living on both ends - an exploration of best and worst

friends

BEST - Judy booked her flight; she is really and truly coming to be with us.

hypothyroid

WORST of the weekend - It was a short story my sister and I read years ago; I do not remember the name or the author. A horror story - a woman, a man who loved her but she chose another. Years later, the rejected man met an elderly infirm woman, who reminded him of the woman he had loved. Through astute observation and knowledge of what withholding thyroid supplements would do, he realized her husband had withheld her medication, and she had lost her reason, her physical ability, her youth. Needless to say, he returned the thyroid supplemention, she was restored, her husband vanquished and love won out.

A dramatic story, a dramatic ending, a testament to more successful living through chemicals. Right now, and for the last three weeks, I have been off my meds. In an induced state of hypothyroidism, the radioactive uptake and subsequent treatment will be better.

But this weekend, I felt off. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. There is an ability to detach, to stand aside and know this is for a season, and there is a good reason to endure. At the same time, the feelings of dis-ease are real, and I find the restlessness that pervades my all difficult.

quote for the day

Ambivalence is impossible without an ego.
The Scapegoat Complex; Toward A Mythology of Shadow and Guilt, Sylvia Brinton Perera

f.i.n.e.

WORST – Instead of 28 day rehab, we have started an Early Intervention Program. Mondays are peer night, and Urine Analysis. Wednesdays are education and family group night. For me, there are a lot of triggers in this process. I am shocked by how often my anger or numbness that was so present with their fathers addiction comes to the front. I am dismayed by how hard it is to stay present and connected during the group. I am heartened by being able to let go of holding space for others and focus on my own process. I am saddened by the necessity of our being there. And I am scared – not of substance abuse or addiction, but of denial, whether we live that out by fear or anger or numbness.

friends

BEST- Truth. And friends. Yesterday, I drove the newly turned 16 year old and his girlfriend to some shops. All day I had been praying/thinking of June 2, after my body scan, when I go back for the needed treatment based on what is seen in the scan. 

The two older boys tend to not respond well to my weakness. They are used to an Enneagram Eight mom, in charge, struggling with control issues, still somewhat strong even when ill. My perception is that, this time, seeing the weakness come back as I am off my thyroid supplements, they, especially the 17 year old (perhaps an 8 also) try to bring back the mom they know by provoking a fight. It has often worked in the past, it is not working now. 

I’ve changed and I am more determined and able to tend to my needs. And theirs, but not at the expense of mine. How do I balance the needs of our family community with my needs as an individual? 

Yesterday, I did it by calling my friend Judy and asking if she would be available to come stay with us the week I have treatment. I know having someone else in the house will automatically remind us to be kind to one another. And I know she is someone I can trust. And I know she loves me, and I love her. We may sit the whole week or so in silence on Sojourn’s front porch. Or we may finally sew up that new fabric for my outside cushions that my neighbor, the upholsterer gave me, a few years ago. Or we may talk till our voices are weary about how our visions of God have changed. 

Whatever we do, it was good to ask for help.

quote for the day

Compliments of Friend Marshall Massey, who left it in the comments here.

"No man can rightly know God, or understand the word of God, unless he receives it directly from the Holy Spirit; neither can any one can receive it from the Holy Spirit, except that he finds it by experience in himself. And in this experience the Holy Spirit teaches, as in his proper school: out of which school nothing is taught but mere talk." (Luther, commenting on the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55); quoted by Robert Barclay in his Apology, Prop. II §2.)

double meanings

WORST- Silence is one of the places I meet God. It can be sacred and healing. It can build community and trust; it can lead me into worship.

Silence can also be impenetrable, dismissive, cruel.  My grandmother died when I was six; she had been a mainstay of my mother’s support.  Her loss was immeasurable in many ways.

Years later, as I faced a friends loss, my mother told me how much it helped just to hear others acknowledge the grief. From a simple I’m sorry to an anecdote about the one who died.

I have always loved the silence that is full of Spirit, full of love, the companionship of ease of Sacredness. But the silence that is avoidance or failure to reach into anothers world leaves me cold.

preparation and care

BEST- Double digging. I first read about, and then did it, as I was preparing flower beds in the clay Colorado earth. My first foray into gardening. Double digging beds in the rocky soil of New Jersey has been almost impossible for me, leaving my wrists, elbows, shoulders and hips painful and leaving me worried about joint damage and foolishness on my part.

In John Jeavon’s How To Grow More Vegetables, he teaches a, to me, new way of double digging with the second twelve inches done by a using a spading fork to loosen and aerate the soil. So, I became hopeful that I could double dig, I could prepare my new vegetable, blueberry  and perennial bed in this new way. 

Yesterday, my neighbor, who is a landscape architect, e-mailed me asking if I wanted to accompany her to her favorite garden center in search of annuals and herbs. While there, she showed me a spade, one that she had purchased and used on a large job the week before; she thought it would be helpful for me, and she offered to let me buy it with her discount. 

Yesterday, I dug for three hours. Yes, my joints were sore, yes, I had some fairly impressive morning stiffness today. But my joints feel oiled now, and I am on my way to finish digging my blueberry beds, so I can plant the bushes that sit on my front porch, awaiting their carefully prepared beds. 

This is a great flat spade; Radius Pro Spade.

WORST- Tall cell variant of thyroid cancer. The endocrinologist and I went over the pathology report from my surgery yesterday. There is not much I know, or will know, until I take a pill with radioactive iodine (May 28) and do a body scan (May 30). 

Here is what we know: 

1)Tall cell variant is a more aggressive form of thyroid cancer, which explains why I had tumors on both lobes and in two lymph nodes. 

2)My thyroid globulin test was positive. Since I have no thyroid tissue left, and the surgeon is sure he got it all, that could mean that there is thyroid tissue left somewhere in my body. That’s not good. 

So, I was surprised to hear that this health issue is not quite over yet. After the scan, we will have more of an idea for prognosis and treatment, if any is indicated. 

I am surprised by how hard this news hit me.

plain speaking and deep listening

BEST- This Quaker thing is sometimes hard for me: to know when to speak, how to trust the Spirit at work, waiting for all to discern the sense of the meeting. Saturday, I eldered a mini-retreat on deepening worship. There was a strong sense of a gathered meeting during the expectant worship at the end, and we finished with four sung vocal ministries that, frankly, had me weeping as I sat and held the community and the facilitator in the Light. It was my first eldering gig since my surgery and it felt good and well led.

Last night, we met as a meeting to discuss the direction and vitality concerns for our monthly spiritual nurture Wednesday night group. Our meeting is small, most groups or committee essentially function as a committee of the whole. We have been a meeting without a vibrant or functional Ministry and Council since before I came to Friends. Last nominating committee, I was put forth as clerk of M&C, with the charge of bringing it back to vibrancy and impact. There has been a bit of resistance. I have felt led to tread faithfully and gently.

One of my concerns is adult Quaker education. When I came to our meeting, we had many weighty Friends who grounded the meeting. That is still true, but now we have more attenders who are new to Quakerism, and drawn for various reasons. One of the misconceptions that newcomers seem to bring is that Quakerism is a faith expression where anything goes. I think we dilute the beauty of Friends when we acquiesce to that mindset. Friends is an experiential faith journey, an a journey where all are invited to come where they are, and it is a journey that has deep roots and strong ways. When we ignore the roots and the ways, we lose. Listening to the Spirit as individuals and as community is not an automatic response for most of us. It is a learned behavior. Where do we practice this? And how do we grow in Friends ways if we are not learning from seasoned Friends?

So my concern is the spiritual vibrancy of our meeting, and the deepening of our Quaker identity. How do we facilitate time and space to experience this as a community, and to learn how others have experienced it?

Last night, the idea of Quaker education came up. There was a certain exuberance about it. Not wanting to be territorial, knowing the resistance that I have felt in our meeting to placing nurture of our community under the care of M&C, I listened. Finally, I expressed my concern, that as clerk of M&C, Quaker adult education is best under the care of M&C. There was silence, and in a moment, the member of the community I have felt the most resistance from stated “Yes, that makes sense.”

I am learning to plain speak ( the circuitous speaking of Friends drives me nuts) and learning to temper it with waiting for openings. I left the meeting grateful for Friends ways of listening for the Spirit together.