Title Varies Slightly

When I was last here, for anything substantive, it was Lent of 2008.  Through the courtesy of StBlogs.com, may blog was not deleted. It’s just been sitting, patiently waiting for me.  So what has been happening to me? Not quite in order, here’s a summary.

• Two carpal tunnel release surgeries
• One cataract removed (another one due to be removed within the week)
• The completion of application for tenure and promotion
• RECEIVING tenure and promotion (which means this blog need not be anonymous anymore, at least not so compulsively!)
• Learning to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking as a way to give my hands a frequent break

• Discovering Twitter, Plurk, and other ways to quickly share a link and partly scratch the blogging itch…

But I have missed this, and I’d like to try to start again, now that my hands and my voice can share the burden, and I can see well enough to fix my mistakes without blowing everthing up to 24 pt. type and higher…

I doubt I’m still on any blogrolls, but if you are out there, I’m here. Many things in library land, new Media, and the Catholic Church to discuss. If you just landed here because of my Plurk, welcome, and poke through the old posts if you like.

Talk to you again soon!

I’ve been getting a flu shot every year for years.  I’ve always thought this was just common sense, because every upper respiratory infection I get just goes directly into my lungs and stays for weeks.  It seems that the Centers for Disease Control have finally caught up with me.  In this instruction sheet, they specifically mention people was cerebral palsy as people who should get inactivated vaccine.

This pleases me because I rarely see any mention of how my disability might affect ordinary health care decisions.  I know that CP affects my digestion, breathing, and my gynecological health as well as my mobility and my muscle tone.  It’s good to see the CDC recognize that in a General Health publication.

I received good news in my e-mail. A foundation has given a grant to increase the accessibility of houses of worship in Chicago.

This is of course terrific news. As our population ages, provided that we don’t decide old people are too much trouble, we should see more of these types of initiatives. Many of my average friends have been surprised at how often the decisions about choosing place of worship had less to do with my agreement with the doctrine, and more to do with the accessibility of the facility, especially the restrooms and the social areas.

After I began the RCIA process, are parishes were consolidated, and my classes were moved to a parish on the far side of town. (There were still Masses at mile parish, but no programs) I could not go to the classes independently. The church restrooms were not accessible, and unlike the church where I attended Mass, there was no public restroom nearby. Those classes were real trial to me, and I didn’t feel comfortable explaining why couldn’t stay and socialize I was terrified of having a bladder accident in my sponsor’s car.

And yet, I so much wanted to be Catholic that I put up with all of that.  And I so wanted to be like everybody else but I didn’t tell anyone what problems I was having.  Some people would just give up.  Some people just don’t go to worship anymore.

[This is my first blog post using Windows voice recognition.  I now have immense respect for anyone who uses this as their primary way to communicate.  I still hope to install Dragon Naturallyspeaking, but I'm having system problems with that.  Cutting and pasting from Wordpad will have to do for now.]

Via Sandro Magister, rabbi Jacob Neusner (whose book A Rabbi Talks to Jesus was acclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI), and bishop Gianfranco Ravas discuss the revised Good Friday prayer in the Missal of Blessed John XXIII.

If you’ve read some of the recent US press discussion on this topic, which has a “how dare you!” tone to it, I urge you to read this article, which presents background on the issue, and a defense of the current language of the prayer. It is not easy reading, but well worthwhile.

Once again, Rabbi Neusner does a better job of defending Catholic practice than many Catholics. I read his book about Jesus when I was considering conversion to Judaism many years ago. Ironically, his book helped me understand the uniqueness of the claims of Jesus, and helped me return to a deeper and more committed Christian faith (ultimately a Catholic faith.)

WheelieCatholic was nice enough to tag me on this. Don’t think I should have done it at work; the results are perhaps not quite average:

Rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).

Improving Online Public Access Catalogs, by Martha M. Yee and Sara Shatford Layne.

2. Open the book to page 123.

Got it. (Just missed that chapter bibliography, whew.)

3. Find the fifth sentence.

Got it.

4. Post the next three sentences.

Users may not expect to have to invert names in an online system, so a keyword search of personal names that does not require the words in the search to occur in a particular order is useful. However, it does mean that a search on Frederick Lewis will also retrieve Lewis Frederick. The best solution would be to use form fill-in for novice users, and inversion and commas for more experienced users, to get the user to identify the surname and forename elements of the name.

5. Tag five people.

Gee, is anyone left to be tagged? Anyone want another round?

Let’s try Jonathan, Kasia, Ironic Catholic, Kathy of Editor Mom, and Athanasius. Hope you’re surrounded by less abstruse works.

I had my Lent somewhat planned out I had certain things I was giving up and other things I was adding on. (My behaviorist training as a special ed teacher leads me never to try to wipe out a behavior without adding an incompatible one.)

But you know, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

It actually began a little before Lent. At first I blamed it on the new mattress; I was just sleeping wrong. That’s what was causing the pain in my neck, the tingles in my hands. But the tingles became pain, and tingles started in new places. After a couple of weeks, I screwed up my courage and spoke to my rehab doctor. He ordered a diagnostic test called an EMG. The test was scheduled for Friday, Feb. 29, the third Friday in Lent. That turned out to be very appropriate.

One of the dubious blessings of being a librarian is that I know how to go to Medline Plus to research any medical condition, test, or test result my doctors tell me about. So I found out that an EMG involved electrodes and needles. Oh, boy.

I went in on Friday morning with a metal-free bra and my deodorant in my purse. I took off my crucifix while waiting, but didn’t think about taking off my wedding band (or I would have left it at home). I don’t usually remove it, so taking it off and putting it on the exam room counter gave me a little extra feeling that things were wrong.

The doctor who administered the test was very nice and explained each step. She applied conducting gel to my arm and “zapped” areas on my arms and hands with a little device, and made pen marks on me in various places, measuring here and there. The article I had read didn’t mention a topical shock, so I cheerfully jumped to the conclusion that the needles had been replaced by this little device.

Not so.

Nest came the needles. Electrified needles. She would poke me in an ink mark, and then turn on a current and ask me to move my hand, arm, or wrist in a given direction. Which hurt. The doctor told me that I could stop the test at any time if the pain was too much, and because I could, I didn’t have to.

“If you can sue this pain for good, God, please take it,” I thought, when it wasn’t too bad. When it got worse and my thoughts were less articulate, I just blew out a long breath and prayed in my head, “For the Holy Souls,” and, “Help.”

You know it’s bad when the doctor apologizes. All in all, the shocking, poking, marking and zapping took between an hour and an ninety minutes.

Tomorrow it’s off to the doctor to get an interpretation of the results, and to begin a plan of action. Having read the excellent book The Gift of Pain by Dt. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey, I know that it’s good that I have this pain, that I’m being warned that my body is damaged, and I need to change things.  I know, too, that a little fasting from computer fun (less Chuzzle, more reading) is good as a Lenten discipline. Still… this is a challenge. Trusting that this is being permitted by a God who loves me more than I can imagine is a tougher sell.

[UPDATED: I was in a lhurry to say something and didn't have much time. So I ended up being rather trite. This trubute is a bit less embarrassing.]
You can’t be a forty-something (ex-)Evangelical Christian and not have heard of Larry Norman, but if you haven’t, read this or this.

These articles give you some taste of what he was; but they can’t convey the faith impact he had on me and mine. By asking the musical question, “Why Should the Devil Have all the Good Music?” Norman gave teenagers something to listen to that would annoy our parents and yet support our faith.

And more than that, he gave us a more real and gritty, a more deeply layered, kind of Christian music. Songs like “So Long Ago the Garden” were not simply about how great it is to love Jesus. They were about the evils that we could see in the world around us, the hypocrisy and the emptiness of the prevailing culture that teenagers are so sensitive to in the adults areound them. But in spite of the darkness, he assured us of the victory of Christ, and in that sense, I find his music very Catholic.

Not actually doctrinally Catholic, however. Decades before the Left Behind books, “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” painted a bleak picture of the time after the Rapture. As an anxious and immature junior high kid, if I came home and my mother wasn’t home, yet the car was in the driveway, my first thought was not “Mom must be at the neighbors’” but, “Did the Rapture happen while I was on the school bus?”

I was touched to read in his obituaries that he lived with bipolar disorder, the effects of head injury, and heart disease. Life was often hard for him. He recently told his friends,

I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God’s hand reaching down to pick me up. I have been under medical care for months. My wounds are getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home.

My brother Charles is right, I won’t be here much longer. I can’t do anything about it. My heart is too weak. I want to say goodbye to everyone. In the past you have generously supported me with prayer and finance and we will probably still need financial help.

My plan is to be buried in a simple pine box with some flowers inside. But still it will be costly because of funeral arrangement, transportation to the gravesite, entombment, coordination, legal papers etc. However money is not really what I need, I want to say I love you.

I’d like to push back the darkness with my bravest effort. There will be a funeral posted here on the website, in case some of you want to attend. We are not sure of the date when I will die. Goodbye, farewell, we will meet again.

Goodbye, farewell, we’ll meet again
Somewhere beyond the sky.
I pray that you will stay with God
Goodbye, my friends, goodbye.

Larry

Larry, may God give you healing, blessings, rest, and reward. I don’t believe in a Rapture these days, though I do believe Jesus will return. Whether on his return, or at the end of our lives, we will all see him face to face. And for that, I believe you were indeed ready.

Not goodbye, Larry. Till we meet again, God willing.

From a Web site whose anonymity I am protecting:

ANNOUNCEMENT: Next drawing is on Saturday, February 30, 2008

Ummm, okay. I won’t count on winning, then….

Just perfect. I’m not a mom, but I had one. So I know this is the real deal:

Hey, any bloggers out there using voice-input software and a PC to blog and do their other computer work? I’m having pain and numbness in my hands (the pins-and-needles kind) and am going in for tests on Friday. I suspect the doctors will tell me that I need to spend less time with the keyboard and mouse, but for the last 15 years or so, computers are a great deal of my life! I don’t particularly want to cut down. But above all, I need my hands.

This seems to be a common problem for both people who work in libraries and for people who have been using wheelchairs for most or all of their lives.

Prayers for wisdom, willingness to change, and healing are all welcome.