LifePundit

The Good Samaritan

I am blown away by the kindness of an acquaintance, and it has made me rethink how I live my life. I am too busy to do kind things for people I know, let alone strangers. I'm changing that for 2010. You can read about the event that opened my eyes on my other blog, smellshorsey.com. I'd put in a link but I haven't written that post yet. 

I have elderly neighbors. It will be nothing to make something extra when I'm cooking dinner and send it to them. There are people in need all around me, many keeping up a brave face. I will seek them out. My New Year's Resolution for 2010 is to make sure that once each week I reach out to someone in kindness and compassion. 

I will also finish a novel or two. 

Do you make resolutions? What are they?

How a Passion for Global Warming will Help My Child Make the Right Decisions in High School

Here comes a rant. But first, a little background. Lily starts high school a week from today. She's going to be slammed with difficult courses (and some easy ones), a monstrously big new school, the need to make new friends since none from her middle school are going to this school, and the difficult choices that face our teenagers.

Already she's feeling the pressure to join a high school sorority. They have lots of parties and underage drinking. (The answer is "no" on the sororities until I find out better things than I have already heard.) Whether she joins a sorority or not, she'll have many opportunities to make good and bad choices.

She was supposed to go on a Presbyterian-sponsored high school retreat for all of last week, but came down with a stomach bug and couldn't go. The kids that went had a great time and I'm sorry she missed out.

Or I was sorry, until I got an e-mail about the retreat encouraging us parents to follow up on the things that they learned about at this "World on Fire" retreat, such as global warming.

No matter what you think about global warming, is this the biggest danger facing my teenager? Will it keep her from getting pregnant or contracting an STD? Will it help her evaluate her choices in light of what she believes and the potential consequences of those choices? Will knowledge of global warming, which is now the spiritual center of our secular society, draw her closer to the real God who created her?

I am a global warming skeptic who believes that it is our Christian duty to be good stewards of the earth. But even if I thought global warming was something other than iffy science that makes Al Gore rich, I'd still be dumbfounded that with all the challenges our teenagers face that they are asking us parents to help our children decide how they are going to change their lives based on what they learned about global warming at the church conference.

I chose became a member of the Presbyterian denomination because it has an intellectual tradition and tries to educate its members on how to think for themselves. I love it that I can ask my minister a question and get told six possible ways of looking at multiple answers without getting told what "the answer" is. I do hope we haven't fallen into group-think.

So the retreat prepared the kids for high school by trying to get them motivated to do something about global warming. Last week Lily was home throwing up. After hearing this, I think I'll do the same.

But maybe Lily will find her knowledge of global warming useful. "No thank you. No ecstasy for me. It's too hot in here. Global warming, you know."

Or, "I'd love to sit out here in the car and have sex with you, but we need to watch our carbon footprint and it's too hot to turn the air conditioning off. Global warming, you know"

Or, "No, I won't text you the answers. Uses too much energy. We have to be careful of global warming, you know."

Better go before I throw off enough steam to raise the atmosphere by several degrees.

Duty to Die

I've said it myself walking the halls of my parents' nursing home: shoot me before I get like this.

I've told Lily that when I turn 92 to get me a green Thoroughbred colt to ride -- a 2-year-old who hasn't yet been raced -- and I'll ride him in a lightning storm. She noted that the this plan wasn't fair to the horse, who would also die from the lightning strike. I figure I wouldn't get that far before I would be up in the clouds myself. My doctor has already recommended I switch from Thoroughbreds to Quarter Horses. A 2-year-old Thoroughbred ought to work very nicely, thank you.

My father has told me that something bad happens to you between age 92 and 94. Yes, getting old isn't for sissies. But that doesn't mean that those of us who make it that far have a duty to die.

I normally like to be comfortably informed about what I write about here, but since Obama has lowered that standard by speaking about the Gates' affair ("I don't know all the facts BUT...."), I can say it right here:

We are all going to die, and it is not a duty to our country to do so.

My mother has Alzheimer's and has had it for 11 years. Now she doesn't know us and sleeps most of the time. When she leaves this earth, she will surely go to a better place than the hell she has been in for 11 years. But she doesn't have a duty to die, and I sure as hell have no right to play God and make sure she does.

She is serene and pain-free. She is well cared for. And when God decides her time is up, her spirit will be released. But that's God's job. Not some bureaucrat's. Not Obama's.

Fred Thompson has an interview here with one of the few people in America who has read the healthcare bill, Betsy McCaughey. Listen to it here.

Be a Fountain, Not a Drain

Lily's been on spring break all week. We've spent her vacation in the car, either driving to go look at a horse to buy, or hauling our horse in hopes that someone will buy him, or hauling the horse we've selected home for a two-week trial (Markus, pictured at left). I drove. She listened to her iPod while texting her friends. For hundreds of miles.

Still, we had a lot of quality time in the car. We had a lot of confessions. So far, I'm the only one to confess anything. She said she's not old enough to have anything to confess, and let's hope she keeps it that way. We've talked about:

• What really happened to Princess, the hamster (Tiger ate her, leaving only her hands and feet and head on the laundry rug.)
• Why I would be in a long-term relationship with a guy who thought the overhead passenger handles on the London Tube were germy so he got ME to hold them and then he held onto me.
• Why I would still date a guy (same as above) when he couldn't remember why he was standing outside a men's room so he left with me in it, unguarded. He wasn't there very long -- I promise. I had gone in there to use the facilities and he was supposed to stand guard at the door so I would have the men's room to myself. He was reading a book, forgot why he was standing there, and wandered off. His roommate came in the men's room, saw my sandaled feet under the stall door, said, "Hi, Anne. How are you?" and proceeded to use the urinal. I used my Invisible Walk to exit as quickly and as invisibly as I could. (And no, I was too mortified to cast even a backward glance.)
• And other things that don't make sense from my past.

She laughed until she cried. She even turned off her iPod and stopped texting for a few minutes.

When I ran out of things to confess, I took in the scenery. And I saw a country church sermon sign that I think I will take as my new motto: Be a Fountain, Not a Drain.

Happy Easter, all!

My Job is to Make You Feel Good About Christmas

So far, Christmas is upside down. No matter what you haven't done for Christmas, you're ahead of me. I've bought three gifts. One for the piano teacher, and two joke gifts for friends I met for dinner.

The only signs of Christmas at our house are a festive vinyl tablecloth (the real ones are in the attic), a Wal-Mart "seasonal" bouquet and the Christmas cards we've received from the friends who haven't given up on us.

Our tree isn't up. (And will be right-side-up.) No wreath on the door. There's just a warm spot under the bed where I've been hiding, curled up in a fetal position. That's it.

Paul is STILL working every day and night on his office. They moved this week. Sort of. The office still isn't finished, Paul doesn't own a desk (he was using his former landlord's desk), and the cube assemblers are still assembling. Cube assembly is the only job Paul has discovered he can't do himself.

You say Christmas is one week away? Well, at least it's not tomorrow.

We'll get the tree up this weekend (except that Paul and I both have bad colds, Lily's just now off crutches from a horse fall -- nothing broken -- and he's so worn out I hate to ask him to help do anything). We'll go Christmas shopping or maybe send gift cards from Amazon to out-of-state relatives. It's just one of those years.

I did buy Christmas cards in a moment of misplaced optimism. Get this: Did you know that Wal-Mart has a section for Christian Christmas cards? That did make shopping handy-dandy, but I found this odd. Do they have a section for Jewish Hanukkah cards?

And I'm looking forward to cooking Christmas dinner because it's going to be different. I'm using the Silver Palate's recipe for lobster bisque, Paul is murdering the lobsters, and we'll have good bread, a salad and tiramisu (Lily's request and she'll probably make it) for dessert. That feels lavish and simple all at the same time. I'm just sorry that there won't be leftovers to live on for days afterwards. Oh well.

My wicked MiL is coming, but we've set boundaries on for how long. (Right. Boundary trampling is a sport for her.) And then I'm going to visit my mother, who, with any luck, will know who I am. Or, even more importantly, will know who she is.

I won't let Paul put the icicle lights up anymore. They do look pretty on our porch but, no lie, one year I couldn't get them down until July. Never again.

So all you smug Internets who've been ready for Christmas since the day after Thanksgiving, good for you. My wish for Christmas is that we'll get the decorations down before July.

The Twilight of My Peace

Twilight, the movie, opened last Friday. Lily went with a group of friends to celebrate one of their birthdays. My minister, who is the mother of the birthday girl, took them all. She said she wanted to know what they were watching, and I was glad to delegate that task to her.

I tried listening to Twilight, the book, on my iPod. I'm clearly not the audience. I couldn't finish it. I think it's the equivalent of soft porn for teenagers, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Lily has read every book in the series.

Lily spent the weekend cleaning up her room. She emptied photo frames and put pictures of the "hot" guys from Twilight in them. She even framed her ticket stub.

The walls used to have posters of large cats from the zoo, zebras and horses. One horse poster survived the Twilight purge. The rest of the frames are filled with Twilight-obelia and "hot" guys.

She showed it all to Paul and me. We made sincere grunting noises. They seemed to satisfy her. Later, Paul said, "At least they're hot guys she'll never meet."

Buddy (her horse) stood at the fence when we drove up from school today. Lily asked me to cancel her riding lesson because she had too much homework, and hasn't been riding much lately anyway. That was convenient for her teacher so we canceled.

Buddy was still at the fence when I walked down to the mailbox. I petted his friendly self and wondered if he could compete with a hot vampire. I think both of us shared this sad moment. He cannot.

I hope she'll come back to us soon. Maybe there's room for both hot guys and forgiving horses. That one horse poster remains.

Horses are forever. Vampires are just immortal.

Playing God

I knew it was bad when I saw Dipstick, my mother's cat that I took when she went into Alzheimer's care, dragging his leg and refusing to eat. His breathing was rapid and labored and his feet were cold. I made him as comfortable as I could until I could take him to the vet.

The diagnosis: saddle thrombosis. Dipstick threw a blood clot (he no doubt had heart disease but we didn't know that) that lodged in the branch of his arteries that fed his hind legs. Without blood flow, one leg was paralyzed and both were cold to the touch. The vet couldn't pick up a pulse in either hind leg. Dipstick purred while I petted him, but he was clearly a hurting kitty.

I've already been through this with another cat. That cat, Woody, suddenly started screaming in the early morning hours. His legs were paralyzed and he dragged himself around in excrutiating pain. I thought he had fallen from the hay loft and broken his back, or that a horse had kicked him. I took him to the vet and they opened their office early for me. I was shocked at the diagnosis of saddle thrombosis, and with Woody, I told them to try to dissolve the clot.

I should have listened more closely. Even if they did dissolve the clot, Woody would never regain the use of his legs. After a day of Woody being hooked up to IVs transporting every clot dissolver known to man, I got a phone call that they couldn't save him. He was getting much worse. I went to the vet's office to see my beautiful Woody panting, eyes glazed with medication and seeming to suffer. The vet euthanized him immediately, which was probably several hours after it should have happened. 

Dipstick didn't scream with pain like Woody did, but he was clearly hurting. The options were the same as with Woody, but this time, I decided not to try to save a cat that was suffering and would continue to suffer. I hate playing God.

The vet said it was possible that the clot-dissolving drugs would work, but that he had only been able to save one cat with them in his whole career. And that cat had developed the same problem two months later and had to be euthanized.

I said goodbye to Dipstick and petted him while they tried to sedate him before euthanasia. His blood flow was so poor that the sedation didn't work. Though I am usually with my pets when I have them euthanized, I couldn't do it this morning. Something about Dipstick being my mother's cat made it extra hard.

Dipstick got his name from Lily when she was quite young and had just seen 102 Dalmations. There was a puppy with that name who also had a black tail and a mainly white body in the movie, just like my mother's cat, Dipstick. Dipstick was a good companion for my mother when she was in the early stages of Alzheimer's. He went where she went and kept her company. She loved him. Now she doesn't remember either of us.

I wish I could have done more for him than provide a merciful death.

The Gay Girl on the Church Retreat

Lily just got back from her first church retreat. She went with 500 middle-schoolers from around the state to a weekend retreat in the mountains. I've been using the time she's been away to write my novel and to date my husband, which has been great.

As usual, I'm not prepared for what happened next. Apparently, Lily feels like she was "hit on" by a lesbian girl at the retreat. (And here I was, worried about her loose with the boys.)

Well, well. What to say? Since I didn't know what to say, I did something even better. I listened. It was an accident that I didn't preach to her....about....something. But since I had no idea what the something was, I listened.

The girl's behavior did sound too friendly and off-putting. She did write messages that were a little over-the-top for an acquaintance of any gender. I don't know if the girl was gay or not, but I do know that my girl was uncomfortable by her approaches and attention.

I hope I said that I was proud of Lily for being polite and steady, but I might have only thought that. I do know that I said I was sorry -- for her and for the other girl. What a toughie for middle-schoolers.

Whatever Lily is going to become is already in process. I could pound on her with a hammer to make her what I want her to be, but I think it would break the hammer. At this point, the best I can do is be a cheerleader for her to make the right choices and to treat people the way she would want to be treated. And pray for everybody.

Churches and denominations are splitting over the issue of homosexuality. Because I know people who chose and experimented with homosexuality for a while only to ditch it when the novelty wore off, I don't think homosexuality should be viewed as a standard life choice. If you chose to be gay, you really ought to straighten yourself out. However, because I know and care about people for whom it was not an option but the way they were created by the same creator who created me, I cannot pass judgment on them. I believe that some people were born gay. Knowing them has enriched and blessed my life.

A few years ago, before they came out with the AIDS' drug cocktails, a gay friend came to tell me that he was HIV-positive. Again, it was a good thing that I didn't know what to say so I shut up and listened. All I could offer was hope and concern. He eventually got around to talking about God and faith, so I invited him to go with me to church as he wasn't a member of any faith community.

He turned me down, saying he wouldn't be welcome there. It took me a while to realize it, but I'm afraid he was very close to right.

Which is the greater sin, to be gay, or to be a congregation that doesn't welcome one of God's children in need?

I don't have the answer to this very divisive and inflammatory issue. I can quote you scripture that's abundantly clear that this is not the preferred lifestyle (can I be euphemistic or what?). Then I can introduce you to people I believe were created a little differently. I do not believe that they chose to be gay anymore than I chose to be short.

The only thing I am sure of is that we're supposed to love them just as Christ does.

Your Strength Will be Your Weakness

One of the most profound and disturbing things I've ever read was in a devotional book I couldn't otherwise make sense out of -- My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. I had a strange disconnect with this book because I couldn't understand when the author made an argument whether he was for something or against it. In other words, I couldn't tell up from down in this devotional classic. Other people cherish it and find direction for their souls. I have no idea what he's talking about. I gave the book away.

But back to the profound and disturbing thing. Here's the one thing I did understand: He made a statement about how your strength can become your weakness. And I've been thinking about that for years.

It's true personally. It's also true for our country.

I've meant to write about this so many times, and I have so much to say about how your strength can be your weakness.

"She's kind to a fault," my mother would say about a friend who was very sweet but a pushover. But that's not a particularly good parallel, because your strength doesn't have to become your weakness. Your strength can stay your strength.

For all the thought I've given this, I seem to have fallen into babbling. So I'll skip to today's point. I am so worried about our country. A system, a nation, a culture can be broken. The U.S. is not a force of nature, like gravity. It can collapse. It can be diminished. It can quit working. It can be the Great Experiment that failed.

Things come apart. The center cannot hold.

All because we let our many strengths become our many weaknesses.

Why I bring this up today is because for a long time I've wondered if everybody should have the right to vote. For starters, if the candidates are offering one group of voters the money currently possessed by another group of voters, does that even make sense? Isn't that a form of vote buying? Isn't that potentially mob rule?

That's one issue. Voters with a conflict of interest. It's one thing to vote to help other people with your resources. It's another to vote for your own handouts. Gimme gimme.

Then there's the issue of uninformed voters. It's a great country that gives equal voice to the weak, the strong, the informed, and the uninformed. But isn't this another case of our strength becoming our weakness? Read this post from Rachel Lucas (hat tip Anwyn) and weep.

Life, Death, Hemorrhoidal Cancer, Evolution, Sub-prime Mortgages, God's Will and Everything Else

Teddy Kennedy got brain cancer and P. J. O'Rourke got hemorrhoidal cancer, which I can't  even spell.

Very funny, touching and even theologically profound op-ed here.

I wish him well, and if he figures out the right color of bracelet he should be wearing, I'll wear one for him.

Hat tip: Instapundit