Naming

Today I was pleased to have my former Tai Chi instructor call me by name in the HEB Supermarket! I have not been in her weekly class since unexplained pain started in January, and I quit Tai Chi because I thought maybe the stretching was causing me to hurt. That was before I was diagnosed with RA.

I was so happy to be remembered that I recalled how my children's kindergarten teacher, Margy Hoffman, told me how important it was to call each child by name. She was someone who knew how to listen with her whole being, helped along with her acknowledging the person she was with.

I struggle with people's names these days, seeming to easily forget. At least, with age and white hair, I am more ready to show my imperfection by asking what a person's name is--over and over!

Virginia, the Tai Chi instructor, noticed me before I saw her. So awareness and attention go together in honoring someone. I am glad I was reminded of what a gift is lavished on someone with saying his/her name and listening. . . .paying attention.

Permanent Joy

And what rule do you think I walked by? Truly a strange one, but the best in the whole world. I was guided by an implicit faith in God’s goodness; and therefore led to the study of the most obvious and common things. For thus I thought within myself: God being, as generally believed, infinite in goodness, it is most consonant and agreeable with His nature that the best things should be most common.
– Thomas Traherne

"A state of permanent joy, hidden at the very center of consciousness, is the Eden to which the long journey of spiritual seeking leads. There, the mystics of all religions agree, we uncover our original goodness. We don’t have to buy it; we don’t have to create it; we don’t have to pour it in; we don’t even have to be worthy of it. This native goodness is the essential core of human nature.

"We are made, the scriptures of all religions assure us, in the image of God. Nothing can change our original goodness. Whatever mistakes we have made in the past, whatever problems we may have in the present, in every one of us the uncreated spark in the soul remains untouched, ever pure, ever perfect. Even if we try with all our might to douse or hide it, it is always ready to set our personality ablaze with light."

~~Eknath Easwaran

The Thought for the Day is today's entry from Eknath Easwaran's Words to Live By. (Copyright 1999 and 2005 by The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation.)

Select the Thought for the Day for any day of the year.

Which way to go?

After two months of travel and other stuff, I finally saw my rheumatologist on Thursday. You may recall that I was diagnosed with RA in May. Since June 1, I have been taking a weekly dose of Methotextrate, which has gradually been increased to the highest oral dosage possible. However, Dr. P. says that it has had no effect on my RA since I have not been able to reduce my daily intake of prednisone--even a 2.5 mg. reduction causes increased swelling, pain and redness in my hand joints and wrists.

So he advised me to consider taking one of three TNF Blockers: Enbrel, Humira, or Remicade. The first two are given by self-injection and the last by IV's. I am worried about adverse side effects with the TNF Blockers, especially allergic skin reactions at injection/ infusion sites and infections. It sounds like the skin reactions are more likely to occur, which could be minor or severe. Getting TB or pneumonia is scary, especially because I had pneumonia in 1993 and was sick for a long time.

A friend told me that this might not be my decision but that of my insurance company's. That is an interesting thought. I guess I have to get to the point to suggest one or at least talk to my doctor again with questions.

When considering that RA is a chronic disease, this decision could impact much of the rest of my life--if it works on me.

How stories begin. . . .

With thanks to Monkey Mind!

HOT!

101.2 Degrees F. Corpus Christi, TX
(CB and me)

105 Degrees F. Austin, TX
(DC, AA and baby Avery)

106.3 Degrees F. San Antonio, TX
(MJ)

105 Degrees F. Houston, TX
(BJ)

All of TX is very HOT this weekend, with temperatures expected to go higher tomorrow. At least, we don't have a hurricane. Safety is wished for all in Hurricane Irene's path.

(Temperatures retrieved from Weather Underground at 3 pm.)

Friday Five: Rainy Day

Sally brings today's Friday Five to RevGalBlogPals:

How about you do you do on a rainy summers day?

Rain is much different in TX than it is in my home state of WA. Down here, there usually seems to be a drought, plus rain comes in buckets. In WA, there are often continuous drizzle and/or gray days. No wonder there are glorious flowers and lush greenery in WA State!

So I am addressing rain in Corpus Christi, TX:

1. At home?
Yesterday was our first rainfall in over two months. Torrential rain fell from thunderstorms, and we all loved it! The UPS man delivered a book to me, grinning all the way to my doorstep and saying he hoped he'd bring more rain tomorrow, which is doubtful since it is supposed to reach up to 100 degrees F.

Yesterday I started reading my new book: G-Dog and the Homeboys: Father Greg Boyle and the Gangs of East Los Angeles by Celeste Fremon, purchased because I found Father Greg Boyle's book Tattoos on the Heart so powerful.

2. In your local area?
Rain here is usually so heavy that it is nice to be inside. Streets sometimes flood on that rare instances, and thus I would rather be at home. And reading is always a good choice of activity for me!

3. If you are away on holiday?
It depends where we are. Usually in WA, we forge ahead and do whatever activity is planned, unless there is heavy rain. When we were on our extended vacation, it rained while we drove through Glacier National Park--we kept going, but were glad we were inside a car and not on a motorcycle!

4. Name a rainy day read.
I am wishing I still had the Hunger Games Trilogy left to read, so I know any of those three books would be wonderful to have on a rainy day. Cuddle down and read!! I wrote about those books here.

5. Is there a piece of music/ a poem/ story that cheers you up?
Not sure, but I'm in too much of a hurry and will try to come back to do this!

A Gift of a Poem

A Gift

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.

~ Denise Levertov ~

(Sands of the Well)


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Tattoos on the Heart

Recommended Books!

On our long driving trip, I took along a bag full of books and then bought some more. It was nice to have the space in the car to have real books! I read a lot, but I am not recommending everything I read, just the best. Oddly enough, three of the four books I am going to mention were discovered in Seattle!

The first one was discovered in the Summer 2011 issue of Parabola, which I bought at the University of Washington Bookstore. The interview with Father Gregory Boyle was eight pages long and so interesting that I had to buy the book: Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle.

Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest, founded Homeboy Industries in 1992. The program is intended to assist at-risk youth and gang members with a variety of services, such as counseling, tutoring, and employment. The most distinctive feature of Homeboy Industries is its small businesses, which gives hard-to-place individuals an opportunity to be employed in transitional jobs in a safe, supportive environment where they can learn both concrete and soft job skills. Among the businesses are the Homeboy Bakery, Homegirl Café & Catering, Homeboy Merchandise, Homeboy Press and Homeboy Silkscreen & Embroidery.

The stories that Father G relates are simple, bright and sad, showing life and death. He quotes many of my favorite people, including Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, Rumi, and Hafiz. He faces the hard deaths with honest discussion, which pointed out to me that the point of life is to live like Jesus, NOT for the goal of positive RESULTS.

This is going to be the book we will read in the Wisdom Class at All Saints Episcopal Church, the weekly book study that will begin meeting again the day after Labor Day.

My daughters AE and KA really liked reading the first book in the trilogy by Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games. I kept seeing copies of the book in bookstores up in WA, so I ordered all three books to be delivered at DC's house in Austin, where we were scheduled to babysit Avery. In between the busy-ness of holding and taking care of Avery, I insatiably read that first book. When I got back to Corpus Christi, I read the other two in quick succession.

Being immersed in the world of North American dystopia captivated me. Katniss is the heroine in this young adult series. (This designation reminds me that the Harry Potter series is also categorized in this way, and I love those books!) Katniss is a flawed and very human character who survives against great odds. This first book is about the Hunger Games: Once a year the government chooses two children from each of the twelve districts to compete against one another in a live and televised reality show. Twenty-four kids and teens enter, and only one survives.

It is a violent book, which shows North America after its people warred against each other, demolishing their world and environments. It is a thought-provoking book that I am still pondering.

Now for the two books I am currently reading but have not finished yet.

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff is the one book that I carried throughout the USA on our travels and did not start reading until I was back in Corpus Christi--after I finished the Hunger Games trilogy.

Schiff researched ancient records, literature, and current information to bring forth this biography of someone who is more legend than anything else. There is little historical evidence of who Cleopatra really was--especially not Elizabeth Taylor from the movie! Stacy Schiff herself admits, "there is not universal agreement on most of even the basic details of Cleopatra's life. So much of this history is simply not known." She sifted through more information than I can imagine to bring forth this fascinating story of Cleopatra. I am mesmerized.

This last book was seen at the Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle, highly recommended by one of its staff members. It is a translation of Yogo Ogawa's sweet book, The Housekeeper and the Professor. This may be a future gift to many of my friends!

Ogawa's portrayal of the professor is particularly moving. Injured in a car accident in the early 1970s, he has only 80 minutes of short-term memory and must re-learn relationships and basic information on a continual basis. A brilliant mathematician, he uses math as a primary means of communication - he is most comfortable when talking about numbers and has a gift for making the complex seem simple. While lacking in memory, he has a natural and instinctual affinity for children, and bonds instantly with the housekeeper's son. The boy's presence helps to bring the professor out of his insular world - in fact the child is the only thing that the professor seems to care about besides his beloved prime numbers. The two bond over math, and later baseball, and their relationships nurtures and enriches both of their lives, as well as that of the housekeeper.

~~~~
These are four/six books I have greatly enjoyed. They come from different categories of reading material, so perhaps you will find one that interests you!

Prisoners of Ourselves

When I got back home, I had various issues of magazines to peruse. In the August 9 issue of The Christian Century, I found this excellent thought offered by Rowan Williams:

"Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams recalled for the Guardian (July 8) how he once was an angst-ridden young man who worried about whether he was suffering enough or was compassionate enough. But then Mary Clare Millia, a Catholic nun, said to him, 'You don't have to suffer for the sins of the world, darling. It's been done.' If we're not preoccupied with justifying ourselves, said Williams, then we can focus on other things and can even afford to be wrong. 'Jesus is the human event that reverses the flow of human self-absorption.'"

It is too easy to be self-absorbed, and here is a prayer that helps us realize this:

O God, bring new life
where we are worn and tired;
new love
where we have turned hard-hearted;
forgiveness
where we have wounded;
and the joy and freedom of your Holy Spirit
where we are prisoners of our selves.

~~John L. Bell


Bell, John L. The Book of a Thousand Prayers. Ed. Angela Ashwin. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. 138.

Friday Five: Road Trips

Here I offered today's Friday Five for RevGalBlogPals, and I am only getting around to doing my own post about Road Trips late Friday night! This being only our second day home after five weeks away, I have been busy, busy, busy.

So here are some road trips I remember:

1. The most recent one of July and August. Husband CB and I set out in mid-July driving north from Corpus Christi, TX to Mesa Verde, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks, followed by Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. Everything was beautiful, though little was seen at Glacier because our day of driving on the Highway to the Sun was overwhelmed with fog and cold (47 degrees F.) rain. Otherwise, we saw beautiful scenery, especially when we drove the North Cascades Highway to Washington State on up to our hometown of Bellingham.

2. Trip to Oklahoma and Arkansas in 1983. We went to see friends Steve and Gayla in Duncan, OK first, but on the way we stopped at a forlorn rest area in TX where I drank a lot of water at the water fountain (because I was still nursing baby AE)--and by the time we reached OK, I was having lots of diarrhea. That continued when we visited friends and Dallas and went on to Mineral Springs, Ark. to see my grandmother (Grandma Brunie to my kids). I was really sick, but eventually got better. I've always blamed it on the water fountain near those bathrooms at an old, old rest area somewhere in TX, as I was the only one who drank from the fountain and no one else got sick on the entire trip. This was my worst road trip.

3. 1972 trip to CA and then to Needles. CB and I went down to Camarillo, CA for my friend Nancy's wedding in her backyard. I was one of her bridesmaids, just as she had been one of mine at our wedding. After that, us being new college graduates, CB had a job interview in Needles, CA. We both will always remember that long drive without air conditioning, with our windows wide open and the hot air blowing in on us. I recall sitting in the frigidly air-conditioned Denny's, while CB was at his interview. Luckily, he did not get the job--or we would have had to live in a trailer in Needles, CA. (Instead, we moved to Richmond, VA at the end of the summer, which was a road trip from Bellingham, WA to the east coast.)

4. 1974 trip from VA to Newport, OR. We left VA so that CB could go to graduate school at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Or. But I had gotten a teaching job in Toledo, OR, so we had an apartment in Newport to move into. I drove our Datsun 510 while CB drove a U-Haul truck. The most memorable time was me losing track of him in mid-America. With no cell phones or internet conceived at that time, we had no way to get in touch. We just had a pre-arranged motel to go to. I remember calling my parents from a pay-phone and then calling the state patrol. Eventually CB showed up, as he had expected me to call my mother and had called her from a pay-phone, too. We were reunited!

5. Innumerable moving road trips in my childhood. We did not go on vacations when I was growing up. The only times we went anywhere was when my dad was transferred to a new post as he was a career Marine officer. We would always drive to Arkansas to visit his family and then to Washington to see my mother's family and onto the new home on a base. It was always hot, and I would be in the backseat, climbing back and forth from there and the front seat--no concept of seat belts or car seats back then! On different trips, I saw Old Faithful at Yellowstone; we went down into Carlsbad Caverns; and we went to a Petrified Forest.

Home!

We got home late yesterday afternoon after five weeks away. There was little computer access during our travels and few minutes to spare, especially when I started reading The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I finished the third book this afternoon, so I finally have time to blog again!

We had various venues during our long trip--first the driving through much beautiful country, then visiting family and friends in Washington State, and finally babysitting our 8 month old granddaughter Avery in Austin, TX.

Avery loved me as the female figure with her mother and father gone. I don't think she completely remembered what or who were missing, but she was a little unsettled for the first few days. Usually, she would not let husband CB hold her and would laugh and giggle at him if I was holding her. I was glad to be honored by her attachment, but soon realized how much work it is carrying a baby around again on my hip. Avery seemed to get adjusted to us after a few days, but yesterday she had to switch gears again with the arrival of her other grandparents and our disappearance. It is good that she is a sweet-tempered girl. I wish I could see her reaction when her parents come home on Saturday night!

Returning to TX, I am newly aware of the tendency for dust to gather in houses. I am sure there is dust under our beds; I see it on the edges of the ceiling fans, too. It must get worse with pets, especially cats. I thought I noticed dust (and didn't see any) until I started seeing it more closely in hard-to-reach places. I will look into this more closely/deeply when I recover from our trip!

Pictures of Avery

Daughter MJ holding Avery.



Avery is learning to crawl.

CB and I are taking care of Avery for the first four days of her parents' vacation; her other grandparents will be here on Wednesday for the next four days.

Back in Texas!

Yesterday MJ and I flew from Seattle to Austin via Alaska Airlines, which was a good, direct flight. When son DC and granddaughter Avery picked us up at the Austin airport, husband CB arrived at their home--he had spent the previous four days driving from Seattle to Austin. It is nice for all of us to be together, though tomorrow morning we grandparents will be left alone with Avery while her parents go on vacation to the Dominican Republic with friends.

Avery is an animated and pretty 8-month-old. We are lucky enough to end our vacation with babysitting our only grandchild for the next four days.Then the other grandparents will arrive to take care of her, and we will finally return to our three dogs and one cat in Corpus Christi.

Seattle now seems like a dream--it is 63 degrees F. there while it is (only) 97 degrees F. in Austin. (It is forecast to reach 102 though--to keep the run of +100 degrees going.)

Back in Bellingham

We spent four days in Seattle, visiting our daughters AE and KA and friends Terry and Dennis. AE took our picture this day when we ate lunch inside a greenhouse at Swanson's Nursery, near her home in Ballard.

Unfortunately, when we got to Seattle on Saturday, I thought I was having a huge allergy attack which ended up being a cold. (I was relieved that I wasn't allergic to Washington State, though having a cold to share was not that appealing.) So far both daughters AE and KA have caught this cold and possibly husband CB.

The weather is beautiful, with sunny days and high temperatures in the 70s F, both in Seattle and now back in Bellingham. Tonight we will walk around Boulevard Park, which was a traditional activity to do around sunset ever since the children were little and my mother was still with us.

As we drove to Seattle on Saturday, I heard the news that a dear friend, Susan Chaubal, died in her sleep. It was a great shock and is sad. I have many regrets, because I had not made time for her this past year, mostly because of my preoccupation with my health. Even so Susan encouraged me greatly to get a better diagnosis when it was not determined yet that I had RA.

Please pray for her husband Milind and daughter Anjulie.