Working on being a better patient.....

 

I have never been a very good patient.

This level of self-awareness is not new to me. 

No one enjoys being sick, but I may well be a bit more recalcitrant than most. Part of that is because I’m pretty active; being sick means that I necessarily have to interrupt my active routine. Part of it is because I’ve spent lots of time being a caregiver; being a care-receiver is still somewhat awkward for me. And, part of it is that I like to enjoy my down time, which is rather hard to do when one is feeling terrible. 

 

And so, on Sunday, when I got a little too warm in the middle of our worship service (Okay…maybe more than a little…layers of vestments do produce quite a bit of heat…), and a couple of wonderful physicians in our parish were giving me very worried looks – one insisting that a visit to the  emergency room was in order because my heart rate was a bit high (Well, yes, I’m sure my heart was racing, since we actually stopped the service for my little “episode.” How do you spell, EMBARRASSED?!) – I was not pleased about the prospect of being a patient, but I was compliant. If something really were wrong, I didn’t want my own stubborn refusal to be a cooperative patient to lead to my demise.

So off we went to the ER.

I learned a very important lesson: Never walk into an ER and say the word “heart” in any context unless you are actively having a heart attack. Never. Really.

If you say the word “heart” and you are not actually having a heart attack, you may well have one by the time the dedicated medical professionals get done putting you through your paces: EKGs, chest x-rays, blood work, and goodness knows what else. My husband and our younger daughter observed that every time members of this outstanding medical team came in to ask me about my chest pains (Huh? I never said anything about chest pains!), my heart rate would climb all over again.  And since all of this excitement kept my heart rate up for quite some time, the next thing I knew, a cardiologist (who, by the way, was absolutely wonderful) was standing over me suggesting a heart catheterization the next morning as a precaution.

And that meant, of course, that I was staying overnight. In a hospital. Something that I’d only previously done when I gave birth to our two daughters. All because I got a bit too hot and used the word “heart” (as in heart rate, not heart attack) when I came in.

 

I settled in for the night, but all of the attention I received didn’t exactly allow for a restful sleep.  Someone needed to draw more blood, someone else needed to check my vital signs, someone else needed to adjust the leads on the heart monitor that I had to wear all night.

 
When morning came, the great cardiologist was back, still thinking that the precautionary heart cath was a good idea. My husband and I nodded. What else could we do? He sent a quick text message to update our daughters, as the nurse dispensed my “relaxation” meds and hurried me off to the cath lab.

Thankfully, all of my test results were normal, and the heart cath turned up nothing other than a perfectly healthy heart – for which I am grateful. I managed to sleep rather peacefully all day…even though my “relaxation” meds really weren’t supposed to have that effect.  The nurse realized well into the afternoon, when I was still sleeping away, that she’d given me the “standard” dosage that she gave all of her cath patients – without double-checking my weight. After telling my husband that I probably only needed half the dose that she’d given me, she suggested that he keep an eye on me, as I might be a bit drowsy for a while. She wasn’t kidding…

I made it home after the great adventure, and will be staying put…for a couple of days, since I can’t drive yet post-cath. Day one has been filled with reading, prayer, and playing with the dog. Day two will likely look the same.

 

And life will begin to get back to normal by day three, when I can climb back behind the wheel of my Volvo and head back to the office…with a clean bill of health, a desk full of work – and profound thanks to everyone for all of the wonderful phone calls,  texts, emails, Facebook messages, meals, visits, prayers and loving thoughts that you’ve sent my way.  I’m really, really fortunate to have such loving friends – and such wonderful, caring physicians in our parish church.

But I will head back to “normal” taking nothing about being healthy for granted. I am well aware that the outcome of my little adventure could have been much different.

Today, I’m really working on being a better patient. These couple of days of being a quiet patient probably couldn’t have come at a better time.

And, hopefully, when these few days of being a patient are over, I'll retain the lessons of quiet and stillness that have been such wonderful gifts.

 

I hope, too, that my lunch-buddies will still indulge me in agreeing to lunch spots that have great salads…I’m still planning on eating healthy and pounding the pavement every day, for as long as I can.

As amazing as the medical team was, I’d really like to delay another trip to the hospital as a patient for as long as possible…..!

Surely, doors aren't still closed to some at University of Alabama...?

Me...and my sisters...at Rhodes College...

 

 

I really don’t want to believe it.

I really don’t want to believe that doors are still being closed to students of color at the University of Alabama.

Yet that’s exactly what major news outlets are alleging: Sixteen “traditionally white” sororities are said to have refused to extend membership invitations to young African-American women at the university during this year’s rush week.

I really don’t want to believe it.

Not in my home state. Not at the “jewel school.” Not in 2013, fifty long years after then-Governor George Wallace used his own body to close the university’s door to prevent African American students from entering.

And certainly not when one of those sixteen “traditionally white” sororities happens to be my own, and when the women inside that house are my sisters – members of Alpha Omicron Pi.

This is why I really don’t want – can’t bring myself – to believe this story: because I know that on college campuses across the country, young African American women are today – and have been for many years – pledging AOII and many of the rest of these sororities, and experiencing these lifelong bonds of friendship and sisterhood.

I really don’t want to believe this story because on the campus of my alma mater, Rhodes College, even over thirty years ago, young African American women, Jewish women, and women of Asian descent have been welcomed into Greek life.  

I really don’t want to believe this story because I am one of those women who found no door closed at Rhodes College.

Although I had no idea what my prospects might be, at the time that I went through rush on the Rhodes campus, I was fortunate enough (naïve enough...!) to have had no concept of just how unusual it might be for a “traditionally white” sorority to extend a membership invitation to a young woman of color…that is, until “bid night,” when a girl from my home town, who was pledging another sorority, came up to me in the happy mayhem around “sorority row,” hugged me, and told me just how special I must be to have been offered a bid at my "first choice" house.

In that instant, I knew. And the value in my eyes of my new sisters, who were welcoming me, a Jewish woman and a woman of Chinese descent into their house, went up exponentially.

Today, my heart is breaking over allegations that beautiful, talented, young African American women were turned away from sororities at University of Alabama,  told that they were unwanted, told that they were less than desirable.  It isn't true.

I’d like to be able to hug all of the young women who have experienced this disappointment and tell them not to allow this one horrible moment to define their lives or make them believe for even one moment that they are second-class citizens.  I’d like to beg them not to let this one rejection to cause them to lose faith in the goodness of God’s people in the world.

For today, I need to believe something more than these allegations.  I really need to believe that, should I visit the University of Alabama campus, I would be welcome in the AOII house.  I really need to believe that, should our daughter decide to attend University of Alabama, she would be welcomed not only into the AOII house, but any other house that she might decide to pledge.

I really need to believe that no more doors will ever be closed to students of color at the University of Alabama, or any other college or university.

Please, O Lord, let it be so.

 

Still Dreaming After Fifty Years....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fifty years.

 

Fifty years since a turning point in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement: the historic March on Washington, D.C., where the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shared his dream for a new America.

 

This 50^th anniversary has struck a particular chord with me, perhaps because I’ve now reached that half-century mark myself.  In some ways, it’s hard for me to grasp just how much has happened in fifty years: The desegregation of public school systems, colleges and universities means that students of color need no longer be escorted into classrooms by federal marshals, or fear government officials barring their entry. Employers can no longer patently refuse to hire employees on the basis of race. Business establishments cannot openly refuse to admit or serve persons of color.

 

So much has happened in fifty years.

 

I and many other persons of color have come of age in a post-Brown v. Board of Education/post-Civil Rights Act of 1964/post-Voting Rights Act of 1964 world that has allowed us all to take much for granted. For us, schools have always been desegregated, Holiday Inns have always been hospitable places to stay during family vacations and no stores or restaurants have ever been off-limits.  But before there were laws that would come to shake our nation’s conscience and make it possible for us to have those experiences, there were many “dreamers,” black and white, men and women, Christian and Jewish, who marched, protested, endured beatings and jail, and gave their lives, all because they dared to believe that all people should enjoy the legal freedom and protections that before had only been available to some.  Those “dreamers” and their sacrifices made it possible for me and for many others to know a world in which there were far more opportunities and far fewer barriers. 

 

Fifty years later, our nation has many achievements to celebrate, but as we do so, we should be mindful to honestly acknowledge our struggles. Too many of our nation’s urban public schools are still segregated – now, filled with students of color.  Too many families of color live in poverty.  Too many young people of color, lured by empty promises of money and status, become trapped in the criminal justice system.  The lives of too many persons of color – especially young men – are lost to violence.

 

Yes, we’ve come a long way. 

 

But we still have a long way to go, to eradicate our fear of those who are “different” – in race, ethnicity, gender or religion – and to overcome our struggle to see ourselves in our neighbors.

 

Laws can mandate that access to schools cannot be denied to persons on the basis of race or ethnicity. But laws alone cannot eliminate cliques, taunting, intimidation, bullying and acts of violence committed against those who are “different” in those schools.

 

Laws can mandate that jobs cannot be denied to persons on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender. But laws alone cannot break glass ceilings to allow women and persons of color to occupy coveted positions of leadership.

 

Laws can mandate that access to public accommodations cannot be denied to persons of color. But laws alone cannot prevent racial and ethnic profiling and targeting that reduce persons of color to second-class citizens once they are admitted to those places of accommodation.

 

Laws can only mandate so much.

 

And where the letter of the law stops, I believe that the work of all of God’s people must continue – in transforming hearts and lives – so that we, like the dreamers before us, can envision a world in which we meet those whose skin is a different color without suspicion, in which we greet our neighbors whose native tongues differ from our own without fear, and in which we encounter those whose religious beliefs differ from our own without apprehension.

 

My great-grandfather – a man born into slavery, a man who could neither read nor write – began a school on his Homestead so that his descendants would have educational opportunities that had not been available to him. As one who dared to stand up to the establishment of the late 1800s and demand to be counted as a man, I am certain that he would be cheering proudly now at the world in which his descendants live.

 

And, no doubt, he would remind us that, as a nation, we’ve come too far in the past fifty years to stop dreaming now.

 

   

 

 

 

 



On Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and loving our neighbors as ourselves....

My heart hurts.

In the aftermath of the George Zimmerman trial and verdict, my heart hurts. 

My heart hurts for Trayvon Martin and for his family; I cannot imagine their pain and grief.

My heart hurts for those who mourn the verdict, and for all those who feel that the criminal justice system has failed them.

My heart hurts for our family members, our friends and all families of color who feel an even greater sense of fear as their sons go about their lives and who, because of this verdict, find themselves explaining to them – yet again – that they must never give anyone even an iota of a reason to harass or hurt them and how careful they must be if they ever find themselves in a similar kind of confrontation.

My heart hurts, too, for George Zimmerman, and for his family. Zimmerman may have been acquitted, but he is not a free man. Whatever his motivations, whatever thoughts may have been running through his mind as he jumped from his car to confront Trayvon Martin, he now lives with that young man’s blood on his hands and in fear for his own safety. 

My heart hurts for those who have taken to social media to rejoice in the verdict, as well as for those who spout venomous threats against Zimmerman.

My heart hurts for those who harbor anger, hatred and bitterness, on either side.

My heart hurts for our country – and for the seemingly widening gulf that divides us.

My heart hurts.

Call it a “God thing” that many Christians all over our country whose denominations follow common Scripture readings were hearing the “Good Samaritan” text from Luke’s Gospel in their churches on Sunday morning, just hours after the verdict was handed down.  Call it a “God thing” that millions of Christians were hearing again an all-too-familiar story from Jesus in which a man is traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho when he is attacked by robbers, beaten and left for dead. Two holy men, a priest and a Levite, see the injured man but cross the road to avoid coming near him. But a man from Samaria comes upon the injured man, and stops to care for him.

A Samaritan? Why a Samaritan? His inclusion certainly makes the story more challenging for Jesus’ audience.  Samaritans were – to put it bluntly – a hated race.  It’s likely that a Samaritan would have been called a few names in his lifetime, endured more than a few demeaning gestures, been shunned and cast aside on more than one occasion.  No one listening to this parable would have been surprised if the Samaritan had been the one to cross the road to avoid the injured man; he would have had good reason. Yet it is the Samaritan who takes note of the injured stranger, cares for the man’s wounds, picks him up, puts him on his own animal, and takes him to a safe place where he can recover.

Call it a “God thing” that many Christians were being reminded on Sunday of the commandment that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

That’s often as tough a message for us to hear today as it was for people in the first century world. It’s too easy to fear those who aren’t like us, to avoid those who call us from our comfort zones, to seek revenge against those who wrong us, to hate those who hated us first.

When I was a little girl, we had a wooden ruler in our house – a giveaway from a furniture store, as I recall – which bore the words, “Always follow The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I remember asking my mother what that meant one day, and she told me, as she would often repeat over the years, “never do anything to someone else that you wouldn’t want that person to do to you.”

There’s no arguing with that sage advice.

But as I’ve matured, I‘ve found that I like re-phrasing that advice in the affirmative: Always do for others what we would have them do for us.  Love the unlovable. Remember the forgotten. Care for the sick. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. House the homeless. Welcome the outcast.  And we should do all those things even if those for whom we care hate us.  Even if they would want to have nothing to do with us. Even if they would call us demeaning names or make derogatory gestures. Even – perhaps, especially – if we believe that they can do nothing for us in return.

Yes, my heart hurts.  But I still have hope.  Because of all the people who love unselfishly, I have hope.  Because of all of the people who tirelessly minister to others in a myriad of ways, I have hope. I have hope that the gulf between races and cultures can be narrowed.  I have hope that the Zimmerman verdict can engender respectful dialogue between people who might otherwise have never come to the table together.  And I have hope that one day soon, we will all “stand our ground” by standing together in firm commitment to work for unity, justice and peace.