The Book of Job

For many years a professor at the all male Wabash College in Indiana taught a class on the book of Job to all incoming freshmen.  I never understood the purpose.  It wasn't a religious course.  Finally one day I met the professor here in Florida and asked him why.

He said,"It's to help young men learn that life isn't fair and there's nothing they can do about it."

And that's essentially what I think this strange old "pre-history" book of the Bible is about.  Some scholars see it as God and Satan playing a game of chess with Job as the pawn.  This is not my favorite image of God.

This morning my minister, David Miller, quoted Virginia Woolf who said, "I read the book of Job last night and I don't think God comes out well in it."  I kind of agree.

But then David Miller went on to say that life is a steady progression of losses and we need to learn to accept them and deal with them.  And that God will be there with us as we do.  So he, like the Wabash professor, is reminding me that grief and loss may be "unfair" but they are reality.

Unfortunately, I already knew this, but it was helpful to get this reminder.  I need to face up to what's happening all around me and get on with it.  For example, I just talked with my old friend whose husband died a few days ago.  He was 100 years and 3 months old.  She was 100 years old last Saturday.  While I was trying to find just the right words (?) to comfort her, she told me that her son (whom she adored) died on the very same day.

There's just no making sense of things sometimes.  That's what I think the book of Job is teaching me.

David Miller did have a funny illustration about aging.  He referenced the aging person's "Furniture Disease."  My chest keeps falling into my drawers."


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My Long Term Care

My internist is retiring.  Bummer.  He's been the kind of doc who spends our time together asking questions and listening to the answers.  He wants me to take as little medicine as possible.

I read an article recently in The New Yorker written by my favorite doctor, Atul Gawande.  He's the author of the book (and the movement) "Being Mortal."  The main thrust of the article deals with the power of incremental, long term, care.  This is interesting because Dr. Gawande is a surgeon.  We know these are the heroic, glamour guys and gals who swoop in and save lives.

However, when Dr. Gawande was telling his internist friend that he became a surgeon because he  "would have more opportunities to make a clear difference to people's lives," the internist would have none of it.

Primary care is the medical profession that has the greatest overall impact, including lower mortality and better health, not to mention lower health costs. 

How?  It involves my doctor getting to know me including how I live and how I behave.  It involves the patience to treat long term illnesses, with the frustration of possibly never curing them.  In other words, it involves a caring, long term,  relationship.  One where, when the honeymoon's over the doc sticks around for the boring real life stuff.

Last week I had a bad bout of vertigo.  After 24 hours of spinning and throwing up Dave drove me to the doctor's office.  A nurse saw me struggle into the waiting room.  She ran over with a wheelchair and stuck with me until the doctor could see me.  Her care was almost as meaningful as the shot he gave me that knocked me out for a few hours.

My internist has earned his retirement.  I just hope we find another one who is into long term relationships.


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Are You Comfortable?

The other day I heard a quote from one of my favorite speakers, Jon Tschanz.

Get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

There are a number of things making me uncomfortable right now.  How about you?  What are you doing about it?  Is it helping?

I remember, a few months after 9-11, the director of homeland security put us under even higher alert and Tina Fey responded on SNL by shouting "I can't BE on any higher alert."

Jon mentioned people who are "pain avoiders."  This can get us into trouble because we try to get comfortable by doing some negative things.  Like kicking the dog or drinking a quart of gin.  A friend told me a while back that he was  grateful for marijuana in times like these. (I think he was teasing me.)

Yesterday I met (as I always do) with my Power Rangers.  We've met every Wednesday for about 25 years.  We discussed the great spiritual leader, Richard Rohr.  I left feeling comfortable with my discomfort of the day.

On Tuesday Dave and I went to the Orlando Museum of Art to see the new Wyeth exhibit.  While I was a little disappointed  because there wasn't much Wyeth, we strolled throughout the entire museum.  I was mesmerized by a video titled "Blood from a Stone."  In the video a young woman struggles to lift twelve 75 pound stones, one at a time, onto a high shelf.  As soon as she gets one positioned correctly, the stone begins to bleed.  Does this sound crazy?  It's art.  It made me feel good.  It made me feel strong.  I watched it twice.

When Jon spoke, he told this story.  Early in the morning he stopped by a 7-Eleven.  Outside was a homeless man who asked Jon for some breakfast.  When John asked him what he wanted, he man said, "A breakfast pizza."  So Jon went back in, bought the homeless man a breakfast pizza and gave it to him. The man was very grateful and shared some kind and comforting words with Jon.

And Jon thought, "Did I just give Jesus a breakfast pizza?'

This story made me feel strong enough to bare the uncomfortable - one more day.


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Winter Park and the Big War

The Winter Park History Museum is currently featuring World War II memories.

Yesterday another Orlando suburb city, Casselberry, was added to the mix when the speaker series presented:

Home Front Stories From World War II - Winter Park and Casseberry.

One of the speakers was my old friend,  Jane Casselberry.  She and her husband of 72 years, Len, grew up in Winter Park but later lived (and still do) in the town that Len's father created north of Winter Park.

Jane and Len

Jane was a young woman during the war years and yesterday she had some stories to tell.  Not many people  remember that the war was in Florida.   Floridans were always edgy.  Jane remembers her family watching our U.S. planes bombing German U-boat saboteurs right off our coast.  Jane, along with most of us, saved aluminum foil and melted grease.  She joined the Red Cross.  Len joined the Navy.

Jane and Len

But the heart of her story, along with Lilian Casselberry, was telling about Hibbard Casselberry (father of Len) and his fern business that rapidly became a factory for the war effort.  Later on Hibbard became "a habitual buyer of real estate."  And that's why we now have the city of Casselberry, which is about three miles from my house.

In 1943 Jane started Rollins College.  She would become a newspaper reporter.  And in 1943 Len joined the Navy.  In 1944 they were married.

I loved hearing Jane tell about her own father who helped build the massive and grand Alabama Hotel in Winter Park in 1923.  Jane grew up nearby.  So did Len.  Now, the Alabama is home to luxury condos.


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Super Geezers

I'm currently reading This Chair Rocks:  A Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite.  She's seen by some as one of the leading voices in addressing age discrimination.   She comes across to me as sort of an angry sociologist - but the book is definitely making me think.

Early on she mentions super geezers.  There are all sorts of definitions of this term - but Ashton is describing folks like George H.W. Bush who jumped out of an airplane on his 90th birthday.  Or Yuichiro Miura who climbed Mount Everest at age 80.

Ashton is not celebrating these feats.  The media loves them but she believes their celebrity makes life harder for the rest of us over 60.

Placing them on pedestals distracts from the social and economic factors that shrink the world of most older and disabled people.  

Ashton's concern is that the natural slow down that all of us face is seen by society as a personal failure.   I understand, and, for the most part agree but, on the other hand, it's kind of inspiring to see the exciting things that can be done at an advanced age, even if it's only a few of us who can do them.   Because, realistically, only a few of us can do these things at any age.

She also says:  Chronological age is an increasingly unreliable benchmark of pretty much anything about a person.

I absolutely agree.  So I've decided that I want to be a Super Geezer.  No, I don't want to jump out of airplanes or conquer Mount Rushmore, or write a sexy erotic novel like 80 year old Gloria Vanderbilt, but there are things that I want to do - things that possibly only I can do.


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True Grit

Original cover showing
Mattie and her horse, Little
Blackie

My book club reads good and, many times challenging, books.  So when one of this winter's assignments was True Grit, I was surprised.

I've seen both of the films.  The first was made in 1969 and starred John Wayne.  He won the Academy Award for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn.  The next, made in 2010, starred Jeff Bridges and was produced by the Coan brothers.

The book, written by Charles Portis in 1968, was an instant hit.  It was a serial in the Saturday Evening Post.  Whole families read it together.  It's seen by many as one of the great American novels.  What I quickly leaned was that it's not about Rooster Cogburn.  It's about - and narrated by - 14 year old Mattie Ross.

I was just fourteen years of ago when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band. 

So Mattie is on a revenge mission of Old Testament proportions.  She will not be deterred.  Throughout the entire novel, she is in charge.  The book is very funny and sweet and cold blooded.  It is about an empowered young woman.

I love the way it's written.  The names of many of the characters, especially the bad guys, are funny.  Lucky Ned Penny and The Original Greaser Bob are usually referred to by their full names.

And, of course, I liked the following.  A young bandit lays dying and says to Rooster:

"My brother is George Garrett.  He is a Methodist circuit rider in south Texas.  I want you to sell my traps, Rooster, and send the money to him in care of the district superintendent in Austin....." 

"Do you want me to tell your brother what happened to you?"

"It don't matter about that.  He knows I am on the scout.  I will meet him later walking the streets of Glory."


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My Walk to Walgreens

This morning I decided to walk the eight or nine blocks to Walgreen's, where I buy most of my lady products,  because it's such a beautiful day here in Central Florida.  The only roadblock to doing this - and it is literally a roadblock - is that I have to pass the women's health center on the way.  The problem is that the sidewalk in front of the health center is almost constantly blocked by folks from the church down the street.

They bring their signs and Bibles and posters of dead babies to share with the patients both coming and going - and with passing motorists and walkers, like me.

As I approached them this morning the first lady, who was older, and I just exchanged greetings.  The second descended upon me.  Finally I told her that she and agreed on wanting to see no more abortions but we disagreed on how to go about this issue.  I didn't explain further because my advocating that all women and girls have access to birth control so that no abortions would ever again be needed would not go over well with her.  These folks do not believe in birth control.

It's interesting to me that they are from the Mary Magdalene church.  Mary Magdalene was a close friend of Jesus.  When they met she was demon possessed.  Back at that time demon possession usually meant that a man had some sort of mental illness like schizophrenia but for women, it's usually been translated as meaning they were prostitutes.  Whatever Mary Magdalene's problems were, Jesus healed them and they became close friends.  By the way, Dave and I attend events at this neighborhood church and we have several friends who attend.

On the street this morning I wasn't so concerned with the woman's behavior and speech as I was with my own.  I did okay until she said, "You know the Bible says all children are a blessing."  This is one of those statements that make my head want to explode.   I answered "All children should be a blessing but many are not to the people who have them."

So, on the way back home from Walgreen's where I bought night cream and hand cream and calcium soft gels, I was praying about how I might handle the inevitable exchange in front of the women's health center.

But they were engaged in heavy conversation with two young women who were just leaving the center and on the way to their cars.


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