Isaiah wrote these words about the power of God renewing those who are weak thousands of years ago. They were the first words from the Bible that I remember, as I grew up singing a song based on that passage. I probably first sang the words when I was four.
Until I was fifty-four, I didn’t realize that instead of just hearing about the faithful power of God, I had actually personally experienced that power. When you’re a child and you’re hearing about what God does and doing your own flannel and burlap banner of “God is love,” that’s all well and good and it sounds cool, but it doesn’t mean anything yet. You don’t know, probably, what it’s like to be truly faint, and to be one who has no might. But live long enough, and you do.
Then when you hear the words of Isaiah again, your eyes are opened, and you see that in fact the Creator of the ends of the earth has done that, again and again. In the daily grind, in the darkness, in the struggle when there was nothing good, he was working.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
You’ve likely heard the C.S. Lewis quote, “Pain insists upon being attended to.God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to a deaf world.” It’s impossible to mimic the acute focus that suffering provides. It quiets distractions, and quickly reveals who we functionally believe in, and where our hope resides. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul talks about his relationship with suffering:
” So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all…
Maybe faith and belief in a God above and beyond, who is also nearer than my next breath, is something pure minds were originally made to do.
Since the fall, however, our minds are not what they were made to be. The evidence of damage is in front of us every day. Our minds are prone to error and disease and eventually will fail altogether.
Perhaps there are ways in which our minds were created to function that we can’t even imagine because those ways of being are so far from our experience. Perhaps if you have always lived in a cave, you can’t begin to grasp the reality of the light.
In the past ten months, I have had thoughts, feelings, hopes and visions unlike any I have had in my life. And no, they aren’t manic swings. They aren’t highs brought on by illicit drug use. They aren’t random craziness that could never happen. Some are ideas that at my age aren’t particularly likely to happen, but they aren’t all overblown ideas that are impossible.
For the most part, what is in my mind are hopes for the future that could actually come to pass. I believe that they could and I can imagine them happening. These images and ideas look real.
I haven’t had thoughts like that for years. I haven’t visualized something good happening in my life and the lives of those I love. I had literally no experience of thoughts like that just coming to me, and very little experience of hope just coming to me. I did life one day or one hour at a time, with times that were pleasant and many times that were hard.
There’s also an ability to visualize, to imagine, to know, that there’s more to life than what I can see. Of course, I can only imagine, but I am able to imagine now, when before, I literally never thought of such possibilities. It seems like I have one foot in the door of heaven.
So what is this that’s going on with me now? Is this hope something weird and wrong? Are these thoughts something outside of human experience? Are my experiences and visions of spiritual reality something I’m just randomly making up at this time of my life because I’m desperate for proof of a deeper reality and the supernatural?
I am a person of faith. But doubt has always been at the core of my faith. I am not the person who never wondered. I lived for years not knowing if God was real. I’m very skeptical of claims that some person, place or thing is the new Messiah. Generally, the placebo effect doesn’t happen to me. I’m a pretty good test case for whether a substance has an actual effect.
I don’t believe until I experience it, until I live it.
I think the human brain and mind, which comprehend and experience a fuller life than can be experienced solely by the five senses, were made to run on the building blocks of matter in the universe. But for many minds, the elemental foundation that was intended is incomplete. Some minds have those elements and minerals, but many minds don’t. As has been proven in the treatment of a variety of medical conditions, I think that when the missing pieces are put into place, a mind begins to function more fully as it was meant to do. A human being can live more fully.
I think it’s possible that spiritual reality could be more practically experienced by a mind that is provided with the nutrients it needs to function well. And so for those of us who don’t see with eyes of faith, who don’t believe because it all seems so impossible, who haven’t had those ecstatic religious experiences, the ones we’ve just heard about and dismissed–it’s not our fault. We’re not less spiritual than the person who sees visions. We’re just different. There may be any number of biological, physical realities which are affecting us that haven’t even begun to be understood scientifically.
But the reality of God is no less true for us, just because we live in a world where things are not as they should be. Just because our bodies and minds aren’t perfectly able to comprehend the entirety of reality doesn’t mean God isn’t at work, and at work in us.
And there is hope that we will be made new, now or in eternity, when we will have a true mind with which to see face to face.
When looking at the increased death rates from causes other than Covid during 2020, it’s clear that the efforts to stop Covid deaths by locking down businesses, offices and schools led to more deaths than would normally have been expected from many other causes.
There was some discussion before we locked down about what the negative consequences for our nation and our children would be, but not enough to moderate the eventual plan to lock down. Even as recently as February of this year, there continued to be an assumption in the US that Covid safety was still the main concern. There was no information about benefits and risks of Covid mitigation strategies coming from the CDC, perhaps because they seem to be concerned with disease control alone. Nor did mainstream media outlets stop focusing on the risks of the illness. The US continued implementing all the non-medical interventions to stop Covid that had been used for almost two years. Recently, the CDC unveiled a new method of handling Covid restriction recommendations–marking community levels low, medium or high depending upon the hospital admissions, hospital beds available and number of new cases. This is an improvement over the lack of nuance in the previous guidance, but still a focus on the disease that ignores other causes of death and morbidity.
Yes, absolutely, locking down initially was the right thing to do. We needed time for hospitals to prepare and time for medicine to get a bearing on what exactly we were fighting. However, we have left the initial experience with Covid behind for a long time now, and it is clear how damaging ongoing lockdown was. It negatively affected businesses of all kinds, the education of children and students, and people needing medical and mental health care.
We see the evidence that school closings and remote instruction, although well done by dedicated teachers, have a deleterious effect on students of all ages. Yet just recently, in January and February, with the advent of the Omicron variant, some schools and universities moved to virtual instruction again. Given the availability of the vaccine, and the truth that the youngest people are the ones at the very least risk of death from the virus, with only 1,092 US deaths in people 18 and under from Covid during the entire course of the pandemic, this response to a rise in infections surprised me. The decision was often framed this way: “Due to an abundance of caution, we will return to remote instruction through the next several weeks.”
But it had already been clearly shown that shutting down in-person instruction leads to many more negative outcomes than benefits. It had already been shown that canceling events does not stop Covid transmission, and that even vaccination does not stop Covid transmission.
School closings are just one example of efforts to stop Covid which have undesirable negative outcomes, but there are many other types of closings with negative effects. When places of worship go remote, and events, ceremonies, support groups and concerts all remain virtual or are canceled, damage is done. We have done the experiment, and we have proved that lack of routine and in-person contact at amounts that are needed for each individual is damaging. Yet I’m sure the intention of the businesses and schools which closed was to keep people safe. Somehow, it has been inherently understood by everyone throughout the pandemic that the thing to do to keep people safe is to cancel in-person activities.
But this is not true. So why is this what every venue manager understands? What is this risk that school boards and businesses fear? What will happen if someone gets sick at their venue? Will the venue and the management and the owner and the school district be sued?
There was something driving the reliance on cancelation as the safest strategy. Those plans did not exist in a void. They were not based on current data balancing the low risks of severe illness and death with the greater risks of educational and social disruption. Could the meta-reason be fear of not appearing to be doing enough to stop Covid, and thus being marked as not following the standard of care, and thus being lawsuit-worthy?
I wondered why mass lockdowns were not implemented during the Spanish flu of 1918, and while there could be many reasons, one of them is that culture was not built on a foundation of safety at all costs. It was before antibiotics, before safe surgery, before most people had two or fewer children. Even in 1957 and 1968, with two new flu pandemics, there were no lockdowns.
Before 1970, when these pandemics happened, and especially a hundred years ago during the Spanish flu, death was more accepted as a consequence of living. We view saving lives as a more achievable goal precisely because we have medical advances that save more lives now. Those very advances have helped revolutionize our view of what the greatest good is. Personal health and safety have become the ultimate values in many Western societies.
And here’s the thing.
If the fear of causing harm cancels school and events, when do the facts catch up to reality and lead us to lawsuits precisely because schools and venues were closed and medical and mental health care were less accessible? There have begun to be lawsuits against school districts across the country for these reasons. Children’s learning, mental health and development have been delayed and stunted because of lockdown. People have overdosed and committed suicide because of lockdown. People have died because of dementia caused by lockdown. People have and will die of undiagnosed heart disease or cancer because of lockdown.
If an adverse outcome is a reason to sue, and thus a reason for businesses, venues, schools and medical offices to shut down “out of an abundance of caution,” then any adverse outcome is a reason to sue.
Ours is now a world in which our daily routines and significant choices are built around a bizarre understanding of what safety means. I’m not advocating intentionally driving into a brick wall or preparing dinner on surfaces children have been sick on. Instead, I ask how essential a total focus on death by virus is to a life joyfully lived?
I don’t actually have a written manifesto. What I do have is the above page on which I brainstormed about what I, a woman, want to do. I wrote down what is important to me and what brings my heart joy.
If you look at this photo of my notebook page, you will see that it is handwritten. In some ways, handwriting creates connections in my mind that don’t see when I type. I’m glad to have a word processing program on a computer and I am using a blogging website right now to bring you my thoughts. But as much as I need those tools, when I’m thinking about what my life is and what I, a woman, want to do in it, it really helps to just let my pen do the thinking as it happily scrolls and circles around on that most glorious of substances–a piece of lined paper.
On this page, I wrote down what is most joy generating to me. Then, I looped related topics together. I was able to sum up five foci and list them at the top of the page. These are the center of who I am, and I have recently embraced that these heart interests are who I was meant to be.
You will also notice that there is nothing here about a specific career in the working world. Oh, yes, I’ve definitely been working all these years. After teaching at a community college for several years, I cared for my small child at home, and just when I had my daughter, born at home, I started homeschooling my son. What started with kindergarten became a complete education, and I am now rapidly approaching the graduation of my youngest son.
And this is a great thing. I’m amazed and delighted at the time I have had with my children, learning together. But none of this work was paid work. And the remaining work I have in mind is also unpaid work. It is not what society would consider a career. Yes, if I could get paid for my writing, that would then be paid work. But would it only have value once that electronic payment hit my checking account?
And would loving people and caring for them have more value if they gave me money to do it?
And so, this is my feminist manifesto, that I as a woman have approved. This is what I, a woman, choose to value and what I choose to do.
Heat one cup milk to lukewarm. Add the coconut oil. Let it sit while you mix the sugar, salt and 2 cups of the flour in a large glass bowl. Mix milk with the dry ingredients. Add 3 well beaten eggs and mix well. Add 2 1/2 more cups flour and mix well. Then knead in the remaining 1/2 cup flour, adding additional flour if needed, until smooth and satiny.
Let the dough rise until double in bulk in a warm spot, about 90 minutes. Punch down and divide into thirds. Roll each third out one direction so it is a long oval. Spread with 2 tsp. of the butter. Mix the sugar and cinnamon, and then sprinkle a couple teaspoons of that over the butter. Slice into slightly more than 1 inch strips length wise with a pizza cutter, and then roll each long strip up. Repeat with the other dough.
Place into a greased baking dish about an inch apart. Let rise again for 1 hour. Bake immediately in a 350 oven for 15 minutes. Let cool; then frost.
Frosting
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
5-6 T. milk
Mix the sugar, vanilla and milk together until spreadable, and spread the frosting on the rolls. If you want to reheat in the morning, I recommend the microwave instead of the oven. Cutting the dough into long strips makes delightfully pleasing giant rolls. If you want them smaller, don’t roll the dough into an oval; just roll it into a circle.
It was never planned. We were told over and over that Afghan allies’ evacuations were being worked on, but nothing happened because nothing was planned.
And here we are, with the world rightly shocked and angered at the invasion of Ukraine. In many ways, however, Ukraine isn’t our direct business. Yes, it’s evil and infuriating what Putin has done. But it’s not our country and it’s not our military.
Afghanistan is. We were there. We helped. Then we left.
And the Afghanistan debacle looks worse and worse. It’s so obviously bad that even someone who is not military, who’s not a strategist, who’s not a historian can see it.
It wasn’t a necessary follow-through to the commitment we made to withdraw troops. It was actually a gigantic betrayal.
Of historical events that will live in infamy, this is among the worst.
Why does this happen again when I know what my strengths, gifts and accomplishments are?
I know that my thoughts are rational today, as they have been for over a year, and I know that I’m doing what I’m called to do for today. So why is it when I see another person’s ability and what she accomplished, I ask myself why I don’t know how to do what she does?
I see someone who’s gardening and cooking with her own produce. I used to garden, but got to a point where I decided it wasn’t worth the fight I was having with black spot and other mold related problems on the plants.
I see someone who’s working with faith-based groups to help welcome refugees. I’m hospitable, but I’m not doing any advocacy work currently. Wait, I did write a few letters last week on that topic.
I see someone who is working from home for a [fill in the blank] firm, and caring for her small children. I’ve never done that.
When these moments happen, I look at what I’m doing and what I’ve been doing for the past 25 years. I look at my current job title. I imagine what other people looking at me see. They must see something because I have 27 years of experience parenting, and many years of knowledge in a variety of related areas including childbirth, homeschooling, writing, autism and disability. What do they see?
And then–“Do I really know what I’m doing?” After all this time, doing what I’ve been called to do, being who I am, I still find myself questioning in this way. Why does this happen when I know what my strengths are, know I have them, and know what I’m doing?
More than that, why, when I know the source of those gifts? when I know that all the actions, all the doing, are not the criteria? The source of the gifts and the giver of all knows me, and that is what my worth is based on.
What we grow up listening to informs our narratives and our lives. Here’s one example.
I have lived in the country since I was 27, and on the edge of a small town for 3 years before that. My family lived within a national park when I was a child, on the Crow Indian reservation in Montana, and literally on the side of a mountain in Juneau, Alaska. But my family also lived in the heart of San Francisco and in metro Denver, which is definitely not the country.
But I have never wanted to live in a city, and honestly, I’m not really a fan of visiting them. It does intimidate me to navigate a new place with so much traffic. But beyond that, I just don’t see the appeal. As much as I would like to visit the Smithsonian again, I haven’t made the trip into DC since I was nine years old. As much as I would like to gaze up at the State of Liberty, I haven’t liked it enough to take my family to NYC. I don’t feel a thrill when driving the one-ways downtown, and I never will.
Our family went camping in the west instead, in the most remote places we could find. One such was Canyonlands National Park. If you want to see the stars, go there. It is dark at night, darker than you can imagine if you’ve always lived in a city or town. Stars glow in every inch of sky.
And I currently do live in the country, off the beaten path, on a gravel road that turns off a ludicrously narrow county road. It’s quiet. There are frogs in the pond and fireflies every May and June.
This morning, I found myself thinking of a John Denver song I grew up listening to, “I Guess I’d Rather Be a Cowboy.” In the bridge, John opines, “I’d rather live on the side of a mountain than wander through canyons of concrete and steel; I’d rather laugh with the rain and sunshine, and lay down my sundown in some starry field.”
While there are many sentiments in music that it isn’t wise to follow, and while I certainly didn’t set out to deliberately pursue a life in the country rather than in the city, that’s where I am.
If you had cracked skin at your fingertips near the nails every winter, which randomly split open painfully on your thumbs and first two fingers, would you seek a solution to that situation? Would you find out what you can use to heal dry skin? look for a soap-free handwashing alternative? use liquid bandage that could be used to protect the cracked skin and draw it together while it heals?
If you didn’t think about taking these steps, why was that?
Cleaning my rings is something I did for a few years after I got married. Then life just seemed to get too busy and I decided it was too much work. Maybe I was also concerned about the cost of the cleaning fluid? Or I forgot where to buy it? I’m not sure. But, I didn’t do it for years. The only cleaning my wedding and anniversary rings received was when I got them inspected by my jeweler every six months.
Four months ago, I decided I was tired of the tanzanite stones looking foggy. I found jewelry cleaner at Target. I bought it, took it home, and plopped my wedding ring and my fifteenth anniversary ring in the cleaner as directed.
Five minutes later, I gently scrubbed the rings with the enclosed small brush. The rings looked beautiful, sparkling in the light in the kitchen. The anniversary ring, with three peaceful blue tanzanite stones in it, flanked by four little diamonds, was lovely. It brought joy to my heart to see the present reminders of my husband’s faithful love for me shining like his blue eyes do when he looks at me.
Why was that so hard to do before? Why did I not do that for literally 30 years of our marriage?
Also, I’m making dessert every couple weeks. I only made desserts for holidays and special occasions before.
I have found this happening again and again in the last twelve months. This being doing things. Getting ideas I didn’t have before. Deciding that I do want to follow up with a project or concept.
In these past twelve months, I have been as emotionally stable and solid as I have ever been. Before that, I lived with waves of depression, some anxiety, and some times of energy and enjoyment. But for most of the last forty years of my life, I lived in some level of mood disorder. So now that I feel better, and am solidly in the present each day, I also find myself making little changes. I’m doing these little things that seem perfectly obvious.
But they weren’t obvious before a year ago.
Who knew that not trying is depression?
Who knew that the inability to see that a problem might have a simple solution is depression?
Who knew that not taking care of yourself is depression?
Not only is depression living in a grey cloud–it permeates the smallest tasks. But you would never know that if you’ve never lived outside the cloud.
Joy in the Journey 