Best Laid Plans…

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Well…that didn’t pan out. I really thought I would post regularly. I did become more consistent with my personal journaling, and I started a storytelling project about my life for family, but I posted nothing on this blog since January. My Mom used to lament with a resigned sigh, “Best laid plans…” when something had not gone the way she intended.

Life has definitely been busy. It is just never dull around here. I remember wondering after our seventh child Ben was born, how long it would take until things “got back to normal” again. They never did. It took years before I realized that life was a series of new “normals,” one after another. Some call them seasons. In the tough seasons like those of poor health or great stress it can be hard to see any positives or hold out hope.

A lot has happened in the last year, both good and not so. I had back surgery in October and thankfully, it proved to be very successful. Two lumbar vertebrae were fused, remodeled and fixated, the disc between them removed and replaced with a cage of sorts that fills in with bone. It was a rough recovery process, but I have been in less pain from lumbar stenosis than ever in ten years! As I increased my walking time, which was crucial to recovery, my hips began to hurt more and more. I’d had a steroid injection in my right hip in the past with some relief, so we repeated the injections on both sides.

The left hip got better but the right got worse. An MRI showed that the ball of the joint was eroding because of no blood supply, this is called Avascular Necrosis or AVN. After a round of physical therapy we scheduled a total hip replacement in June. It was interesting but frustrating that the surgery was designated as “elective.” I guess the ball has to completely collapse, or one’s hip needs to actually fracture before the surgery is deemed urgent. There were months of waiting and scheduling while my AVN became more painful and debilitating. Regardless, it was another really successful surgery! The recovery pain was not as bad as the back surgery had been, but it was more disruptive because ambulation was affected for weeks. If you are considering it, I’d say that I would do it again in a heartbeat for the relief. And…it actually looks like I will need it again. The left hip pain is worsening, its ball eroding, so it is only a matter of time.

Around this time we decided to “go multi-generational.” Our fourth daughter and her family moved in with us. Their house will be sold, and then this house will be sold, and we’ll find something bigger for us all to move into. Moving them in and emptying their house was a busy and frenetic time. Luckily, I had a new hip and attacked the projects like the Bionic Woman. It was and is a fulfilling and exciting adventure.

The health gauntlet continued on with another biopsy for basal cell carcinoma. This time it was on my forearm–at least not my face. We caught it early and the surgeon simply cut an elliptical border around the biopsy site and pulled the edges together with sutures. It went fine–but it triggered lymphedema because of the lymph nodes removed from that arm in 2022. The treatment for that was wrapping my arm up like a mummy, causing my hand and wrist to swell, pinching a nerve which increased wrist and hand arthritis pain. Who would think that a hand and wrist could hurt so much? I got steroid injections at the base of my thumbs but it hasn’t given the relief I would have liked. The hand surgeon said it’s only time before he’ll need to remove the trapezium bones from each wrist because the have basically dissolved. Oh joy!

If you’ve read to this point, thank you. I am fully aware that it could be so much worse. I know that I am blessed to be alive at 63. When I whine, I do immediately think of loved ones. I think of young people who have cancer or other serious diagnoses, who have much more burdensome crosses to bear. God please be with them. Our sweet foreign exchange student from early on at the Abbey Farm is going through stage 4 cancer treatment. Please pray for her and her family. She is full of gratitude and perseverance; the treatment is difficult. She is an inspiration.

“Just keep swimming,” the character Dori repeated in Finding Nemo. “Do the next right thing,” Anna sang in Frozen 2 as she climbed out of a deep cave, laden with grief. Often I’ll repeat these two quotes like mantras. The next step, I realize, may not be a large or obvious foothold. It is often more like a wobbly little pebble that seems insignificant or futile, but never give up hope.

There is a well-known Christian poem called Footprints in the Sand attributed to a woman from 1936 named Mary Stevenson. Mary had a dream in which her life was illustrated as a walk on the beach with Jesus, footprints trailing behind them in the sand. Looking back, she asked Jesus why in the hardest of times of her life there were only one set of footprints. In the poem Jesus lovingly replies that he had not left her alone; indeed, when it was just one set of footprints, they were his, carrying her.

May Jesus carry us each through our most difficult and unexpected times, even if we do not recognize him.

Can’t Find It? Write It

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I am lucky enough to have a trusted professional to speak with regularly. Dr. P is about my age and she has great experience. I mentioned in my last post that my friend Bev is encouraging me to write, and now Dr. P is also. I told her that as I watch YouTube I find myself hoping to discover someone in my stage of life who discusses multiple topics–not just makeup, or clothes, or a specific illness, or even health, but a variety of the things I find interesting, and the types of things I struggle with. I’d like to feel less alone and more inspired.

Not that I am without companionship. I am happily married, I still have three teenage children living at home, and a twenty-year-old who just moved back home to finish college online. I have friends but they are still busy with their careers or good health. I do not want to join a group; my energy and health are still too up and down to commit. So I watch YouTube and period dramas, and news. The latter is very divisive so I won’t get into that. I get things done around the house in bits, and struggle with the fact that I am so seriously less productive than ever before.

Someone I’ve recently heard about and watched on YouTube is a Harvard Business Professor named Arthur Brooks. Perhaps you know of him. He has lectured and spoken throughout the United States (and maybe the world), not about Business, per se, but about Happiness. The tie-in is that in order to be an effective leader and to have satisfied employees, one needs to know about the keys to happiness. Gratitude is essential.

Taking a tip from him I have instituted a practice of not just making a list of what I am grateful for, but very specifically choosing five things per day and really meditating on them, ideally as I walk. With the frigid temps these days I may not walk every day but whether I do or not, I spend some mindful time on five things. Three are supposed to be obviously good things, and two must be borne from suffering. Suffering? Yes. And for each, one meditates on three specific aspects of that gratitude.

So for example, today my obviously positive things were: 1) our family went out to dinner after church yesterday and I was grateful for the laughter, the precious time with family, and the means to do this (wow, dinner for six at a nice restaurant is pricey these days–we won’t do this regularly); 2) just the fact that I was out walking, I was grateful for the sun on my face, that my back could handle it, and that I could walk independently when there are others who have lost the ability to do so; 3) for my two new kittens, that Bruce allowed me to get them even though he pays for it and usually takes pets to the vet for me, that they are sweet and purr and are quite therapeutic, and that they are hilarious to watch.

The suffering-related things were: 1) I still have pain in multiple places every day, but the pain has drawn me closer to God, has allowed me to see how much Bruce truly loves me, and actually has pushed me to exercise more consistently; 2) my face was literally freezing in the bitter wind at that moment, but that discomfort forced me to think back to the many winters with frigid temperatures when despite them we got out and rode horses (the memories precious like gold) and I remembered riding a ski lift happily in Colorado high above the ground in the wind when the temperature was recorded as 18 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit!), and finally that I was grateful to be one step closer to home, and another, and another.

On other days I have had more profound thoughts regarding suffering, but those above were appropriate to share. A few years ago I created a post in which I later regretted sharing too much, and I do not want to that again; so, if you consider reading any more of my blog posts in the future, I promise–nothing awkward. Dr. P said if I don’t want to create a YouTube channel with the content I would want to see (I do not) then consider writing about it. A sixty-something-year-old taking some of Arthur Brooks’ advice is my first post. I will continue to learn about whatever else he suggests, and I may write more on it; however, there will be other topics. I am happy to hear your suggestions.

It feels good to write again. Thank you for reading!

They have taken over the dog bed

Up For Air

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Yes, up for air and it feels good. I once gave birth to beautiful babies, but now it seems my generative powers best create new diagnoses. I won’t elaborate, but the latest caused the need for lumbar fusion surgery three weeks ago and it was rough! I’m doing better now. I’m very careful with pain medications as I know the dangers of opioid addiction. And yet, they are necessary for recovering from serious surgery and serious pain. I’m weaning off, thank goodness. Bruce walks with me every day.

My childhood friend Bev suggested that I get to writing again. She was my first writing companion, and six decades later she continues to encourage me. I have some ideas. Honestly, what I’d like to accomplish most is an autobiography for my children. So often I’ll tell a fun story from my past and my sons will remark they’d never heard it before. The four sons range from 23 down to 17; the six girls from 37 to 16. With all my diagnoses piling up I feel I want to “get to it.” None are grave, but as I age I see how precious life is, and how very fast it goes.

We have six grandchildren now. Four live too far away in Ohio and Tennessee and I miss them terribly. Two are nearby and I see them frequently. We live in the suburbs south of Kansas City on a pretty street lined with homes built in the 1960s. At first I really missed the scenery of Fort Leavenworth and the vistas of our farm in Atchison, but this is perfect for us right now. Bruce and I have designed a pretty front and back yard on about a quarter of an acre. With my back, with both our bad backs, really, we have plenty enough to do. I cannot believe all I used to accomplish in my thirties, forties and fifties. I sigh deeply. It is now a different time.

I like being retired. For decades I ran from one job or task to another. It took cancer and serious illnesses to slow me down. Did my pace in life contribute to the illnesses? Probably. But that was who I was and I’m finally at a point in life where I can look back and be proud of myself. I know that I could only have done it by the grace and strength of God. I am so grateful for my life, for my family and friends and experiences.

I’m up, and I fill my lungs with God’s breath, readying for whatever comes next. Blessings to you all!

Fortitude Formation

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As another winter storm envelops the Midwest I descend to the kitchen well after midnight, unable to fall back asleep. The pattern has become, sadly, not uncommon. I even sigh peacefully, and light a candle in the way our pre-electricity ancestors might have when awakening between first and second sleeps. It helps to substitute this alternate view of sleep as normal, rather than aberrant. At a time when health gurus are emphasizing the importance of a solid eight hours of sleep (which honestly makes me more anxious about sleep) there remains the truth of the ancient two sleeps that went on for centuries, if not millennia.

I won’t argue the pros and cons. I must adapt to reality. This will not be a treatise of complaints, though I will gently set the stage for a philosophy of overcoming adversity by mentioning a few of them.

The seventh decade of my life has begun as the most challenging yet. Though I had an unlikely thyroid cancer in my teens (very successfully treated), cancer visited again just before my sixtieth birthday. Chemotherapy, radiation, difficult oral medication therapy and a bilateral mastectomy are now past. Disabling spinal stenosis continues to be dealt with while recovering from a rough hiatal hernia surgery just four weeks ago. And the latest is that next week a basal cell carcinoma must be removed by Mohs Surgery from my face. Believe me, I’m trying to adopt a warrior mentality to this third cancer, facial scar and all. It feels as though I need to adopt it for life.

As a younger person I was so very active. Anyone who knows me personally, likely does so from softball teams, horseback riding, golf, skiing, hiking, running, farming, scuba-diving…you get the point! As ability after ability disappeared like mist into the past, I railed and grieved and adapted. Truthfully, I’ll probably rail and grieve and adapt for the rest of my life, but I am determined to keep moving forward and not give in. Perhaps that is the benefit of an active, sports-filled life. You keep playing even when you think you are beat. In one of my very favorite movies, Galaxy Quest, the protagonist’s rallying call is, “Never give up–never surrender!” In a quieter, lilting and hopeful quote, Dori in Finding Nemo repeats, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming; what do we do?–we swim, swim, swim!”

My husband Bruce lives through my philosophy-formation and knows that it is not a smooth process. At times it is quite hard and I’m emotionally and physically laid out flat on my back for a while. It can’t be easy for him. I’ve written about caretaking before. Guilt comes easily to me and I have to fight it in regard to the impact my health and moods have had on his life. All I can say is that he is remarkable and steadfast. His love is strong and limitless. And I am so blessed.

Bruce’s love, and the support from family and friends ultimately come from God. I am thankful. I know very well that many people, if not most of the world, have equal to far-greater struggles. Maladies and tragedies can divide and isolate, but they don’t have to. We really are in this together. We’re connected in a spiritual sense; I envision it sort of like trees and flora are connected by a mycorrhizal network below-ground, unseen. Perhaps more accurately, we exist in a world of quantum entanglement. It is how I like to think of the power of prayer. Our thoughts and intentions hold great power, and potential effects.

Please do me a favor and “send some good vibes” and prayers. While you do, extend them to all who are suffering around the world. Every one of us needs strength and support. I’m grateful for a chance at a seventh decade. One of the cancer diagnoses portends a questionable achievement of that. I choose to take a day at a time, a step at a time, and “just keep swimming!”

Blessings to you!

Not A Concept

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I had no idea that the last time I posted was January of 2023. Not that anyone has perhaps noticed, but I’m surprised. I thought it had been a year, since about the time that we moved in June of 2023. We bought this house because it was so close to one of our daughters. As “city” as it gets for me, but it is really a beautiful suburb.

We continued to live on Fort Leavenworth in early 2023, while the kids finished school. It has been quite the change from a farm in rural Atchison, but it makes sense and it is good. We were here when our sixth grandchild was born. And in truth, our daughter has been here for us during my health challenges. I think I’m on the upswing now, it’s been two years since my cancer diagnosis, and a year and a half since surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation. It took a lot out of me.

Anti-hormone therapy and a chemo-like pill took even more. I tried the medicines for a year and it seems I’m in that third of patients who quit them due to debilitating adverse effects. I won’t call them side effects because for me, they heaped more damage on my body and deteriorated any quality of life. It’s ok, my family is supportive and well, I tried the “gold standards.” I’ve a greater chance of cancer returning than someone with Stage 1 or 2, but I have no metastasis. At Stage 3 there is no known cancer in my body and I’ve changed my eating habits and am exercising more. I even joined a gym!

My goals are living each day as best as I can, and living in the moment with gratitude. I think I am honestly succeeding at these more than ever before. Like every person, I’m here on this Earth to better it somehow, especially for my family.

Hoping not to take a year and a half to write again. With love, Suzy.

From my walk in a park today

Hope and Joy

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We are moving soon, and for the first time in six decades on the planet I will live in the city! The country mouse moves to the city–well, suburbs. I will miss my old houses and the decorating style that blended so well with them. I grew up in the 60s and 70s and was very happy to leave behind the orange shag rugs, the avocado green and harvest yellow appliances, and the Colonial Americana textiles. The house we just bought was built in the year of my birth–1963! Mid-Century modern is NOT my style, having lived through the real thing. I do admit to a bit of nostalgia for Coppertone wall ovens. I could like that again.

Moving is a big deal. There is so much work ahead, packing up and downsizing 5000 square feet into roughly half that. Compared to all of the other recent changes in my life I am reminded that it is not insurmountable. In fact, I am looking forward to it.

Although I will miss the gorgeous vistas I have been blessed to see daily, the winding Missouri River, the distant hills, and inviting woods, I am envisioning a simpler life. We are having a fence installed and I’ll work on a cottage garden, as much as my back will allow. A window over my sink will invite tranquility within as I wash up after meals. This will become the stuff of my daily vistas.

Those meals will be smaller, as I learn to cook for fewer and fewer on a daily basis. One of our sons will be moving out on his own when we pack up this old house, and another will be head to college in the fall. But I have visions of big family Sunday dinners. We will be a few houses up from one of our daughters, her husband and our one-year-old grandson. We’ll be an hour closer to my pioneer-woman daughter in the hills of Central Missouri. and still within a day’s drive of our two oldest daughters and their families. I can hope that one day they will move yet closer.

I really think that the years growing up watching The Waltons imprinted on me a desire for a large family. It is not for everyone, but I count blessings that this came true for me. We don’t travel as other friends do who have smaller families. One good friend of my late husband and mine, with whom we vacationed regularly, travels out of the country once or twice a year. Another good friend is in Kenya as I write. These travels are not possible for us now, and any envy I feel is instantaneously replaced with happiness for them and gratitude for all I do have.

Gratitude is “where it’s at.” It keeps us focused on what is real, and fills us to overflowing with hope and joy.

Preparation and Joy

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I watched an interview this morning with Cardinal George Pell from Australia. Regardless of religion and stance on the awful pedophilia that exists not only in organized religion it but in too many workplaces and organizations, here is a person who was exonerated not only once, but multiple times. He was imprisoned for over a year while appeals were heard and judged in the Supreme Court. He was unanimously and finally declared innocent.

The interview delved into his emotions and how he coped with unjustified imprisonment. Of course there are people who have suffered worse, but here was an inspiring account of how he avoided anger and prayed for those who falsely accused him. If anyone is familiar with how accounts of Jesus portrayed his unjust torture, imprisonment and crucifixion, the very least one can agree on was that he was docile, did not fight back, did not act out in anger, and prayed for his accusers, torturers and executioners. Accounts of imprisoned and tortured disciples and apostles show an imitation of Jesus.

Cardinal Pell has written about his experiences. I have not read the journals but would like to. In this interview just before his natural death, he explained how and why he did not react in anger, but trusted God and prayed for not only his accusers but for all of those who have suffered from sexual abuse. He remained, it seems, as calm as he did throughout the interview. Toward the end, the interviewer verbalized his own opinion that the Cardinal’s experience seemed to parallel those of prophets in the Bible who suffered unjustly, whose experiences were portents of things to come. He implied that things are going to get worse in the future and that we can use the Cardinal’s response as an example of how to react.

Cardinal Pell, interestingly to me, did not agree with the negative view of the future. He expressed great hope despite how things might seem. This was as enlightening to me as was his forgiving response to imprisonment and unjust suffering. We do live in a time where many are losing hope and predicting awful times ahead. Perhaps in some ways they may be proven correct, but I agree that there is always hope.

This does not mean that we ignore the things we see as signs of what may come. We should indeed prepare as we see fit. From this interview I see that the greatest preparation is within us. The most incredible things that I gain from my faith in terms of how to live my life, are perspective, and a philosophy of living in love and hope. These things increase the love of others, and of prayer for them despite evil. With preparation there is then peace, and it leads to joy.

Reframing and Renaming

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A strategy for dealing with a difficult event or unhealthy thought process is to examine it from different angles or from an outside-yourself perspective. Some call this the “Multiple Perspective Advantage.” Reframing and renaming the stressor can help one to deal with it in a more healthy manner. One vlogger who was undergoing chemotherapy renamed the agent often referred to as “The Red Devil” to something that sounded more therapeutic to her: “Liquid Sunshine.” Having done things like these, I can say that they do help.

Grief is a tough animal. It is one that in my opinion, does not completely go away. It may disappear for a while only to reappear when least expected. Perhaps more positively, it is something experienced, worked on, then packaged and placed in a special room of our minds. We can take it out at another time to be experienced a little differently based on what is happening in life. We work on it, repackage and store it once again. Perhaps at some point it has been worked on enough not to re-emerge, but it remains a part of us. In the case of the loss of a loved one, I feel that the grief only fades over time, enough for us to go on. It is not truly healed until we are reunited once again after death.

Grief also occurs with painful conditions, with losses of identity, of physical prowess, of abilities and of changes in our bodies. I was talking with my cousin Susan, a trained Spiritual Director. She listened quietly as I sadly told her about my inability to ride horses anymore. There is truly nothing like riding a horse. Thoroughbreds are unique with their long-stridden walk, excited energy and incredibly fast gallops. Dressage work which engages a horse’s body, collects the quarters to the point where the horse can trot or canter at a standstill or in a pirouette…it’s magical. Jumping streams and ditches, galloping Hunters downhill and bounding over hedges and post-and-rail fences is exhilarating. I really cannot risk even walking on horseback anymore because one mis-step could severely damage my spinal cord. I know that I am so lucky to have had the experiences I had. But I still miss it.

Susan listened quietly. She said at first that she didn’t know what to say, not having experienced any of these things. “I’m just listening and I’m praying as you speak.” After a while she said thoughtfully, “You know, horses were so important in your life, but I never saw you ride. In my mind, though, I can see you riding a different horse. This one is taking you now to different places in your life. It’s like a spiritual horse. Different, but perhaps just as beautiful.” I loved the thought, and quite honestly it has helped me immensely. I journaled about it and strove to visualize this beautiful animal. Since she is spiritual, of course she can fly and is not bound by physical laws. I have had fun with this and it has been healing. I named her “Grace.”

I hope that you might persevere in trying different strategies. Sometimes when it seems we’ve tried everything, and we’re ready to throw in the towel, we are graced with a new and helpful perspective.

Grace

Yes, Grace you are.
I name you.
White as the brightest sun,
Limbs strong and muscled,
Mane and tail flowing
As you carry me to places
I could not otherwise go.

You help to complete me.
You are a gift
Lent by a Warrior Angel
To carry me through dark times,
Through pain and loss,
Galloping over hills and fences
To the greenest fields.

A Warrior’s Horse,
You know no fear,
Your training was the finest.
I can trust you, and God who created you
For me, for now…
Until the day you carry me through the veil
To life everlasting.

We’ll say goodbye then,
Forehead to forehead.
No tears, as there are none in heaven.
My heart will be full as you turn
To gallop back through the veil,
Back to Earth
To the next soul in need of you.

Loss into Grace

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I have realized, growing older, that although we gain in years and wisdom, we also gain in losses. My oldest aunt is wonderfully alive at 95 years and is lovingly cared for by her sons, but she has had to live through the deaths of her only sister (my Mom) and all of her five brothers, even her “baby brother” who was twelve years younger than her. She lost her parents decades ago, and her beloved husband just a few years ago. Her health is pretty good, thankfully. Other elderly folk lose their physical abilities and their health earlier. These are all difficult losses which affect our view of the world and our view of self.

I watched a series of YouTube videos by Niklas Ekstedt, a famous Swedish Chef who investigated the areas of the world that have the oldest living people. These areas are called “Blue Zones.” The link on the chef’s name, above, takes you to the episode he filmed in Japan. I won’t give away all the secrets, but in my summation after watching the series, the most important factors were staying productive (giving back to society or family in some way, or staying active), and participating in a social community. The latter could be having a large family or one with strong connections, or it could be a bowling league, a church community, or a close-knit neighborhood.

I surmise that in our modern age, both the productivity and the community factors could be something formed from social connections and activity on the internet–as long as those connections and activities are positive and build one up. I do know that since I was diagnosed with cancer that social connections were increasingly forced to those on social media, email, phone-calls and snail-mail. I’m thankful for every one of them. People I haven’t seen in decades are sending care packages and messages of love and support. On the internet I’ve found a good friend through one Facebook group, and immense support from the many members of another.

I admit that when I viewed the Ekstedt videos of the physically productive men and women in their eighties and nineties, and the wrinkled centenarians sagely offering advice through sparkling eyes, I thought to myself that because of my diagnosis, I have little chance of making it that long. But I am here now, and I could be alive for a couple more decades! I am not giving up. Not one person knows how long their lives will last. Every day really can be viewed as a gift.

These are the ultimate gains, are they not? The good memories are precious. It is helpful and healthy to reframe or reimagine the way we look difficult things. It is too easy to get focused on the losses and to be dragged down. It is too easy for fear to take hold. My late husband’s Mom was increasingly ill in her final years, but despite the tragic losses in her life, she told me that she could not let herself get down, that there were still so many blessings in and throughout her life. I will strive to be more like her. It won’t be easy, I know. Grieving needs to happen, it is not something that truly ends until we have passed on. But her words are full of wisdom and grace.

Tolerance and Caring

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Perhaps I ask for tolerance in an unusual post. No poetry here, no movie review with lessons on life. No pretty photographs. They’ll come again next time.

I started writing this post the day before yesterday, and then I read about the tragic shooting in Colorado Springs this week. If I did not comment on the shooting it would be like pretending it didn’t happen and that is just wrong. It makes this post longer than usual.

A 22 year old male entered an LGBTQ bar at midnight November 19th, and opened fire, killing 5 people and injuring at least 17 others. It is shocking that someone would do such a thing. Frustratingly, I find that had this male been properly dealt with on three prior occasions, he would not be walking the streets. I can’t help but wonder about his mental health diagnoses. His mother reported to the media that he had threatened her in the past with a self-made bomb, and he was previously arrested twice, one of those times for kidnapping. How could this person be free to roam?

Back in the late 1980s, many state psychiatric hospitals were closed. I’ve mentioned before that as a nursing student I spent a clinical rotation at such a hospital in Maryland. I encountered caring and skilled professionals, and patients who were well cared for, treated and housed. As the patients worked through therapy they had increased privileges. Patients with certain diagnoses who clearly could not live independently, lived in group homes on the campus. They had goals, they had jobs, they had a nurse managing medications, they attended therapy and saw a psychiatrist regularly to check their treatment and medications.

Then so much changed and where are these types of folks now? Living in government subsidized housing and having to manage their own care, or living with family not skilled to take care of them. Many of these folks that would have been well cared for in the hospitals–are now in our penal system. So, we reduced one population (state hospital patients) to “save money” and look like we were supporting their rights better, but effectively put them in unreasonable positions for self-care, reducing the possibility of the most positive health outcome, burdening families with those who were clearly not manageable by non-medical professionals, thereby reducing the safety of the public and shifting that “saved” public cost to the penal system.

That’s about as specifically politically opinionated as I’ve ever written, but you see, I have helped to try to care for this population in my years as a home health nurse. It was at times heartbreaking. I cared deeply for these clients. Many such persons now have a decreased quality of life, diminished health outcomes and roam the streets. Though no system is perfect and all should be reviewed regularly for needed reforms, in my opinion these same people were, largely, better cared for in the 1980s. In addition, the public was safer from those who were seriously mentally ill.

Before the knowledge of this mass shooting, I was writing about intolerance and what I thought was at the root of it: Fear. What I started to write is included below.

If you are like most people, you probably think you are on the tolerant side, but we need to regularly challenge ourselves. Perhaps you are proudly intolerant. I have seen such people on every side of an argument whether Republican vs. Democrat, whether supportive of certain challenged human rights today, or whether one religion or another. What is tolerance if not tolerating that someone believes differently from your core beliefs? What about caring to understand the reasons they believe differently?

I think the mistake is to think that tolerance is giving up on what you believe to be true. One can be a Democrat but their best friend is a Republican who disagrees on issues around abortion. One can be LGBTQ but dearly love their sibling who does not understand them. One can be Baptist yet attend their friend’s infant baptism. I believe the key is to work backwards in dialoguing with “why” questions to find where common ground exists and the difference of opinion occurs. The Democrat and Republican friends in the example above agree that it is important to support citizens’ rights. The siblings agree that they grew up close, love each other and want the best for each other. The Baptist and the infant baptism friends agree that Jesus was God incarnate and gave up his life to save all people.

We can be nice and exhibit understanding. None of us is perfect. I caught myself saying something that I didn’t really mean the other day. It was a disparaging remark that I immediately retracted, apologized, and corrected. It is important to watch our speech and hold ourselves accountable to a respectful standard. I thought to myself, “Why did that come out?” Now, I won’t say what it was, but don’t worry, it was nothing that would get me fired from a job or blacklisted; it was enough that shamed me. So, why?

Many of us are used to growing up a certain way and thinking that it was all good then. We might forget that while it may have been good for us, there were populations of folks for whom it was awful. I do believe that fear plays a great part. Fear that the world will “get worse,” or change, or be uncomfortable. Fear that our children and grandchildren will suffer from the changes. Fear of our own rights being limited. Fear of judgement from God. Perhaps according to the latter, one feels that it is okay to be rude and confrontational because, well, they are saving that person’s soul.

Again, questions are a good way to broach these topics and seek understanding of the other person’s opinions. In the latter example, without asking the person if they even believe in God then no matter how much you quote chapter and verse it may make no difference in the argument. In fact, the person may be further alienated. Instead, try to exhibit caring and interest in that person’s story and beliefs and journey, then that relationship may be strengthened, leading to a better understanding of each other, and reasonable discussions.

When I made the comment I took back, I realized that it was from a level of discomfort with the world as it is. Fear. Often, fear leads to anger. Now we’re back to the awful shooting, and tying these posts together, today and the one I started two days ago. The shooter was probably angry and feeling hateful about the people or certain persons in the LGBTQ bar. I feel strongly that based on his reported history, if he didn’t have guns he’d have used pipe bombs, a truck, knives, whatever he could.

There is absolutely no excuse for his behavior. I am horrified, and watching the news I saw an anchorperson about to cry and the reporter on the scene with a face almost shaking in stoic reserve as she said that the crime will be investigated as a hate crime and the perpetrator will be tried and dealt with as he should be. I can only imagine the reactions of the parents, families and friends of the victims.

While we are challenged to trust our judicial system, are we challenged not to hate in response? It is certainly understandable to feel great anger. I’m shocked and angry with this shooter. Do I hate him? No. He’s a product of a flawed system, one that has not protected its citizens. He will be dealt with now, but he should have been far earlier. The system failed those victims in so many ways. What happened was wrong to the point of diabolical. Tolerance must include waiting for things to get better. Working constructively toward that in whatever ways we can will help. Praying for change will help.

Tolerance is coexisting with difference. It is also emotional continence. Incontinence in the medical world is the inability to hold the bladder or sometimes the bowels. I think the parallel is actually profound. Too often in public and on social media there is a literal spew of emotional incontinence. I think we are called to be better than that.

Tolerance is, referring again to a medical definition, the ability to withstand increasing levels of a medication in one’s system. Increasing levels? I wonder if there is a parallel to what people feel about the world changing. Once upon a time the older generation couldn’t tolerate Elvis Presley’s hips and dancing, and there was once a Hays production code in films. Now we have unbelievable displays in media such that our great grandparents would be incredibly shocked if they witnessed it.

Tolerance is the example of Jesus hanging out with sinners. He heard their stories, he showed compassion. He was from a lower-class town but he tolerated the snobs and the elite, as well. He spoke the truth. Yes, he did chase away the corrupted people out of the temple who were looking for profits and self-gain, who extorted others in a holy place. He said “Woe…” to those who took advantage of and injured others. But he loved them all. Can we challenge ourselves to love the souls of those we have differences with?

We need to tolerate these changing times, the unrest. A day at a time hope for and work toward a better world. Seek understanding. Seek to be a nice person who cares about others. We can challenge ourselves to love souls despite differences. We may not have the perfect world we want now, but there sure is a better chance of it if we can talk through disagreements, seek common ground, explore each others’ beliefs and concerns–and exhibit true tolerance and caring.