Bringing Faith to Life
Aging
By Our Wounds, We are Healed
210 years
You don’t start out the best at anything. The only way to get better is to work at it. Things take practice and patience, trial and error, falling down and getting up. Three years ago this April, I fell and could not get back up. I needed help, which included a repair to the hamstring tendon which had become detached from its site of origin. Sewing and bit of skeletal carpentry would be necessary. (I also began blogging then. You can find that story here at On the Way to Well.)
Today, the attachment is good as new, but not the hamstring. Oh, it works pretty well. I can run and jump and play without concern. Just every now and then, when I get in just the wrong position, it panics and balls itself up. This is inconvenient and can be a bit embarrassing because there is no inciting event. Nothing startles or irritates. I am just sitting or getting up or kneeling and bingo. Hello says the hamstring and I am at its mercy.
This wouldn’t have surprised anyone back in the days when I hobbled around in a brace. They expected my gimpiness and disability. But now that I am healed, I should be good as new. Well, I am new, but I need to qualify that good. I am the product of repair. I bear the scars, inside and out, of all that life has hurled at me. And that is good. In fact, today I would say that is very, very good.
But oh my, the list. When I go to see a new doctor he wants to know my “history.” Not just of this ailment, but of all the things that have ailed me. What hurts, what has malfunctioned, what’s been repaired, modified, extracted. All that’s ever gone wrong I’m supposed to write on those few puny lines. Oh, if he only knew. Then he would know me.
So, in these days after Easter, I am sitting vicariously with those cowering 11 disciples in the Upper Room. Had I been fortunate enough to be among them in those days, I surely would have been around that table, worrying, lamenting, fearing the worst, right along with them. And suddenly Jesus is among them. They weren’t expecting that, clearly weren’t expecting him. In fact at first they didn’t recognize him. Here’s how John recounts it:
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ~ John 20:19-22
Once he showed them his hands and side, they “saw” him. I had always thought that Doubting Thomas was the only slow one, but apparently not. They didn’t know it was Jesus, it seems, until He showed them his wounds.
And so I think of my “wounds.” After I die, this is how people will be able to positively identify me. Regardless of the lifeless state of my physical body, people will know me by the dental work I have had done, the thumb tendon I had replaced, the bunionectomy that realigned my right big toe, the scar over my right eye where that girl headed me in the head playing soccer in college, the C-section lines where emerged two of my children, and yes, the stitch marks where they sewed back my damaged hamstring tendon. They will know me by the marks on my hands and feet, the scar on my forehead and the gashes in my butt and belly. They will know me by my wounds, that have been healed. The evidence remains.
How compassionate of the Living Christ to show this to those cowards in the Upper Room. See these? Now you go and live life, battle scars and all. That’s how they’ll know you have lived, just as it is how you know that I live.
When we bolt the doors against fear, we don’t keep hurt out, we lock ourselves in. Thank goodness God broke in to show us the Way out!
Where is the line between heaven and earth?
011 years
Where is the line between heaven and earth? When people pass, what do they pass? Where do they cross from here to there? If we’re headed toward something, shouldn’t we see it so we’ll know when we get there?
I see you…. you line on the horizon. But you are fickle. Yes, as the sun rises, you take shape. But as the sun sets, you fade and I can’t see you anymore. Certainly not in the distance. Up close all I can see is darkness. It feels firm at my feet, yet I can reach into it. The air has a different texture. Which is you? Where are you? Where is the line between?
Ah, when the sun rises, I’ll see! But wait: the fog obscures; the snow covers; the rain pelts; everything tosses to and fro in the wind. Where is the line? Where can I step to safety? Stand fast? Reach across? I just want to know where the border line is, so I’ll know I’m close.
If I crossed and looked back, would I see it then? From over or beyond or within, would the line be clear between terrestrial and heavenly? Between what was earthly and what was not?
No, I think not. Because Lord, when You stepped down from Kingdom into Dominion, You brought the line with you. Wherever You went, the Kingdom was. When you died and returned to heaven did you take this distinction with You? Did you erase the line? Obscure the evidence? Muddy the waters?
Or did you leave it with us?
As we enter our days, could it be that we cannot see the line between heaven and earth because it surrounds us? Actually encircling our travels, an amorphous heavenly goop (okay see-through slime if you will), that moves as we move. It goes before us and behind us and hems us in on each side. Perhaps the earth we see, the darkness and the poverty as well as the lightness and joy, we see through this heavenly plasma around us. Perhaps, it’s meant to tint our sight if we tune our eyes to just the right frequency. Oh, the strain and squint of the effort.
My eyes need rest. I count on them for so much. How can I count on them for this? Why must I work so hard to distinguish lines on the horizon or boundaries near at hand?
I want to trust that You are the line between and the passageway from here to there. Whether darkness or light, You are there in the middle. Perhaps I don’t need to know where the line is, just that it is. Perhaps there is no line, just a distance which is narrowed each time I reach out or over and feel for what’s in the darkness and pull it closer.
Home Coming
2I’m in a hole. The further down I go, the darker it gets.
Oh, I don’t know I’m in a hole. I’m busy with projects and activities, schedules and travel. I scurry to complete, scour to clean up, check for misaligned pieces and missing parts. Anyone who looks my way would likely call me capable, organized, got-it-together. Perhaps they would even call me successful.
Not until I look up do I realize the hole I’m in.
On a lovely crisp autumn Saturday, I drive down to Williamsburg, to the College of William and Mary from which I graduated 30 (yes, 30 :)) years ago. I gathered with friends and we shared the “where are you now” conversations.
They are not the conversations of 30 years ago. (where are you headed? what’s on your horizon?)
They are not the conversations of 20 years ago. (what job have you landed? do you have children? how busy are you? me too!)
They are not even the conversations of 10 years ago. (how’s the corner office? what about the stock market? have you saved for your kids’ college?)
No. Today’s conversations are about home-coming. Welcome back. So glad to see you. How has life treated you? We discuss achieving-children and ailing parents, fears and longings, habits and hangups, aches and pains.
Somehow, in the interim we have grown older. Time has passed. In this setting we don’t notice because we’ve gone there together.
One friend and I set off for a stroll across campus. It’s been a while. I want to see what’s changed. We walk past the old and familiar. The bricked buildings and the well-worn walkways. The statues of famous folks and the gaggles of students. Old and new campus and the lovely Crim Dell. We head to the sunken gardens, a central grassy depression where we used to sit and study or laugh and throw frisbees. Today there is an ugly white tent that covers two thirds of the area. It doesn’t belong there. Do we?
On leaving, I spot a curly blond-headed young man holding the hand of a smiling young woman. I know this boy. He was a student in the church confirmation class I taught 5 years ago. He graduated high school last spring. The twosome is walking toward us but doesn’t notice us. That is the way with young people. They focus on each other.
I am looking around at the campus of my youth. It’s the same old campus, same grounds, same walkways, but it looks different through eyes with thirty years more life. It is spectacular in a new way. Was it this way when we went there. How could I have missed it?
When I frequented the sunken garden, I felt protected by its beauty and was engrossed in learning. Now I’m free to wander. A bit less spryly but still wander. I’m not going places, like I once was. Not worried like I once was. Not even cautious like I once was, though I do watch my step. Because life is full of holes you can fall into if you’re not looking. My wandering has a new dimension; it’s guided.
Today, I look back on a life pock-marked with holes which, ironically, have given me better vision. When I stumble into a depression in the landscape, I look for the staircase out. It’s not a doorway that swings open for me to run through. It’s not a hand to haul me out and set me upright. It’s a staircase lit by the light of Christ. If I take a careful look, I’ll see that something’s amiss. Something is here that shouldn’t be here. Perhaps it’s a big white tent. Or a young blond boy. Or is it me? Wait, it’s Homecoming for both of us.
It’s what this visit home did for me. It reminded me of who I was. Not to torment me with “you’ll never be like this again” but to show me what’s worth keeping and what doesn’t belong. It’s not carved in brownstone, and yet it is. It’s both long gone and on-going. A continuous looking for the same staircase leading me out yet again. Leading me up.
Christ unfolded that staircase into every depth – he descended even to the dead – to provide a way out for us. I have known His sustenance in those places, even the greening of the grass and the sense of protection, but I’m meant to climb out. At His urging but by my own effort. Putting one foot in front of the other. But I must do so with reverence because upon this ground once tread the feet of Christ. And He carried a cross.
There are heavy, heavy indentations in those marble steps. But they have been unfurled downwards, so I might climb up. Paved a path for me to follow, and for generations to come.
***
Oh, I facebooked Byron, the young man I had passed, asking him what he was doing in “my sunken garden on my homecoming.” He replied, “The better question is what are You doing in My sunken garden on My homecoming?”
I said, “Glad you asked. Hope you’re having a great year. And in 30 years, I hope you’ll be strolling the old hangouts, too. Don’t look for me then. :)”
He replied, “Thank you very much! 30 years? You best believe I will be looking for you then!”
That kid knows Christ, too.
Dear Rosy, I give you back to the Love from which you came
6Everybody does it. Taking a break is part of life. Perhaps part of the human condition.
- Baseball takes the all star break
- Football takes, um, halftime
- Basketball coaches take time outs
- Hockey, well, I think there is time off after the Stanley Cup
- Kids and their teachers take the summers off
- Employees get weekends
- Families take vacations
Time away is rest, relief, recovery. But getting started again, now that’s the hard part. Because time off changes you. Especially when the break is final.
On June 11th I said goodbye to Rosy, my sweet golden companion of 14 years. Exactly 14 years. June 11th was her birthday. We worked day and night to get her to that day. Tried everything we knew to keep her going. Then, on June 11th, 2013, she was perfect. All she came to earth for was completed. Now she is new, but she is not here.
Every now and then someone comes into your life that changes you. It may be a dog. Rosy was that dog. The question is, How do I begin again?
I’ve read an expression that helps.
Don’t be sorry they’re gone. Be thankful they lived.
Today, I begin again in light of that thanks. Rosy, you impossible, wonderful, miraculous soul, you were one of God’s best ideas and my dear, dear friend. The “clearance puppy” we didn’t return. The one with the spunk, unfazed by Ranger, the gigantic husky who was your adopted brother, and tolerant of Silver, the new brother who would become your constant companion. You never knew you were “handicapped” because we never told you. You just adapted your way through life, literally taking it all in stride, wagging and wobbling on the way.
Thank you for all you were to us. I am glad to picture you now, running happily in heavenly fields. Perhaps chasing (and retrieving) the ball that on earth you could never chase. An eternal game of catch. Playing with all the other heavenly souls. If I had any doubt about where I would find you, your brother Silver is making me believe. He is here on his bed, running and wagging and dog-mumbling (perhaps speaking in heavenly tongues?) in his sleep. He is obviously very glad to see someone. I bet it is you. Because it would be just like you, knowing he misses you, to come to him. Comforting others is how you lived and how you loved. A love like that never ends.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. ~ 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8
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Farewell, dear Rosy. You lived well. You loved perfectly. And now I give you back to Love.
Planking and praying, a perfect pair
312 years
I’m caught in a bind. Between fit-ness and fat-ness. What I really want to do is motivate people to take ownership in the value of being active. But this message is going out to two groups of people: those who want to fine tune their Maseratis and those who have missed all their 15, 30 and 50,000 mile tune ups. (This predicament is being played out on by business blog – you can find it at Fit2Finish.) But the incident actually occurred in a Facebook comment to my post on planking for fitness. The comment was: “Oh My I was really ready to go until I saw the fit man pic!”
The picture which she is referring to was associated with the post when I put it up on my Facebook page. It was not an accident. I chose it. It’s one used in the article, of Alan Webb, American Record holder in the mile, performing a side plank as part of his training routine. See him here:
I find it, and him, incredibly motivating. He has a body which performs the nearly impossible; I like to hold the impossible up and then see how close I can come. Not this woman; she found the image defeating. (or at least she said so. It may have been an attempt at humor or sarcasm but I’ve learned there always is truth behind these.) For her it would be prohibitive in getting started because she fell so far short.
Aha! This is not really a fitness issue. Guess I’m not really in the fitness business. And while I may dabble in the motivational business, healing is really what’s needed. And this country, for sure, has some issues around embracing healthy behavior and eating.
So this comment has me minding what image I associate with my articles. And, let’s face it, most people don’t make it past the images these days. But I found this image motivating. I know athletes will find this image motivating. Youth and people who are healthy …motivating. But those on-down-the-road will not. That sprinter raced past them long ago and probably kicked sand in their face.
So, there I am in the middle of that road trying to speak to both audiences, the fit and the fat. (or at least those who think of themselves as overly fat which seems most these days.) I am reminded of the days of my childhood and youth when sports rescued me from the realms of the fat and outcast. I was fit and made the team, so I was never cast out. Some would have considered me fat.
What motivated me then? Pictures of championship athletes. I was a dreamer. But as I grew older the grimy fingers of overweight-ness got a firmer grip. I fell far back from the Alan Webb’s and the Mark Spitz’s, and even the Dara Torres’s. More to the middle of the pack. From there I can relate to these folks who are complacent on the fitness road while constantly exposed to the images all over our media.
It’s everywhere in our shows, our papers, online and in the checkout line at the grocery. Photos snapped by paparazzi because they’re ‘sensational.’ This ugly bulge. That unsightly weight gain. Can you believe how she has let herself go? they say without uttering a word. But photos sell magazines because people feel better knowing that “at least I don’t look like that.” We fear “looking like that” and oddly that impels us to diet and exercise. For a time.
But nothing motivated by fear is lasting. Sure, we know perfection is unattainable, but when did so many switch from pursuing it to running from it’s nemesis?
I guess that’s why I find so much hope in pumping up those kids to discover how fast they can be. I’m losing ground on them, for sure. But, looking over their heads I can keep the perfect in sight. I still find that motivating. In fact, that’s why I run this race. And plank this plank.
Injury Prevention is God’s Primary Business
0My left rotator cuff is giving me a bit of trouble again. I notice it when simple motions give me a twinge. Like pulling the sheets back or grabbing the seat belt. I, ever the self-diagnostician, always stop at the twinge. I lift the arm. Rotate it. Lift it again. Until I get it exactly right. And by right, I mean, when I can repeat the pain.
That may sound a bit counterproductive, but that’s how I pinpoint what to address. It hurts – right – here. Poke. Prod. Let me try a push up… Nope. That hurts. Maybe a stretch… Nope. That hurts. There is always rest but that sounds so very much like giving up. I mean, something caused this problem, I must FIX it.
So, I can’t do push ups but I can do my “regular” upper back/trapezius/cervical spine strengthening lifts. I do these lying face down on a half foam roller. Straight armed raises using 3 (yes, 3) lb weights – call me a wimp if you’d like – arms at my sides, then arms out to the sides, then…wait. When I lift my arms toward the back – the motion opposite my rotator cuff pain on the front – I feel weak on the left side. Go figure. A weak muscle is likely the culprit in the straining of it’s opposing muscle.
Why is it when we have pain that we poke and prod around the painful spot rather than behind it? That we scurry to shore up the injury instead of looking to its support system for weak links? Why do we fix rather than strengthen and stabilize in a way that would repair and steady us to move forward?
Perhaps because it’s dark and cobwebby down there. It may get ugly. We may get dirty. It may be hard work. Or it may be that we just don’t want to think about it.
It just sounds very much like God to me to say, “Wendy, I used that sore spot to get your attention, but what really needs doing is this.”
It’s such a better conversation than the one I usually have with myself that starts with, “ouch” and ends with: “this would have been so easy to prevent had I addressed it sooner.”
I believe God is in the injury prevention business, not just service and repair.