Tuesday, December 25, 2007

The Word Was Made Flesh, And Dwelt Among Us...




Today is the day we celebrate Jesus' incarnation.
It sounds like a medical procedure if you say it with emough of theological affect.
I prefer to think about the commemoration of this event in a way similar to CS Lewis who described it as Jesus parachuting behind enemy lines to start the process of our eventual liberation.

Some great movies have been made about D-Day, and they all do a fantastic of job showing how even well-trained paratroopers got bewildered, lost, scared, and confused when they hit the ground deep inside enemy territory in the early morning hours of 06 June, 1944.
I think that both the French citizens and the German soldiers would have been equally surprised at their appearance, but what a different view each would have taken towards a heavily-laden young American soldier with his face blacked out and weapons protruding from everywhere.
The Frenchman knew that his occupation was at neaing the end, hopefully.
The German knew that the defenses along the Atlantic Wall were stout, but that there was not much to stop the allied forces if they made it past the beaches.

Is this Christmas, or saving Private Ryan?

It's both.
Jesus came into the world with a momentary flash of light, and was then whisked away to Egypt because Herod and Rome had plenty behind their initial defenses to finish off anyone who dared to incite a rebellion or lead anyone along a new way.

Jesus spent thirty years being a regular guy, by outward appearances. He certainly had friends and family and community to help him grow along the way into the man who would, in a way not unlike William Wallace in Braveheart, lead his people (us) to their ultimate victory.

The "Word made flesh," in you is what I recognize this Christmas.

I have pictures above of our parish, St. Thomas More, and a school, Decatur Presbyterian, where our three youngest have attended.

For over a month, members of each of those communities, and others as well, have brought food, flowers, beer, laughs, prayers, and joy to our home. The support we have enjoyed has been overwhelming, and I have really been hesitant to say too much about it for fear of embarrassing, favoring, or slighting someones' efforts.
We have had our kids driven around to school, practices, play-dates, and just "away."
We have had groups pay for house-cleaners, and women come to our house and do laundry. We had friends help decorate our house for Christmas, and communities from a synangouge to cloistered carmelite nuns, and a lot in between, offer prayers for us.

Most of the people who read this blog are the people I am addressing.
You did the heavy-lifting and shelled out the cash and made the meals.
You made time in your busy schedules to pick up or drop off kids and food.
You called, sent an email or a card, or asked how everything was going.
You made Christ present in the flesh by your charity and acts of faith and love.

I was the beleaguered and exhausted French peasant who looked up and saw the strong liberator coming to my aid.
I was the one who felt lost and alone and scared, and looked up and saw you loving my children for me.
I was the one whose knowledge proved to be of small value against the uncertainty and chaos that surrounded us these past six weeks, and you were the gentle deliverer who was there to prop me up.
You showed me Christ "in the flesh" in your flesh, and your smiles, and your kind words, and your generosity.

Our entire family has benefitted greatly from all of this, but none more than me.
You helped me end (mostly) my days of straining gnats and swallowing camels.

God bless you.
Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

We're Cleared For Takeoff





Cathy saw the surgeon yesterday who told her that she was doing fine. She still has some ligament and soft-tissue pain from the process, but he said her heart is ready to get down to some serious blood-pumping!
She will start a cardio-rehab program soon, and will begin to lift things gradually.
She still has a 30 lb. limit for another couple of weeks, but then, it's a matter of working through the discomfort to get her body built back up.
She said something about calling Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds for "a little help" to bulk up....hmmmm.

I have learned some fascinating things about health care costs and insurance benefits and stuff that I will share soon.

I have really appreciated the many kind words about what I write here.
I really enjoy writing, and I'm glad that some of you enjoy my style, or lack thereof.

I will probably continue to post things here, although I don't plan on a lot of specific updates on Cathy.

Oh, I'll mention when she completes her first marathon and stuff like that, but I hope that "She's doing great!" will be a true, standard response to the question of how she's doing.

So, I'm giving everybody fair warning that I am about to hijack this blog and use it for my own ends, which will likely be an irritant to some, and likely of no interest at all to others.

I am just assuming, of course, that people have a lot of interest in my thoughts on different things.
I am also fairly certain that I am entertaining a delusion in this assumption, but I'll not let that stop me.

For example:

Next post I'll explain why I'm going to encourage the kids to eschew college and find a good trade to practice so that they can support Cathy and me in our old age.

And speaking of old age, one of us is now 41 years old. The other won't be 41 until sometime next year...

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Lest there be any doubt that I'm going to Hell...

She's Two




Lucy turned two years-old today.
Cathy got some information about starting cardiac rehab soon.
I'm practicing my own rehab, "My name is Chris, and I'm ...."

Cathy had her Cuamadin level checked today, and it is getting near where it needs to be.

My mom's birthday was yesterday, and guess what great son remembered to call her and wish her well?
I'm hoping it was at least one of my brothers, because it wasn't me.
Cathy's not to blame as she reminded me, but I let it get too late.
I'm calling her the second I'm done with this!

Cathy's birthday is in six days, and then Jesus' is shortly after that. Can I get a break from the birthdays?

We're having a joint birthday this Saturday at our house where we will throw all of the December birthday people (except Jesus) into the mix and have one big cake, and get back to our lives.

Here are some of the best things you don't know about yet, but for which you will thank me:

1. Colin Hay's music--he is the lead singer from the 80s group, Men at Work, and his new accoustic songs are the exact opposite of everything I wrote about Kristofferson yesterday. It's good to have balance. I recommend "Beautiful World, Waiting for My Real Life to Begin, My Brilliant Feet, and the accoustic version of Overkill, which was an electric hit for Men at Work in the 1980s.

2. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (TV show)--it's terribly irreverent, but very, very funny. You will not be proud of yourself for laughing at it, but laugh you will. It's basically Seinfeld for the new millenium without a lot of the euphamisms. It's on a cable channel, and since we don't have cable, I bought the first two seasons on dvd.

3. Frederick Buechner's writings--he is an ordained Presbyterian minister who has written fiction and non-fiction books about Christianity (an excerpt, "True history has to do with the saving and losing of souls, and both of these are apt to take place when most people-including the one whose soul is at stake-are looking the other way.") If I could meet any living author today, it would be Frederick Buechner.

But, enough of me telling you what to do.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Breakfast Food--Harvey Style!



I'm really not a "foodie."
You know what I mean. Someone who enjoys gourmet fare and complex taste combinations, and call tell the difference in a bottle of wine by some standard of measurement other than a receipt.

I have pretty simple tastes.
My favorite flavor is "a lot."

Recently, we got a delivery of "breakfast foods" (homemade muffins and coffee cake...and a twelve pack of Sam Adams Beer.)
It brought to mind the lyrics from the Kris Kristofferson classic, "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down,"

"Well I woke up Sunday mornin; with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt,
and the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert."

The fact that Kris Kristofferson is a forgotten name in the American Music Scene is a prima facia indictment of our musical artistic decay.

The bandwagon for Johnny Cash only really started when he was on his deathbed, and wasn't threatening the Industry with his values (the values other than Percocet and Methamphetamine addiction, I mean!) I was secretly hoping that Kristofferson would be caught in the Cash momentum. It's sad that most people think of him primarily as an actor.

If you ever begin to feel too good about your lot in life, get too giddy thinking happy thoughts, and ever become concerned that you are too joyful and optimistic, grab any Kris Kristofferson cd, pick a song at random, dim the lights, and get a drink.
Problem solved.

Five cents, please.

Cathy is still doing well, in case you're wondering.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Someone Has Been Paying Attention




After the post about the Meatloaf, I was ready for anything.
I'm glad that everyone took it I intended, which was lightly and gratefully.

I was unpacking and preparing a subsequent meal, and noticed that there were brief instructions on each dish ("heat at 350 for 60 minutes, microwave 4 minutes, etc.")

The donor attached the note (pictured above) to the salad.

"Salad. Use your best judgment," it read.

I laughed heartily, and more than once.

Cathy had a good appointment with her primary doctor today.
He was the one to first identify this problem several years ago, and he said she looks good.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

How to Win Your First Argument After Your Wife Has Heart Surgery




That's me on the left.

On the odd chance that you will have a spouse who has heart surgery, you might want to file this away.

Arguments are inevitable in any marriage, but one must be careful in arguing for the first time after heart surgery.
It can be tricky.
You can still "win" them, just like you did before surgery, when you felt good about having made your points logically, clearly, and righteously. You showed her!

You can still recapture that glorious post-argument feeling where you realize what a jerk you were, and how bad you made her feel, even though you were right, and you "won."

Here's how to recapture that magic. Post heart surgery.

Follow My 10 Tips, and you can't go wrong, and remember that they are listed in order of use:

1. Forget how worried you were when she was going in to surgery, and forget how you told God that you would take her place if you could.
2. Forget how relieved you felt when the surgeon walked in and told you that everything went fine, and how you really exhaled for the first time since about four hours earlier.
3. Forget how terrified you were when she had those two episodes in front of you in the ICU, and how, as you went down to get the CT scans of her brain, you were sure that things were going to turn out badly.
4. Forget how much all of this put things like jobs and money and neatness and order into perspective in those first few hard hours.
5. Forget how much everyone else has done for your family and you personally.
6. Forget how thankful you were that you had a good job, with good insurance, lived a mile from the hospital where it all took place, which happens to be the best place in the region to do the surgery, and that you somehow got the top cardiac surgeon on the entire staff to do your wife's surgery. Forget all of that. You must if this is going to work.

You then shift from forgetting to remembering.

7. Remember all of the little things you have had to do in the last four weeks that your wife did before the surgery, that you just assumed happened all by themselves. On the other hand, remember to forget that you never thanked her for doing them either.
8. Remember all of the personal sacrifices you have made in the last four weeks. Don't just remember, but dwell on them, and how unfair it all seems. (Important! If you haven't done a good job on step #6, you will not be able to do this very well.)
9.Let all of this stuff just brew and fester for days. It's all about forgetting and remembering the right things, at the right times, and to the right degree.

Now, this last step is one of the most important of all, and coincidentally, it works just as well if your wife hasn't just had heart surgery.

10. Pick out something really important on which to make your stand! Don't waste your energy on unimportant issues. Make sure you pick something serious. I recommend getting all bent out of shape about the rearranging of the living room to accomodate the Christmas Tree, and the temporary mess that comes out of your ten year-old daughter trying to help your wife. That's the kind of thing no real man should let pass, uncommented on and uncriticized.

So there you have it.

I'm glad I could help.

Oh, lastly, make sure you're right before you begin the argument, otherwise your rage and vehemence will not only be wasted, but you'll look like the fool you are, and will have to think of some creative way to apologize and not look like an asshole.
And that's hard to do.

From This to This...






I had been feeling sort of low lately. It was a combination of emotional, physical, and mental fatigue that had acculumalated over the last four weeks. I can only imagine what a state I would have been in without the help of so many good and kind family and friends...
So, a friend call me and offered to take me to The Angel, an English Pub-style bar in downtown Decatur.
This friend is also good mentor.
He is a bit older than me, doesn't work in government, and has a family that has faced similarly scary medical problems in the last couple of years. We are personally unalike in a lot of ways too, but we share similar core values. We have great conversations in which we speak freely and we laugh a lot.
He notices when I speak casually of dead bodies and mayhem. The fact that he notices makes me notice that I DON'T notice much at all, and reminds me to be human. Humans notice and are affected by dead bodies.

So, we met at the bar, and coincidentally, the bar was the scene of the retirement party of a man who had been my Lieutenant when I worked in Homicide at DeKalb Police. The party was in the back, and we sat at a table up front. I got to see several former colleagues as they left, providing me good opportunities to tell some of my old war stories. It also had the ego boost of me seeming like some kind of big-shot as a steady stream of guys and gals walked by, recognized me, and stopped to say "Hi."
So, we spent a good couple of hours talking, laughing, and learning from each other.
I left with a spring in my step, and a load off my mind.

Being an amatuer neurotic, I can easily trap myself in my own thoughts, and this was a great opportunity to release a lot of tension and gain some perspective.
I shall never underestimate the value of just sitting a sharing your thoughts and time with someone. Until something else attaches itself to my mind and must be dislodged with a strong draft and an open ear.

Thanks, buddy!

P.S.
Cathy (I sort of feel obligated to include her in all of this) saw her cardiologist for the the first time since she got her new valve, and everything seems to be working pretty well.
She goes to see the surgeon next week to get the release from him to start some kind of rehab program, and to find out when she will be able to do simple things like pick up Lucy again.

The earlier she gets into a rehab program, the longer it will delay my entry into a different kind of rehab program!

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Funny Thoughts About Food and Some Old Friends



I have what I think is a funny story about food and people.
Firstly, I have intentionally avoided mentioning much about food for fear of leaving someone out of the thanks. It has all been wonderful, plentiful, and delicious.
And, I have learned that no matter how completley prepared a meal is, I can turn the kitchen into a wreck within three minutes of the food breaking the plane of our front door.
If the donor brought the food in, set the table, and served it to me, without leaving my seat, I'd have six dirty bowls and about four spoons in the sink before I took the first bite. I don't know how I do it...
That being said, you have no idea how much less stress I suffer knowing that when I get home, I can serve up what is is so generously brought to our door, and have only myself to blame for the messes I make.

We have been SO blessed with great food by everyone, and this story isn't really about the food, and the subjects are not on the calendar, so their identity will be kept secret from most people.

But, if you know the person I'm writing about, you will not have the least amount of trouble laughing along.
My parents' closest friends as I grew up were a couple that my parents met in graduate school in Philadelphia. They have a son my age, and son the same age as my younger brother, and their kids were some of our best friends growing up. We have home movies of us playing together when we were a year or two old, and we spent many Summer Vacations together jammed into our beach house in Charleston, SC. My parents' friends were the kind of adults that had the "full faith and credit clause" in their relationship with my parents, meaning that if they thought you needed to be brought to heel, they had the full range of armaments on the table, with an implicit understanding that they could use whatever means necessary to have get the job done.
I spent days and days at their house throughout high school, and even travelled to Russia and Europe with their family in the early 1980s. Their travel itineraries were the stuff of legend in terms of comprehensiveness and detail.
If "Mr. and Mrs. E" had planned Napoleon's trip to Moscow, Vladimir Putin would currently be wearing a beret!

Mrs. "E" (to keep her identity secret) was/is a self-driven perfectionist, and a fantastically generous person, as is her husband and their two sons. She even makes her own (delicious) pimiento cheese spread. She does not suffer fools gladly. You want her on your side in an argument, if you have any sense.

I have used "Mr. and Mrs. E" as character references on just about every job application I have ever completed.

"Mrs. E" made us a dinner for Cathy's recovery.
It was a homemade meatloaf, a bag of green beans, mac and cheese, and some chocolate-chip cookies. It was all fully cooked, but frozen for us to use at our leisure.

The image posted at the top of this post is a full 8 1/2 x 11 page of handwritten instructions for me to make sure that I could heat up everything. Properly.
Included, on the pan which held the meatloaf, was a post-it note indicating "IMPORTANT, this side up!"
Did I mention it was a meatloaf in a standard meatloaf pan?
Was I that unimpressive as a teenager?
I mean, look at all that underlining!!!

Did I mention that the meal was scrumptious?
Thank you, "Mr. and Mrs. E."
We really appreciate the great food and good thoughts.

According to "MR. E" the leftover meatloaf is best when eaten as a sandwich on white bread with mayonaise, cold.
We'll see, but there's barely enough left for a sandwich.

Cathy is still improving, but it seems that after about every third or fourth day, she gets beaten back down a little bit. It's hard to believe that all of this just started three weeks ago. Still, three or four steps forward for a little step backwards is pretty good progress.