The 5
The back injury I have had for two and a half years has flared up and in a bad way. Now, driving hurts it. I live an hour from my job and this is suddenly a critical issue. As much as I enjoy being on campus more, going down 3 days a week for Senate, last week I came home after 3 days going back and forth and was in genuine pain. So much so I saw my doc the next day. I'm trying some new meds, celebrex and flexeril (just one a day) and have yet to touch the vicodin he gave me for times it really, really hurts.
On the plus side I saw a different orthopaedist, convinced the one up here by me is a complete idiot. I drove a long way, almost 90 minutes, but the guy was worth it. This Friday I get another injection into the spine (woot that shit) but in another spot, a different spot. And he's not done with me if that doesn't work; there are a number of other things to try. Thank God.
Oh, and if it really IS just a very oddly unhealed tendon injury from so long ago (which should have healed two years ago) he assured me...eventually, it will get better. He thinks that likely the spine or a disc or nerve is involved somehow, he did say more than once that he was mystified, but I could tell he was thinking-mystified and not tossing his hands up mystified. Good. I have hope.
We plan to move closer to my work, maybe right next to it! But not while my son has another year of high school to go. So for now, I am looking at all other options. Living near campus I wouldn't have to drive much at all; I could walk year round, etc. Walking helps.
And besides all this (and why did it suddenly start killing me when I sit in a car...it didn't do that before all this time) the stress of discernment continues. Rather, the fear. My current job is a good one; it provides flexibility and almost ultimate security. I'm big into security. When I went down for my first Senate meeting a couple weeks ago, well my second, I realized how much I loved being there, even if the things we were talking about were not critical things, really, parking problems and such. Just the intellectual community. Then, drinks after with a half dozen colleagues...it was great. So, I admit, was my lunch in between with a priest who runs a parish right by my college. Another place I am sharing and listening. But sometimes my job seems hard to leave; other times, it seems far from vital to who I am as a person.
As a practice for ministry, I want to do a book study at my parish this summer on a novel, maybe Till We Have Faces. Then, in the fall, perhaps a study in Mark where I can inject literary discussion (the synoptic problem, marcan priority, the marcan "sandwich," his use of irony, etc.) along with the usual kind of thing done at bible studies. And I am thinking: at a big or medium parish, a parish with larger numbers of educated people, that kind of thing might fly well. Will it even work at my parish? I think again of what one staff person at the seminary I visited said: "If you can learn to minister to all kinds of people, to just about anybody, you've learned the single most important thing." How much I agree with her. My little mountain parish fits that bill rather directly.
Underneath all, all of it...fear.
I did make an appt. to see a new therapist this Thursday. I had some depression a couple weeks back, home alone by myself, nothing harsh or major, and it lifted each evening when my family came home. It was only two days. But it reminded me that I am going through a lot with the discernment process, shaking and changing in my core, and it cannot hurt to have someone I can see every couple of weeks. I'm not thinking weekly, unless at the very first. She uses the same waiting room as Sharon, my other therapist (yes, transitional objects can be rooms) and I think it's okay that I drink that in. She seemed nice on the phone. The funny thing was she said Sharon used to text with her clients, take calls late, be more available outside the office time and this new person can't do that so much. I had to laugh because I never talked to Sharon outside the office. I think Joy's boundaries are okay as I am not in crisis. I have done my crisis days, rather years, and that is behind me, I believe, barring a major life loss or some such thing. And even then. I have changed who I am on the inside through years of therapy. No, I need maintenance. Anyway, it was a good move on my part to set something up so I can have someone "out there" when and if I need her.
***
And I end with this: the 5. The psalmist sounds self righteous in some of these lines, and he seems to have specific persecutors in mind, but what a poem. If this were all we had...it would almost be enough. This is the genuine outcry of a man in need; it is my prayer to my Father this morning. Fear, pain, these are humbling. And sometimes, the KJV simply dominates, whatever its shortcomings.
Love to all; please read this with me to the end:
Psalm 5
Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.
Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.
Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.
For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.
Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.
But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.
For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.
On the plus side I saw a different orthopaedist, convinced the one up here by me is a complete idiot. I drove a long way, almost 90 minutes, but the guy was worth it. This Friday I get another injection into the spine (woot that shit) but in another spot, a different spot. And he's not done with me if that doesn't work; there are a number of other things to try. Thank God.
Oh, and if it really IS just a very oddly unhealed tendon injury from so long ago (which should have healed two years ago) he assured me...eventually, it will get better. He thinks that likely the spine or a disc or nerve is involved somehow, he did say more than once that he was mystified, but I could tell he was thinking-mystified and not tossing his hands up mystified. Good. I have hope.
We plan to move closer to my work, maybe right next to it! But not while my son has another year of high school to go. So for now, I am looking at all other options. Living near campus I wouldn't have to drive much at all; I could walk year round, etc. Walking helps.
And besides all this (and why did it suddenly start killing me when I sit in a car...it didn't do that before all this time) the stress of discernment continues. Rather, the fear. My current job is a good one; it provides flexibility and almost ultimate security. I'm big into security. When I went down for my first Senate meeting a couple weeks ago, well my second, I realized how much I loved being there, even if the things we were talking about were not critical things, really, parking problems and such. Just the intellectual community. Then, drinks after with a half dozen colleagues...it was great. So, I admit, was my lunch in between with a priest who runs a parish right by my college. Another place I am sharing and listening. But sometimes my job seems hard to leave; other times, it seems far from vital to who I am as a person.
As a practice for ministry, I want to do a book study at my parish this summer on a novel, maybe Till We Have Faces. Then, in the fall, perhaps a study in Mark where I can inject literary discussion (the synoptic problem, marcan priority, the marcan "sandwich," his use of irony, etc.) along with the usual kind of thing done at bible studies. And I am thinking: at a big or medium parish, a parish with larger numbers of educated people, that kind of thing might fly well. Will it even work at my parish? I think again of what one staff person at the seminary I visited said: "If you can learn to minister to all kinds of people, to just about anybody, you've learned the single most important thing." How much I agree with her. My little mountain parish fits that bill rather directly.
Underneath all, all of it...fear.
I did make an appt. to see a new therapist this Thursday. I had some depression a couple weeks back, home alone by myself, nothing harsh or major, and it lifted each evening when my family came home. It was only two days. But it reminded me that I am going through a lot with the discernment process, shaking and changing in my core, and it cannot hurt to have someone I can see every couple of weeks. I'm not thinking weekly, unless at the very first. She uses the same waiting room as Sharon, my other therapist (yes, transitional objects can be rooms) and I think it's okay that I drink that in. She seemed nice on the phone. The funny thing was she said Sharon used to text with her clients, take calls late, be more available outside the office time and this new person can't do that so much. I had to laugh because I never talked to Sharon outside the office. I think Joy's boundaries are okay as I am not in crisis. I have done my crisis days, rather years, and that is behind me, I believe, barring a major life loss or some such thing. And even then. I have changed who I am on the inside through years of therapy. No, I need maintenance. Anyway, it was a good move on my part to set something up so I can have someone "out there" when and if I need her.
***
And I end with this: the 5. The psalmist sounds self righteous in some of these lines, and he seems to have specific persecutors in mind, but what a poem. If this were all we had...it would almost be enough. This is the genuine outcry of a man in need; it is my prayer to my Father this morning. Fear, pain, these are humbling. And sometimes, the KJV simply dominates, whatever its shortcomings.
Love to all; please read this with me to the end:
Psalm 5
Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.
Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.
Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.
For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.
Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.
But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.
For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.
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