A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength. Proverbs 17:22 NLT
I love laughter. I love how I feel when I laugh or when others laugh. I love how laughter transforms peoples faces contorts their bodies and relaxes them. Even the most uptight person is relaxed when they laugh. Laughter is contagious. Look at all of those laughing babies on You Tube, who can watch one of those videos without laughing? This Blog was originally called “Laughter and Light”.
Today, the first Sunday in May, a group called Laughter Yoga International promotes World Laughter Day; World Peace through Laughter today. This year the Sunday after Easter happened to fall on the first Sunday in May. In the early years of the Christian Church some celebrated this day as Holy Humor Sunday or Bright Sunday. Today at Saint Francis of Assisi we had Holy Humor (or joke) Sunday. Joke Sunday is beautiful mixture of the sacred and the absurd, and sooo me.
I laugh in church anyway and I’m sure some would think me irreverent, but oh well. I mean sometimes things are just funny and a chuckle is appropriate.
What was my point? Oh yeah..laughter is healing, it reduces stress, it increases blood flow. One study shows that it burns calories another that laughter boosts the immune system. It helps breathing and expands the lungs. The bottom line is laughter makes me feel better. “mindful laughing”? Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry and that makes me feel better. So Laugh, Smile, Dance......
Did you hear the one about the Priest, the Rabbi and the Minister?
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Good Friday
So today is Good Friday and as you may know, it is probably my least favorite day of the church year along with Palm Sunday when the Passion is read. I was starting a rant about Palm/Passion Sunday but I contained myself.... I like the Good Friday Vigil at the church I go to. People take turns sharing short meditations on the last 7 words allegedly spoken by Jesus. I volunteered this year and oddly enough chose “I thirst” to talk about. There was so much I wanted to say but with only 3 minutes I had to leave most of it out. Not to mention that I put off writing it until Thursday night at 7 and had to hurry because I had to watch “Vampire Diaries” with my daughter at 8....
I’ve been an RN for 34 years but I started working in a hospital when I was only 19..... Still a child really. Nursing seemed like a sensible carrer choice but was never my first choice. For the first 22 years of my career I worked in Intensive Care/Coronary care and Pediatric ICU.
Many years ago, before Hospice really started in this country, we kept people alive on Ventilators for much longer than we should have. We put people on life support who were not going to survive, prolonging their suffering and separating them from their families. We pumped them full of drugs, put tubes in arteries to measure the pressures, took away their ability to talk by putting a tube in their nose or mouth and almost every other orifice. We took away their humanity and their dignity
Visiting hours were limited so they were often alone only nurses and other staff who may have been working 16 hours and exhausted, or burnt out or preoccupied, and humming beeping machines to keep them company.
Tubes were everywhere but what I remember most was
Dry parched lips
It was the dry lips that bothered me the most. So after checking the machines making sure everything was working, checking vital signs, and medications were infusing I would try to relieve the dry mouth. If the person was conscience I would offer them ice chips...most weren’t....most were on ventilators and were NPO (nothing by mouth). So I would clean their mouths. Back in those days we had Lemon Glycerin Swabs which were like giant Q tips with a lemon flavor. People who were thirsty and couldn’t drink for a few hours would refuse them. Those with dry cracked lips bit on them, sucked on them, holding tight to the swab as if it would revive them perhaps it was a reminder of life or a reminder of hope..... Or maybe a reflex
Yes, Jesus was dehydrated I am certain of that and I know that his thirst was much more than dehydration.
He had endured horrific pain. The life was draining out of him he was indeed parched in body and spirit..... Water is life...... he had told the Samaritan woman that the water he gives will become in them a spring of water gushing up into eternal life. I wonder what he was thinking....I wonder if he felt like a phony a con artist. I wonder if he believed anything that he had said.
He was tortured, he was mocked, he was dying. Worse, though, than the pain and the mocking and the fact that he was certainly going to die soon, many of his friends had abandoned him. Who can blame them though? They were afraid, things were NOT going as they had planned and nothing would ever be the same. They had deserted him and it seemed as though God had deserted him. God’s voice, that voice he was so accustomed to hearing was gone as well.
Have you ever felt abandoned? Alone? Afraid? Have you ever felt that you would never hear God again?
I have. People have hurt me, done horrible things to me and I wonder. Where the hell is God I mean really where!
All week a part of psalm 63 has been rattling around in my brain. Days before I even thought about which “last word” I wanted to talk about, these words were in my thoughts and on my tongue:
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
What imagery! Can you see the cracks in the land the dry adobe here in Sonoma County that cracks and pulls apart in the summer. Weary, burnt out, exhausted, over used land. Today is Earth Day as well as Good Friday...and you know what to do.
Back to Jesus...I wonder......... In the midst of his agony........did that psalm run through his mind He said I thirst. Was he calling out to God only managing to squeak out “I Thirst”
Water is essential for life so a thirst for water is a thirst for life......
A thirst for life is a thirst for God who promises streams in the desert who promises to heal, to sustain us and to wipe away every tear.....
Sometimes in life those promises seem impossible. From the cross, I suspect that those promises appeared to be very far away.... Yet Jesus said I Thirst. It is my prayer that we can all say that in our own way when the distance between ourselves and our friends or ourselves and God seems so far apart we too can say I thirst.
I Thirst
Most of you know that I am an RN so when I saw “I Thirst” I thought, “well of course he was thirsty, he was dehydrated” Those of you who know me probably know what I would have sounded like if I said it out loud. I mean Duh! Jesus had been hanging on the cross for about 3 hours after being interrogated, beaten, and carrying a heavy chunk of wood up a hill. I start going through the signs and symptoms of dehydration and the effect that dehydration has on the body. I don’t stop there though....I started to wonder if I could have put an IV in him. I mean I was good at it. I used to brag that could get an IV in a stone. I once inserted a small IV in the thumb of an elderly person with “no veins left”. So the idea of talking about “I thirst” seemed pointless at first. I wasn’t going to chose it but I was drawn to it. You could say it spoke to me.I’ve been an RN for 34 years but I started working in a hospital when I was only 19..... Still a child really. Nursing seemed like a sensible carrer choice but was never my first choice. For the first 22 years of my career I worked in Intensive Care/Coronary care and Pediatric ICU.
Many years ago, before Hospice really started in this country, we kept people alive on Ventilators for much longer than we should have. We put people on life support who were not going to survive, prolonging their suffering and separating them from their families. We pumped them full of drugs, put tubes in arteries to measure the pressures, took away their ability to talk by putting a tube in their nose or mouth and almost every other orifice. We took away their humanity and their dignity
Visiting hours were limited so they were often alone only nurses and other staff who may have been working 16 hours and exhausted, or burnt out or preoccupied, and humming beeping machines to keep them company.
Tubes were everywhere but what I remember most was
Dry parched lips
It was the dry lips that bothered me the most. So after checking the machines making sure everything was working, checking vital signs, and medications were infusing I would try to relieve the dry mouth. If the person was conscience I would offer them ice chips...most weren’t....most were on ventilators and were NPO (nothing by mouth). So I would clean their mouths. Back in those days we had Lemon Glycerin Swabs which were like giant Q tips with a lemon flavor. People who were thirsty and couldn’t drink for a few hours would refuse them. Those with dry cracked lips bit on them, sucked on them, holding tight to the swab as if it would revive them perhaps it was a reminder of life or a reminder of hope..... Or maybe a reflex
Yes, Jesus was dehydrated I am certain of that and I know that his thirst was much more than dehydration.
He had endured horrific pain. The life was draining out of him he was indeed parched in body and spirit..... Water is life...... he had told the Samaritan woman that the water he gives will become in them a spring of water gushing up into eternal life. I wonder what he was thinking....I wonder if he felt like a phony a con artist. I wonder if he believed anything that he had said.
He was tortured, he was mocked, he was dying. Worse, though, than the pain and the mocking and the fact that he was certainly going to die soon, many of his friends had abandoned him. Who can blame them though? They were afraid, things were NOT going as they had planned and nothing would ever be the same. They had deserted him and it seemed as though God had deserted him. God’s voice, that voice he was so accustomed to hearing was gone as well.
Have you ever felt abandoned? Alone? Afraid? Have you ever felt that you would never hear God again?
I have. People have hurt me, done horrible things to me and I wonder. Where the hell is God I mean really where!
All week a part of psalm 63 has been rattling around in my brain. Days before I even thought about which “last word” I wanted to talk about, these words were in my thoughts and on my tongue:
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
What imagery! Can you see the cracks in the land the dry adobe here in Sonoma County that cracks and pulls apart in the summer. Weary, burnt out, exhausted, over used land. Today is Earth Day as well as Good Friday...and you know what to do.
Back to Jesus...I wonder......... In the midst of his agony........did that psalm run through his mind He said I thirst. Was he calling out to God only managing to squeak out “I Thirst”
Water is essential for life so a thirst for water is a thirst for life......
A thirst for life is a thirst for God who promises streams in the desert who promises to heal, to sustain us and to wipe away every tear.....
Sometimes in life those promises seem impossible. From the cross, I suspect that those promises appeared to be very far away.... Yet Jesus said I Thirst. It is my prayer that we can all say that in our own way when the distance between ourselves and our friends or ourselves and God seems so far apart we too can say I thirst.
I thirst
Monday, November 1, 2010
Voting and Health Care Reform
Matthew 25:35-40
35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
I am a socialist...if it were up to me we would have single payer healthcare. I work for an HMO and my job depends on it’s survival. As an RN my priority is the welfare of my patients. To some this might seem conflicted at best, but I’m at peace with it. In the words of Mick Jagger, “You can’t always get what you want but if you try you might get what you need”
Some of you are going to the polls tomorrow hoping that your vote will make health care reform go away because it is “socialized medicine” Please trust me when I say that it is not. Some of you think that it will cost us too much money but war and killing people in foreign countries cost us more. The tax cuts for the top 1% of americans add more to the deficit than health care reform. Folks I hate to break it to you but none of you are in the top 1% and never will be.
On March 23rd, the president signed the health care reform bill and with many other progressives I was complaining that it wasn’t enough, but on September 23 several things happened as a result of that health care bill.
First my now 19 year old daughter will be covered under my policy until she is 26. If she wasn’t she would be uninsurable because as an infant she had so many ear infections her ears are scarred and her eardrums perforate every time she gets on an airplane. Second your child who might have asthma or have been born with a minor cardiac defect can no longer be dropped from your insurance plan. Third, if you have a catastrophic medical problem your insurance company can’t say, “Oops you’ve exceeded your limit.”
In addition there won’t be co-pays for preventive services. Things like mammograms, cervical cancer screening, bone density studies, colorectal cancer screening, immunizations and some blood work will not incur a copay. You will be saving money.
Some of the insurance companies want you to think that this is going to drive costs up. I don’t think it will. I was privileged to listen to the president of the HMO I work for speak recently. We aren’t worried because we are forerunners in preventive health care; our patients will continue to come first, and we will remain a “not for profit” HMO.
I am writing this tonight because I know some of you have been given incorrect information about health reform. Certain candidates are telling you that they will fight to repeal health care reform. What they are telling you is not in your best interest. These people are masters at manipulating and inciting fear in people. Some of you I know who are against health care reform have your kids on Medi-Cal. I don’t condemn you for using government funded health care but think about that when you vote. Think about the kids who will be denied health care while yours are covered.
I started this post with words from the gospel of Matthew; “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Meditate on these words as you fill out your ballots and follow your heart. Vote for who you feel is the best person for the job.
Peace
35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
I am a socialist...if it were up to me we would have single payer healthcare. I work for an HMO and my job depends on it’s survival. As an RN my priority is the welfare of my patients. To some this might seem conflicted at best, but I’m at peace with it. In the words of Mick Jagger, “You can’t always get what you want but if you try you might get what you need”
Some of you are going to the polls tomorrow hoping that your vote will make health care reform go away because it is “socialized medicine” Please trust me when I say that it is not. Some of you think that it will cost us too much money but war and killing people in foreign countries cost us more. The tax cuts for the top 1% of americans add more to the deficit than health care reform. Folks I hate to break it to you but none of you are in the top 1% and never will be.
On March 23rd, the president signed the health care reform bill and with many other progressives I was complaining that it wasn’t enough, but on September 23 several things happened as a result of that health care bill.
First my now 19 year old daughter will be covered under my policy until she is 26. If she wasn’t she would be uninsurable because as an infant she had so many ear infections her ears are scarred and her eardrums perforate every time she gets on an airplane. Second your child who might have asthma or have been born with a minor cardiac defect can no longer be dropped from your insurance plan. Third, if you have a catastrophic medical problem your insurance company can’t say, “Oops you’ve exceeded your limit.”
In addition there won’t be co-pays for preventive services. Things like mammograms, cervical cancer screening, bone density studies, colorectal cancer screening, immunizations and some blood work will not incur a copay. You will be saving money.
Some of the insurance companies want you to think that this is going to drive costs up. I don’t think it will. I was privileged to listen to the president of the HMO I work for speak recently. We aren’t worried because we are forerunners in preventive health care; our patients will continue to come first, and we will remain a “not for profit” HMO.
I am writing this tonight because I know some of you have been given incorrect information about health reform. Certain candidates are telling you that they will fight to repeal health care reform. What they are telling you is not in your best interest. These people are masters at manipulating and inciting fear in people. Some of you I know who are against health care reform have your kids on Medi-Cal. I don’t condemn you for using government funded health care but think about that when you vote. Think about the kids who will be denied health care while yours are covered.
I started this post with words from the gospel of Matthew; “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Meditate on these words as you fill out your ballots and follow your heart. Vote for who you feel is the best person for the job.
Peace
Friday, September 24, 2010
Mortgage
It's finally over. My mortgage was modified after 18 months of jumping through hoops for the bank. I think that they expect you to cave and give up...I refused to do that...We were taken advantage of by a friend who worked for a large mortgage company. We didn't have a sub prime mortgage but we were told that our payments would only go down...If something sounds to go to be true it probably is... I am so grateful that this is over. We now have a 2% interest rate that will adjust in 5 years but never will go over 4.2% which is reasonable.
I think what bothers me the most is that friends can't be trusted.
I think what bothers me the most is that friends can't be trusted.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Moving on
It is time to get some help in overcoming the trauma of being kicked out of an episcopal church. I've been too pissed off for too long.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Grace
My last post was well...angry at best. Yet I have hope in spite of the system, in spite of people who lie, who don't hold up there part of the deal, and who let us down. I have hope because God loves me and because people don't always represent God even if they say that they do. I know that houses don't matter, and where I live doesn't matter really (although I would much rather live in Marin). What does matter is that God loves me and has called me as her own, and that there are some cool shoes in the San Francisco Macy's....
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