Te Agradecemos Santo Padre

The patient I had the honor of caring for was an elderly, gentle Mexican man. Prior to entering his room, I spent some time looking at his chart. He had had an ischemic brain event (like a stroke, but caused by occlusion of his carotid artery) a few days ago which had led to emergency surgery to open up his left carotid. The surgery was successful and allowed him full sensation and motor function of his right side. However, he was not yet able to speak. After thoroughly examining his chart and looking up the various medications he was on, I went down the sterile , septic smelling hallway to his hospital room.

As I turned a corner, I found myself on Holy Ground.

There in the room with him was his family - two elderly women dressed in long skirts, bright colors, scarves on their heads and an elderly gentleman in a straw cowboy hat. Also in the room was a younger Mexican man in scrubs who worked at the hospital - family friend. I walked in and was a little disoriented. With the traditional clothing, only Spanish being spoken, and the way that the family loved on each other, hugging and kissing on the cheeks - I felt as if I was no longer in America. Such beautiful loving people. I shook hands with each person in the room and introduced myself. The two men who spoke English explained what was going on. They were calling a friend in a neighboring town so that they could all pray together. I think they were letting me know so that I could leave the room, but I asked if I could pray with them. We stood in a circle, holding hands. They prayed like I do not see Americans pray, each person praying out loud and simultaneously. I couldn't understand all of the prayers as they were in Spanish, but I got the gist of them. They were thanking God for this beloved family member's life.

Te Agradecemos Padre, We Thank You Father

What an absolute honor to enter into prayer with such loving, humble, sweet people. Where I may have otherwise felt awkward or culturally out of place, thanking and praising God together brought me into close relationship with these strangers immediately. There were no longer walls of cultural or language barriers, but rather bridges of unity from a shared love of the same Father. I love the way that communal prayer and worship transcends all discord and transforms human dissonance to harmony. I love that anywhere I go in the world, I can pray with someone, even if they are of a different faith, and we are simply children sitting at God's feet. And there we are, people praying, more alike than we are different. I love that my chosen profession of nursing is holistic, incorporating all aspects of being human including spirituality. I am so glad that I can openly pray with the patients I get to take care of without any fear of reprimand from my instructors or hospital staff. I am grateful that the nursing model of health care, sees the whole person and stands firm on the knowledge that a person's God and a person's family and a person's story and a person's integrity and a person's beliefs are as important and even more important than a person's disease. People are made up of so much more than their bodies and I love being able to care for whole people, and not just their symptoms and illnesses.

I met a woman who had been married for 53 years. She told me this as I changed her diaper. She told me that she lives with her husband and smiled wide as she informed me that her husband is "swell". Later on, I saw them walking the hallway hand-in-hand, still in love after all those 53 years. She told me that their secrets to marital longevity are "having a sense of humor" and "understanding" and "not getting angry about little things". Pretty basic but very wise.

I cared for a woman tonight who had fuschia fingernails and a green owl ring on her hand. She was severely crippled and just so remarkably vulnerable as I changed her diaper and cleaned up the stool leakage on her bedding. She no longer has motor control and her body no longer stretches out and her legs are permanently folded into a tight fetal position, making it quite challenging to provide care for her. It is easy, especially in the early stages of nursing education, to get caught up in caring for bodies and performing difficult care tasks, and fail to look a person in the eyes, to smile; to listen to them and hear their story. This woman could barely express herself verbally but when I looked into her eyes, I could tell she knew exactly what was going on. As I began to speak to her and keep eye contact, we began to communicate without words. The infected pressure ulcer on her backside is deep enough that I can see her tailbone. It will likely never heal and will probably be the cause of her death. But I know she is a woman who wasn't always like this. She has children and a home and a story of life before Multiple Sclerosis. She has watched her independence, her footsteps, her voice, all of life as she knew it faded away. Yet still, the light in her eyes and her song remains. Te Agradecemos

Tantrums and Tables

So last night I had the truly unpleasant experience of watching a grown man throw a temper tantrum. And tonight I watched the film Girl, Interrupted while reading about borderline personality disorder. Let me tell ya, nursing school will turn you into a hypochondriac. As so often happens as I read about various diseases (psychiatric or otherwise), I began to compare myself to the symptomatology of borderline personality disorder.

True confession, I am not a guru, nor shining example, of mental health and well-being. I know, I know. I do appear to be pretty much perfect, but I am, in fact, not yet entirely restored to the fabulous creation God designed me to be. As I went through the list of borderline symptoms, I saw so many things that sounded much like either who I had been in my past or who I currently am. For example, impulsive, check. I prefer to reframe it and call it spontaneity, but whatever the name, I've got it. Inappropriate anger, check. Mood instability, check. Identity disturbance, check. Dissociation, check. Fear of abandonment, check. Feelings of emptiness, check.

The DSM-IV allows a therapist to diagnose borderline if 5 of 9 criterion are met. I just listed 6. This caused me to think three things: a) Borderline is a "junk drawer" diagnosis. Like your daily horoscope, many people would look at it and go "Aha, That's me!", and b) These symptoms are often exhibited in response to an unmet need in childhood...a crying out of the inner child, if you will, and c) These childhood needs are all the ones that God has worked on and loved on in me.

And this threw a whole new light on the words of Jesus in Matthew 18. Jesus tells the people that they must come to Him as a child. To me approaching God as a child means coming in innocence, gentleness, humility, fearlessness, honesty, freedom, and wonder. In terms of healing, God wants to do the work. He wants us to come to Him like little children and let Him meet our needs. He wants to fill up the empty places. He wants to be the One who will never abandon us or let us down or reject us. He wants to root us in Him and stabilize us and reveal our true identity. He teaches grace and peace where there was once hostility and bitterness. He teaches us that it's okay to be angry at the things that are unjust, cruel, and just plain ugly. But He shows us fierce love and teaches us to throw over the tables of injustice (Mark 11). And He does it as He does all things, with grace.

God, thanks for being absolutely crazy about we humans, no matter how crazy we are. Thank you for inviting us to come to you as children, and for loving us as Your children. Thank you for the way that You heal our brokenness as simply and sweetly as a mother kissing a boo-boo. Thank you for the way that Your love makes us whole and healthy and well.

And next time, when I experience one aforementioned grown-up throwing a temper tantrum, I will say a little prayer for the little hurting kid inside of him - that God would kiss his wounds and that he would get healed up, that God would turn his world upside down and love him to smithereens.

But, God, if you want me to throw over some tables and lay the smack down, just let me know.

Pacemakers

A physiology lesson: The heart contains these curious little nerve cells which spark the heart's intrinsic electrical conduction system. These cells set the basic heart rate, rhythm, and pace of our heartbeat and are aptly named, pacemaker cells. These pacemaker cells in the heart spontaneously fire, a unique cellular trait called automaticity. When pacemaker cells fire, they spurn an electrical charge to which the rest of our heart nerve cells respond. Cardiologists refer to this response by other heart nerve cells as capture. The nerve cells respond (capture) and electricity courses through the tissue, the heart muscle contracts, fills with blood, and the blood is pumped to the lungs to be oxygenated and to the rest of the body to give life. The blood that flows through us is the life force that carries the oxygen and food that nourish our body and allows us to live and move and breathe. If the pacemaker cells did not spontaneously generate a charge, the heart would not beat, the body would not live. However, because of the automaticity of heart cells, the heart will beat without input from the nervous system. This means that the heart will continue to beat, even outside the body, as long as its cells are alive. I love that, while it is generally understood that pacemaker cells slowly depolarize as ions pass through membrane channels, scientists still don't really understand how exactly pacemaker cells in our heart spontaneously generate an electrical charge. I like to give credit to God for starting the chain reaction that gives us life. I think that the impetus that causes our pacemaker cells to fire is the Godspark in us all...the breath of life.

So basically, the heart according to me:

• God breathes life into us
  
• then pacemaker cells spontaneously fire and send electricity through the heart
• electrical stimulation causes the heart muscle to contract
• heart muscle contraction fills the heart with blood
• blood gets oxygenated in the lungs
• oxygenated blood get ejected from the heart and feeds the body
• the fed and oxygenated body allows us to walk and talk and think and see and smile and create and....love

Sometimes things go awry with our hearts. Sometimes they fail to spontaneously fire. Sometimes they do spontaneously fire but the other nerve cells don't respond, they fail to capture the signal. They don't pick up what the pacemaker cells are putting down. This is called a heart block. When the pacemaker cells stop pacing or when they send out a signal too weak, or there is a heart block, a prosthetic electrical device can be implanted in order to artificially spark the heart. These electrical devices are called....well, pacemakers. They perform the function of the pacemaker cells when they fail to adequately do their job.

Lately I have been in a bit of a funk. I have somewhat isolated myself from my people and have spent a lot of time laying on my bed staring at the ceiling and listening to my own heart. And what does my heart say? Well, the normal "lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub" heart sounds speak to me a little differently these days - they say "look-up, look-up, look-up". Interestingly, this is the one thing that I am finding the hardest to do these days and yet, the most essential thing for my well-being. Whether or not I respond, even if I fail to capture His spark, God continues to breathe life into me, to speak to me, to beat my heart to His rhythm which says softly over and over again "Look-up, Look-up, Look-up".

When I look up, I look into God's eyes and see where my help comes from. I see the people specifically placed in my life who are my "pacemakers" when I have a heart block or I fail to capture God's electric lovespark. My world is filled with pacemakers, people who live their life in response to God's lovespark and generously pass it on to others. Thank you, wonderfully loving pacemakers. Thank you for the consistent phone calls. Thank you for not letting me isolate myself and stare at the ceiling too long. Thank you for taking me out for sushi and Thai food. Thank you for asking the tough questions. Thank you for walking slowly beside me as I hobble along. Thank you for not flinching or squirming when I get all weepy. Thank you for hanging in there with me as I wrestle with God and question the ways of this broken, lovely world. Thank you for sitting silently until I am ready to talk. Thank you for listening to me lament. Thank you for praying. Thank you for loving me wherever I am at. Thank you for all the many ways you all nourish my heart. Thank you, my pacemakers, for sparking. Thank you for generating new life.

I am most grateful.

So Precious

precious (presh'es) adj.1. of high cost or worth 2. Dear; beloved 3. Affectedly dainty

The best thing about death is life. The best thing about sorrow is joy. The best thing about alone is together. The best thing about grief and loss is the love it requires.

Last week, on the way to Judy's funeral in Prescott, I stopped in Tucson and stayed the night with my brother Martin. He and his family are really good at just loving the bejeebers out of me. I was especially grateful for their skilled loving while I was in the midst of tears and grief. Martin's bear hugs and contagious belly laughs, my sister-in-law Diana's irresistible sense of humor and sweet smile, my niece Miya's chubby little arms reaching out to be picked up...oh-so-good, so so soooo good. My cuddly lovebug nephew, Xander, has this charming way of speaking straight to my heart. He snuggles up to me puts his hands on my face and says "Oh, you are just so precious!" He puts his fingers on my mouth and says, "Your lips are beautiful and your hair is so pretty," as he pulls my hair over my face. Whenever I go to their house, Xander meets me at the door, latches on to me, and pulls me away to show me the new toy he has or the new game he has made up. At 5 years old, Xander loves without fear or hesitation, his affections are undisguised and uncalculated. He simply adores his people and lets them know it.

At the hospital this week I held an elderly man, Billy, in position as he got an ultrasound of his aorta and kidneys. The doctor's thought that Billy might die of heart failure in the next couple of days. He writhed and cursed in pain from the pressure of the ultrasound on his abdomen. He was angry and hurting as he cussed out each of us in the room. But then he cried outloud and he reached out his hand toward me, a plea for comfort. Billy is a huge man (probably 6 feet tall 300lbs) and his hand was large and strong with wrinkled papery skin. As his giant hand enveloped mine, I couldn't help but adore him. This week I am overwhelmed with affection for those around me. I feel like Xander. I am totally enamored. I can't help but love everyone I encounter. I look at someone and regardless of age or gender or disposition, I am charmed. I find myself caught up in their every detail like a passionate lover....the words they use, the glisten on their teeth as they smile, the way their hair falls just so, the mismatched clothing, the rough patch of dry skin, the crow's feet and blue sapphire earrings, pot belly, stretch marks, calloused hands and crooked teeth. When I look at those around me, even complete strangers, I just want to climb up into their lap, put my hands on their face and say, "Oh, you are just so precious!" When I pray with or for someone, I ask God to allow me to feel His love for that person. I think that this week has been the closest I have ever been to really understanding God's heart for us. Unconditional. Generous. Patient. Full of Grace and Mercy. I am simply captivated. Every single person I encounter is just so stinkin' precious that I can't hardly stand it. I just want to soak them up, to know their heart and their mind, to listen to what is important to them and care for what matters to them.

I have been entirely slow this week. Every moment captures my full attention. Every second moves my heart. God beckons me to stillness. Slow it down. Take a pause. Breathe. Take it in. Take it all in.

I am delighted. Delighted in you. Oh, you are just so precious!

27 of 27

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Being Three Cubed

(Three cubed = 3^3 = 27)

*In no particular order, obviously*

• Wore a funny hat and got a diploma, put on a sombrero and had a fiesta
• Had the best going away party EVER
  
• Moved away from Fort Collins...and cried as I looked in the rearview mirror and realized that Fort Collins had become home
• Returned to the desert and remembered how much I love it
  
• Became a nursing student
• Put many a Foley catheter in all my favorite mannequins
• Was astounded when amazing friends flew me home to Colorado from New Mexico
  
• Learned that therapeutic communication with the mentally ill = listening and loving
• Had my first visitors in New Mexico: Vanessa, Deanna, and Elijah.
• Sang Christmas songs during a torrential monsoon on a mountain top in East Nepal
  
• Slept in a hut next to a pile of roasting corn
  
• Became a dudh chiya (milk chai) addict
• Was totally stoked about drinking milk in Nepal without my lactase pills
  
• Trusted God to be my provider and He, of course, gave me all I needed and then some
• Hiked hundreds of miles on two continents
• Lived in a climate where I didn't need to put on winter weight to keep warm
• Said goodbye to and grieved the loss of a dear friend
  
• Went to my hometown 3 times
  
• Tried spinning classes...totally hooked
  
• Tried hot yoga...loved it!
• Became long distance friends with folks in Nepal, India, Colorado, New York, and, oh yeah, Chicago :)
  
• Made a whole mess of new friends in New Mexico
• Learned how to let winter be winter
• Became acutely aware that I am NOT in charge, PHEW!
  
• Became a green chile snob
  
• Learned how to eat with my hands Nepali style
• Sobbed with a Nepali woman as we prayed for her to be healed of cancer
  
• Sang in a warm summer rainstorm walking down the streets of Seoul with Kierna and Trissa and no umbrella
• Acquired some oh-so-essential (and stealthy) ninja band-aids
  
• Learned how to swim...sort of...in the shallow end
  
• Forgave...really and truly forgave someone when I didn't think I could do it
• Had the second best nap of my life on a beach in Kauai
• Made friends with a Nepali kid after I (accidentally) hit him in the face and then fed him cookies
• Developed a real deal friendship with my big brother
  
• Kissed my niece Miya's sweet little face hundreds of times
• Spent hours and hours building Lego cities with my nephew Xander
  
• Ran miles and miles and miles along irrigation ditches in pecan orchards
• Taught some Nepali kids my favorite church song, "Big, Big God"
  
• Became a fan of home church
• Fell in love with Jesus...again
• Was intentionally single for all of my 27th year
  
• Cried as I watched my kid sister graduate high school
• Discovered dark chocolate and chili powder covered mango slices. Yummy!
• Ate my first whole, raw garlic clove on my last evening of being 27. Thanks Mike! (Hint: if you try this at home kids, chew it up real fast and swallow with a glass of water)
  
• Wrote a list of 27 of 27 which turned out to be far more than 27 items long...oops!
  
• The years just keep getting better and better
  

L-O-V-E

This week has been a rough one. This week has been a beautiful one. This week has been a time of joy and sorrow. A time of peace and crying out and peace again. A time of listening. A time of praying. A time of comforting. A time of grieving. A time of scratching my head and going hmmm softly to myself.

This week, the world lost the light of a beautiful soul. Judy passed away peacefully last Saturday. After courageously engaging in a fierce four year battle with stage IV breast cancer, she went home. We all gathered in Arizona to mourn our loss and to celebrate her life.

Wednesday, I had the opportunity to sit by Lynx Lake with her 11 year-old son Nicholas and talk, listen, pray, and cry. We talked about Judy. We talked about life. We talked about heaven. Nick said that he thought heaven might look a bit like Lynx Lake: still waters, tall pine trees, blue sky with fluffy clouds, quiet. It felt a lot like heaven to me. I can't think of anything more delightful than peacefully sitting beside still waters under a canopy of pine trees and blue sky talking to my young friend about his mother. The three of us had a conversation - me, Nick, and God. It was lovely. It was holy ground.

Later that evening, I met a man who preached at me and let me know that "Now that you have acknowledged Christ, you must O-B-E-Y, obey!". I looked around me to see if I was at a spelling bee. I wanted to respond with, "I love Jesus, J-E-S-U-S, Jesus". I am into obedience also, but I believe that obedience and service arise out of love. Christianity without L-O-V-E is simply missing the point. As I sat and patiently listened as this kindly gentleman sermonized, I thought back to my afternoon at the lake with Nicholas and I thought about my dear friend Judy. And I thought, I must L-O-V-E, love! That's where it's at

Judy was a woman who knew how to love. She embodied love in the way that she generously shared her heart and her spirit with all that she encountered. She was completely open, honest, genuine, and real. The first time I met her, she gave me a HUGE hug before she even gave me her name, and I said to myself "I am in, I am so in." I was totally hooked. We laughed together and we cried together and she welcomed me into her home and into her family. Judy was the best kind of woman friend. When I needed a sister, she was a sister. When I needed a mother's advice, she spoke honestly. All of the time, she was a tried and true, trusted friend.

From walking with Judy through cancer, I learned more about God and how He operates. I learned about big faith. I learned about true hope. I learned that sometimes when we pray for healing of the body, it is actually the heart and soul that get restored. Through cancer, God did something astounding and holy in the innermost chambers of Judy. Even as she experienced pain and suffering and heartache, God revealed His heart for Judy as He remained ever loving, ever faithful, unshakable, unchangeable, and rock solid. Through cancer, Judy and her husband Skip developed a Johnny and June kind of marriage - an unconditional, sacrificial, and interdependent love. Judy became more whole and more beautiful even as she lost first her breast and then her hair. Her presence was so much greater than her body as she began to slowly and painfully slough off her mortal coil. Through cancer, Judy's relationships deepened and she became the best forgiver I ever did see. Judy was able to forgive the things that for many of us, would seem truly unforgivable. She forgave easily, openly, with a smile and an absolutely delectable Judy hug. She often spoke about the big eraser she used in forgiving those things in the past that had once weighed heavy. Skip told me that I could have anything from the house that reminded me of her. I didn't need any tangible object, but I did walk out of their home with her giant virtual eraser in my back pocket to remind me that my God is a God of forgiveness, clean slates, and new beginnings.

The funeral service was filled with tears and laughter and I half expected Judy to start laughing with us from her open casket. Looking around the room at all the faces, there was so much love for this dear lady who had so intimately touched each of our lives. Judy's love continually overflowed and burst out of her. Her love was a light that continues to burn and promises to leave a lasting legacy in all who had the pleasure of being touched by her life. L-O-V-E, that's where it's at. In the end, what else matters.

Nirvana and Pandemonium

I woke up with Heaven and Hell on the brain. Which is not as unusual as it sounds because many conversations I have had as of late that have centered around this topic. Plus, I was listening to the Death Cab for Cutie song yesterday that has the lyric "If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied, illuminate the NO's on their vacancy signs, if there's no one beside you when your soul departs, I'll follow you into the dark", which always lingers long after the song has ended.

I woke up with a desire to look these two words up on Thesaurus.com, because I do not own a paper book thesaurus. I like synonyms and I felt like looking at all the synonyms would perhaps give a picture of how folks around the world and of different faiths view these two places/concepts.

Heaven synonyms: Arcadia, Canaan, Elysium, Shangri-la, Utopia, Zion, afterworld, atmosphere, azure, bliss, beyond, dreamland, ecstasy, empyrean, enchantment, eternal home, eternal rest, eternity, fairyland,felicity, firmament, glory, great unknown, happiness, happy hunting ground, harmony, heights, hereafter, immortality, kingdom, kingdom come, life everlasting, life to come, next world, nirvana, paradise, pearly gates, promised land, rapture, sky, the blue, transport, upstairs, wonderland

Hell synonyms: Abaddon, Gehenna, Hades, abyss, affliction, agony, anguish, blazes, bottomless pit, difficulty, everlasting fire, fire and brimstone, grave, hell-fire, infernal regions, inferno, limbo, lower world, misery, nether world, nightmare, ordeal, pandemonium, perdition, pit, place of torment, purgatory, suffering, torment, trial, underworld, wretchedness.

I really like the word nirvana and the idea of a happy hunting ground, a place where we finally find what we have been seeking all along. The words for hell that are most descriptive to me are torment and pandemonium.

I have never been a heaven and hell kind of person. The kind that was particularly concerned about my eternal destination nor anyone else's for that matter. And since I have become a Christian, I haven't really been an eternal destination kinda Christian either. I have been a bringing heaven to earth kinda Christian. But as I have been engaging in conversations about heaven and hell, I have desired to know a bit more about what they might look like so that I could better bring heaven and cast out hell in the lives of those around me. A friend of mine said something like this, "we have the power to unleash heaven or hell on each other." I like these words, unleashing heaven or hell, like there is a dam holding them both back and we are standing in the middle, a finger plugging up holes in each dam. And if we pull our little finger out of one crack or the other, heaven or hell will come bursting through and flood our world. And we are left with the choice of which we choose to release. Honestly, I don't know what heaven or hell looks like. I like the idea of heaven being with God and hell being separation from God. A picture of heaven on earth that I think is lovely is in Matthew 26, when Jesus is separating the sheep from the goats and He says the people are blessed

"for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me....Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to the least of these My bretheren, you did it to Me"

I think the closest I get to heaven is a) when I am in the midst of loving community and b) when I worship (whether in song or walk or talk). And the closest I feel to hell is when I treat someone poorly or am treated unkindly. When we love and serve each other as though we were loving and serving Jesus, that is heaven on earth.

I used to teach sunday school at a Unitarian Universalist Church when I was in high school. This story, adapted from a Chinese folk tale, was one I really liked to read to the kids. I think it is pretty. and it rings true.

Long ago there lived an old woman who had a wish. She wished more than anything to see for herself the difference between heaven and hell. The monks in the temple agreed to grant her request. They put a blindfold around her eyes, and said, "First you shall see hell."

When the blindfold was removed, the old woman was standing at the entrance to a great dining hall. The hall was full of round tables, each piled high with the most delicious foods — meats, vegetables, fruits, breads, and desserts of all kinds! The smells that reached her nose were wonderful.

The old woman noticed that, in hell, there were people seated around those round tables. She saw that their bodies were thin, and their faces were gaunt, and creased with frustration. Each person held a spoon. The spoons must have been three feet long! They were so long that the people in hell could reach the food on those platters, but they could not get the food back to their mouths. As the old woman watched, she heard their hungry desperate cries. "I've seen enough," she cried. "Please let me see heaven."

And so again the blindfold was put around her eyes, and the old woman heard, "Now you shall see heaven." When the blindfold was removed, the old woman was confused. For there she stood again, at the entrance to a great dining hall, filled with round tables piled high with the same lavish feast. And again, she saw that there were people sitting just out of arm's reach of the food with those three-foot long spoons.

But as the old woman looked closer, she noticed that the people in heaven were plump and had rosy, happy faces. As she watched, a joyous sound of laughter filled the air.

And soon the old woman was laughing too, for now she understood the difference between heaven and hell for herself. The people in heaven were using those long spoons to feed each other.