The popular culture is so all consuming at times. It surrounds us with what we come to believe and understand as normal. Certain things envelope us every now and then and as the envelope encompasses our very being we don't always seem to understand the strangulation that this envelopment is causing. We find it difficult to resist the encroachment, particularly when we don't see anything amiss. We see what seems to be our entire world engaging the normal as if it were normal yet we don't feel right about something, somehow. We see our brothers and sisters whom we respect and seek guidance from following suit with the culture, yet we seem drawn away for some reason.

I know it is not against my brother that I should be fighting, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness that my fight lay against. The ignorance that is possessed blinds me from the truth that I seek, but as I endeavor to alleviate the ignorance of myself I find that my hand has been firmly planted on a bowl and that bowl covers a lit candle. As more of my ignorance leaves me during my walk to seek the truth the bowl becomes hotter and hotter until I must lift it and discover the light that is wanting to emanate out but I was keeping it in. The flame burns hot, but once I remove the bowl the radiance of the candle is warm and comforting. I feel pain if I keep the bowl too close to the flame now, so I wish to set the bowl aside and be done with it. When I do, I see things more clearly I think because the light floods the room. As the light floods the room I also see the things that I should avoid coming into contact with. I see the bricks sticking up out of the uneven floor just laying there waiting for me to stumble over them. Even knowing they are there, I must watch my step or I will trip and fall.

Having discovered the source of the discomfort in my hand, I also discovered the comfort and warmth of the light. I am eager to share this with my brother who is still shivering in the cold. I grab up the flame and take it to him but its radiance seems to burn his eyes and he recoils away from me. I feel sad because I have caused my brother pain, but I also feel confused. Why did the flame not burn my eyes, but rather burnt my hand until I let go of the bowl. I didn't mean to injure my brother, but he is wanting nothing to do with the light that is giving me warmth. He doesn't like the cold, but he doesn't know what the warmth feels like because he has not come close enough to it to feel warm. I am not discouraged, I take my discovery to another of my brothers to show him and share with him instead. I again grab the flame up and go running to him and exclaim," come , come see what I have found, this light, it helps you to see, it helps you to stay warm. " Again, this brother too covers his eyes and curses at me, he tells me I am a fool and I know not what I do. He asks me why I play with such foolish things, it wastes time and hurts people, surely no good can come from this.

I am left to wonder why as I approach my brothers , they will not hear me out. I wonder if my brother is not right and all I am doing is hurting others. I cant help but to wonder why they feel so differently than me. I think about picking the bowl back up and covering the light, but even as I reach toward the bowl it is now glowing red hot and I simply cannot pick it back up now. I do notice one other thing, as I was taking the candle to my brother, as I lifted it up, the higher I lifted it, the brighter it burned and the warmer the room felt.

I look around at all my family, my brothers and sisters. Many of them are cold and are stumbling around in the dark. Some of them seem to be able to find their way without falling, and seem to happy with their lives. Still others have no difficulty in life at all, never stumbling, never struggling, not seeming hungry, thirsty or cold like me. I notice these family members last because they seem to have not a worry. I respect them and look to them for guidance. I decide to take one more try to share my discovery and take the candle to a sister whom I respect. She does not shun me or flee as I approach with the light. I offer to let her hold it and feel its warmth and see the beautiful radiance that it puts off. She looks at it carefully and tells me she has no need for such a light. She has all she needs and while she isn't burned by the light like my brothers, she isn't warmed by it either. She tells me that she is fine fitting into this world, she has a flashlight to light her way and lots of clothing to keep her warm. She tells me that she is just like everyone else and it is okay if I want to be different, but she doesn't want to be different and carry around a candle. I pick up the flame a little higher and notice that it is very dark around her, but the things that are in the dark places don't worry about her. They just keep behind her as not to get in the way of her flashlight.

I wonder to myself, to me my sister looked cold and yet she has no use for the warmth I might bring to her. My brothers seem to struggle but I injure them by trying to show them a path. I cannot hide the flame that I have found because it hurts me to try and hide it again. What do I do with this candle now? After spending some time enjoying the warmth of the flame and sitting staring at its beauty, I again feel a chill in the air. I know that the flame burns brighter and hotter when I lift it up, so I find a loft in the room and climb up to the top, taking the candle with me. Once I reach the loft I sit the candle down in front of me, and it is burning brighter and warmer than ever before. After some time I notice a brother and a sister climbing up the ladder to meet me in the loft. They have seen my candle from off in the distance and wanted to come see what was making that light. They commented that the light felt warm and comforting to them and they wanted me to tell them where I found it. I shared with them my whole story, and they listened. Then my brother seemed to be uncomfortable all of the sudden. He and I both looked down at his hand, in his hand he had a bowl. I told him, pick your hand up and see what is under there.

My brother lifted his hand and under it was a candle with a flame. I explained to him the newest thing I had learned. Lift the candle up and allow people to see it and come to you, if you chase after those who are not ready they might flee. Share your candle with all who wish to see it, but you will only injure those who you chase after. Let them see your life by keeping the light held up high and let the light chase away the darkness and bring your brothers to you. Don't try and point out their faults while the heat is still chasing the chill from your own bones.

It is hard to be in the world and function in the world without becoming like the world. Many of my brothers and sisters carry a light that shines into dark spaces, but most of us do not carry the light high enough to shed light across large places.

I still have much ignorance left to shed and my candle has made it to the loft but not yet to the roof and certainly not yet to the mountains peak.

A day at the hospital

Spending the day at the hospital is never going to be a fun experience, but today did have its moments.

Here is the background. Angie was in for another 'procedure' today. We arrived at 9:30 for a 10:00 o'clock appointment and she was scheduled for surgery at 12:00. The surgery was supposed to last about 1 -1/2 hours so she was to be in recovery before 2:00. As is normal with the normal chaos that is our lives, at 6:30 they begin the process of moving her to a room so she can spend the night. Instead of being home before dinner, we are hoping to be home before lunch tomorrow.

So, since I have so many hours to kill, what am I going to do? Well, I can't leave until she gets into her room so I have until almost 7 o' clock to kill before taking Gracie her overnight bag and then beating a path back to the room to watch Angie sleep for a while. I don't have many options for entertainment so I settle on updating facebook regularly and watching the other folks who are populating the waiting room. Ah people watching, my favorite sport....

After Angie goes back I slide down to the cafeteria for a quick change of scenery and 1/2 cup of the worst scrambled eggs I have ever come across in life. I mean seriously people, how do you make scrambled eggs so tasteless , what is the trick with that ? While questioning from what foul these eggs were commandeered from, a young lady comes walking into the atrium. Now, let me paint the picture for you, I am alone in a room with about 15 tables. This room is off to the side and away from the main dinning area. I am perched up against a wall with my laptop out and my faux eggs minding my own business when a young blond lady walks into the room. She reminds me of Red Fox , or to be more accurate, she reminds me of Fred Sanford. She comes in holding her shoulder and neck and staggering around a bit. She walks to one edge of the room and grabs her shoulder and moans, well yells a moaning type sound. She then walks back across in front of me to the other edge of the room and has another yelling moaning episode. She then walks over to the table one away from mine, right in front of me and from a standing position lays her forehead on the table and lets out more yelling, sobbing moans. Over dramatic does not even touch this one as a description. I am sitting there debating what to do, I am thinking I should ask her if she requires any help but am not sure what to say. I start running over options in my head to try out what they sound like.

1. " what is wrong with you " ( nope, no way to make that sound good )
2. " do you need some help of some kind ?" ( nope, that's even worse than the first one )
3. " Miss, is there something I can help you with ?" ( closer, but still crass sounding )
4. " Is your name Sally ? and if so, were is Harry and have you two met yet " ( uh, no )
5. " Ma'am, can I be of some help to you ?" ( still a bit awkward, but passable )

Just as I had worked out what to say she turns to me before I have had a chance to speak and she starts talking. I think she was tired of waiting for me to process everything, but I wanted to be cautious not to seem a flirt, or seem a curmudgeon so I wanted to process things first, I guess she didnt have the patients for that, anyway, she starts.

" Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry, I don't usually cry in front of people ( cry, cry !! your yelping like a wounded water buffalo during peak mating season ) I didn't know what they were gonna do to take that x-ray. It just hurts, it really really hurts. Can I ask you something, I have asked like 30 people already and they all said no and I know you will say no too but they just wouldn't listen, would you listen to me please, my son is trying to raise money for a school fundraiser and they have all this neat stuff in here, if you would just look through it I would appreciated it, do you mind if I go get a cup of coffee, I'll be right back., oh it hurts , it really really hurts, I don't mean to talk so much I just talk when I am in pain and OHHHHH, I 'm sorry sorry sorry, I'm gonna get a cup of coffee and , I , they told me no caffeine with the pain meds, but, I'll be right back, do you mind if I get a cup of coffee? "

Now, she is gone for a few minutes, while she is gone I would like to point out that the entire above spoken paragraph was said in about one breath, maybe two but that would only be due to the brief pause to add more theatrics. To shorten this up, my friend is 29, has two children, thinks her neck is broken, and is hocking stuff in the hospital dinning room. While she is gone I here an intercom message come across about a clean up in front of the coffee shop. Yep, you guessed it, she spilled the first cup of coffee, too much pain to carry hot coffee with shaking and spilling it. We talked a little , we talked about church and she was going to take Angie's name to her prayer group tonight, I bought a bookmark and donated it to one of her prayer group friends, and she moved on to another table in the other dining room. Well, its 10:15 AM right now, this is going to be an interesting day at this pace.

Back to the waiting room I go. Nothing left to do but people watch.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you just really can't tell who is who and how old people are. For example, two ladies and a toddler, oh, 3 years old max would be my guess. You look at the two women and think, okay, the younger, relatively attractive one, the one who looks like she showered this morning must be mom, and the older one who showers every spring whether she needs to or not over there looking haggard and grumpy, thats grandma. But when it comes time for the patient to go back and both mom and grandma start addressing the toddler in third person, you are reminded not to judge, and please dont guess, because this isnt one you want to get wrong out loud. " grandma will be right back, just stay here with momma ?" Yikes,,,,


You look around and put people with people sometimes because you have nothing else to do. The next group is what I call ," the herd ". If you have spent any time at all in hospital waiting facilities, you have seen some variant of , " the herd " . Today's herd would be what I would call the redneck herd, or perhaps the , " larry the cable guy " herd. The herd is what happens when just a few too many people decide its a good idea to hang out all day at the hospital. One is lonely, two is company, three is getting to be a crowd, 18 is a herd. This group had about 4 women who I would call, tired looking, if you know what I mean. Then there were about 8 men there and oh I am guessing about 6 or so kids running loose barefoot around the place. The men all look the same in a way. They are the kind of men who sit around and belittle each others deer stands and poke fun at each others Bass Boats. These are the kind of men that if you say " Dale Earnhardt " within their earshot, they all take off their hats and place them over their hearts. Yes, they all had hats, that is how I could tell them apart, Mr. Budweiser frog hat was proud of his Ranger Bass boat and Mr. John Deere hat was proud of his deer stand. Mr. Bass Pro Shoppe was proud of the fact that he could stand today after all he drank last night. Mr. Built Ford Tough hat was proud of his truck , and Mr. Chevy Nascar hat was just as proud as he could be of his new teeth. He didn't say, but after seeing his little missus, I think I know what happened to his old teeth. As the group got up to depart I heard Mrs. John Deere hat say, " grab you youngen and com'mon, we need to get up to you maw's room now. Ah, what good boys they are....

While driving back and forth between the hospital and taking care of Gracie's supplies I passed through Turtlecreek Township. I noticed that there was no creek, I didn't even see a town, and I didn't run across even one single turtle. I also passed a street called Circle Drive. It was a dead end street. Well, that is how I spent most of my day today....


It is now after 11 and I think I may try to sleep a little...

good night....