Postsurgical

I may have

spit out cancer like a cherry pit

been sewn back together

with brambles and thorns

sprouting leaks whenever I drink,

But I'm not as tough as you might think

I may have

dragged myself, broken,

inch by mile through boiling ink,

or worse yet,

quit smoking,

But I'm not as tough as you might think

I may have

survived a bone-shattering fall

from a blithering height,

Banished Satan himself from the edge of this life,

held my own pale candle

through the blackest of nights,

Said my wordless good-bye to all I hold dear.

But there is one thing I could not conquer:

My fear.

Giving it up for Lent

Just like last year and the year before, I have given up refined sugar for Lent. Refined sugar and bread and potatoes and pasta and rice. And bread. And refined sugar. And did I say bread? Delicious, fresh Italian bread with a nice schmear of butter… sigh. Yeah, I gave that up.

This is a tough way to go, but it’s worth it. These are the things I love the most in the world (in the foodstuff category anyway), and the season of Lent is supposed to be about personal sacrifice and circumspection and walking a path of reflection and humility toward resurrection. This Lenten plan also really kicks ass in terms of a healthy weight loss regime. Last year I lost 12 pounds in the 40-some days before Easter.

Just as Noah floated around on the ark for 40 days, and Moses wandered in the desert for 40 years, and Jesus endured temptation in the wilderness for 40 days, the 40 days of Lent are about finding our way back to God and getting a new perspective on things earthly and things spiritual. And so, for these very good reasons, I have been intentional about my Lenten journey, thinking that I am, like, all “in charge” and e’ything.

But, apparently God had a different idea about what my Lenten Journey 2011 should entail.

Sometimes I don’t know what the Big Guy is thinking. Maybe this time he didn’t perceive that my sacrificing the comfort of my usual comfort foods was discomforting enough. So He put me on the list of folks at work who might be losing their jobs soon. About 40 people have lost their jobs here in the past 40 days, and I was recently informed by my higher-ups that I may be included in the next wave of RIFs.

But they are not sure. Maybe I won’t be. We all hope not. But you can’t be too sure.

It all depends on what Congress does in terms of passing a federal budget for fiscal year 2011 (which is halfway over now). It depends on whether the party leadership will continue to bat beratements back and forth like a pathetic birdie in a psychotic game of budget badminton. Or just say the heck with it and take another ten-day vacation. Oh, okay. That’s what they’re doing, while I sit here and twiddle my thumbs, and worry.

Meanwhile, the agency that funds the work that I do… which I love, by the way, and which is really good, important work that helps soldiers coming home from war, by the way, and people with cancer, and children with Autism… meanwhile the agency has no funding for our program, and so they are shutting us down piece by piece. There is nothing else they can do, really. But it totally sucks.

But everything might be fine again next week, and hunky dory, like all this was just a bad dream. Or not. I might have to really scramble to search and find another gig that can cover our health insurance and pay my part of the bills. The job market is still pretty tight, and I might be out of work for a long time… It’s really scary.

So, for Lent this year, God has decided to shake me up in my complacency. He has shifted my entire being into a state of utter insecurity, waiting for forces beyond my control to do something—to act—and decide my fate, my state of mind, my present and future well-being. It’s not Japan, I realize, but it feels pretty darn seismic to me.

Call me Our Lady of Perpetual Uncertainty.

For Lent this year, God has decided to shake me out of my slumber. Out of thinking that I am in control of anything in this life—that my job is the key to my happiness. I thought I was going jog through the season of Lent, shunning my favorite comfort foods. Instead, I am giving up actual comfort. It is a whole different experience of “personal sacrifice” when God makes the selection for you.

I am finding it a challenge just to breathe and move forward, on shaky legs, through this time of extreme uncertainty. Understanding the exquisite, surreal impermanence of the earthly foundation of my daily life—my routine, my livelihood, the pride and personal identity I find in my work—I realize that I have to give it up, let it go.

I’m not in charge. All these things I have counted on without thinking can be gone (or not) in the blink of an eye. In my Lenten journey I am working on practicing how to trust God. I am finding it incredibly difficult, and amazingly rewarding— to open my eyes, glance around me, and see and embrace what is truly important in this life— health, faith, family, friends, hope.

For Lent this year, and previously unbeknownst to me, I am giving up the old notion that I can “stand on my own two feet.”

There are times when that simply won’t work. Like when a magnitude 8.9 earthquake hits your life, and it’s not your fault, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So I’m giving that up for Lent. And I’m leaning on the everlasting arms.

I know I will gain rich spiritual rewards from the Lenten journey God has designed for me. Can’t help it that I want these 40 days to go by quickly… but they probably won’t. And I’m not in charge of that either.

C is for clueless

Oh, what a magical, fairy-tale kingdom our county commissioners inhabit! For those of you poor saps who will never find your way there, let me be your guide. The enchanted paradise, where commissioners C. Paul Smith and Kirby Delauter reside, lies just beyond your reach. It is a glorious land of plenty, where your salary as an attorney or construction magnate is more than ample, and you have no need of a second household income. It is right at the corner of telling other people how to live and being utterly oblivious to their reality, their struggle, their truth.

Based on the recent comments from these two commissioners, it looks like bridging the budget gap was only one motive for the BOCC decision to relinquish the Head Start program. The other impetus appears to be an all-out assault on working mothers, based on some sort of twisted “family values” ideology… and the mistaken belief that Head Start is a daycare program.

The commissioners seem pretty confused about this. The fact is, the mission of Head Start is not to watch over kids and babies while their mothers go to work, but to assist in the development of social and cognitive skills in 3- and 4-year-olds who need additional support to get ready for school. Most Frederick County Head Start centers operate only 4 hours a day. The program is for stay-at-home moms (and dads) as well as working parents.

Even setting aside this much-overlooked (but highly relevant) fact, it’s a make-believe fantasy that all our problems will be solved if mothers will just stay married and stay home with their children and not hold jobs outside the home. I can think of about 38 different circumstances where it would not be advisable or possible for a woman to stay married. Like when there is emotional or physical abuse in the home. Like when a father abandons the family or dies unexpectedly. I hear it’s pretty hard to stay married when that happens.

A lot of parents would like nothing better than to stay home with their young children. Unfortunately, in today’s economy, most families cannot survive on one income—regardless of their “sacrifices.” For example, how does a mother stay home when her husband is in the armed forces, deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan? The annual pay for young enlisted personnel, including the hazard duty hike, is about $150 above the federal poverty level for a family of four. The pie-in-the-sky being touted by the county commissioners provides very little actual nutrition for the children. Those are empty calories.

Further setting aside the preposterous notion that the role of women should be confined to domestic engineering and child-rearing, it’s simply nuts to think that “strengthening marriage” could somehow eliminate the need for government support of education, as the commissioners seem to suggest. Is everybody supposed to home-school their kids? Is the next move to relinquish funding for Frederick County Schools? That would certainly make a dent in the budget.

These guys are totally clueless. They need to get their heads out of the clouds, get back in touch with reality, and do the job they were elected to do.

Here we go blog-dee-blog.

Well, here we go. I'm going to bloggify.

Who knows why...  Perhaps I am inspired by the "Wild and Crazy Pearl" or my friend Sherry Beach, who just started "365 things I learned in 2011."

And who knows why now... maybe it was Christina Aguilera's mind-searing caterwauling on the Superbowl last night. There is just so much to say about that and all the other bizarre, beautiful, and hellish revolutions in the popular culture... like a Toxic Twin on American Idol, American Pickers versus Free-Cycle, and the slow, painful death of the legitimate theater in America. At any rate, I'm going to give this bloggifying a try.

I guess my American Culture Studies professor was right-- the Internet is the new American Frontier. I thought he was a complete idiot when he said it.