If I can just make it to my Papa 's house, I will be safe

Recently, my beloved, darling precious daughter, Bess, shared a story of a horrible time in her life, in order to express how much she appreciated the life she has now.

Several years ago, she was living a rough life in a dangerous environment with an unpredictable person. After a long time struggling, she decided she had to change, and it wasn't going to be possible where she was. So she got in her car, and left.

She was worried. She wasn't sure if she would be followed. If my memory is correct (and it might not be, because the story terrified me), at one point, she didn't even know where she was.

But she knew enough to say to herself: "if I can just get to my Papa's house, I will be safe."

And she did get to her Papa's house, and she was safe. And she made changes, and better choices, and today, she is living with a husband who loves her, and two little sons who love her, and has a fantastic church home where they all love each other. Her life is much better now than it was.

And the good things started because she remembered:

"If I can just get to my Papa's house, I'll be safe."

Dear ones, when I heard that story, I wanted to do several things at once.

I wanted to run straight back in time, and hug that young woman thoroughly.
I wanted to go explain the truth about the kind of man I am to anyone who ever threatened her.
I wanted to thank God that I had such a relationship with my daughter that I represented safety to her.

Of course, I could only do the last of those; and I did it then, and I do it on a regular basis.

Feeling safe at your papa's house: I wish that were written into our foundation documents as an inalienable right, of the same status as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I think it is reprehensible to violate that.

And that's why I was sickened on Sunday, when I heard of the actions of a deranged young man in Antioch, Tennessee, who murdered a woman in the parking lot, then walked into Burnette's Chapel Church of Christ, and shot six old people, including the pastor and his wife.

I was sickened. Then, I was horrified. And then I was frightened, when I saw the picture of the man the police arrested.

I was frightened, because the man is black. And I knew nothing about Burnette's Chapel. And I was afraid that a black man had shot up a white church.

Do you sometimes think that too many in our country have lost their minds? I've pretty much stopped watching any news at all because of that. Just a little over a month ago, I wrote about the Monster in our country, and how it has turned out to be  - us.
Just: people.
People who have allowed lies, and divisiveness, and ignorance and hatred and wilful disobedience to take away peace. And I thought, if that was a white church, there is going to be rioting and murder, and there will be no stopping it.

There IS no prominent voice of reason and reconciliation in our land today. In the words of John Kay in "Renegade",  there is only "on the left and to my right, they keep on shouting, while I'm just stuck here in between." And it seems like we are on the edge; and a black man gunning down random white people in a white church might have caught us on fire.

But, we were saved from that. I said that there was no prominent voice of reason in our land. Well, maybe there isn't; but there are local voices; and it's the sound of the local voices that has saved us, this time.

Can I tell you about one of the guys who saved us, this time?

His name is Joey Spann. He's 66 years old. He's the pastor of Burnette's Chapel Church of Christ. And he took a bullet to the chest and one to the hand in the shooting on Sunday. But that's not how he saved us.

He saved us by making a commitment to serving a church that was committed to being more than the white people's church; more than being the black people's church. More than being the church of the rich and the powerful. He saved us by providing a church that serves all of us, red and yellow, black and white.

And harm came to him because of that. The young man who killed a mother in the parking lot, who shot Joey Spann in the chest and hand, and shot his wife, and shot his elderly parishioners: he had been welcomed at the church, and had been a regular in the past, but had dropped out some time ago. And at some point over the last several months, his own personal demons drove him to commit an act of abomination, to desecrate the safety of the Father's house.

But, because of the outreach and determination on the part of Joey Spann and others, it really WAS a Father's house, where all of His children are welcome. And it was tragic for them; but, because it was a special, anointed, and lovely place, the haters will not seize on it as an excuse to do vile things.  Those who wish to have a symbol to launch race hatred will not find it in Antioch.

Because Joey Spann, and men and women like him, saved us from that.

Now, will you pray with me?

Father God, I pray for the brothers and sisters at Burnette's Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee. Please, Father, grant them the grace to experience perfect love that casts away fear. Let the righteous acts of those who have served that church in the past be a memorial to those who worship there, and to draw others to worship. Let us hold precious in our hearts the memory of Melanie Crow, who was struck down; and her children, and her friends and family. Let us remember the suffering of those wounded. Let us give thanks for those who resisted, even to the point of shedding blood.
And will you place in the hearts of all of us, particularly the family of Burnette's Chapel, the prayer my daughter taught me:

If I can just make it to my Papa's house, I'll be safe.

Amen

Peace be on your household

More Than You Can Bear?

Although most of my time on the computer is spent reading books and writing reviews,  I do other things occaisionally.

For example, this summer, I found this show on Netflix, called "Last Chance U." My firstborn son recommended it to me a couple of months ago.

Seems there's this little junior college in Scooba, Mississippi that scoops up football players who have gotten in difficulties, great or small,  at big colleges, and stuffs them into a hard-nosed redemptive program. They are tough; they've got an academic counselor who stays on top of their grades and attendance, and she works with the coaches. Evidently, they've had some real success in getting some of these young men to turn around. And, in the process, they've won several national championships.

At the end of one of the segments, they show a scene from a local church. A woman does an interpretive dance to Kirk Franklin's "More Than I Can Bear." It's a beautiful scene, and it's a beautiful song; if you don't know it, look it up; here's a link to a performance . That's not the actual performance filmed for the Netflix program, but you can see how beautiful it is.

The lyrics say:

I've gone through the fire, and been through the flood;
I've been broken into pieces, seen lightning flash from above.
But through it all, I remember that He loved me, and He cares
And He'll never put more on me
Than I can bear  

The dance, and the song, are incredibly beautiful, and have often comforted me when I was in despair.

I just don't know if the message is true.

On the other hand, I do know that THIS is true:

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. (I Cor 10:13, NASV)

I understand this, and I am confident that it is true. When temptation comes my way, there will always be a be a way out of it. I am so grateful for this truth, and I have relied on it in plenty of dark times.

My disconnect comes when I try to apply the deliverance promise given in the above verse, which is about temptation, to the experience of pain and grief.

I haven't any idea how many days my heart has been hurt so badly that all I could do is withdraw to my man cave and sit in my chair, but it's a big number. Eventually, when I was strong enough, I would listen to the music of the wounded healers, music like 'More Than I Can Bear' and 'My Life Is In Your Hands' and 'On The Other Side of Through.' 

And almost every time, before that session of grieving was over, I could join in with the singing, and make the songs MY prayer as well.  Sometimes, that was the only comfort available to me; and it seems to me that the songs made my heart able to receive a bit of healing, and that, combined with my determination to keep my promises, has kept me alive. 

I am so grateful to the writers and performers who have ministered to me in the very worst times of my life. The continue to do so; in fact, at this very moment, I am listening as I write these words.

I don't want to give the wrong impression, here; the pinnacle of my experience is not to sit grieving in my chair. I'm a father/stepfather to 10, and a grandfather to 12, and I am actively involved with my wife in the most important job we will undertake together: that of parents. That is a life-giving, and life-building activity. I can get up in the morning, and go to bed at night, secure in the knowledge that my life means something, that I AM making a contribution that matters.

But, even so,  in the midst of things, along comes something that just kicks the breath right out of me. In fact, since I first started to write this post, a month has gone by, and I've been kicked three times. It's been an incredibly stressful time; I usually don't have so much coming my way. In fact, I'm guessing that I've gone through entire years without having as many challenges. Just a guess, though. I probably have forgotten things.

To return to my question, as I sit here with a keyboard on my lap, close to tears, and listening to the sweet music: is it true? Is the comfort they offer something I can count on? To answer that, I have to define the issue better. What is it, actually, that I think these songs are offering?

What I would LIKE them to guarantee me is this: nothing bad is going to happen to me; failing that, that nothing is going to happen to me that's going to overwhelm me. I'd like to be able to hold on to that like some sort of magical shield, or insurance policy. And I know that in the past, I've had that particular doctrine/approach presented to me.

Of course, it was also presented with conditions: they told me that if I just had enough faith, then no weapon formed against me would prosper, meaning a bad thing couldn't happen. Therefore, when I encountered adversity, I just needed to pray more, harder, longer, louder, differently. And then the bad thing wouldn't happen.

If the bad thing happens anyway, well, it's because I didn't believe enough, didn't pray enough. It's not that the PRINCIPLE is wrong; it's the fault of the supplicant.

And that just doesn't work for me, despite my desire to have bullet-proof armor. It doesn't match with my experience; and it doesn't match with what I know about God.

Not only does this concept leave a trail of broken people in its' wake, it's also explicitly proscribed by Jesus. IMMEDIATELY before the simple words of what we refer to as the Lord's Prayer, He says:

“And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. " (Matthew 6:7, NASB)

Despite the fact that I WANT it to be true, it's naive to think I can pray virtuously enough, or do anything else, to eliminate bad things from my life. True, I can (and have) cut down on the bad stuff that comes my way, by changing my problem behavior. I don't get drunk any more, I don't drive recklessly, I don't smoke. I'm losing weight, and I go for walks.  But even if my behavior was perfect, entropy is going to triumph eventually. I'm 64 years old, and at some point, my organ systems are going to break down.

Beyond that, I love many people, and they don't always make perfect choices. Even if they did, accidents still happen. Illness and injury are out there. And, in the worst case,  there are some bad people in the world who hurt others. And when someone I love hurts, it hurts me.

So, I see that I have to give up this fantasy idea that there is something I can do that will keep all pain away from me. That's not what the words of the song I quoted say, anyway. They say:

He'll never put more on me
Than I can bear  

What does that mean? Is it true?

I don't see with the eyes of God, so I can't look into the hearts of men. But it seems to me that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, devoted his life to make a more equitable world. And I doubt there were many men who had more heartfelt prayers offered up for him than Dr. King. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that it's not a stretch to call him a good man, one of the best our country has produced. None of that prevented a bullet from ending his life.

Wasn't a .30-06 bullet more than he could bear? If that could happen to him, couldn't I also be overwhelmed?

This is the part where it gets weird.

Up until now, all of the mechanics of this suffering and comfort thing have been right out in the open. There has been something I could see, hear, taste, touch, or smell that was the mechanism by which I was comforted. I discovered that if I just held on, it would get better. I discovered that I could use my own experience with grief to comfort others in their time of grief. 

During probably the worst time of my life, I signed off on my emails, "I am yet holding on," because that was all I had. And through that experience, I came to believe that if I could just keep holding on, it was going to be okay. And that's a Truth, with a capital T. It was a core belief of my life.

Still is. 

But, sometime in the past couple of months, I realized that there MIGHT just be things that I COULDN'T bear up under. Things that oppressed me so strongly, that my body just gave up. Was that...true? Could there be things that could do that to me?

I asked for help.

I went to my pastor, and spelled things out for him. 

(And since I have no secrets from her, I copied my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA on the email. She freaked out. I had to reassure her that I was NOT losing it; I was just looking for some answers. She relented. A bit.)

He gave me a couple of scriptures that he found to be most meaningful when he had to walk with pain that just wouldn't go away. The one that spoke to me the most was this:

I Peter 4:12-13 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. ¹³ But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.

And that was very encouraging; it reminded me that when disaster strikes, it's NOT something strange; it happens to all of us. As lonely as it feels, we are NOT alone in our pain. Furthermore, it's almost as if this is an investment in our future.

That's the weird part. For Christians, death is not the end; it's not what happens here that's important. It put me in mind of another verse I have had to call on before:

we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; 9 [e]indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; (II Cor 1: 8b-9, NASB) 

 I found it comforting. It's a bit of a paradox, to find comfort in the idea that I might be given more than I can bear. However, it allows me to know that as long as I keep doing the Next Right Thing, I'm going to win, even if it takes my death to win.

Which should NOT be a surprise, bu the way. We are all going to die. It's definitely NOT an unexpected outcome. The timing may be inconvenient, but it's not a loss.

So, I guess my conclusion is: It may kill me, but I can bear it.

SOMETHING YOU MUST KNOW:
If you ask me to pray for you, I will sincerely pray that you be comforted. I will sincerely pray that you receive strength. I will sincerely pray for wisdom, and guidance.

On the other hand, if you ask Vanessa to pray for you, she will pray for you to be healed.
She accepts all the stuff I just wrote, and she leaves that to me, because that's my job.
Her job? To implore, and seek, and believe.

She is a praying black grandmother.

Peace be on your household.

Minutegirls, by George Phillies

You can read my Amazon review here, and also at the end of this blog.
However, I'd truly like you to consider giving this one some splash, since it's an excellent book from a much under-appreciated author, You can do that by writing a review on Amazon, and by voting 'helpful' on my Amazon review.

I obtained a review copy of the book from the author.

Kudos to the excellent cover art by Cedar Sanderson on this edition; it's a much better representation of the story than earlier versions.

I just checked: I've been writing Amazon book reviews for over three years, total of 472 reviews (not all of those are book reviews, though). Even so, there is one aspect to the process that still seems to be beyond me: I always fail to look at the book description to see how many pages I've committed to.

It's a hold-over from the decades I spent reading dead-tree books. Those, I learned to judge by heft at a very early age. From my very first days, when a thick book seemed forever over my head, to the point sometime in the 7th grade when I grabbed the thickest books in the library first, sometimes without looking at titles, the physical size of the book was communicated by the way it looked, and by the heft in my hand.

It doesn't work that easily with e-books. Certainly, the file size is (for ME) content-free, since I don't even look at it. Even the number of pages doesn't quite give me the same information.

I'm going to have to figure out a way to adapt to this. I'll get on that, just as soon as I can develop a feel for how far 110 kilometers is, or how 32 degrees Centigrade feels, without translating those into miles and Fahrenheit.

Well, this is for sure: this is a BIG book, at 440 pages. For guys like me, who like to read a LOT, that's a good thing. There have been times when I've pulled a book off the shelves by James Michener, Herman Wouk, or Tom Clancy, and given a pleased, relaxed sigh, even before I turned the first page. It DOES have a disadvantage for me, personally, though: I not only read, but review these things. And I confess to feeling a little bit guilty when ANYTHING puts me off my pace of reading and reviewing a book every other day.

It's still a pleasure, though, and for those who are waiting for me to get off my duff and review YOUR book, all I can tell you is: I'm doing the best I can.

Here's the set-up: in the not-too-distant future, at least one world war gets touched off, and before it's resolved,the United States is an occupied country, with a (somewhat) unified Europe being the primary occupier. Their troops behave very badly, and don't appear to show any remorse for that.
Most of the causes of the war and the following armistice aren't discussed; primarily, this part of the history serves to provide a rationale for the quite functional paranoia that drives diplomatic interactions. In addition, significant technology with war applications was developed by multiple parties to the conflict, and I get the impression that it was the difficulty of continuing the occupation that ended it, not any real change of a problematic policy, on anyone's part.
In particular, defense screens have been developed, and these not only stop kinetic and beam energy, they also serve as as an effective barrier to observation by spies, on either side, of military and commercial developments.
The European Union is dominated by the French as the executive arm, with the Germans serving as an administrative element. Other countries are allowed to contribute unskilled or semi-skilled labor, but certainly are in no position to make or influence policy. The French and Germans appear to regard their forfeit of rulership of all they survey as an aberration, and all of their actions seem to have a return to domination as the primary goal. However, their ideology has massively crippled their ability to wage war or to administer peace, and they cannot even perceive the problem. They have rigidly controlled the economy, and innovation is discouraged. Furthermore, in the interest of producing a worker-friendly society, the work-week is restricted to 32 hours per week, even under emergency conditions. On the other hand, they clearly have had some technological advances over the Americans, and have made contact with non-human races in their space program. Could those two be related, I wonder?
The Americans, meanwhile, have radically transformed their society as a reaction against the atrocities committed during the Occupation. One of the more striking transformations has been in the physical characteristics of women, most likely a direct result on the number of casual rapes committed against the population under the Occupation, when the citizens were treated as chattel. Through undisclosed means, bone density and musculature differences have been eradicated, and the long-standing advantage men had in upper body strength has been eliminated as a factor. Prominent female Resistance leaders during the Occupation established a new set of norms for women warriors, the Minutegirls. The constitute deadly combat troops, and contain nested secret societies, all designed to prevent any future attempt to subjugate the US from being successful.
There are some marvelous other adaptations, as well. For one, anyone in the National Command Structure MUST, by law, be accompanied by a bodyguard, whose job it is to execute their principal if it appears they will violate any of a set of rules stipulated as a part of the new form of government adopted by the US. No secret meetings; no standing army; nothing restricting the right of an individual to keep and bear arms. And the original idea of fleeing from the power of despots remains a fundamental part of American  policy.
Excellent battle action; complex characters; very well thought out societies, with appropriate humor slashes at all the right places: all these combine to make this a good book for a nice, long read.

Peacemaker, by Kevin Ikenberry

Warning: This is exclusively a book review! None of the touchy-feely stuff here!

The slightly shorter Amazon review may be found here.

Today, I'm adding the supplementary blog content at the end of the Amazon review, which follows:

Jessica Francis simply will not accept that she is overmatched. Although her choices haven't been perfect, it's the actions of others that keep dumping adversity on her, and she seems to have been born without the ability to quit.

She's a former mercenary. While she was good at what she did, her incompetent, manipulative husband managed to wreck the company, killing off friends and comrades-in-arms while doing so.

She gets a chance to become the first Human Peacemaker, thus becoming part of the thin team that provides what little galactic security there is. Since Humans are a newcomer to the Galactic Union, they encounter all of the standard prejudice of the old-timers, some of whom have the desire and ability to eliminate the species. Her first mission, in fact, as a Probationary Candidate, is to stop exactly such a project.

She succeeds. And because of her actions, the Earth is not depopulated.

Sorry, that's not good enough.

So, they give her another project, and maybe this time, if she succeeds, she'll get to join the team.

Maybe.

All she has to do is solve the puzzle of three races fighting over turf, when there should BE no problem. It is pathetically obvious that there is at least ONE behind-the-scenes manipulator, because the original set-up should have produced a good environment for the three races, separate from each other, at a nice profit to the merchant-engineers behind the deal. The mission has FAILURE stamped all over it, in glowing letters. But hey, if you don't play the game, you can't win, right?

Somebody in the hierarchy likes her, though, because he arranges for her to have some support. Admittedly, it's in the form of an under-strength mixed unit of armor and CASPERS, composed of raw rookies and redliners, but at least she has a bit of a reaction force.

Except she's not supposed to use it.

And she has one especially hostile individual assigned as her Mediator.

Secrets. Everybody has secrets. And what you don't know probably WILL kill you deader than Fergus' goose.

Expect plenty of action, and the elements of a detective story. It's a great read!

Okay, here is the supplementary material to the Amazon review, and it's a bit dark. As the title of my Amazon review, I used the Lazarus Long quote about the game being rigged, but how you can't win unless you play. There are, however, other options.

You can not play the game. 
You can cheat. 
And you can pull out your trusty Browning Hi Power and blow 15 tiny holes into the serpent trying to suck you into a losing set-up.

Then reload, and make more holes. 

Now, the only reason I can see that Jessica doesn't use that third option is that she really DOESN'T have a 'Quit' function incorporated. This is not a feature; this is a bug. 

For whatever reason, she thinks she can win the game, but all the evidence suggests that isn't the case. It's going to take some significant deus ex machina for her to have a chance, and that's not something you can count on. It makes sense to sacrifice yourself, IF you are standing between your loved home and the war's desolation, but she clearly states in the beginning of the story that the Earth is no more her home than her CASPER unit. Maybe she's just running on automatic, and that's NOT a long-term survival strategy. True, in a stressful situation, you let your training take over, but that's not the way to plan out a campaign.

NONE of these aliens are our friends. None of them respect us; we are, at best, cannon fodder. At worst, we are alien fodder, literally. 

So: when is it time to hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats? Hmmm...I think I might see the Jolly Roger on the horizon!

Peace be on your household.

When Public School Teachers are Stupid Frappen Idiots

The ONLY legitimate reason for civilization is to take care of our kids. 

The side benefits of advanced technology are pleasant. I'm very glad I don't have to spend my entire day trying to hit a squirrel in the head with a rock, or digging up roots so I can have something to eat. 

But my personal comfort is, at best, secondary to the primary mission of taking care of kids, which also means preparing them for the day when they will take up the mission, and allow me to croak without feeling guilty. And that means education.

Admittedly, I am not an impartial observer. Not only am I a parent and grandparent, the bulk of my career was as an educator, first in public and private college administration, then providing direct services to public middle school students. It's one of our family traditions; in addition to being a representative of  the third generation of four generations of US Army veterans, I am also a representative of the third generation of four generations of educators. It matters. My family has invested blood and sweat in military service on three foreign continents, and followed that up with years in classrooms across the state of Georgia. That's how we roll; it's a mission, see?

So, it aggravates me when I find that other people; those who share the mission; those who have  also devoted their lives to educating kids; have to spend their time apologizing for, and fixing problems caused by, a momentously idiotic high school math teacher.

This stuff is all over the internet now; I'm not breaking any confidences.  So far, by Sunday afternoon, 764,488 people have viewed the August 31st classroom incident, which took place inside a school building I can see when I look out of my bedroom window.  Thanks to a camera-phone-quality video, we can see and hear the teacher making two students leave a classroom for wearing a shirt saying "Make America Great Again." And she compounds her error by saying that just as you can't wear a swastika to school, you can't wear that shirt. Because neo-Nazis. 

Now, I routinely ignore this kind of kerfluffle; I can't, THIS TIME, because just after noon today, I got an email from the school district (sent to all Cherokee County parents) which detailed the response of the school and the district, and warning us:

As people across the country are being encouraged by some social media sites to contact the school, we anticipate a potentially high call volume over the next week. If possible, please avoid calling the front office during this time, and instead email the person you are trying to reach; emails are published on the school website 

 Okay, THIS is one of those times that I regret my blog isn't read by 100 million people every day, because what I have to say is important:

DON'T CALL THE SCHOOL.

They have this covered. If you need to express your outrage, please feel free to do so on your own public forum, or make a comment on one of the Youtube posts of the video.

But leave the school alone. They have this covered.

As it happens, I know the school superintendent, Brian Hightower, and the school principal, Darryl Herring, from my days as a school counselor. Ain't neither of them a wuss; I would happily stand as a guarantee that they will deal with this stuff appropriately.

Now, what I'm gonna say next is both personal and painful for me, so, cut me some slack, okay? And believe me, because I paid a price to say this.

The reason that I KNOW that they will deal with this stuff appropriately is because I have worked for both of them; they both have chewed my butt when they felt it was appropriate, and it was under Darryl Herring's leadership that I accepted the fact that I was no longer able to do my job, and took medical retirement, when the option was to be fired for cause.

It wasn't because I was sleeping with cheerleaders, or anything like that; it was because the pain meds I was on back then had taken away my ability to make good decisions, mostly by taking away my ability to sleep. I never was able to go an entire week without missing at least one night's sleep, and missed as many as three in a row. I was making a bad mistake in trying to keep showing up and doing the job.  Herring made the right decision to push me into retirement, and he made it for the right reason: to keep me from making mistakes with the kids.

No, I don't LIKE the guy. That has nothing to do with the fact that he made the right decision; it has everything to do with the fact that he never had a chance to get to know me when I was functional; and so to him, all I represented was a liability. He was tough, and he made the right call.

He's going to make the right call on this thing, too. Hopefully, there is a redemptive path out of this thing for the momentously idiotic math teacher, but that's not going to be the PRIMARY concern for the administration. I KNOW these people; they have ALWAYS been all about the kids, and they are going to CONTINUE to be all about the kids.

So, to all who have wisdom: leave them alone. Let them do their jobs. Express your concerns elsewhere. That's the best path to taking care of our kids, and that's the only reason we are here.

Peace be on your household.

The Hardest Part is Being an Alcoholic

Sunday, 8/20/17, just after noon.

Last week, I spent Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in a local hospital, where I received excellent care and kindness for the extremely painful condition known as 'small bowel obstruction.'

As it happens, I had been hospitalized with the same condition on Easter Weekend in April of 2001. Despite that prior experience, I didn't recognize what was going on with my body for several painful hours; I thought my hiatal hernia was acting up, and I just  needed some antacids.

The antacids did not help.

 Finally, sometime around 3:30 Sunday morning, I realized that what I was feeling was almost exactly what took me to the Emergency Room 16 years ago.

That visit in 2001 had been an awfully chaotic experience. I had important plans for the Easter Sunday Morning service, to be shared with my beloved brothers and sisters at Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal church, so I resisted going to the ER until I had no other option, and that meant I arrived there in the late afternoon on Saturday.  

Holy Day weekend or not, Saturday night in a major trauma center is THE gathering place for people who exercise their hard-won liberties by ingesting non-standard pharmaceuticals, and/or copious quantities of fermented and/or distilled beverages, and then find it intolerable that neighbors/friends/relatives hold an opinion on any matter which is contrary to theirs.

So, they fight, with whatever is at hand. They use fists, sticks, fish-sticks; knives, guns; lamps, sofas; cats, weasels, ferrets, squirrels; they have also been known to use the occasional  stuffed penguin which sits in peace on top of the television. All of these memorabilia have been painstakingly gathered over a period of  months by someone with an artist's eye and the ability to attend yard sales.

But on Saturday night,  temporarily any of these treasures may receive a  re-classification as a projectile or a blunt object, and are enthusiastically presented in an active discussion, whereby good friends and close relatives express their concern that a Significant Other is mistaken in their opinion.

And then somebody calls the cops. And then they go to the Emergency Room, because it is a Saturday night.

While the Game on Foot is entertaining enough, sometimes, regretfully, they do not live close enough to the intended recipient of their wisdom to immediately have the desired face-to-face negotiations. In these cases, it is necessary to utilize the family vehicle in order to arrange the meeting.

And, in a certain (large) percentage of those using this approach, something interferes with the proper operation of the family vehicle on our community's roads and highways. Sometimes, it is another family vehicle, but just as often it is a tree, a curb, a light pole, construction equipment, or a Waffle House.

And then somebody calls the cops. And they go to the Emergency Room (along with anyone they may have mashed with their family vehicle), because it is a Saturday night.

That was the environment I walked into in 2001, bent over and experiencing the worst pain I'd ever had.  The staff were dealing with inebriated, frequently hostile, occasionally incoherent clientele, bleeding from assorted locations.  Cops and EMTs chatted with each other, attempting to sort out who did what to whom, for later court proceedings.

And meanwhile, I'm sitting on a stretcher in the hall, doubled up in pain, biting on a towel and screaming quietly so as not to disturb anyone. And at some point,  I discovered that the reason that they couldn't give me anything for pain right away was because they had to make sure I wasn't having a heart attack. That particular trip ended in surgery, and a lengthy recovery period, as I had been a very sick young man.

So,

This time, I didn't want to be sitting around for hours in the ER waiting for a doc, or for X-Ray technicians, so I decided to wait until 7:00 before leaving the house. I figured the shift would have changed by the time we got there, and that would cut down on the waiting. Usually, based on my own ANCIENT (1972) experience working in an operating room, early Sunday mornings aren't really busy. I figured it would cut down on the time it would take for me to be seen; and with my prior history, and my distended abdomen as hard as a rock, I figured it might cut down on the time it took to rule out a cardiac event.

 It also meant 12 year old Kenneth and 11 year old Alicia wouldn't have to get up in the middle of the night, and I could let son Jordan and daughter-in-law Courtney sleep a little longer, too, since they were my plan A for childcare.

That might not have been the best decision. By one of those statistical flukes, they had a LOT of psych admits the night before. No idea why; were people getting anxious about the impending eclipse? At any rate, although the waiting room was empty, ALL of the ER rooms were packed, and I got a stretcher in the hall. If I had come in at, say, 4:00 AM, I might have gotten a room. Don't know if it would have made a difference as to my treatment, however.

At any rate, the location of my stretcher didn't bother me. The SINGLE issue of concern was the pain I was experiencing in my belly.

My belly is in pain because some part of my gut has closed, so that nothing can get by. 'Nothing' is literal: no food, no liquid, no air. So, beside everything I had to eat and drink, all the drainage and regular processes are continuing to dump into my gut, and there is nowhere for it to go, so my gut blows up like a balloon. At the time I wrote this, five days later, I was still swollen, and a LITTLE sore; but on Sunday morning, my belly was rock hard, and it looked like the belly of a woman 9 months pregnant. And the pain was such that I could not speak a coherent sentence.

I am no stranger to pain; it's a constant companion. And let me milk that analogy for all it's worth: I am no stranger to cats, either. SugarBelly, my fat black Manx cat, is also a constant companion. So, let's use SugarBelly to represent the pain I usually feel.   Here she is, playing with 18 month old grandson Trey:

See, this isn't so bad. Nice kitty.

But what kind of kitty cat will represent the pain I experienced with the small bowel obstruction?

A Kzin.

With a laser.

"I'm in your guts, monkey boy."

Except not nearly as funny.

I think it was around 10:00 AM before I was finally able to see a doc. Fortunately, I had my medical records with me (another story), and they had access to the prior surgical records, so that helped. They immediately slapped an 'NPO' status on me (meaning I could have nothing by mouth), and put in an IV line, so I could get fluids (I was dehydrated) and eventually, the nurse arrived with the blessed relief in the form of a shot of Dilaudid.

I could feel the goofy bit in my head almost immediately, and I was worried that might be the only effect. The deal with a lot of pain meds is that they really don't take away the pain; they just make you goofy so you don't care about it. However, I was going to have to be a LOT goofier before that would work. Fortunately, though, in a couple of minutes I could feel my belly pain change, first from something near unbearable, to "I swallowed a cactus" , then to a pain like cramps, and finally it eased off into the background and I was back in the world of humans again.

Then, they gave me a nasogastric tube, and started to drain my belly, and eventually, that's what took away most of my distress, and kept it away.

And then, life-threatening crisis resolved,  the docs, nurses, other medics, and Mrs. Jordan, the Haitian angel who arranged her housekeeping duties so she could stop by and pray for us, left us to minister to those in more immediate need of their services. This leaves me with some privacy with my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after, trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA. No, we did not use this as an excuse to make out (hardly at all); I still have a tube up my nose. But we do need to figure out how to work out the details, like taking care of the kids, getting them off to school on Monday, does Vanessa stay with me that night or go home; all that stuff.

And then finally Sunday is over, Monday (also Eclipse Day) is here, and I am left inside my head to figure out what I'm going to do about pain management. 'Inside my head' is not the best and safest location to make decisions about mood-influencing medications.

You see, years ago I forfeited the privilege that normal people have, of access to God's gift  of comfort and relaxation that comes through appropriate use of alcohol. There is plenty of evidence that people with my genetic make-up have problems, but it was my own actions of consistently abusing the privilege, ruthlessly and without relenting, over a period of decades that lead to abstinence as the only solution.  Thanks to some pretty amazing circumstances (another another story), I took my last drink on January 1, 1988. After that date, I gradually and painfully and joyfully developed a way of life that would provide me workable alternatives to the relief and sense of ease and comfort that alcohol regularly brings to the fortunate majority who were less profligate in their actions in their early days.

But, because of my history, I am faced with a dilemma.

You see, the hospital policy will NOT permit me to use my own, less powerful medication. It's Against The Rules! And I AM going to need to have something to manage pain. I have both the residual gut pain I feel from having my intestine blown up like a balloon, as well as my customary ankylosing spondylitis pains, aggravated by having to sleep someplace beside my bed (although the hospital bed wasn't bad at all).

BUT: the only pain med the doc has written for me is Dilaudid, which is a synthetic form of morphine, a heavy duty narcotic. And I can have it as often as every three hours, IF I tell the nurse my pain is 8 or 9 on a 10 point scale.

With the very first doses of pain meds, in the crisis moments in the Emergency Room, and on Monday morning in my hospital room, I didn't have any control over what I was given. I hurt, this is what they had on order, they gave it to me, no discussion. After that first Monday dose, though, I have to come up with a plan, because I'm the only one who understands all the factors in play.

Now, my cunning, baffling, and powerful alcoholic mind tells me: 'Don't be ridiculous! These are guilt-free drugs! You didn't choose this, this chose YOU! Take the drugs, enjoy the high, and you'll never have to deal with this again.'

But another voice tells me: 'You better DON'T! Sure, this set of circumstances isn't likely to repeat itself, but are you really wanting to get high so much that you are going to put your integrity on the line?'

I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, frankly.


And I decided to manage the issue by seeing just how long I could go without asking for pain relief. Things weren't HORRID; if I had access to my own, less potent pain meds, I would have taken something, but I sure didn't need the Dilaudid to manage what I was experiencing. So I held out, just  until 2; then once I had made it until 2, I decided to see if I could go until 3; then 4, and then 6, and then 8.

And then it was time for my sleep meds. At that point,  I did two things: first, I accepted the pain shot. I had been brave long enough, and it was time for me to catch some relief. Second, I asked the nurse to see if he could get the doc to authorize a less powerful pain med.

And the nurse asked the doc, and the doc authorized something milder; and that's what I took on my last day in the hospital. It's how I got out of the hospital without cherishing the sensations of being utterly dorked on narcotics, and perhaps relapsing later into abusing prescribed pain meds.

I know that my cunning, baffling, and powerful alcoholic mind used to argue me into all sorts of situations in which it was ESSENTIAL that I take a drink. I don't get hooked by that kind of thinking anymore, and I haven't picked up a drink since the last one on January 1, 1988. It's a relatively straightforward transaction: if I don't take the first drink, I can't get drunk.

But, I'm an alcoholic with a chronic pain condition, on daily pain meds since 2005, and the option of life without pain relief isn't open to me. It's been a difficult path to navigate; unlike alcohol, I can't abstain from narcotics.

I know; I've tried. For almost a year, from 2012 - 2013, I was was determined to live without narcotics, and relied instead on meloxicam, a powerful non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. It worked great for months! But then, I started to experience severe gastric distress, and when the bleeding started, that was the end of my treatment with NSAIDS. Now, I can't even take an aspirin, or ibuprofen, much less the more powerful formulations.

So: how do I maintain my sobriety, and at the same time have access to narcotics?

The solution requires rigorous honesty, with myself and with others, and also strict determination to ONLY take the narcotics for pain, not for emotional relief. I have been completely open about my history with the docs at the pain clinic. I'm subject to frequent and random drug screens. On the single occasion when one of the docs at the clinic demanded it, I went for an addiction screening with a Certified Addiction Counselor (which I paid for, by the way), and was given a clean bill of health. Perhaps most importantly, we have found a weekly patch medication called Butrans, which doesn't goof my head the way that the other narcotics do, and still effectively manages my pain.

I'm at peace with that. If I could live without the meds, I would. Since I can't, I use them as directed. And I spend as much time in self-examination as I need to in order to maintain my peace of mind.

Peace be on your household.

My Wicked Smart, Wicked Talented, Wicked Beautiful Doctors

Dr. Nkechi Mbaezue, my internist. Laureate Medical Group

Dr. Chinenye Iheme, the kids' pediatrician. Woodstock Pediatrics

Dr. Edugie Asemota-Faure, my dentist. RA Dental Studio

This is a TOTAL rip-off of my Facebook post. But, it was a long post, and since I haven't been able to get my head working well enough to write the blog I WANT to write, due to medical issues, I'm re-purposing this, while I work on the REAL post about my visit to the hospital this past weekend.

Dear friends, I'm wondering who is left in Nigeria to take care of the medical and dental needs of their citizens!

First, our precious Alicia Ann had an appointment with her pediatrician at Woodstock Pediatrics (regular beginning of year stuff; nothing to worry about), and we were expecting to see Dr. Bear, who has been her doc for the past several years. Instead, we meet the lovely and talented Dr. Chinenye Iheme. She is sweet, high energy, instantly established rapport with Alicia, and gave me every impression of being knowledgeable about her work without being distant or off-putting.

Next, on Wednesday, 8/23/17, I met the internist who will be taking my case since Dr. Hight has closed his regular practice. Dr. Nkechi Mbaezue, at Laureate Medical Group in Holly Springs, comes highly recommended, and proved to have a great sense of humor as well as the same professional, teaching aspect I had come to appreciate so much in Dr. Hight, who straightened out the mess that was my medical condition over a period of 12 years or so.

And finally, yesterday I could not postpone having something done about my teeth any longer, so I got an appointment with my dentist since 2007, Dr. Roya Akbar at RA Dental studio. This time, however, she assigned me to work with Dr. Edugie Asemota-Faure, a new member of her group. She promptly spent the next EIGHT hours (not exaggerating) inside my mouth, ripping away broken teeth and fitting me with four temporary crowns. And all the while, she is gently checking on my well-being, letting me know what will happen next, and promising me that she is hurting me no more than necessary. Next week, she gets to extract two or more remaining stumps, and a couple of weeks after that, I get a new plate.

So: my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, wants to know what I am doing, that in less than one month, my medical professionals have transformed from grumpy middle-aged white men to pleasant Nigerian ladies, doubtless princesses of the blood. To this I have but one response: "I do not know, sweetness, but God Bless America."

Peace be on your household.