With a Love like That

Even

After

All this time

The Sun never says to the Earth,

“You owe Me.”

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the Whole Sky.

~ Hafiz

I recall reading once that early peoples would have been terrified by an eclipse. Was the sun angry? Had they done something wrong? Would it return? I didn’t think about it at the time but older now, maybe wiser, I think, sure, they were afraid the first time. After that, it was just another (rare) part of life.

August 21, 2017. White-knuckled I drive through a near-empty stretch of Nebraska.

Months earlier, I’d suggested a road trip through Utah and New Mexico to my daughter and been surprised by her keen interest in seeing the solar eclipse. We researched the best places to view it. Tennessee didn’t interest me and since I longed to show Kay the southwest, we settled on Nebraska (on the way to Utah’s National Parks). The Thursday before departure, trusting I’d done all I could to ready the church for two weeks pastorless, I returned to the house and packed the car. The next day, Kay and I met in Appleton, touched up our Ren Faire costumes, and hung out. Having just moved to a different church in July, I worked to decompress so that I could be fully present and enjoy this vacation with my college-aged daughter.

Five years later, the details of our adventures are fuzzy. I recall spending the night in Milwaukee prior to heading to the Bristol Renaissance Faire. In the rush of costuming the next morning I misplace my credit card, recalling only after canceling it that I’d stuck it in my bodice. We enjoy Ren Faire, finding it as lively with music and entertainments as ever. Around 4:00, hot and tired, we begin our trek south and west, eating along the way and arriving at the Airbnb after dark.

The next thing I recall is on the morning of the eclipse. Having left Omaha, Nebraska behind, we're sailing along on I-80 making good time when we encounter a wall of traffic. Where did all the cars come from? We're in the middle of nowhere! Slowing to a crawl – eight to thirty miles per hour – my anxiety skyrockets. The eclipse is at 1:04 local time and while I don't care one way or the other about that, Kay has her heart set on seeing it. Ninety minutes later the highway magically clears. We make up some time but won't make it to our destination. 

We drive until the world begins to darken then, taking the next exit, pull into a vacant junkyard surrounded by corn fields. Laughing in excitement, we hop out of the car. The moments that follow as daylight disappears change my opinion about the wonder of seeing a solar eclipse. Laughter continues to abound, in part because the experience is beyond words. What I had dismissed with indifference turns out to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m grateful for Kay's persistence in voicing her desire to see it. (The rest of the vacation is good though since Google Maps’ estimated travel times are based on traveling 15-20 mph beyond the speed limit we are always behind schedule.)

Later this fall, the Wausau Lyric Choir will sing Hafiz’s poem set to music by Joseph Martin. I suspect few members of this ensemble (founded as a Lutheran choir) will know they were written by a 14th-century Persian Moslem poet.

“Even. After. All this time.” As we breathed these words during our initial read-through, my heart was captivated. The sun never says, You owe me. Imagine if it did. If it could. We do owe. Our very existence. To the sun’s warmth and energy. How seldom I think of this. How infrequently am I grateful for this source that makes all else possible. Still caught by the words’ essence yet slow to warm to the second half of the poem, I acknowledge that initially it seemed too Christian for me. Learning the origin of the words helped me to embrace their universal meaning. God, Allah, Source, the Universe, however we name it, we are recipients of life. We are – all of creation – blessed by a love, an endless intention for well-being, that surpasses the imagination’s ability to grasp.

With a love like that 

Anything is possible.

The Best Medicine

Do you laugh easily?
Are you good at telling jokes?
Do you enjoy relaxing with a favorite comedy after work?

Maybe you're one who gets the folks around you laughing by telling a story about what happened at the supermarket Wednesday. That's not me. I used to be able to draw people in with an amusing story as I preached on Sunday morning. Not so much that I considered stand-up comedy but enough that I thought I might have learned some timing. Unlikely. In the twenty-seven months since I went on medical leave, my only recollection of making someone laugh was with a dubious expression when they defended their procrastination a little too innocently. They cracked up. I'm trying to stop joking with my bestie. Whether it’s my delivery, their reception, or both, it doesn't work. They invariably take me seriously. Thankfully, we laugh together enough that I get my daily quota.

Since humor can be challenging for autistic folks, this could be my problem. While I can laugh alone at Buster Keaton's physical comedy, for ’most anything else I need another person laughing to get me going. Two years in a row, I laughed most inappropriately in a conference room full of people as the bishop and a superintendent were announcing which churches were welcoming new pastors. Something in their traditional wording fooled me into thinking I heard a joke. I've adapted somewhat.

• This year, I covered my mouth so that if errant laughter erupted, most people (Bishop Jung) wouldn't hear.
• I don't bother watching comedy alone.
• I make a point of being around people who laugh. Together, we laugh at ourselves and life.

Last week, I spent a few days in Green Bay visiting my kids. When Jay mentioned enjoying watching “The Good Place” the rest of us weren't surprised. The fantasy comedy series delves into all sorts of philosophical questions. Ever since he discovered philosophy in college (took every class offered and earned a 3rd major!) he's had a passion for it. 

Leaving the supermarket yesterday, I told Kay about something I'd seen in the dairy aisle. She responded quickly with a “derriere” quip. We laughed heartily though little of it made any sense. Later we watched “She Hulk” and while I didn't laugh much at this unapologetic comedy, we both laughed frequently at Washington Irving's word pictures as we read aloud a seasonal favorite, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. (And we made it to “The End” for the first time!)

These last two and a half years have been hard for all of us. I suspect that the pandemic and the polarization we find nearly everywhere make it harder to find humor in everyday life. And yet, laughter truly is the best medicine. A colleague who contracted Lyme disease some years ago credits his healing, in part, to daily laughter therapy.

I've said many times that we humans are made for relationship. We're also made for laughter. Whether we actually cry or not, life offers many opportunities for tears. It's our job to make sure we notice – and create – abundant openings for laughter as well. This can be hard. When our days are filled with grief or the ones we laugh with are far away, it can seem like nothing's funny. Still, we need to laugh. To giggle and guffaw. To grab our sides with tears streaming down our faces. We need this!

Partly because of a limited capacity for screen time because of the disease, I don’t get my daily quota of laughter. I can feel it and I’m not sure how to resolve this. Do you have an idea? I’d be delighted (and grateful) if you offered a suggestion.

    

And as always, if you like what you read, please share it with friends

Long Term

A study followed 33,000 people in Scotland who had tested positive for Covid and 63,000 who had never tested positive, checking symptoms at six-month intervals. The study’s authors wanted to examine the long-term risks of Covid by comparing the frequency of symptoms in people with and without previous Covid diagnoses. Published on Wednesday in Nature Communications, the study found that, eighteen months later, one in twenty people who had been sick had not recovered at all. Another 42% reported only some improvement in health and well-being.i

This sounds like terrible news. And I admit that fear of long Covid is what kept me diligently masking for so long. Yet there is also good news here. According to Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research at the V.A. St. Louis Health Care System, because the study uses a control group, researchers can accurately assess which symptoms are associated with long Covid (and not something else). “It also tracks with the broader idea that long Covid is truly a multisystem disorder… not only in the brain, not only in the heart – it’s all of the above.”ii

According to Dr. Jill P. Pell, senior author of the study and head of the School of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow, “Covid can appear differently in different individuals, and it can have more than one impact on your life…”iii

While long Covid is clearly terrible, I find good news in this report because

• It reminds us that researchers are diligently working to learn more about the long-term effects of a disease that many people are now dismissing; and
• Medical practitioners will be better prepared to help people with end up with long Covid as well as with other ailments with similar symptomatologies.

One of those other ailment which “is truly a multisystem disorder” and “can appear differently in different individuals” is chronic Lyme disease. For me and for the tens of thousands of people who struggle with the disease, this study and others like it offer great hope.

But wait, you say. Tens of thousands? That many?

An estimate based on insurance records suggests that about 476,000 are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease in the U.S. each year.iv Although the CDC/NIH estimates a treatment failure rate of between 10-20%, the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) found that among those treated early, 16% to 39% remain ill.v For those treated for chronic Lyme, estimates range from 26% to 50%.vi (These numbers do not include those who never learn they have Lyme.) Using the CDC’s old estimate that 300,000 people in the U.S. contract Lyme each year, Lorraine Johnson, CEO of LymeDisease.org, offers a prevalence chart. (Disease prevalence is the cumulative number of people who get a disease and remain ill – whether treated early or later.vii)

Even in the best case scenario, that would be 300,000 people within ten years. A more realistic number would be between 600,000 and 1.2 million in the same timeframe (and many people have had Lyme for decades). So I greatly underestimated when I said tens of thousands.

A survey of about 3,000 patients with chronic Lyme disease found that more than 70% reported only fair or poor health.viii 

This suggests that a great many people are suffering from an ailment that can be as debilitating as long Covid but without the press, and often without support of no medical professionals who take them seriously even if they don’t know how to help, insurance that covers their treatment, or even family support. In short, without a social or a medical safety net.

If there are blessings to come out of this pandemic, my prayer is that better care for chronic Lyme patients will be one of them.

i     Damian McNamara, “For Many, Long COVID's Impacts Go On And On, Major Study Says,” WebMD, last viewed on October 15, 2022, https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20221012/for-many-long-covids-impacts-go-on-and-on and Benjamin Mueller, “Nearly Half of Covid Patients Haven’t Fully Recovered Months Later, Study Finds,” New York Times, October 12, 2022, last viewed on October 15, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/health/long-covid.html?campaign_id=154&emc=edit_cb_20221014&instance_id=74673&nl=virus-briefing&regi_id=126117459&segment_id=110042&te=1&user_id=c32140b396f770fc82f0c145275a76b0.
  
ii    Benjamin Mueller, NYT.
  
iii   Benjamin Mueller, NYT and Damian McNamara, WebMD.
  
iv    CDC, “How many people get Lyme disease?” last viewed on October 15, 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/humancases.html.
  
v     “Lyme Basics: Chronic Lyme Disease,” last viewed on October 15, 2022, https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/lyme-disease/chronic-lyme-disease/. While I have found lymedisease.org to be a helpful resource in my own Lyme journey, I cannot assure the reader that everything presented there is fact-checked and without bias.
  
vi    “Lyme Basics: Chronic Lyme Disease.”
  
vii   Lorraine Johnson, “Growing Number Of Chronic Lyme Patients – Still No Government Action Plan?” July 11, 2015, last viewed on October 15, 2022, https://www.lymedisease.org/lymepolicywonk-growing-number-of-chronic-lyme-patients-still-no-government-action-plan/
  
viii  Lorraine Johnson, Spencer Wilcox, Jennifer Mankoff, Raphael B. Stricker, “Severity of chronic Lyme disease compared to other chronic conditions: a quality of life survey,” March 27, 2014, https://peerj.com/articles/322/ referenced in “Lyme Basics: Chronic Lyme Disease.”

It's all in the mind! (well, a lot of it)

“I get to paint the garage!”

It’s Wednesday and this was my thought upon waking up this morning. Now that I’ve sipped some tea, let me explain…

I’m not delighted to paint the garage. It needs it and would have been painted last year if I hadn’t broken my foot. I look forward to a sense of satisfaction when I survey the freshly painted back wall. Returning my friend’s ladder will also feel good. But I don’t enjoy this project as I do some others.

Why the predawn enthusiasm then? Psychologists tell us that we can change the way we feel about tasks or relationships by changing the way we talk about them. When we express frustration or distaste, this colors our perspective. The relationship becomes burdensome. The task, more onerous. The reverse is also true. When we speak with pleasure or excitement about our relationship with a sibling or the task ahead, we are more likely to approach it with anticipation. “I get to paint the garage!” reflects an intention to change my mindset.

“A mindset is a belief that orients the way we handle situations—the way we sort out what is going on and what we should do.”i Carol Dweck wrote about fixed and growth mindsets – “My abilities are set and I can’t change them” versus “If I keep working at it, I’ll improve.”ii Gary Klein studies other types of mindsets as well. He explains that mindset influences whether police officers or military personnel use intimidation or trust-building as they seek compliance.iii

I’ve only been working (again) on my mindset for a week so I can’t say yet if it’s helping. But I’ve been changing into painting clothes without inner complaint – I’m a messy painter – and haven’t groaned about carrying the heavy ladder. The work is happening. Maybe that’s enough.

I'm not suggesting that “fake it ’til you feel it” is always a useful strategy. I was mistaken to believe it would suffice for absent feelings in my marriage. Yet it worked for John Wesley, founder of the Methodism movement (and subsequent Methodist denominations) when his faith was shaken. An Anglican priest, he had felt called to travel to Georgia to win people to Christ but, once there, he failed not only in that but also in his efforts to win a certain woman's affection. Dispirited he boarded a ship to return to London. During a storm at sea, he noticed that some of his fellow travelers displayed a sense of peace he did not feel. Once home, he spoke with a trusted friend, Peter Bohler, laying out his belief that he ought to give up preaching.

Wesley:     “How can you preach to others, who have not faith yourself?”

He then asked Bohler “whether he thought I should leave it off or not.” 

Bohler:     “By no means.” 

Wesley:    “But what can I preach?”

Bohler:     “Preach faith till you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”

That was in March. Wesley was persuaded to persevere. In May he approached Bohler again who instructed him to keep at it. We can imagine Wesley grieving for a lost faith that might never return. Yet only days later he experienced a conversion experience that Methodist churches commemorate in late May each year.iv From then on, Wesley worked tirelessly, preaching faith because he had it.

What does this mean for us? Maybe nothing. Maybe something.

The counselor I’m seeing assigned me homework to help dismantle feelings of insecurity. (While I have no more fears than other people, mine often run rampant through my mind.) I’m to say, “I value our relationship. -- is a good, committed friend.” I’m often settling into bed for the night before I think of it. That's okay. I say it and smile because they are a good friend.  

Will this help long term? As in all things we get to choose – each day, sometimes each hour – whether we will hope and trust. 

Let's hold to hope!

i   Gary Klein, “Mindsets: What they are and why they matter.”, May 1, 2016, Psychology Today. Last viewed on October 6, 2022.
ii  Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Random House, 2006. Last viewed on October 6, 2022.
iii Gary Klein, “Mindsets: What they are and why they matter.”
iv John Wesley was a prolific journal writer all his adult life. “The Journal of John Wesley is composed of 50 years of Wesley's reflections. These writings offer a first person view of the thoughts, feelings, and prayers of a man whose intelligence and organizational skills were only surpassed by his enthusiasm for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Here you can find records of his first and second conversations as well as his conversion experience. Last viewed on October 6, 2022.

A Bear Ate My Lunch

The sun always seemed to shine during that semester at New Mexico State University. The exchange group (national and international students) regularly went on Saturday outings. Hikes in the Organ Mountains are the ones I remember. The sky was so blue, the vistas so different from the ones I grew up with in Pennsylvania.

Returning to New Mexico a couple years later, I joined fellow teachers on short hikes. In cross-country skiing, I learned about cardio and the quiet of a snowy mountain. Downhill skiing, I felt the exhilaration of speed and, initially, the fear of a tumble as I approached the end of a run and didn’t know how to stop. I also met others who enjoyed outdoor… excursions. (One had just backpacked the John Muir Trail, a two hundred miles trek from the Yosemite Valley and to the summit of Mount Whitney.) In addition to hiking mountain and desert, we went spelunking and rock climbing. With a borrowed backpack I joined them on a weekend trip, learning the thrill and exhaustion of carrying all one’s gear.

Soon after, I bought a cheap frame pack, a decent hip belt, and a good sleeping pad. I only used the pack a handful of times but I relished visiting wild places while challenging myself in ways I never had before. Having joined a few trips, one July day I headed to California. My powder blue Escort rebelled at the dry heat of Death Valley. Every twenty minutes I’d pull to the side of the road and let the radiator cool enough to add water before continuing. Finally reaching higher country, I spent the next day waiting as a mechanic procured, then installed, another radiator. With the car again dependable, I toured Devils Pilepost one day, then walked the path up and down Mount Whitney another, jogging the last mile or so before dusk became dark (and me with no flashlight).

After partaking of these and other light romps, I drove to Yosemite, registered at a ranger station, threw the pack on my back, and started walking. If you missed it I was alone, my first, and only, solo backpacking trip. Glorious! I’ve never since been so present in my skin as to recognize by touch whether that brush of contact on the arm or neck was a mosquito, fly or spider’s line.

Being small in stature, I’d opted not to add the weight of a tent to my pack. The second morning, my left eye was swollen shut from an insect bite. On what was to have been the third of four mornings, I awoke to find that I hadn’t slung my food bag high enough up the tree to evade bears. A few grains of rice, two dehydrated peas, and some bright red crumbs on the ground below were all that remained. I’d enjoyed freeze-dried strawberry slices the night before, savoring the sweet-tart zing on my tongue. Wanting the prolong the experience, I had left half the package for the next night’s supper. I wished I’d eaten them all! That day, as the chocolate chip cookies in the car called to me, I hiked twenty miles downhill, arriving at the parking lot around 10:00 p.m.

Until quite recently, that trip marked the end of my great outdoor adventures. Within three years I married, had a child, bought a piano, and got a mortgage. I settled into a traditional life, learning a little about plumbing, paying the bills. The American dream. To say that I failed would be inaccurate. I may have done poorly in marriage (I’m too close to assess) but my kids are amazing and I wouldn’t trade them for a world of adventures. Those years, both the good and bad, made me who I am.

But that was The Box, and not my box. Stepping out of it, I began peeling back layers of assumptions and wrong beliefs, slowly coming to know myself.

Recently I was instructed to ask each morning, “What does Jayneann need?” Sometimes a response comes easily. Other times I have no answer. In those moments I remind myself that re-membering is a process and that as I continue to reclaim who I am, more often I will know.