A Healthy Debate

Being a delegate to General Synod is a fascinating role. After roughly 12 hours of debate (a.k.a. – diplomatically arguing) the tension, especially this morning, is palpable. What are we debating? The need to help our seminarians obtain funds through a national-based offering.

After two votes on rather controversial amendments, the resolution itself has been diluted to a point where, as our flagship seminary president mentioned, ineffective. No national offering will be held…and that’s a cynical view. As a seminarian grad with five figures of debt and as a seminarian graduate who didn’t qualify for any UCC scholarships (after all, I am white, male, straight, and ‘privileged,’ coming from a humble low-to-middle class family), this resolution is disappointing.

Yesterday we passed another resolution placing the proverbial cart before the horse with the resolution to divest from fossil fuels. The resolution doesn’t address the sheer problem of demand – our insatiable appetite for gasoline, diesel, oil, coal-driven electricity, etc. Te root core of the problem isn’t the fossil fuel drilling, and digging, although environmentally is a growing detriment tithe world our great-grandchildren will inherit.

While I’m not comfortable in the environmental impact of our culture being victims of comfort, I’m confident we haven’t addressed successfully the core of the problem.

Not so surprisingly, this happens frequently here.

I call it…

Passion.

Passion energizes our vision, influences our stance, and even allows us to dig our heels in, even in the fog of seeing through our own lenses. Passion does, indeed, prevent progress as much as it is capable of encouraging progress.

Being “gung-ho”, on the band wagon, on the right track without paying attention to the finer points has been an accusation of one of the flaws of the United Church of Christ. While gifted in seeing a bigger picture, the finer points do occasionally get lost in the mix. I feel this happened last night and this morning.

It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.

Still, that’s the beauty of the UCC. This wild, wonderful gaggle of delegates comes together to be the Church in all its wonder, glory, function, and dysfunction.

That’s Church. National speaking to and not for the local church.

Frustrating? Yes. Beautiful, too? Yes.

One of speakers stated (in a few more words) that if you love something you love it with a passion.

You stand up for it.

You speak up for it.

You may even fight for it.

Do you love your Church?

I do. All of it.

Tension, Conflict, and Faith: The “Joys” of Being a Pastor & Delegate in a Larger Church Setting

This morning I sat in a Q&A session about divestment in fossil fuels through our national setting investment corporation, a movement that is passionate about socially conscious-free investments. More clearly, investing monies in companies or businesses that do not harm people, environment and the like. Hopefully that’s a clear enough picture that I’ve painted.

I’m now in my committee (OY! Committees!?!?!? Yep, that’s the congregational way of doing things) discussing resolution 14, RESOLUTION SUPPORTING COMPASSIONATE COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND THE PROTECTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF IMMIGRANTS (sorry about the caps lock thing, I’m a little to lazy this morning to retype a copy and paste).

This has been an informative hour and a half,my brain breaching max capacity. If I forget a few of my family member’s names, I can blame the sheer volume of information that has my slots full.

There’s a conflict in my heart. A good conflict. While faithfully mindful of the environment as it pertains to a healthy world, i.e. agriculture, I also am pastorally mindful, compassionately mindful, of my constituents in rural NE Colorado, home of one of me largest fracking industries in the nation. If you’re familiar with both fracking and faith,you understand my conflict, the tension within which I exist. I’m also in conflict due to the context within which I pastor, rural Colorado, where labor forces for agricultural industries rely heavily upon migrant or immigrant hands.

While agricultural field or slaughter jobs are available, many Caucasian folk aren’t likely to apply for open positions. Again, conflict rises in an area with heavily Hispanic/other immigrant population rises as an economic/industry need and yet conflicting with negative or even uneducated sentiment toward the particular race or culture entering in. While our church’s local history is one of immigration and cultural resentment toward founding members, perhaps the history has been forgotten, perhaps empathy has been replaced with an unfortunate cynicism. All in all, I’m in conflict. There have been ICE raids in our locale, and did I mention, I also carry a badge, as the Commander of the Volunteer Chaplains of our local law enforcement agency. Conflict once again…layers…

…and layers…

…and layers…

…of inner, spiritual conflict.

The environmental impact of fracking is debatable in some socio-economic arenas, in other words, depending on where one lives, the opinion will likely change…greatly. Similarly, the,issue of immigration is more heated now (particularly in the southwest) than ever before, even though this present administration, while promising a better life for immigrants, is responsible for the highest rate of deportation and even detaining undocumented folk than any other administration in our nations history.

Surprised? I am.

Appalled? You should be, if you’ve heard the stories of unfair treatment, of systematic oppression only comparable to the likes of Jewish concentration camps of the late 1930’s early 1940’s.

This is all new information I’ve taken in in the last 2 hours…I’m emotionally pooped.

So here’s where I am in all of this…at the moment…as I continue to be informed by new information and by your responses, as members of the local church, to navigate a proper and valuable vote to represent who I represent…the local church member.

I am not in favor of the resolution to divest from fossil fuels as it does not address appropriately our insatiable appetite for them, aka – demand. I also do not agree with a section of the resolution that states fossil fuel companies business plans are completely flawed. Perhaps staying at the table as investors to steer these same companies toward renewable energy? My answer is, “I don’t know, but is it possible?” All things are possible.

As it pertains to the committee I am sitting on/in (follow this link to the current resolution as its been proposed before any amendments via committeeresolution #14) I am in favor of the resolution.

I’m in favor because my faith, our faith, should continuously call us into this notion of neighbor. Do you love your neighbor? St. Augustine’s definition of neighbor was whoever was standing/sitting beside you. So, I ask the question, who is your neighbor and do they have to be right beside you?

I look forward to your (the local church’s) input. God’s grace and peace to you.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the GS29 Forum…

Yes it did.  I’m back.  With vengeance.  Okay not with vengeance, but with perspective.

From the end of sabbatical to the full-immersion return into pastoral ministry.  In other words, out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I’m attending our denomination’s national-setting biennium gathering, General Synod (#29) in Long Beach, California.  Roughing it, I know.  I’m serving for the first time at one of these events (this is the 4th Synod I’ve attended) as a delegate – a voting representative of the conference I am serving within, the Rocky Mountain Conference, of the United Church of Christ.

This exponentially amps up the responsibility of simply attending as a visitor or guest of the Synod as committee meetings and business sessions are, pretty much, required.  And I can tell you, as a visitor, I don’t believe I made it through a single business meeting without leaving early.  This will be a test of faith…and patience.

I arrived yesterday and today the fun began in a sabbatical-esque fashion.  I thought I was serving a committee for a resolution to study a reframing of conference boundaries, but then discovered the number of that committee didn’t coincide with the number of the resolution that I was supposed to be sitting on a committee for.  Sound confusing?  We’re not even halfway through the fog.

To make a long story short (too late, Greg, too late) I’m serving on a totally different committee than the previous two numbered resolutions had eluded to.  I’m serving on a committee that’s discussing comprehensive immigration reform.  It’s a resolution calling every level of the Church, the National, the Regional, the Association, and the local Church to action – to stand up for immigrants’ rights and, maybe more importantly, their safety and well-being.  The latter of which I strongly feel called to as a Christian with empathy – one who feels for another.  I care.  Not all Christians, as we’ve most likely experienced, care for others.

As it pertains to me personally and to the local church I serve in Fort Morgan, Colorado, the resolution is quite personal.  Immigration is and should be a rather important issue to those in my church.  Immigration reform and how we, as a Christian body, respond to our neighbors seeking citizenship is crucial to our own history of being a people primarily from “another place.”

Immigration is biblical – our earliest Israelite ancestors were migratory.  Immigration is historical – populations move.  Immigration is global – there isn’t a single country that isn’t effected by immigration in some way, shape, or form.

For some people immigration is the culmination of dreams while for others it is or was an unwanted passage.

With one southern border being (still being raised) a large steel wall, reminiscent of the Berlin wall only broken less than 30 years ago, we may find ourselves close to repeating history…and not the kind of history we want to repeat.  We can do better.

Over the coming days I’ll be sitting in more educational meetings about this resolution and preparing more blog entries (sans family, RV, neurotic cat, hospital stays, etc.) to do my pastoral duty in something I truly believe in – covenantal relationship.  Simply this – I must communicate to the local Church and communicate the local Church to the larger Church setting.  That’s my job.  This week, it’s overwhelming.

So far, however, I’ve reconnected with friends from across the states, some from our stay in Portland, Oregon, too.  I’ve also made new friends and discovered more about the wonderful, diverse tapestry of American Christianity that I have come to love.  Here our “church” is much less generic and much more colorful in a way I believe every Christian should experience.  Grace abounds no matter who you are or where you are on this journey of faith you’re on.

I’m happy to be back to this blog.  I’m also happy to have a 6-month old, without a feeding tube being as chipper as any father would want them to be… pictures to be posted soon…  Thanks for returning to this with me.

 

My New Friends

One of Sophie’s first nurses…Ryanna.  

In case you haven’t heard the whole story it’s rather long.  So I’ll sum up.

Child sick in Astoria, Oregon.

Exhausted medical resources there in 3 days.

Transported to Portland – Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.

Moved RV from Hammond, Oregon to Jantzen Beach RV Park on Hayden Island…right underneath the exiting flight path from the Portland airport…and beside a major shipping channel…and very close to a set of railroad tracks…that go over a railroad trestle…clickity clack, clickity clack, clickity clack…etc. etc.  (And that’s the abridged version)

After two weeks of hospital stay, a diagnosis of an acute allergy to soy and dairy proteins (most likely…let’s pray there are no other food allergies!), much barfing…I mean, emesis after emesis after emesis, several trips to and from the RV in south-bound 405 morning traffic (holy-highway-engineers-on-acid-Batman!  I swear that person or peoples designed that freeway system just to piss people off), muchas deniro spent on cafeteria food, and so much more, we’re back in the RV.  My (Sweet) Sophie is out cold in the pack-n-play, my dear bride is sleeping soundly…in between airplane take-offs and choo-choo trains, and I am typing as quietly as I can so as to give the deepest-felt thanks I have for any group of people I’ve ever met.

Panda Team member, Sara(h?) brought Sophie to Portland from Astoria. We were grateful to see Sara(h?) on our last day, just before discharge! She’s pretty cool. All because she’s from Michigan and she’s as full of life as a cardiac defibrillator.

Doernbecher Floor 9 South staff.  Freaking awesome.  I met Mr. T once on a plane to LA.  Doesn’t even compare.

I can’t begin to fully articulate my gratitude to all who helped.  There’s a few who aren’t pictured, like CNA Allie (AKA MS. I-Can-Make-the-Sun-Shine-on-Anything), and so many other nurses that a better pastor with a better memory would be able to name here.  Even our lead Dr.s from the get-go deserve a standing ovation…And a hug…And a bag of chocolates…Swiss ones.  Then there’s the Panda Team who did everything from a two-hour transportation to finding a vein to draw labs from Sophie in short order.  Sophie was particularly difficult for your average phlebotomist who would draw more infant screams than actual hemoglobin.  I can’t forget the PICC team who effortlessly inserted a PICC line, which resulted in a near absolute turn-around in Sophie in warp-speed time.

You see, when your little child is in the hospital with God-knows-what the parents are typically helpless as…well…a new-born baby.  We were thrown into emotional chaos having to be constantly bed-side and wait for our little cherub to turn the corner.

This was hell for us.  I’d cry at the RV.  Melissa couldn’t contain herself either.  I imagine no caring parent could.

The day Sophie turned the corner after a PICC line with a giant bladder of TPN was being pumped into her bloated little body was like a certain palestinian dude from a couple thousand years ago turning water into wine.  Nothing short of a miracle.

All these hands…all these brilliant minds.  Wow.  I can’t begin to articulate my gratitude.

Our Nutritionist, Jessie, and her office mate have a competition to see who can have the cutest photo with a patient. WINNER!!!!!.

So, instead, I’ll tell a little story about a wedding a couple thousand years ago.  This story helped formed a little of who I am today.

Back then weddings lasted days.  Caterers would never carry enough wine to please the masses for that long of an affair.

At this wedding, the wine ran out.  Oops.  Party blunder.

One rather important character seems to give the charge and change the rest of history all by himself, saving the party from a total YouTube blunder to knocking the sweet socks off the guests with wine seemingly imported from France.  It was good stuff.

Now, many people have this idea that this main character does all the work himself, that this little miracle is chalked up to the one-and-only Jesus de Christo.

Not if we read the story carefully.

Jesus never leaves his seat.

He makes a request of the servants to first fetch the large, clay cisterns, each can carry about 30-40 gallons, and then asks them to fill said cisterns with water and, lastly, bring them to the chief steward, a 2000 year-old Chef Gordon Ramsay – if this doesn’t work, consider yourself canned.

At this point you’d think the story is complete.  But it’s not if you don’t ask one simple, hypothetical, nearly-rhetorical question that makes this story come alive.  What if those servants had said ‘no’ when Jesus commanded them to do those things?

Nurse Meghan prompted the most smiles out of Sophie during her shifts. She’s also pretty witty. And there’s no way she’s as old as what she says she is… she’s lying. I just know it. Guys, if this girl is single you are all WAY behind the 8-ball.

The answer is also simple.  There would be no miracle.  There would be no story worth telling again and again.  Had somebody recorded this on an ancient iPhone and uploaded it to YouTube it’s be a colossal, viral video fail of Biblical proportions.  Really.

There’s one answer why my daughter is sleeping soundly in the other room in the RV tonight… Because all these brilliant minds said a resounding “YES!” when they were called upon.

That’s how miracles happen.  That’s how water changes into wine.  There’s a call to do…and an equal response to get it done.

You know, the world would be a lot better (putting it mildly) if we all answered a call to do a miracle every once-in-awhile.

People dream of world peace.  It’s not that it’s impossible as much as the task to accomplish seems so daunting.  But there’s a call out there to do it.

The people on 9 South are these kind of people that want to make the world a better place.  A better place for terrified parents like we used to be a little more than a week ago.  They made our world full of peace.  That’s a miracle in and of itself.

For my wife and especially for my 19-week and two-day old baby…the world is much better.

Thank you Doernbecher 9 South staff.  This would not have happened if not for you.

I love you all.

 

p.s. – LOVE WINS.

(Enjoy the rest of the photos of some of our new best friends…They’ll be in my heart for years to come – and you can bet my daughter will learn to love them, too.)

Is there a speech-therapist guru like Steve anywhere? I think not. Unless you count his students, who are likely to be as guru’d as he is. Love these people!

The Captain of the Starship 9 South is office manager Barb, here with one of our CNA’s, Melinda, who both took great care of Sophie AND the both of us. Over and above the call of duty.

I couldn’t possible name all of them because I’m lousy with names…But here goes… STANDING, From L-R: Dr. New Guy, Dr. Awesome Shoes, Dr. Tim, Mrs. Happy Momma, Dr. Megan, Dr. I’m-there-every-day-they-never-give-me-a-day-off-and-I-deserve-one, Dr. Lance (I only remember his name because my favorite baseball player growing up was Detroit Tiger Catcher, Lance Parrish) KNEELING, L-R, Dr. Sara, and Dr. I-have-lunch-with-Tim. THAT’S how good I am with names, folks. Melissa will make me edit this later… She’s got the memory of an elephant.

To be honest, I think Sophie is going to miss this guy…and so will her parents.

The student Dr. attending to all Sophie’s needs – Dr.. Tim – This guy will make a GREAT doctor someday. I might even have to move to California just to have this guy as a Doc.

Happy Sophie = VERY happy momma.
THANK YOU 9 SOUTH!

 

ALL FOR ONE! (and It’s All About Me)

Disclaimer:

I’m not a Democrat.

I’m not a Republican, either.

In college frat terms I’m a GDI – (PG version:  Gosh Darn Independent)

Another Disclaimer:

I believe people have the right to bear arms.

I also believe some people shouldn’t be allowed to bear arms.

I believe all have the right to happiness perhaps through childbearing.

I also believe that some people shouldn’t bear children.  Honey Boo Boo?  *eye roll*

For the last 15 days I’ve had to reconcile the best laid plans and Murphy’s Law about those same plans.  And, admittedly, it sucks.  I read an article the other day about a woman who thought having kids was the worst mistake she’d ever made.  She said, “Like parasites, they took from me and they didn’t give back”.  My inner voice does not resonate with this tackless outburst from this parent.  Matter of fact, my love for my little sickling has grown exponentially (geometrically – just for Jeff) over these past two weeks, like I’ve never imagined it could.  The feeling I have for my near 19-week old daughter-with-the-feeding-tube-but-getting-better-slowly far outweighs the meaning of a simple faaaantastic.

Yet I am disappointed at missing a good couple weeks of sabbatical leave.  Sabbath, a time for intentional rest, isn’t happenin’.  But, like I’d like to say to a some people I know, get over it, right?  Right.  Kind of like when people can’t wait for someone to show up to either finish or remove laundry from a dryer, so they just take it out and leave it an a damp heap on top of the dryer with their stuff running inside.  Nice. (I left a note…and the door to the dryer open, too.  Just kidding on the latter of the two.  An eye for an eye only leaves the world blind.)

I’m wrestling like Jacob with this sabbatical angel who really wants to know my name…who I really am.  I’ve begun to say that name, and just like Jacob, I’ll walk away with a little gimpy.

So life doesn’t circle around me as much as it used to.  Having a sense of this fact has helped me get a grip on my emotions for cancelled plans – two MLS soccer matches, two RV parks in Washington, one in Montana, and a whole 1,400 mile re-route yet to be finagled.  Water under the bridge.  Unless you’re in Grand Rapids, Michigan, right now where water flows over the bridges.

Interesting… Very interesting. Gun permits before ownership? What a novel idea.

In all of life we see similar instances of injustice on the self, only to be awakened to the reality that our own ego doesn’t like what’s happening to us.  For example, this whole debate of gun control is out of control.  It’s gone from understanding what it means to care for others to preserving the self…out of fear and in the face of all whose lives are fragmented by the devastation lack of gun control has left in its wake.  See photo to the left.

Having lived in an area for nearly 6 years which has little control over who buys and has access to guns and having seen, as a Volunteer Police Chaplain, the suicides committed via guns, I’m even more convinced that people are more concerned about being right than being safe.  After all, getting what I want, over an above the needs of others that live in this same world, makes sense to me! (Last sentence laden with heavy sarcasm.)

Gun control also bleeds into a form of religious control.

Hypothetical question:  “Can I make you angry?”

Now, the italics should give you the correct answer.  Truth is this – I can’t make you angry.  Having said that, I can sure push your buttons and provoke an answer out of you that would please me if I were that kind of a person.  Vise versa you can not make me angry.  Something you do or say I may choose to become angry with, but that my choice.

This is where religion loses its relevance.  If I’m unhappy with a pastor, I can simply get up without a word and go to a new church, perhaps one that reflects my beliefs and not those of a well-studied, even scholarly minister.  After all, my needs are more important than the rest of the world’s and that makes sense to me!  (Again…sarcasm)

Sadly, the line that begins, “A deeply religious…” speaks volumes.  Even sadder, Grand Rapids, Michigan is my home town.  No one should ever have to feel so bound by an errant view of “biblical marriage.”

So what happens if a pastor may have a different opinion?  What happens when a preacher goes into a church and, heaven forbid, asks them to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with (their) God when all they want to do is worship the organ, the hymnals from 1957, the un-padded pews, the memorials most everybody walks by without reading?

They leave.

What happens when a pastor preaches and encourages his/her members to work for justice for the marginalized, even though the sight of these people may make a majority of them squirm?

They leave.

All to easy any given member can get up from the pew, head to the nearest exit, and then bitch (because I can think of no other diplomatic word than the verb to bitch) to everyone in the neighborhood about how their pastor sucks and is a “false man of God,” because they know this for fact and they’ve all been through the rigors of an accredited theological seminary.  Oh, the pettiness of the Church.

Of course, I realize it’s horribly difficult to place an accurate meaning on scripture when it’s been so heavily scrutinized under a microscope for eons.  Still, Jesus’ prayer in John 17 paints a bigger picture – so that they may all be one.  Perhaps the writer of John left out that line filled with righteous indignation.  You know, the one that completes the verse with, “…unless you like guns, hate the preacher, dislike gay people…etc.”  But then the writer would have had to leave that out three times in the same passage.  Highly unlikely.

This two-week and one-day endeavor in hospitals has left me with a foul taste in my mouth.  Most of it from the pricey hospital food.  The rest of that foul taste is me getting over it.  And I will.

There are many things that life tries to teach us if we stayed and listened.  In this case, I don’t know what they are yet.  I’m not a big fan of the whole God-does-everything-for-a-reason theology.  If that’s the case, I think we’d have billions more atheists.  (Although, we are working in that direction!)

This face. I LOVE this face.
LOVE WINS.
(being in the UCC, I believe that is the only place a punctuation period should exist.)

Let’s start with love.  Love is a good starting point when trying to sift through life’s crap.  As Miracle Max said in the Gospel of The Princess Bride, “Sonny, true love is the greatest thing, in the world-except for a nice MLT – mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe they’re so perky, I love that.”

The Apostle Paul follows that with, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (Italics and bold are my own.)

Love is patient and kind.  And it endures.  To endure means you’re in for the long haul.  Are you?  I am.  Because it’s not all about me.  There’s another 600 Billion I think about.

 

Love Me a Good Roller Coaster

I love a good roller coaster.  I lived in eastern central Florida for four years, close enough to enjoy the amusement parks and their entry fees and long enough to realize you’d need to visit all the theme parks in Florida to equate to one in the midwest – Cedar Point.

Don’t blow your top.
A view of Mount St. Helens from the Hospital.

Universal Studios Island of Adventure has one or two.  Sea World has one.  Disney World has one or two.  Busch Gardens has beer… I mean, two or three good ones.  But Cedar Point is the end all, be all of roller coaster, puke-your-guts-out glory amusement.

I took a group of Coloradans to Cedar Point.  Meh, they first thought, we have Elitch Gardens!   I told them to just wait and see.  On the ride home from Cedar Point they wouldn’t shut up about how lousy Elitch Gardens had just become.  Cedar Point, HELL YEAH! became the motto for the rest of the trip.

Life presents itself in a variety of roller coasters.  Some are kiddie rides – boring, unless you’re 5 years of age when 30 feet in the air seems like 30,000.  Some are tilt-a-whirls – eat before you ride and you’ll be sure to lose your lunch.  Some are the heart-in-your-throat rides that you are glad you just had the chance to get off…until later, when you want to ride it again for the sheer thrill of it or the line is only 20-people long.  The others are like that except you don’t ride them ever again.  Cedar Point only has one of those for me.  That wooded one in the back.  The one that gave me an instant headache from the incessant shaking – like those machines that mix up paint.  I haven’t ridden that one again.  I don’t plan to, either.

I’m on one of those right now.  After 11 days in two hospitals and a doctor telling me there may be yet another week of hospital stay, I’ve got that headache that tells me I’m pretty much done with this ride.

If a lot of lava and ash was under St. Helens, what’s under the Hood? (Did you catch that one?)

Stop the ride.

I want to get off.

I’m going to vomit.

Of course, this is my own bowl of pits I’m spitting into.  This roller coaster of life hasn’t dealt me a blow like this before.

With all the serene beauty of this region and everything I’ve seen and experienced in this life, this little “kiddie ride” isn’t going to get me out of the amusement park.  There’s too much salt water taffy yet to be eaten.

My little girl is making baby step improvements.  For an impatient father, this isn’t going fast enough, indeed.  I’d like the doctors to prescribe something that propels healing into hyperdrive like the Top Thrill Drag Roller Coaster.  The ride lasts a whole 20 seconds long.  0 – 120 mph in three seconds.  ORDER UP!

What has helped keep me moderately calm are the virtual prayers, the family support of hundreds of immediate and distant relatives (hell, we’re all distant relatives, just ask Kevin Bacon), and the flashes of brilliant smiles my little girls shows here and there.

I keep thinking of the movie What About Bob? and baby steps.

Baby steps.  

Baby steps.

Cedar Point is big and the lines even bigger.  To wait sometimes 2 or more hours for a 20-second ride isn’t exactly efficiency, is it?

So, too, is life.  The thrill I’m seeking will come.  I do have to wait a bit, but I can handle it.  There are people all around me making sure I do handle it.  Holding my hand, praying, simply talking or listening.  They are all around.  Besides, Portland is a beautiful place.  Lots of great people and scenery to pass some of the hardest times, as you can see from the above photos.

Yeah, I’d like to get off this ride for its made me a little sick.  There are other ones I’d like to try.  Soon enough.

Soon enough.

(P.S. – for Portland roller coasters, simply attempt to drive the Portland area freeway system.  I understand building anything on the side of a mountain is difficult, but, holy crap, these engineers were either on acid or roller coaster freaks.)

These are the Days of Our Lives

This is getting old.  Actually, I am mentally over it.

It’s been a week.

I’m done…fried.

I can’t keep track of the adjustments of medications as they go from a drip to a bottle, back to a drip and back to a bottle again in varying amounts and consistencies.  They tell us that vomiting is okay.  Okay, but it doesn’t make it acceptable for a parent to watch it over and over again.  Darn it all to heck.

Yesterday I spent my 43rd birthday here, in a hospital room.  I also had another allergy attack that left my face drained in color and enthusiasm and hope.  Sneezing fits reminiscent of my previous post.  I’d sneeze ten to fifteen times, about 2 to 3 seconds in between.

Today I felt great, considering the allergy fits from the day before.

Still… I want out.  I want to leave this place with my wife, a healthy Sophie Ann, and our cat and do what we were doing before this all seemingly collapsed.

The impatience in me is getting the better of me.  Just a few moments ago my wife was in the hospital bathroom shower getting cleaned up.  The predictable happened.  My little girl had a fit that I couldn’t console.  After my wife was done, she did the job.  Again.

You just feel so completely helpless and useless all at the same time.  I feel my own breathing is only making the air filters need to be cleaned more frequently.  I try to be strong.  I’m just beat.  I’m frustrated.  I want out of this place.

I am trying to recall the passage the Pastor who visited us on Thursday read to us before prayer.  I can’t remember it.  I can’t find it.  I need it back.  Something about the worry and anxiety of today…

In each of us there is a line that is drawn.  For some the line is miles and miles away, the ability to endure is great.  For others, like myself, while I can endure physical pain the pain of seeing my child in discomfort is overpowering.

My greatest frustration is trying to live into the role I’ve feel I’ve been given.  Pastor.  There is something about that word that insinuates strength in the time of weakness.  I know, it’s more stereotypical than a reality.

Rob Bell wrote, “We plot. We plan. We assume things are going to go a certain way. And when they don’t, we find ourselves in a new place-a place we haven’t been before, a place we never would have imagined on our own.  It is the difficult and the unexpected, and maybe even the tragic, that opens us up and frees us to see things in new ways.  Many of the most significant moments in our lives come not because it all went right but because it all fell apart.  Suffering does that. It hurts, but it also creates”

I need to read that book again, but I don’t have it with me.  I get it.  I am struggling to exercise it.

What I am supposed to see in new ways?  What is this hospital situation creating?  (both of these questions are rhetorical)  The suffering part is more than in the open.  Both my wife and I have had our breakdowns.  Our little girl has had her share of discomfort.  More than some, less than others in this place.

Many have asked the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  Several more have tried to answer this question.  A few have answered it with shallow theology leading to statements like a Westboro Baptist Church protest.  A few others have said what I typically say… I don’t know.

I don’t know why my little, sweet, innocent babe is suffering so.  I’ll never have that answer other than, at the moment, a potential milk protein allergy.  As I’ve said before  #%*$@!

There is no real answer for suffering.  It happens.  It happens to the best of people and it happens to the worst.  Really, I’m not defending the arrested suspect of the Boston Marathon bombing, but what suffering, if any, had he endured to lead to such action?  I know in my current suffering I want to throw this laptop clear through the window and watch it smash on the pavement below.  I know that if another person rudely accosted me for doing so that person would get more than an earful from me.  It may not be very intelligible, but it’s be more than an earful.

And that’s not pastoral at all.

There are a few things that I have to come to grips with.  Others must to.

First, I am human first, called and ordained into ministry second.  Without my wits in a stressful situation I’m prone to be less pastoral and more human – meaning, less able to control my emotions than I’d prefer.  I’m not going to go “postal” or anything, but the rage certainly boils occasionally beneath my skin.

Second, these are the days of our lives.  Everybody walks these hospital hallways at one time or another.  Weather we’re in the room with joy or across the hall with grief and frustration, we all walk these halls.

Lastly, I’m not in control and I wish, more than anything today, that I was.

I’ve used this blog to vent before.  I’m using it now.  Perhaps this is the constructive manner of “seeing things in new ways” that Bell was getting at.  I still don’t know for sure.

I do know this:  One thing I do see differently is the fragility of life in my daughter.  I know she’s absolutely helpless as an infant, totally dependent on her parents, as all newborns are.  Yet she was as healthy as a horse up to two weeks ago Thursday, when this all began.  At this same age I had spinal meningitis.  I know my own circumstances then placed my parents in a similar context.  They’re here in Portland for support, nearly reliving the same thing they went through 43 years ago.  I know Sophie doesn’t have spinal meningitis and, so far, no life-threatening diagnosis has been made.  But I feel for them as I do their granddaughter.

No one wants to see their child, grandchild, great-granchild, etcetera, suffer.

And no one should.  This hurts.  I wish it didn’t, but it does.  This is another day of my life.  Tomorrow I can hope and pray for better.  Better for my daughter, the victims of all our national and global tragedies, and all those who walk these hallways.

Finding My Own One-Eyed Willie

Somewhere just north of Florence, OR, on the 101.

Whoa… Before you all jump on the “HOLY SUGGESTIVE TITLE BATMAN” wagon.  I can explain.  We’re in Fort Stevens State Park in Hammond, Oregon, a hop, skip, and a jump from Astoria, the famed home of the Goonies.  If you recall any of the 1985 cult-following film starring Rudy…um, I mean, Samwise Gamgee…shoot… What’s his name?  Oh, yeah, Sean Astin.  Where was I again?  Oh, yeah, if you recall any of that film you’d remember that this troop of youngsters find a treasure map and go searching and (WARNING:  SPOILER ALERT!!) find it – the treasure of One-Eyed Willie.  Any of you who were thinking something suggestive, well… keep your mind out of the gutter.  This isn’t that kind of a blog.  Although, as I increase in age it may take a turn for the worst.

I am looking for my own treasure in life.  And I’ve found it – In the joys of family, my faith, travel, the people I meet (well, most of them), and in hearing rain fall on an RV.

You could say I’ve found something more impressive than One-Eyed Willie’s hoarded treasure.

This guy was going northbound, but his semi was on its driver’s side facing south. The trailer was on its passenger side…still facing north. And there was no “life-threatening” injuries… wow.  If only you could have seen the rig after they turned ip right-side up.  Holy…

I’m reminded of a short essay by Robert J. Hastings called, The Station.  Beyond all the goals, the achievements, the drive of some people to own expensive cars and fine real estate, is the simple joy of the trip.

Today, we were stuck for nearly 3 hours behind a wrecked semi on northbound Highway 101, just north of Florence.  Friends we met the night before at the RV park were also stopped – just in front of us.  Charlie and Joelle.  Nice folk.  You really do meet the nicest people at RV parks.  Although, I did meet a couple of sketchy ones, too, but they were still nice.

I thought I’d turn the RV around.  After all, we were pulled off the side of the road in a turn-out, made for larger and slower vehicles to pull off and allow the faster ones to pass by.  It’s an Oregon law.  Slow vehicles must pull off.  Mind you, I’m driving a 31 foot Jayco Greyhawk (pictured at the top of the blog) and towing a Honda Odyssey.  Total footage just over 45 feet.  Therefore, my turn radius is that of an aircraft carrier.  Not gonna happen.  Even my friend Charlie had a chuckle over that idea.

Another stream making it’s way into the Pacific. Our view while the wreck was being cleaned up. Not bad.

So, what to do?  I wasn’t motivated to unload the minivan, although there was a picturesque lighthouse I failed to snap a few photos of about three miles back that was tempting me beyond the powers of satan.

Another stopped pickup with a camper loaded on the bed stopped beside us.  They unloaded their cooking utensils and made breakfast.  Eggs and bacon…those bastards.  The smell wafting through the damp air made a bee-line for my nostrils.  I mentally shook my fist at them with a large grin on my face while dreaming of ways to nab a couple strips of that fine meat candy.

That didn’t happen either.  Instead it was a grilled cheese sandwich and Wavy Lays, with a couple of canned okra.

Oh, did I mention that all this was happening while my daughter was puking her guts out?  Yep, that too.  We stopped at an ER in Florence for some advice.  All looked okay, with only a few beginning signs of dehydration.  After a whopping 30 minutes in the ER (that is a total record for me in any medical office) we were discharged with instructions to return if the vomiting hasn’t subsided in 48 hours.  It’s been 27.  She’s still up-chucking.

But WHAT A GLORIOUS RIDE! (Note:  Some sarcasm may be in use)  Albeit a little faster than I had hope to take it due to the wreck delay.  I’m a little bummed as Highway 101 in Oregon has quickly become a #1 place to return to and drive…with a convertible…without a neurotic cat…with a non-barfing child…and my hot honey sitting beside me not stressing about said sick infant…and total sunshine in lieu of spotty rain clouds (The latter of which did make for some pretty pavement – seeing the blue sky reflecting off of wet pavement next to some of the greenest grass I’ve seen in years was pretty gnarly.  I had to use the word ‘gnarly’ as there are surf shops around here.)…and in a vehicle that does better than 7 MPG.

Just north of Girabaldi, OR, overlooking the Tillamook Bay area… Breath taking.

Before my train of thought completely derails, do you see what I mean?  The true joy of life, as Hastings wrote, is the trip.  And this has been one heckuva of a trip to date!  I can’t wait for the remaining 7,000 miles!  Really!  Word up!

We could have been stuck in the middle of LA traffic in downtown LA.  I hear that’s pretty bogus.  Yet here we were beside a beautiful bridge and stream that let out into the Pacific Ocean, less than 100 yards away.  Not a bad place to be stuck at all.

Where your treasure is there also is where your heart resides.  I’m happy to say my heart resides in the simplest of things:  travel, family, non-barfing children, sunlight and rain, curvy roads and places like the Goon Docks, which weren’t sold at the end of the movie because Rudy found some gems to buy it back…  Rudy?  Sheesh, I’m tired.  I mean, Mikey.  Yeah, that’s it.  Mikey.

Hug someone, people, and then go for a ride.  Tomorrow its laundry day…lots of vomit-filled blankets.  Sooper dooper.  Its all joy.  It’s my One-Eyed Willie treasure.

 

Pan-handling in a Bust Town

Another beautiful drive yesterday.  Wow.  California 199 into Grants Pass, Oregon, is truly a site, in daylight.  At night, it’s like driving the old Saddle Road on the Big Island (Hawai’i)  – twists and turns at a rapid pace with a speed limit of 55 of which one has to wonder who, in their right mind, would actually drive 55 in that area other than reputable NASCAR, Formula 1, or Indy Car drivers.

This giant of a Redwood stretched at least 200 feet into the misty sky.

We drove along the Smith River banks, 10 miles of the pathway was a hard-packed, clay, old mining road called Howland Hill Road – right through an old-growth Redwood forest.  And I thought Sequoias were alone impressive.

I even claimed a little exercise riding my bike along a portion of Highway 101 on Tuesday and darn near fell over a few times due to a combination of under-inflated tires and my head careening upwards to view old redwood stumps…yes, looking upward to view redwood stumps.  Even the stumps are amazing.

The Smith River, as many rivers in northern CA and southern OR, run azure all year, a quality that comes from the unique minerals in the local area.

While the old-growth areas are beautiful and awe-inspiring, the Smith River is another feature of this drive that makes it worth-while.  The color was described to me as being azure, a color I’ve only names out of a crayon box – but it’s spot-on.  The Trinity River that runs beside much of Highway 299 is also the same color as is, I’m sure, the Klamath River which we’re going to view later today.  There aren’t words to describe the beauty of the color alone.  We’ve been to Hawai’i a few times in our short lives and have been in wonder of the deep blue sea that we’ve traversed.  This is a much different color, a beauty all its own.

A faster-running section of the Smith River, the azure color pops against the rock bed.

During our drive into Grants Pass to meet a former soccer player for dinner, I was inspired by a few of the smaller, more economically depressed towns we drove through.  The undercurrent of the movie Cars was about a small town called Radiator Springs.  A place that had been by-passed by the tourniquet of newer freeways, fast-paced byways that cut off the life supply of the smaller towns.  While Highway 199 isn’t located nearby a major freeway system (even I-5 is less imposing as a major freeway in some parts of northern CA and southern OR) these small towns have been impacted by a similar phenomena where the younger locals area drawn to more metropolitan areas.

Imposing beasts. And the less imposing beast (me) standing at the base of this monster.

I live in a similar town in northeastern Colorado.  Largely agricultural in nature and industry, many of our young folks aren’t carrying on the family farming business with exception to a few dedicated FFA youth who are inspired by their parents – an attribute I find quite virtuous.

I-76 runs right by Fort Morgan, Colorado.  It doesn’t drain the life from our small community but aids in its existence as passerby’s participate in our local economy.  Yet 199 travelers are going from “point A” to “point B”, form one place to another without batting an eyelash at the smaller local communities and their commerce.  I was such an example.  Its not that they offer much, I’d have to admit they are limited in their capacity to produce a wide variety of interests.  Even the down-and-out are even more down-and-out.  We passed a gentleman holding a sign that read ANYTHING HELPS on the corner of 199 and a small-town, impoverished and nearly-bust community grocery store.  Um, hey fella, you’re not going to have much luck pan-handling from this location.

From a fallen redwood many years ago, this stump was roughly 10-12 feet in diameter, about 6-7 feet tall.

As I drove by this unfortunate person I began to think, in my own perverse way, that this guy is really in the wrong place.  I’d help him, too, perhaps offering a ride to a high-traffic area for greater success if he didn’t also look like a stereotypical axe murderer.  I mean, if he were hitchhiking he’d have an even longer wait for assistance.

I began to think of a list of items that could help this guy improve his situation, only a few of which were actually practical, the rest were from my perverse line of thinking.  For example…

1.  Shave.  Look less like a vertically-challenged yeti (Sasquatch is pretty popular in these areas) and more like you play for the New York Yankees.

2.  Scent.  Deodorant.  Even the less-expensive travel size and a single swipe in each armpit may help.

3.  Smile.  The look of vacant emptiness (I know… that’s a bit repetitively redundant) in those eyes combined with a flat affect of facial expression are less attractive to folk who want to help.  Actually, they even frighten a few of us.

And this list goes on… Again, less practical and more useless, really, for a guy like the one on the corner.  For me, the above is even less pastoral than my calling suggests.  Still, what resources are available to guy like this especially in a near-bust town?

I don’t pretend to have the answers, but there must be one for each community – a niche in which a smaller community could build upon to thrive once again for those residing there.  Even if it begins with the thought of the traveller to intentionally stop in and say a kind “hello.”  At least that’s a start.

Me and My Itchy Trigger Finger

A cool mist rises up from between pines on HWy 101.

Well… It took two days.  But we’re here for nearly a week in Crescent City, California. Home to…um…well… a lot of rain.  It’s been raining since we’ve arrived and for a few hours before that – up till now it’s been roughly 9 to 10 hours.  Setting up in an RV isn’t fun in the rain.  Matter of fact, I’ll wait until tomorrow, or until the pond under the RV settles to place the leveling jacks for greater stability inside the RV.  Without those jacks people confuse our RV with the ones that have that bumper sticker that reads If this RV is a-rockin’ don’t come a-knockin’.  Really, as if.  We have a nearly 16 week old baby.  Do you honestly think anything like that happens here?

We’re parked about 30 minutes from the Redwood National Forest.  The drive here was mostly scenic route.  I say mostly because I mostly couldn’t see any of it.  I was too busy keeping the RV between the yellow median line and the white line of the shoulder.  If any of you have ever driven California 299 from Redding to Arcata then you know the hell of which I speak.  I’ve never seen a river that color before.  That and the evergreen that lined the river’s banks was purely breathtaking…at least, what I saw of it.

From Humbolt Lagoons State Park, looking north up the California shoreline.

Being a self-proclaimed amateur photographer my eye was more busy watching the curves than it was framing potential captures even though I spied more than a few, especially along the Trinity River – a rushing aqua-marine river that ran along the meat of the drive.  It’s not that I couldn’t stop and take a few shots, but the little camper we had in the car seat had only just fallen asleep.  Too risky to stop and wake the baby.

I did squeeze off a few rounds of shots, but it was only back on the Pacific coast of northern California, where the ocean sounded like it was raging mad.  We managed a stop and I walked to the shoreline in a cold-damp, blustery wind.  The sound of the waves crashing a hundred yards from shore and the wash between them and the beach was a low, rumbling that shook the sand beneath my feet.

There was a desire to stop the drive about every 100 feet or so to snap a photo.  If I had done that we’d still be halfway on the 299 with another 120 miles to go.

Waves of mercy, wave of grace… The power of water is not to be underestimated. The sound of the madness going on beneath the crashing waves is enough to let anyone know not to enter in.

For every rise of two to three-thousand feet of elevation there was an equal decline out of the low hanging clouds we had driven into.  Mist rose between rows of pines in seemingly spontaneous places.  An image of the Smokey Mountains came to mind.  Up and down, right then left, wipers on then off.  I kept the RV between the lines a whopping majority of the time, but my butt is still vibrating from the rumble strips I ran over that were carved into the asphalt on the side and center lines.

Life pushes onward occasionally forcing us to keep focused on the necessary but mundane rather than the beauty of life that passes by us as we move.  There was plenty of time on this trip to stop.  I should have.  Even if it woke the baby, I should have fired off a few more shots for the digital album.  Alas, there’s always tomorrow.  I’ll have to do some back-tracking.

Our GPS display at the Humbolt Lagoons. Freshwater Lagoon on the right, the mighty Pacific on the left.              (RV in the middle.)

This is the view from the shoreline of the Pacific, looking back to the RV. Right behind the RV is Freshwater Lagoon, part of the Humbolt Lagoons.