Faith Will Not Forget You

Faith has not been forgotten while I devote so much time to recovering from surgery. And you can be sure faith has not forgotten me, because recovery would not be possible without it.

If you want some religion chatter you can go back to my post A Word for Men and check out the lively exchange of comments between Steven and I. He’s Eastern Orthodox, and if that sounds interesting, he offers a couple of links. It’s not for me, but that should hinder no one who feels drawn to it. Being familiar with the early history of how that branch of Christianity came into existence, the theological disputes from that period were enough to turn me away from it. I can’t summarize it here, but if you read explanations of their unique beliefs, you’ll see why I say it’s too cerebral for me. It reminds me of the difference between Western mysticism versus ANE, because Greek thought (wedded to Greek language) is where Western thought started.

But while this blog seems rather silent, I can assure you that my faith is working hard carrying me forward. Sometimes there isn’t a lot of energy left to ponder things I might say because I’m pondering what I need to do. It’s not so much the physical therapy stuff and trying to move the leg as much as it can take, but exercising faith during this silence while the City considers my claim along with all the other crap they have to do.

I still believe someone out there with a higher public profile will be drawn to our parish. I still believe mainstream Christian religion is headed for a major problem like never before, with some level of exodus from the membership. I’m still certain America as we know it is doomed under God’s wrath, and it will most certainly affect other countries. And I still believe it was God’s requirement of me to let the City of OKC have a chance to do what’s right. I am convinced I’ll still be out there riding and taking pictures for the glory of God, once this recovery has taken its course.

Faith is an adventure like nothing else.

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Just a Few Trends

Nothing prophetic here, merely some observations that may amuse you.

We can already see the right-wing backlash in Europe. I’m not in a position to comment much beyond noting that it was provoked intentionally. Anyone could see it coming years ago, and recent migration trends have really turned up the tension. Again, I am convinced this is intentional.

The backlash we shall have here in the US will be most certainly fake. Granted, every activist is either a fool or a fake, and there will be plenty of fools, but the leadership will be controlled opposition, as it were. No doubt there will be bloodshed with it, but if that’s what you see, you’ll miss the point. There will most certainly be bloodshed one way or another, but a rise of armed right-wingers will simply change who dies. There will always be violence one way or another.

Don’t lose sight of the bureaucracy. Precious few bureaucrats have the depth of talent and vision of someone like the Dulles Brothers. Most of what we see parading before our eyes today are just somewhat talented. So it does no good at all to imagine that there must be key figures steering things behind the scenes. The bureaucracy is a hive-mind that steers itself; there is in effect no key leadership. Keep in mind that the foundation of bureaucracy is fear of accountability, and thus the secrecy on “national security” grounds. Anyone who rejects the bureaucrats’ decisions is, by definition, a “terrorist.” Bureaucrats won’t allow themselves to question the morality of what the hive-mind decides; it’s the “will of God.” And they aren’t going anywhere no matter who gets to wear the pretty hats of government leadership.

But what should give us pause is to watch as the bureaucracy infiltrates churches. Perhaps you’ve heard of this FBI program called Shared Responsibility Communities (SRC). While this has been blown out of proportion by some so-called liberty advocates, the program itself is not new. This is just a new name for something the Feds have done for years, particularly with their fake stings trying to hunt down Muslim extremists. To reduce the political pressure on their nefarious abuses, wherein weak-minded souls were suckered into pretending they could play jihad, the FBI decided this was the perfect time to expand the program to all religions. This matches the rhetoric of wariness about home-grown terrorists.

It’s not the program itself, but what it represents. We’ve known for some time that charismatic leaders in evangelical religion are often compromised by that tax-exemption thing with the IRS. Virtually every big-named preacher is some flavor of pro-government patriot. The churches are a great place to recruit bureaucrats and armed government thugs. And every church has long been loaded with government agents conducting some kind of surveillance within church activities. I’ve met a couple of those snoops while hanging out in big churches. It was typically considered benign and mostly ignored by church staff (but they knew). However, the SRC intends to bring this out into the open, where church staff officially cooperate directly with the various federal agencies by snitching helping nominate church members for a closer look. They would be “referred” for help in keeping them on the good and right moral path approved by the bureaucracy. Orwellian visions of mental torture are not out of line here.

As you probably know, this hunt for terrorists reflects a seriously deranged institutional paranoia. As such, it won’t work. It’s going to blow up in their faces. I’m not sure they’ll even notice, though. I suppose if there is anything that will cause at least a minor exodus from churches, this SRC would do it. People who begin to sense their own convictions won’t tolerate this kind of thing. They’ll go looking for something else. The twists and turns of various paranoid emphases will determine who is driven out, so keep an eye on that. I honestly believe we’ll see this thing implemented in one way or another.

Keep your hearts in charge, folks. The Lord will always give you a path to His peace.

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Progress: DIY

I’ve ditched the cane, now. I hobble around with the brace, walking slowly and making sure the leg swings the full range of motion with each stride so as to gently stretch everything.

The brace was killing me, though. It was designed for someone with straight legs, and mine are slightly bowed. The brace consists of two hinged arms held together by four straps, two each above and below the knee. Each arm floats, aligned by the shared strap mountings. The hinges can be set to limit motion in various ways. The outside arm was okay, but the inside arm near the bottom was pressing hard into the side of my calf, to the point it started to bruise.

At some point I decided to try bending it myself, having seen it done a few times in the past. I wore one like this back with the first surgery in the 1990s. While the design of the braces have changed a great deal since then, the fundamental idea remains the same. So I locked it down against a padded mat on the floor and pulled so as to bend right below the hinge controls. It was easier than I anticipated and bent just enough to keep from digging into my flesh. I pulled it outward to match the bowing effect in my knees. Now it doesn’t bite me any more. Woohoo!

I note that the comfrey tincture supplied by Sister Christine has a wonderful scent. It smells like healing to me. I didn’t have enough coconut oil to mix with it to make a salve, so I just carefully apply one or two drops each above and below the wound and spread it around the still swollen joint. My heart knows this is helping things rebuild inside the joint.

The only thing hindering my time outside is intermittent storm fronts washing back and forth over the state. However, a critical element in healing holistically is that I can hobble around and pick up the cigarette butts and litter that accumulate in and around our breezeway. It’s a blessing to put some healing back into the the world.

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Psalm 100

This processional hymn has long been the source of a great many Christian songs of worship. For something so brief, the imagery carries a lasting message that resounds in faithful hearts across the ages.

Picture in your mind some periodic festival wherein the worshipers begin outside the city walls, marching and singing in holy procession. Someone calls out, “Let’s have a song of praise!” Let all the earth praise Him, as is merely His due as Creator. If your heart is truly committed to Him, it’s hard to imagine anyone could restrain the excitement at this celebration.

The psalmist asserts that there really is no other God. It’s not a theological assertion, but a call to forget the question in favor of devotion to the One God who calls this His people. Had He not made them, they would not be. No human holds such creative power in his hands.

Pass through the Eastern Gates of the City with thanksgiving. Throng the Temple courts with praise for His name. Make His name glorious. He is the definition of goodness. His mercy runs out beyond the threshold of human awareness. He is trustworthy from one generation to the next.

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People Who Want to Hear

My son drove me to the VA yesterday and accompanied me to the various appointments scheduled that day.

As you might expect, a hospital like the OKC VA Medical Center is loaded with atypical people. These are not your average folks, but highly educated and very aware that different people have different ways of looking at things. Most of them would qualify as some brand of socially liberal or progressive, but that comes with the territory, working in a federally funded medical system that caters to folks who served in a very powerfully socialist institution — the US Military. (Stop and think about how the military actually gets things done.)

So his VA atmosphere is loaded with people who are more likely to take an interest in my oddball religious stuff. There was one fellow wandering around whose job was obviously related to mental health, in the sense of getting people to talk — very smart man with a mind like a steel trap. He sat down across from us in the waiting room and engaged us in conversation. One thing led to another and I responded to one question with mention of a “fringe ministry” that attracted a lot of people who would never be caught dead in a church. His radar perked up visibly. I mentioned Christian Mysticism and he probed hard, not with antipathy, but with genuine interest. At that point, I suppose I was quite ready for a summary lecture.

But I only got as far as describing our tilt toward grasping at the ANE mindset as wholly different from the Western. He recognized that and I was about to outline it when I was called back to one of the exam rooms. He said to my son, “Man, I was really looking forward to hearing about that.” I’m going to trust that God gave him as much as he needed to hear for that moment, because I was back there a long time getting the stitches removed from my wound. He was gone when I returned to the waiting room.

The doctor who took the stitches had been a member of the Bahá’í Faith. If you aren’t already familiar with it, Bahá’í Faith is not the simplest thing you’ll ever encounter. I knew enough about it to engage her and she spoke of the disappointments. So I spoke to those things and how you didn’t need to belong to a religion to find peace, but were morally obliged to build your own religion. Our parish is wide open because it’s actually meta-religion, not so much religion itself. I’m supposed to see her again in a week or so, and I’ll follow up. Meanwhile, she showed me a picture she took at Stonehenge where a large crow was flying between two of the stones at sunset, and I commented on the symbolism.

While I knew what kind of social mix I would encounter there at the VA, I’m still just a bit surprised how hungry those people are to hear about something like our faith. It’s not that we can’t reach out to the folks lower down the social scale. I suspect the middle class would often be the toughest segment for us, but thoughtful folks at all levels have found it useful. Plenty of poor folks have agreed with me on some issues. Still, we would naturally be led to respond with a greater investment of ourselves into places where folks really want us.

And the folks who want what we have are out there.

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Progress: First Return Visit

Had appointments back at the VA.

Today the good folks in Orthopedics removed my stitches and approved of my wound care. No more bandages required — yay! Went down to Physical Therapy and the gal showed me a bunch of exercises. I discovered my knee would voluntarily bend 45° so I’m resetting the knee brace to 40° and walking a lot without so much as my cane. And ice-packs work now because there’s no bandage. So I’m rocking and rolling along.

I’m still not thrilled with the elevated heart rate, but someone who loves me has suggested some ideas that might help. I’m getting a free starter of curcumin and some other stuff. I’ll let you know.

Also, Sister Christine’s generous supply of comfrey root tincture seems to make a real difference in helping the joint heal faster and better. The medical folks said they are impressed with the speed of progress for someone my age.

Thank you all for praying with me.

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Work Day

Necessary labor today: I had to put the fat claim file together and stuff it in an envelope. There were two forms to fill out from the City. Then I added a five-page attachment that described the incident, included the pictures and various odds-and-ends of why they didn’t have to worry about direct medical costs or lost wages. I discussed the process of deciding the bike was a total loss because a conservative estimate of parts and labor exceeded the cost of replacement. As it is, the City is getting a really good deal on that, because they will pay about 25% less than I did. I somehow got a copy of what EMSA wanted, included the bike tech’s written estimate. That’s a lot of paper.

With a clear conscience, I’ve put it all in the envelope and it’s going out in our mail later. Veloyce will have to go and get some extra postage. Pray with us that I didn’t mess something up. Someone at the City offices already hinted there’s no reason to expect a denial of the claim.

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Heart-led Therapy

Sister Christine reminded me of something easily forgotten in the midst of all the churning in and out of the VA hospital: I still need to be outside. What drove me out in the first place to get hurt still drives my very real need during recovery.

So after thinking and praying about it, I asked Veloyce to drag out one of our camp chairs. We also have a couple of tall laundry baskets, and I loaded one with chair, a blanket for padding, Bible and hymnbook, and some water. Walking with my cane, I dragged it outside the door to the first patch of grass outside our living room window. Setting up the chair in a spot that had mixed sun and shade, I flipped over the basket and set the folded blanket on top. Then I hoisted my leg up onto this padded rest and proceeded to read a few chapters in Romans (I’ll be reworking my book on Paul’s Letters next).

After a while, I swapped that for an old Baptist Hymnal and sat there singing out loud some of my old favorite hymns. It wasn’t important at this point whether anyone else heard; God heard. The grass, bushes and birds heard. I stayed until the wind kicked up too hard to even sit there like that. We’ll have storms later today, but I got some fresh air and sun, and some serious worship.

It’s good for what ails you.

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Chair

ChairOn a brighter note, events finally coalesced that I got a new recliner. I’ve wanted one for several years, but I suppose it took some kind of excuse to get humans moving. At any rate, my friend came over with his truck and picked me up. While the cheap deals were gone, I still found something suitable. My buddy paid most of it and I covered the balance and sales tax.

They brought it out in a big box, two pieces inside. We just had to slide the back onto the rails at the back of the seat.

The chair ain’t the best, but it’s better than the old one. It’s actually my size. The nifty camouflage fabric annoyed my skin (probably something they spray on it before shipping) so I covered it with the blue plaid you see. However, the size and padding on this thing is obvious.

Thank you all so much for praying with me. The other good news is that I’m up on my cane now.

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Site Update

Our parish static site has been updated. I managed to finish the review and rewrite for the study in the General Letters. The whole thing is now one single HTML page and still loads pretty quickly. You can review that here (gone). Update: This document was lost in the transition between computers.

As an aside, I can tell you that with an elevated heart rate, I am generally tired a lot and find myself dozing off way too often. This makes it hard to generate strong content on either of the two parish blogs (edit: there’s only one blog now). Pray with me about this. I have been fitted with a cute little high-tech heart monitor. I’m torn between hoping that we can catch the next episode of tachycardia, versus hoping there aren’t any more. Tachycardia is a little painful and very disorienting, but the doctors don’t think it’s life threatening just yet.

Also, by all means please ask questions. It’s easy to generate a post from a good question.

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