Taking a breather...

Just a quick update from the frosty corners of northwest Ohio...

This week marks a series of changes. Friday the 16th is Chris' last day at Hotel Hell; a local hobby retailer had an opening for a remote-control sales specialist, and Chris jumped at it. His schedule will be a bit screwed for a bit - he will have to work Sundays for a couple weeks, which has been our only "full" day off together. But he will be working 12-8 p.m., instead of 3-11 p.m., so I think it will be much better for his mental health. And being away from the children-of-God who run the hotel and the local-yokels who populate it and the waterpark will do him even more good. So we are celebrating that a bunch.

On Monday, I am starting a course of a new diabetic drug, Byetta. For me, it will likely be a double annoyance - a morning and evening injection, plus low-level nausea for the first several weeks. But it's a "first-step" issue - admitting that I am powerless over my appetite, and doing badly at blood-sugar maintenance - and the drug is proven as an appetite suppressant (in much the same way that chemo patients don't want to eat much).

I'm trying not to project how things are going to be, but I am also realistic enough to realize that I hate being the size and shape I am even more than I hate the prospect of (a) multiple injections and (b) throwing up, dead sober. One of my good friends shared his experience, strength and hope with Chris and I before Christmas, and last week my doctor OK'd the treatment. It's closer and easier (and cheaper) than lap-band surgery, too. So if you are the praying type, pray for endurance for me, please.

Much of the world is investing in the new digital-television revolution by purchasing digital TVs. In our household, we are the proud owners of an old-style 27" tube TV - a considerble upgrade from the 19" antique we each owned - and a digital video recorder with which to capture the new Supercross season. (That, thanks to CraigsList, was the sum total of our investment in the economic recovery.)

A recent piece of good fortune forced me to another realization about myself. Chris has Saturday, Sunday, and Monday free - his stint at Hobbytown starts on Tuesday. And the extended insanity of holiday and year-end payroll processing at The Somewhat Evil Empire has wound down considerably. So we were presented with the unprecedented opportunity of three whole days off together. Woo-hoo!

Of course, the three days comes dead in the middle of the worst cold-snap we have had in three years. My friends Peter, Erin, and Hope will laugh, but -13 F (-25 C) comes under the category of damn, damn cold down here in Ohio. (My northern friends have endured weeks of that temperature and worse, over the last month - but we've had two relatively mild winters down here, and have gone soft, I guess.) So our plans to travel south a couple hours to Columbus (where it's currently only -9 F) are somewhat tentative.

But back to the self-revelation. I asked Chris what he wanted to do with the long weekend, and he turned it back on me: "Well, what do YOU want to do with the weekend?" And I was just dumb-struck...I had no idea what I would do with a whole extended weekend and no commitments.

Since New Years Day, 2003, I have been working toward something. In 2003, it was working toward getting ready to go to seminary. In late 2003 and 2004, it was getting relocated to Chicago and getting into seminary life. In late 2004 and 2005, it was trying to salvage school, and surviving financially however I could. Late 2005 and through 2006, I was a workaholic deeply immersed in trying to restart my career.

Starting in October, 2006, I was relocating here to Ohio, and trying to salvage my sister and brother-in-law's home and jobs. In late 2007, my focus was on a new relationship with Chris, and trying to prevent my sister losing her home. But by New Year's Day 2009, school and ministry are but a memory, the job is fractionally stable, the home is gone, the relationship is solid, and I am working on digging myself out of the financial hole that seminary sunk me into.

And so the questions of "What now?" and "What next?" seem to be focused on self-care - something at which we've both been historically and notoriously lousy. And what else, who knows? My friends in recovery have so far only suggested the phrase from our Big Book which says "More will be revealed to you and to us."

For now, we will see where the weather puts us on Saturday, and (in the words of an old song) cast our fate to the wind.

Real life, real hurts

You show me someone with significant pain, and no signficiant grace, & I'll show you someone who has withdrawn from the human enterprise in one way or another. And if you show me someone with signficiant grace, and no significant pain - no scars whatsoever - I'll show you someone so slick, you wouldn't buy a used car from 'em. (Eugene Lowry, "Jazz & Christianity")

My virtual brother-of-the-heart, Rick Luoni, has a great post over at a new life emerging about Joel Osteen. In Rick's typical, gentle way, he doesn't slam Osteen - but he points out how sugary-sweet, "life is GOOD!" stuff may sell books and draw folks, but it just ain't real life. Not to him, and not to me. His post led to my comment, and I couldn't help but post it here as well.

Joel Osteen, and folks like him, always call Gene Lowry's quote to mind. People who are just full of honey and vanilla simply creep me out...even though there are people who are good, kind, and seemingly loving folks who are that way. They may be honest, open, caring folks - but they sure as hell don't live in my world.

The first pastor I ever really listened to was the first person in a collar who I ever, ever remembered admitting doubt from the pulpit. (That story is back here, if you're interested...) The folks whose spiritual journey speak the loudest are the ones whose scars show the clearest. I'm so glad that I found life in the church and life in the community of recovery at the same time - because I needed both of them to find God.

Interestingly, Pastor Tom's wife was one of those sunshiney folks to me, for quite a while. It just seemed that nothing could faze her. Later, as I got closer to her, I learned that nothing could be less true - it was just her faith kept dragging her back to the sunshine side of the street. But she struggled with Tom's illness, with her mother's dementia, and with her church's stumbling toward faith. (To be honest, though, her faith witness looked a lot more real to me once I saw her struggles.)

My buddy Dave G. is one of the very few co-workers I have shared this blog with (because I understand the term Dooced). Though he is less than half my age, and I've only met him a few times in person, we've found a neat "virtual" bond across the miles, it seems. He sent me an instant message yesterday, saying he had gone back and read some of my older posts, which touched me (though I told him he really needed to get a life...). His comment made me smile: "You've had a hell of a life."

It's true - and yet I hope that even through the "hell of a life," he also saw signs of heaven, for there has been much of that. It is that balance that Gene Lowry talked about, between pain and grace...a balance I don't always maintain, but always strive toward. Even as I struggle with work, and what direction to take (and the willingness to take it) I have to admit that there is sunshine in the midst of all the mudslinging and sewage. If I'd not been at this job, I'd not have touched a whole bunch of folks - and I've had that reinforced time and time again since my hospital stay. So it seems I'm still very much "in the bonus round."

I am very much the doubting Thomas - even though Jesus is not here for me to touch his wounds. But when I see my sisters and brothers in Christ, and find just enough of them who are willing to show their scars, I can find my way back to the One whose wounds saved me.

Perhaps, that is an answer I have been searching for to the question I have struggled with mightily of late: "Why even go to church at all?" Perhaps it is simply to go and be a part of something... to sift through the flawed humanity, the politics, struggle, hypocrisy and rituals in order to find those folks who can show their wounds, and through their wounds find Christ in them. (That's something to think about a lot more, later...)

Fact is, the world is painful. The world hurts. If you are unhurt, then I'd guess you are probably unengaged with the world. Jesus came to earth - even though he knew in the end it would kill him.

You won't hear it from Joel Osteen, but you will here it from Jesus:

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
(John 16:33, NIV)

Now that will preach.