observation: pain.

pain.

I’ve had this sinus pain since Tuesday evening - seriously, I’m not exagerating.

I have tried it all: sudafed, mucinex, advil, tylenol, aleve.

They work to dull the pain.  But it’s still there.

Hot showers, hot compresses and lying still ease it considerably but  if I move too much, the pain definitely makes its presence known. 

I’m praying that the antibiotics I started today will do the trick - heal the cause of the pain.  

Cause that’s just it, pain is the body’s way of telling us something is wrong, something isn’t right (well illustrated in my favorite Greys episode: Sometimes a Fantasy). 

It’s been making me think about my Grandma a lot and my Dad and my Mum, too for that matter.   Grandma lives with chronic arthritis in her hips in particular.   The pain never goes away, she has just learned how to live with it.   I’m not even sure I can name the pain my Dad lived with but his way of living with it was to be homeless, to be anonymous.  It was the only way I think he could live with his pain.   And Mum … the day she died was the first day I knew intimately the permamence of pain and of having to live with pain that could be dulled, could be eased, could be soothed but could never be taken away - not at least this side of Heaven.    

I”m trusting that the doctors are going to heal whatever is causing this pain (and I’m praying that is going to be before tomorrow at 11:30pm when Christy arrives from Alaska).    I’m not forseeing permanence to this pain.   But it has certainly proved somewhat allegorical and contemplative.

Here’s my other thought for the week, surrounding pain … it’s tiring.   it’s tiring to hurt all the time.   Pain takes extra energy (as does healing) …  Logic tells me, I should not be this tired.   What’s humorous is that I have far more grace for emotional and spiritual and pschological pain … I know when I grieve I need more sleep … I am always so apt to remind those who grieve and hurt around me “go easy.  go slowly.  sleep more.  rest often.”   I know it’s essential for  wounded hearts but wounded bodies (particularly my own)?  guess I’m a slow learner.  

so, here’s to another nap? 

because it’s soon to be that time of year

the time of emptying yourself.

the time of remembering.

the time of being hungry.

the time of doing something.

World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN
Feb 29th - Mar 1st.
fundraising begins January 27th.

give over.

really you have to imagine “give over” being said with an English accent.   I particularly seem to hear my cousins or my friend Denny saying it.   give over.

Essentially it means to give in … give it up; quit the struggle, the fight, the persistence, in some cases the nagging, the poking, the tickling and the pestering.   

this afternoon I gave over. 

I slept for about 2 hours (I don’t nap) and gave over to the sinus-allergy-cold-goop that’s been filling my head since September.   I gave over and gave in to the medicine, to my weariness and to whatever it is my body is fighting.

 I’ve been “fighting” with this pestering, draining, swelling, filling, histamine, viral goop since September.   And by fighting, I mean not letting in win, not letting something so persistant drag me down, make me stay home.   And by fighting, I mean stubbornly refusing to go to the doctors because it’s “viral” not “bacterial” and just tending to myself.  

I guess in hindsight it was Friday that I gave over.  I went to the doctor.   And yes, it was  a viral-histamine-sinusitis goop but still they had a bit more ammunition to offer in the fight than I had over the counter.  

so lying here - still on the couch and not back at church - I am really quite amused at the irony - the upside down and backwards ness - of life.    It actually took my giving over to start winning and start healing.

And now with a little perspective, it’s not so much my cousins or Denny I hear in my head saying “give over.” 

It’s God.  

It’s God I  hear 

God’s voice echoing: just give over, give up the fight, give over to me and we’ll win.  

And once again, it’s about so much more than the goop that’s been filling my head. 

The Big Let Down.

no snow left this morning.

there was snow when I went to bed.

but no snow this morning.

completely disappointed.

healthy.

I was mulling about at the pharmacy an hour or so ago waiting for a prescription to be filled, nothing special just the usuals.   One of the pharmacists said to a customer, “everyone who’s ever moved here always seems to say ‘they never had any trouble until they moved to middle tennessee.”   I laughed cause I knew exactly what she was talking about.   Because I too, have said the same thing numerous times.   And even this week, once again, I’m coughing and sniffling because sinuses are draining.   

I remember I actually had to see an allergist within the first year or two of living here.   He told me that middle Tennessee is so bad because nothing ever really dies here.   It just doesn’t stay cold long enough for things to really die.  

This week, it’s actually been pretty cold.   I like it.   Not being cold but I like the cold air … it’s cleaner, it’s fresher, it’s healthier.  Now why my sinuses are draining this week  I’m still not sure.   I haven’t found a whole lot of rhyme or reason to sinus/allergy funk here in middle Tennessee. 

But the end of tomorrow I will have been to two funerals this week.   The ground and vegetation may not die here but people do.    And as strange as it may sound, I find myself thinking of what my allergist told me, thinking about all the folks I know sniffing, coughing and using plenty of tissues and thinking (as painful as it is) that death might just actually be a healthy thing.  

stormy week.

storms do pass.

storms within and storms without.

15 minutes in the undercroft at church today and it passed.

Bugs, my ipod and nice walk and it calmed.  

storms pass.

For though like waves on Galilee, dark seas of trouble roll,

When faith has heard the master’s word, falls peace upon the soul.   

-Louis Benson.

things left undone.

a friend returned a bag of mum’s knitting yesterday.

she must have had it for at least four years. 

I didn’t sort through it until today.

It was harder than I thought it would be.

Especially because the knitting was left undone.  not finished.

Needles, wool, a few squares completed.   a square or two on the go.  

one was blue with a cross knitting in the middle of it.   that seemed to make me wince the most.

a bag of things left undone.

I’m not even sure what she was making.

I hate that I don’t know what she was making.

Things left undone.

You know that’s the line in our confession every Sunday that always gets me.

it’s not so much the things we have done but the things we have left undone.

We, I, can do some pretty rotten things, no question there and usually I know when I’ve done it.

But what haunts me, honestly, is the things I have left undone, the things I have neglected to do, the things I forget. 

Is it really about the knitting left undone?  

Not so sure it is.

But somehow in the wincing, a little strength. a little forgiveness, a little comfort, a little healing inches in … 

Maybe I can finish what was left undone.

But with that I laugh … because once again, winter is here (at least in theory) and I am knitting - or having another go at trying to knit.    Indeed the cry of the church is right,  Lord have mercy!

disorientation.

so Christmas is over.

my tree down.

I did leave some lights up after all it is the season after the Epiphany .. the season of light!

I’ve enjoyed all the evenings with family, friends, shepherds and wisemen.

But it’s done.   The preparation for and the 12 days themselves are over.

so now what?

a little disoriented this morning.   a little direction-less.

not that the weather in middle Tennessee helps given that at 6:30am i seemed like it was spring outside not January 7th.

Happy last day of Christmas.

and happy birthday to mum.

which way to look

so not only does my neice (at 2 years old) know that life is best kept in order and in rows but she also knows that we as a group of people in this life should all be looking in the same direction.

everything we needed to know about the spiritual life, I can learn from my neice!  if only we, as adults were as wise.  if only we hadn’t forgotten what we knew when we were 2. 

she also asked me during our tea party: where’s Doodlebug?