good for me. I had been wondering if I really needed to be taking the medication.

Last week, as my Wellbutrin dwindled, I waited to see if I would feel a sudden mood drop. I did not. What happened was a gradual loss of interest and emotion. As I think about it now, I wonder if what I experience with depression is something like the experience of a psychopath. I can’t love anyone. I can’t feel any love for another person. It’s like someone removed that part of my brain.

This is a marker for me: When my depression has gotten me into a bad place, I don’t want to be around my children. I don’t want them touching me. I don’t want anyone touching me. I don’t want to look people in the eyes. Any kind of social interaction causes levels of discomfort you might expect if you were asked to walk into a ballroom in your underwear and start talking to people. You don’t want to be there. If forced to go into the ballroom in your underwear and talk to people, you can do it. But you hate it, and you can’t wait for it to end so you can just go home.

It’s kind of like that, only there is no good reason for me to isolate myself. I’m not being asked to go to a ballroom in my underwear. My daughter just wants to hug me and sit close to me on the couch. The people at church just want to talk. Normal stuff.

All of my desire goes away. Everything inside me that I identify with Gordon seems to wither. I have a good sense of humor, and I like to laugh. Nothing is funny. I’m passionate and curious and want to know about everything. All of that is gone. I adore my children and love to hug them and talk with them and be with them. They become like someone else’s children who have been in my house too long.

I can’t feel any familiar emotions. I force myself to go on living. I do all the things I need to do. But eventually the emotional stress of it causes me to despair. I start to panic and feel what I can only describe as a deep, hopeless despair.

You see, you need the emotions and feelings that you are accustomed to. Whatever yours are, you need them. You must have them. We are emotional, relational beings. To rip away a person’s ability to feel and interact is a violent thing.

When I’m down, my wife is the only person I can be with and feel no aversion. But I don’t feel love for her. I know intellectually that I love her, but I can’t feel it. The piece I wrote recently called “If Only” was an essay that got away from me. I wrote it as the Wellbutrin was coming to an end. I started with one thing, and I ended up writing about what it is to feel love for my wife. I couldn’t feel love, so I tried to write love. When I was done I knew the piece had started out as one thing and turned into something else. I could have torn it apart and made two things. But some instinct in me said to leave it alone. So I did.

In the worst of times, I could feel something when writing. That may be why I was so driven to write in the first two years of this blog. I suppose that’s why so much of what I write has a kind of sad, longing, emotional feel. My writing voice has always seemed to connect to people emotionally. Maybe you can feel the hunger and desire in me as I try to write emotions into existence.

So there it is. What can I do about it? That’s how I was feeling by Tuesday night. Empty and dead. Lillian came in to hug me goodnight. I put my arms around her and stared over her shoulder, gritting my teeth. I couldn't wait for it to be over. Now see, that's just not right. That is not me. Lillian is our last little girl. I've been treasuring her hugs, knowing that little girl hugs are just about gone. But Tuesday, I could hardly stand being near her.

I got my Wellbutrin back on Wednesday. It is now Thursday afternoon. I feel my interest in life returning. I’m at the church alone today, and I still want very much to be alone. But I can feel things again. Ironically, one of the first feelings to come rushing back is fear and anxiety. I’m very jittery. I feel like you might feel if you’ve done something wrong.

So I guess I’ll keep taking Wellbutrin. I hope very much not to have to take it for a long time. I don’t know how you stop taking something like this. I take three white pills every morning. Whatever that is doing to me is being done. Whatever that says about me is true. Whatever will happen to me because of this medication is going to happen. Because I don’t know what to do but take the pills.

I like being Gordon very much. And my wife and children love Gordon and want him to be around.

So okay. Give me the pills. I don’t care. I’ll do anything.

rlp

More insurance insanity. I don’t know if anyone is interested in what I’m writing. It’s all I can think about today. Maybe it’s a good case study. Our insurance situation is so complex that I can’t explain it fully here. The short version is that my wife no longer has a job, so we’ve been using the COBRA law to keep our health insurance with Humana, the insurance company used by her former employer. The COBRA law says that you must be allowed to keep your insurance for 18 months after you leave a job or lose a job.

At one point it seemed that I was going to have to leave Humana and lose my mental health benefits. That’s when I told you that I was trying to figure out how to buy Wellbutrin, the drug I take for depression, online.

This is one of the hard things about trying to figure out insurance. Things change all the time. Jeanene had to break away from our family plan because she needed some yearly examinations. We were worried that if the doctors found anything, she wouldn’t be able to get insurance later, when we have to leave Humana. Technically that’s true for all of us. However, my middle daughter has no other option but to remain with Humana until that coverage runs out. We’ve decided it makes better sense for me to stay on that plan with her and the other two girls. So I’ll have mental health benefits for another year or so. That means I can buy Wellbutrin with a reasonable co-payment.

Now there has been a colossal SNAFU with our insurance company. When Jeanene left Humana in March, they mistakenly cancelled the policy for our entire family. No one told us. We got no cancellation notice. I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription two weeks ago and was told that my insurance had been cancelled. I knew a mistake had been made because we’ve never been late with a payment.

As I continue with this story, keep that in mind. We’ve paid these people. They have our money.

You would think this would be a simple matter to fix. I would call Humana and the Humana person would say, “I’m sorry Mr. Atkinson. You’ve paid us. Let me update the computer...done. You’re covered again.”

Only this is the world of insurance in the United States. Even if you pay them, nothing is easy or simple.

You see, with COBRA there is often a third-party involved. In our case, a company called Conexis collects our insurance payment, then notifies Humana that we have paid. This is because most employers don’t want to handle the insurance paperwork for people who no longer work for them. I certainly don’t blame them for that.

In theory, Conexis’ job seems easy enough. We pay them our health insurance premium online. They notify Humana that we have paid and our insurance continues.

Apparently this transaction isn’t so simple.

The first thing we did when we heard our insurance was cancelled was to call Humana. The person we spoke with couldn’t explain anything. She simply said that our insurance had been cancelled back in March. (We've deduced that all of this happened when Jeanene left our family insurance. Humana has never been clear about that.)

“But we’ve been paying all along. We paid for March and April.”

“Well, then Conexis hasn’t been notifying us of those payments. We have no record of them.”

Ah, so it’s the fault of Conexis. We called them with what seemed like a reasonable question. “Why have you been taking our online payments and not notifying Humana to that effect?” They didn’t dispute that we had paid. They said, “But we HAVE been notifying Humana. Humana does this all the time. We notify them, but they don’t update their system. Then your insurance gets cancelled.”

Okay, so it’s Humana’s fault. We called them back.

“No no no,” Humana said. “We have no record that Conexis has contacted us. Conexis does this all the time. You need to contact Conexis and demand that they do an emergency notification update. They will email us a record of your payment, and your insurance will be re-instated in 72 hours.

“72 hours? All of this is done by computer and email but it will take you 72 hours?”

“Sorry,” the Humana person said. “That’s the way the system works.”

So we called Conexis, angry now. They denied that the problem was on their end. “We’ve sent them the update,” they said.

“Okay fine, whatever. Will you just send it again?” They agreed. The Conexis rep said, “You know it will take Humana about 72 hours to get this updated. There’s nothing we can do about that.”

“Yeah, so we heard.”

Four days later I called the pharmacy, hoping to be able to pick up my prescription. I was informed that Humana was still denying that we we had insurance with them. By this time I had run out of Wellbutrin.

We called Conexis once again.

“Well, we notified Humana,” they said defensively, You know it sometimes takes up to 72 hours for the system to update.”

“Yes, so we’ve been told. But it’s been four days. Are you sure you notified them?”

“Absolutely. They’ve been notified of your payment. It’s their fault.”

We called Humana. They denied getting any notification from Conexis. “Call them back and ask them if they sent us an edi form by email. That’s what they’re supposed to send us. Now keep in mind that when we finally do get it, it will be...”

“We know. 72 hours.”

Okay, I think that’s probably enough. You get the picture. Let me go on record and say that I think this whole 72 hours thing is pure bullshit. It gives everyone a nice excuse. The people who are supposed to send notices can just tell you they were sent, but the system hasn’t been updated. You wait three or four days and then are told the notice was never sent. Do you see how this can drag on for weeks? In our case, 2 weeks.

AND ALL THIS TIME, THEY HAD OUR MONEY!

It’s funny, at times I felt like I hadn’t paid them. I felt like I was asking these people to do me a favor. And that’s how a lot of the people at Humana and Conexis talk to you. Like this is somehow your fault. We’ve paid them thousands of dollars over the last half a year, and this is how they treat us?

Meanwhile I was out of Wellbutrin and my daughter, whose medication is much more critical, was down to two days supply.

You know, I had been wondering if I really needed to be on Wellbutrin. When you’re on a medication for depression, sometimes you wonder what would happen if you just stopped taking it. I found out. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow. It’s a whole story of its own.

For today, let me say that Jeanene and I dedicated Monday and Tuesday to getting this worked out. Two educated adults, determined and intelligent, working diligently to get to the bottom of things, took two entire days to get one company to notify another company that we had paid them two weeks ago.

It’s insane, I tell you. Insanity. Do you know how we solved this problem? We took names and notes. We stopped asking if “they” had sent things and demanded to know who sent them, when, and to what email address. If we talked to someone we found out their name and their phone extension. If that person said, “This will be done in an hour or so,” in an hour or so we called them back. Every time. We badgered them and would not go away. With both of us tag-teaming on the phones, it took two full days for Humana to update our records to show that we had indeed paid them two weeks before.

This morning at 11:00 am, our insurance was reinstated. I drove straight to the Walgreens Pharmacy, got my medication, and took a dose. It will take a few days for this medication to get back into my system, but at least I have medication for the next month.

So what actually happened? There’s no way to tell for sure. We think that when Humana mistakenly cancelled our family policy, they notified Conexis but Conexis did not tell us, and they continued to take our money. This is one of the crazy things about the system. If you are one day late with a payment, alarms go off up and down the computer network. Everyone from Humana to Walgreens immediately knows that your insurance has lapsed. On the other hand, if they cancel your policy by mistake, somehow you can continue to make payments online and no one notices or says anything. If I hadn’t had to buy medication, how long do you suppose Conexis would have continued to take our money in spite of the fact that our policy had been cancelled?

I’m guessing they would have taken every penny until one of us got sick and found out in the emergency room that we had no insurance.

Note: The reason this isn't criminal is that the insurance company agrees that when you finally get it worked out, you are covered retroactively. So if one of us had gotten sick during this time, we would have eventually been reimbursed. So legally, they are fine. In the meantime, people who need medicine run out while they get jerked around by these companies.

One last thing.

Our next payment is due April 30th. We’ll pay them before the due date. However, if there is any mistake on their end, if Conexis does not notify Humana, or if Humana gets the notification but does not update their system, our policy will be cancelled. When you're on COBRA, they cancel you the day after your payment is due. There is no grace. If anything goes wrong, we’ll be doing this all over again.

The good news is, we understand the system now, and we have a bunch of names, phone numbers, and email addresses. If we have any trouble, I bet we can get it worked out in, I don't know, 72 hours or so.

rlp

When a person dies, there is a sudden collapse of all that they knew. The complex and fragile framework of their worldview, which is a unique thing in all the universe, drops to the ground like the contents of a pricked water balloon. The depth of that loss is incomprehensible.

What is left after death are ghost-like shreds of your personality that live in the memories of those who knew you. Some warped version of you exists in the stories and the sorrow. And then those stories fade. The last to go are the memories of the one who loved you the most. Those memories are twisted and contorted into comforting shapes that he or she clings to for comfort. And then your beloved dies, and you are lost along with everything else that disappears in that terrible event.

After that is only what the children remember. It’s not much when compared to the fullness of a life. And when those children die, there is only a name or maybe a faint memory on someone’s family tree.

On a day and in a moment that no one knows, the last memory of you winks out of existence with the death of the last person who knew your name. And then it is as if you never lived. You join the ranks of the billions of humans who have walked this planet, living and loving and dying. Some were saints who lived and loved and died well. Others not so much. Some were scoundrels. All are forgotten.

It seems to me that the whole world would collapse if I were to die. How could things go on? How could the world continue without my worldview propping it up, explaining it, and giving it a purpose?

I look at the people around me, my friends and acquaintances. I cannot know them. They are walking mysteries. What they flash on their billboard faces or what words are released from their inner pravda is all that I can know. For a brief moment I want to know everyone. I want to see the world with everyone’s eyes. For one, brief, god-wish moment. And then I settle back into reality. After all, I’ve come to love your billboard and your pravda. You take what you can get, right?

But there is one desire I have that cannot be sated. It cannot be satisfied, and it will not go away. It is a terrible loneliness to look into the eyes of the one you love and understand that you will never truly know her. You may know her better than anyone ever will, but you cannot know her. Her eyes are the windows of a strange, two-legged vessel that walks this earth for its alloted time. You stumble alongside her for years, but you may do nothing more than look into those eyes and hear again her best attempts to explain what goes on in her heart.

My wife’s chocolate brown eyes look like they were transplanted from her father’s face. She honors him by carrying those eyes for one more generation. The pure singleness of their color and the way she looks at you with no shame makes you know that you can trust her. You think she must be a gentle soul. These are things that anyone can know.

When I look into her eyes I bring something more to the experience. I know her life and her history and her ways. I remember her young heart, the one she had when we met at college. I remember her bouncing ponytail and purple pants. I remember her fears and joys as a young woman in seminary. I have seen her give birth three times and watched those children nurse at her breasts. I know her fierce integrity and her unwillingness to give up her innocence, which she holds just as fiercely. I know that she is what we call, “a good person.” She wants goodness in the world. Truly wants it for herself and others. I know these things about her. I know more about Jeanene Atkinson than anyone else in the world ever will.

I have watched her age slowly over the years, softening, the skin around her eyes sagging a bit. The eyes themselves have not changed at all. Eyes are timeless in that way.

And now, God help me, she has a small pair of reading glasses that she shakes open sometimes and perches upon her nose. If I pull up a chair beside her I can watch her eyes darting back and forth, missing nothing in the fine print. Nothing but the truth will do for her, no matter how hard that truth may be. No skimming the words and wishing. Then she turns and her chin drops and her brown eyes look at me over the tops of those glasses. In that moment all the things I know about her press themselves together and try to force their way into my heart all at once. The cuteness of it. Adorable. Precious. Beyond words. It hurts.

I want to stand at attention, draw my sword, and say, “I would die for you, my lady.” I want to run circles around the couch with my arms out like airplane wings, shouting “Look at me. I love you more than anyone ever did.” I want to pull those eyes close, and everyone go away. Go away! How dare you be here. How dare the earth and time hold anything but this moment. And I think this moment is owed to us, that the world should stop and there be nothing for as long as we need there to be nothing. And if time moves on and those eyes return to that paper, I feel that I’ve lost something which, in truth, I never had. And it’s the saddest, loneliest thing to know it.

God, I wish I could get behind those eyes. Settle into the driver’s seat and connect the wires to little electrode pads all over my body. I want to feel her woman heart. I want to know what it means to be her. What does this woman feel and think? More importantly, how does she feel and think? Could I take the knowledge all at once? Would I shiver, hold the sides of my head, and burst into tears? Does it take a long time to learn how to live with a woman’s heart?

I can only imagine.

For now, there will be nothing but those eyes lifting above her glasses and the coy smile she has because she knows what those glasses do to me. For now, only her face with its thousands of movements that I parse and struggle to translate. For now, only language, which is such a crude instrument. Words are rusty, jagged, pig-iron tongs fumbling for purchase in the liquid silk of her soul.

For now, what love I have to give. Faith and hope will tear you apart with the rawness of their desire. But for now remains love, which is the greatest and only-est thing we have.

rlp

For J9, only mine

The letter begins as follows:

RE: Your letter, received April Fools' Day

Dear Monster Lawyers,

Let me begin by stating, without equivocation, that I have no interest whatsoever in infringing upon any intellectual property belonging to Monster Cable. Indeed, the less my customers think my products resemble Monster's, in form or in function, the better.

It gets better. And, with the power of Google and blogs, perhaps this letter will become well known and used as a resource by any of the small companies that Monster Cable tries to bully in the future.

Background here
Letter here

Enjoy

rlp

We have a good number of snakes in Texas, though I’ve only had run-ins with a few of them. Luckily, I know just enough about snakes to keep myself reasonably safe.

There are four poisonous snakes in Texas: The Copperhead, the Cotton Mouth (Water Moccasin), the Rattlesnake, and the Coral Snake. The first three are easy to spot because they have the classic, triangular head common to many venomous snakes. You don’t really have to know any more than that here in Texas. If you see a snake with a head that in any way resembles a triangle, run like hell, dumbass!

Now the Coral Snake is a little more difficult to spot. It does not have a triangular head. It has red, black, and yellow stripes. The harmless King Snake also has red, black and yellow stripes, but they are in a different order. Luckily there is a handy little poem to help you keep this straight.

Red touches yellow, kill a fellow.
Red touches black, venom lack.

In my case I’m afraid that in the heat of the moment I might get the poem wrong and say something like:

Red touches black, step back Jack.
Red touches yellow, step up and say hello.

To avoid a potential problem, I simplified the poem to a haiku.

If you see a snake
With stripes red, yellow, and black.
Run like hell, dumbass!

Some years ago, when there were only two sisters and they were both in elementary school, I stepped out the front door and found a full-grown, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake right there on my front porch. I didn’t see him at first. I stretched and yawned, then looked to the side and saw him coiled up about two feet from me.

I’m sorry, were you using this porch?

I leapt inside, spooking both girls. “What’s wrong?” they shouted.

“There’s a Rattlesnake on the front porch.”

Let’s agree that these symbols represent the sound of two girls shrieking and running around in a mad panic:

&*%$#@!*$!

I have created a page with the dates and details for the upcoming Franciscan retreats at our church this summer. Originally we had a date in July, but we had to change it to the last weekend of June. Paul Soupiset was not able to be there in July. He's our musician/artist and pretty much indispensable.

We can only take 20 people at each retreat. There were a lot more than 60 who expressed interest. Of course, expressing interest and actually buying a plane ticket are two different things. Still, if you really want to come, you might consider signing up pretty quickly.

But don't worry. If this is well received, I'm sure we'll do it again.

rlp

I have to point to some excellent writing that I've found recently around the blog world. I haven't mentioned this much, but I work with Christian Century on a theological blog network that we've started. Take a look at the four pieces featured today:

Larry Vaughan, wounded ex-pastor turned mental health professional blew me away with his last two pieces. This guy is a SERIOUSLY talented writer. You don't want to miss him. Adam Copeland actually lowered a coffin into a grave during a funeral in Scotland. Why did we stop doing that here? And Christopher Breedlove tells us the story behind a Pulitzer prize winning photograph.

Finally, Carl Holmes reveals the secret behind some mysterious flowers growing in front of a church in India.

Great stuff.

rlp

Permanent links to the CCblogs pieces

Larry Vaughan 1 and 2
Adam Copeland
Christopher Breedlove

I've begun a writing project for The High Calling for which I'm going to write about every job I've ever had. Well, I'm starting with my first job and working my way from there. Who knows how far I will ultimately get. The High Calling Blog Network is seeking stories of lessons learned in odd jobs. You can read about that here.

I grew up in a working family, and I began working in 6th grade. Along the way I've done everything from bagging groceries to driving forklifts.

The professional writing I do for The High Calling is a little different from the free-wheeling style of rlp. For one thing, I'm searching for the lessons in the stories.

Here is the first. The second is done, submitted, and will be online soon.

My First Job

In the summer of 1974, just after I completed the sixth grade, my father came home with a box of business cards for me. They read:

Gordon Atkinson
Lawn Care
497-2862

I thought it was pretty cool to be 12-years-old and have my own business cards. But when he told me that I had to walk around the neighborhood passing them out, I must admit that my excitement lessened considerably. Click here to read more.

Insurance Update:
First, a quick thank you to everyone who had suggestions for buying Wellbutrin online. I have a number of good leads, and I’m sure I’ll find something that works. Looks like any number of Canadian sites sell a month’s worth of my meds for $60 to $100. I’ll be working on finding the one to use today.

Again, thanks to everyone for your concern, suggestions, and thoughts.

Retreat News:
Regarding the Franciscan retreats that I wrote about recently. Here are the three dates. Tim and I looked carefully at the makeup of people who might want to come. We briefly considered having a retreat just for people who do not identify as Christians. But, as we thought more about that, we asked, “Why?” There wasn’t a good answer to that question.

So the retreat dates are as follows.

---June 6-8
---July 11-13
---August 8-10 (Clergy Retreat)

The first two weekends are open to anyone who wants to come. Clergy, laity, agnostic, don’t know who you are, you have your own religion that you made up in 1987...anyone.

The third weekend will be a clergy retreat. And I think we won’t define what we mean by clergy. So if you consider yourself to be clergy, whether Christian or other, you’re invited to the third weekend.

THIS IS IMPORTANT: Don’t get a plane ticket yet. I’ll have details up by tomorrow with registration information, a tentative schedule, and some other information.

Paul Soupiset has a set of pictures from our first Franciscan retreat. I was at SXSW that weekend. Grrr! This will give you a feel for how we will be together on these weekends.

Animals at our church:

Deer by the front porch - Sunday morning

Animals and children keep us honest at church. Or perhaps I should say they do not let us forget who we are, nor nature of the world we occupy. There are lots of critters around our church, being in the woods as we are. Their behavior may or may not be convenient to us.

Buzzard on the Sign

Yes, nothing says welcome to our church quite like a buzzard hanging over the church sign on a Sunday morning. The picture is rather blurry. It was taken at a distance. Buzzards are extremely skittish, and it’s hard to get close to them. I’ve decided to call this particular buzzard Tertullian. Not that I can pick him out of a crowd fluttering around a carcass.

I did notice attendance was very low on that Sunday. Do you think there might be a connection?

Spider on the Guest Book

Or, if our buzzard sign doesn’t frighten you off, perhaps the little card inviting you to sign our visitors book will give you pause.

Maybe I should just hang a sign over the door that says, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Raccoon Buffet

Then there are the raccoons. Eight generations of local raccoons have decided that our dumpster is their own personal buffet. We throw the refuse from our church meals away. They break in, feast all night, drag trash out of the dumpster, and strew it about the parking lot. Some Sundays, if I pull into the parking lot well before dawn, my headlights reveal the lid of the dumpster raising slightly and glowing eyes staring back at me. I hit the gas and speed wildly toward the dumpster, laughing as they dive over the edge and head for the safety of the woods.

I love the raccoons. They make a mess, but we are are the ones who have intruded upon their world.

rlp

I need some help from anyone out there who knows about buying drugs online. Here’s the situation:

Some months ago I wrote about our situation with health insurance. My wife left her job, and we foolishly thought we’d be able to get insurance. After all, we felt like we were pretty healthy people.

That’s when we found out the truth. If you work for a company with group insurance, you’ve got it made. As long as you stay employed and insured, the insurance companies have to cover you, even if you have pre-existing conditions. If you lose your job you have something like 60 days to find another one with insurance benefits and jump onto their group policy. That new policy must cover you and your family with all of your pre-existing conditions.

However, people who are self employed, disabled, unemployed, laid off, or work for a company without health care benefits are on their own. Being on your own is not a good thing. You’re at the mercy of the insurance companies. They can turn you down for any reason or limit your coverage if they even suspect you might have a health issue.

And believe me, they will call your doctor and found out everything. The people you deal with when you try to get individual health insurance are paid to find reasons to turn you down. That’s their job.

Unfortunately, every company we contacted turned down me and our middle daughter Shelby. Me because I take Wellbutrin. Shelby because she had some emotional troubles and spent some days in a psych unit in 2007. She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and put on medication. She’s done wonderfully ever since, and we’re thankful to have had that time at the psych unit. It saved her life. (She’s fine with me telling you this)

In desperation we contacted a health insurance specialist who explained things to us. “Shelby is uninsurable,” he said. “Forget about her. She’ll never get health insurance.”

“Can’t she get some kind of insurance that wouldn’t cover her for any mental health issues?”

“Nope. She’s not going to get any insurance of any kind as long as she’s taking her medication.”

“That puts us in a hard place,” I said. “If she stops taking that medicine she’ll fall back into that horrible state that she was in. The medicine helps her.”

“I know it,” he said. “But that’s the way it is. You best just forget about her being able to get insurance. Put it out of your mind. No insurance company will touch her with a ten foot pole. You’ll need to keep her on your wife’s old plan with COBRA until that runs out in 18 months. I know it’s expensive, but after that she’ll be eligible for the Texas pool for the uninsurable. But she has to exhaust every other possibility before they will take her, so keep her on COBRA until they kick you off.”

“As for you, Gordon, I know an insurance company that will probably take you. I’ll have to talk to the underwriter, but I can help her understand your situation. You’re not in counseling, are you?”

“No. I’d like to be. Can’t really afford it now that COBRA insurance costs us like $1000 a month!”

“Thank God for that. If you were taking Wellbutrin AND in counseling, I couldn’t help you. That’s the kiss of death.”

“Yeah, but doesn’t counseling actually help people who are depressed? I mean, isn’t that actually a good way for them to get better?”

“Doesn’t matter. The insurance companies don’t like it. They don’t like the sound of someone in counseling AND on medication. It makes it sound like you’re a high risk person.”

“Do you know I’ve never been in the hospital since I was born? And I’ve only missed two days sick at work in 18 years.”

He didn’t look up from his papers. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Now Gordon, understand that if I can get you covered - IF I can - it won’t be with any mental health benefits. That’s over for you. I think I can get you health insurance, but anything having to do with a psychiatrist or any medications like Wellbutrin, well, you’re going to have to pay for those yourself from now on.”

I swallowed hard. “Okay.”

Here's the part where I could use your help:

Does anyone out there know anything about buying drugs online?

I’m about out of Wellbutrin and will have to purchase my first batch myself. I found out that one month’s supply of Wellbutrin is $475 at our local pharmacy.

Yeah, right. I mean, isn’t that just laughable? It’s a handful of little white pills. How is that $475? I’ll tell you how. The drug companies try to soak the insurance companies for money since the insurance companies have to pay. That in part fuels the insurance companies' fears about getting involved with people like my family. Since they have to pay for all the people with group insurance, they are especially fearful about individuals. Again, you’re fine if you have group insurance with a company, but God help you if you don’t have insurance that covers medication, and you have to pay for it yourself.

You don’t even want to know how much Shelby’s medication would cost us. My gosh, it’s not like these pills are made in outer space and flown in on the Space Shuttle.

I’ve heard that you can buy drugs online at a discount from Canada or wherever. I tried to look online, but I have found that the online drug industry is filled with con-artists, counterfeit drugs, and other illegal activities. But I hear there are some legitimate places.

I have to find a place to get my medication at a reasonable price. Does anyone out there have any experience in negotiating the rather frightening world of online drug sales?

Let me know. I have to figure something out pronto, or else I just stop taking this medication. I can’t tell you how much I’d love to stop, but I backed off of it experimentally a few months ago and it wasn’t a good thing.

Waiting to hear from someone....

rlp

I've written rather extensively about my struggles with depression. I’m unhappy about needing Wellbutrin. I’m even a little embarrassed about it. I feel suspicious about the diagnosis process in general. But I can’t argue with the profound difference it has made in my life. I’m a better husband and father with a little help from Wellbutrin.

You know, three years ago my physician said, “You’ve got a chemical imbalance that is causing you all these emotional and physical problems. Here, take these pills."

I didn’t want to, but I did. And it helped. I don’t know that I would have done anything different, but it would have been nice to have known that by taking those medications, I was putting my ability to get health insurance at risk.

The second part of The Other Side" originally appeared here. Both parts are together now. This page has been left in place to preserve the comments.

rlp

I'm going to visit the folks at

The Christian Century
next week. I'll be in downtown Chicago from Monday until Wednesday afternoon.
Tuesday I'll be at Christian Century all afternoon.
I sent an email regarding this to my
subscribers, and it turns out one women is in Chicago and is going to meet me
for lunch on Monday the 7th. I think around noon, but I'll change this entry if
that changes. We're going to meet at
Gold Coast Hot Dog, which is only a block
or so away from The Christian Century. So HEY, if you're in the Chicago area and
want to join S. and I for lunch, meet us at the hot dog place.
Why hot dogs? Well, I hear they have good ones
in Chicago, and I want to find out for myself.
ALSO, I've got quite a bit of free time. I'm
staying right near
Grant Park. I'm planning on walking around
the area on Monday afternoon and evening, and most of the day on Wednesday. Does
anyone have suggestions for some interesting things to see?
And finally, I need to take the Subway from
O'Hare to the Grant Park area when I arrive. I'm assuming I'll find all the
information I need to do this at the airport, but does anyone have any
suggestions? Everything I know about Subways I've learned from violent movies,
so I might need a little guidance.
Looking for a little help from Chicago
people. Leave a comment or send me an email.

Chicago
Regarding the Latest Foy Story
Um, I've never had one this hard to write. The
next encounter with Dwayne has happened, but it's hard to make it go anywhere.
I've written three versions of the event. Something important is going to happen
- I think - but it just hasn't made itself clear yet. So we'll just see. It will
come when it comes.
rlp
 

I do not remember how I found

"Blaugustine," but when I did I became interested in a series of drawings
about her interviews with God. I've kept up with this ongoing series over the
last couple of years. And now, Natalie D'Arbeloff has put them
all together in a book. I'm proud to display her work at my new

Microgallery.

rlp
 

My father believed in work. By believed in work
I mean that he thought my brother and I ought to do a lot of it, starting at a
young age. You know - protestant work ethic kind of stuff, absent the goofy
theology. My dad didn't think God would love us more if we got up early on
Saturday morning to work, but he figured it might make God smile to see it.
So, when I hit the ripe old age of 12, it was
time to go to work. My dad printed up business cards, and I went door-to-door in
the neighborhood looking for lawns to mow during the summer. I had five or six
regular lawns that I mowed each week. I charged $3.00 to mow the front and back
yards, edge, and sweep up. I still have a few of those business cards.

So it was that I embarked on a very interesting
and colorful work career. Until I finally got out of seminary and started
getting paid to be a minister, I was, among other things, a janitor, a security
guard, a forklift operator, a warehouseman, a UPS sorter, and a laborer for an
industrial pipe company in Houston. (Think John Travolta's job in Urban Cowboy)
I sold auto parts, I swung a sledgehammer on a road crew one Texas summer, I
delivered and installed televisions, and I even had the classic paper route.
So it is an interesting turn of events for me
to write for
The High Calling, which is a non-profit
organization here in San Antonio whose only purpose is to get this message out
to Christians:

True Christianity is not about what
happens at church on Sunday morning. Christianity (old school Christianity,
mind you) is lived out each day at the High Calling of your daily work.

If you are serious about the Christ journey,
then your life will change, yes even at your nine-to-five. I wrote Bible studies
for The High Calling last year. You can read them
here. It was okay, but not a perfect fit
for me. But in a month or two, I'm going to delve into the eclectic vault of my
weird work history, and I'm going to write about what I find there. All of these
essays will be housed at the new and improved High Calling website.
Look for the first one in a month or so.
Creative writing is about tapping into your
life and mining it for content and stories. This is a part of my life that I
haven't touched yet. I'm really looking forward to this.

rlp
 

Part One
Doug was carrying a cup of coffee and a legal
pad. He came around a corner and saw Foy.
“Hey Buddy, how’s it going? You gettin
settled?”

There is a very exciting and promising new blog
out there. If you check it out, you will be
among the first to read it. But before I tell you where it is and what it's
about, please allow me a moment or two to talk about my friendship with Hugh
Elliott, the writer behind Standing Room Only,
a blog currently on hiatus.
Hugh and I were both a part of the Salon blog
community. We started our blogs in 2002, he in July and me in December. When I
began Real Live Preacher I was touched by how quickly and completely the Salon
bloggers accepted me into their community. No one was
more welcoming than Hugh Elliott. And that's really something if you consider
that he is a gay man living with AIDS in Los Angeles. We're not the sort of
people who generally hang out together, if you know what I mean?
Hugh was the first person to comment on the

second post ever at Real Live Preacher. The original comments are
still online at the salon server, and you
can hear his welcoming voice even before he knew if I would welcome him back. If you keeping reading the comments, you'll see that Hugh jumped in to
defend me when Raven asked a very straightforward question. It was a mild
confrontation, but there was Hugh - he had my back.
I didn't know how to work the Salon blog
software very well, so I decided I should ask someone. I can see now why I chose
Hugh. He was delighted to help me, and I think our friendship began in earnest
there. I'm a Christian, as you know. Hugh was...uh...well, let's see - a man of
the world, you might say. Been a lot of places and done a lot stuff. Seen a lot
of things. We became friends because we respected each other. And in time we even
came to love one another. I've never met Hugh face-to-face, but I do love him
and cherish his friendship.
It's interesting to me that when I turn off my
conscious mind and write from the gut, Hugh often appears as a symbol of some
kind. He is in this post
and is the friend I write about in this post,
though he is not named. He plays a major role in this two-part fantasy piece.
It ended up in my book.
So that's the story of Hugh and me. Here's the
story of his new blog:
Hugh watched my "How to
Read The Bible" video series and decided he was going to read the
New Testament and Psalms for himself. And now he's decided to blog his way
through this little adventure.
Do you get this? Do you know how interesting
and rare this is? A man with no real adult connection to the Christian Church is
going to read our scriptures and write about what he finds there. This is a
spiritual experience/quest for Hugh, who now calls himself a "Christianist."
(He explains what he means by that on the new blog) He and I are going to
email and talk on the phone during this journey. I guess I'm a kind of guide or
mentor for him in this, but I will definitely only be there to give careful
feedback when asked. I don't want my insider views getting in the way of his
honest writing.
He's no Biblical scholar, so I'm sure there
will be many times when he is very unorthodox. So what? Good! That's what I want
to hear. I want to hear what a gay man in Los Angeles has to say about this
collection of writings that is so precious to us. I'm looking forward to it. I
think you'll enjoy it too.
And now, let's give a big blogosphere welcome
to
Bible Versus


rlp
 

I always assumed that people who
lived in prehistoric times had it rough. Bad housing, no toothbrushes, scratchy
clothes and no protection from wild animals or marauding bands of thieves. I
imagined a person from the ancient world working all day just to gather some
edible roots and maybe kill a weasel to eat, only to be killed himself by a
hungry saber-toothed cat or someone who wanted his campsite and the weasel
dinner.

Click here to read the rest of this essay at

The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

a

Christian Magazine 

Christian Writing
rlp
 

Or: "Life Inside My Head"
 
A few years ago in the
office of doctor M. Jones - San Antonio
“It’s a simple test, really. It’s the one we
often give to children and adolescents. It measures your ability to stay focused
and on task.”
I nodded and he went on.
“It’s pretty gosh-awful boring, but that’s the
point, right? Okay, you will either see or hear a number 1 or a number 2. You’ll
either see it on the computer screen or hear it. When you see or hear the number
1, push the number one on the keyboard. If you see or hear 2, hit the 2 key. Got
it?”
“Yep, easy enough.”
“You need to concentrate hard and don’t wait to
hit the key. Hit it as fast as you can because the program is measuring, among
other things, how long it takes you to respond. It’s not just about hitting the
right key.”
“Okay.”
The program started and a number one appeared
on the screen. I hit number one on the keyboard. Then another one appeared and I
hit it again. Then I heard a voice say, “two.” I punched number two on the
keyboard.
One, One, Two, One, Two, One, Two Two Two…

This really isn’t fair because [One] I’m
an adult and I can simply override whatever impulse [Two] I have to daydream
or let my mind drift. I mean, it's not like I'm a kid anymore or anything.
[Two] It’s only like what, 20 minutes? I can [One] just force myself to pay
attention.

At this point I had not missed a single number
and was pretty proud of myself.
One, Two, Two, One, Two, One, One…

This isn’t going to do any good. I’m
hitting them [Two] perfectly. Bam, bam, bam. What good is this? I need [Two]
a test for adults. I’m going to look like a person with a perfect [One]
attention span and I’m not that. [Two] Oh, this is boring as hell. [One] I
mean, I can do it no problem, but damn. I think I’m getting a headache.
[One] Yeah, there it is, that little pain. I wonder if [One] concentrating
like this is going to make it worse. [Two] Hmm, so far there has never been
more than three of the same in a row. [One] I bet they won’t do four in a
row, but if it was really random [Two] there would eventually be four in a
row, right?

I rolled my head around and felt a little
clicking in my neck. I tend to think that will help headaches but it never does.
Two, Two, One, One, One, Two, One…

What a completely boring and awful
voice. They [2] should have gotten a computer voice [2] like Stephen Hawking
or something. [1] But whatever. Fine. Oh, my head is killing me and this [2]
chair hurts. Stop it! Pay attention! You haven’t missed any yet, but [1] you
will if you aren’t careful. Totally concentrate. Let’s knock the hell out of
this test.

One, One, Two, Two, One, Two, One, One…

Try repeating each one out loud in your
head when you [Two] hit the key. That will work. That will keep you focused.
Have to be focused to [One] do that.

2 – “Two!”
1 – “One!”
1 – “One!”

R-A-M-A-D-A-I-N-N  (boom boom), Ramada
Inn. [2] Oh man, I haven’t thought of that [1] in years. That flashing neon
sign when I was a kid [1] in the car coming home from church on Sunday
nights. [2] I used to spell it out as many [1] times as I could before the
light changed.
R-A-M-A-D-A-I-N-N  (boom boom), Ramada
Inn - say it again now [2] R-A-M-A-D-A-I-N-N  (boom boom), Ramada Inn.
Oh crap I think I missed one. You stupid
idiot. This [2] is a kid’s test. Ah, one won’t matter [1] or anything.
People always miss one [2] or two. [1]. Just stay focused. You're fine. How
long has it been? Why [2] doesn’t he have the clock showing [2] on the
computer? How hard would that be just so I could know how much longer? I
wonder if I’m halfway done yet.

***
After twenty minutes I finished and sank
back into the chair, exhausted.
“You okay?"
“Yeah, I started getting a headache or
something. I mean, I stayed with it but the headache might have slowed me down a
little. But it’s nothing. Never mind.”
The printer spit out my results, and he looked closely
at the paper. I sat forward. I always want to do well on a test, no matter what
kind of test it is. I watched his eyes going back and forth like the head on the
old dot matrix printers. Back and forth.
He looked up at me.
“So, how did I do? What does it say about me?”
He shook his head and blew air out of his
mouth.
I knew it. I’m so good at this that I’m
going to have to explain to him that I really really do think I have a
concentration problem. It’s just that I’m an adult, and I can make myself do
things. So whatever high score I got shouldn’t count because shouldn’t we do
this in a normal life situation?
“Okay, how can I say this? If you were a
seven-year-old boy, I would be trying to think of a nice way to tell your
parents that you will probably never learn to read.”
 
rlp
 

When I began Real Live Preacher, my great fear
was that somehow my writing might harm our church. We were a small community. If
a number of families left because of the perceived heresy or vulgarity of the
pastor, that would hurt us. It hurts when friends leave the church. There is
also a financial risk if you alienate people at a small church. If the budget is
tight and three or four families leave, we would be in trouble. The leaders who
deal with our budget would be stressed if we suddenly found it hard to pay the
electric bill.
So that was scary.
I was also worried that fear would stifle my
writing, convincing me to play it safe. Was I prepared to accept the
consequences of looking deeply into my own heart and writing about what I found
there? The anonymity of the early days gave me just enough courage to give it a
try. When that anonymity fell apart, I cringed and waited, but somehow my world
did not collapse and neither did the church. There were a few uncomfortable
moments, but everyone was okay.
For a time, my blog and my church were in
separate worlds. I never mentioned Real Live Preacher at church. It was common
knowledge that I had a blog, but I didn’t talk about it on Sunday. If I felt
like using the word fuck or expressing some honestly held but admittedly edgy
theology at Real Live Preacher, I did. I knew people in my church read the blog,
but I tried not to think about how they might react to my writing.

Someone once asked me what has causes
the most controversy at Real Live Preacher. Without a doubt it is my
occasional use of the word fuck. I don’t know why, but that word represents
the crossing of some boundary of vulgarity that makes a lot of people very
uncomfortable. I don’t like to use that word, and I don’t use it very often.
I always try to find some other way to express myself, but sometimes – just
sometimes – only the word fuck will do.
Whenever I use that word I think about
my mother-in-law, who reads my blog now. I love her, and I know she loves
me. That word bothers her; it probably even hurts her to read it because she
wonders what kind of a man would use that sort of language. And I am married
to her daughter and the father of her grandchildren, so she cares what kind
of man I am. You don’t want to write things that hurt or trouble people who
love you unless it is truly necessary. I hate having to choose between
writing something with all the power and punch that I feel it deserves and
troubling my mother-in-law. But that is the choice I often face.

It helped me to think of
the two parts of my life as existing in separate worlds. It was like a grand
game of denial. Swallow hard and write. Then don’t talk about it at church or
with your mother-in-law. I was happy to keep those worlds apart. If you look at
the banner of my blog, the little man in the robe is me, trying to keep two
worlds from colliding.
Then something interesting began happening.
Occasionally someone would show up at our church because of Real Live Preacher.
I remember the first time it happened. A handful of “Real Live Preacher
readers,” as they described themselves, drove down from Austin one Sunday
morning. The writer in me was flattered, but it was also a little frightening.
Still, it’s not as though we can put a sign on our door that says, “Everyone is
welcome EXCEPT those who read Gordon’s blog.”
As the months went by, more people came to our
church because they had read Real Live Preacher. It became a fairly common
occurrence. Some of them wanted to see something that I had written about, like
George's rock, or the big cedar tree behind the church. I was a little
uncomfortable with this, but nothing bad happened. I got used to it and stopped
worrying about it. So what if people come to our church and want to look at a
tree or something. Why should I care?
Things began accelerating in December of last
year. One Sunday we had nine visiting families. At least half of them found out
about our church through my blog. A few of these families have now joined the
church, and a couple of others will probably do so before long. For years I put
out 70 chairs each Sunday, but now I have to put out 100, which is all we have.
We have some folding chairs in case we need them, but yes, we’re out of chairs. I
guess we’ll have to buy some more.
I’ve been watching these developments
carefully, pondering them and asking myself what all of it means. I’ve decided
it doesn’t mean much. People show up at church for all sorts of reasons. How
they got there really isn’t that important.
I have noticed something though. I don’t know
if it is good or bad, and it really doesn’t matter since I can’t control it
anyway. Real Live Preacher may have become a kind of filter for our church. Some
church people put a lot of stock in the beliefs, public presence, and life of
their pastor. If someone is uncomfortable with either the theology or the
occasionally stark honesty of Real Live Preacher, they might not come to our
church at all. Or if they come, they might not stay. On the other hand, here are
these people who are coming specifically because they like the theology and stark honesty of
RLP.
If indeed Real Live Preacher has become a
filter for our church, then my blog will change the nature of Covenant Baptist
Church over time. I don't want that kind of power. The only thing that makes this situation
even palatable is that I never asked for this, and there doesn't seem to be
anything I can do about it.
Worlds are colliding, and there is nothing I
can do. The world of my writing and the world of my church have ground
together slowly, like one galaxy passing through another. This may be good news,
bad news, or just plain news, but stopping the collision is definitely out of my
hands at this point.
Whaddya gonna do?
Recently I had lunch with a visiting family
after church. Their son told them about Real Live Preacher, and they began
reading it. Months went by, and they decided to show up on a Sunday morning.
Lunch was enjoyable. They seem like the sort of people who need to find us. I
noticed how relaxed I was with then, chatting about our church or Real Live
Preacher, almost as if there was no longer any boundary between my writing and
my life as a pastor.
Good thing? Bad thing? Just a thing?
I don’t know. What does it matter? It’s
happening, and as usual, I feel that I am just on for the ride.
Who knows where this is going?
 
Rlp
 

Yeah, I really regret having posted that last
piece. I had second thoughts while writing it, but writing it felt good. Writing
about this is one of the ways I deal with it. But I've felt very uncomfortable
all day about putting it online. I came close to removing it several times.
Who knows if it was healthy or right to post
that. You know, with writing in general and blogging in particular, you never
know how much to share. And in times when you feel intense things, you're not in
the best frame of mind to make those kind of calls.
So here's the deal: I wrote that. I felt it and
I wrote it. I don't know if it was a good or a bad thing. I don't know if it was
fair to the people in my real life. It probably would be healthier to go to the
people in my life and say, "Um, I'm not feeling so good." That's probably a
better move than posting something online.
But I did it. So I'm going to leave it there.
Whatever it says about me and my frame of mind in the moment I hit the publish
button, I'll accept. But I do need to move quickly past it. I want it to move
down the page. Those who commented - thanks. I really need to not reply or
anything now. I just need to move ahead.
Thanks for your true love and concern for me. I
feel it.
gordon
 

I officially release myself from the need to
make this a great piece of writing. I want everything I write to be great, and I
find it hard to put anything online unless I’ve gone over it until I don’t want
to change anything. That takes a long time.
So not this time. This time it’s just going
to come out of me, get a quick going over, and boom – online with it. It will
probably be too long, but it would be so hard to edit it down.
----------------------
It seems like just a short time ago that I
wrote what I thought would probably be my last piece on depression. I kind of
ended that series with me on medication and doing fine. Ended it on a good note.
But something happened last week, and I’m quite
frightened by it. I am detached from myself enough to wonder why I’m writing
about this and making it public. There must be something in talking to “you”
that is like therapy for me. Either that or I’m an emotional
exhibitionist. I really don’t want that to be true, but what do I know? Maybe I
am an emotional exhibitionist. I don’t even know what that is, but maybe I am.
The hell with it. Here goes.
I had what I will describe as an emotional
crash. I had a normal day on Tuesday. I got some writing done, even sent an
essay off to Christian Century. I felt fine on the way home, and the evening
began as evenings normally do around our house. And then it hit me. It was
almost like someone threw a switch in my mind, turning all of my thoughts and
feelings in a negative direction.
What surprised me was how rapidly depression,
sorrow, and anxiety descended upon me. I don’t ever remember having such a rapid
mood swing. One of the girls said something – nothing memorable, just something
– and then a wave of sorrow and despair crashed over me. My mood bottomed out in
about five minutes.
The feelings I had on Tuesday night are
familiar to me since I used to live with those feelings much of the time.
Let’s see if I can describe this for those of
you who don’t have this problem.
There is a feeling of hopelessness, a kind of
“Oh my God” feeling. It’s the way you would feel if you walked around the corner
and found that something precious to you had been destroyed beyond all repair.
You stand there shaking your head and looking at the broken pieces of the thing
you loved, and in those moments you feel so sad and hopeless. That thing is now
broken, and you will never ever have it again.
Remember, I have no reason to feel this way. I
KNOW that, but it doesn’t make the feelings go away.
There is also what I would call emotional and
mental exhaustion. This would be like the feeling you might have if you worked a
12-hour shift in a factory, then came home to discover that you had 50 hours of
mind-numbing, tedious labor yet to do, labor that would also be physically
painful so that you would not even be allowed the small comfort of getting lost
in the tedium. The point is, you dread this labor intensely.
But remember, there was no labor facing me.
This is just a description of how I felt. There is nothing real behind the
feeling.
The last feeling is one that is destructive to
my relationships. It is the feeling that any contact with anyone is going to
make me feel even worse. If I see my girls or Jeanene, I’m going to add a heap
of guilt and shame to all that I am already feeling. If I can just be alone – I
think - I won’t have to deal with any additional bad feelings. When I am in this
state, my need to be alone becomes desperate, almost frantic. If anyone
threatens my isolation, I become very resentful toward them. One of the girls
can bounce over, all happy and everything, and want me to do something. My
reaction is to get angry. Thank God I’ve learned to stuff that anger down, but
good. Because I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS OUT ON THEM.
No!
It’s a short-term fix, but stuffing anger, even
stupid anger, only fuels depression.
Now amidst all of these feelings are swirling
thoughts that are destructive, not based in reality, and paranoid. My mind races
from one crazy thought to the next. Um, I think I’d rather not go into the crazy
thoughts. Just stuff about relationships and how people feel about me, the
reality of what I am facing, financial ruin, and oh yeah some stuff about how I
probably can’t write so good no more.
These days I do have one thing going for me. I
UNDERSTAND that this is not a normal way of thinking and feeling. I KNOW how I
am supposed to think and feel. And I KNOW that these feelings and thoughts are
not tied to the reality of my life. Even Tuesday night, right in the middle of
the bad time, I BELIEVED that the thoughts and feelings were not going to last.

I gave myself a little pep talk:
“This is probably just a glitch or
something, right? I mean, I am taking medication that is dickering with my brain
chemistry. It’s probably just a drug fart or something, right? Right? Probably
just something like that. Right?”
You know what I did? I went to bed. I used to
be able to put on a pretty good act, but now I know that’s a dead end. You can
only keep up an act for so long. If you are going to crash, now is as good as a
week from now. Might as well get it over with.
I laid on my bed and stared, turning off my
mind as best I could. I slipped into a daydream-like state, thinking about
things that aren’t true but would be nice if they were true. It was like an
internal movie or something. Just the silly fantasies that everyone has. In one
of mine I actually write something that makes some money, so Jeanene can come
home from work – which she would like to do – and suddenly all the pressure of
the children and their care and finding time to write is gone, and I can write
as much as I want and everyone lives happily ever after.
You have thoughts like those, right? Sure you
do. You do, don’t you? Please tell me it’s not just me.

-------
I got through the rest of the week okay and
decided that Tuesday was an isolated event, nothing to worry about. Then I woke
up Sunday morning, and it was like Sundays back in the bad days. I was filled
with dread, sorrow, and horror. And it was EASTER SUNDAY, for goodness sakes. We
were having a potluck breakfast, a fun service, an Easter egg hunt afterwards
for kids, and we have a whole bunch of new friends at the church these days,
people I am enjoying getting to know.
I should have been happy. Instead I kept waking
up, dreading the coming of morning. I finally got out of bed at 3:30 am,
showered, and went to the church, having slept maybe an hour. I remember I used
to do this before – go to the church hours early so that I could get myself
ready for people to arrive.
I did not want to be there. When everyone
arrived, I hid in my office while they were eating breakfast. I came out and got
through the service. I don’t know. I got through the day. I took a long nap.
Watched a movie. Picked up around the house. Did some stuff.

-------
So what does this mean? Am I slipping
backwards? What I haven’t told anyone is that I’ve had a couple of these
setbacks before, and I’m now taking the maximum dosage of the medication that
I’m on. So there is nowhere left to go, chemically. What does that mean? Will I
have to try new medication and deal with new, unknown side effects? Is this the
moment when I find out that the problem was just my weakness after all, and I
need to get up off my ass and get active and start helping people more or
whatever so that I can find the source of true happiness and put all this
depression/depletion stuff behind me?
No, that’s not it. I’ve tried all that. It
doesn’t work, Gordon. You can’t work this stuff away.
I mean, I really don’t know. I don’t want to
call the doctor and even get started asking these questions for real. Maybe this
will go away on its own. I feel good today I think.
Listen while I talk to myself again:
Okay, apparently something is wrong with my
brain. I’ve been told that it’s not a major thing; I just have trouble keeping
my neurotransmitters in stock. They must be on backorder or something. This has
nothing to do with what kind of a person I am, good or bad. So I have to take
some pills. So what? Occasionally I might have a bad day. So what? Tuesday and
Sunday were just bad days. So what? Tuesday is gone and so is Sunday. It’s over
and today is a new day.
That’s all I know. I’m not all that smart or
wise with this stuff. I only know how to describe it. I can’t fix it.
rlp
 

Once I opened my eyes during a prayer in church
and saw a man named Jim picking his nose. I mean REALLY picking it. Digging deep
for whatever he was hoping to find there. As if she sensed something, his wife
opened her eyes and turned to look at him. I watched her face to see if she
would laugh or be disgusted. She did neither. She simply stared at him with no
expression. Occasionally her eyes would move to some other part of his face, his
chin or his hairline, as if she was trying to evaluate the whole man and not
just this one embarrassing part of him.
Good for her. Isn’t that what we all need and
hope for in a spouse?
Jim was blissful and unashamed, apparently
confident that he was in his own private world now that his eyes were shut. His
hand moved back and forth as he worked the angles.
Finally, satisfied that she had seen as much as
she needed to see and knew as much as she needed to know, his wife calmly closed
her eyes and went back to praying. Jim kept on picking until the prayer was
over. He popped his finger out of his nose quickly after the amen and gravely
evaluated the order of worship to see what sacred event was up next.
So okay, Jim’s wife knows some things about him
now, doesn’t she? She knows the energy he will put into this earthy little human
task, and she knows how easily he can forget the world and get lost in his own
private place. Hey, there are worse things you can know about a man.
You might think I’m crazy here, but maybe Jim
picking his nose was a kind of prayer in itself. God knows we pick our noses.
Sometimes you have to. Jesus mentioned coming to the Kingdom of Heaven like a
child. Well, Jim was about as child-like as anyone I’ve ever seen, at least
during that prayer.
This is church. Sure the high and mighty stuff
happens too. People’s lives are changed in an instant when a gospel truth
somehow penetrates the tough armor that we have forged for ourselves. People are
healed physically or emotionally and are forever changed. Others are not healed
and are forever puzzling and seeking and sad about that. The human
stuff happens here - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Church is a human
place. It is a place where humans get together, right in the middle of our
humanity, and look beyond ourselves in praise of whatever created this flesh we
carry so awkwardly.
Ironically, it’s not the presence of rank
humanity at church that causes problems. Jim picking his nose didn’t hurt
anyone. No, people mostly get hurt at church when we start pretending that we
can be more than human – that’s when the bad stuff starts happening.
Because we can’t.
 
rlp
 

I'm between essays and working on a number of
other things, so I thought I'd post one of my audio files from the audio archive
for the subscribers to rlp.

My House
I read the essay, "My House" and talk about Jung, the human psyche,
the symbols in the essay, and whatever else came to mind.
If the above link does not stream,

click here for a direct link to the mp3
file.
The music intro is "I'll Fly Away" by Ben Bowen
King and the
Sidewalk Saints.

rlp