Sunday, January 31, 2010

My Dad's the Greatest!


85 years ago today, my Dad was born! He is my Dad, but he is so many other things too...he has been friend to many, a Physician to many, practicing for 60 years. He is a husband and caregiver to my Mother in her failing health...and was a loving son in law to my grandmother (one of the greatest women who ever lived!). He is a father to my sister (younger of course!), and a father/grandfather to all 3 of my "fatherless" boys. He is a golf pro (!) and tennis pro( in the past when he would drag me out of my warm bed at 6:00 a.m. to go and play tennis in the freezing cold...( I think he took particular pleasure in rousing me persistently, when he knew I had been out that Saturday night, undoubtedly up to no good and hungover)... no amount of pleading on my part, seemed to soften his resolve!

When you are young you just see your parents as older people who have, and have had, no other life than the one you have witnessed. As you get older, you start to become curious as to what events have shaped their lives prior to, and even during, your own existence with them. Our culture particularly is less apt to sit and listen to the stories of the past, and we lose so much by not taking that time.

I only learned recently, that when my father was a small boy, he caught scarlet fever, and was sent off to a "sanatorium" which was way out in the middle of the moors of Sheffield, far away from his family. Parents weren't allowed to come in and visit, so they would drive many miles, to stand out in the cold and look at him through a window! He was there for several months, including during Christmas...now how sad is that!

Anyway the point is, he has contributed all sorts of things, in all sorts of areas, and in all sorts of lives, and is most assuredly one of the humblest men I ever known (I think Christ would have to top him... but close!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Dad...sorry I wasn't there to eat cake!

Friday, January 29, 2010

Bullied by God?


On January 12, 2010 at approximately 5:00 p.m. a mega quake hit Haiti, and the tragedy began to unfold, video clip by ghastly video clip, picture by picture, it became horribly clear that we were bearing witness to a historical event in time. Too horrendous to imagine, stories of mass graves, heaped corpses, grief stricken family members, and the final toppling of an infrastructure that was already inadequate to say the least. Then amongst the horror, amazing rescues are heard of...3 days....5 days 1 week...2 weeks...people surviving against all odds...spending their hours praying to God. We have witnessed the Haitian people dancing and singing in the streets, worshipping God in theirt darkest hour! But tonight on Larry King Live, actor and activist Sean Penn starts off by saying "the people of Haiti have been bullied by God for many years"! I am immediately outraged!!! Sean is doing great work in Haiti, and I can see the sadness on his face as he recounts the desperation he is seeing...but....bullied by God? Incredibly, the Haitian People have suffered this disaster with grace and strength. Their circumstances in Haiti are as a direct result of human greed, not theirs but ours.... as it is in all third world countries. If we were doing, and had always been doing, what God calls us to do - loving each other - then these people would not have been living in desperate conditions; in unstable buildings; little food; little money.

God has not bullied the Haitian people, it is us....whenever we turn a blind eye to the poverty and suffering of our brothers and sisters in third world countries we are guilty....when getting a Tim's coffee is more important than feeding a child we are guilty...when we find any excuse we can NOT to invest $30.00 a month on someone's life we are guilty. If anyone deserves God's wrath, it is us...not them.

It is simply easier, and cheaper, to blame God.

Just another day at the mall! Right!!

2:30 p.m.
So here I am, sitting in the hospital, waiting, again! Sometimes I’ll run into someone who I haven’t seen and the inevitable questions begin…How are you? …Fine I say!!!(It would take a century to explain where I’m at so I don’t) and my answer seems deceptive. ` `
I think that before you become ill, you should receive some kind of training, or preparedness exercise, that will give you a fraction of a glimpse of what “being sick” really is, and you have the choice to continue or go back to work! Regular people just do not get this….they all think….okay some…not all… that you are actually entertained by this illness, condition or circumstance. That somehow this is a great vacation from your otherwise mundane life.
Let me tell you being sick, is a lot of work.
It simply amazes me how people get through it, balancing appointments, treatments, side effects, and all the tasks required of all well people. In addition, there is paper work to file with insurance companies, pharmacies, and various government organizations. Most continue to work, until they can no longer handle the chaos…and are probably worse for the wear.
Qualifying for benefits is another adventure best left to the hardest of hearts! The best qualifier is to be dead! Anything above that requires the strictest scrutiny, on a level not far from level orange on the American terrorist threat scale. You think I jest…I do not!
3:25 p.m.
I couldn’t have picked a better day to drive into the city! The forecast was for “light snow”…and sunshine…which is true….there have been a few seconds when the sun broke through the dense dark clouds…but it was still difficult to see inside the whiteouts! I wonder how much longer I’ll be waiting...hopefully it will still be daylight because I hate driving in the dark!!!....Oh great!….my name is finally called….Bye

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

To Walk or Not to Walk...That is the question!

So I'm sitting here, watching the snow gently fall following a January thaw, and playing on my computer...but I sense that I am being watched...the air is thick with a sense of urgency! I realize that I am trying not to move...not to turn my head, or appear distracted in any way from this task at hand, otherwise the inevitable will occur....and it does! Unfortunately nature calls and I must stand and brave the oncoming barrage of jumps and yelps, and the scratching of claws on the "scratch resistant" laminate. Whatever the reason for my movement it means only one thing to my 2 little canines....WE"RE GOING FOR A WA L K ! But I really don't want to and as I scurry to the bathroom and quickly close the door I pray that by the time the loo is flushed and the doorknob turned the will have settled into the realization that walking was not my goal...only my means of transportation to an otherwise mundane destination. But alas...they are not convinced, and as I return to settle down in my still warm couch spot they stare fixedly at me, with obvious disappointment in their soulful eyes. I AM GUILTY! I don't think I can stand much more of it...I will only say that I myself am still shell shocked from our 2 hour foray into nature, during which Dudley thought he was in heaven (terrier) and Ollie scooted under a tree and sat down to hide (chihuahua with sweater) I myself began to totally lose hope of ever finding our way out and began to imagine the "Mural" headlines (It's a village of 1000...so I might make the headlines)...and listened desperately for the very thing that I had originally planned to avoid in choosing this trail (i use the term loosely)...A SNOWMOBILE....DEAR GOD PLEASE SEND ME A SNOWMOBILE...( I have been rescued by snowmobile rs in the past when I mistakenly drove my Malibu up a snowmobile trail assuming incorrectly that it was a road...it was not!...But they were very impressed at how far I had driven in prior to becoming stuck!!!) Anyway back to original story...God didn't send me a snowmobile....but God did send me a barn!!! In front of the barn was a road!!!!!All in all this little adventure took almost 3 hours from start to finish, and the pain lasted considerably longer!! But I'm a dog owner and duty calls...if I never post on this blog again u'll know that this trip was even less successful than the last!
God Bless

Friday, January 22, 2010

The Joy of a little Haitian Boy...so sweet

Please watch this video ... it is the hope that people need to keep knowing that God is with us.
A small boy...survivining for 7 days with no food or water... in the darkness and pulled from the miry pit with a smile that is bigger than himself! Arms raised...he welcomes the light, the freedom, and the cheers of onlookers and rescuers!!!!
He didn't complain...or say "why me"...he didn't ask "what took you so long?"
He smiled a smile that said more than anyone could verbalize.
It's sad that only when you have sooooo little....you appreciate much.
But maybe, he is more blessed than those of us who have too much? You think?
Maybe this small waif of a child can teach us how to approach life in this world of disparity....somesoooo rich it defies imagination and logic...others so poor it is embarassing to know that they exisit in this world ...with us...and so little compassion.
#/video/world/2010/01/21/moos.mile.wide.smile.cnn?hpt=C2

Thursday, January 21, 2010

And the DISASTERS keep coming

Iran started me blogging, and Haiti has brought me back. I have been very ill (again) and although my New Years resolution was to blog daily, amesseduplaptop.... diabled keyboard, and exhaustion combined with gastrointestinal combustion rendered me useless and finally in the Hospital...but I'm in prime health compared to the millions of poor souls in Haiti. We can go to the moon, but we don't seem to be able to provide swift and effective rescue operations for those on our own planet. I simply don't understand it. The emergency donations are flowing in,which is great, but lets go a step further and sponsor the 300,00 children who are living or dying in Haiti, and keep sponsoring them until Haiti is the best place in the world for them to live.