Not to Worry

Last week I expressed my worry-wart thoughts about the upcoming MRI. I awakened bright and early on Wednesday morning. Well, not so bright. At 4 AM things are not too bright. The arrival at the imaging center was right on time. I waited a few minutes until Jason, RN, fetched me to access my port. The everlasting search for betadine began. I am evidently allergic to the alcohol based cleaner the nurs

e usually uses to clean the port area. The alternative is betadine. It gives your skin a nice healthy glow. It actually doesn't look all that healthy, but it works. ¶ Then it was off to the infernal machine. My head was locked in after the ear plugs and sponges were positioned. Then the racket began. Thirty-five minutes later it was all over. After my port was deaccessed I was on my way home. ¶ Back to the Cancer Center at 11:30 for my appointment with Erik the Red. After the usual run-through with the nurse, he appeared. He really does need a haircut. The news was excellent. There is no further involvement in the brain and the main lesion appears now to be a scar rather than something alive and growing. ¶ The relief was tremendous. As he explained, every small cell cancer is different and predictions really can't be made as to how it will metastasize. For the time being, at any rate, it has decided to avoid my brain. I am grateful. ¶It seems to have been a busy week although I can't say exactly what kept me busy. The stacks still remain on the desk only to have increased in size. My friendly gardener has dealt with the weeds to the point that they seemingly no longer exist. I'm sure they will return however. A little planting was done, a hosta, some iris, and a veronica. There is still plenty of room in the new lanscaped area but will not be for long when the 150 or so bulbs arrive. I think I will have some to share.

¶ Today is just a perfectly beautiful day. It began rather chilly but by now (4:00) it has warmed up nicely. I walked over to Wetminster Presbyterian Church for a chamber music recital this afternoon and the stroll was lovely as was the concert. ¶ Some of the contortions achieved by Sophia cause one to wonder if it is really she who is present or some otherworldly being. If one goes by the coloration the images could be related to Sophia. Otherwise it appears to be only a collection of legs and tail. ¶Thank you for your prayers, concerns and thoughts. Thank you for reading. Thank you for all you do for me, and for others. I hope your week was as good as mine.

What’s To Worry

Perhaps I’m a worry-wart. It could be I have too much time to think. Whatever the problem I know I try to analyze, supervise, harmonize, dissect, research, etc., far too much. That’s pretty much how it has been for the last few days. ¶ I have another MRI coming up on Wednesday. That will reveal if the main lesion in the brain is still shrinking, has shrunk itself into oblivion, or has hatched new lesions (one or more). I know perfectly well why I obsess. When my imagination runs wild every little pain in the head, every time my vision becomes blurred, and in the infrequent times when I have double vision means that my brain is full of nasty little cancer critters who are determined to be the end of my rational being. The vision problems are usually cured with a couple of eye blinks.

¶ The thought of the MRI drives me nearly up a wall. It is such a horrendously noisy machine that even with the ear plugs and the ear pads it is painful to me. My fondness for the cage in which the technician places your head has ceased. My rational self tells me that it is for my own good and that everything will be just fine. Still I worry. ¶ After seeing the doctor on Wednesday morning I will probably hear the good news that all is well. But then, the office people will schedule the next MRI and I’ll have to start obsessing about that. I think the problem is that I have too much time to think. ¶ It’s been a nice week although a bit too busy to allow enough time to clean off my desk. My filing system is called the “stack” system. Panic set in when I sat behind a car at a red light and noticed their license plate renewal tag. It said “9.” That brought to mind that my renewal month is September and I had not ordered my tags. Then, I wonder where the card is that DMV sends you to remind you about your renewal and contains the valuable information needed to renew. There it was safely tucked away in a stack! Not having an enormous trust in the USPS to deliver on time I though it best to go to county administration, stand in the line and get my tags. That took one afternoon. It’s amazing how one’s time is consumed with tasks that were accomplished while working full time and now seemingly take a half-day. ¶ We are definitely heading towards autumn. It’s dark in the morning and dark by 8:00 in the evening. The evenings have been really cool and some days aren’t all that warm. Thursday’s high was 90º and Friday’s 75º. Mornings have been in the low 50s. ¶ Autumn is such a beautiful season. I look forward to it each year. Winter, not so much.

¶ The ever vigilant cat has found a new observation position. There is a neighborhood cat who is let free to roam. It was on the deck a couple of days ago. Since then Sophia has been on the lookout for said feline. She watches out the windows. One wonders if she would like to meet the interloper, or if she’d rather attack the intruder. One wonders. ¶ Thank you for your concern and your prayers and for all you do for others. We are all ministers to each other. That’s the basis of community. Bless you.

Twenty Years Ago

My birthday came just six months before Pearl Harbor. I had no idea what that day meant if I even knew what day it was. As I grew up I heard many adults speak about the horror of the news on December 7, 1941. It changed the lives of many who experienced that day in one way or another. ¶ My childhood was spent in Rapid City with Ellsworth Air Force Base at our side door. The sound of bombers flying overhead was a near daily experience. One learned to just ignore the roar of the engines both prop and later, jet. We really didn’t know where the planes were headed but we assumed it had something to do with the war.

¶ In my junior high and high school years the cold war was raging. The airbase made us a highly vulnerable target. I volunteered to work at the Filter Center. It seems like a strange name but it describes what we did. We filtered flights. In those days radar could not pick up low flying, smaller aircraft. There were people who volunteered as spotters all around. Their job was to call in any aircraft that they could hear flying near them. The calls went to the filter center where we plotted the flights on a giant horizontal map. If it was not possible to identify the flight the airbase was alerted and fighter jets were sent up to intercept or identify the aircraft in question. ¶ We had a lot of training sessions. We had direct phone lines to the neighboring Filter Centers. Now, as I reflect, it was probably all the equipment that intrigued me. Nevertheless at that point in time we felt we were of value in our country’s fight against the aggressors, the Communist bloc. After putting in the required number of hours we received our wings. ¶ My parents told stories of wartime events, about the rationing of certain products, the victory gardens, the air raid drills (my parents were air raid wardens), the unavailability of certain products because they were needed for the war effort. ¶ It was a different kind of war that began on September 11, 2001. This one I remember clearly. A friend called and asked if I were watching the news. That is something I gave up some years before. I decided I’d better tune in. Just then the aircraft struck the second of the World Trade Towers. With the availability of movies and television shows constantly providing us with violence of any kind it took a bit of time for the enormity of the event to sink in. Was this real or was it fantasy? ¶ Then, with the constant replay of the event throughout the next days, it was difficult to sleep or to accomplish anything. The events were replayed over and over again. I finally realized what was happening to me. I needed to shut off the news and put the event in perspective.

¶ I had retired from teaching. The assistant principal from my last school assignment asked if I would come in and speak with the teachers who were having difficulty dealing with the whole thing, plus having to deal with the students who were affected as well. Probably the most important thing passed on to them was “turn off the news.” Several of the teachers thanked me for that advice. One simply cannot begin to heal when the traumatic event is being replayed hundreds of times each day. ¶ Today is the anniversary of 9/11. Traveler that I am I had never seen the “Twin Towers.” They had not been built when I was last in New York City. By the time I finally returned, they had been destroyed. I did see the aftermath of the event, and the last time there I visited the memorial which was very touching. It’s unusual and beautiful and calming. What was a scene of horrific destruction and loss of life has become a place of remembrance and peace. People automatically fall silent as they approach the place where the towers stood. They gaze at the names etched in the stone and hear the waterfall. Hopefully they offer a prayer for all those departed souls. May all who perished there rest in peace.

¶ Another chemo week has come and gone. Aside from the tiredness, things have gone well. It’s hard to tell if the exhaustion is from the chemo or from my perpetual lack of sleep, or both. Probably both. Along with the chemo I received my booster shot of the COVID vaccine. My oncologist thought I should get the booster right away, so I did. A sore arm was the only outcome. ¶ Sophia requested that I post a picture of her in her alert state. She’s commented on all the postings that show her asleep. She fears that people will think she does nothing but sleep. This week’s photo will put all those thoughts aright. ¶ Thanks for your kind words, your prayers and thoughts and all that you do for me and for others. May our country and all the nations of the world learn to live in peace and respect for one another.

It Really Did Happen

Last week I wrote about the darkness and threat of rain during the day. Well, it really did rain during the night. There were flash flood warnings, a tornado touched down in Lennox, south of Sioux Falls. When dawn came I found 6.5 inches of rain in the gauge! It really did rain. We’ve had several other nice showers throughout the week. ¶ One can tell that the season is about to change. The bees can hardly wait for the autumn joy sedum to come into full bloom. The new roses are growing. Mums are bursting forth little by little. The first two plants went into the new landscaping today.

¶ My phone was kind enough to remind me today that I was in China ten years ago. That brought back some wonderful memories. When we cannot travel easily, we do have the memories of trips past. I am finding those memories to be wonderful. It is difficult to believe all the places I’ve traveled. I am so grateful that I’ve had the opportunities to be exposed to countries and cultures other than my own.

¶ Visiting the Olympic Village in Beijing, walking on the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, seeing the terra cotta warriors, walking on the glass floor in the skyscraper many stories above Shanghai are all memorable The long plane trip with a stop over in Seoul ended with the cabin attendant bowing and thanking me for traveling with Asiana Airlines. That’s the only time that has ever happened.! ¶ With the European Union’s transparent borders one no longer has a stamp in their passport for each country visited there. When I look back at my old passports and see all of the interesting entry and exit stamps and the visas, the memories of those trips come flooding back. When I last renewed my passport I ordered the model with more pages since my previous passport had no pages left. Now I ask myself, why? There is only one stamp in this new passport and lots of blank pages. Oh well, there was no extra charge for the extras. ¶ Many, many years ago I never dreamed that I would be a world traveler, yet that is what I became. I’ve not visited Australia or Antarctica yet. The other continents have seen my footsteps. This whole blog thing about being a pilgrim started as a record of a journey. There were many trips before blogging became “the thing.” Travel is truly a wonderful experience. When things do not go exactly as planned one still learns something. If nothing else one learns not to do that particular thing again!

¶ There have been some lovely days this week. It was nice to be able to enjoy them. I’ve felt very well. It was fun having lunch with some long-time teacher buddies. We worked at a school that had just opened and we really bonded as a group. A lot of credit goes to the principal who hand-picked the staff and the person that followed him. ¶ Miss Sophia was delighted that a new bag walked into the house this week. That gave her an opportunity to check out the contents and to pose. She loves being photographed.

¶ Next week is chemo week and I know things will go well. I won’t start until Tuesday because of the holiday and I’ll need to finish on Saturday. I had to go on New Year’s Day. It’s kind of spooky going to a big empty building usually bustling with people and being one of two or three in the cavernous space. ¶ Thanks for your thoughts and prayers and all the ways you’ve touched me in the last few weeks. I treasure your support. Thank you also for what you do for others.

Two Dawns Today

I do enjoy the dawn of a new day, particularly a bright one. Today we had a rather nice dawn this morning. This afternoon darkness descended with ominous threats of severe weather. It literally became nearly as dark as night. The continuous rumbling of thunder far away caused one to think that we actually might have a storm. There were some wind gusts, tornado warnings, ping-pong ball sized hail warnings. The music station to which I listen is Minnesota Public Radio and there were so many interruptions for weather reports that I just ceased to listen. ¶ We had some rain and some wind and now the sun shineth once more. As “they” say in South Dakota, if you don’t like the weather wait a few minutes. It is true.

¶ I’d never considered myself a writer. I’ve taught children to write, not handwriting, but writing. I guess I’ve written most of my life. After nearly 38 years as a priest I’ve written two or three sermons. When I’ve traveled and throughout the two years of this cancer pilgrimage I’ve written every week. When I stop to think about it, I guess I am a writer. What I’ve not done, for myself, is to actually think about how writing reveals our true nature. ¶ This past week, one of Henri Nouwen’s meditations dealt with this very thing. I’ll share it with you. ¶ “Writing Reveals What is Alive in Us ¶ Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves: “I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write.” Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. Once we dare to “give away” on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath these thoughts and gradually come in touch with our own riches.” ¶ This week has been very nice. I’ve had time to share with friends, some of whom I’ve not seen in a long time. I’ve felt well, have kept up my exercise schedule, and succeeded my goals most days. ¶ My friend planted some moss roses in the front garden. They looked rather sad as very little plants amongst the stones. Bloom they did, sending forth lovely orange flowers. One of many things that exceed our expectations. One of many things that give us joy.

¶ Cats do sleep a lot. Some experts say up to 20 hours per day. Sophia takes her “big” nap in the afternoon. The rest of the day she enjoys “cat naps.” In the afternoon she chooses not to be disturbed. Her chosen place for her “big” nap is on top of the cabinets in the basement. It’s cool down there and, unless you know she’s there, she becomes pretty much invisible. That’s the way she likes it. ¶ If I’ve been away, she often retires to the basement because she’s bored. When she hears the garage door she heads for the top of the stairs. This is just a show so that I will believe that she has longingly waited for me to return, and please scratch my head. It’s a game and I play it with her. ¶ I hope you have a wonderful week. Thanks for your emails, cards, prayers and thoughts. Thank you for all those things you do for others.

On Thankfulness

As I was on my walk today with the blog in the back of my mind, I pondered the beauty of this day and how very grateful I am to be alive to enjoy it. It has been a wonderful day weather-wise. The high temp was expected to be 75º. I don’t think that was ever reached. The sun has been shining and there has been a slight breeze. All the windows and doors in the house have been open and the wonderful fresh air has wafted through the place. The air conditioner has not switched on all day, and its the 21st of August.!

¶ As I walked along I thought about how thankful I should be that I live in a safe neighborhood, that I have sidewalks upon which to walk, that there are neighbors along the way with whom to stop and chat and that I am healthy enough to take the walk. ¶ I also thought about all the times that I have been less than thankful. I have been given so many opportunities, so many friends, so many experiences, kind and caring parents, a lovely home, everything I need to lead a very good life. I need to learn to live more thankfully. ¶ In the Prayers of the People in the Episcopal Church there is often a place for the congregation to add their thanksgivings. Too often this space is a totally silent time. We always have a lot of things for which to pray. There are those who are dear to us who are sick. We desperately pray for their healing. There are concerns about relationships, often revealed to us with the request that we pray for the people involved. There are our own perceived needs. All of these we willingly poor out. When it comes to those things for which we are thankful, silence.

¶ This last week was chemo week. It is something that I really do not anticipate with great joy. I think the reason is that it encroaches on my time. I must show up at the Cancer Center. I complain that the pharmacy is slow, if they are. I neglect to be grateful when the pharmacy is fast. Every person on the staff does their best to ensure that I am comfortable. The chemo keeps the cancer at bay so that I can lead a normal life. How often do I give thanks for the medicine, those who administer it, and those who invented it? The answer, unfortunately is seldom. For that I am ashamed. ¶ I need to concentrate on leading a thankful life. I need to look upon the things I can do and that I am asked to do with thankfulness that I am able to do those things. Instead of complaining about encroachments on my time, I need to be thankful that I have the time to do what I am asked.

¶ The week went well with no side effects. A little work has been done in the garden but no planting as yet. It’s a bit early to think about planting bulbs. There are so many beautiful choices it’s difficult to narrow them down. Soon I’ll say to myself, just do it! Plants are forgiving. If you don’t like what you’ve done, do it over. Just be thankful that you can! ¶ I am amazed each year when I cut back things in the spring and there is this one green leaf. By August, that green leaf has grown into this gigantic bush covered with little blue flowers and bees and butterflies. It is a miracle. ¶ Thanks for checking in and reading. Thanks for your prayers and thoughts. I am grateful for what you have done for others and for me.

I Don’t Believe It!

Last week I wrote the the landscapers promised to show up this week. They actually did! Tuesday morning bright and early the roar of two trucks was heard. The workers jumped out eager to begin the task at hand. After a conference with the supervisor they went right to work.

¶ The sod is gone, some tired evergreens have disappeared, the “nearly wild” roses were uprooted, new roses planted, some grasses along the east side have found a home, and a new tree installed. It just took a day. Well, almost, since the tree had to be located and collected and a proper hole dug, but it was installed the next morning as promised. ¶ The whole thing looks very nice. There is an area in the center designed for me to add perennials of my choice. That’s was the design on the other side as well, years ago. I’ll still have to mow a strip along the east side, but I can do that. Now plans must be made for the planting. Currently some of the plants are sitting in pots awaiting the master plan, if there is one, and the ambition to plant them. ¶ The west side of the front garden is lush and green with some color from the amaryllis and the petunias. The bush clematis is about to bloom which will create a carpet of blue.

¶ The current outrage in the state of South Dakota is the state Board of Education’s plan to drop several items from the curriculum concerning Native American culture and history. I know that my -elementary education concerning the state began with the arrival of the white settlers. I don’t recall the Native American heritage of the state being brought up in school until I was in college. I truly believe my education was poorer for not being exposed to the rich culture that existed here before my relatives arrived. I am thankful for Native American friends who have helped me to understand and appreciate their culture. I am grieved that current students may be kept in the dark as I was if the current plan is approved. I am not sure what the Board of Education is trying to do with their proposal. It seems to me that it will only encourage the rampant racism already present and all too obvious in this state. ¶ The fruits of misinformation are hitting us in the face. The COVID-19 numbers which were going down are now rising rapidly. The reason is the Delta variant and the refusal by many to be vaccinated. The whole business about masks is too silly to even deserve a comment. It is tragic that children will have to suffer because of the stubbornness of their parents and some elected officials.

¶ My time at the console is nearly complete. I’ve sat there every day this week. Tomorrow will be the last service for a while. I do enjoy the challenge. It is rewarding to reap the fruits of practice. Beginning to learn a new piece of music may be difficult. Actually hearing that composition after some hard work is rewarding. I am grateful for the opportunity. ¶ The week has gone very well and time has flown. Monday begins another week of chemotherapy. I am confident that the time will go by without incident. The staff at the Cancer Center is wonderful. I look forward to seeing them again. ¶ Thank you for reading. Thanks for the prayers and thoughts and encouragement. Thank you for helping others.