August 31 2021 Day 169 Proverbs 21:1–22:29

Whoever loves pleasure will suffer want



How simple, and how true. It is in our endless search for pleasure that we discover all we do not have. All that, if we only had it, would make us infinitely happier, or more revered, or . . .

But who doesn’t love pleasure? I don’t believe we are called to shun pleasurable things, or to cognitively decide we don’t like it. Sometimes our souls, bodies and minds know pleasure and appreciate pleasure, regardless of what our brain tries to say. I, for example, get great pleasure out of these small salted caramels we got. Originally, we had one after dinner. A perfect small after dinner snack. I must admit that I’ve gone to eating one after lunch, and one after dinner. And maybe one in the early afternoon. But I digress. The point is that I find them very pleasurable.

The challenge comes when we let that love of pleasure become the driver for our actions. In my caramel world, it’s when I seek out that pleasurable reward that I end up eating not one but four caramels, and I am left wanting more. Except after a few, they don’t bring the same deep joy. Ugh.

Perhaps the challenge is in acknowledging that there are things that bring us pleasure, and appreciating when they do, but to stop there. We can enjoy pleasure when it comes our way, but we shouldn’t seek it out. We shouldn’t let our desire for pleasurable things be the prime motivator in our lives. If we do, we risk eating the whole box of caramels at one sitting.

Human nature, when it comes across something pleasurable does want more. I’m not sure how we trick ourselves into stopping when we’ve experienced that moment of pleasure. Let it resonate in our souls, and then walk away.

Maybe it’s by making friends with the sensation of wanting something, and not seeing it as suffering. After all, a good dinner is made all the better by a touch of hunger.

This morning, I’m thinking about how to appreciate the pleasures in life, while not experiencing the suffering of want.

First room done . Sort of . And it's not really a full room. But still.

First room complete-ish.

Off the kitchen was a 'closet'.  Clearly it had previously been the back staircase, not the grand front staircase. Pervious owners had vacated the stairway, and turned the bottom half into some sort of storage, complete with six steps going up to a paneled wall.  We haven't found the upstairs part of the stairway yet, but there's plenty of time for that.  We thought about opening it up to its previous back stairway glory, and we might at some point. But for now, we decided we needed the storage more than a second stairway. 

It's conversion included:

Working on the door

I  removed the door to take off years of yellowing, caked on paint and planing the bottom because it stuck.  I almost got the planing right, but I'll still need to take it off for some additional reduction to let the door glide open and close without it hitting on the buckling floor. 

To get the paint off, I first used a heat gun and scraped off lots of paint. That's really rewarding, and I think I get sort of trance like doing it. Slowly heating the paint with a turbo hair dryer, and coming behind with a scraper and it all comes off.  Below the paint was a thick layer of varnish, which doesn't come off with the heat gun. So after scraping, I put some chemical paint dissolvent on the door, and covered it with Saran Wrap to give it time to do its thing without drying out.  This step requires heavy duty gloves, because the paint stripper is pretty nasty stuff.  

Door without paint. It's better than it looks. 

The next step will be to sand the whole thing down, and refinish with some thing to bring out its beauty.  We haven't decided how much of the kitchen wood will be painted versus natural wood color. There is so much wood in the house that I'd be loathe to paint. And the dark wood makes things dark. There's a possibility that much of what's painted and stained and caked on in the kitchen will be painted again, to give the kitchen some needed light.  We haven't decided, so there was no urgency to finish the door. So it's back on, paint-free and mostly stain-free.  

Remove the stained wallpaper from the wall

There was a good amount of ripped, stained wall paper on the sides of the former staircase. In order to paint, that needed to come off. I used a wallpaper remover kit that had a handy device you rubbed over the wallpaper to lightly score it so the solvent would reach the glue.  Then I sprayed the solvent on the wallpaper and waited a while. Back to it with my handy scraper, and all the wallpaper came off.  A quick clean with Dawn and water, got the remaining glue and debris off the plaster walls and ceiling. 

Tape the parts I didn't want painted

I purchased a simple paint spray gun and planned to spray the paint in the closet. This meant I had to tape off everything we didn't want painted. the space is tall, and there are built in steps to reach some of the higher areas, and I didn't want to paint the rungs of the steps because the first few sets of footprints would ruin my beautiful paint job. Instead, I taped them and planned to leave them their scuffed up, dinged up, original but clean beautiful self.  

Get out the spray gun

Oooh.  Pulling out a new hardware toy.  How exciting.  It wasn't that hard, but I'm glad I'd planned to start in a closet.  I put down a layer of odor and stain hiding Kilz first, and using the spray gun made it pretty easy. There were a few drips caused by me getting too close, or going to slow, but it got better as time went on. After that dried, I put on a coat of a white that's barely barely blue.  I also put shelf liners on the steps that would be used as shelves. 

Lighting

There is single bulb light in the closet, but it doesn't work. While we plan to fix that at some point, we needed to use the closet, and have lighting in there long before that closet light would make it to the top of our 'pay someone else to fix' list.  So I purchased a set of remote control battery operated small round lights.  With the bright paint, I've only put in 4 of the 6 that were in the package, and it looks great.  

Fill 'er Up

I used my lovely family company to help fill it up with supplies that had been squirreled away in random cabinets, and to open up boxes we'd yet open.  The first few steps will be left empty-ish so we can get to the stuff upon on the shelves, but the the upper steps can be organized and everything can be seen.  It will still take us time to reorganize, but I'm so grateful that the space is not gross, and we can start organizing things enough to have a nearly-functioning kitchen.  

Next on the docket? We have an electrician coming next week to turn our underpowered 150 amp panel into a 400 am panel, to better support three kitchens (that have hobbled along for years), and to allow capacity to add a washer and dryer.  That will allow us to start picking off electrical issues upstairs, like our bedroom ceiling light. We'd intended to take off the old ceiling light and install ceiling fan. Although not always the most attractive, they're super helpful in summer and winter with the 10' ceilings, and no AC.  When we took off the light, there were two unlabeled black wires and no junction box.  We'll have someone else sort out that nob and tube mess. Oh, and the outlet that stopped working in the kitchen. Oh. .  

After electrical, we have someone coming to give us a bid on 13 new single hung windows on the first floor. That will allow us to ditch the storm windows, which are filthy, and to better open and close the windows.  

While others are doing electrical and windows, we'll continue to work on bathroom and kitchen plans so we can get those two rooms better functioning, hopefully by the end of the calendar year.  And it's all really good. 

Aug 30 2021Day 168 Proverbs 19:1–20:30

The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established.

I devise all sorts of plans, and apparently it’s God’s purpose that will occur. As a bureaucrat my entire life, my professional world has been made of plans. Plans about how to accurately reflect the cost of social service state legislation, plans about how to provide city services most efficiently and effectively, plans about how to distribute grant money to the agencies most equipped to meet the needs of the community, plans about how to engage the community in the work of the police department, plans about how to best administer a church diocese, supporting the bishop. Plan. Plan. Plan.

And while I have been a planner, I’ve always planned for someone else who’d serve as the decision maker, legislator, city manager, president, chief, bishop. I’ve always put together plans with a healthy detachment. It has never been my job to decide whether the plan was a good one, or to execute it, or even to decide to use it. My work job has always been to do my best to craft a path that I believe addresses the needs of my boss or the organization. I remember in local government management remembering an analogy that it’s like playing a card game. I can pick the game, and plan out a few good hands. Then someone else deals, and my job is to play the hand I’ve been dealt. Hopefully my hand is a little better because of the work I’ve done. Or maybe it made no difference at all. Now I make the best of what I’ve been dealt.

While I’ve understood that clearly in my paying vocation, I wonder if I’ve approached my plans with the same detachment in my personal or ministry life. It’s so much easier to be fooled into thinking that I’m not only the planner, but the decider and executer. I decide what my career will look like, I take steps to make that happen, and … I’m surprised with my well devised plans that are equally well executed do not end as I’d planned. (focus on I). Or I plan to move to an urban west coast city after our kids have left the nest. We move. Sell the car, the house, commute by bike, live in an apartment. So far so good. Then a significant illness hits my daughter and now we’re in a different city, and again own a car and house. Plans well made, and partly well executed, until they weren’t. The same thing has happened in ministry. Plans I’d made and partly carried out were wholly changed.

If these plans were made and changed in my paying world, I’d absolutely understand, and would have no sense of frustration or confusion. Of course it’s not my job to decide. I do my best, then hand it over to the decision maker and then I execute what has been decided.

Perhaps that is also true in my personal world. Perhaps it would be much simpler if I understood that rather than a city manager, chief or bishop, now my decision maker is God. I still make my plans. I still do my best to lay out what I understand to be the best path. God decides, and I play the hand God deals.

This may sound like a blinding flash of insight, but I genuinely have held that healthy detachment of outcomes strictly in my paying world, because it has always been clear, I’ve worked for someone else. I have never had a sense of ownership or turf at work. Or a sense of righteous indignation when I didn’t get my way. Why would I ever think that my personal life wasn’t exactly the same? That ultimately God is the decision maker, and I need to have a healthy detachment with the outcomes of my well-laid plans. I can make that distinction at work, I need to do it at home.

I had planned to work in two bedroom downtown apartment in Portland, commute by bike, and relish my empty nest. Now I live in a 3 floor brick home with a tenant and my daughter when she returns from the hospital, and have a car. This is not the hand I’d laid out. But now, it’s the hand I’ve been dealt.

This isn’t about simply begrudgingly coming to terms with this new plan. Rather, I think I will remember that the decision or outcome isn’t mine. Has never been mine. I know that at work, now I need to remember it at home.

This morning, I’m thinking about how easy it was to think that my life’s work was a function of my plans and actions. I need to remember that like in my professional world, I have never been the ultimate decider, and I’ve been ok with that at work. I need to bring that sense of healthy detachment to my home, because after all, the ultimate arranger of my life is infinitely more loving and grace-filled than any boss I’ve ever had.

Aug 27 2021 Day 167 Proverbs 17:1–18:24

The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.

Oooh. This is true, isn’t it? When someone whispers something sordid or scandalous, we know it’s not a good thing, and yet, we lap it up. It goes down into the inner parts of the body. It’s like an insidious vapor that gets into our pores, whether we want it to or not. Note to self, if someone is whispering something bad, step away. There is no rule that says I need to partake, and certainly no benefit in doing so.

On the other hand, when someone whispers something good and loving, it also seeps in to the inner parts of the body. What comes to mind first is a lover’s whisper. It caresses the ear as it sinks deep in our soul. But a good whisper can also come from friends during a supportive hug at times of trouble.

There’s something very intimate about a whisper. It indicates a closeness between the two. There’s an implicit permission sought and granted, to bring lips to ear. Why is it then, that whispers are acceptable between acquaintances when sharing gossip? It’s as if permission sought and permission granted is skipped entirely.

This morning, I’m thinking about holding my ground when it comes to permission granted for a gossiping whisper. Just walk away and no one will get hurt, least of all my soul. 

Aug 26 2021 Day 166 Proverbs 16:1–33

Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.



As someone with a gleaming crown of white/grey/blonde hair, this resonates with me. I recall when I had a troublesome teenager and a rambunctious toddler, and first recognized lighter coming in, from my otherwise dishwater blonde hair. I genuinely believed I worked hard surviving my kids, and the ‘mature blonde’ was proof that I was living through it. War wounds of a mother.

Then, as now, it’s so anti-cultural though, isn’t it? Cover your grey, tonics for thinning hair, botox your wrinkles. Age comes with changes in the body, and to have those changes means we’re still alive.

Now my few sparkly mature blonde hairs are not few; the dishwater blonde hairs are, and I’m ok with that. After all, this issue isn’t about hair or wrinkles. It’s about our society’s obsession with youth and perfection. Just recently, I’ve noticed models that aren’t exhibiting signs of disordered eating. I refuse to call the models ‘plus size’, as that implies they’re bigger than the standard. To be clear, that size standard is warped. I’ve just begin to see older models, but even those meet some cultural standard of beauty and youth – grey hair on a thin, smooth body.

What about just celebrating everyone exactly as they are? With crowns of glory, or wrinkly skin, or a paunch, or thighs that actually touch when they stand up. What if we all celebrated ourselves, just as we are? Stopped dying, covering, injecting, dieting, just so we looked better. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t watch what we eat for health reasons. Or that we shouldn’t moisturize our skin because it feels good.

Every one I know is not the standard. They’re larger, greyer, older, wrinklier, lumpier. And nearly everyone I know (me included) strives to be closer to the standard in some way. But what if we stopped trying to fit the mold, but instead recognized that we are all made in God’s image, and where we are today is precisely where we are supposed to be, bulges and all.

I can wear my white/blonde/grey crown of glory with pride. That does not make me exempt from striving to conform to society’s norms in other ways. I have lived a glorious life. Anyone alive today has lived a glorious life, and God is exceedingly happy with us all, just as we are. We should stop striving to confirm to something we’re not, and celebrate who we are.

Here ends my rant.

Aug 25 2021 Day 165 Proverbs 15:1–33

Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is, than a fatted ox and hatred with it.



Ah, here we are with food with hatred again. I cannot help share the wisdom that came out of my young daughter’s mouth. My husband annually volunteered to make a cherry pie for a United Way fundraising auction at his office. One year, he’d forgotten about the commitment until after dinner, when we’re normally settling in and heading to bed. He was not happy to have to make that pie, and was moving about the kitchen with more banging and grumbling than he ever does. When the pie finally went into the oven, our daughter wisely said, “No one will buy that pie. That pie was made with hatred.” Little did she know, and little did I know she was paraphrasing Proverbs.

I am a big fan of cooking as a measure of hospitality and grace. I love having the physical and psychological space to be hospitable, inviting friends and neighbors over to share in a feast made with love. The size of the feast doesn’t matter, or its fanciness. It could be cheese and crackers, or a cold drink. What matters is that it’s made with love. I’m grateful to have the physical space, and looking forward to having more psychological space.

I have a bunch of aprons that I’ve collected over the years, mostly from overseas and volunteer work. To share an apron with friends and family is to share the in the joy of creating a feast made with love.

There is a deep connection for me between preparing food for loved ones and God’s grace. I think this is one reason I’m not a huge fan of eating out. Consuming the food is the least exciting part for me. In these busy, kitchen-lacking days, we’ve been eating out because we didn’t have the capacity to cook in the house, or because outlets broke, or because the stove broke. I’m looking forward to restoring the kitchen and returning to that deep joy of cooking. I am reminded of a quote from San Pasqual, who I became acquainted with on a trip to Mexico. He wrote, “I joyfully celebrate the food I am given. May it deeply nourish everyone that I feed.”This morning, I’m thinking about sharing food made with love, and how that is deeply sacramental to me; it is an outward and visible sign of God’s grace.

Aug 24 2021 Day 164 Proverbs 14:1–35

The poor are disliked even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends. Those who despise their neighbors are sinners, but happy are those who are kind to the poor.



This section of Proverbs binds together three traits we know to be related, but here it’s explicit. Poverty, neighbors, and compassion. A poor person is disliked, EVEN by their neighbors. There’s something about being a neighbor that implies, or at least implied at that time, that there was an expectation of kindness. But a poor person is disliked even by their neighbors. There’s something poignant and tender to me about that sentence. How sad, to suggest that a poor person is disliked at all, especially by the neighbor.

Contrast that with the idea that the rich have many friends. Wealth draws people in. We are attracted, perhaps like Icarus and the sun, to wealth. We befriend wealth. We ascribe positive attributes to those with wealth. To be clear, we can all name exceptions. We can try to refute this premise by the exceptions. For example, I am not drawn to wealthy celebrities who flaunt their wealth. But I would suggest that we all are a little drawn to traits of the wealthy. We like certain cars or clothing styles, and we’d argue that it’s just a matter of personal preference. But I’d suggest this is one of those implicit biases we have that we don’t even know we have. We like certain things or traits or clothes or houses precisely because of the embedded wealth.

The opposite is true. We are sometimes repelled by the traits, clothes, cars and other traits of people in poverty. Whether it’s a cultural, or racial minority, if we ascribe poverty to the group, we implicitly dislike some of the traits. Why should I care what someone else wears? Or the style of earrings, or piercings, or high heels, or curlers in their hair, or vernacular, or front porch accouterments?

The proverb sets out some human truths. People dislike their poor neighbors, but like their wealthy ones. Then the proverb sets that all on its head by suggesting that those who despise their neighbor (presumably, their poor neighbor) is a sinner. And that those who show compassion on their poor neighbor are happy.

From this brief little bit of scripture, I understand that we are 1) expected to have greater compassion and mercy on our neighbors (as evidenced by the word EVEN), 2) we tend to be drawn to the wealthy, 3) conversely, we are deterred by poverty, and 4) contrary to human nature, we are to show compassion and mercy on the poor, especially our poor neighbors.

I like how this ties poverty, compassion and neighborliness together. I especially like it as I’m sitting on my new porch in my new impoverished community. Can I look around and remove any trace of that slight WASP sneer? Can I look on my impoverished neighbors with compassion? That is my plan and deep hope. I am not suggesting that I’m haughtily walking around, but where I live now does not look like anywhere else I’ve ever lived. My neighbors don’t look like anyone I’ve ever lived amongst. And I love it.

This morning, I’m thinking about how to increase my compassion for my neighbors, even my poor neighbors. Especially, my poor neighbors.

Aug 23 2021 Day 163 Proverbs 12:1–13:25



Wealth is a ransom for a person’s life, but the poor get no threats.

Yes! Striving to get more wealth is basically trading time for money, and I’m much more interested in having time, than having money. Wealth holds us ransom; we strive to get wealth and rarely even see what it’s cost us to attain.

I admit, I’ve never worried about where my next meal is coming from, or had to bargain with myself about paying for shelter or medical care. I do not mean to trivialize the need for some money. And I know that the vast majority of Americans have enough wealth to meet basic needs, and then some. And even with enough to meet our needs, we are slave to earning or having more.

This reminds me of a quip I saw that read “Enough is a choice, not a condition”. Maybe when we begin to remember that as soon as we have food, shelter, and care, we can choose to have enough, and stop being beholden to wealth. We can stop trading our time for money.

We’re in an interesting place in my family. Before my recent unexpected unemployment, I had a very successful downward mobility plan, for the past 20 years. When I was an assistant city manager, I worked a lot of hours, and made significantly more money than I needed. Granted it was government wages, but it was still more than enough. My next logical career move would have been to become a city manager, a position with an immense amount of stress, hours, and even more salary. I opted to quit that race, and moved to work at a non-profit. The position was a lofty one, but it was fewer hours, and even fewer dollars. From there, I subsequently took two smaller jobs, with the last job making about ½ what I’d made in city government. And I couldn’t have been happier.

Now, I find myself unemployed. I have fully traded time for money. I am definitely not being held ransom by wealth now. And from this place of no income, it becomes a clearer decision about future employment. I definitely pursue work that is meaningful and has a reasonable time commitment, rather than following the money. My time is worth a lot. As a matter of fact, it’s priceless.

This morning, I’m thinking about how to carefully reenter the job market, without allowing wealth to hold me ransom.

How do you define risk of self to harm or others? Words matter.

Whew. What a whirlwind few days, and what a difference location makes. 

Our loved one was hospitalized in the local psychiatric hospital five days ago. Two days ago, we had a hearing to see if they would be kept longer than the original 5 day hold.  

The directions we received to prepare for the hearing were spectacular. We were told to identify all instances where our loved one was a danger to self, danger to others or unable to care for themself for the past 30 days. This may not sound like a big deal, but it's huge!  The national standard is that someone's civil liberties can be curtailed if they are at risk of harm to self, others or unable to care for themselves. The problem comes in defining what precisely that means. It may seem like splitting hairs, but it really is a huge deal. 

In Oregon, risk of harm to self or others, or inability to care for oneself has been defined by the courts as needing to be imminent, meaning that the person is about to be a risk of harm to self or others, or about to be unable to take care of themself.  How, precisely, are we to prove that our loved one is in the future, about to be a risk of harm to self or others? 

The fact that the test in Oregon and many other states points to a yet-to-occur action is absurd.  Innocent until proven guilty is looking at action that's taken place in the past. But for people with significant mental illness in these states, past action has no bearing on this test. The fact that our loved one was hospitalized numerous times, threatened our life, ran naked through town in winter weather, stole a hammer to kill their spouse - none of this was relevant to hearings. What we had to do was to prove that they were at imminent risk of harm to self or others.  It's absurd that the standard to get protective medical care is based on my crystal ball. it's even more absurd that I was asked to predict the behavior of someone with significant mental illness.  

Compare that with Pennsylvania, where the standard is based on the past 30 days of behavior and activity.  I can absolutely demonstrate that my love one was a risk of harm to self, others or unable to care for themself based on the previous 30 days of behavior.  

In Oregon, a bill was proposed last year to clarify precisely this issue, to specify that the standard that judges should consider is the past 30 days of activity, not the potential of imminent future harm. The bill was killed by being sent to a committee from which it never came out.  

At the hearing yesterday, the psychiatrist recommended that our loved one remain committed for 20 days with inpatient and/or outpatient care. Our loved one agreed, in large part because they trusted their doctor. 

Over the next 20 days, we'll work with the care team to provide the least restrictive, most supportive and most appropriate services for our loved one. I expect them to be released within a week-ish, and we'll begin to take advantage of another great difference in the systems.  Pennsylvania has a more robust mandatory outpatient treatment system, which provides our loved one with more structure and accountability for their recovery after release from the hospital. It also provides my husband and me more support in the job of caregiving.

In the past 30 days, our loved one has been in a facility 75% of the time, between jail and two different hospitals. They are a risk of harm to self or others, and most definitely unable to care for their own basic needs.  Thanks to the standard that allows me to demonstrate that, rather than predict it. 

  

Aug 22 2021 Day 162 Proverbs 10:1–11:31

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

Continuing to read through Proverbs is getting tiresome. I don’t know how many ways we can be told that good things come to those who are good, and bad to those who are bad. Perhaps there are so many ways, because different people hear things differently. One of the pithy statements may appeal to one person, while another may appeal to someone else. But to read through them all becomes a bit of a slog.

Having said that, here’s my take away from this morning’s reading. Hatred stirs up strife. I know that hatred is disruptive. I never feel better when hatred is around, whether it’s in me, someone I know or strangers. Hatred absolutely stirs up strife, and who needs strife?!

Love covers all offenses. That’s good, but tough. There are plenty of horrible things that have happened and are happening in the world. Love covers it all. The turmoil in Afghanistan? What is my love going to do there? Severe mental illness?

I don’t know how love will fix or cover all things, but I do know that hatred stirs up strife. So if hatred doesn’t work, what are we left with? Anger? Apathy? Resignation? Those don’t feel any better than hatred. Fear? Fatigue? All of these include some measure of strife, or at least leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps from the process of elimination, I’m left with love. Maybe I need to love because the price of everything else is too great, and the return too small.

Today, I’ll try to respond with love to all offenses, and see how that leaves me. I’m betting I’ll be a little strife-less.

Aug 19 2021 Day 161 Proverbs 8:1–9:18

Whoever corrects a scoffer wins abuse; whoever rebukes the wicked gets hurt.

Oh, to learn such a simple lesson. I have a deep, almost unalienable right, to be correct. After all of these years, I’ve finally recognized this, which I suppose is the first step to recovery. Some of this insight comes from the Enneagram, an ancient tool used to help identify personality types, and each type’s challenges. I don’t think the Enneagram defines me, but I do think it helps me understand a little more about myself. If interested, search for Enneagram test and there are plenty free online.

In any case, I’m an Enneagram Type 1, which one site defines as “Ones are conscientious and ethical, with a strong sense of right and wrong. They are teachers, crusaders, and advocates for change: always striving to improve things, but afraid of making a mistake”. Yup. There are plenty of nuances with Enneagram that help provide further insight but this one is pretty spot on for me. The end result is that I am that person who corrects a scoffer or rebukes the wicked, and what the Proverb suggests as the outcome – abuse and hurt – is my experience. You’d think that I’d learn to stop doing that.

It's intriguing to me that sometimes I learn best when I read something that is so apparently true, but that I’ve experienced all along. Whether it’s a personality type test or Proverbs, sometimes we need to have someone else spell out the blinding flash of the obvious. When we read it, all of a sudden it sinks in. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that I am a Type 1, or and ISTJ, or whatever other platitudes we read or hear. But sometimes those words show us a truth about ourselves that we’ve conveniently overlooked.

This morning, I’m thinking about the beauty of clichés or even memes. Sometimes they tell a truth so simply that we otherwise can’t express. I think Proverbs is full of those pithy reminders. The challenge is to read them with enough care that the simple words can sink in.

And it started so well

 

As we were flying to move from Portland, OR to Pittsburgh, we had a stop over in Atlanta, that for our loved one, turned into a 2 week psychiatric hospital stay. Sunday, Aug 15, my husband and I made the 11 hour drive from Pittsburgh to Atlanta to pick up our loved on Monday morning. 

By 9:45, we were all in the car, ready to make the 11 hour trip back. Things started so well. They were very happy to see us, and full of stories about their husband, their friends they'd originally met in Africa but were in the hospital in Atlanta, and the other fantastical stories. I'm reminded that this state of psychosis is likened to dreaming, bits of reality, aspirations, fears, present, past, and future all muddled together with no logical connections. 

Not sure when things started going south, but they definitely did. They refused to get back in the car at a rest stop in West Virginia in part because I refused to help them hold their male private parts when they pee (they don't have any), and talked non-stop for 12 hours. The talk started chatty enough, but turned rancorous, for no reason apparent to my husband or I.  Several times they threatened to jump out of the car, unbuckling their seatbelt. Meanwhile we were driving through nasty rain, and equally threatening flash flood warnings that followed us through the dark, windey and unfamiliar roads of West Virginia and rural Pennsylvania.  The low point was when our loved one threw a hot piece of pizza at my husband's head as he was navigating all of this treacherous driving. We swerved momentarily, pulled off the highway, tried to get everyone to calm down, and continued on. At that point, we still had nearly 3 hours of dark, rainy driving to go..  

As we got closer to Pittsburgh, the rain stopped, and the worst of the vitriolic chatter had ceased, but it was nearing midnight. We tried to get everyone settled down, as my husband and I headed to that kind of sleep where you're too wired, but know you need to try.  Within an hour, our loved one came in the bedroom and asked for us to come join them in their room, because they saw the boogey man outside.  The fear in their eyes and voice was real.  My husband wonderfully sat on the bed with them for another hour to try to get them to calm down and go to sleep.  Alas, no.  Another hour later, they returned and wanted us to take them to the store. Um, no.  

With earplugs, we finally got a few hours of sleep. They returned to our room at 6:00 promptly to ask if we were getting up and could we get them coffee. I decided to take the morning shift, since my husband had taken the night shift. I made us both a cup of coffee, and then decided we should go out to breakfast to  give my husband a few more hours of sleep. We ate breakfast, picked up some medicine, and returned home.  The whole time, though our loved one remained agitated, and had confused thinking. To be clear, this is not the same as slow, stupid or conniving.  During breakfast, they talked about how they were a "hermaphrodite", and were upset because they were "lactating" (being pregnant in their mind). Their thoughts are confused, and disconnected from my reality, but 100% real to them, not manipulative or slow.   Their agitation this likely due to the underlying illness, new circumstances and no sleep for at least 18 hours.  

I made a call to the local crisis line and asked for resources. Not unlike ERs that are used for primary care, there is a psychiatric hospital in town, and its ER is frequently used for intake for primary care.  We were supposed to get them connected with a local physician this week anyway, so they agreed to go to the ER, to get assessed and then connected with a psychiatrist.  

Their agitation continued, and they started yelling at the hospital.  After several hours, a petition by the hospital staff to the courts, a physical and psychological assessment, they were again admitted to the hospital involuntarily for seven days.  Later this week, there will be a hearing to determine whether they will be required to stay longer.

We got them to Pittsburgh, and within 24 hours of arriving got them connected with top notch, responsive services.  We'll continue to unpack and now have a little breathing room to get their space set up so it's ready upon their release.  

And now, we sleep.  

Aug 14 2021 Day 160 Proverbs 6:1–7:27

Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise.


The ant, we read, is industrious in the summer, to make it through the winter. The ant is wise. The accompanying reflection from Richard Foster, focuses on one of the traits that wisdom can help fend off - simple.

Simple is something that we want complicated things to be. We seek the simple answer. We make assumptions about others based on our mind’s desire to categorize and explain things in a simple manner. Good vs. evil. Good intentions vs. bad intentions. We read situations with our rudimentary understanding of things, happy to believe that our simple explanation or understanding is sufficient.

But things are rarely as simple as we want them to be. Situations and people are actually quite complex and intricate. Take for example, the ant. It gathers food for the winter. This could be a simple thing, the lowly ant, but in fact it’s an intricate miracle that ants do what they do, that bees do what they do, that the ocean, stars and mountains are as they are. There is nothing simple about the world in which we live. For that matter, there is nothing simple about the people and situations we find ourselves. We do a great disservice to try to gloss over the intricacies and complexities of the world in which we live.

So things are not simple. But Wisdom can help us seek and see simplicity, which can be paired with wonder. We see the ant doing its thing, and wonder at the mystery of the ant. We marvel at the simplicity of the ant. It knows how to find the food it needs (especially on my kitchen counters). We marvel at the lowly ant, not because it’s job or brain is simple and easy, but because with a sense of wonder, we are able to just relish in the ant coming and going.

So it is with my world. Things around me are not simple. My new home, my loved one, my gainful employment. To try to ascribe simple explanations isn’t Wisdom’s way. It doesn’t help me get closer to God, or understand God’s way. It doesn’t help me to ascribe blame or guilt for my loved one’s illness or their behavior. It doesn’t help to explain my unexpected free time.

And I can just relish in the fact that all of these things are. I am living in a new city. I will be working on this house project. I will shepherd my loved one through the next few years. I will figure out my paying job and ministry. I will live, and breathe, and appreciate the simplicity of today, knowing full well there is nothing simple about any of it. I don’t need to understand all of the intricacies, but I certainly shouldn’t seek a simple explanation or understanding.

Wisdom helps me acknowledge the deep complexities in my world, while at the same time allowing me to rest easily on top, appreciating the simplicity of just floating. It reminds me of being on a raft in a pond. I don’t necessarily understand or know everything that goes on under the water’s surface. I shouldn’t presume it’s just like my bathtub, a simple container filled with water. But I can float on top, acknowledging the wonders below while being extremely grateful for the simplicity of floating on top.

This morning, I’m thinking about how to use Wisdom to enjoy more simplicity, without trying to fit the world into neat and tidy and simple boxes.

Homestead home update

Today’s update is not so very exciting. Unless you like the look of really really dirty blinds. 

I have taken down 8 sets of formerly white blinds and soaked them in the tub with some disinfectant and dishwashing detergent.  After a good soak, I brushed each side of each blind, sometimes scrubbing a little more.  Unfortunately, either the scrubbing or the detergent caused some of the paint to come off. I let them dry a little in the tub, and then hung them back up.  One last wipe with a microfiber cloth, and they’re almost as good as new. 

The water after each blind was black and kind of sticky. Ick. 
But they are so much better than before!  

Check out the grime and dust on the blinds.

 

In mid process, soaking and scrubbing in the tub.  

Mostly cleaned up, but a lot better!!

We’ve gotten the preliminary layer of dust removed from the first floor, and it feels so nice.  With every gunky bucket of water going down the drain, I feel so much better.  

Aug 12 2021 Day 159 Proverbs 4:1–5:23

[T]he path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

My husband is currently driving all of our belongings from Portland, Oregon to the Pittsburgh area, and I expect him later today. He’s driving a large rental van, and towing the car; he has quite a load. Every day, he started early and aimed to arrive at the night’s respite well before dinner; he didn’t want to be driving in the dark.

That makes a lot of sense, not driving in the dark. Except every morning, he’d start out in the dark. It could be just as dark as night, but for some reason, it was an acceptable dark, an easier dark. I think it’s because it’s the dark that precedes the light of dawn, rather than a dark that promises hours of more dark.

He and I are both like that, relishing in the morning dark but not the evening dark. As the writer of Proverbs says, the light of dawn shines brighter and brighter until full day. It’s that promise of increasing light, of being witness to the sun’s persistence on rising again that I love. I write this as I’m sitting in the pre-dawn darkness, watching the inky black turn to a beautiful dark blue. Soon it will be dawn.

We take it for granted, the surety of the morning light. When we were exploring adoption from a foreign country, one thing we learned was how hard it was for children coming from countries on the equator. The sun rose and set around 6:00 every day, all year. No variation, no question. They didn’t understand it or question it any more than the concept of gravity. These children, when moved to locations farther from the equator were undone, because the sun didn’t consistently rise or set at 6:00. Something that sure and certain was now uncertain. We who don’t live on the equator have learned that the sun will always rise, even if its time varies wildly by season and location. We, like the equatorial children, take it for granted. And yet, it’s miraculous.

The path of righteousness is like that pre-dawn light. It’s coming, as sure as anything, the light is coming. And once it starts its creep, there’s no stopping it. The way of righteousness is equally illumining and persistent. The way of righteousness, like the morning light, will continue to grow brighter and brighter, lighting up everything in its path.

I take the sun’s rising for granted, and I love the morning light. I love the notion of the path of righteousness. I wonder if I take it for granted, knowing that it’s there.

This morning, I want to relish and appreciate Wisdom’s path, as much as I love the dawning light.

Aug 11 2021 Day 158 Proverbs 3: 1-35

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.


Do not withhold good. I love this. There’s something objective about this sentence. There is an implication that goodness can be due to anyone. It’s due because it’s due, not because I deem them worthy. It’s not because I agree with their politics, their gender identity, skin color, religion, wealth, occupation. I don’t get to decide about anyone’s worthiness. My job is to do good if it’s due. 

There are plenty of times when I think I’ve done something to deserve good things, and at the same time, plenty around me who’d disagree. I don’t want them to decide I’m not due the goodness they could share. Likewise, I should not be the one to decide if someone else is due goodness. As Thomas Merton eloquently wrote, “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.”

Wisdom is what helps us love, and share goodness, that heart-awareness of what is of God. Knowledge, our brain’s compilation of the facts we know and see, can lead us astray. That person is not due the goodness I can share because they (fill in the blank). If Wisdom is what’s added to our mortal knowledge to help us see, understand, and abide in God’s way, then of course we should spread goodness. It is only God who can accurately judge, not us.

I’ve heard some argue that they can love others with whom they vehemently disagree, and they are also allowed to pass judgement, because we have things like the Ten Commandments. Pro-life and pro-choice disagreements come to mind. Or Black Lives Matter. People of faith on both sides of the political spectrum are willing to love the other side and withhold goodness. Wisdom tells us otherwise. Wisdom, that sense of doing what is of God, tells us not only to love but to act and to share the goodness. After all, Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments in just two. Love God. Love your neighbor.

This morning, I’m thinking about how to see people through God’s all-loving eyes. In God’s economy, I believe everyone is due. Or, if there are some who aren’t, that’s solely up to God to decide. Melding Merton’s words and Wisdom’s, my job is to love others, without inquiring whether they’re due. That’s God’s job.

Aug 10 2021 Day 157 Proverbs 1:1–2:22

Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?”

Of all of the names for God, of all of the concepts for God, I’ve always had a special affinity for Wisdom. Wisdom is something that seems within my grasp. I have some worldly understanding of wisdom, whereas I’m not sure what to do with Root of Jesse, or Adonai.

That is to say that as I start reading Proverbs, and it opens with the notion that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, perhaps I’m not so clear after all. Luckily, this practice of reading, reflecting and writing allows me the space to chew on this notion.

I’ve previously understood wisdom as something additive to knowledge, summed up in the quip that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. Wisdom therefore, is the application of knowledge, of using knowledge beyond just being able to recite the facts. Another way I’ve understood knowledge is as it relates to my son. He’s always been great at math. As a kid, he actually went to a math camp. The teacher called and told us that he’d never be a math Olympian, able to do complex calculations in his head quickly. But he had an understanding of math that’d impressed her. He eventually went on to get a degree in theoretical math. (I had confirm, a bit tongue in cheek, whether this it was the degree that was theoretical or the math).

I couldn’t have defined it, but my mom had wisdom, and I always admired that about her.

So the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Hmm. And a whole book in Scripture focused on Wisdom. Hmm. My sunshiny theology doesn’t want to include fearing the Lord. I don’t want a God that I fear. And I don’t think that God wants me to be afraid, especially since that is Jesus’ most frequent admonition. Do not be afraid. Maybe it’s not quaking-in-my-boots-fear, but more like a healthy respect. I don’t ‘fear’ the nob and tube wiring in my new/old house, but I definitely won’t mess with it! Maybe that’s the fear that’s described. Fear the Lord, have a healthy respect for the Lord’s way, perhaps even fear what happens when you mess with the nob and tube.

The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. The beginning of being wise is to understand the power and ways of God, and to whatever you can to do that, to follow that way. That makes some sense to me. (If it seems like I’m coming to these understandings as I write, like this is stream of consciousness, it is, and I am. Thanks for joining me)

Wisdom, it says, cries out on the busiest street corner. Wisdom is trying its darndest to be where we are, to cry out where we’ll hear. Wisdom is not hiding or elusive. Wisdom is trying to be found. How long will you love to be simple, Wisdom cries out.

Maybe God’s Wisdom doesn’t help us with the tomato-in-the-fruit-salad dilemma, God’s Wisdom does help us to know how to behave so we love God and love our neighbor. God’s wisdom is all around us, shouting from the street corners. We just need to pay attention.

This morning, I’m thinking about how to spot Wisdom, how to invite Wisdom into my day, and into my decisions throughout the day.

Aug 7 2021 Day 156 Psalms 145:1–150:6

Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.



This morning, I’m sitting on my new / old porch on my new / very old home in Homestead, PA. There are different birds waking up the neighborhood, and the neighborhood is very, very different than my monochromatic, mostly mono-cultural Portland neighborhood. I have a cup of coffee, and am making plans for the day. After a week away, I’m again reading my way through scripture, reflecting and writing. Life is very, very good.

My new neighborhood is full of churches – 11 within a four block area, stately old homes, and many homes in disrepair. Apparently, Carnegie lived in this neighborhood, just up the hill from his steel mill which was the largest in the nation for many years.

Where the buildings are constructed of brick and stone, they are mostly unfazed by weather and time. But humanity struggles to fend off the effects on wood – wooden columns, window frames, soffits.

Do not put your trust in mortals in whom there is no help. This neighborhood is full of plans that perished with the death of the planner. Time marches on, and humanities’ grandiose plans can easily be subsumed by that steady march. Many of the homes that are falling apart are occupied by elderly people, who probably worked at the mill. Their dreams and aspirations are crumbling around them, just like the mill crumbled. When they return to the earth, what will become of their plans?

The home we purchased was owned by a mill superintendent, who also owned two neighboring homes, which were rented out, or used for household help. Our house was subsequently turned into a boarding house, with rooms rented out and shared kitchen and bathroom facilities, serving as a rental since the 1930’s. Ah, the history.

With this mix of grandiose and decrepit old, with the stone that’s unfazed and the wood that rots, I’m intrigued by the notion that plans go to the grave with us. Even though the stones will outlive me, my notion of what we’re building in Homestead will perish at some point. I’m not mourning that, but rather aware of the transitory nature of my plans.

We should not put our trust in things mortal, or in the plans that mortals make. As soon as those mortals return to the earth, their fragile plans can be just as vulnerable as the wooden frames I’m seeing.

So what to do? Clearly we need to put our trust in our immortal, all-loving God. Scripture is just one example of things that are God-inspired, and have not perished along with the humans who first scribed the words. God will endure. God’s plans will endure.

And we also live in a specific time and place, full of humans who have plans and roles in our world. While those around us will not endure forever, we can certainly tend and cherish them now. We do this not because we want them to live forever, but because like wood, they need some TLC to weather time and nature.

This morning, I’m thinking about the old houses which surround me, and how they are visible reminders of the plans of my predecessors. Some of those plans absolutely perished with the planners. And some plans live on, through the stewardship of those original plans. The original people cannot help perpetuate those dreams, so in effect the original plans have vanished. We should never presume our plans or the notions of those around us have any staying power. We should not put our lasting trust in mortals, but with God’s help, we can carry on the good work started before our time, and continuing after we’re gone.