Two days ago my computer went nuts, and I could find none of my user directories. I thought they were deleted, gone, poof.
I had backed them up spottily; when my external hard drive failed I began emailing manuscripts to myself after every writing session. But I wasn't very consistent, and a lot of stuff would have been lost.
And I was almost glad.
Not because I don't think it was good work...some wass, some wasn't...but because I am so very, very tired.
I don't want to muscle through this stuff, and try to make it part of my legacy. I should, but I've had more than enough.
And that is a warning from me to me. If I allow myself to stop caring, pretty soon I will allow myself to stop living.
The ending was happy; the files were merely hidden, and it was the work of a moment to unhide them
Is that a word? Unhide?
The drama was for nothing.
But for a moment, I was glad.
Just for fun, here's a musical blast from the past...
Sometimes you realize that the life-script in your head may not be correct.
I lately had the opportunity to see myself through other eyes, and boy, was it an experience.
(This is being written in advance for Five Minute Friday; when I learn the keyword I will try to work it in.)
(The word is EXPECT, and you'll find it below, I expect.)
The story I had built to help me survive was one of keeping faith against hard odds, and keeping optimism and joy in what is a painful and frightening situation.
But what I thought was vulnerability was chalked up to vanity.
What I counted as hope was counted as my self-produced hagiography.
What I viewed as sincerity was labeled 'spin', and a play for sympathy.
What I considered - God forgive me - as muscular faith was dismissed as macho melodrama.
I am a self-styled guru with bad teeth (no money for a dentist) and a long beard who, were he not living off the efforts of another, might otherwise be residing in a cardboard box under a bridge.
Email's really wonderful. You can get feedback so quickly. And you never really know what to expect. (Got the word in!)
It was an eye-opener, and since it came from sources I both trust and respect, may be correct.
Perhaps this is the opening of a window unto the real world, exposing my terminal-illness playroom.
I don't know.
However.
What I do know is this, that two thousand years ago a Man names Jesus took my sins, the ones I did not yet commit, onto His own Heart.
And He was tortured and brutally killed - for me.
He endured three days of death - for me.
The critics may be right; perhaps I have built a Potemkin village of meaning to boost my ego. Maybe it's all self-serving tosh, to make me feel like I can still play the man when every vestige of manhood has been stripped away.
But I still believe the He is the resurrection and the life.
That may, in the end, be all I have to offer.
The musical theme is courtesy For King And Country, with Shoulders. I hope you'll watch the video, and enjoy the song.
Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).
I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.
Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.
WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!
And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
There are simply no words for these days save that they have to be endured, and I have to pull myself to my feet when I least want to.
There are so many cliches. I'm Jim Bowie at the Alamo, waiting for the Mexicans to come through the door to my sickroom.
I'm John Basilone on the edge of the Guadalcanal perimeter, waiting for the Japanese in the night.
And I'm Jesus on the Via Dolorosa.
But the reality is that I'm none of this. I'm just me, trying to keep my bearings and my balance, and trying to remember what I need to do next.
Until I can sit down again, on the floor, my back propped against a wall.
Or lie on the floor, on my side, knees clutched to my chest.
There is no grandeur here, no far-reaching honourifics.
It's a horrible, vile mess, and it must be a mistake on someone's part, somewhere.
This was not supposed to be my life.
But actually, it was, and it is.
At the end of all things, all we're left with is our faith, and our hope, and our love. These are the imperishables, but they're ours to throw away if we choose.
It comes down to a choice, reinforced now, and reinforced again as I finish typing this sentence.
I believe in God, and in my salvation through Christ's atonement for my sins.
I have hope because Christ went before me, and rose from the dead, something witnessed by dudes who had no reason to lie...just the opposite, claiming to see a risen Lord signed their death warrants. And I will love others as Christ loves me, to the end of my physical being and beyond. I will heedlessly spend my energy and life in handing out love, without restraint or any quid pro quo. I will become love.
The musical theme is courtesy Jim Croce, whom I suppose I shall soon meet.
We're linked with Messy Marriage's superb From Messes To Messages - please visit for some great marriage resources!
Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).
I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.
Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.
WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!
And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
This weekend was definitely too much. Too much pain, too much dread, too much fatigue, too much nausea...and so on.
It was as much s I could do, sitting upright and getting from minute to minute...and sometimes I could not even do that.
Only, lying down I couldn't breathe.
And I re-learned a very important lesson - sometimes all you can do really IS all you can do.
I was once a high achiever, and considered relaxation, not to mention vacations, a waste of time. Four hours of sleep was plenty, and I could go, go, go for the rest of the day.
Things have changed. I sleep less, but pain and tiredness proscribe movement to the point where just being able to pay attention for a full houir-long Star Trek rerun is quite an achievement.
I was tempted to compare me-now with me-then, and there were times when I felt so very diminished in my worth.
But then came the epiphany - and it is re-delivered from On High when needed.
As long as I am doing my best, it's enough.
There are no winners and losers here; he who dies with the most toys, or the most completed projects, doesn't win.
He dies.
And what he takes with him is the love that was given and returned.
The love that had to start with a gentleness to himself.
Love thy neighbour as thyself is not an empty phrase.
It may well be a requirement for being able to appreciate Heaven.
Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).
I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.
Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.
WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!
And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
(We're here with Five Minute Friday, and as usual I have to write ahead of the keyword reveal, but I'll include the word if I can...later.) (It's FUTURE,and I worked it in.)
Where was I? Oh, yes. Masochism. Bring the pain, I love it.
Well, not really that, either.
It's severe enough now (and coupled with fatigue) to keep me flat to the floor for long hours. Getting up to write and comment is becoming difficult. Sitting up to watch a DVD is difficult.
It's a 'nasty' pain, like an infection, or a very bad bruise, not a nicely satisfying discomfort like you get from exercise...the 'feel the burn' thing so beloved of Nike and Reebok commercials. (Oh, you think that's baloney, too?)
Anyway, pain hurts, and the conventional wisdom is that we should do what we can to alleviate it. But I don't want to.
Not because it's fun, but because it's leading me to understand something. I have to work my mind around a mass of pain that is both solid and dynamic; I can't escape it, but I can train my body and mind to react in a way that allows me to keep functioning (sort of), and to keep thinking clearly (mostly).
And I can identify, just a bit, with the Saviour who endured agony for me. For me, personally.
That is the main thing pain has taught, and I stand in deep gratitude, even though pain is my future.
For salvation by Jesus' paying my debt of sin - inherited and gleefully practiced by yours truly in his worse moments - that atonement can be nothing else but personal, because I'm not 'one of the mass'. There's no connexion between me and any other person, that links us in some kind of Vulcan mind-meld.
I'm an individual - and I own my sin, and Jesus' owns the payment of my debt.
And He chose to own the pain that went with it.
So I want to own this pain. Not to think I'm evening the score, but to gain some appreciation that the scourging and the walk up the Via Dolorosa and the Crucifixion were made all the harder, because He was carrying me on His back.
And how does rugby come into all this?
Well, I figure that Jesus plays rugby, and when I get to Heaven, I'm thinking I'm gonna find out just how hard the dude tackles.
It's going to be fun.
And it's gonna hurt.
The good kind of pain!
(All of the above is quite aside from the fact that every pain med I've tried had side-effects that were eventually worse than the pain itself.)
And for some reason, I think the best musical accompaniment is Kenny Chesney's Young. What do you think?
Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).
I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.
Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.
WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!
And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
For one thing, when you're already there, there's not so far to fall.
For another thing, my body's used to finding rest in field-expedient situations, using what's there for comfort. A bandolier makes a decent pillow, did you know?
And there's a lot to be learned when you have nowhere to look but up.
Like, looking at dogs. We usually look down at them, but when you look up at their concerned, loving faces, you see not only a seriousness that wasn't there before, but a wrinkly-jawed wisdom.
Sylvia is kind of like Gandalf.
And a two-liter bottle of soda looks plenty tall, and plenty full. A symbol of blessing and plenty.
And when up is the only direction, you realize that God isn't found in the whipped-up mountaintop Halleluiah! moments.
Those moments are fine, but it's more our enthusiasm than the Almighty.
God is present, and hasto be most present when our eye-line is limited to a few inches. That's when we know, as we struggle and fail to rise, that we need to reach out. Need to reach up.
In the silent moments of prostration, when you're face to face with the dust-bunnies under the couch (theoretical, here; not Barbara's couch), you know that you're not, and never were, anything like God's equal. Sometimes I think we get sneaky-thoughts that we are, you know, that New-Age vibe. But not from the floor.
When you can't get to your feet, faith, like a loyal service dog, becomes your giant.
Sorry it's a short post. Too ill, and today to weak to say more. I hope this was enough.
Nothing else would do for a musical theme but Garth Brooks' Friends In Low Places.
We're linked with Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages - please visit for great marruage resources!
Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).
I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.
Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.
WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!
And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
If you're caregiver to a terminally ill husband or wife, there are five words that I guarantee you, that individual needs to hear.
"We just won the lottery!"
Uh, no. Not those. But they would be nice.
The Five Vital Words are these:
I'd do it all again.
Your husband or wife, in his or her illness, feels like a burden; no question. The things that person could do that now have to be handed over to you, the endless requests that have to be made...and above all the soul-shredding nearness of death.
The late Kara Tippets wrote in a very moving blog post that she wished she could be concerned with the trivial again, that the constant round of fighting for survival wore her out.
Same with your mate.
And he or she knows that it's wearing you out, too.
So you've got to say it, if it's true, that the journey you've taken with this special person was worth it, with no exceptions.
That you'd do it again, even knowing the future.
Because believe me, your spouse needs to hear that, more than anything.
Even more than winning the lottery.
And you know what? Even if no one's circling the drain, you both need to hear those words!
The musical theme is from one of my favourite groups, ELO, with Shine A Little Love:
Still hoping to get the new and improved version of Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart up and running in the near future. Just haven't had the energy to do it yet...but if you would like to read it, please say so in your comment and I'd be glad to send you a PDF (which should fit your Kindle).
I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.
Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.
WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!
And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
