Wells of strength

I may have no idea where I’m going at the start of a new week, but know this column will be in the hands of the Gazette editor on Friday morning.

We all have different callings. Mine is to write. It’s an adventure, knowing something will flow out of my brain, through my fingertips, across the internet and end up in printer’s ink on the Religion Page by Saturday night.

A teacher said we either write by the seat of our pants or we’re out-liners. I’m a seat-of-the-pants kind of girl. The only thing I know for sure is that I have to wind around the mountain to reach my closing, “All will be well,” a quote from St. Julian of Norwich. The author of the earliest book written in English by a woman, Julian said Jesus gave her those words in a revelation.

I can’t remember why I ended my first entry with that gem, but I’ve used it in every one of my 195 pieces, since. It means I have to dig down to discover something good in every situation. I don’t want to let my readers down. I feel like it’s my job assignment to produce an uplifting commentary that makes everyone feel better, including me.

But it’s not.

It’s my job, my joy, to write for Jesus, to Jesus. I want to minister to him with a love offering, a prayer that says he is mine and I am his forever.

Some thoughts that raise my view beyond corona virus and advanced cancer:

From Martin Luther:

“Feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving.

My warrant is the Word of God, naught else is worth believing.”

Whatever I write must align with the Word, to the best of my understanding. Right now, we all need to know there’s no right or wrong way to feel. Feelings come independently of how any of us feel about them, but that doesn’t mean they have the power to direct our thoughts and actions. That part is up to us.

From Mother Teresa, by her personal priest, Leo Maasburg:

. .. .she embodied love through powerlessness … she knew the secret power of tenderness. (“Mother Teresa of Calcutta,” page165-66.)

Her tender heart is why this feisty little lady was known as a power house for God. She treated everyone equally as a child beloved by Jesus.

From our wedding prayer of 50 years ago:

My childhood pastor, Rev. Nelson Frank, prayed the tenderness of Jesus for me as Jim and I knelt at the altar, “Give her a tenderness that will make her great.”

Yes, Lord.

Use it all, Father. The nausea, the crankiness, the cancer, the virus infecting our world, as well as the manifest good –the loving hearts of family and friends –to mold my own with a tenderness that is all about your greatness, Jesus.

From social researcher Brené Brown, as she expressed in her TEDtalk:

It’s okay to be afraid.

It’s okay (and vital) we are truthful with ourselves.

It’s okay to acknowledge our fears, vulnerability and weakness. They are the roots of all courage.

****

Where do I find wells of strength in the middle of chaos, when we’re physically isolated from others?

Back to my phone. My phone is my lifeline for photos, emails, news, texting, talking, zooming, and Facetime.

Back to my books. When I feel well enough to read, books are my inspiration.

Back to Facebook. During social distancing, my mainline to relationships that matter: my family and friends from seven decades of living. Plus, currently nightly worship provided by my church settle my soul before I sleep.

It’s where my kids post landscapes, portraits, and words and ideas that challenge me.

Words like “Respirator.”

My daughter, who endured collapsed lungs and lung surgery as a college student, understands the desperate need to breathe.

Re-spirator.

Literally, to “breath again.”

Inhaling and exhaling a belly full of air calms me so mindfulness can redirect my scattered thoughts.

Back to the Trinity. Whose Spirit is the breath of life.

“Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on us.

“Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me, use me…” with your image, imprinted indelibly on my spiritual DNA.

Back to the Bible. Like an old time radio show, back to my roots. God wants to encourage each of us, precious friends, so the Lord provided a comfort zone as faith. Not for easy answers, but for deeper questions.

Back to Love. God is love.

Love conquers all, demonstrated from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, and in the words and actions of Jesus, “There is no greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for our friends.”

We are his friends.

All will be well.

“Respirator” Art by Tara; photo by Brett

Texting Thru Recovery/Indiana Gazette

Take fresh heart

Noon, Monday: The dog rubbed his nose against my blanket as the phone buzzed. My eyes heavy, I had curled onto the sofa after breakfast and was soon in deep sleep, but did I really conk out until noon?

Honestly, I could coast through my days right now and no one would make me feel guilty. It seems reasonable for a senior with what’s called “an underlying disease” to drift through spring into summer, or whenever this corona-crap is controlled.

But I don’t want to.

I’m learning sleepiness and fatigue are not the same. A breast cancer survivor says she’s tired even when she’s resting, making restorative sleep almost impossible. That’s fatigue.

Fatigue sounds fatiguing, as if they couldn’t come up with a more pleasant word to describe it.

My meds conspire to make me sleepy, from which I eventually emerge more upbeat and alert than if I’ve been wrapped in a gray sheet of fatigue.

Only my hubby knows how much I snooze, and he encourages me to rest when I can. Does it really matter if I doze the days away? We’re all stuck at home anyway, if you look at self-isolation that way.

But I don’t.

Remove “stuck” and I agree – we’re all at home.

That could be a book title, We’re All at Home. I’m pretty sure someone at this moment is typing a non-fiction, harder-to-believe-than-a-fantasy book about the way the world has changed since we’re all home. We could all write our own chapter.

I understand cabin fever but in no way are we bored. Jim and I are retired; our house spills over with enough projects to keep us occupied for the rest of the millennium, but I don’t have that long. I don’t want to waste a single morning.

We’ve been pretty much self-isolating since New Years, to avoid the flu. But this isolation is different. It’s not just Jim and me. It’s all of us. Quarantined.

Our daughter Tara is posting root meanings of words related to this unique time in history. Quarantine has a stark, chilly ring, and for good reason. She writes,

“The word quarantine comes from Italian words quaranta giorni, or forty days. This refers to the amount of time ships were asked to ‘shelter in place’ for 40 days during the 14th century plague in Europe.

“Lent is a period of 40 days prior to Easter. A time for self-examination and prayer. A time we hold out to God the brokenness of our lives and world.

“40 days.
40 days of wilderness.
40 days of prayer.
40 days of solitude.
40 days of exile.
“Forty isn’t just a number,” She writes. “It’s a reality infused with deep spiritual meaning. Biblically, it is considered to mean ‘a really long time.’”

Thanks, Tara.

While my heart goes out to parents with kids going stir-crazy, I wonder if you see this quarantine (most likely extending beyond 40 days) infused with spiritual meaning . . . or does it just make you tired?

Do you sense the Spirit of God standing guard, equipping us to be the brave, innovative people God intends us to be? St. Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, commenting on the impact of his imprisonment, (Phillips Translation, adapted): it means that most of our brothers and sisters, somehow take fresh heart in the Lord from the very fact that I am a prisoner for Christ’s sake.

Paul, who was essentially quarantined in a dank prison, encouraged early Christians to take fresh heart. Can we find the strength within to do the same, acknowledging we don’t know what the future holds, but we knows who is waiting there, for us?

Fresh heart empowers us to immerse ourselves in the senses of the season – snowdrops and daffodils, song birds and rain showers, this year a season of wary hope.

Take fresh heart – as we find ways to support others suffering unbearable burdens.

Take fresh heart – trusting God will guide scientists and our leaders, if we humble ourselves and pray.

Think how we would change, from the Oval Office down, if our country saw isolation not as something to endure but as a discipline maturing us into people who are equipped with God’s Spirit to be forces for good.

Speaking of disciplines, I mentioned earlier my phone rang at noon. Actually, it was my cell alarm, reminding me to Pray Down at High Noon, a prayer effort led by Texan Terry Teykl to have people worldwide say the Lord’s Prayer in unison at noon. He says it’s the largest 21-second daily prayer movement in the world.

This prayer unites us in community, the opposite of isolation:

Our Father

… give us

… forgive us

…lead us

…deliver us!

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery/Indiana Gazette

(Word Art by Rev. Tara Woodard-Lehman)

Face to Face

Azaleas were blooming when we spent a spring weekend with my sister’s family and were introduced to Roberta Flack’s haunting song, “The first time ever I saw your face.”

It was my infant son’s first Easter and I was entranced by him and motherhood. That song takes me back to the scent of lilies, the brilliant sun, and his small hand brushing my cheek.

Fast forward to 2020 and COVID-19. I’m hoping I can break this habit of touching my face to decrease the risk of contracting the virus. It’s an instinctive, unconscious behavior, built into us from womb. To break it will take repeated slapping my hands when I’m tempted to rub my eyes or touch my lips, as I did just this moment without thinking.

The enormity of a world-wide pandemic makes me feel as small and insignificant as a mouse, but that’s not God’s truth about me, or you. Talking with Jesus is my go-to response to life, as natural as breathing. When I’m not feeling well or even like talking, prayer simply means being held in God’s strong grip.

Our church held a teaching weekend on prayer last month. One of our guests prayed I would be bubble-wrapped in the Lord’s protection. I smiled, knowing that phrase appears a couple times in my book that is now on my publisher’s desk. It was as if God led him to chose those words to comfort me.

Yet, prayer isn’t a magic formula. It’s more about knowing God, and being known, which stretches far beyond the boundaries of any disease. The same day this fellow prayed for my bubble-wrap to hold, I dislocated my new hip joint, setting my recovery from surgery back a month. Now more than ever, the Spirit calls me to slow down and live deliberately in the presence of the unknown.

When God led Moses and the Israelites into the wilderness, they felt a similar dread to what many feel, today. As they circled the desert mountains for 40 years, God instructed Moses to pass along this blessing to the people, through their priests:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26 NIV)

I pray the Lord’s face shines through this pandemic, that peace replaces panic, that neighborliness is stronger than hoarding, that we sense God is keeping us and therefore nothing can harm us in an everlasting way.

In the presence of the greatest threat to humanity since the development of nuclear weapons, we can chose where to go in our heads. Joshua, who followed Moses as the Israelite’s leader, told the people to chose who they wanted to be their god, but he and his house would serve the Lord.

If we’re looking, there’s evidence everywhere of God’s hand at work. I look at pictures of the glowing face of my amazing great-nephew born last summer and proclaim that my hope, too, is in the Creator of heaven, of earth and of every child. Lord, protect the little ones.

Despite everything, Easter will still come this year. Meanwhile, my church is holding a 6 pm service in the municipal parking lot at Church and Eighth streets tomorrow, singing our alleluias from our cars with our pastor preaching from an outside balcony. I can’t wait to wave to friends and join in worship without concern of passing germs.

There is no fear in love. Looking at the long view, the day will come when at last, we shall behold the Father’s glory, face to face. I want to saturate every molecule of my being in his truth until that moment.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12 NASB)

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery, Indiana Gazette

Praying Psalm 46

Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

Lord God, sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith.

To be still.

To trust that you are who you say you are; that we are who you say we are.

Beloved. Sheltered. Yours.

That old question keeps poking its way into my peace: Why, Lord?

Why is life so complicated?

Why is this beast coronavirus wreaking havoc in our the world?

Why do some of us get cancer?

After more scans, the focus of the disease within me detoured this week from my hip to my liver. Unless I grip your hand, Jesus, for sure I’ll slip from faith to fear.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea . . .

Lift up our eyes, Lord, to the God who made the hills, beyond our fraying tents and dying embers. Focus us on the eternal, on the everlasting, on you.

Earlier today, I looked out my window to the valley below, still winter gray, happy for a shamrock plant on my kitchen windowsill. Its delicate white flowers look like fairy cups, its leaves-of-three fold in prayer when evening comes.

It seeks sunshine, but is content with shadows.

It demands little water, no fussing.

If only everything was as easy as caring for my St. Patty plant.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Thank you Father, for leading us. Two years ago I was invited to conduct a workshop for Friends of the Parks. We discussed Celtic spirituality, how nature-loving Gaelic people followed you, the Three-In-One, after the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland.

Twelve of us gathered that morning. When we were done, one woman said she didn’t want to go home. Think Peter Pan, who wanted to stay a boy in Neverland, forever.

Another woman suggested we form a writers group. And we did. We’re still meeting monthly, two years later, with other writers joining us. We call ourselves the Appalachian Writing Sisters.

I’m with other friends right now, Dave and Carol, cuddled under a blanket in a sun room, while Jim works on plumbing projects at our daughter’s home in Pittsburgh. Tears welled in my eyes when Carol handed me a mug of green tea. It’s bears a drawing of a song bird and the words, Be still and know that I am God. Ps. 46:10.

She had no idea that I’m praying through Psalm 46 in this blog. Once again, you assure me that you are here, Lord.

As we all await what’s next with coronavirus, I await news of the next step to keep my liver functioning well. The upper edge of the mug in my hand reads: calm, peace, serenity.

Yes, Lord.

Calm.

Peace.

Serenity.

I’m apprehensive, but not as one who knows no hope.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. (Verses from Psalm 46, NIV)

Holy Trinity, you’re unwilling to be confined to the pages of a book or the contours of our minds. Help us breathe in your goodness as fully as we can. You love us with a strong love that draws us close to Jesus, enabling us in our weakness to follow in his steps.

My shamrock plant is a messenger of hope, Lord.

Like the mug in my hand.

A plant with a heritage linked to a saint who lived 1700 years ago cheers me on, like a verse recorded by a psalmist perhaps a thousand years earlier.

Father God, help my spirit to bloom like the plant on my windowsill. To thrive at this end of the rainbow.

You’re a God who promises to sustain and restore. My small part is to be still and know that you are God.

Amen.

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery/Indiana Gazette

When the woods are dark

The woods can be magical, most any season. In winter, I like to tread along ice-edged streams, moist paths lined with ground ivy and resilient ferns. My eyes inevitably look up at towering trees, lean in expectation of warmer days to come.

Yellow Creek State Park, where the lake becomes an icy mirror reflecting the winter sun, is one of my favorite places for snowy walks. I missed doing that this year.

All the more reason to recall past outings, mostly on long summer days.

When Jim and I met, he described a stay at Seph Mack Boy Scout Camp, bordering what was then a lazy stream, before the lake was created in 1969.

Part of his initiation into the Order of the Arrow was camping alone in the woods. He was led to a secluded spot by another scout after being tapped out—selected to spend a night in the dark. Even as a kid, Jim was braver than I’ll ever be.

As he remembers, he could take along his sleeping bag and that was about it. Maybe a flashlight. Details are hazy, but from the moment he was tapped until noon the next day he wasn’t permitted to speak a word.

This came after he completed other steps demonstrating he was worthy of one of scouting’s highest orders. When I asked him about that night alone he said, “I don’t remember being stressed about it; it was an honor.”

I would have shivered until dawn, wondering what creatures might be on the prowl. (At nine months pregnant, the only copperhead I ever saw was on a sun-splashed, rocky bank of Yellow Creek lake.)

When I was a church camp counselor, I took kids on overnights around campfires, but a co-counselor always accompanied me. That companionship made a world of the difference. If I was a little apprehensive, I don’t think our campers knew it, they simply trusted us to take good care of them.

We are born into the human family and need nurture and love to thrive. Bishop Desmond Tutu writes that our natural tendency is to cooperate and help one another; it’s the only way we survive. Despite the inhumane ways we treat each other, we’re interlinked; it is other people who help us become human. (Love: The Words and Inspiration of Mother Teresa, p. 4.)

A quote on the book’s back cover adds, “I am what I am because of who we all are.”

Without you, I am less. People throughout my life have imprinted my character with elements of their own. Each connection—a grocery store cashier, a child swinging on the playground, a radiologist at the cancer center—enables me to become more human and humane.

It is hard to conceive of living without human contact. From that first smile as a baby, we yearn to be known and accepted by people. Jim’s solo overnight as a teenager would have been drastically different if he wasn’t returning to friends the following morning, even if he wasn’t permitted to talk until noon. The denial of communication reveals how important it is.

I don’t know if he prayed that night, but I have no doubt I would have! It’s innate to seek hope beyond the natural world, especially when overwhelmed with darkness.

1 John 1: 15 NLT promises, This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.

Even when I can’t see the light, I have enough evidence to know it’s there.

I depend upon faith and a web of family, friends and medical folks to help me reach the other side of this weary winter. The sweetness of companions, sharing meals, conversations, and communal moments of silence—this is what it means to be human.

Our days are shaped by the cycle of changing seasons. Do you sleep more and find yourself more isolated in the winter? The return of Daylight Savings Time brings an end to our sleepy hibernation, offering more afternoon and evening sunlight for outdoor visits with neighbors.

Spiritually, I’m walking through Lent believing the obstacles I encounter on this cancer journey are gifts in disguise, refining me to reflect more of heaven’s light where it is needed. I pray that’s true for you, too.

A doctor recently read my test results and said, “It’s hard.”

I nodded. “Yes, it is.”

That was enough to know he cares. God’s constant presence is mine. It’s not an abundance of words but a depth of heart that light the way when the woods are dark.

All will be well.

Texting Thru Cancer/Indiana Gazette

The Porcelain Doll Club

It felt like a shark ripped my thigh apart. I fell in my kitchen late Sunday afternoon, dislocating the ball of my hip replacement above the socket. At the ER, I was about to undergo an x-ray to inspect the damage.

“H-m-m-m,” said an attendant, reaching under my sheet to transfer me from one stretcher to another. Her eyes wide, she added, “It looks like there’s a pan under you?”

Yep, there was. I’d forgotten about it.

Fearing Jim wouldn’t hear my screams after I fell, I had reached into a bottom drawer in search of anything that might elevate me, hoping I could stretch to an unreachable wall phone.

Thus, a fondu pot, resting atop a back board, slid under to transport me, made an unintentional visit to the ER.

I credit Chewie, our golden-doodle, for his quick response to my cries, when I fell. “Go find Jim!” I screeched, in paralyzing pain. He circled me frantically barking, then sped downstairs after my hubby.

Thankfully, I was sedated when a doctor pulled everything back into place.

Later, one doc described me in his report as a “frail, elderly woman.” It probably never occurred to him that someone of my advanced years would read his report on the hospital portal!

My dad called smart young fellows whippersnappers. Wikipedia says that’s a youthful, impertinent person, but when a doctor is about 30, 72 must look impossibly antiquated. And while I like to think elderly describes folks at least a decade my senior, my own Jim recently told someone I’m fragile.

A porcelain doll might be a better description.

I proved that Sunday night when my dislocation trauma equaled that of my January break, as if I was caught in an endless Groundhog Day time warp. To avoid dislocating it again, I wear a hinged immobilizing brace and can’t bend more than 60 degrees at the waist, for up to six weeks. A softer, foam contraption replaces it at night.

Facing frailty as we age is as old as humanity.

Jesus told Peter, the rugged fisherman, “‘. . .when you were young, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go’” (John 21:18 NLT).

As young whippersnappers, we might avoid precarious pathways through the valley of shadows, but with years our choices narrow. No one can walk this walk in our place; we each have our own Via Dolorosa, yet there are always two sets of footsteps on the Way of Suffering.

Early on a chilly Sunday morning I once walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, where Jesus stumbled toward Calvary under the weight of a cross. When I hear a voice like Debra Moore’s or Dawn Winstead’s sing Via Dolorosa, I picture the cobblestone steps Jesus traveled, assured he believed we’re worth his bloodstained agony.

Except for our group, a teenage boy on a bike was the only other person there that morning. Someone purchased a loaf of warm, yeasty bread from his bicycle basket. Sharing bread is in an ancient act of community; right now it’s our faith community that wraps us in loving care.

A good friend with advanced cancer has also suffered breaks due to this disease. She says we are charter members of the Porcelain Doll Club.

“I wish we could be the only members,” she confides. “Like you, I don’t know what to do and am thinking even sitting too long could cause trouble, but . . . second guessing is impossible. I’m just going to move as if my bones are precious porcelain and try to gear my thinking to moving with delicacy.”

My daughter Tara reminded me she had a porcelain doll with a green velvet dress and hat, edged in white. Dark curls framed her face. She was lovely, but safest on a shelf. I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life on a shelf, but like my friend I need to move as if these brittle bones are cherished china.

On Monday night my grandsons burst into my hospital room, red-cheeked and full of boyish energy. They brought homemade cards for Papa Woodard and me. One had a Band-Aid on a heart. Love, human and divine, patches my fractures and mends my fears.

It was Love that intricately knit us together in the warmth of our mother’s womb. When we suffer, Love treads the Via Dolarosa beside us, bearing the weight of our hurts.

Call me elderly, frail, a china doll or Grandma, this embracing Love holds my body, soul and spirit together.

All will be well.

Hear Sandi Patty sing Via Dolorosa @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYbJINxRz6o

Texting Thru Recovery/Indiana Gazette

doll photo from Pinerest

Hike at sunset in New Zealand by Tara Woodard-Lehman

Shedding the old, putting on the new

I was taught a lady of a certain age should cross her ankles, and I do. More than outmoded modesty, it’s a feel-good habit; folding into myself, feeling attentive, being in control.

It naturally follows that I also cross – er, make that formerly crossed – my legs. That’s on my ‘Thou Shalt Not’ list along with ankle-crossing. Tucking a leg or foot over the other may put stress on the hip joint, among other issues.

Like a lot of habits, this one is hard to break.

Adjusting to life with a fracture and cancer means changing how I do things. I don’t sip wine, not even on Valentine’s Day. I don’t walk the dog, reach for fallen newspapers, or yank on socks. After I broke my hip, therapy provided me with a super duper sock puller-upper that works best with socks that are looser than I like, so Jim helps me slip into them.

With Lent approaching, what other ingrained habits is it time to shed?

Time, polished with grace, has revealed more bad ones than I like, ways I distance myself from others and dull my faith. Each new day, though, opens doors to live as God’s forgiven, beloved, empowered daughter.

In Dublin my Celtic pilgrimage tour visited Trinity College Library, part of which resembles a scene from “Harry Potter.” We went there to view the elaborately illustrated “Book of Kells,” an Irish national treasure. It is a manuscript of the Gospels with colorful animals and symbols filling its margins, including snakes.

Snakes?

I asked a guide about that. Her answer surprised me.

Snakes are symbols of Resurrection to Celtic Christians because they shed their skin. This was in Ireland, where there are none! (Some think the “Book of Kells” was created 1,200 years ago on the Scottish isle of Iona and brought to Ireland for safe keeping during Viking raids.)

Who were the monks who designed those extravagant borders, laboring over each line, entwining color and fanciful creatures with Celtic knots? What did these guys who labored in dim light in a dreary land through long winters know about patience that has escaped me?

They knew they could only copy the Bible one word at a time, with the printing press yet to be invented. They fulfilled their job of passing the Bible on to future generations, immersing themselves in God’s calling to respect, honor, and preserve the Word.

In “How the Irish Saved Civilization,” it says early Celtic monks kept libraries alive on the far off British isles while the Roman empire was falling apart and European culture was being gutted by barbarians flooding across the continent.

Without their efforts, we would know less about the ancient history of western civilization, and consequently less about ourselves.

We’re all called to do our part in saving civilization. That’s why I write. A year ago, I posted my first blog, allowing me to interact with more people. A few weeks after my first online post, we learned cancer migrated far from my breast where I first discovered it in 2016, and had fractured my pelvis. I wondered if my new blog and I would both be short-lived.

Yet here we are, 12 months after receiving that devastating diagnosis. The year was filled with loving, praying, reading, writing, hugging, dreaming, walking, traveling, fishing, weeping, mourning, laughing, meditating. . .and more appointments than I can count.

Except for this hobgoblin called cancer that gobbles my energy, I feel healthy. My sunny outlook, deep faith and rapidly healing hip are due to the Holy Spirit’s grace and presence within me, not my own efforts.

We have a God who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power at work in us (Ephesians 3:20 NIV). When I feel pushed into a dark corner, all I need to see are the words exceedingly abundantly to know the Sacred Three hold the world—and me—within their care.

Still, the Lord and I know there are more habits I need to shed, to discard like a snake crawling out of its old skin, never looking back, moving into a new reality.

One of them is worry. I’d shiver under the covers if I spent much time dwelling upon cancer. Thank goodness, Lent begins Wednesday, a journey of 40 days to press into God as he conforms you and me ever deeper to the image of his dear son.

Therefore, we’re told, . . .throw off your old evil nature. . .your attitudes and thoughts must all be constantly changing for the better.Yes, you must be a new and different person, holy and good. Clothe yourself with this new nature (Ephesians 4:22-24, “The Living Bible”).

Shedding the old, putting on the new.

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery/ Indiana Gazette

Contentment: a state of mind and heart

A sports story captured my imagination, this week. Over and over, I’ve viewed a kayaker plunging over the 134-foot Salto del Maule waterfall, in Chile. The video opens with a lens-splashed vista from atop the falls, a brief descent down raging water past jutting rocks, ending with Dane Jackson landing safely in a swirling pool, below.

His kayak filled with water when the protective skirt flew off, flooding him out of his craft, but he was alive and happy. I felt chills, viewing it.

Happiness is ephemeral. It makes me happy to think of paddling my own sturdy little kayak at Yellow Creek Lake, next summer. That may be a pipe dream; I can’t imagine extracting myself from that minuscule boat.

Typically, I swung my legs over the side, anchored my feet in shallow water, crunched my knees close to my chest and pushed up with my arms. Not pretty, but it worked. At least for now, I can’t bend or twist like that without risking popping my new hip ball out of its joint.

My current reality is wobbling from the living room to the kitchen, cane in hand, concentrating on each step, but I have no trouble jumping back in time to when mobility came easily.

As a teen, I traveled to Colorado with Young Life, a group that shares God’s strong love with kids in exciting settings. One unforgettable image was of early YL president, Bob Mitchell, describing the humility of Jesus, who set aside his divinity and entered the world as one of us. In contrast, Bob said if he were God, he’d write in big letters across the sky, “I Am God!”

I close my eyes and see the rugged Rocky Mountain peaks above Frontier Ranch, dusted with snow in August. I remember one chilly morning riding horseback down a narrow trail, crossing a stony creek and catching a whiff of bacon awaiting us, cooking over a campfire.

Later, I returned as the dining hall manager of Star Ranch for six weeks. On vacation, a group of us leaders who jeeped to the top of a peak were snowed in and spent the night on the floor of a cozy, beamed lodge.

Young Life camps and their weekly meetings held in my family’s State College living room offered times when we were asked us to consider a God who says, Come now, let us reason together. . .though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18 KJV).

We were presented with a rationale for Christianity in systematic ways that made me feel respected as an adult who could think, not a kid who needed to be entertained. Either Jesus was who he claimed to be, a fake or a lunatic, as C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity.

The evidence, and my heart, led me to accept Christ’s invitation to, “Follow Me.”

Despite living with cancer, visiting our son again in Colorado Springs and seeing the Broadmoor’s (easily accessible) seven cascading waterfalls is high on my bucket list.

Contentment, however, isn’t like ephemeral happiness that depends upon life being hunky dory. I no longer need a strong body to be content, or landscapes like a prized photograph of my honey and me sitting in a field of Indian paintbrush high above Colorado’s tree line.

That’s because inner peace is a state of mind and heart. God’s Word, penetrating my soul, nurtures contentment. I didn’t intentionally spend decades delving into Scriptures to prepare for the day when my body would slow me down. I did it as a pilgrim and life-long learner who wanted more to offer to others than fear of the unknown.

Without realizing it, I built my spiritual house upon the Rock. When all else fails, the Rock of God’s faithfulness remains. Jesus said storms come and winds blow, but that rock-solid foundation is trustworthy, far more dependable than my vulnerable old bones.

Unpredictable escapades are more than likely behind me. Following his risky ride over a Chilean waterfall, kayaker Dane Jackson said the skirt intended to keep water out of his boat was ripped off by the power of the falls. At times I feel my safety net is also is ripped away.

That’s when I cry to the Creator of waterfalls and mountains, who hides me in the cleft of the Rock and assures me:

“In Me you have peace.

In this world you’ll have trouble, but take heart!

I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, adapted).

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery/Indiana Gazette

Holy sparks in desert places

The chit chat of embers tells me the hour is late. Logs no longer dance with flames, only low orange memories, dropping their last glowing kernels into ash below an iron bed.

I must soon head to my own.

Jim and I are making progress with our joint replacements, some days like snails, others at a faster pace.

My break was caused by a fall, but Jim prepared ahead for his new shoulder by stocking up on wood for our wood burner, as well as for the fireplace. Throughout summer and fall, he split wood from trees he downed with a chain saw and determination.

Each stretch of oak, maple, cherry and ash has a story within; an acorn, whirlybird, or other sprout to thank for its beginnings. The warmth permeating our kitchen is a gift as old as the sun, compressed energy released from wood like a genie, some escaping up the chimney toward the stars.

Prayers too, swirl upward. We trust the Spirit is in all we lay on God’s altar. Places holy to the Sacred Three and fire belong together, like the story of Moses in the wilderness, where he spotted a startling sight:

“Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed” (Exodus 3:2 KJV).

I don’t know the full significance of the backside of the desert. It sounds like a desolate place, yet isn’t that where many of us most deeply encounter the living God?

I wonder if I would have recognized that moment as sacred as quickly as Moses did. One of the hidden graces of a broken hip, complicated by cancer, is time to rest and ponder all that brings meaning to my days.

Right now, Job Number One is to avoid slipping. I also don’t want to fall into a trap of asking, “Why me?”

I’m not trudging thru a desert like Moses, but sometimes feel I’m pushing a walker through the sand. The biggest obstacle, other than lingering pain and walking with ease, is not bending over less than a ninety-degree angle.

It sounds simple, but frustration creeps in when a series of “can’ts” interfere with my intentions – I can’t open the bread drawer, plug a charger into an outlet, sweep the floor, reach a book high on a shelf, or easily slip into bed.

Not that I need to. We have plenty of helping hands and are thankful for every smidgen of kindness we’ve received. The thing is, it’s unnatural to depend upon others. I was mulling over this when I glanced toward the window and noticed a pile of notes on the windowsill.

One scrap says it’s hard for women to allow others to tend for us. The secret is to enter into moments of dependency with an attitude of acceptance rather than resignation, asking for peace as I release control.

Okay, God. I (literally) got the memo.

There’s also a suggestion to look at what’s happening through a kaleidoscope of contentment and gratitude, focusing on Jesus, asking him to wither away remnants of self-pity entangling my feet and soul.

Yes, Lord. Don’t let me trip on my own ego.

The fire is gone. I’m headed to sleep, precious sleep, knowing :

Angels’ hands held mine today,

Guides on less familiar ways,

with Love that overshadows me,

from my dear friends, the Trinity.

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery/ Indiana Gazette

Angel by Kelsey Andrews, Curated American Artists TM for Kirklands

Thru our hurts, love is the bottom line

When I’m limited in what I can do, as I am now, I find my thoughts wandering through ghost towns of the past, digging thru conversations, wounds, friendships, feelings, adventures.

A week ago I fell walking our dog, who suddenly yanked me toward a squirrel. As I floated momentarily in what felt like slow motion, I wondered if I would break a hip. I did, crashing into a neighbor’s driveway.

The scream I released took me back to a primal one of eleven months ago, when a bat circled my head. Bats don’t really scare me, but that was the night I learned I had a fractured pelvis, caused by spreading cancer.

Last Saturday, my neighbors heard my cry. They quickly and compassionately helped, lifting me from the ground, and transporting me to IRMC’s ER.

“Your chariot is waiting!” I’ve heard that phrase twice in the last month.

The first time was on our anniversary, a day of golden memories; the second was at the IRMC Emergency Room, when a nurse announced Citizen’s Ambulance arrived to take me to Pittsburgh. I underwent surgery the next morning at Shadyside Hospital, performed by an orthopedic doctor who specializes in treating cancer patients.

Another memory wrapped itself around the fractured ball of my hip joint. I first learned the terror of this kind of break when Mom Woodard broke hers, falling out bed.

“Painful” was a pale, worn out adjective in contrast to what she endured. The tremors of electric-like jabs moving up and down my right leg and hip mirrored the gray, drawn look on Jim’s Mom’s face as she clutched her bed rails.

Following my mastectomy in 2016, our daughter Julie anointed me with lavender oil; while I went thru a tunnel of pain this time, our daughter Tara applied ointment to my lips. Although they may not have thought of it this way, they were performing an ancient ritual of the church, their touch and fragrant oil combining to sooth their mama.

I’m home now, learning how to maneuver step by step on a reconstructed hip. Did I mention Jim is recovering from a total shoulder replacement, his surgery four days before my fall? At least we know a bit of what the other feels.

Our son in Colorado Spring asked for prayers and provides updates on his rickety folks, via Facebook. Until that fall, I was feeling pretty good about another birthday approaching; now I try to keep my mind from traveling down worried roads in the year, ahead.

Faith pulls me back. God didn’t cause my accident, my own lack of caution did that, but the Spirit is always with me, however far I fall.

How will I remember this misadventure? Piercing pain, blanketed in the tender, hard-working love of people stepping up to help us. The care and kindness of nurses, doctors and everybody who has crossed my path in the last week helps me breathe a bit easier, knowing I don’t have to be in charge. We’re especially grateful Julie was already on her way her via train from Philly, coming to help take care of her dad. Instead, she’s worked double-duty for a week.

Our Kenyan daughter Elizabeth telephoned just now. She said we are covered with many, many prayers. I offer those prayers as a thank offering to the Lord, our Healer.

Before this column—and I—took an unexpected turn, I had considered using this prayer this week, by spiritual director Laura Baber of Equipping Lydia Ministry.

Adapted, it still applies: “May the light of Love flicker in the deepest, darkest parts of our hearts, and of our world. May the breath of God gently blow on that flame and encourage Love to grow.”

My twin sister and I share a birthday, today. Although we’re on difference paths, love binds us today. It also happens to be the Feast of St. Brigid, the Irish patron saint of hospitality. Irish women weave little crosses today in her honor, remembering her practical ways of showing kindness to the least, the last and the lost. She’s my role model.

Love is always the bottom line. It far outlasts crumbling thoughts of pain like wallpaper that fades, when exposed to light.

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery/Indiana Gazette

The Life of St. Brigid is a wonderful children’s book. The photo through a rainy bus window is traveling in Scotland toward the Isle of Iona.