Day 5

Well, this is day 5 with this virus.  On Thursday the doctor told me to go home and sleep it off until Sunday and that is pretty much what I have done.  I was up and about the house for a couple hours yesterday which was the first I have been in days.  Tomorrow I am preaching at the Saskatoon Free Methodist Church which oddly enough doesn't list service times on their web site (and they start at 10:30 instead of 11:00 a.m.)  Not that I have a lot of options but I should be strong enough to get through a 20 minute sermon.  They have heard me speak before so they have low expectations.

Wendy has the virus now and so does Mark so we are all doing wonderful.  Even the dog is sick.  On one hand I am glad that it is the long weekend and I don't have to miss any work but c'mon, I finally get a long weekend to do nothing but chill and I am so sick I can't get out of bed.

Technorati tags: preaching, Saskatoon Free Methodist Church

Unique, just like everyone else.

I am not alone with West Nile. It is a record breaking year for the virus in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan has more West Nile cases than any other province in Canada, according to federal government statistics.

Virus

Okay, it looks like I have a virus. Not my computer but me. Doctor suggested it may be a mild case of this but am waiting for more blood work and now I need some more sleep. I am also not ruling out the dog is somehow behind this in her effort to get more space on the bed.

Update: I have been sleeping in 20 to 24 hour chunks at a time since Thursday so I am not at the top of my game and it is West Nile but not the serious I am going to die version, just the annoying flu like symptoms and overwhelming fatigue. I had more energy when I had mono and now even sleeping is tiring me out.

How did I get it? Well I live in Saskatchewan and am kind of used to getting bitten by a mosquito or 50. I don't put on bug repellant that often which may be a habit I may want to change. The good news is that yesterday I was up for a whole 6 hours and only had to sleep about 14 hours to recover.

Slowdown

When I blogged about this, it shook me up far more than I let on. I remember laying in the hedge and thinking, "What is wrong with me?" I managed to hurt myself bad enough that I had to see a doctor about my back and we had a long conversation about what was going on.

It isn't the first time I have fallen lately, it started two summers ago and doesn't happen that often. It has happened a couple of times this summer and I chalk it up as just being clumsy but while my name isn't going to be enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame, I am not a horrible athlete and it wasn't that long ago that I used to relax by playing rugby and I am not a horrible tennis or golf player at the advanced age of 33. Two years ago it was blamed on me taking a drug that was designed to help me deal with the pain of the neuropathy which made sense it also gave me phantom feelings on my extremities and that made it harder to do some things. I haven't taken the medication in over a year and the phantom feelings are thing of the past (the pain is still here but you can't win them all)

This spring I felt quite uncomfortable on a bike and then while taking Mark to the batting cage, I stepped into the cage for my swing and I couldn't hit a thing. Again while no one would confuse me with Barry Bonds (other than we have big heads) but I can hit a softball reasonably well. The whole thing felt funny to me. As I stepped into the fastball cage, I noticed my swing starting later than my decision to swing which I had never noticed before (and I still couldn't hit anything)

Around the same time I started to notice my right hand would slightly shake. The more stress I was under, the more my right hand out shake which drove me crazy. That and I was having some noticeable problems with my fine motor skills at times.

As I talked to the doctor we talked about what it could be and I was expecting what he said. I just went home and didn't even tell Wendy for a couple of days. Now that those days have past, I have talked to some friends and now get to get tested more by specialists to see what is happening. Until then we will see if I can stay upright.

Easter Monday

Some Easter thoughts...

• While I did try to avoid partisan politics this Lent season (and it was worth it), my more serious disciple was to reflect and try to deal with some of the emotions I feel on a daily basis at work.  I did some exercises, journalled them, and talked them over which was good for me.  Looking back at it, the one characteristic that I struggle with the most are those that are self-centred to the extreme, regardless of race, class, or education.  It has always bugged me as it an antithesis of community which I value very highly.  I am working on some exercises to help with my attitude as that is probably the best short term solution.  Eliminating self-centred people will probably take a little longer and of course the first one who needs to be dealt with is me.
• Speaking of work, Easter Sunday was both long and fun.  I thought it would be nice to make sure we had some chocolates to hand out to the residents, so did some other co-workers so there was a LOT of chocolate to be given out to the residents and kids who came for our meal time.  Long in that there was a lot of people all day along around.  I was tired enough that when I got home for work last night, I slept to this morning.  So much for Easter supper, I was out of it.
• Of course this morning after all of the sleep and a thermos of coffee, I was like a hummingbird and I was flying all over the place.
• On Friday night I was at Jerry Reimer's 60th birthday party and I felt horrible.  My feet and my hands hurt so badly from the neuropathy that I couldn't stand it.  I had heard of Neuragen before but saw an ad in the paper.  Wendy went out and got some for me at Shoppers Drug Mart and I whined about the price but I was hurting so bad, I wasn't going to take it back.  So I put some on where it hurt and it stopped hurting, I waited for the pain to return as it always has.  It didn't which blew me away.  You just drop it on where it hurts and the pain goes away.  When I am in pain, it takes about 3 minutes for me to figure out all of the places to put it but then it is sleep, wonderful uninterupted sleep.  I almost forgot what that feels like.  It says no more than five times a day but I just need it at night when trying to sleep.  During the day, I am active enough that it doesn't really bother me.  Apparently this naturopathy stuff does work.  More on its effectiveness with diabetics here.
• We are closer to purchasing a car today.  Lee and Wendy went test driving while I worked.  Edmunds.com makes life a lot easier for us used car buyers.  Tomorrow will be D-Day if all works out well.
• Bishop N.T. Wright in the Guardian ::

25

My brother Lee turned a quarter century old yesterday. The kid loves lasagna and Wendy made a massive pan of it for us, some chocolate cake (it isn't as if diabetes runs in the family or anything) and we watched Pirates of the Caribbean II as a family. We got him a baseball for his PSP and a Calgary Flames piggy bank as well as a shirt so it was a nice night.

DNA Gatherers Hit Snag

This is a great article from the New York Times as well about how DNA gatherers are running into problems in trying to collect the 100,000 DNA samples for the Genographic Project.

Some American Indians trace their suspicions to the experience of the Havasupai Tribe, whose members gave DNA for a diabetes study that University of Arizona researchers later used to link the tribe’s ancestors to Asia. To tribe members raised to believe the Grand Canyon is humanity’s birthplace, the suggestion that their own DNA says otherwise was deeply disturbing.

If you have read much by Jared Diamond or 1491 by Charles C. Mann, you will want to read the article.

Technorati Tags : DNA, Genetics

Obesity, legalism, and food

Like David Fitch, I come from a holiness denomination that bans its pastors from drinking alcohol.  I read this with post with interest and not just because I have lost 60 pounds since getting diagnosed with diabetes

Now I come from one of those denominations. I minister under restrictions of no alcohol and tobacco. My denomination, along with others rooted in the old holiness movements of the turn of the century, still hangs on to the holiness codes that prohibit alcohol and tobacco for its clergy. I consider this to be “an adventure in missing the point,” to quote Brian McLaren, and I believe Falsani helps us see why. Let me explain.

If we prohibit certain behaviors as conditions of fitness for pastoral ministry, are we not really revealing the fear that we lack the character (or fitness) in the first place? If drunkenness and addictions that seek ultimacy other than in Christ is what we fear, why not name drunkenness and addiction as the symptoms that require discernment. Instead we prohibit all use as if to suggest we are hiding something. The total prohibition is a sign that we suspect we don’t actually have character formed in this direction in the first place. If this is true, we are we not really dealing with the issue of whether our clergy has fitness. We are just providing conditions to displace the lack of character (if it exists) to some other object that is safer, i.e. from tobacco, alcohol to food. We really do not have a test of fitness for ministry, just the means to obfuscate that the character may not be there at all.

Technorati Tags : alcohol, food, legalism, obesity

Maggi Monday, umm, I mean Tuesday.

Like David Fitch, I come from a holiness denomination that bans its pastors from drinking alcohol.  I read this with post with interest and not just because I have lost 60 pounds since getting diagnosed with diabetes

Now I come from one of those denominations. I minister under restrictions of no alcohol and tobacco. My denomination, along with others rooted in the old holiness movements of the turn of the century, still hangs on to the holiness codes that prohibit alcohol and tobacco for its clergy. I consider this to be “an adventure in missing the point,” to quote Brian McLaren, and I believe Falsani helps us see why. Let me explain.

If we prohibit certain behaviors as conditions of fitness for pastoral ministry, are we not really revealing the fear that we lack the character (or fitness) in the first place? If drunkenness and addictions that seek ultimacy other than in Christ is what we fear, why not name drunkenness and addiction as the symptoms that require discernment. Instead we prohibit all use as if to suggest we are hiding something. The total prohibition is a sign that we suspect we don’t actually have character formed in this direction in the first place. If this is true, we are we not really dealing with the issue of whether our clergy has fitness. We are just providing conditions to displace the lack of character (if it exists) to some other object that is safer, i.e. from tobacco, alcohol to food. We really do not have a test of fitness for ministry, just the means to obfuscate that the character may not be there at all.

Technorati Tags : alcohol, food, legalism, obesity

-50 pounds

There is a scale at work and the other day I stepped on it and I was stunned to realize that I have lost 50 pounds since I was diagnosed with diabetes.  Last night I stepped on it again and was down another 2 pounds but I think that was mostly water.  I have no idea what my secret was but I assume a no Coke or Pepsi diet has something to do with it.

 

Technorati Tags : weight+loss

Contextless Links

• Brazil loses to France... again
• Somme losses marked 90 years later.
• It's Canada Day today.  The old country turns 139.  The big parties are in Ottawa.  Saskatoon has it's own (rather lame) stuff going on as well.
• Doh!  I get a heart attack 15 years earlier because of diabetes.
• An Al Queda FAQ :: From a list of questions, believed to have been asked by recruits at Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, found by U.S. forces in 2002 in a “safe house” in Kandahar. The questions, which date from 2000 and 2001, were released in February by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
• Speaking of terrorism, big city police chiefs say that the intelligence that they are getting isn't much better then the nightly news.
• England loses in a shootout to Portugal :: England also lost on penalty kicks to Portugal in the 2004 European Championship quarterfinals, to Argentina in the second round of the 1998 World Cup, to Germany in the 1996 Euro semifinals and to Germany in the 1990 World Cup semis. Its lone win in that span was against Spain in the 1996 Euro quarterfinals.

Neuropathy

A lot of you have e-mailed me about my recurrance of the neuropathy and instead of replying to all of them, I thought I would fire off a post here.

The neuropathy isn't connected to the diabetes in that my blood sugar levels are fine and it hurts regardless. The pain takes different shapes but almost all of the time affects my extremities (hands, arms, feet, legs) in a couple of forms that can best be describes as an extreme burning sensation, a slow drill working its way from your hands or feet into your arms, or a sharp knife like pain. Of the three, the burning is the most common while the drilling feeling is the worst and tends to come when I am tired.

The best way to treat it is to walk. While I don't have my pedometer on today, I walk from 3000-6000 steps at work over 8 hours. If it is bad, I also call Wendy and ask her or Lee to not pick me up from work and walk the 20 minutes home. When I get home, I have Maggi who wants to catch some Frisbee and Mark who wants to play soccer so I often get in another 1000 or so steps chasing them down. Lately Hutch has been making a break for it so both Lee and I have been getting some additional exercise.

Travelling can be hard because my feet aren't doing exactly what I described. It isn't just travelling. Many friends have seen me excuse myself and walk for a bit during coffee or dinner. Sitting down for long periods of time just hurts. Once the pain hits me, it tends to stay for several days, affecting sleep (like it is now) which makes it worse which affects sleep some more, which causes the pain to be worse. The medication I take helps but when the pain gets extreme. The best illustration is like sand bagging during a flood. It helps but only up to a certain point. Right now for the next little while, it is past that point.

Hopefully it is cyclical but for right now, it has been quite frustrating because I don't know how long it is going to last. I had the depressing job of cancelling out of some summer speaking gigs and delaying some much wanted vacation plans. Hopefully it won't last for too long.

Neuropathy is back

I found out yesterday that I can't travel more than an hour anymore.  Heading down and back to Toronto was pure agony physically but I kept wanting to blame other things.  I am still paying for driving to Spiritwood and back yesterday.  It wasn't that long ago that I drove from Saskatoon to Edmonton back to Saskatoon to Minneapolis in under 24 hours.  No longer.

Technorati Tags : neuropathy

I am on injured reserve

This is so incredibly stupid but I got hurt at work yesterday.  I managed to hurt my wrist and thumb while looking for a box yesterday in the warehouse.  Lest you think I work in some sweatshop, I just shifted my weight a bit onto my wrist and about 20 minutes later I was in a lot of pain.  It is just a sprain but it hurts to type which really only affects e-mails being returned and this weblog.  Let's be honest, we could all use a break from each other.  The good news is that the broken toes are healing nicely.  The advantage of having neuropathy is that the medication numbs the hands and feet anyway.

Broken bones in my foot

I forgot to mention yesterday that I broke three toes in my left foot.  It only hurts when I walk or stand up which is great for work.  The cool thing is that I think the gabapentin that I take for the neuropathy minimizes the pain a bit... but just a bit.

Random thoughts

• Some of you have asked me how my health has been.  Two words.  Autonomic Neuropathy.  It hurts badly both internally and externally now.
• Ergo keyboards are hard to get used to.  You soon discover your bad typing techniques.
• I am now running Windows 2000 on my notebook.  I miss the old Windows 98 interface.  I am glad to have it back again.
• My review of Reallivepreacher.com is online at TheOoze.
• Maggi has been stalking my every move tonight in a desperate attempt for me to help her find her ball that she lost.
• Ricky Henderson thinks he can play.  I have never enjoyed watching a player play like when I watched Henderson... or listened to him.

In conversation with Stephen Shields...

Today I am interviewing the Stephen Shields, creator the Faith Maps online community and one of my favorite bloggers.  Stephen is also one of the best online hosts I have ever seen.  He managed to deal with the high volume of mail that Faith Maps generates as well as the very diverse theological world views.  My time there taught me a lot about both theology and also community.  We did this interview via e-mail back in January and I have been too busy to post it until now.  Enjoy.

What's your age and occupation.

I'm 45 and I'm USA TODAY's National Home Delivery Circulation Manager. 

How long have you lived in the Washington area and how did you end up there?

I went to college and seminary to become a professor of theology and/or NT Greek.  I wanted to help prepare Christian leaders for Christ's church.  Half-way through my Masters degree, I came to the conclusion that seminaries (at least my seminary) were not training leaders but were creating scholars.  (A big clue was when one of my professors said, "We don't train you how to be pastors but how to answer Bible question.")  I had nothing against scholarship but came to the conclusion that scholarship was insufficient to create spiritual leaders.  And so I no longer had a planned vocation!  I almost dropped out of school but decided to finish my degree and did so in 1986. 

After I graduated, I felt that I was too young to pastor, loved the church community of which I was a part, and so just decided to hang around there and teach in the church.  But I needed to support myself so I took a job as a spot welder in a local metal fabrication factory!  I did that for about 18 months when suddenly one day I asked myself, "Why are you spot welding in the rural Mid-West??"

At that point, I began a search for a growing church that needed teachers (that's how I self-identified then) in a metropolitan area.  I had spent some time with Bruce McNicol (Ascent of a Leader) and asked him to tell me of the best churches he knew of that fit those criteria.  He recommended churches in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.  One of the churches he mentioned was called Community Church and was pastored by a young former English professor named Brian McLaren.  I wrote letters to all the churches - letting them know that I wasn't looking for a job but just wanted to volunteer - and visited some of those that wrote back.  In the summer of 1988 I visited what was just being named Cedar Ridge Community Church and liked what I saw.  I sold my home, and moved to rent a room with Brian's parents in the Washington, DC area in August of 1988 with no job and no friends!

Faith Maps was one of the first online communities dealing with the emerging church.  What was your inspiration for creating Faith Maps? 

Sometime in 1999, I think, I came on staff at Cedar Ridge after many years of lay leadership and involvement.  I worked with CRCC's small groups, adult education, and sat on the church's Executive Team.  I had for many years taught a course on basic theology and after I came on staff I relaunched that course calling it "faithmaps."  I purchased the faithmaps.org domain to develop it for that course. 

But I took on too much:

I was working part-time for Cedar Ridge having the time of my life (really) but putting in 20-40 hours a week;

I was still working full-time for USA TODAY at that time as a Database Administrator/Analyst;
I had been diagnosed with Type II Diabetes in 1996.
Beth and I were parents of three little girls.
And as a result of this too much, I ended up losing control of my blood sugar and getting pretty sick.  So I had to quit CRCC staff. 

It took me a while to recover.  During that time, I purchased faithmaps.org from Cedar Ridge and began to develop it (it's also, by the way, about to be relaunched with a new design).  At the same time, I also started the online faithmaps discussion group.  Doing both of these things helped me to think through my own thoughts and feelings about what's now called the emerging church conversations.  It was very therapeutic and rich.

Were you surprised at how fast it grew?

As far as its growth went, I think that thing that was most surprising to me was the degree of intimacy that developed between some of the core members of that group, most of whom to this day I still haven't met.  We ended up drawing all kinds of folks.  We talked to atheists; we talked to polygamists; we talked to very conservative folks; we talked to folks who weren't conservative; we talked to people who were intensely hurting and had no one else to talk to; and - perhaps mostly - we talked to folks who were very interested in the nexus of the church and postmodernity (it wasn't called the emerging church at that time)

You have been involved in a lot of online community innovations at Faith Maps (I think of your excellent Faith Stories small groups).  What has been some of your favorite experiences as a part of the Faith Maps community? 

Well we did have one fascinating experience with a dear woman in Europe who had (I'm not kidding) fallen and broken her hip, who could not reach the telephone, but could reach her keyboard.  She posted a note to the group and we desperately located a hospital near her and arranged for her to get rescued!  She did have to go to hospital but eventually recovered. 

But what I mostly think of are the wonderful people that I've met in the faithmaps community.  One of my very best friends in the world came into the group very mad at God and the church.  Early in the group we were joined by a professional philosopher named Jon Gold and he helped us think through this intersection of postmodernism and Christianity.  He also had a passionate love for God and for the Bible.  (We were rocked a couple of years ago when he tragically died of a heart attack).  And there have been so many other really precious people who have joined our community through the years. 

Right now our group is at a crossroads and will probably be taking a new direction when the new site is launched.  We've been through a lot of changes in the last 4 years. 

How many e-mail do you read a day?

A lot less than I used to.  :)    A couple of years ago, I realized I was spending too much time online and dramatically cut my time in front of my box.  So I would say that today I probably only read 20-30 emails a day (excluding work emails of course).  It used to be tons more!

What has been best three books you have read in the last year and what has made them worthwhile?

Jordon, I read a lot less books than you do!   :)  Here's the first three that come to mind - I'm sure I'm missing some more important tome!

1. Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman.  I loved this book and found it to be very helpful.  I posted a summary of Dr. Seligman's thoughts on optimism and found a lot of resonance for my faith.
2. Da Vinci Code - by Dan Brown.  I went into the book girding up my scholarly loins .  But Brown's historical revisionism really did seem to be pretty far-fetched and it ended up being a very enjoyable novel!
3. DisneyWar by James Stewart.  Similar to my approach to Da Vinci, I went into journalist Stewart's book on Michael Eisner and the inner workings of Disney with the intention of learning about organizations.  Though very well written, I ended up mostly enjoying the soap opera!

A couple of decades from now, when we look back at this time of new thoughts and emerging forms of church, what do you think our regrets will be? What do you think we are still getting wrong?

We will regret missing the magnificence of God Himself and his Son Jesus.  We will regret not having prayed more, not having cultivated our personal and communal relationships with God.  We will be sad that we talked and read and learned more than we could possibly ever do.  We will regret getting lost in the issues rather than getting lost in Him.  We will believe that we spent too much time in the propositional and not enough time in the transpropositional.

You are a known learner.  If you could spend a year learning from any theologian in church history, who would you choose to learn from.

Augustine

What are your five favorite weblogs?

1. Andrew Jones
2. Ted Olsen
3. jordon cooper (no, i'm not just saying that!)
4. scot mcknight (though I can't possibly keep up with his frenetic mind!)
5. jason clark

This is for my Canadian readers.  You live in the Washington area.  Without looking this up, do you know of the top of your head who Alexander Ovechkin is?

I'm afraid I don't

Somewhere in New York, NHL Gary Bettman is stifling a cry right now...

Technorati Tags : Stephen+Shields, theology, Faith+Maps, Brian+McLaren, church, emerging+church

No blogging for a while

My neuropathy is back with a vengeance.  The good news is that it doesn't hurt that bad when I am work but is incredibly painful once I get home and am not moving around.  Haven't slept for a couple of nights and until I break through this, blogging will be light.  Until then I will be looking for a new nervous system on eBay.

Ugh

Word leaked out that I have been feeling incredibly sick this week. Here's the skinny.

• I started bleeding somewhere in my plumbing quite badly.
• Went to the doctor.
• Sent to specialist for tests.
• Stopped bleeding
• Neuropathy acted up. My feet feel like someone is welding the inside of left foot and outside of my right feet. (I know this feeling as when I was 12 I leaned up on a hot weld while at a rodeo that has permenantly scarred my right leg) The pain isn't constant but hits me every couple of minutes for about 5 minutes or so.
  
• I think this is because of the month long fever I have had almost every night where I wake up drenched in sweat. I haven't slept through the night in one spot in our house for weeks.
• Wendy has been tremendously patient with me and hasn't killed me yet despite me disturbing her sleep. While I don't mind Lee living in our spare room, I would like that room back just so I could sleep down there and not wake up Wendy. Our day bed is probably more comfortable than our couch or the floor.

Technorati Tags : sick, neuropathy

Monday morning

A bunch of you have been asking Wendy and I about my health in a variety of venues. I haven't talked a whole lot about it in the last couple of weeks for the very simple reason that it hasn't been good but to answer some of the questions, here goes nothing.

There are two types of you who are reading this, those of you who think that I am mentally challenged because I don't support the Bush administration or think the future is more Josh McDowell apologetics books. There are also those of you who think that I am mentally challenged because you think I have neurological condition because you can't keep neuropathy and neurological straight in your own head. Neuropathy is a disease of the nervous system. Actually it is polyneuropathy (a bunch of nerve with a lot of pain in them). That's what I have. The brain seems to functioning reasonably well.

I wish I could say I was getting better but I am not. They tell me that the pain will probably be with me for the rest of my days. On good days I am able to manage pretty well. I can do a little biking, some walking, tennis, playing football with Mark in the backyard and if Wendy could learn how to throw an aerobie straight, we could play that. On good days things go well until I feel a little fatigued or I feel some stress but more of that later in the post.

On bad days the pain can't be controlled. There isn't a lot one can do. To help manage the pain I am using some epilepsy pills that coat the brain receptors to confuse the brain into not receiving the pain that I am in. That has side affects, most noticably phantom feelings in my feet and hand and on other parts of my body. The change is the feet is best described by a hockey analogy. The bottom of the skate is curved, called a rocker. Each player has their own preference for what kind of rocker they like. If it is wrong, even Wayne Gretzky will fall all over the ice. That is what my feel feel like. I can walk but it sure doesn't feel comfortable doing so. The most annoying thing is that it has changed how my brain processes the smell of food. It doesn't affect the taste of food but lot's of times good food smells bad. Luckily my vast experience in eating serves me well. I am not taking painkillers. Traditional painkillers like Tylenol or Aspirin don't work. Even morphine doesn't touch it. When I had my heart problems they pumped me full of morphine. It made all of the non-painful parts of me feel good but all of the parts that hurt before, still hurt. The one drug that kind of worked is called Oxycontin, it is basically opium in tablet form and is the same drug that Rush Limbaugh was addicted to. It affected my mood, was addictive, and made me sick and cranky... and it didn't really work. The bad news is that I don't have many alternatives outside of assisted suicide to escape the pain when it gets bad.

What makes the pain bad? In some ways it can completely random but it is caused by stress and fatigue. Once I get a little bit tired, the pain gets a lot worse, especially when I am not moving and lying down is worse and that makes it very hard to sleep. The more fatigue there is, the more pain which keeps the cycle going very vicious until you kind of become sleep deprived. This is when it gets hard for a lot of people around me, especially those that don't really know me that well. Going through cycles of pain makes it really hard to go and hang out with friends. Many friends say, "I don't care if you are in pain" which is easy to say when you have never seen me in any sort of pain. Through all of this, only Wendy has seen me in any pain that I can't hide or cover up. Even if people don't mind being around me when I am in pain (believe me, you don't want to see me in pain), I don't want you to be around me when I am in pain. It isn't like a sprained ankle or even a bad headache. There have been nights when I seriously wondered if I was going to die. I don't want people around when I am feeling that way and that has been most of the last month. I think that has been hard for people around me to understand. People can't understand than 95% of some of my days are just dedicated to not yelling out in pain and I really can't participate in any type of community life and friendships. It's frustrating and even more frustrating when I get accused to withdrawing like I have a choice. Some information I was reading from the Mayo Clinic said that you shouldn't get discouraged and you need to go walk to a friends house for tea when in pain. I know it is written to people who don't suffer from it as bad as I have but stuff like that is easier to print than it is do. Generally I find myself withdrawing some more because stress and conflict makes the physical pain a lot worse. A lot of things have changed since last spring and that is one of them.

I have read a couple articles on people who suffer from neuropatholical pain. Because it doesn't have any physical manifestations, it is hard for people to understand how bad of pain it is. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I think because people don't understand how bad it is, they don't understand how they contribute to it. One of the things that Wendy and I have done a poor job of is define the boundaries with people close to us since I have gotten sick. For us it has been a "pay later" approach which has been pay in pain later some days. Because people don't see me in pain, I think people have missed that hanging out, talking late, and stuff like that at times, has a cost that needs to be paid by me a lot later. Even Wendy and I have had a lot of conflict over this. For our entire marriage, Wendy has worked late a lot. When she comes in she wants to wind down from work and talk. That hasn't been a problem for most of our marriage but it has forced us to change the way we interact on a lot of days. Even Saturday morning, Wendy kept talking to me as she left for work early. It makes the difference many mornings between waking up in a little and a lot of pain.

The stress part is a little different because stress is to a degree environmental and often from a variety of sources. It is also very individualistic. What causes me stress doesn't cause you stress and vise versa. On one hand I have people holding information from me that I find rather important to "protect me" that would never cause me stress and then on the other hand I find myself frustrating people when I withdraw from something because of a variety of factors.

As far how it changes my leadership in the church, it does in that I need to be very careful with my time and energy. Driving to the church and back is four hours so it isn't as if it just takes a couple of minutes to do somethings. What those trips do is influence and to a degree define the rest of my week. Sunday's are a little different as Wendy often drives and I can sleep. For some reason when I have not been able to sleep anytime else during the week, I can sleep in the van on a Sunday morning.

Life stinks right now. There isn't any way to see it any other way. A friend of mine has said this is a little like Job but it isn't that bad. For me, it has just been the process of understanding how life works right now and how do I treat the disease carefully enough that I can hopefully make a recovery, something that hasn't happened so far. So there you go, a small snapshot of what is happening to me right now.

Technorati Tags : pain, neuropathy, polyneuropathy, diabetes, JordonCooper

I will survive

Anyone get the license plate of the Sunday that just ran over me? I feel like this video. So much of this process is two steps forward and two steps back with frequent 285 steps back days. Every once in a while you get a couple of days where there is three steps forward and only two steps back. That was the latter part of this week. I managed to actually go out with Todd and Wendy and then on Saturday, I had coffee with Lee Barbour at City Perk and didn't feel too bad. Saturday night was a lot of steps back and I was in a lot of pain. Yesterday I could barely walk to the pulpit to preach (although once I was up there, I felt a little better). I managed to drive home but I fell asleep once I got home and just woke up here a while ago. Only interupted by the person who broke into our home (umm, thanx Wendy for locking the back door) and this morning finding out Lee's car window was smashed so they could steal his loose change. I don't feel that bad for Lee, we have had a our vehicles broken into enough since moving in that we warn him all of the time about leaving stuff in the car.

Technorati Tags : crime, Saskatoon, neuropathy

Prayer and Jordon

Hi, a lot of you know that when I post on Jordon's blog, I am either making fun of him or he is in a lot of pain. I wish I was making fun of him.

Not everyone that reads his blog believes in God or prayer but if you do, please pray for some pain relief and sleep for Jordon. The disease is a little sadistic in that when Jordon gets fatigued, the pain gets expotentially worse which makes itself more painful when he is trying to sleep. The last couple of nights Jordon hasn't slept well, partly in response to adjusting to medication that is supposed to help with the pain. The result is that he ends up in a horrible cycle of sleep deprivation until he is exhausted and his body sleeps through the pain.

Right now his only option is to go for long walks several times a night to keep on his feet and to escape the pain. With the pain moving all over his body more, the walks are much less effective.

Sadly, traditional painkillers don't work with neuropathy and the pills that they are treating it take a while to work and then take a while to deal with some really bizarre side effects (Jordon's taste for food has totally changed and he has phantom feelings in his feet and extremities).

So far prayer hasn't worked. Jordon read's AKMA's weblog daily and was moved by this sermon about prayer. I thought I would post it here.

Anderson Chapel of St. John the Divine, Seabury-Western
Feast of St Teresa of Avila

Rom 8:22-27/Ps 42:1-7/Matt 5:13-16
October 12, 2005
+

We ourselves. . . groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Long minutes, long hours, lonely and frustrating days – days of prayer. Prayer can be a hard job, which explains some part of why it’s often difficult to persuade people to give it a try, and why even here, the chapel is not entirely full day by day. Prayer costs us the illusion that we can do it all, and that the universe rotates around us. Prayer draws us away from tackling the world on the terms we set, and draws us toward a willingness to meet God on God’s terms. Prayer demands that we offer all, but prayer promises us nothing. That, my friends, is a sucker’s bet, and it’s hard to invite people you care about to be fleeced – all the more difficult if perhaps, maybe, sometimes you aren’t absolutely convinced that this prayer business makes any difference your own self.

As if that weren’t enough, somebody has cooked up the notion that even after the first fruits blossom, prayer ought to be easy: a sweet, comforting, restorative balm for our troubled souls. While I can’t rule out the chance that prayer operates that way for some favored souls, what I’ve heard about prayer runs almost entirely the opposite direction. Somewhere, the green lawns of suburbia surround cozy homes with happily active, prosperous nuclear families, where hurricanes never blow, where earthquakes never shake, where the maid never misses a day and the meaning of debt is unknown. Somewhere prayer always comes easily, and always delights; somewhere, but probably not Pakistan or Guatemala, New Orleans, and definitely not Ávila.

We can’t make prayer easier by some clever technique, as though it were all in the wrist action, or as though it just depended on knowing the right words. Difficulty lies at the heart of prayer, as the whole creation moans and stammers along with us as we labor to focus our attention on God to open our wills to God’s direction. Tedium and vexation accompany us as we wait with impatience to make a way out of our homelessness in a hobbling, heartless world into a shelter prepared for us from the foundation of the earth.

Hard circumstances make hard prayer, and when those hard praying times come your way, remember that you are not alone. When your soul is full of heaviness, when your arid prayer bores and frustrates you, bear in mind that others have found themselves in that desert before you. At those times, you know I will be praying with you, this chapel will be praying with you; Santa Teresa y todos los santos will be praying with you. The whole creation will strain and groan along with your heart. The Spirit itself will intercede with sighs too deep for words – and with the work that you devote to prayer, the Spirit will work along to draw us more faithfully together, to shape our hearts to welcome the truth, to kindle in us the light by which our praying eyes recognize, in the communion of our faithful friends and reconciled enemies, in constant prayer, in labor that takes delight in serving and sharing, the patient, sweet, brilliant glory of God.

Amen

Thanks to AKMA for posting this and thanks for many of you for walking alongside with us on this. It's nice to know that we aren't alone.

Franklin Graham, CNN, and Warren Kinsella

Most of you know that I read Warren Kinsella's blog everyday and back on October 4th, he had this

Good God, and I use the term advisedly.

What next? The next thing you know, a crazed evangelical "leader" is going to call for a foreign leader to be assassinated or something.

...

Katrina/ Graham
Source: The Canadian Press
Oct 4, 2005 9:54 LYNCHBURG, Virginia - Evangelist Franklin Graham says hurricane Katrina could lead to a spiritual rebirth of what he called a "sinful'' New Orleans.

Graham, speaking at Virginia's Liberty University yesterday said - quote "there's been satanic worship - there's been sexual perversion, God is going to use that storm to bring revival."

Graham, the son and designated successor of the Reverend Billy Graham, has about 500 volunteers working in Mississippi and Louisiana.

But the organization has been the target of criticism because of gift bags distributed to displaced children which include Christian tracts and a stuffed lamb that plays "Jesus Loves You.''

His blog post got me thinking about how evangelicals are perceived by liberals, conservatives, and the media. I have a vested interest as I am a pastor in the evangelical tradition and even I have problems with the term. Before I tackle the media's use of the word, Warren Kinsella does quote an article about Franklin Graham (son of famous evangelist Billy Graham) and his recent bought of controversy. Kinsella's article on his website isn't as bad as some of the news reports and sugar coats Graham's comments. Instead of dealing with that, I thought I would handle his quotes directly although I may regret this decision later in the post.

First of all, here are the quotes... "There's been satanic worship. There's been sexual perversion. God is going to use that storm to bring revival. God has a plan. God has a purpose." and then this one in his attempt of damage control. In a phone interview with reporters later that day, Graham said that New Orleans "is a city that has strong ties to the gay and lesbian movement, and these types of things."

How do you defend those quotes? I was going to talk about them but Wendy pointed out to me that she saw him on CNN and Graham explained them himself. I wandered over to CNN.com and I saw this interview with Frankin Graham and Larry King.

KING: Post Hurricane Katrina, evangelist Franklin Graham recently likened New Orleans to a city of sin, saying, "God is going to use that storm to bring revival." The Reverend Graham is my guest now from Boone, North Carolina. Reverend Graham, I want to ask you about that quote.

I want to read you something you said: "There's been Satanic worship in New Orleans. There's been sexual perversion. God is going to use that storm to bring a revival. God has a plan. God has a purpose."

Sir, what did you mean by that? I assume that many residents of the city of New Orleans would take that as beyond insensitive.

GRAHAM: No, I disagree with you. I think there are many residents of New Orleans who would agree with me. The archbishop himself on Sunday at the first Mass at the cathedral there said he prayed that the new makeup of New Orleans would be -- have a stronger moral fiber, free from racial tension and also less rampant self-indulgence. And so, he is praying for a city that has a stronger moral fiber.

The churches that I have met with, the pastors down there, are praying that they will see a change in New Orleans in the years and months to come. Now, New Orleans has been known, of course, as a party city for Mardi Gras, voodoo, all types of things like this -- Bourbon Street.

And, as a minister of the gospel, there are a lot of people in New Orleans that are praying that God will bring a stronger, moral fiber to this city than this city has ever had before.

KING: When you use words though, sort of like, "God has a plan, God has a purpose," I don't assume you're trying to say that this storm happened and hit New Orleans because of any activity of its people?

GRAHAM: No, I certainly don't. I would never say that this is God's judgment on New Orleans or any other place. In the scripture Jesus mentioned some men that were killed in Jerusalem when a tower fell. And he asked the question, "Do you suppose they were worse sinners than all the others in Jerusalem because they died this way?" And he said, "No." He said, "But unless you repent, you, too, will perish."

And I believe God has a plan and purpose for everything in life. And sometimes there are storms in life. And we have to look beyond those storms and just trust God, that God will use this storm in a way that will benefit the people of New Orleans and the people of Louisiana and Mississippi in a much stronger way in the years to come.

There's some good things that can come out of this, even though we don't see it right now. I believe New Orleans will be a much stronger city in the years to come.

KING: Another thing you said in the wake of this is -- and you just touched on it a moment ago. Speaking of New Orleans: "It's a city that has strong ties to the gay and lesbian movement and these type of things." Is it your hope now, sir, that these elements, the gay and lesbian community, will somehow be purged from New Orleans?

GRAHAM: Well, I certainly hope that the gospel of Jesus Christ will be preached. I want to see men and women converted. Jesus said, "I am the way, the way and truth and light. No man comes to the father but by me." I believe that the only way that we can approach a holy God is through the person of Jesus Christ.

And Jesus Christ came for sinners. I am a sinner, and Jesus Christ gave his life on Calvary's cross for the sins of this world. We put our faith and trust in him. God will forgive us and he will cleanse us of all of our sins.

And I would certainly pray that the gay and lesbian movement, the people that have this lifestyle, will come to know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior and experience their sins being forgiven. God -- the Bible says -- "God so loves the world" -- that includes New Orleans -- "that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shouldn't perish but have everlasting life."

...

KING: Let me ask you about -- there's a bigger question here about what type of New Orleans will be rebuilt. Should the energy of church and men of faith like yourself be spent on worrying about what the gay community and the lesbian community does? Or would it be better focused on worrying about what happens in the Lower 9th Ward, where most of the residents live way below the poverty line?

Most of them rented and do not have a right to return to their home. They don't even know if their community will be rebuilt. And their fear is that rich developers will ... get in there, and they will not be welcomed home. What is a better use, if you will, of the focus of the church?

GRAHAM: Well, first of all. I'm not focused on the gay and lesbian movement. That's not my issue. Samaritan's Purse, the organizations I represent, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, we're working with the churches in New Orleans trying to house people. I'm bringing trailers into New Orleans, trying to provide homes and shelters. We're fixing roofs on housing that were damaged. So, that's my focus.

But I agree that there is going to be a land-grab in New Orleans. And, unfortunately, it's going to be the poor people in that Lower 9th Ward and other areas where their land -- I'm not saying it's going to be taken from them, but they won't be allowed to rebuild and someone else will come in.

They will be compensated, I'm sure. But somebody else is going to come in and make a pretty big profit off their misfortune. And that's probably what is going to happen. But you've got a Democratic mayor and a Democratic elected governor, and I would certainly hope that these men and women will do everything they can to stand up and protect the poor.

While Franklin Graham does offer up a response to his earlier comments, others like Repent America (link to Wikipedia, not to the website) have disagreed with him and think that God is trying to destroy New Orleans. My inbox was littered with people forwarding an e-mail either quoting them or started by them claiming that God destroyed New Orleans. Wikipedia has a bunch of people claiming God wanted New Orleans destroyed. The list has the expected listing of crazy's but also includes Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. here and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef here claiming God destroyed New Orleans. Those claims are hard for my theology and understanding of the Bible to reconcile. First of all if God was in the business of destroying the wicked, you would think that Washington D.C. and the headquarters of the New York Yankees would have been destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed and rebuilt many times. The fact that whoever created those My NHL commercials hasn't been struck down by God seem to undermine Graham's arguments. I think part of the problem is a theological one where many evangelicals have a very Old Testament view of God and tend to ignore the teachings of the New Testament. Also in American church culture, the church tends to make God hold the same political values as the United States government and foreign policy. Former Bill Clinton confident, speaker and evangelical Tony Campolo says this in his book Speaking My Mind when he quotes George Bernard Shaw, "God created us in His image, and we decided to return the favor." He goes on and talks about this in length but points out, "For the most part, the evangelical community has embraced the God who is the vengeful warlord and has downplayed the image of God as the suffering servant." I am going to add to this and say that for many evangelicals, the question of suffering is one that they don't want to answer and one easy way is to blame the victims. My mother was blamed for having cancer as being sinful just as I am blamed for suffering from neuropathy. It's a simple answer that seems to distance the person saying it from the pain that the person is suffering. It's a simplistic world view but I am suprised by the number of Christians that hold it. We saw that after 9/11 (ahem, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as well as some from the left as well). That nationalistic militartic streak comes across in churches where the church is strongly in support of the war in Iraq even when most would say that it doesn't fall under the qualifications of the just war theory. I don't know if it is the media or if it is true but evangelicals seem to have a desire for war that is higher than the rest of the population. I hope I am wrong.

Of course the "God destroyed New Orleans arguments" break down because who are the people who suffered in New Orleans? Casino owners? The wealthy? No it was the working poor, those that probably had some of the strongest ties to the church and faith. It's funny because people can say "God Smited New Orleans" (I wonder how much traffic this blog post will get from fundementalists?) as New Orleans is an abstract faceless place. Really we are saying that God is smiting the working poor who had no where else to go and were trapped by poverty and circumstance and incompetance by FEMA and the Bush administration.

As far as Kinsella's reference to Pat Robertson goes. I am not going to defend Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson is not an evangelical. He might say he is but c'mon, Stockwell Day said he was electable, George W. Bush says he is a compassionate conservative, Gary Bettman says he knows hockey, Paul Martin says he is a true Liberal, and Norman Spector says he knows web design. You can say things sincerely and be sincerely wrong. Pat Robertson has confused Republicanism with Christianity (Republicianity may be the largest denomination in the United States) and is a radical fundementalist. A radical fundementalist who claims Christianity, Judiasm, Islam, or even animal rights has very little in common with the movement they claim to represent. Pat Robertson started out as an ordained Baptist but his views evolved from being orthodox to being farther and farther away from the Christian faith. The man thought it was a good idea to blow up Foggy Bottom because of his dislike of Colin Powell and of course the call for Hugo Chavez. Plus, the man lies a lot. According to Wikipedia,

Robertson has claimed his IQ at various times as 159, 139 and 137. In a book Robertson wrote, he described himself as a "Yale-educated tax lawyer," though he had not passed the bar. Robertson claimed he was on a board of directors of a bank, when he was only actually on an advisory board. Robertson's claims of overseas graduate study only turned out to be a summer introductory course for Americans abroad.

Maybe his declining IQ is partially to blame or he could just be dishonest. I'll let you decide.

It isn't just Warren Kinsella's use of the term evangelical that got me thinking, it is the mainstream media as well. Last winter I watched a CNN program on evangelicals. What they described was not something that I would define as evangelical but a form of fundementalism.

The bigger point that I am trying to make is that evangelicalism is a term that has come to encompass a huge swath of Christianity and the media labells anyone that is not a Lutheran or a Catholic with the term evangelical. The word evangelicalism usually refers to a conservative tendency in diverse branches of Protestantism, typified by an emphasis on evangelism, a personal experience of conversion, biblically-oriented faith, and a belief in the relevance of Christian faith to cultural issues. In the late 20th century and early 21st century, Protestant people, churches and social movements were often called evangelical in contrast to Protestant liberalism. With any group like that, you have your more liberal or progressive side and your more conservative side and your fundementalist side. The reality is that the conservative and fundementalist side dominates the conversation on television and in print and it is a form of Christianity that I struggle to recognize anymore. Actually wikipedia would list me as a part of the evangelical left although I personally think that is a little narrow.

Practically when I read the word evangelical in a context that is less then flattering, I can hardly blame them. Yesterday the media was a buzz about how the White House is trying to shore up the evangelical base (sans Stanley Hauerwas who recently said that Bush's soul was in Hell) and I have bashed evangelicals on this blog for their infatuation with political power and their connection to the White House or the Prime Minister's Office (several pastors in Saskatoon hosted Stockwell Day in his bid to be leader of the Canadian Alliance), the exact same kind of power that Jesus repeatedly rejected. If possible, let's occasionally try to remember that the term evangelical is used by us that may be conservative theologically but stronly oppose the version of Christianity that is sold by Pat Robertson and disagree with those that hold to a militaristic view of God.

I am evangelical. Ashamed a little of the phrase but not of it's theology (my understanding of it anyways). Not all of us are power hungry, not all of us care if about Harriet Miars view on abortion, and many of us don't vote for the GOP or hosted Canadian Alliance rallies in our churches. So when you use the phrase remember it does include people like me, Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, Stan Grenz, and others that are thinking a lot differently from other evangelicals but are still part of it.

Then again, I may be off base, if you disagree with me, let me feel the heat in the comments or via e-mail.

Contexless Links

• Huffinton Post has 15,000 comments in their que
  
• Is Technorati making deals to get blog data first?
  
• Roger Staubach :: Dallas Cowboys QB, businessman and now blogger
  
• The bloody and costly Cupcake Wars :: In these the Jedi were not killed but a lot of them developed diabetes
  
• The Guardian has a brand new look and feel
  
• Time piece on the creation of the iPod Nano :: Is it me or does Time do a lot of pieces on Apple
  
• Kodak apparently invented the digital camera 30 years ago but sat on the technology
  
• The depersonalization of Flickr
• Homelessness and the church :: An interview with Regent's Dave Diewert
• So who is emergent anyways?
• 12 Marks of New Monasticism
  

Support Jackie Reimche

My friend Jackie Reimche is running a marathon on December 11th, 2005 for the Canadian Diabetes Association. To go, she needs about $6000.00 (Canadian dollars). She e-mailed me today and I am forwarding her request on to you. So far Jackie has raised about $3000 by doing a steak night, garage sale, and I think she is planning to some drug running and extorsion to help raise the money. She needs the amount by November 2005. Any amount you can give will make a difference; tax receipts are automatically issued for all donations of $15 and over.

Donating is easy. The easiest way that you can do this is on-line, by clicking on this link. You will then need to enter Jackie's name (Jackie Reimche for those of you who have short attention spans) and marathon - Honolulu 2005. And then the rest of the process takes about 5 seconds! If you feel uncomfortable donating on-line, you can make your cheque out to the Canadian Diabetes Association and mail it to Jackie at 1211 Kingsmere Blvd, Saskatoon, SK S7J 5B2

The Diabetes Association is a charity close to my heart right now, as is the idea of sending Jackie a long way away from Saskatoon ;-) For those of you who don't know, I worked with Jackie at Lakeview. Her job used to drive me crazy at times but she was a lot of fun to work with. Anyways, anything can help her and the Canadian Diabetes Association.

Link

Steak Night

Some good friends, Jackie Reimche and Corina Peters are having a Steak Night/Silent Auction to raise money for their marathon to raise money for the Diabetes Foundation. It's on Tuesday, August 23rd at Bridges on 22nd. Drinks at 6:30 dinner at 7:00. Tickets are $12 for steak and $13 for chicken or salmon. You need to buy tickets before that night. It's a good cause and Jackie and Corina are a lot of fun. If you want tickets, e-mail jackiereimche AT shaw.ca. Wendy, Lee, and I are all going to be there and it is a good cause.

Sleep

I got six hours sleep last night which is an upgrade from the two hours of sleep I have been getting the last couple of weeks. A couple more nights of that and maybe the imaginery pink elephant that keeps telling me to burn things will go away.

The pain is gone right now which is nice. I was here earlier this morning and will probably be back later but I was able to get outside and play football with Mark. Mark has his Saskatchewan Roughriders shirt on today so he is all about football. Things were all good until Elway hit him with a chop block at full speed and Mark did a 360 in the air. He almost landed on his feet but kind of over rotated. As he got up, Mark said, "Elway's a lot tougher than I am".

Am off to a series of doctor's appointments today. Let's hope they don't ask for more blood work. The blood lab said they were banning me unless I come back with some new veins. I did find out that I need to drink a lot of water before I go. Apparently that makes it easier to give blood. Wendy and I often give blood. When we go in, Wendy gives her blood, eats her donut, and is sitting beside me most times before the nurse has found a vein.

Thursday I finally get in to see a diabetic educator. It helps me explore my feelings (that will be fun) and come up with "win-win" solutions for my diet. Basically from reading online and the materials that they sent me, we have the blood sugar under control. I saw the consequences of not taking care of it while my Mom lost her leg and I have a five year old son that gives me motivation for not cheating so I cant' see myself getting that motivated on Thursday. It's funny, del.icio.us/tag/diabetes has more information than I can read so I should be well prepared.

Diet is going well. Have aquired a taste for Diet Coke. I have only cheated with three pieces of Saskatoon Berry pie this summer (well spaced out and I worked out afterwards).

Medication

I take around 30 pills a day to control the diabetes and the pain. Most are for the pain. Last night I got home late and fell asleep without taking the pain medication. I woke up at 5 a.m. and thought I would die I was in so much pain. I couldn't walk. I felt parts of my body that didn't exist which made made it hard to function. I hurt inside and out. As I struggled to take my medication I realized for the first time how sick I had become and it scared me horribly. I just sat down here and realized that I am now a slave to my medication. It kind of hit me that the pain is