Psalm 75

This is a picture of me trying to find the peas growing in the garden at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church.  The peas are very hard to find because they are buried deep among the leaves.  The job is a tedious one and most folks don't enjoy hunting for them.  In fact, as we worked we wondered how folks did that day in and day out. 

This certainly hits upon one of my weaknesses since it is difficult for me to focus on something when there are many things around it.  I concentrated and worked slowly. I must say, it seems I have to do most things slowly and sometimes I get frustrated with this.

When I begin to feel like this, I like to turn to the Psalms.  The Psalm writers have so many emotions and when I'm feeling low, it helps me to read them.  I especially like Psalm 77 by Eugene Peterson.  Peterson's is not a direct translation but his words are very earthy and seem to get at the writer's coontemporary meaing.

"I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might.  I yell at the top of my lungs.  He listens.  I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord; my life was an open wound that wouldn't heal.  When friends said, 'Everything will turn out all right,' I didn't believe a word they said."

"I remember God - and shake my head.  I bow my head - then wring my hands.  I'm awake all night - not a wink of sleep; I can't even say what's bothering me.  I go over the days one by one, I ponder the years gone by.  I strum my lute all through the night, wondering how to get my life together."

"Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good?  Will he never smile again?  Is his love worn threadbare?  Has his salvation promise burned out?  Has God forgotten his manners?  Has he angrily stalked off and left us?  'Just my luck,' I said.  'The High God Goes out of business just the moment I need him.' "

"Once again I'll go over what God has done, lay out on the table the ancient wonders; I'll ponder all the things you've accomplished, and give a long, loving look at your acts. Oh God!  Your way is holy!  No god is great like God!  You're the God who makes things happen; you showed everyone what you can do - You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble, rescued the children of Jacob and Joseph"

"Ocean saw you in action, God, saw you and trembled with fear; Deep Ocean was scared to death.  Clouds belched buckets of rain, Sky exploded with thunder, your arrows flashing this way and that.  From Whirlwind came your thundering voice, Lightning exposed the world, Earth reeled and rocked.  You strode right through Ocean, and nobody saw you come or go. Hidden in the hands of Moses and Aaron, You led your people like a flock of sheep."

I love some of his language in this Psalm.  "I strum my lute all through the night, wondering how to get my life together."  I don't strum my lute but I do read the New York Times and drink too much coffe much when I feel like my life isn't together! 

 I like that the Psalmist thinks back on what God has done.  This helps me immensely to look back on my life and see how God has led me. I remember a couple years after my injury I couldn't find a volunteer position that used my gifts.  However one day out of desperation, I walked into a local retirement center to see if they needed a volunteer chaplain.  They did and I learned a lot there.  I'm trying to be patient and it helps to remember all that God has done for me up until this point.

Do you have moments in your life when you feel like God isn't leading you?  Does it help to look back and see how God has been with you in the past?  Feel free to comment here or email me directly at puffer61@gmail.com

Double vision

I am looking for stickers that I can put on my patch again.  I had a whole lot of them when I lived in Atlanta because there for a while I was wearing a patch all the time due to my double vision. However, after having eye muscle surgery back in 1998 (or something like that) I had double vision that was corrected with prism lenses.

I had a therapist back when I was in rehab who came up with making this funky patch.  It worked but I always decorated it with stickers and I had a whole collection I could change with my moods or outfits.  I had to have five or six surgeries (or something like that.  I don't remember numbers well!) because the muscles kept moving.  However, the last time I had an appointment with my Optometrist, we sent the numbers to my Ophthalmologist in Atlanta and he said it wasn't bad enough to do surgery again.

That was six months ago but I guess I should look up the date again because it does seem worse now.  Perhaps I need to have it checked again.  The truth is, I really don't want to deal with it so I haven't made an appointment yet and in the mean time I have decided to wear my patch more often.  I always wear one on my reading glasses but I want to find a way to make my patch more interesting when I wear it out and about.

There is an art to finding stickers to decorate the patch.  They have to be small enough so they aren't too distracting to others when they talk to me. I've been able to find many large ones and I ended up buying a few sheets that had different sizes on them.  I do want to find some moons or rainbows though.  I had some before but I threw them away and so far I haven't had any luck finding any.  I hope I can find a sticker with a rainbow or a moon on it.

Overwhelmed

Mark Ramsey delivered another thought provoking sermon this past Sunday using Isaiah 43:1-8 and Ephesians 3:14-21.  I say "delivered" because when I read it today, I had a different impression.  Sermons really need to heard and not read.  After I heard it, I felt he was speaking directly to me since I often feel overwhelmed.  However, some of the stories contained a different meaning when I read them later.  I had to wade through my emotions a bit to write this but it was good for me.  Wading through emotions often is.

Being overwhelmed happens to me often. It happens when I don't pace myself and I try to do too much. It's often coupled with over stimulation and cognitive overload which is not what Mark was talking about.  I try very hard to avoid this and mostly I'm successful. I also know my limits now are not what they used to be prior to my injury.  I cannot do as much and I try to remember that this is okay. Sometimes though I compare myself to someone else who has a brain injury who is doing better than I am and then I feel bad.  I must remind myself that every brain injury is different and comparisons are impossible.  All I can do is what God is calling ME to do and no one else.

In his sermon, Mark shared a story about something that occurred during a commencement service at Emory University several years ago  Many notable folks spoke to the graduates who were more interested in celebrating the day then listening to the speakers.  Then there was a moment when everyone grew still as a man named Hugh Thompson was given an honorary degree.

He was, by far, the least educated person on the platform.  He had started college, but his family was too poor to be able to put him all the way through.  So he dropped out of college and joined the army and became a helicopter pilot.  In 1968 on a routine patrol he flew over the village of My Lai in Vietnam. He looked down out of his helicopter and saw United States troops, having lost their moral bearing and in a frenzy were massacring people in the village.

Many pilots would simply have kept on flying but he set his helicopter down in the line of fire, between the troops and the villagers.  He got out of the helicopter and confronted Lt. William Calley in the name of decency.  He went over to the ditch where they had thrown the bodies and combed thorough them --seeking anyone who might still be alive.  He found a little boy - who is in his 50's today - alive because he was pulled out of that ditch by Hugh Thompson.   He then radioed other 'coptors to come in a rescue the remaining villagers.

When he stood on the platform, he said to the students, 'I have no wisdom or eloquence to give you today.  I can only tell you what my parents taught me a long time ago  It was the words of Jesus: 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' " And the students, for one breathless moment, were stilled by a vision of faith and humanity that had some size...They were overwhelmed."

The picture above is the one printed in the bulletin and I like it immensely.  I often stretch my hands or lift up my voice to God asking and hoping, for guidance.  I do hope to be overwhelmed by God's creativity in my life but sometimes I have on blinders and I'm not able to see.

Earlier Mark said that "Paul in Ephesians says that when we are overwhelmed, to the contrary, God opens up the floodgates and inundates us all the more.   But NOT with the floods of pressures and demands and brokenness and vulnerability- but with the great flood tide of the kindness and mercy and grace and love and generosity and joy and hope of God."

In addition to overdoing it, being overwhelmed has another meaning for me today.  Now for me it is being overwhelmed by the creativity and the goodness of God.  Thich Nhat Hanh reminds me to "change the channels" and focus on how God is working in me.  I like Mark's last statement in the sermon. "And you can TRUST that God will OVERWHELM us - in all the ways we most urgently need." 

This is my hope.

Thich Nhat Hanh

.One of my Facebook friends posted this picture with the following quote of Thich Nhat Hanh's: "Recently, one friend asked me, 'How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow.' A human being is like a television set with millions of channels.  If we turn the Buddha on, we are still Buddha.  If we turn sorrow on then we are sorrow.  If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile.

"We can not let just one channel dominate us.  We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty."

I don't know where he wrote this but it doesn't really matter to me because  it contains important truths.  At first reading, it may appear as if he's saying we need to just "suck it up" and take what life gives us but this isn't it at all.  He is known for his work on being mindful in all situations and I think this is an example of this.

This quotation reminds me of something I have forgotten.  I never have liked behaviorism for I believe one needs to look at the core of one's feelings in order to deal with them.  However I learned years ago that some behaviorism works when one has a brain injury.  Sometimes one becomes incapacitated if one thinks too hard about all the challenges a traumatic brain injury introduces into one's life.  This is what happens to me all the time.  Sometimes I let one channel dominate me and it is not helpful at all.

All of us have many channels: happy-go-lucky, serious, sad, and many, many others.  Sure it is important to acknowledge all these channels but it is also important to change these channels, even if you do not feel like it.  I really like the picture above because it reminds me that water, like  God's Spirit, can wash through and around me.

 Come Holy Spirit come!

If you have a brain injury, is it hard for you to sometimes do things even though you know you'll feel better if you do?  How do you see God's Spirit - which I experience a little like the rush of water - working in your life?  Feel free to comment here or write me directly at puffer61@gmail.com.

Life is just too Short to be Stressed!

 This is the first post I have written for May.  I've been stressed out big time in May but when I saw this picture on the left that was posted by one of my facebook friends, it brought me back to my senses. It reminded me of my dog Sparky and how he is always ready to enjoy life.  God gave me this one life and I don't want to waste it by being stressed out all the time!

I was also treated to watching a robin raise her young chicks in a nest she built on the back of my house.  My husband is a bird watcher and he has a scope that lets you peer right in at the birds.  I spent hours watching them breathe.  I also peered at their blinking eyes until they grew large enough to fly out of the nest.  God gave me quite a gift this year.  I don't want to forget it ever.  

One wild and Precious Life.

At the Good Friday service at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, one of the speakers read from "The Summer day" a poem by Mary Oliver  It really stuck with me and if you want to read it here's the link: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html .  I had heard it before but hearing it then was just the right time.  She wrote, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

I had one of those long, drawn out Presbytery meetings today.  They are always difficult for me and since our Presbytery is stretched out so far geographically, I've made the choice to attend only the ones I can drive to on my own.  This means I only attend perhaps two out of four each year.  This one was particularly difficult because there was an issue before the Presbytery with which I felt rather strongly . I decided this past weekend to write a short statement and speak today.

It almost felt as if God was giving me the words to say.  I didn't want to speak there because it stresses me out terribly. Yet, I couldn't ignore that pull inside of me.  So I wrote something.  The words came which was great.  I practiced it a little bit because I'm not one of those preachers who can preach without practicing.  I knew that my words weren't really supposed to be a sermon but I thought I would say them anyway.

I chose to wear moon earrings that a friend of mine made for me because the image of the moon always gives me strength.  I don't as a rule wear dangle earrings whenever I speak but I decided this time, I needed anything that would remind me to stay calm.

The day started out with me taking Sparky to Doggie Daycare.  It's a new location so I had to use my GPS.  I then saw the highway was backed up going back so I decided to try going to the meeting a different way.  My GPS took me the long way but I got there to the meeting just fine.  When I arrived, I had to "rest my brain" by putting in my ear plugs and sitting in the car for a few minutes.  Driving even more than 40 minutes tires me out.

So when I felt ready to enter the building I did.  As usual, it was crowded and noisy.  I don't do well in those environments but I managed to get through it.  I sat in the front so I could concentrate on the proceedings.  What I didn't bargain for, was the moderator's lack of moderating skills.  She kept confusing Roberts Rules of Orders and seemed unsure.  I know I wouldn't want to try and moderate this group.  I was nervous enough just by speaking for 1 1/2 minutes! I felt for her because she's was called to a very difficult job and I know this only too well.  However, folks stepped forward to help her and in the end, it worked out.  God truyly is a great God!

Never the less, I found myself getting angry inside at all the shenanigans.  The only thing I could think of to do was to step out for a few minutes, put in my ear plugs and "rest my brain"  So that is what I did.  I've stopped worrying what folks think of me when they see me sitting in a corner somewhere with my eyes closed and my ear plugs in.  I returned to the meeting when my emotions were better under control.

What did I find when I returned?  The same stuff!  Again, I lasted as long as I could but I decided I'd better just get out of there and come back after lunch.  So I went to my car, put the seat back and rested for a few minutes.  I pulled out my Android and my lunch and munched happily away.

I did, however, remember that Bills and Overtures had said anyone who wanted to speak about one of the overtures, could meet with them.  I decided this was a good thing for me to do.  Shoot, I had spent time writing my little speech and I wanted to say it!  I think God was with me because I was able to locate folks who knew where the committee was meeting so I went there.  I was early so again, I put in my ear plugs, closed my eyes and rested my brain in the quiet room.

After saying my little spiel and then hearing everyone's comments at the meeting, I changed my view on the amendment. I had written my little spiel in favor of the overture so I adjusted it a little.  I then went back to the meeting in progress.  This time I sat in the back of the auditorium so I could freely roll my eyes.  I figured I would speak if I felt the spirit moving inside.  If not, I wouldn't.

A funny thing happened.  I acted like a lot of ministers at Presbytery meetings. I think they talk just so they can hear themselves talk!  I wanted to say my little spiel even though I didn't think it would change anyone's mind.  So when the time came, I spoke.  It went fine like it always is when I speak.  I had gone through all my anxiety for what amounted to nothing.

After the meeting, I struggled with my feelings.  Did I really hear God moving in my spirit and telling me to speak or was I only hearing my own voice?  On the way out, I shared my concerns with a minister friend and she said something interesting.  She alluded to her Quaker siblings and how they are always talking about feeling God's Spirit within them.  Perhaps God was moving in a way that I didn't yet understand.

I've thought about her words often since the meeting.  Did I misunderstand God's voice?  I've come to the conclusion now that I did not.  Michael and I are doing several presentations on brain injury to law enforcement professionals as well as some other folks.  We've done two and I was a nervous wreck for the first one.  It's funny because Michael is doing the bulk of it and  I'm only adding my personal survivor stories. He should be the one filled with anxiety! The first one went well and we were asked to do another.  I stressed over this one a little less than the first.  So now we are going to do a third one on May 1. 

This experience today, helped me see that I still can speak.  Oh, I can't remember the words as well and I worry that I'm going to mess up but so far, it's been okay. The same with the brain injury presentations.

 So what am I going to do with my one, wild and precious life?  I'm not going to waste it by being filled with anxiety!  Tomorrow I was supposed to deliver vegetables from GCPC's garden to a friend who has a low income and cannot afford to buy them.  Instead, I made the necessary calls and someone has agreed to do it for me. So I plan to drink good coffee, write in my journal and read the New York Times.  I might even work out in the yard! So I'm going to still be responsible but I'm going to enjoy this life God has given me.  After all, this is the only life I have and I don't want to waste it.

Scars

This past Sunday was the first Sunday after Easter.  When I went to Grace Covenant Presbyterian the picture on the left was on the cover of the bulletin.  I looked at it and thought, " what does a little girl ready to climb a ladder into heaven have to do with Easter?"  When I read the quote from Pope John Paul II underneath, I was more confused. "Do not abandon yourselves to despair.  We are the Easter people and hallelujahah is our song."  When I heard Kristy Farber's sermon on Thomas in John 20:19-31, I understood.

She asks, "One question we may sit with is, how are we to celebrate God's resurrecting power when the world around us appears so broken?"  She continues, "Even when we spend time, money and energy trying to help those in need, it often leaves us wondering if our feeble attempts have made a difference."

I can relate to her words.  Sometimes I get frustrated and angry with myself when I see so much need in this world and how little I am able to do.  Right now, I'm involved with organizing two different things that I believe are very important in this world. No one else has agreed to organize them so I've decided to do it.   Oorganizing is one of my weaknesses.  It stresses me out and makes me anxious. But I've thought it through and made a choice to go forward with them.  

In dealing with this stress, I've realized that because I'm a perfectionist, I put more stress on myself than others put on me. This is forcing me to tell myself as a former therapist of mine suggested, to just stop.  It doesn't matter if either one comes out perfect.  It is not even in my control.  I do like to be in control of things. However, I'm not in control just like none of us is in control.  I had no control of the car when it crashed into me.  I'm also not in control of my double vision or of my current hand difficulties. (I probably will have to have hand surgery again - I'll write more about this later.)  

In her sermon, Kristy tells the story of a group of undergrads who took mission trips to Haiti. The students were astounded by the joyfulness of the children there.  They just couldn't understand it.  Kristy writes, "Resurrection is life coming out of death.  New life and new hope.  Thomas looks for joy, hope, peace - not in a clear, unblemished form.  He needs to see and to touch resurrection in the midst of brokenness." 

Tomorrow I have a Brainstormers support group meeting.  The location is close to me but one of the members is going to pick me up on the way there.  I will walk the block to the main road where she will meet me in a parking lot.  Another member of the group picked me up this way before but she got all confused with the directions so I gave this other person clear directions.  It turns out she knows the location but laughed and said if she wasn't familiar with it, she would have become confused as well. (spatial orientation)

So like the children in Haiti, we could laugh about our scars together.  I read my favorite passage of scripture again today in Isaiah 43.  I read this passage all the time and am always filled with hope.  "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing." 

Living with a traumatic brain injury means constantly finding " a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."  (Isaiah 43:19) I refuse to abandon myself to despair.  I am one of the Easter people and hallelujah is my song.  

How do you remind yourself that you are one of the Easter people?  How do you refuse to abandon yourself to despair?  I write in my journal, swim laps or work in the garden.  I also give myself days when I don't get anything done.  Feel free to comment here or email me directly puffer61@gmail.com