I’ve been thinking a lot about how we raise the bar on ourselves, set new goals, or run the risk of becoming self indulgent and complacent. It was a heck of a lot harder this Thanksgiving staying away from all those carb, fat and calorie laden foods. I’ve been so tangled up with work that I’ve been walking less. Bad combination. One I needed to deal with.

Yesterday, when my friend Marsha and I were out walking, we made a commitment to each other. She and I are going to do the half-marathon Mercedes walk in Birmingham on February 17, 2013. I need to loose some more weight and I have to build up my endurance from 6 to 13.1 miles including some hill walking. I’m developing my training plan and will get plenty of hill walking in Panamá next week. Here’s my question: any of you out there want to do this with me? Drop me a line. As my old boss, Walter K, used to say: Gonna do this thing…

Last week was especially busy and by Friday afternoon, when I got off work, I was fried.  Sherod already had an early evening commitment at the church; when I got home he was busy, so I decided I’d go to the movies and then walk.

I saw a movie called The Sessions with Helen Hunt and John Hawkes.  I had wanted to see it for several reasons: I’m a sucker for a love story and even more of a sucker for any movie that gets a glowing review from the New York Times.  An iron lung is central to the plot of The Sessions—John Hawkes plays the part of a man who has spent most of his life in one after having contracted polio as a young boy.  Last year, around Christmas, I remembered some of my experiences at Boston Children’s Hospital. Iron lungs are a vivid part of my memories of that time; they are charged with fear and shadows.  I don’t know what I was looking for or hoping to understand, but it seemed important to find if there was something to glean in those shadows.

The part of the movie critics have raved about—the relationship between the two protagonists, Cheryl and Mark—was not particularly engaging or illuminating to me.  This is the story of a paralyzed man turning to a sex surrogate/therapist to lay claim to his sexuality.  Although both Hunt and Hawkes are fine actors, I found little that was evocative or compelling in their scenes together.  It was more about anatomy and mechanics and I felt like a voyeur looking in on moments of gentle, bumbling humanness that should be private; I had no business being there.

What gave me much to reflect on was Mark O’Brien’s choice to inhabit his body in a way that I think few people are capable of. (and FYI, the movie is based on the life of a man who was a poet, journalist and author until his death in the early 90’s).  I paid careful attention in the scenes when he is in the iron lung.  It made the exact same hissing, pumping sound I remember from my childhood. At first, that made my skin crawl.  It struck me that I get so anxious about that machine, even though I know now that it is even better for breathing than a ventilator, because it is such an in my face reminder of a time of incredible powerlessness in my own life.   Amy Schultz, my ward mate, lay in her iron lung all that long summer of 1968, and I in my hip spika cast.   It wasn’t just that the world was narrow and closed in on us.  It was that our bodies were almost completely unavailable for anything approaching agency or intention.  There are a whole lot of lessons to learn about powerlessness in a hip spika cast and in an iron lung.

The movie insists, however, that there is a way to a different kind of power when we intentionally choose to inhabit our bodies as we have received them.  There was a whole community gathered around O’Brien that made it possible for him to finally get to say to a lovely woman, with the most delightful mischief possible, “I’m not a virgin”.  The trust and courage it must have taken to enlist the help of a colorful cast of characters all determined to help him have sex is simply spectacular to me.

There is also a small scene in the movie between Cheryl, the sex surrogate, and a character played by Rhea Perlman, that serves as a counterpoint to the experience I share with Mark O’Brien, that it takes help from our whole community to be able to say yes to our bodies.  Part of the ‘back story’ for Cheryl, is that she is in the process of converting to Judaism.  Towards the end of the movie, when surrogacy, anatomy and mechanics has led to intimacy, complication and anguish, she goes to a synagogue for a Mikvah (ritual cleansing bath).   Rhea Perlman plays the role of a Mikvah lady—she’s the bossy-pants of the bath, making sure women do this ritual right.  There’s a marvelous conversation between her and Helen Hunt as Hunt disrobes very naturally and gracefully.  The Mikvah lady takes note of the character, Cheryl’s, comfort with her own self and describes the many women and their daughters who come in and struggle mightily to hold on to at least some garment, rather than be seen naked.  At one point she says something like, “I tell them, ‘this is your body’ and I want to ask them, ‘what happens when there is nothing left to cling to but your own body?’”

The scars on my body I look at daily, the pictures of me in a hip spika cast like the one at the top of this post, all remind me that others had to play an enormous role in my ability to live—especially to walk—in my own skin.  But I am now at a point in my life when the opposite is also true.  I have little left to cling to these days. Over these past few months, after placing Maria at BARC and then facing into the truly grave financial crisis we’ve been through in the ministry I’m a part of, I have had to let go of a lot.   As I crossed over the drawbridge on Sunrise on Friday evening after the movie, exhausted from a very hard week at work and with my child, I was aware that I was walking alone, that at that moment, no one even knew where I was—and that too was as it should be.  There are hard times when I have to suffice to get to the next place.  And so far, I have.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The stress went back through the roof in our family this weekend.  On her Saturday visit, Maria escalated into very aggressive behavior quite unexpectedly and then managed to get to the phone long enough to call 911.  Before too long the cops were banging on our door.  Maria is masterful but by the grace of God, not quite convincing enough to get herself Baker-acted despite her best efforts.  She did manage to engage the cops in conversation for almost 30 minutes though by the end, they had a hard time keeping a straight face.  Still, it was not safe for us to get her back to BARC so one of their vans and staff members had to come pick her up.  Waiting for the van to arrive, all the hostility just melted away and she sagged against me and through sobs, choked out apologies then begged me to let her stay with us.  Those moments are quite simply excruciating.

We failed to think the next step through very well and had already planned for her to have dinner with us and a pair of friends last night. We didn’t change the plan like we should have.  Everything started out well, but by the middle of dinner I had that familiar, sinking feeling watching her grow sullen all over again. Sure enough.  When it was time to go home she refused.  This time we were more prepared and would not allow the situation to escalate.  Even so, it took us three hours to talk her down to the place where we could get her home safely.  When I finally got to bed after 11 last night (which is wayyyy late for me most nights), I don’t think my head had been on the pillow for a minute before I was asleep.  Today has been busy and full of its own stressors so I looked forward with great anticipation to my ramble tonight.

There’s this house. The flamingos always look like they are trying desperately to be set free, but even more so now.  But how can you not stop and smile for just a minute at the absurdity of this Christmas extravaganza, even if it’s just the 12th of November?

Chief Warrant Officer Mallow, 1968

I feel an aching sadness for General Petraeus, Ms Petraeus, their children and for Ms Broadwell and her family, tonight, the eve of Veteran’s Day.  There will be plenty written and said about moral failure and self-destruction and disappointment.  Much of what has been  and will be said is fair and true. The bewilderment is understandable.

It is also true that I know only too well that war costs and some of the wounds from combat are almost invisible and don’t ever heal.  On more than one occasion, I have woken up to see my spouse surge from the bed and nearly fly to the other end of the room.  A dream, a single sound, keys off an old warrior instinct honed on too many dark nights in Vietnam, and he is back in combat mode, ready to take that helicopter of his back up into the air.   The ways of the heart, and mind and spirit are unfathomable even in the best of circumstances.  You don’t just walk away from war and shake off the dust.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day.  We do well to remember that war costs.  It costs a lot.

I minister in a fragile community that is learning to cross cultural and language divides.  Convinced that among other things, this work is about nation-building,  I consciously avoided any kind of political discussion in my workplace during this election season.  That was not always easy.  On a personal level, given our current financial realities, I was not in a position to make any financial contribution to the campaign of Barak Obama, as I did last time. That also was not easy  but I am grateful to have been able to do a bit of campaigning on his behalf week before last.

This morning, I read an article by Frank Rich (how I love and envy his writing) that captures far better than anything I can say, why this election mattered.   Those of us who are bridge people have an obligation, even now, when it would be so easy to simply move on, to try to find a way to keep talking across party lines.  

If you have the time, this article is worth reading: Frank Rich and the 2012 Elections

I got this in an email this morning. The picture was taken on December 25^th, 1983 in Cali. It was the Christmas I talked about in this post, when I went home for just 5 days in the middle of my chaplaincy internship. When I looked at the picture, I was struck by my mom: how vivid and clearly her personality came through. She was younger in that picture than I am today and that just blew me away. It’s a great picture of my brothers—they were both so elegant and graceful. My dad’s expression is weird—very much not him. And then, there’s me. Wearing a dress I had very proudly sewed myself—I had very little money that year and was trying hard to be more financially independent. Still so uncomfortable in my own skin, trying so hard simply to be a good girl and be liked. I had almost erased myself in the process. I didn’t dwell long on the email, too much else to take care of today.

Tonight, I got to go out and walk after several days not being able to. My mind slowly settled into the rhythm of my rambles and then, the flashbacks were back. And the grief. At first, I thought it was the picture. Then I figured out the date. November 5^th. One year and five months ago today, my mother died. No wonder. The body knows.