Pain

I just GOT it!

I have been praying for God to heal my trigger points in my hip. My goal once that heals is to eventually work back up to being in the martial arts. The fact that with deep tissue pressure (using her elbows and her body weight!) my massage therapist can make those muscles relax and I can walk normally with no pain makes me think . . . well, that it's possible, maybe even likely! (Hmmm, what does this say about my faith in God? "It's easy, God. You can do it!")

But today I change my prayer. I THANK GOD for those trigger points in my hip! There are many reasons for my gratefulness, but the biggest is that, for now, at least, God wants me here -- with this pain, with this immobility, with this limp. Maybe I will never get over it. (Remember Jacob's dislocated hip.) That's okay. Lord, if this problem can glorify you, let it be! Thank You.

Thank You.
Connie

Oh, no he didn't!

In his speech to the West Point Academy graduates Saturday, President Obama touted a "new international order" that will . . . take care of people in disasters and emergencies, alleviate poverty and sickness, and create peace.

Applause was tepid.

But what should I expect from our president who not only gave a foreign leader a soapbox from which to trash one of our states for trying to protect itself from invaders, but also implied his full agreement?

The United States seems to be but a stepping stone to the height of King of the World (aka the New International Order!)

One of Those Seasons

Have you ever had one of those days, when little things happen, irritating things that slow you down, take you away from your tasks, get in your way?

I've had one of those seasons.

In my last post, I detailed some of those things. Since then, my 22-year-old son, so frustrated with his love life, his inability so far to get a job, in an impulsive fit, tried to commit suicide by drinking a couple of bottles of wine and taking a bunch of Tylenols. He came very close to succeeding. He was online with someone, had mentioned what he had done, and when he stopped responding, the person online (in Chicago, IL) called our local EMS. When they found Boone, he was already jaundiced, which they said meant he was from 30 minutes to 2 hours away from death. Thank God for that online angel.

Now this isn't a little thing, but I feel guilty for complaining. I mean, Boone's alive! But the event -- his nearness to death, how close we came to losing him -- dealt me an emotional blow I'm not recovering from very quickly. And then I feel guilty because I'm so focused on how that has affected me. (I would focus on how it's affected Boone, but he won't let me.)

I can look at this spate of "bad luck" in several ways. First, I can just consider it bad luck. Just a matter of living life, of having children who are just now becoming adults and on their own to make their own mistakes, of living in a rough economy. But the sheer number of negative events makes me doubt that they are a result of normal bad luck.

Mike pointed out that all this stuff started happening right after I began tithing ten percent of the grocery budget to my church. I had asked Mike if he thought we could tithe our income, but he didn't feel we were able, so I'm just tithing what I have in my control. It's my way of saying, "I trust you, God. You have given us what we have; I can show my faith in you by giving back a tenth."

If there is some connection to the time that I began tithing, it could be from one of two possibilities.

It could be that Satan is attacking us because of my renewed faith, trying to separate me from my Lord. Or it could be as a friend put it, that God is winnowing us. However, I believe the Bible's promises, that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and God will not test us more than we can bear.

All this is just making me more of a clinger! Either way, it's been an interesting time. I wonder what next?

Life Happens

Wow, I've been very remiss with this blog. Last summer, I spent most of my free time politicking, going to townhalls, community meetings, etc. Then in the winter, I just sort of hibernated. The multiple heavy snowstorms made it easy for me to stay home and sleep. I don't think I was depressed or had SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) although I did seem to perk up about February when the length of the winter nights began shortening. Might have been just getting old -- I read that fatigue does accompany menopause, and I have been dealing with hot flashes.

But then, life started getting interesting. (It's a Chinese curse, I've heard: May you live in interesting times.)

1. MidFeb -- my daughter was arrested for driving on a revoked license and probation violation. (She had gotten a DUI at a checkpoint and neglected -- for several reasons, not the least of which was the multiple snows -- to get the interlock device on her car.)

1.a. She was put on a 72-hour hold. After that, I was the go-to person for contacting her lawyer and Probation Officer, getting her money out of her account ($200/day) to pay her bail ($500) for one of the charges, and navigating the extremely confusing justice system to post bail.

1.b. The 72-hour hold was automatically extended with $10,000 cash only bail on the other charge.

1.c. She would have been released within 3 more days (6 days total) except her lawyer was out of state for the whole week. And the next time the judge would be available for her kind of hearing was two weeks after the lawyer was back! (The judge does some other kind of work twice a year, and this was that time.) Because of coincidences (if you believe in coincidence) she was facing three weeks in jail for something that carries a max penalty of 6 days.

1.d. She actually spent 16 days in jail. Her lawyer managed to set an earlier hearing and she was released that day.

2. The same day Shelli had her hearing and was released, our water well died.

2.a. The well-service man (a man of few words) said there's no water in the well. Just a bump in the road of life, I thought, our having had our well go dry multiple times. We just wait three days and let the water replenish. (Sigh -- and we had to pay $400 to find that out.)

2.b. Three days later, still no response. I started looking more carefully at the well. There were wires and piping all over the place (i.e., outside of the well). I called the well-service guys and asked about it. The boss explained that because there was no water, our pump burned up, and I could see the expanded pipe from the heat.

3. Mike quit his job of 10 years.

3.a. That's not quite accurate. He's an independent contractor for a courier company and the company has been nickle and diming him to the point that he's not making anything above expenses. He had words with a prick of a boss, and they decided that within two weeks, the company would replace him.

3.b. Another boss said, "Wait a minute . . . we can't lose you." This is good for the kids since they have been subcontracting routes from Mike, and they can continue. However, Mike is determined he needs to get another job. The way he describes the situation is it's an armistice like the armistice after WWI that led to WWII.

4. Spring break -- I have been putting off grading assignments for this time. But I had either a really bad cold or the flu (my joints hurt.)

5. That Monday -- Mike had a wreck.

5.a. He spun out on an icy bridge in his 4-wheel drive truck, took out several metal posts holding cable to divide the two directions of I-25. Tore up the front end, the shell went flying along with packages and totes. Another vehicle separated his truck from the cable by sliding (both vehicles moving backwards) between them and side swiping the passenger side of the truck.

5. b. I dug our 2-wheel drive truck out of the snow and took it to meet him so he could continue the route.

5.c. I spent the rest of the day with him on his two routes. (His normal workday is 14 hours.) I just kinda sat there and vegged.

6. Mike got stuck on the snow trying to get out on Tuesday (it's the 2-wheel drive truck, but driving in, he thought it would be fine.) It took us an hour to get him out, and it was only God that got him out.

7. Mike got stuck in the mud on Thursday. After an hour, we gave up and I drove him in my little front-wheel drive car to pick up a Tercel at our mechanic's shop.

2.c. The well-service guys are refurbishing our poor little well, connecting it with an outer tank. We've been almost two weeks with no running water. Mud is everywhere. I don't care. I just want to sleep!

It's Friday of Spring Break and I've have managed to do nothing of my grading. I'm so sorry. (I'm wondering if I can catch up once classes start back?) I'm seriously considering just doing a half-hearted job on the grading, not really reading the stuff, just looking at it. . . nah, I can't do that. :-(

Addendum: Tuesday after Spring Break
Well, Sunday my car wouldn't start. It's the fuel pump we think. So I'm having to schlep around in my husband's two-wheel drive truck and tomorrow we're supposed to have snow. . .

Less Rigidity

I've been haunted by one word in a comment on my blog: rigidity. Lest I be accused of taking out of context, here is the whole segment: "What I see is a world that is not Black and White, Christian and non-Christian, Conservative and Liberal. I want less ridgity and more tolerance, I want less hate and more love. I want more humility and less arrogance."

I see some reason in this. I hate labels because along with a label comes a whole constellation of attributions, that change according to the "eye of the beholder." But that's a topic for another blog.

I believe that one MAJOR problem with our government, if not our whole culture, is a lack of rigidity. A lack of absolute structure. It's like our life is being built on shifting sands.

Rigidity is necessary in many parts of our life.

I constructed a compost barrel, using a recycled 50-gallon plastic drum, some scrap pvc pipe, a metal pole, and some scrap lumber. Since I was trying things out, I just put it together enough to see if it worked. I used the lumber to make two stands to raise the barrel above the ground so that I could spin it. Two 2x4s put together weren't stable enough, so I added two "leaning" type supports to the upright posts, nailing them in. However, even that construct wasn't stable enough . . . I found when I tried to spin the half-full barrel. It all started to collapse; I tried to keep it up, but the weight of it all knocked me down in a pile of poles. The point is it wasn't rigid enough. Some things don't work without rigidity.

This lack of rigidity is very much like growing up with an alcoholic father. We had to guess at the rules, which could change from day to day. It all depended on his mood. When my little brother accidentally broke a mirror that had been placed leaning against a wall, we had no idea of whether it was punishable or not and how extreme the punishment would be. As it turned out, our father made me decide whether to punish my brother or not. I had to figure out what the father wanted, and if I guessed wrong, I would also be in trouble. I didn't want to, but I said Teddy should be punished. Our father accepted that and beat my little brother with the buckle end of a belt until his bare thighs bled.

I spent many of my years growing up in a somewhat functional family trying to guess what my parents (mom and step-dad) wanted, holding my breath, tip-toeing. Many, many times, I chose not to ask if I could go to a party because they might say no. I just didn't go.

For the people of a society to deal best with each other, there must be some rigid rules. Used to be, a promise was a promise. It was rigid. You shook hands; you could rely on its being accomplished, short of death or God's intervention. Then it was a signature on a contract. That's why you had to read the whole contract carefully (even the fine print) before signing it. Signing a contract meant you were obligated to accomplish that promise.

President Obama has changed that, just trashing contract law in bailouts of banks and automotive companies. The most egregious example is Obama's dictating to the secure bond holders of Chrysler what they had to take in the supposed bankruptcy (with new rules written by Obama, et al.) There are many more examples of Obama's lack of rigidity, from his immediate and almost complete reversal of all campaign promises, to his apparent disregard of the rule of law ("no one is above the law"), to his circumventing legal provisions for checks and balances by appointing czars. . . Kevin McCullough writes an insightful column on the issue: "Why Liberals Never Lie." Basically,, he says, they don't lie because they don't have a rigid standard. The truth morphs for them.

The children of this alcoholism -- entrepreneurs and investors -- are reacting just like I did. Not being sure how any potential contracts will be taken, they just don't even take a risk. OR, they are spending all their energy trying to get on Obama's good side so they won't be punished or so they can receive special perqs.

The law should be rigid and not malleable by individuals, who are ruled by emotions. That way, everyone knows what to expect. We don't have to spend our lives trying to guess what might work or whether a promise will be kept.

In addition, I think most individuals need to make rigid rules for themselves. Goals need to be rigid. If your goals continually move or you drop your "goal" for another, they aren't doing the job of goals. If you want to be an honest person, your rigid rule should be to tell the truth, and you should not allow yourself to wimp out on that rule by fudging -- like telling yourself that white lies are okay. This doesn't mean you absolutely can't break your rigid rules; but it does mean that you don't justify the breaking of them.

Present attitudes toward marriage is a part of this lack of rigidity. People take an oath, "til death do we part," and yet, when they get bored or run into some conflicts, that oath melts like butter on a Phoenix summer day. Commitment, I think, requires rigidity.

So what did my commenter mean by "rigidity"? In context, I think she's talking about the concept she has about Christians -- that they tend to apply their own rules to everyone else, and they are rigid about those rules. That they are not tolerant toward others. However, I'd have to pursue that discussion to know if that's what she really meant.

The bottom line is we need rigidity to some extent. I see no problem with knowing what the rules are and being rigid about them. I personally do not expect non-Christians to follow God's rules, though if they did, they might be healthier and happier! (I DO expect Christians to at least try to follow God's rules.) In other words, I do not see rigidity and tolerance as being mutually exclusive.

Wake up, people!

Remember last year when gasoline went up to $4.00 a gallon? How mad you were at the oil companies?

If the Cap & Trade bill gets through the Senate, we can expect much more than that.* Who you gonna be mad at then?

*In the House, Republican amendments to the Waxman-Markey (Cap & Trade) Bill asking for a suspension of the bill IF gasoline goes above $5 a gallon, or if electricity cost doubles, or if unemployment goes higher than 15% were kicked out. That's a clear sign that at least one of these things will happen.

Not all revolutions are equal

The Iranian people -- being butchered by their own government -- are pleading for our help with their English posters of protest, and cries for US support from amateur reporters. And those of us who love our freedom want to help.

On the last day of my Beginning English as a Second Language class, I sat down with Kourosh Varanyi, a Kurd from Iran and asked him, "What can we do to help?" His English is quite rough, but he manages to get his meaning across.

He said, "Nothing." He explained that Mousavi, the opposition candidate, is just like Ahmadinajad.

"But maybe he's changed."

"No," Kourosh said. The Kurds* tried to revolt several years back when Mousavi was in charge. He signed for 24,000 people to be killed in one day. Kourosh swiped his hands, showing fait accompli. Then he pointed to a circular scar on the inside of his left elbow and another in his forearm. "Two more," he pointed to his left leg. "They shoot me."

"But Mousavi's wife . . .maybe it would be better for women." I was desperate for some kind of hope for the revolution.

"No. She's the same. No freedom for women. Islam law." Several times, Kourosh said, "We want government no religion. Like here."

"Secular," I said. "Freedom of religion." (Death to the dictator.)

"Yeah."

So now, my fellow believers, we know what to pray for. Not that Iran's revolution lead to a quick switch from Ahmadinajad to Ahmadinajad-lite, nor for a switch from the "Supreme Leader" to anyone else in the Islamic rulership. Instead, this revolution needs a carefully constructed new government, one created with as much wisdom and aforethought as our founding fathers had. This sort of revolution will not be quick. If it happens, it may take years.

*The Kurdish people are an ethnic minority of an area they call Kurdestan, that encompasses the north of Iraq and Iran, and the south of Turkey. They share more similarities with each other across the country boundaries than they do with the people of their nations. It was many villages of Iraqi Kurds that Saddam Hussein wiped out with chemical weaponry, after they got the idea that the US would support them in a revolt. No wonder the Iranian Kurds are hanging back and waiting on the Iranian revolt.