Life Shows Up to Claim Us All

I'm sitting at a cancer treatment facility waiting on my Dad. His recent diagnosis for Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma brings an uncomfortable reminder of my own cancer battle several years ago. I am learning that none of us needs to feel immune to this equal opportunity offender.

While waiting for his name to be called, I ran into a friend from when our kids had been in band together. Cancer found her, too.

We mortal beings can be quite fragile.

We all want to be ten foot tall and bulletproof, but none of us is. Sadly, we all bear the reality of the physical Achilles heel that leaves it's wounds upon us and digs deep the scars of circumstance.

Treatment options are individual and varied and totally dependent upon what the magic blood test numbers tell them at each pit stop along the pathway that leads either to restoration or resolution of life into eternity.

Some are granted more time to spend with those whom they love, as I was.

Others are cruelly denied the blessing of "one more day" and must instead learn the bitter language of 'goodbye'.

Where the wheel of fortune stops is a mystery to us all.

There was a man who said that a lot of people wandered around after getting their diagnosis of cancer saying "why me?"

He said he believed that to be fatalistic to wonder why this had come. Instead, he told me, we need to say "why not me?" and look for ways to fight, pray and overcome.

Not all battles are won on this side of the finish line between mortality and eternity. By Divine design, some victories are etched in mortal suffering that can only be understood as we see them through the lens of Heaven.

I confess that I do not know the outcome of this all. But of one outcome I am certain. This world as it now stands is not our home. It's more like a way station between our beginning and our eternal destination.

We may be compelled to wade bitter waters of circumstance, ford the raging streams of adversity and drown our faces in the tears that are shed for the sorrow we feel for ourself and others.

But it is temporary.

The tides of opposition will be stilled and we will come off in the conquest that comes through faith in God's design.

In the meantime, we just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other - literally AND figuratively. This is just a small moment.

I keep telling myself that.

But some days, that moment sure does last a long time.

Deep in my cow hearts, I only have cow eyes for you

Most days, I am not in contact with coolers filled with body parts. Generally speaking, that part of my life was years ago and faded out to a dim memory.


Today, however, was a revisiting of hauling pieces and parts to be used for scientific inquiry.


Since we have previously established in earlier postings that my legs are less than Rockettes ready, driving for long distances sometimes creates a problem.


To be specific, the van I drive has an interesting little peccadillo. The drivers side seat vibrates just enough that when you reach a certain speed on the highway, you get this odd little side to side motion that, when combined with the wobbly tires and odd shimmy of the van as a whole, produces a motion guaranteed to numb up your sciatic nerve.


The miles to Cullman have ensured that the nerve to my left gluteal region is, by now, hopelessly absent in function and my left leg drowsily follows behind it in a choreographed routine of anatomical abandonment.


When I get to my first stop along the way to pick up a load of cow hearts (no, I am NOT kidding), I realize I just might have a weensy bit of a problem.


You see, the jiggly, jouncy, vibrating and bouncy ride of my aging chariot has rendered my leg like so much navy blue clad Jell-o.


This can't be good. And, as it turns out, it isn't.


Yes friends and neighbors, I am here to testify to you that it is virtually impossible to exit from the DRIVER'S side of the vehicle with your entire left butt cheek and left leg numb to the gills. Prayers that you will somehow land on your right leg in a tortuously slow ballet of shifting weight and motion is comedy fodder for the people in the parking lot nearby.
While I don't mean to be the opening act for a comedy revue, it is. In retrospect, it must have looked awfully funny and awfully awkward to see someone trying to hitch themselves around to a standing position with no support from the left leg.


I am happy at this time for the handicap tag that hangs from the visor. At least there is a possibility it will explain the odd and jerky marionette like motions the other patrons of the establishment are seeing.


I'm also happy I'm at a meat processing facility and not near a bar. Other explanations for my lack of motor coordination would be evilly inferred...


When I can finally feel my leg and butt cheek again, I'm helping the nice stocky beef dude (who is kindly explaining to me about vacuum sealing and flash freezing cow hearts) to load them into the iced cooler I have brought along. I thank him for his help and especially thank the meat packing company for giving me so many of them in the name of students getting a high school diploma.


Heading back north, my next stop in Hartselle, the ride back has done nothing to improve my leg. On the contrary, it is a spreading evil. It is like a maniacal version of a massage, but instead of bringing relief, it brings loss of feeling, embarrassment and, eventually, a great deal of pain.


Did you know that accidentally landing on the leg that is numb makes a crunchy sound in a bad knee and ankle? Me neither. But it does. Sounds kinda like a bag of potato chips being squashed.


The nice young man at the next slaughterhouse regretfully informs me that he doesn't have the requisite number of bovine eyes for me. I assure him that the kids in my sister Xan's class will be happy to have ANY eyes at all.


The customer service area of his slaughterhouse is adorned with a host of taxidermied animals in various poses both threatening and just plain awesome. I told him so.


Xan would have like to have the mounted and stuffed animals for her classroom. Maybe that one kid who was high last year at school would have some kind of a freak out if he saw them... looking a him... wondering if anyone else saw them, too. But I digress...
Dragging my leg back out to the van, I'm thankful for the long drive home because I know it will numb the pain that is now creeping up to my brain. Opening the passenger side door to the van, it's time to start icing the eyeballs. Once in place, I shut the door, walk around to the other side, haul my unwilling carcass into the van and busy myself with closing the lid to the second smaller cooler.


Looking at the gas gauge in my unwilling chariot, I have concerns. The van isn't well known for it's high gas mileage and efficiency... Houston, we have a problem. How can that much gas go away that quickly??? Yikes!


Have you ever heard of the phrase "on a wing and a prayer"?


Well, I'm here to tell you that's exactly how my Jell-o leg and I made it to Athens with animal giblets in one piece. The people on the highway were FLYING past me as if 70 miles an hour was just not near Indy enough for them. Speed on brother, hell ain't half full and I'm sure they have reserved a spot just for you and your lead foot!


I found myself once again in my least favorite position. Semi in front, semi in back, semi to my left and another semi closing in on my 3 o'clock from the merge lane. As if he thought he could wedge that 18-wheeler between those other two and I'd never notice his presence, he crept closer. I hate it when they play monkey in the middle and I'm the monkey!! I could smell the Jimmy Dean sausage on his breath, people! And it wasn't a pleasing aroma!


Where is beaming technology when we need it???? I could wide beam his tail into deep space and send his truck right along with him!


Finally, one of the game-playing truckers pulled off at the next exit giving me a nano-second of breathing space. The van was going slightly uphill at that point which means that it was running as fast as the squirrel powered motor would allow... and losing speed with every turn of the tires. Nothing like a small grade to check out the relative power of squirrel versus horse.


Apparently, the other long distance truckers shining my bumper and side don't like following my van under those conditions because they peeled off from behind and whipped around me almost taking the paint and trim striping with them. The van rocked from side to side in their wake of wind. I'm just glad it wasn't raining...


At last, I reached the exit for Athens and got to Xan's to drop off the guts! Yeah! I was amazed at how happy their cat was to see me. I wonder why...?


Dragging a gazillion pounds of frozen cow hearts and a box of eyeballs into the house, I realized I was never destined in life to be stevedore. I'm just not built for the action.


The assorted guts are in their garage refrigerator now. I hope she remembers to tell the kids they will be there, otherwise I'll be blamed for their nasty surprise. But then again, it would be dang funny to hear them screaming at the cow eyes looking woefully upon them when they opened the door... muuahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!


My assorted guts are now at home trying to regain feeling. And I'm left to wonder why that would be a good idea as the pain builds. I just have to remind myself that this is much like coming in from the snow... you have cold, numb hands that have to be reintroduced to proper function and it hurts a bit. So it follows that returning sensation to buttock and leg would also have a bit of a tingle... like a Taser hooked up to a Die-Hard battery.


I hope the students enjoy their guts and the effort taken to locate them because people at slaughterhouses and meat packing places sure ask a lot of funny questions when a person calls to ask about picking up a box of hearts and eyes.


Cue the "Godfather" music now...

Before the Parade Passes By...

As I sat thinking over the headlines that I read, I wondered about the societal penchant for celebrating sin as if it was a new invention that required attention and headlines.

While I was on the Exercycle warming up for my excursion with the Assassin, the thought came to me that we have "pride parades" for a particular sin that is currently seeking legislative approbation and legal standing.

Why a parade? If we make sin seem 'festive' and 'fun' by serving cotton candy and popcorn as we listen to the marching bands stroll by, it is much less threatening and masks the true nature of the menace that lies beneath the glamour and charm that Satan wants us to believe.

If we are to believe that sin is now acceptable, where are the pride parades for other sins, both public and private?

Would we feel comfortable having a 'Wife Beater Pride Parade'?

How about a parade in honor of 'Employee Theft'? 

Would anyone consider attending a 'Murderer Pride Parade' or do we find that morally offensive?

Who would willingly admit their problem and proudly lead an 'Online Pornography Addiction Pride Parade' and who would attend?

Celebrating the deviant and immoral actions we mortals commit doesn't make them right. It only shares the filth to another generation who are frequently not sufficiently able to understand why the older generation believes there should be moral 'lines in the sand' which are not crossed. Too much has become 'subject to interpretation' and believed to be 'no big deal'.

Being popular has never been about being correct in righteous principles. Choosing the do the right thing for the right reason quite often runs afoul of common wisdom and political correctness.

God isn't concerned about our being politically correct, but in our choosing to do what is right --- even when it isn't winning votes, garnering acclaim or being celebrated in film and song.

It isn't bigoted to say that a sin is a sin. It isn't phobic to tell people that doing something that is sinful shouldn't be covered by law. And it doesn't make someone backwards in their thinking to believe that God's laws are plenty good enough without the intrusion of the flavor of the month political statement to alter them in committee.

Living in a small town in the Bible Belt has it's advantages. There are still sufficient conservative minded religiously directed people who believe unashamedly in God and Jesus Christ who are willing to 'just say no' to a lot of things that are accepted as the norm in areas that are more liberal in their thinking, attitudes and behaviors.

I believe in live and let live -- to a point. Unless what you are doing is against the law and you are keeping your business behind closed doors, it is truly between you and God.

But, when your personal desire to crusade for a pet sin means that you are literally shoving that sin into my face demanding that I not only accept it but also like it enough to give you some kind of free pass to display your problems, your desires and your personal peccadilloes in my living room or down Main Street, U.S.A., the reality is that being in a free society now runs BOTH ways.

While you are free to abuse the moral agency you have been granted by God, you don't have the right to compel me to abuse mine to convenience your conscience. That is where the line in the sand really is drawn.

Forcing people to bow down to the idols of popular culture and individual sins is not anything new. Cultures and nations have been crumbled by it before, and will be again.

Whether the idol is a literal symbol, as the wood, stone and metal statuary used in the scriptural sense, or an idea which is 'worshipped' by the maddening throng, the result is the same. It is adultery. And it is idolatry.

It is adultery because people have cast the affections of their heart on something other than upon the true and living God and His Christ. It is adultery because we have broken faith with Him to whom we owe our all. It is adultery because we have welcomed another into the place of honor that should have been reserved for our only hope of Salvation. But like the Jews of old times, we have our Barabbas.

We sacrifice the purity and decency of what is right for the idol worship of what is convenient, politically popular or culturally exciting.

Idol worship, by its very nature, is supplanting true worship with something that cannot ever hope to satisfy. It is accepting a mouthful of sawdust in place of a banquet and, with a lying tongue, proclaiming that the sawdust is delicious to the taste and desirable.

People will believe whatever their moral compass will allow them to believe. We are all in that same leaky little boat of conscience and either sabotaging our own ship by our choices, or bailing out the water madly in an effort to repent and be made whole.

Where is the pride parade that shares the virtues of our Judeo-Christian heritage that celebrates the God of Israel? Where is the parade that displays our love and fealty to Him whose right it is to rule and reign over our very heart, mind and soul?

This parade doesn't happen with a marching band, but is accompanied by hymns of gratitude in houses of worship that dot the land. These parades are located where faithful, God-loving people try to reconcile their faith and hope with the realities of the mortal sojourn we are all called upon to endure in varying measure.

The solitude of the personal parade of joy while reading and finally coming to understand a verse of scripture cannot be equalled. There is no band capable of measuring up to the feelings of the Spirit.

We must stand our ground against that which is wrong at all costs. Even if it means our very life. For without a firm foundation upon which to build and live, the shifting sands of ever-changing opinion based solely upon what "feels good right now" will surely bring our house to ruin.

It isn't easy to do the right thing in the face of loud voices shouting that might makes right and that you are being intolerant for not accepting them and their sin.

But Christ promised that he could save us FROM our sins. He cannot save us IN our sins. To do so would destroy all that God is and has promised to us. Heaven is not some debauched bacchanalian event filled with the perversion of mortality.

It is pure and undefiled.

It is free from the stains of earth life.

And I know that there will be rejoicing there for the parade of one time sinners who have repented and come home clean.

We can't be saved in our sins, but we can be FREED from them. But it is truly up to us to decide how we use our precious moral agency. If we do not desire to be free, it is our choice.

But don't expect to find happiness in it. Eternity is an awfully long time to realize that you have been wrong and that you have willingly traded everything for nothing.

Gimme an "L"

“She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an "L" on her forehead . . .”

It’s been a day.

The idea was to drive up to Nashville and catch a session at the temple in hopes to regain a bit of peace and/or sanity. (please, no snarky comments from the peanut gallery about how 'you can't regain what you never had'...)

The fact that I hadn’t made a reservation at the temple to do any proxy work wasn’t lost on me. I figured we’d get in and get done whatever we were able to do and call it good for the day.

The people were kind and helpful and the time of temple worship and quiet was nice. Also was the added bonus of hearing some of the older women there talk and chit chat about their various maladies of old age and how they affect daily life. It was like background music for my relaxation.

As I sat there trying to unassumingly soak up the quiet of the day away from the distractions of regular daily life, one of the older women indicated that she was no longer able to put her bra on without help from her husband. The other old women nodded along sympathetically. That kind of perked up my radar’s attention since normally, people don’t discuss their undies publicly in that age bracket.

Then, the first old lady dropped the other shoe… “Naturally, with him helping put on my bra, that brings on other issues we have to deal with since he… well, you know…”

One of the other old women cackled and said, “Yeah, we know your husband!” I about rolled off of my chair at that point and could no longer conceal the fact that I had listened in on their not quite so private conversation. I don’t tend to think of senior citizens as being ‘randy’ but I guess they have every right to those feelings just like folks who are younger.

It brought up mental images that I'll be weeks scrubbing from my memory. {shudder!}

When we got back on the road after our morning out, Beth and I started looking for a place for lunch and chatted over her newest technological toys. She has a mobile WiFi hotspot and a new iTouch that also has a camera. They were both added to her stable of technological aids to help her with her school work. That they are also useful for fun is just a plus. As we drove along, I looked over some of the features as she explained them and we decided it was time to eat. Naturally, we selected our favorite 5-star restaurant.

Techno rednecks that we are, we used Beth’s WiFi hotspot to chat to each other while we were separated by the apparently communications impassable abyss of the Subway table’s length.

Geeks.

Yeah, it’s time to look for the place that brand that scarlet letter “L” onto our foreheads…

Beth’s new techno toy has an engraved scriptural reminder about ‘opposition in all things’. She said it was appropriate since that scripture carried her through the grueling opposition of officer’s training and was also a reminder that techno toys can be a doubled-edged sword – useful and potentially destructive – dependant upon how and where and for what they are used. Sort of a 'grandma' reminder that dampens the elan.

She asked what I would put as an engraving on the back of mine.

Hmmmmm. I thought about that. And I’m still thinking.

One of my institute teachers asked us if we were being “steppingstones or stumbling blocks” to the success of others and if things we relied upon fell into either category.
Kinda made me think about how I use the techno toys in my own life. While I don’t want to feel like technology is a catchall for evil, I also don’t want to embrace it as a bosom buddy that is a secret usurper. So I’ll have to ponder what engraving would best describe my uneasy relationship with the technology that has become redneck standard for me.

I guess the funniest part about how Beth and I were using the chatting back and forth was that we both knew it WAS just for fun. Unlike people who employ technology as a barrier to human contact, I believe I'd miss both the interaction and expressions on the face of people I'm talking to, and devices will never fully share all of the gestures that we make as we talk would be missed if the conversation was completely reliant upon technology.

Sure, there are symbols and geek-speak for a variety of actions, but when someone says “ROFL” are they really rolling on the floor laughing… and would you really even CONSIDER rolling on the floor at Subway’s?

Eeeeeeew. Wilted lettuce giblets, bread crumbs and a soggy pickle stuck to your clothing, plus assorted marks of where people had walked in and out of the building and the bathroom… call that another big Eeeeeeew!

The son of a friend came up with a new acronym of “LQTMS” for reading chat messages. He said it means: “laughing quietly to myself”. It would save the amount of incredible embarrassment and energy of action if no rolling on the floor were actually performed and more likely reflects the truth. We read something funny and snicker, laugh or guffaw while we are in private somewhere. If we are in public, we temper our reactions to keep from becoming the mall jackass.

Back to the inscription for the flip side of the iTouch, Beth suggested I engrave my iTouch to say “TROLL!”.

I told her it should say “I am NOT a troll!” Upon further reflection, I think I should add one of those little ‘sticking out the tongue’ emoticons as well as putting “NYAH!”.

She also called me a ‘dillweed’ today. I hope it was a term of endearment… otherwise, I think I know what to do with a lovely dumpster full of wilted lettuce shreds and shrivelled pickles.

By the way, in your travels to and fro in the earth, if you should happen to find where the queue forms for where the permanent “L” is placed on the forehead… please let either Beth or me know. I’m sure we'll let the other one know where to go since we will need to be in line together to get the ‘scarlet letter’ of the loser.

Technology rocks.

In the hands of a couple of Deep South rednecks, the best you can hope for is an Alabama roll.

Oh, and in a further proof of "losery-ness", when we left Subway to head home, Beth couldn't find her sunglasses. We looked in the car, she looked in her purse, she even went back into the restaurant to find them...

yeah... losers with a capital "L"... they were hanging down the front of her blouse.

Neither of us saw them.

I'm not sure who wins (or loses) on being the biggest loser.