LifePundit

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

Mentioning the Unmentionables

I haven't seen the ads. I didn't know about this problem or this program, but Lily did.  In some parts of Africa, girls can't go to school because they don't have sanitary napkins or tampons. So there's an organization, Goods4Girls, that is providing them with re-usable "kits" to keep them in school. You can donate money or make kits to donate.

This boggles my mind and touches my heart. So much self-consciousness at that age (I assume it's universal). So much depends on being sure you won't "have an accident."

Here (no names will be mentioned) certain family members of both genders cannot be seen purchasing feminine products unless they are purchased with a quantity of other items. And come to think of it, I never bought a box of tampons without also needing a pack of gum or something to go with it. You know. In case the check-out clerk was noticing. We've got what we need in abundance and take it for granted to such an extent that we're embarrassed to buy it.

I'm not saying you should fall down on your knees in praise and jubilation when you're picking up unmentionables at the Piggly Wiggly. Assuming you still need them. But either way, some kind of gratitude is in order.

I recently wrote an article for a medical school about their students' experiences in global medicine. I interviewed umpteen students, far more than I needed. And no matter how I tried, I couldn't forget their disturbing stories. They made me want to go to medical school and save the world. Most of them planned to save the world when they finished their training. God bless them!

One young doctor needed to amputate a man's foot (a farmer who had a tractor accident) and there were no tools in his rural village that she could use for amputation. Not even a saw or a hatchet. They collected money to send him to a hospital in a bigger town. The hospital sent him back because they were full. The infection continued to spread, and when the young doctor left, he still hadn't been helped. I don't want to think about it.

Another group of young doctors was in another country when a young mother gave birth and started hemorrhaging. She needed transfusions, but there was no blood. The young doctors quickly typed themselves, and found enough matches among their group to donate enough to save her. The doctor who told me this story said it was such a strange experience to give blood, then to carry it to the patient. The patient recovered.

The stories went on and on. Stories about not having the right drugs, the right tools, the things we take for granted. Stories about children abandoned because they were imperfect. Stories about people sick from lack of food and clean water. My heart was burdened and I was and am in awe of these generous, young healers.

So much need in the world. Clean food and water, medical care and freedom are higher on my list than "reusable kits," but I think it would be a good mother-daughter project to make some and donate them.

I need to be a lot more grateful.

But I'm Too Tired to Take You to Church!

In spite of the fact that our (new) church's youth program is mostly centered on playing with a rubber chicken, Lily has grown to love it. She's so happy to go every Sunday night. It's a wondrous and wonderful thing.

The church is a long way from where we live. It's so far that when I take her I stay in town, killing the two hours by running errands or sometimes even sitting in the car rather than driving back home and turning back around to get her.  But that's why we joined this church -- good, deep-thinking theology and a great youth program. It sure does kill Sunday night, though.

So I was unprepared when Lily found out that there were also youth activities on Wednesday night. She wants to go to church then, too. I drive so much on Wednesdays already -- the last thing I want to do is drive back into town.

Tonight she said, "Mom, we need to leave at 5:00 to get me to church in time."

"WHAT?"

"I thought you said I could go to church on Wednesday nights," she said imploringly.

I was so tired. I couldn't get back in that car. Here my child was, begging me to go to church. A Christian parent's dream. So what did I say?

"Can I take you next week -- or some other time?" Please, God, don't make me drive this child to church I prayed, then apologized to God but it was a heartfelt prayer.

What was I doing? What was I thinking? If my daughter wants to go to church, what kind of mother won't take her? "I'll take you," I conceded. "Of course I'll take you to church."

Then Paul called and wanted to know what I was doing. And he VOLUNTEERED to take her.

Sometimes, even the most unlikely and craziest prayers get answered.

Addicted to Self-improvement Books

There are so many ways I could improve myself. All I have to do is buy the right book.

Yes, yes, I know that as a Christian the only self-improvement book I need is the bible. Maybe I can pick up a self-improvement book about that. Maybe I already have. I'm not low on self-improvement books.

In the middle of the clutter I have several on getting rid of clutter. Some have even been opened, marked up, mused over, tossed back into the clutter. I have books on how to write, how to eat, how to exercise, how to make yourself happy, how to improve your love life (not the racy ones, sorry to disappoint), how to raise a daughter, how to deal with Alzheimer's, how to train a horse, how to take care of a farm, how to save enough money for retirement by not buying books....

My current self-improvement books seem a bit at odds with each other. I'm part of a bible study that's examining the other gods that we let slip into our life, the ones that turn into "putting another god before Me." I do a lesson in the morning. Sometimes the lessons mention how body image and the effort devoted to losing weight/getting fit can be a kind of interfering god that comes between you and the real God. After I've finished that lesson, I pick up the diet solution book (mentioned in previous post) and work on how I'm going to care more about myself and put my body image and health first. Well, that's not exactly what it says, but it feels like there's something in conflict with these two.

I can make a very good case for taking care of my body with diet and exercise because it is the temple of the Lord. I'd be lying about why I'm doing it, but I could make the case. The truth is, I'm doing it because I'm VAIN.

Maybe there's another self-improvement book I could use to balance out these two. Bridge the gap. Smooth over the conflicts.

A friend of mine is also addicted to self-help books. When she and her husband were getting married and were consolidating their book collections, he was amazed at all the self-help books on her shelf. He said, "If I'd known you needed this much help, I never would have married you. I hope you're all fixed now."

We're never all fixed. And that's okay, too. But what I need to do is start WRITING self-help books instead of buying them.

First I'll need a clever title. Something like: Help Yourself! Stop Buying Self-Help Books and Start Living.