My Mall & News

Calvary Fellowship Homes

2008-06-08T20:21:00.003-07:00

Mom and Dad

Their New Home

Mom looks as well as I have seen her in the last few months. Here is an excerpt from a letter from Dad, written from the home on May 19th.

Time brings change. This is certainly a significant transition in our lives. I will try to supply a few details of what has happened. You may recall that Lucinda was based at Dresher Hill rehabilitation center for almost a month. Then came the change. This past Friday, Anne and Wayne drove over to Dresher to pick mup Lucinda and the belongings she had there for the drive to Lancaster. It was raining and continued to rain through much of our journey of roughly 80 miles. But the Lord brought us to Calvary Fellowhsip Homes safely.

Lucinda has improved in her ability to feed herself at meals and I would say some progress in communication but still has quite a long way to go if she is to make the next step to assisted living.

We are thankful that God is committed to meet our needs. In the good book we read "having food and raiment, let us be content."

The Fat Lady Sings

2008-06-07T07:42:00.002-07:00

It's not over, they say, until the fat lady sings. As Hillary delivers her swan song to observe what everyone else in the world except those living in deep caves realize by now, perhaps we should reflect why Clinton failed to obtain her life's desire.

Is it sexism? I'm sure some of that is part of the problem. But it is a problem that is a drag on the other two candidates. Some people won't vote for McCain because he is too old and other poeple won't vote for Obama because he is too black. As I said earlier on this blog, my feeling that the strongest prejudice today is not sexism or racism, but ageism. So it is McCain who has the disadvantage. Furthermore, there are women who fill high leadership roles without decrying sexism. In my own heavily Republican state of Arizona, our pragmatic governor Janet Napolitano was re-elected by a large margin and is on the short list for consideration as Obama's vice president. (Obama will tap Virginia Senator Jim Webb for the vice presidency my opinion, however.)

Was it her husband Bill? I admire Bill for his centrist vision that gave us a vibrant peacetime economy. However, Hillary could not have run unless she was Bill's wife and unless she would have tolerated for her own political ambitions Bill's depravity. It may well have being that Bill's role during the primary season was a net gain. But for me it was a deal killer. I think Bill's presence will also disqualify Hillary from becoming Obama's vice president as Obama has no need to have another alpha male prowling the White House corridors.

I think Hillary failed because of her character. Her decision to suport the president on the key policy decision on our time was nothing more than pandering to the general eclection electorate. I also think she has trouble with the idea of truth as an overaching ethical and consitutional value. Citizens such as myself don't want parsing and spin, but the simple truth that you would expect in a question you would put to a five year old: "did you or did you not eat that cookie?" Her "under fire" in Kosovo claim as well as the Clintons secretive financial dealings has brought to the surface deep-seated doubts among many people including myself.

But it is not enough to vote against someone and that includes McCain. So why did I vote for Obama and will vote or him in the general election? His resume is thin , his rhetoric is gaseous, and some of his past associations are deplorable. But I find his post-partisan vision compelling. However, the skeptic in me recalls that Bush made the same appeals-- that he would be a uniter, not a divider, that he would transcend partisanship as he did in the Texas legislature. But I think at the end of the day I gravitate to someone most like me in how I look at truth, ethics, and the world. And for me, that is Obama.

A Letter From Australia

2008-06-07T07:31:00.002-07:00

My sister passed on this sad but insightful letter from an Australian cousin.

Dear Anne,

Thank you for including us in your conversation regarding your Mum and Dad's situation. I am so glad that you have your own family where you can revert to 'some nornality of life' and the accomplishments and joy of your own children and support from Wayne etc.

You know, because Aunty Cinda has come to visit us from time to time she has chatted with us and there are a couple of things I'd like to mention. I hope they bring some comfort as the resulting pain of the past will always be present for you all.

When our parents become so frail we are confronted by their humanness, we are confronted by their actions which have shaped our lives and we are confronted with ourselves and how we have coped or not coped with the paths our lives have taken, shaped by our parents. a simple example. (It was my mother who chose for me to be a kindergarten teacher and now that she is gone I no longer feel I can carry on with that job even though I have done it very successfully for years.)

I do trust your mother was able to tell each of you, Paul, Phillip, yourself and Tim that she held a very deep grief for sending you off to Boarding school at such young ages. It broke her heart I do believe.

You may ask why then did it happen - I would think possibly because it seemed right at the time within the context of how they chose to serve God.

Down through the years I have felt that you all must have felt so abandoned and always felt so sad for you. Once Aunty Cinda and Uncle Harold moved back to America, Aunty Cinda did all she could in her own way to reclaim that relationship but early childhood relationships can never be reclaimed to that same bond, and so she was very grieved in her soul. If she never told you how deeply she felt, I trust my telling you will help a little. Also our parents came from a generation where various issues were never talked about which has brought it's own grief as well.

Unfortunately the dictates of the interpretation of the religious framework which our parents chose to live by, meant that family was put aside in 'service for God.' Each of you will bear burdens from those early days - and it's easy to put "God" in that same box because in effect he didn't rescue you and change what was happening.

There's a wider view of God though -one of a God/ Christ who walks with us through our pain -My favourite story is Jesus walking on the road to Emaeus -He was not recognized until he was gone. Sometimes we don't see God in these things till we look back and realize in little ways how he was with us. The other thing was that your mother loved each one of you with the depth of love a real mother would love her children and it was because she loved you each one so dearly that it was a terrible burden for her to carry all those years for having sent you away.

I remember her saying about how awful it was to wave you off. Maybe she talked to you about these things -maybe she did not- If she didn't and even if she did. I hope it brings you comfort to know or to be reminded of your mothers great love for each of you.

What a sad a difficult path 'serving God' created for you. Thankfully each of you have your health and in sending you to America rather than Australia you are possibly better set up educationally and financially than if you'd come here to Australia. These are small compensations though for loss and grief.

Anne, I'd better not say more now. I hope this email doesn't make you too sad but rather reminds you that your Mum really loved you despite how it looked when sent off to school so young. You were her only daughter and I remember her saying how absolutely awful it was for her to say goodbye to you as well as to the boys of course.

Feel free to send this to your brothers if you feel it would help but don't if you feel it wouldn't be helpful. It is a time when the past and particularly the past of childhood will emerge in full force.Just remember that Jesus is there to walk beside you each one and carry you along through this sad and challenging time.

Craiglist Advertisement

2008-06-06T21:04:00.001-07:00

Your ad, titled "2ba fully furnished and beautifully decorated first floor condo," has been posted as follows:

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/apa/659375159.html (apts/housing for rent)

Who To Marry

2008-06-06T20:57:00.001-07:00

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY? (written by kids )

You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you likesports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep thechips and dip coming. -- Alan, age 10

No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry.God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you'restuck with .. -- Kristen, age 10

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?

Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER bythen. -- Camille, age 10

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?

You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at thesame kids. -- Derrick, age 8

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?

Both don't want any more kids. --Lori, age 8

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE D O ON A DATE?

Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough. -- Lynn , age 8

On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually getsthem interested enough to go for a second date. -- Martin, age 10 ( Martin is wise beyond his years)

WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?

When they're rich. -- Pam, age 7

The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess withthat.. - - Curt, age 7

The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry themand have kids with them. It's the right thing to do. -- How ard, age 8

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?

It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someoneto clean up after them. -- Anita, age 9

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?

There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there? -Kelvin, age 8

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?

Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dumptruck. -- Rick, age 10

Catching Up

2008-06-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

It is now getting warmer. Temperatures are consistently above 100 degrees, and we are starting to use the pool.

The boys have finished school. Ben ended his year with a 4.0 and Zach with a 3.5/4.0. The both worked hard. We attended the moving up ceremony for Zach from 8th grade to high school. He has a strong desire to be an engineer and to go to a university in the mid-west.

Ben is with two of his friends on a camping trip up north.

I’m looking forward to hearing about Tim’s house hunting efforts. We believe this is the right thing for him, and will provide an exciting new chapter to his life.

My small garden continues to flourish. I have a garden hose that sprays a mist over the tomatoes, herbs, squash, and peppers.

I had my annual physical and also went to the dentist last week. I still struggle with high cholesterol but I’m otherwise OK. No real problems with my teeth, either.

Work is beginning on our kitchen and bathroom. We may be living in hotels and also at our timeshare for the next several weeks, although our mailing address will remain the same. Kitty of course will have to live in the house during the construction process.

Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls

2008-05-30T22:47:00.004-07:00

The vultures are circulating and last week one descended as my brother decided to take my parent's grandfather clock. Last summer, my mother said "I would like you to have the clock," a large grandfather clock that stood in the living room making these chimes.

Dad

2008-05-25T08:03:00.003-07:00

This entire process can be like a consuming gray fog. I think it is important to compartmentalize -- to enjoy your immediate family and pets and your hobbies and put aside if for only a few hours thoughts about assisted living and dying.

I was interested to read that Mom showed emotion as you were leaving. While I was there, I never saw that, no matter how many tears were shed around her. I see that as a sign of recovery. Getting better is of course a relative term, but when I called her yesterday, her voice seemed clearer and she is now articulating compound sentences. However, Mom's cognition is no where near where she was at her prime, as the CD poignantly demonstrates.

I hope Dad continues his weekly letters, both for the discipline and because they do communciate important information. We had to smile when we put the letter we got two weeks ago up to a mirror to read it because he put the carbon paper on wrong. (Who uses carbon paper today?)

When it comes time to sell the house, Dad needs to be elsewhere. He needs to be given ample time to get the things he wants and he needs to clearly understand that when he leaves with those suitcases of things for himself and Mom, we will dispose of everything else one way or another. It is part of the paradox that is Dad that he is so tenacious onto holding onto stuff-- often broken and bad stuff such as chunks of metal and sticks of wood. I tried to throw out a box of magazines circa 1989 and Dad of course recovered them. For someone who is so spiritual, I would be hard pressed to find someone who is so materialistic. For some one who has so much faith, I would be hard pressed to find some one who is so faithless especially about family. For some one who is so frugal, I would be hard pressed to find someone who is so prone to gambling (excuse me, investing) in the stock market casino. For some one who has preached the blessings of God, I would be hard pressed to find some one who has lived a life so devoid of joy and fun. For some one who is so fearless in his faith, I would be hard pressed to find some one so fearful about the vicissitudes of life. For some one who is so gentle and kind, I would be hard pressed to find some one who as a consequence of his decisions so cruel and callous. It is these contradictions that have driven me as nothing else has to question almost everything that Dad fundamentally believes especially it terms of what it means to be a Christian and a father. From the very first breath I took, my own life has been a testimony to Dad's monstrous choices. The very week before Mom had her first stroke, I asked her if it was true that I was induced so we could go on the ocean liner to America in time and not lose our tickets. It was true, Mom said, and she added that someday she would tell me about it. Well, that day will of course no longer be. However, I have seen time again Dad putting money before health (as in the needlessly lengthy arguments for Dad to go to the hospital for his hip injury and Mom when she suffered her first stroke), religious organizations before family and people (where is the Biblical justification for boarding schools and homes?), and an ethic that seems largely predicated on the idea that ends justify the means (my cuteness as a baby was a means to win people to Christ, for example). "Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the earth." But is some ways, in ways that have hurt a lot of people, Dad has not being honorable. I've talked to Dad about this, and his position generally is that he is who he is and I need to be tolerant of him. Ok, but it seems to me that contradicts the premise of his entire life-- that people with God's help can convert. I don't think he can change because I think he likes the way he is right now. Evil it has been said is the shadow cast by good, and the great good that Mom and Dad have done have created whether or not they realize it great evil, pain, and suffering as well. I have come to realize that Dad doesn't make bad decisions, as all decisions that Dad makes follow logically from his presuppositions. However, I do believe that he generally is incapable of making ethically-grounded decisions-- the right choice in distinction to the religious choice. Dad, for example, won't do laundry on Sunday but he also won't spend an extra $500 so Mom can right first class on an airline. I don't think much can be done about it now except to resolutely resolve not to pass that broken baton to my children. But it does make me so sad.

I chatted with Tim for well over a half hour yesterday. I tried to keep it light, reassurring, and encouraging. However, I suggested that he separate the mail he gets into junk mail, personal letters, and bills. Baby steps. I also urged him to extend trust and transparency on financial matters especially to Wayne so that a structure can be put into place so that he can avoid to use his word "destitution".

Death of a Christian

2008-05-11T09:34:00.004-07:00

From Execution Eve, by William F. Buckley, Jr.

Charles Pinckney Luckey of the Middlebury, Conn., Congregational Church was making his usual ministerial rounds, as usual on his motorcycle. Suddenly, rounding a corner, he lost his balance and fell.

He arrived home that mid-October day in 1974, a little bedraggled. But this didn't matter much-- he was always a conspicuously informal dresser, though never affectedly so. In fact, there was no trace of affection in him, which is one reason he was so greatly, and quietly, popular with his congregation.

What vexed Luckey was that he-- a perfect physical specimen at 50, tall and rangy and handsome, with the face of a 30-year-old and the physique of a long-distance runner-- should have lost his balance. So he went to a doctor, suspecting that he had something wrong with his ear canal. The doctor examined him, couldn't find anything, and everyone hoped that whatever it was would go away.

It didn't. Luckey began to lose his vision and, in a few weeks, was losing the motor control on his left side. By December, he was blind. A legion of specialists surveyed his wilting frame, and a name was spoken which squirts ice water among even hardened doctors. It was diagnosed as Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease, and there are few recorded cases of it. Something about a galloping degeneration of the nerve cells. The prognosis for him: up to six months. Cause? Nobody knows.

They took Charles Luckey to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York to "confirm" the diagnosis. It was only there that he yielded to depression, when they poked about and asked him questions, to measure, scientifically, the physical and intellectual deterioration. Before and after the poking, he was obstinately cheerful and affectionate, dictating to his secretary farewell letters to his friends, letters exalted by a curious dignity that had attached to him even as a teen-ager. Then, on the Sunday before Christmas, propped up at the lectern by his 17-year-old son, he preached his last sermon to a congregation racked with pain and admiration.

The crisis came shortly after. He called his secretary and dictated a letter which he sent to a few friends, and which was pronounced by the retired, aged chaplain of Yale University "the most moving credo of the Christian faith written in my lifetime."

"What"-- Charlie dictated-- "does the Christian do when he stands over the abyss of his own death and the doctors have told him that disease is ravaging his brain and that his whole personality may be warped, twisted, changed? Then does the Christian have any right to self-destruction, especially when he knows that the changed personality may bring out some horrible beast in himself? Well, after 48 hours of self-searching and study, it comes to me that ultimately and finally the Christian has to always view lifer as a gift from God, and every precious moment of life was not earned but was given by grace, lovingly bestowed upon him by his Creator, and it is not his to pick up and smash."

And so I find the position of suicide untenable, not because I lack the courage to blow out my brains, but rather because of my deep, abiding faith in the Creator who put the brains there in the first place. And now the result is that I lie here blind on my bed and trust in the sustaining, loving power of that great Creator who knew and loved me before I was fashioned in my mother's womb. But I do not think it is wrong to pray for an early release from this diseased, ravaged carcass.

"Lovingly given," he closed the statement, diffidently, "to my congregation and to my friends if it seems in good taste."

It seems to me in very good taste, and I pass it along, with the word that at least that final prayer was answered. The coma began two weeks later, and on January 20, 1975, he died. There had been no personality change. That, all the dreadful powers of Jakob-Creutzfeldt couldn't do to Charles P. Luckey.

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-11T09:29:00.002-07:00

For some of us, it won't be an easy Mother's Day, with my mother's memory now almost completely faded and her ability to commicate in any way almost completely gone.

A Christian View of Death

2008-05-11T09:23:00.004-07:00

John Donne writes

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so
One short sleep past, we wake eternaly,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.

For the Christian physical death isn't a dread enemy. The death that Christians hold in dread is not the death of the body but the death of the soul.

I came across a letter my parents wrote in 1980. "In our last prayer letter, mention was made f the fact that Harold's sister Elsie and sister-in-law Irene were both in critical health condition. We must now report with sadness that Irene passed away January 1st and Elsie on January 4th. We are reminded that the Lord gives to each of us our appointed time and tasks and that while life is short and fleeting for all it is yet long enough to be significant, especially when lived out in the will of God."

Airline pilots have a catch-phrase where weather conditions are optimum- CUVU-- ceiling unlimited, visibility unlimited-- and that is the hope that God gives us. "Even there shall thy hand lead," says Psalms 139:10. Discovery of God's steadying hand begets quiteness and confidence for the road ahead. In the economy of God, we are needed. We can lend our strength to "whatever things are true. . . honorable . . . lovely . . . gracious . . . excellent. There is pain in the loss of those we have loved, but such persons we honor not by retiring from life but by carrying on with courage, faith, and hope.

Remind me, God, when I am lonely and perhaps I feel despair
Let not my ailing heart forget that you hear every prayer
Remind me that no matter what I do or fail to do
There is still hope for me as long as I have faith in You
Let not my eyes be blinded by some folly I commit
But help me to regret my wrongs
Inspire me to put my fears upon a hidden shelf
And in the future never to be sorry for myself
Give me the restful sleep I need before another dawn
And bless me in the morning with the courage to go on.

CUVU

2008-05-11T09:16:00.002-07:00

Ceiling Unlimited Visibility Unlimited.

On the Beach

2008-05-10T16:00:00.003-07:00

I watched the liesurely but horrific 1959 film On the Beach last night. The movie, starring Gregory Peck, Fred Astair, and Ava Gardner, has the last remaining survivors of a global nuclear holocaust awaiting their certain deaths in Australia as radiation creeps towards them. The government issues everyone in Melbourne poison tablets to kill themselves rather then enduring radiation sickness. Peck as a submarine capitain heads back to the United States with his crew to die as the movie fades to black. It wasn't exactly a feel good movie. However, it seemed to resonate with a certain dignity, with no one rioting or hoarding, and everyone performing their duties as well as they could under the circumstances. In the movie, Fred Astaire as the scientist Julian Osborne says "Who would ever have believed that human beings would be stupid enough to blow themselves off the face of the Earth?" The horror of the movie lies in the knowledge that humans can indeed be that stupid.

The Wicked Witch of the West Exits

2008-05-10T15:57:00.002-07:00

Stage left.

And there is no chance that she will be Obama's vice president. Dealing with the psychodrama that is Bill and Hill would try the patience of anyone. It's a burden President Obama can do without.

Mom: A Story

2008-05-03T16:20:00.002-07:00

From Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury.

She was a woman with a broom or a dustpan or a washrag or a mixing spoon in her hand. You saw her cutting pie crust in the morning, humming to it, or you saw her setting out the baked pies at noon or taking them in, cool, at dusk. She glided through the halls as steadily as a vacuum machine, seeking, finding, and setting to rights. She made mirrors of every window, to catch the sun. She strolled but twice through any garden, trowel in hand, and the flowers raised their quivering fires upon the warm air in her wake. She touched people like pictures, to set their frames straight.

But, now? . . .

“Grandma,” said everyone. “Great-grandma.”

Now it was as if a huge sum in arithmetic were finally drawing to an end. She had stuffed turkeys, chickens, squabs, gentlemen, and boys. She had washed ceilings, walls, invalids, and children. She had laid linoleum, repaired bicycles and stoked furnaces. Her hands had flown all around about and down, gentling this, holding that, throwing baseballs, swinging bright croquet mallets, seeding black earth, or fixing covers or dumplings, ragouts, and children wildly strewn by slumber. She had pulled down shades, pinched out candles, turned switches, and—grown old. Looking back on 30 billions of things started, carried, finished, and done, it all summed up, totaled out; the last decimal was placed, the final zero swung slowly into line. Now, chalk in hand, she stood back from life a silent hour before reaching for the eraser.

“Let me see now,” said Great-grandma. “Let me see . . .”

With no fuss or further ado, she traveled the house in an ever-circling inventory, reached the stairs at last, and took herself up three flights to her room where, silently, she laid herself out under the snowing-cool sheets of her bed and began to die.

Again the voices: “Grandma! Great-grandma!”

The family surrounded her bed.

“Just let me lie,” she whispered.

Her ailment could not be seen in any microscope; it was a mild but ever-deepening tiredness, a dim weighing of her sparrow body; sleepy, sleepier, sleepiest.

“Great-grandma, now listen—what you’re doing is no better than breaking a lease. This house will fall down without you. You must give us at least a year’s notice!”

Great-grandma opened one eye. Ninety years gazed calmly out at her physicians like a dust ghost from a high cupola window in a fast-emptying house. “Tom? . . .”

The boy was sent, alone, to her whispering bed.

“Tom,” she said, faintly, far away, “in the Southern Seas there’s a day in each man’s life when he knows it’s time to shake hands with all his friends and say good-by and sail away, and he does, and it’s natural—it’s just his time. That’s how it is today. I’m so like you sometimes, sitting through Saturday matinees until nine at night when we send you dad to bring you home. Tom, when the time comes that the same cowboys are shooting the same Indians on the same mountaintop, then it’s best to fold back the seat and head for the door, with no regrets and no walking backward up the aisle. So, I’m leaving while I’m happy and still entertained.”

Douglas was summoned next to her side.

“Grandma, who’ll shingle the roof next spring?”

Every April, as far back as there were calendars, you thought you heard woodpeckers tapping the housetop. But no, it was Great-grandma singing, pounding nails, replacing shingles, high in the sky!
“Douglas,” she whispered, “don’t ever let anyone do the shingles unless it’s fun for them. Look around come April, and say, “Who’d like to fix the roof?’ And whichever face lights up is the face you want, Douglas. Because up there on the roof you can see the whole town going toward the country going toward the edge of the earth and the river shining.”

Her voice sank to a soft flutter.

Douglas was crying.

She roused herself again. “Now, why are you doing that?”

“Because,” he said, “you won’t be here tomorrow.”

She turned a small hand mirror from herself to the boy. He looked at her face and himself in the mirror, and then again at her face as she said, “Tomorrow morning I’ll get up at seven and wash behind my ears; I’ll run to church with Charlie Woodman; I’ll picnic at Electric Park; I’ll swim, run barefoot, fall out of trees, chew spearmint gum . . .Douglas, Douglas, for shame! You cut your fingernails, don’t you?”

“Yes’m.”

“Well, consider then, boy. Any man saves fingernail clippings is a fool. You ever see a snake bother to keep his peeled skin? That’s about all you got here today in this bed is fingernails and snakeskin. One good breath would send me up in flakes. Important thing is not the me that’s lying here, but the me that’s sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that’s downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count.”
“I’m not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family. I’ll be around a long time. A thousand years from now a whole township of my offspring will be biting sour apples in the gumwood shade. That’s my answer to anyone asks big questions! Quick now, send me the rest!”
The entire family approached, like people seeing someone off at the rail station.

“Well,” said Great-grandma, “there I am. I’m not humble, so it’s nice seeing you standing by my bed. Now next week there’s late gardening and closet cleaning and clothes buying for the children to do. And since that part of me which is called, for convenience, Great-grandma, won’t be here to step it along, those other parts of me called Uncle Bert and Leo and Tom and Douglas, and all the other names, will have to take over.”

“Yes, Grandma.”

“I don’t want anyone saying any thing sweet about me tomorrow; I said it all in my time and my pride. I’ve tasted every victual and danced every dance; now there’s one last tart I haven’t bit on, one tune I haven’t whistled. But I’m not afraid. I’m truly curious. So don’t you worry about me. Now, all of you go, and let me find my sleep . . .”

Somewhere a door closed quietly.

“That’s better.” Alone, she snuggled down through the warm snowbank of linen and wool, sheet and cover; and the colors of the patchwood quilt were bright as the circus banners of old time.

A long time back, she thought, I dreamed a dream, and was enjoying it so much when someone waked me and that was the day when I was born. And now? Now, let me see . . .

She cast her mind back. Where was I? Ninety years . . . how to take up the thread and the pattern of that lost dream again? She put out a small hand. There . . . yes, that was it.

She smiled. Deeper in the warm snow hill she turned her head upon her pillow. That was better. Now, yes, now she saw it shaping in her mind quietly, and with a serenity like a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore. Now she let the old dream touch and lift her from the snow and drift her above the scarce-remembered bed.

Downstairs, she thought, they are polishing the silver, and rummaging through the cellar, and dusting in the halls. She could hear them living all through the house.

“It’s all right,” whispered Great-grandma, as the dream floated her. “Like everything else in life, it’s fitting.”

And the sea moved her back down the shore.

Dairy Queen's Stupid New Commercial

2008-04-30T19:58:00.002-07:00

Usually, commercials fly by without registering on my consciousness. But the new ad from Dairy Queen was so despicable, I had to replay it to make sure I saw what I saw.

The gist is that a girl, perhaps ten years old (Darcy from The Young and the Restless soap) goes to Dairy Queen with her mother to get hot fudge sundaes. The little girl knowingly tells her mom to get just one. The little boy buys one for her. And then she tells her mom, "Like shooting fish in a barrel." It reminds me of that old country and western song: "There are women, and girls, and ladies/They start learning when they are babies."

What is digusting and disturbing is the sexist and sexualized undertone of the commercial, with the jaded nymphet reeling in the oblivious boy. Instead of selling ice cream, Dairy Queen is selling a seedy and somewhat perverse bar scene.

It's not cute. It's crude.

Speaking for myself, I'm giving Dairy Queen a pass next time I want a shake.

Meow

2008-04-30T19:54:00.001-07:00

Mom

2008-04-26T11:14:00.001-07:00

I believe that mom is in irreversible decline. But, in the meantime, she needs to be comforted and be kept comfortable. Since she cannot feed herself and since it is not the job of the staff there to feed her, it looks like family members will need to feed her. It is a cruel death indeed to die by thirst or starvation. It brought a wave of indescribable sadness to see mom lie in a wet mattress, shivering because she was too cold, and barely able to sip water from a straw.

I think we also need to recognize that people work through grief in different ways. Grief has many masks and some people express grief through laughter or numbness, by maintaining their routines, by emotional disengagement, or by spiritualizing. This is a difficult time, and we need to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven us. We also need to recognize that we have our own limits and priorities, and we need to protect ourselves from taking on more than we can or should handle, sometimes by saying no and sometimes by asking for help.

Finally, we need to come to terms with mom's imminent death. It may be days or weeks or months, but it may be that we're seeing mom's final battle. And the great gift that God has given us is time to reconcile us to her death. It's hard to do so, but for our own sake and the sake of our families we must do so. As she said to me "I know where I am going" and we need to be happy for that.

Anne has asked on more than one occasion the eternal why-- why this good woman of faith spent the last half decade in such pain. I think of C.S. Lewis who aggressively promoted the classic Christian answer to evil and suffering in The Problem of Pain. You may remember the movie “Shadowlands”, played by Anthony Hopkins as Lewis, in which he had a crisis of faith when he watched his young bride die of cancer. At the end of the day, there are no satisfactory answers—only the consolation of faith in the One who also suffered-- and our friends and family. In one of the last scenes in “Shadowlands,” we see the professor hugging his young step-son after his wife had just died-- both in tears. Perhaps that is the only real answer in the face of the silence and distance of God.

Faith is not all green pastures and still waters. The comforters in the Book of Job put forth their rational arguments, and at the end Job—without an explanation but with the real experience of God—turns from questioning to wondering silence: “I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” In this fragment of time on this planet, we are in this together and we must help each other out. Suffering is inextricably part of the human condition, and if there is one thing we must believe in, it is that we can make a difference. To live is to suffer. To suffer is to find meaning. And, if there is purpose in life, there must be purpose in suffering and death. The Psalmist said that “My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” It did not say, “My tragedy comes from the Lord.” The bad that happens in our life has no meaning. But we can redeem it by giving it meaning. When I have felt sad, I have taken solace in the familiar prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi: “O Divine master, grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

My Mom

2008-04-24T05:10:00.004-07:00

My mother is currently at

Dresher Hill Health & Rehabilitation
1390 Camp Hill Rd.
Dresher, PA 19034

The office number is (215) 643-0600. She is in room 233, bed 1.

Mom is currently unable to sit up and is weak. She has difficulty speaking and wouldn't be able to respond to a telephone conversation. Mom cannot read nor write and she has lost much of her memory. Mom does recognize faces and takes pleasure in visitors, although she tires easily. I think she would appreciate cards and of course your prayers and best wishes. Mom's future is in God's hands, but I believe that mom may be fighting her last battle.

Last week, I flew out to visit mom and I just returned home last night. The train arrived at the Roslyn station at about 10:30 pm and Tim picked me up moments later. Dad greeted me when we got home but Mom was slumbering. The next morning, I awoke and Mom was in the kitchen. I was immediately struck by the fact that she was almost completely doubled over, with a height perhaps now no more than half mine. Nevertheless, she pealed an orange with a knife and turned on the gas stove for a breakfast of shredded wheat with steaming water. Mom was grateful for Nancy's stained glass Serenity Prayer, and later that day I hung it in the kitchen window where it can catch the light.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
courage to change the things I can
and wisdom to know the difference.

The sentiment is much like Mom's favorite Bible verse from Proverbs 3.

Trust in the LORD with all your heartand lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,and he will direct your paths.

Dad and Mom both had bad colds, so it was somewhat unfair to assess Mom's mental state. However, we did talk and I treasure that those moments at the kitchen table.

At sometime after eight, I heard mom call me from the bathroom. She was lying prone with her head on the bathtub about two inches from the floor, having tripped on the floor mats. Mom had a golf-ball-sized bump on the back of her head and, although I didn't know it at the time, her right arm was badly bruised. At about nine, Sherry, the physical therapist, arrived. She was adamant that Mom should be taken to the emergency room because of her being on Coumadin (a blood thinner), and Mom was equally adamant that she wanted to stay home-- fighting like a tiger to not go to a place that has brought her so much pain. About two hours later, Dad finally had me call 911, perhaps when he saw that Mom could no longer sit up. Anne arrived, and at about midday, we went to Abington Memorial's emergency room. Her physical and mental state has waxed and waned.

There are times when she is incoherent-- thinking that the year is 1918 or 1998 or that she needs to now help make the dinner for Dad as she pulls at the wires from her sparrow body. At other times, flashes of wit emerged, as for when Anne asked Mom if she was a tree climber. "Of course," mom said. "The higher the better."

But it was sad to see someone who was once so sharp and capable now hooked up to the same kind of machines that are used to monitor new born infants and also experiencing all the institutional smells, sounds, and sights that comes with that. Mom said of her experience in the ER that "I have been humiliated to the nth degree," and I think as a family we need to do what we can to honor mom's sense of propriety. It is out of that sense of propriety that she has asked for a closed casket funeral and that I suggest that during this time we forgo photos or videos of Mom while she is the way she is now. I know Mom would want us to honor her in that way.

What are the facts at present? Because of ongoing arterial fibrillation-- heart flutters-- her pulse has on occasion exceeded 150. But it is normal now with medication. Yesterday, she wasn't eating. Today, she is eating. Yesterday, she was paralyzed, unable to even sip water. Today, she is sitting up with assistance and eating food. She doesn't appear to be in pain. Mom does recognize faces and can give yes/no/of course answers or short answers. But I'm not sure that the words we're hearing are always associated with cognition.

The doctors reported today that she had another stroke on Sunday-- a TIA-- and is experiencing post-concussion syndrome. My view is that we are seeing a decline with ebbs and flows of mental and physical acuity. The plan is to be in rehab perhaps for two weeks. However, if she does go home, there needs to be a tough-minded review of the house from her point of view-- basically our vision on our knees. I've removed all the throw rugs, but Dad and Tim need to be sure that water is toweled up in the bathroom. There needs to be non-slip mats in the bathtub, better lighting, grab bars in the bathroom, removal of clutter, the habit of using the walker and wearing non-slip shoes, attention to vision and medications that can cause dizziness, and perhaps even sealing the door that goes to the basement. All of this seems like common sense, but the house is filled with stubborn people who for nine decades of their lives have in many matters leaned to their own understanding.

I was planning to visit my parents closer to my mother's birthday in October. However, the circumstances of the stroke and some of the decisions that were made at the time prompted me to come in earlier. I didn't anticipate mom's accident, of course, but I got a much more accurate sense of where things are now. While my parents are still living, I need to forgo other activities such as reunions and what Tim calls junkets, no matter how pleasurable they may be. I am at peace with this and I ask for understanding if I cannot spend more time doing things we have done in the past for fun. The remaining hours I have with my parents are precious. I have lived with mom and dad for no more than ten years. And, the last 25 years, I have spent the equivalent of a half year of my life with them, but spaced out over a quarter century. So the effect is like watching a stop action movie of a flowering and dying plant-- flourishing for a great length of time and then suddenly collapsing.

I would like to especially recognize the Birch family for their hospitality over the last week. Jennie and David are amazing children, bright, loving, and capable, and they can look forward to wonderful futures, and they owe much to their parents. I appreciate Anne's steadfast, tireless love for mom and medical erudition as well. It was a benediction to the soul for Anne and me to be on either side of Mom while we read from the Psalms and sometimes cried. I couldn't have asked for a better sister, and Mom could not have asked for a better daughter. So for Anne and Wayne, a heart felt thank you.

Some of the time we spent with Mom was sad-- sad that a woman who was fluent in several languages, who was triple certified in nursing, who traveled the globe and had friends throughout the continents is reduced to such paralysis and dependency. But Mom was never sad and on many occasions she was happy-- positively lighting up when she saw her nephew Frank White from Australia. What a kind man he was to remind us from Job that "I know my redeemer liveth" and mom's days are in God's hands.

The last hour I spent with mom-- possibly the last hour I will have with mom in this life-- was a time of smiles and hugs. Her voice was feathery and fluttery as she said "Philip, ever since you were a baby, I have loved you." I said "I will always love you." "Ditto," My Mom said. "You will always be with me." In 1981, Mom was by the side of her own mother as she died. Shortly after, she wrote this poem "in loving memory of my mother." It's the way I want to remember Mom, not the way I see her now, but in her vital and beautiful prime.

O Lord, Thank you for today and
for the happy memories of yesterday.
Help me to understand the mysteries of old age
and to rejoice in your countless favors.
I am keenly ware of my limitations
and dependence upon others, but do give me
a kind word and smile
for any who may come my way.
Save me from the critical fault finding habits
into which many old people fall.
As my mind takes pleasure in walking through
the corridors of the past, only let me go
loving, forgiving, and forgetting
any who have hurt or caused me pain
Help me to be wise, serene, patient, helpful, and unafraid
lest self-pity and anger take away
the peace of heart and joy of companionship
with you my God.

Thank you Lord Jesus.

Sharing as I do Mom's love for literature, perhaps it is appropriate that I close with Prospero’s loving praise of Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, because it applies perfectly to My Mom: “She will outstrip all praise and make it halt behind her.”

Flying to Philly

2008-04-16T05:19:00.002-07:00

I leave today to the City of Brotherly Love mainly to visit with my aging parents and siblings and their family but also for business. I

Hillary's Faith

2008-04-13T09:42:00.003-07:00

Said Hillary: "I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith."

How Hillary Lives Out Her Faith.

Vulgar Candidates

2008-04-12T20:52:00.003-07:00

Some blame the Viet Cong for McCain's short fuse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpsDIjoI1pY

Hillary also isn't so high toned.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39329

A Bitter Pill

2008-04-12T20:28:00.002-07:00

Said Obama: "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Because of the stakes, I think anything is fair to test the character of next president including Obama's misfired words. But I think there is a whisper-in-the-wind quality is this statement and also in the Reverand Wright statements that distort the susbtance of the comments. The implication from Clinton and McCain is that Obama doesn't like the folkways of Main Street America with their belief in guns and God.

As far as the Reverand Wright statements are concerned, there isn't very much that is different from what many evangelicals have said, although using milder language. A common thread in countless sermons is that the 9/11 attack occurred not so much because of who we are-- a multi-religious, multi-racial people who believe in the rule of law and principles of the constitution-- or what we did-- specific policies that have promoted Israeli or oil company interests for example-- but the collective sins of the American people. Thus, the moralizers say, God allowed the towers to fall because of what lesbians in San Francisco and abortionists in Dallas were doing. I think this makes no sense, but I have heard people of faith make that claim.

Finally, I think it is ironic that McCain and Clinton are using statements like that to suggest that Obama is arrogant and aloof. McCain comes from old money and Clinton comes from new money and the wealth of both McCain and Clinton exceeds Obama by many orders of magnitude. I thusly question the pretense that they are in touch with most Americans whereas Obama is not.

Ageism, Sexism, Racism

2008-04-12T20:21:00.001-07:00

Three potential US presidents have opponents representing sexism, ageism, and racism.

In the US, which bias is most prevalent and which is least prevelant, generally?

My opinion is the ranking of bigotry in the US from the greatest to the least is ageism, sexism, and racism.

I think this has to do with the ageing population in combination with our youth-oriented culture and, on the other extreme, the acceptance of different races throughout all segments of our culture.

What do you think and why?

Responses

Saturday at the Phoenix Zoo

2008-04-06T17:29:00.003-07:00

Collard peccary (javilina) are hiding in the brush. In the background is the grave site of George W. P. Hunt's pyramid tomb.

Bald eagle. We also liked the scarlet ibis, capybara, lions, watusi cattle, and orangantan baby.

Ben (with the Cub's hat) feeding shrimp to a stingray.