Ants Marching

Does It Matter?

2008-11-08T11:57:00.000-05:00

I'm going to start re-publishing some of my old posts. I'm afraid that blogging is a sickness.

This is one of my favorites.

Edit--My attention-seeking behavior is garnering, well, some attention:

Chicago Tribune.

Bible Belt Blogger

I commented on another blog about how I cannot take content seriously when it is delivered in an unattractive manner. If a person can't take the time to use correct spelling and grammar, then I'm not going to be able to take the time to consider what he or she has to say.

Here is part of the response I received:

The realities of online communication are that spelling and grammar are not the focus of many (especially younger) users. To them the concept of ideas is much more important than language rules (which themselves are seen as fluid and arbitrary in our postmodern age). It’s not about being lazy or dumb - it’s often a learned form of communication....Yes, this bugs some other people. Yet the online language of each person is part of who they are and how the communicate. I will not create barriers for those people or exclude them from the conversation because they do not “speak” formal English.

Well. Let's address these points individually, shall we?

1. Spelling and grammar are "not the focus" of many users.

* Saying this does not make it acceptable. Going outside when the weather is cold isn't exactly my dog's focus, either, but that doesn't make it okay for him to crap in the dining room.

2. The "concept of ideas" is much more important than language rules

* What, there's not room for both? This isn't an either/or deal. Shocking, perhaps, but there are actually people at this very moment expressing ideas online while using correct grammar. Hold your amazement.

3. Language rules themselves are seen as fluid and arbitrary.

* Wow. So all that's necessary in order to do away with any rule I don't want to follow is to label it fluid and arbitrary? Hey, I'm going to use that. It works for me.

4. It's often a learned form of communication.

* Then stop the madness already. By perpetuating this form of supposed communication, it is only going to get worse.

5. The online language of each person is part of who they are

* Yeah, I can tell you who they are. They're people who are either lacking in intelligence, or don't care that they appear to be. I'm interested in the opinions of neither.

Look, I'm no English major. I've never even taken a college-level English class. I'm totally aware that my writing is not perfect; at any given moment, I could be violating rules I didn't even know existed.

But I try. I make the effort to keep my writing both civilized and aesthetically pleasing. To me, this effort is not wasted. I wish everyone else who feels the need to publish online felt the same.

(I'm going to post the original comments as one long comment. It is too time-consuming to separate them.)

Tales From The O.R.

2008-11-06T10:16:00.000-05:00

The atmosphere in the NICU can swing from very quiet to somewhat chaotic. This is a snapshot of a particular night shift.

It started well; good staff on, which is highly important, and we had enough babies to keep us busy, but low enough acuity to keep the stress level down.

Around 1 a.m., Winnie, our practitioner, said she was going to go downstairs and look for something to eat. She had no sooner walked out than the phone rang, and someone frantically yelled, "We need the practitioner in O.R. 1, NOW!"

Shit. I bolted out of the unit, but Winnie was gone. So I ran back in, yelled to the other nurse to page her and the respiratory therapist to relieve me in the O.R., and ran back, donning a surgical mask, hat, gown, and shoe covers, which I swear only come in like a size 5. Something you don't know about me if we've never met is that I have some giant feet, similar to those of a clown.

Anyway. I'm sweating by the time I get in the O.R., where a massive woman is being prepped on a cart. In the yelling and chaos I hear that she just walked into the treatment room from home, they couldn't find heart tones, and she's twenty. four. weeks. along.

Shit. Did I say that already? With apologies to Woody Hayes, there are three things that can happen at an imminent delivery of this sort, and two of them are bad.

The first, of course, is that the baby dies.

The second is that he lives. This is a kid on the murky edge of viability, and there's nothing good about this. (I wrote about the sort of course that could be expected in extreme prematurity in the post below.)

Winnie and Val, the respiratory therapist, finally get in there, and I am relegated to hauling around heavy equipment. First I have to get them the transport Isolette, which is kept heated and ready for a moment like this.

Then, I go back into the unit, hauling a big unwieldy ventilator behind me. Theresa, another R.N. on, has already preheated a warming bed and is setting up monitor leads, IVs, stuff to draw blood, suction equipment, etc., leaving somewhat of a mess of empty wrappers. I manage to get the vent hooked up to both power and oxygen; this is Val's job, but he didn't have time to do it.

And then, we wait. And wait.

The waiting isn't a good sign; in an optimal situation they would get the baby stablized and over to the NICU in a hurry. The environment in the nursery is much more conducive to procedures than the crowded O.R. is, but if they can't get the baby stablilized, they can't transport him. So the lapse in time leads us to think that things aren't going well.

Finally they walk in, still in their surgical garb. Without a baby.

Which brings us to the third thing. The obstetrician could decide that the ultrasound technician was mistaken, that there are, in fact, heart tones, and, in this case, the baby can stay right inside Mom, where he belongs, for another sixteen weeks.

Hey, you think it's anticlimactic reading it, try living it.

The Natives Were Restless

2008-11-01T14:22:00.000-04:00

As is my faith. Something about spending the past three nights trying to console drug-addicted babies who were, in fact, inconsolable has caused me to question some key verses of the Good Book.

Like Jeremiah 1:5 --

5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew [a] you,
before you were born I set you apart;

Says the screaming baby, "Really? So You watched while my mom snorted coke and smoked both pot and cigarettes, knowing that the nervous system You were creating was already addicted to those things and that I would go through a brutal withdrawal after being born? Hey, thanks."

From Jeremiah 29:

11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Baby, again, "Wow. So my being raised in an abusive home is part of your plan? Cool. And then when I spend my brief adult life as a criminal before dying in jail, or being shot in a robbery or, perhaps, gang-related incident, this is all in order to prosper me? Who knew?"

Don't start with me on the whole God allows suffering because blah blah blah. Or that sickness is part of the fall.

Couldn't an omnipotent God have designed a nervous system for a baby that didn't involve all of this? Better still, could He not have designed a human brain that could withstand addiction?

I don't get it.

Goofing Off

2008-10-08T14:05:00.000-04:00

(This is my daughter's favorite post.)

I will now demonstrate how wasting hours and hours of my life online has, in fact, been productive by demonstrating my acquired knowledge of HTML.

This, of course, depends on your definition of productive.

One of the things I have learned is how to format a list:

Breakfasts eaten in this household this morning:

1. Pop-tarts (2)
2. Pop-tart (1)
3. Breakfast sandwich of toast, sausage, egg and cheese (homemade, by request.)
4. Pop-tart (1)
5. Cookie and coffee (mine)
6. Kibbles and Bits

All served with, of course, milk, except for:

1. Kibbles and Bits

Things I say, every morning, after preparing breakfast for a child, based on gender:

1. "Here you go, babe."
2. "Here you go, princess."

If that didn't impress you, well, check this out:

Items on a Wal*Mart receipt I recently found, dated July 18, 2002:

1. CHARMIN 12RL 3.68
2. COMBO 13.44
3. DISNEY ADVEN 3.15
4. DETERGENT 2.97
5. BARSOAP 1.78
6. S/S CREW NECK 6.98
7. TOOTHPASTE 1.47
8. TOOTHBRUSH 1.94
9. MT DEW .98
10. PEPSI .98
11. 2LT VANILLA .98
12. 2LTR DIET KO .98
13. TRASHBAG 30G 1.50
14. JR MINTS .97
15. LIQ HANDSOAP 1.47
16. HAND SOAP .97
17. HAND SOAP .97
18. HAND SOAP .97
19. MINNOWS 10 P .96
20. MATTHEWS DA 9.84 WAS 13.88 YOU SAVED 4.04

What I bet you didn't know:

1. That you can get live bait at Wal-Mart
2. But then you'll need a lot of handsoap

What I'd like to know:

1. What a $13.44 COMBO consists of

What this list says about my household:

1. We drink too much soda
2. But at least we brush our teeth

Songs playing in my head right now:

1.

I Feel Loved

2008-08-29T19:40:00.000-04:00

Ann, Tonia, Molly, thank you. For taking the time to be there for me, and for your examples, all three of you, of love for Christ. It's a real love you have, and it's apparent. You shine like stars.

(P.S. Molly--believe it or not, I'm never sure about the apostrophe s thing, either. But I did have to correct the band's spelling in the quote below--I couldn't have y'all thinking I typed it that way.)

Now. Awesome song:

Maps by Falling Up

One last hour before this place is on fire
Losing all as the flames grow higher and higher
Here I stand

The further I'm from you, the harder I try to exist
Somebody tell me how did it come to this?
Take these blinds from my eyes and wake me from the inside

This last hour the night dropped into the sea
The light spread wide and the sky broke open and free
Here I stand

Further out, maybe you could meet me where I am
Further out, I know there is hope within your hands

Song Description:
'This song is a song that ties in a metaphor of a burning house and losing everything that you have, to realizing the greatness and the vast capacity of the grace of Jesus. The realization happens when it becomes not an effort on your part but an acceptance of the work Jesus has done.' - Falling Up

Post Belief Christianity

2008-04-09T04:57:00.002-04:00

I’m stealing this quote from the comments section at Bible Belt Blogger:

There is a group of us out there who wish to maintain a historic tie to the Christian church but who find it increasingly difficult to believe in the historical truth of much of the bible, including the gospels.

Elaine Pagels refers to this as a “post belief” christianity, a christianity that focuses on brotherhood and trying to love God and one’s neighbor without requiring as much belief in the historic bases of christianity as even members of the mainline churches typically have.

Is this a valid form of christianity? Jack would say no, but I prefer to think of us as an extension of christianity into a new millenium. I suspect that this is where all the mainline churches (Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Disciples, etc.) are going.

And the brand names will carry with them enough respectability for the christian community to accept these groups.

Here is what resonates with me about this concept: I make myself crazy trying to figure out the Bible and what it means for how I’m supposed to live.

It’s an archaic book written on scraps of parchment in languages I don’t read, and I’m supposed to take that and make a life of it here in an American suburb.

I don’t know that I do that so successfully.

But here’s what I can do: I can attempt to follow the example Christ set. I can love God and do my best to love my neighbor. (I’m certain this is much harder for me than it is for most people.)

I can give to the poor. I can make an effort to put others before myself, although don’t ever ask my kids about the time I was trapped on an elevator and yelled out at them through the doors to tell the firemen to rescue me first.

If I take Christianity and break it right down to Jesus, it suddenly looks a lot more doable.

What I Do

2008-04-01T11:23:00.001-04:00

(This is one of the first posts I wrote. I'm republishing it to give context to some of my work-related posts.)

Because, you know, most people don't get it. They think I rock babies all night, and feed them bottles.

I wish. Seriously, when that happens, it's the best part of my job. It doesn't happen all that often, though.

Here's the thing: technology has far outpaced our ability to keep up in an ethical fashion. What I mean is, we have scientific capabilities for many things that are entirely questionable from a moral standpoint.

And I stand at the forefront of all of this as a nurse in an intensive care nursery.

I first felt the twinges of moral ambiguity some time ago, when I was attempting to start an IV in a baby smaller than my hand. Her veins were thinner than the line one might make with a pencil, and I was supposed to introduce a catheter into them, enabling us to provide fluids which would maintain her life.

As my hand was poised with the needle, my co-worker whispered, "Say a prayer."

And I thought to myself, what if the answer to prayer is that I don't succeed?

I mean, really, who am I to thwart God's will? Is it, in fact, His will to torture babies who weigh less than two pounds with needles, tubes down their throat hooked to ventilators, and countless painful procedures, only to send them home months later with a poor prognosis?

You take a kid who weighs around a pound or so and keep him alive artificially until he can be sent home with his parents, and I guarantee that the majority of the time, those parents are signing up for lifelong care of a child who may not ever even, like, speak. Or walk. Or become potty-trained. Don't you think that it may, in fact, have been God's will for this child not to have lived?

And yet. Yet. Let me tell you about some of the most frustrating cases I've ever dealt with. Babies whose parents promise a dysfunctional home life at best, involving drugs, low socio-economic status, no prenatal care for the mother because it's not an option for her, or because she's just not interested.

A baby like this is likely to come into the world prematurely, sometimes on the edge of viability, say, 23-24 weeks of gestation. He may be addicted to the cocaine he had in utero.

Doctors may have told his mother to stay on bedrest, that she was at high risk of giving birth prematurely, but she didn't do it. Maybe she had other children and no one to take care of them.

Maybe she didn't want to be on bedrest, didn't want to use that disgusting bedpan.

Or, perhaps, she just wanted a cigarette.

And so she gets up, does what she wants.

And so her baby is born suddenly, extremely prematurely.

This little guy enters the world weighing about a pound. His eyes are fused shut, and his skin is so fragile that merely placing the leads for his heart monitor causes it to tear and bleed.

His nurses manage to get IVs in him, and start the fluids that will keep him alive. A tiny endotracheal tube is placed in his throat and hooked to the ventilator which will breathe for him.

He doesn't really want to live, though. His nervous system is so immature that his heart repeatedly forgets to beat, and he has to be vigorously stimulated to bring him back to life.

His skin peels and scars under the electrode leads. He has to have repeated blood draws, because his lab values are so out of whack.

His nurses fight back tears, sometimes, when they approach his bedside, because they know they are going to cause him more pain, and really, wouldn't it be the more humane thing to just let him go? What they are doing to him is torture, and all in the name of modern medicine.

Day after day this goes on. No one wants to take care of him, because it is so frustrating. Not the fact that the nurse has to jump up every few minutes as his heart monitor alarms, but because the whole thing is such an exercise in futility. Why are we doing this, tormenting this child, when he is only going to end up moderately functional at best?

And yet. A year later, the door of the NICU opens, and here comes the little guy, toddling and smiling while grasping the hands of his mother, who has, in fact, learned to be one.

"We just wanted to say hi," she says.

And in that moment, all of the bad outcomes are negated. There is no black and white here in the intensive care nursery. Go ahead and spit out your dismal statistics, but the real truth is in the toothless smile of the baby anyone else would have given up on.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...
Marcia,

Your blog is wonderful.

Are you based in Kentucky?

Would it be possible to post some or all of this item about intensive care nursing on my blog?

I'd really like to share it with my readers.

I look forward to visiting your site again.

Sincerely,

Frank Lockwood

www.spirituality.typepad.com

10:30 PM Marcia said...

Frank, yes, of course, publish whatever you want.

I'm based in Columbus, Ohio.

And wow, thanks for the praise. I'm just goofing around, really; I don't claim to be a *real* blogger such as yourself.

10:34 PM Left Right Out said...

Hey Marcia,

Thanks for stopping by. I'm on a bit of a blog hiatus at the moment -- one of those things where life interferes with the internet! I did visit you via your comment at Molly's blog, I'm a big Choosing Home fan and I'm thrilled to visit the member's individual blogs too -- so much that calls me closer to God!

I know my feelings aren't exactly the same as the ones you have, but but I work with people with severe intellectual disabilities and/or mental health problems and/or severe physical disabilities. Sometimes I despair at what it must be like for some of them, trapped in their own heads, some quadrapalegics, handled all the time, unable to express what they want.

So often I just look at them and try to be thankful that one day they'll be *free* of all the earthly limitations -- that they will be with God, and know themselves fully loved. And I wonder if we're doing the right thing forcibly treating the cancer etc.

And then one will smile at me as I rub his chest, or reach out to hold my hand, or dance around the room for five minutes because I took her with me to do the washing and let her put in the detergent. And I know that God is with them *now*, that no matter how hard it is to be them they too are touched by grace. That even if I don't always see how, their lives are to His glory. And that's what keeps me going, what keeps me loving my job.

And then there are moments of frustration and humour and fart jokes too :0)

Sorry to ramble on, just wanted to say thank you for loving these babies.

Left Right Out.

5:54 AM Marcia said...

Wow, LRO, thanks for what you do.

8:00 AM molly said...

OH MAN.... That was good. And terrible. And good.

3:29 PM Caleb Powers said...

I've always said that technology is a magnifying glass. It magnifies whatever it touches, without regard to ethics.

Gunpowder has killed millions of people over the world, and allowed millions more to mine coal and other minerals, build roads, shoot pretty fireworks, and, as the conservatives always say, subdue this continent for the betterment of man (though the native americans might have a different take on that).

Nuclear power can produce cheap electricity or the cheap destruction of a city and its inhabitants. And yes, medical technology can save people who some might suggest ought not to be saved.

And yet you have to wonder: Is that four year old you saved going to be the one to cure cancer or invent a clean burning fuel to save us from global warming? Will he be the next Billy Graham, or Martha Graham, or invent the next Graham cracker?

3:56 PM Marcia said...
Well, yeah, Caleb. There's so much gray area when it comes to technology. There's just no way to establish what's right and what's wrong; you just have to give the maximum to everyone.

10:02 PM Anonymous said...
Marcia, when your alone with those babies and your heart is ripping out and you feel that warm spot on your shoulder, its God putting his hand on you.

10:58 PM Anonymous said...
Marcia,

My husband and I adopted a little boy who was born at 28 weeks. He was born with drugs in his system and e struggled to survive those first few weeks. He came to us at 9 months (6 mo adjusted). Expectations of him ever being a "normal" kid were bleak. He's three now and yes, dealing with some delays, but he keeps beating the odds. Above all, he is a happy kid. I tucked him in his bed the other night and noted how cozy and happy he was.

Anyway, I never got to thank all those who cared for him in the NICU, so whenever I meet a doctor or a nurse who cares for preemies, I thank them for what they do. I often think that because of silent prayers whispered over my son in the NICU, he is here today and is, no doubt, a miracle.

THANK YOU!

6:11 AM Clark Bartram said...

You should check out nenoatal doc's blog and Tales from the Womb. They are both neonatologists with two very different styles of blogging.

11:54 AM Marcia said...

I have checked them both out, just recently. I had no idea there were so many relevant blogs out there.

Thanks for stopping by.

11:59 AM Kim said...

Stunning post. Absolutely goose-bump raising stunning.

9:44 PM Anonymous said...

I loved this post. The only thing that bothered me is how you make it sound like prematurity is most often the fault of the mother. Sometimes everything is done right and babies are still born too soon.

3:39 PM Marcia said...

That's absolutely true, and thanks for bringing it up.

6:55 AM Gillian said...

My three month old baby went into a NICU 31 years ago. They flew her to San Diego because no one could figure out why she was in congestive heart failure. Her heartbeat had no rhythm at all and all the nurses whipped around to their babies the minute it started sounding in the room.

The doctors figured out she had 'wandering pacemaker' and ensured that a year later in Las Vegas another baby was diagnosed immediately and put on treatment. That was great. The thing is that the NICU doctors in Las Vegas were horrid to me. I am not sure if it was because they just didn't know what was wrong or if my hanging around 24/7 was driving them crazy but one screamed at me 'Don't you realize your baby could be dying?'

I used no drugs, not even during delivery and had brought her to my pediatrician who had just trusted me when I said something was wrong with her and admitted her. I will never get it.

But the nurses in both states kept me whole. The nurses were the ones who dealt with her. They let me bathe her, told me what was happening with her all the time. They posted a note for me insisting that if someone needed to treat her they had to wake her up first, not do it while she was sleeping. They let me shower there. They collected money to send me to a hotel when she was finally stable and just laughed at me when all I could do was clean up there and come back. They got me a mother's day gift and swore it was from her. They even asked me to talk to a mom who was having trouble getting started with breast feeding. (I just distracted Mom long enough to let the baby get on with it LOL) They gave her a toy before she left and she would smile and laugh for every one of them.

Two years ago I e-mailed the administrators of the NICUs. I knew none of those nurses would still be there but I asked him to post a note telling the nurses who were there that a baby whose life had been saved there had just given birth to a baby of her own. So, they give life over and over again and in ways they will never know.

Thank you for what you do.

10:01 PM Marcia said...

Gillian, that brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for taking the time to write it.

6:53 AM ashley said...

Beautiful...thanks.

5:22 PM Laura said...

I also liked the post. I often wonder what happens if parents refuse treatment. At 24 weeks? 26? 28? 30? Do the parents get to make that choice or is it taken away just because the technology is available and "you just have to give the maximum to everyone"? What if the parent believes in God's will?

The only part I didn't like was the comment on bed rest. I thought the research indicates that it doesn't change outcomes. . .

Laura

10:15 PM Marcia said...

Hi Laura---I can honestly say that I've never seen a parent refuse treatment. Even in the face of the grimmest statistics, they always want everything done. I'm just not sure how much a person is capable of comprehending at such an emotionally charged time,you know?

As far as bedrest, do you have cites for those stats? I'd be interested in reading that; from what I've seen, it does work in some cases.

10:12 AM

Are You Freakin' Kidding Me, Hillary?

2008-03-31T12:38:00.000-04:00

It's a good thing comments are closed in this CNN post.

No one, I mean, no one who hasn't done it has any idea what it means to work nights. For her to claim that she knows what it's like for your life to revolve around sleep, to travel through your days with a screwed-up body clock and a personality to match is ridiculous and insulting.

This is what it's like to be a night-shift nurse in my world, Hill. You spend evenings headed to work, tired already, and put in a full 12 hours taking care of critically ill babies, all the while knowing that if you make a mistake, you could end one of their lives.

You stagger out in the morning so exhausted you can't scrape the snow off of your car, so you navigate the drive home by peering out of a little hole in the windshield ice as you slog through rush-hour traffic and a deluge of school buses.

When you finally get to your house, you find that you will not be tumbling into bed, because the babysitter has canceled, and you will be staying up all day, bleary-eyed, nauseated, desperate for sleep, while little Chelsea eats potato chips and watches TV for hours.

You ever done this, sweetie? No, I didn't think so.

Give me a giant break.

Taking on the Trinity

2008-03-29T13:11:00.000-04:00

No, not the Father, Son and Holy Ghost one.

I'm talking about the sacred threesome of religious judgment: Homosexuality, Evolution vs. Creation, and Abortion.

So-called Christians sure do get their collective gander up about this stuff, don't they? You're either righteous or intolerant, blasphemous or stupid, a murderer or a champion of women, depending on whose camp you're in.

Let's begin. Homosexuality. It's my interpretation that the Bible does, in fact, call this sin. What's more, I think that's still relevant; in other words, I believe that it is still sin, today.

Put that down, please, and let me finish before you throw it at me.

First, let me address one of the big arguments against my position. The, yeah, Scripture says that homosexual behavior is wrong, but it also says you shouldn't eat shellfish one.

Okay, this shows either a misunderstanding or a lack of comprehension when it comes to the Law and the covenant. Yeah, there is a lot of flat-out goofy stuff in the Old Testament Law.

But we are no longer under that law. Jesus was the fulfillment of it for us, which makes that argument a moot point. Next.

Romans 1:24-28

24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

The Bible calls it indecent, perverse, depraved. And I just don't see how anyone can read this and think that Christianity is okay with homosexuality. If someone can explain it to me differently I'd appreciate it.

I have no problem with gay people. I've got no problem with them living together or being parents. I've seen enough screwed-up heterosexual-headed families; they're no barometer for what is good for a kid.

I know lesbians who are wonderful, caring mothers. I've got nothing against them, personally, nor do I think they are a threat to heterosexual marriages, which, as I said, fall quite far from perfect themselves.

Here's the thing: other people's private lives are NONE OF MY BUSINESS. It doesn't matter what I think. As long as you are a good citizen, take care of your own responsibilities, and cause no harm to my family, I really don't care what you do or how you choose to live. I may have said this before: IT'S NONE OF MY BUSINESS.

What's more, I got that big ole plank in my eye to get rid of before I judge anyone else. I'm the worst of sinners, myself, so while I may literally believe something is sin, I won't be casting any stones.

Onward. Evolution vs. Creation. How about this: I DON'T CARE. There. I've said it. Whether the world was created in six literal days or a billion literal years, it does not in any way affect my sad little struggle to follow after Christ.

I have said this before, though: the Creation Museum concept makes me want to hurl. 25 million dollars. Twenty-five million dollars. Can you imagine what that would do for World Vision?

Matthew 25:34-36

34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Somewhere I must have missed the "I was hungry, and instead of feeding me you wasted millions of dollars building exihibits to try to prove that dinosaurs and man existed at the same time."

Ugh.

Abortion is a bit tougher for me. As a mother of four former fetuses, I'm rather partial to the little guys. And I've written before that in my line of work I am called upon to help save the lives of babies who, had their mother made a different choice, could have been legally aborted.

The biblical argument is that life is sacred, period. I don't believe there are any verses referring to abortion in particular, except Exodus 21:22, (22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows.) and I think that's more in line with the culture of the time--the man at fault had to make restitution for damaging the other man's property.

I'm a baby lover. I've devoted my life to them. No way can I condone abortion. Does this mean I think it should be illegal?

The answer to that question shouldn't really matter. Because if Christians were doing what they are truly supposed to be doing--changing lives and hearts, not laws--there would be so much less of a need for it.

And that's really my point in all of this blathering. I'm beyond sick of this false trinity. Stop spending money debating all this crap, and use it in a way that will further what Jesus taught in Matthew 25. It's not about politics, people. It's about love.

(Since the discussion in the comments section was better than the original post, I have pulled it from my files and posted it below. It would take more time than I have to format the comments the way they originally appeared, so you'll just have to pay attention to which person is saying what--the first comment is not mine, but comes from Mr. Powers. Feel free to add your own.)

Dirty Talk

2008-03-26T22:40:00.000-04:00

Stop scrolling so frantically. I don't mean the kind between consenting adults.

I'm talking about the offensive filth that kids are putting out on Xanga and MySpace.

I was going to provide links to some of my 15-year-old's friends' sites. But I decided against it, first of all because no one needs to look at that, and second, because one of them is that of a 14-year-old girl, and I don't want to be responsible for promoting it to people I may not even know.

You'll have to take my word for it, unless you've seen it for yourself: it's bad.

My parents are the most moral people I've ever met. When I was a teen, I knew without a doubt that my privacy was secure; I could leave out notes from friends, a diary, whatever, and I knew, I knew, that they would never read it. So I've always been a big defender of my own kids' privacy.

They don't call it the world wide web for no reason, though. If someone is looking for privacy, the internet is not the place to post his thoughts, you know?

So I don't feel guilty for reading this stuff. What I do feel is nauseous, to the point where I want to ban these kids from my house, my son.

But then I start to think. I mean, how many of you, as teens, were guilty of sneaking a look at the Playboys on the shelf at Pangle's Supermarket?

Okay, unless you lived in Lima, it wasn't Pangle's. Still, it was somewhere.

Did you cuss around your friends? Ever joke about sex acts, even when you weren't even sure, exactly, what they involved? Did you ever claim to do something racy, even though it wasn't true?

What about the time you were babysitting for your cousin Lynn's kids after her divorce when she rented that apartment above your dentist's office? When you found that stack of Penthouses in her bedroom, did you look?

Okay, you may not have had a cousin Lynn. You may not even have had a dentist, although if that's the case I have to say I'm not all that sure you're someone I want to know as an adult.

But you had a similar scenario, and most likely, you shared what you had read with friends.

So is this different? I think it is, for a lot of reasons. First of all, I hate the fact that so much filth is so readily available online. I truly believe it is desensitizing and coarsening our kids.

Second, they're putting it out there for anyone to see. The girl I mentioned claims to drink, smoke, and to be sexually active. I know her, and I have a hard time believing this. One thing that never goes out of style for teens is to look cool in front of their friends, and perhaps a lot of this talk is just talk.

There are registered sex offenders living in this community, though, who may take that stuff a bit more seriously. I told my son to please, tell her to take her site down, and he says kids know it's out there for anyone to read. They just don't think anyone will. It's the whole classic teens believe they are immortal syndrome.

And third, my parents were naive. If they had known some of the stuff I was into, they would have been horrified.

Not only that, but the things I saw were harmful to me. I didn't need to see that sort of thing at such a young age, or, well, ever.

Thanks to MySpace, I know what my kids are doing. And so I've (well, we've; there are two parents here) done something I never thought I'd do. We've told our son he is no longer allowed to associate with certain of these kids.

You all can disagree with me if you want; I don't much care. I won't be a party to having his mind, his very person, corrupted. Isn't this how a parent is supposed to feel?

The HPV Vaccine That Would Not Die

2008-03-19T12:09:00.001-04:00

(I'm republishing this post from last year because the infuriating debate rages on. And I lumped all of the original comments under the first posted one; it's too much work to separate them.)

So. Shall I, or shall I not? Take on the vaccine debate, that is. Oh, I think I shall. I'm in that kind of mood.

I wasn't, actually, until I read this, from the Columbus Dispatch.

Merck & Co., bowing to pressure from parents and medical groups, is suspending its campaign to persuade legislatures to require that adolescent girls get the company’s new vaccine against cervical cancer as a requirement for school attendance.

The drug-maker had been criticized for quietly funding the campaign, via a third party, to make 11- and 12-year-old girls get the three-dose vaccine in order to attend school.

I got in trouble over at Bible Belt Blogger for saying this: I don't like being mandated to put any chemical/virus/whatnot into my children's bodies.

I am very cautious when it comes to vaccines, and believe that the responsibility for that decision should be mine and my husband's.

I overlooked the larger point there, though. Or maybe I didn't. A third party is lobbying legislatures on behalf of Merck?! My kids may be required to receive vaccines in order to allow a pharmaceutical company to build on the $235 million in revenue it has already received from this vaccine alone?

Here's how I feel: hey, lobbyists, leave my family the hell alone.

Now, I'm not an anti-vaccine nut. (I am an anti-circumcision nut, but that's for another day.)

And by nut, I mean those who choose not to have their children vaccinated on the basis of dubious information. For instance, the autism/MMR link has been disproved by many acknowledged studies, and yet the myth continues.

(I do believe something in our lifestyles/environment is causing the giant increase in autism. It is mere coincidence, though, that the onset is normally around the same age the MMR is given.)

My children received all of their recommended vaccines, and I have already decided to have my daughters receive the HPV vaccine.

My point is that I don't need the government mandating me to do so, especially at the behest of lobbyists who are assisting Merck's bottom line.

I believe there are only two reasons for the government to mandate vaccines for schoolchildren, and neither of them involve lining Merck's pockets:

1. In order to prevent a disease which is communicable by the sort of everyday contact involved in a school day, or

2. In order to entirely eradicate a disease such as smallpox or polio from society. If this is possible, I believe societal good should trump individual decision. According to the CDC, however, this particular vaccine is not capable of doing that.

What does the vaccine not protect against?
Because the vaccine does not protect against all types of HPV, it will not prevent all cases of cervical cancer or genital warts. About 30% of cervical cancers will not be prevented by the vaccine.

This is a sexually-transmitted virus. Kids aren't going to get it from not washing their hands at school. Mandating this is not warranted.

Edit: another article from the Columbus Dispatch:

Meanwhile, documents obtained by the Associated Press show that Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s chief of staff met with key aides about the vaccine on the same day its manufacturer, Merck & Co., donated $5,000 to the governor’s campaign and $5,000 to eight other state lawmakers.

Texas became the first state to require the vaccine against human papilloma virus earlier this month when Perry issued an executive order requiring it for girls entering sixth grade........Merck had waged a behindthe-scenes lobbying campaign to get state legislatures to require 11- and 12-year-old girls to get the three-dose vaccine against the virus that can cause cervical cancer as a requirement for school attendance......The New Jersey company stands to make billions if Gardasil is required nationwide.

No, okay? Just no. If any legislation needs to be passed in this regard, it should be something making that whole scenario illegal.

Oh, and one final article from the Dispatch, including a quote from yours truly. Even if they did leave out some of my best points.

Yakety Yak

2008-02-27T10:08:00.000-05:00

I'm yakking. Rambling. I prefer to call it stream of consciousness, although it could also be called flight of ideas. The latter connotes mental illness, though, and no matter how comfortably that shoe might fit, I'm not gonna wear it.

Anyway. I'm stealing this quote about abortion from the comments section at Bible Belt Blogger:

I'm all for contraception, prevention is certainly better than termination.
Did you know you can get an implant that is safe, 99.9% effective, and lasts for three years? Just think girls not even a show for three years, wouldn't that be great?

I'm not about to get into the abortion debate. My opinion for the record is that it's wrong; I cannot understand how, in my job, I am called upon to help save the lives of babies who, had a different decision been made, could legally be killed at the same gestational age.

If you want to debate whether or not it should be legal, though, there are a blue million other blogs out there representing every possible opinion. Head on over to one of those, albeit with this warning: a lot of those people are wearing the aforementioned crazy shoes.

No, my thoughts center on that particular comment, and how far we are willing to alter our natural bodily functions from what was intended.

Let's take a woman of, say, my age, which is 42. I've been married for 21 years, so technically, not considering any premarital sex-- which, in case my kids are reading this, I absolutely DID NOT have!! Really!!--I could have borne like 15 or so children.

And in this ideal natural scenario, I would have breastfed all of them in between pregnancies.

I didn't do that, of course, and neither do most women these days. I chose to artificially alter my body in order to conceive only when I planned to do so. (Theoretically, anyway. I wasn't all that good at the planning part of it.) And I did breastfeed, but I wasn't picky; I used formula if it was convenient.

This is pretty much the way of it for women today, and now, as the commenter mentioned, we can also choose not to have a "show" for three years. (What the hell is a show? I'm assuming he means menstruation, and as we're big kids here, I'll go ahead and say it.)

Does anyone else see any possible correlation between how far we've come from what nature intended, and, say, the proliferation of breast and other female sorts of cancer?

What about the tremendous increase in autism among children? Yes, part of that can be explained by better diagnostics, but not all of it. I didn't know anyone autistic when I was growing up; did you? The Autism Society says it now accounts for 1 in 166 births.

This ain't no scientific study here; I'm just musing. We think we're so advanced and intelligent and that we can manipulate our bodies away from what was intended for the sake of, well, a whole lot of things. Maybe it's catching up to us.

Life and Whatnot

2007-12-29T14:02:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to decide what to do with this here blog. In the meantime, here are some pictures from my everyday life.

That's me at my 40th birthday party. Yes, I'm that old.

Here is my family in the California desert a couple of years ago. We LOVE to travel and take several trips a year. (We're holding up the newspaper because we sent the picture to be published in the travel section.)

My graduate with his parents:

My man and my middle boy: (I'm not sure why they're so glum--the Buckeyes hadn't lost yet.}

My 14-year-old girlie:

My 9-year-old princess:

And, finally, one of my favorites:

The Gospel According to June Carter Cash

2007-11-30T16:19:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of talk lately, both in the Christian blogosphere and in my own head, about what the role of a woman is, what true feminine Christianity should look like.

It's hard sometimes, figuring things out. I've said before that sometimes I can't understand how God could expect me to follow his Word when all he gave me of it are scraps of ancient parchment with words written in a language I don't speak or read.

So I read books and articles and websites with all sorts of conflicting opinions until my head spins and I wish I could just dump Clorox on my brain and read the Bible with a completely fresh outlook.

Recently, though, I found inspiration from a somewhat unlikely source. It comes from part of the eulogy Rosanne Cash gave for June. In it, she said,

She looked for the best in everyone. It was a way of life for her. If you pointed out that a particular person was perhaps not totally deserving of her love and in fact might be somewhat of a loser, she would say, "Well, honey, we just have to lift him up." She was forever lifting people up.....

....She did it for all of us, daily, continuously. But her great mission and passion were lifting up my dad.....Her love filled up every room he was in, lightened every path he walked, and her devotion created a sacred, exhilarating place for them to live out their married life.

Well. I'm humbled, is all I'm sayin'.

Note to Planned Parenthood: Get Your Bloody Hands Off My Child

2007-03-28T11:10:00.000-04:00

I realize that the issue of parental consent for an abortion has been written about in many other places. But the idea that the courts and organizations like Planned Parenthood believe they are better suited to make medical decisions regarding my daughter than her father and I are has hit home now that she is a teenager.

What arrogance. This is not a political pawn in someone's feminist game; this is my child. How dare you.

Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §3730.06

Tattooing and Body Piercing-It is illegal to tattoo, body pierce or pierce the ears of anyone under age 18 without the consent of the minor's parent, guardian or custodian. Requires the consenting individual to appear in person at the business at the time the procedure is performed and sign a document that provides informed consent.

Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2919.121.

Performing or inducing unlawful abortion upon minor.--No person shall knowingly perform or induce an abortion upon a pregnant minor unless one of the following is the case:

(1) The attending physician has secured the informed written consent of the minor and one parent, guardian, or custodian;

(2) The minor is emancipated and the attending physician has received her written informed consent;

(3) The minor has been authorized to consent to the abortion by a court order issued pursuant to division (C) of this section, and the attending physician has received her informed written consent;

(4) The court has given its consent in accordance with division (C) of this section and the minor is having the abortion willingly........

.........If the court finds that the minor is sufficiently mature and well enough informed to decide intelligently whether to have an abortion, the court shall grant the petition and permit the minor to consent to the abortion.

Planned Parenthood conveniently keeps access to judges and hooks these girls right up, and something like 96% of the requests are approved. I'm infuriated by the idea that my 14-year-old would need my consent to get a tattoo, but there are judges under P.P.'s feminist thumb who would rubber stamp an abortion, a risky and gruesome procedure, for her without my knowledge.

I cannot believe that anyone thinks this is okay, and if you're someone who does, know this: you sicken me.

What I Wish I Could Say

2007-03-13T22:44:00.001-04:00

You know, I'm sorry that you don't feel your baby's care is up to par because his IV wasn't taped the way you thought it should be. I'm sorry that you didn't like the day-shift nurse.

Most of all, though, I'm sorry that you decided to do addictive drugs while pregnant, and that your baby was transferred to our NICU for reasons that are ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT, and yet I still have to listen to you complain and nitpick.

Stop talking. Get out of my way, and let me take care of your poor inconsolable baby without having to trip over you to do it.

What I actually said: Why don't I go ahead and retape this IV; there, I think it looks more comfortable now.

I'm sorry things didn't go well today; I'll be sure to pass that along.

I think his withdrawal symptoms are much better. He's not shaking nearly as much.

No, you're not in my way. You're fine; I'm used to working around parents.

Poor, poor baby.

We Find Enormous Comfort

2007-01-18T14:21:00.007-05:00

And we find enormous comfort in knowing that he lifted off that mountain from a place he loved and doing something that he loved very, very much.

The above is a quote from the brother of one of the climbers lost on Mt. Hood. (I'm going to go ahead and assume the other two are dead as well, even though their bodies haven't been found.)

Okay, briefly, what an idiotic, selfish sport. Idiotic because if you're a climber, you damn well know that statistically, there's a decent chance that you won't be coming down alive.

I'll take decent as a chance on the Powerball, but I'm a bit pickier when it comes to life and death.

I don't have to explain why it's selfish, do I? The grieving family you leave behind, perhaps? Risking the life of others just so they can bring your stone-cold body back down the hill, maybe?

Now. Back to the quote. I absolutely hate that concept. If, God forbid, someone in my family were to die suddenly in some traumatic incident, the fact that he "loved what he was doing" at the time of death is not going to mitigate my grief in any way.

And the last thing I want to do is to deprive my family of some future comfort, but if I happen to die doing something I love, know this: I would much rather have been doing something I loathed, had it offered a better outcome.

An Open Letter To A Family I've Never Met

2006-12-28T11:43:00.000-05:00

First of all, I know nothing about the family member you lost over the holidays. I don't know the age, gender, marital status, whether or not he or she was a parent. Still, please, accept my very deep sympathy on your loss.

I do know that he or she was loved. How else to explain how, in this most sorrowful time, you were able to reach beyond yourselves and make such a selfless decision? It had to be in order to save another family from a Christmas tragedy, and in this, know that you were successful.

Your loved one's heart was successfully transplanted into my cousin, a 34-year-old father of three, whose own was so diseased from a random virus that he barely lived through Christmas Day. The family was all called to the hospital; those of us who weren't there spent Christmas hovering by the phone, willing it to ring, announcing some better news, and at the same time praying that it wouldn't ring and deliver the worst.

I'm not one to treat God like some cosmic vending machine; my prayers are normally vague, not specific requests. I've found that He tends not to work on demand.

In this instance, though, I was quite specific. Come on, Lord, Christmas Day? What about his three little boys and the rest of their lives? What about his parents, his siblings and their families? You can't do this, I said to Him, as if my words could make a difference.

Know, though, that I never prayed or wished for any other family to undergo exactly that. I knew that's what had to happen, of course, but I, we, instead wished that if some family did undergo such an unspeakable tragedy, they would somehow find the strength to do what you did.

Thank you. I hope that in time, you find some comfort in knowing what you have done.

On Chicago, Jesus, and Turtle

2006-10-02T13:37:00.000-04:00

(Here's another of my favorites, about a little "me" getaway I had last year.)

I had a great time, even if it was cold and rainy. To me, the best thing to do in Chicago is this: walk. The lake is gorgeous, and the architecture is both stunning and historical. I stayed at The Drake for the first time, and oh, I'm in love. Staying anywhere else from now on will feel like infidelity.

I saw in the paper that there was an exhibit of 9/11 photos somewhere called the Newberry Library. It's on Walton Street, which meant nothing to me. I am totally directionally impaired; my kids just assume I will get them lost if we are going someplace new.

So I looked at the map in the phone book, and noticed that my own hotel was on, um, Walton Street. The library was a stone's throw away. Oh.

The exhibit was a bit of a letdown; not enough photos. The library was beautiful, though, and I would have spent a small fortune in the bookstore if I didn't have to worry about hauling it all on the plane.

Thursday night I ate at The Cape Cod Room, and it was so cute. Red-checked tablecloths, candlelight, and a waitstaff which has, according to the menu, 400 years of service between them.

I believe this, because they were each about 100 years old. So sweet and polite, though.

Here is what makes me not happy: Bookbinder soup. It was delicious, supposedly containg red snapper and so when I got home I tried to find a copycat recipe.

What I found is this claim by the Soup Lady:

Is it now painfully obvious that everyone except the Soup Lady understands that the soup I enjoyed so much was a red soup made from a snapper (turtle), not a soup made from a red snapper (fish).

No, I didn't eat turtle, did I? More:

Now it may seem like a fine culinary line to you, but eating fish is something I'm used to doing. Eating combative reptilian scavengers when you are expecting to eat fish is another thing entirely.

Exactly. Thank you. But it was, you know, yummy.

Anyway. I brought "Velvet Elvis" with me as reading material, and the author really had me thinking on what it would look like for someone to live like Jesus now, today. I had all of these fives and ones because I got twenties from the ATM, and kept using them and getting change.

Normally, when walking in Chicago, I get approached constantly by street people wanting money. I've learned to not make eye contact, to keep walking.

But I had my Jesus groove on, and I decided I wanted to give away that money, and also engage the recipient in conversation. I mean, think what you will about folks begging for handouts, but the truth is that your life and my life are so much better than theirs that we aren't even able to comprehend what would drive someone to do that. I have been abundantly blessed, and I wanted to share the wealth.

Except, wouldn't you know it, I didn't run across one person asking for money. I did engage one gentleman in conversation; he had a poster about religious persecution in Russia, and was shouting stuff about it into a megaphone.

Great! I'll give him the money, and he can help persecuted Russians with it, right?

Um, no. Actually, what he wanted was to make America realize that we are being overtaken by Russian communists. That they are secretly infiltrating our society, and are poised for takeover.

I'm like, no way; we're far too materialistic to allow Communism, and he said, yes, that's a distraction, but it's really happening. So I said to him, you're out here in the cold trying to get your message across. What is it that you want me to take away from this, what would you like me to do?

And he says, demand DNA testing from every politician. They're all Russians! They change their names, but the truth will come out!

At this point the circus theme song playing in my head became even louder, and I bid him farewell. Dude was Looney Tunes. Also he had this thing growing on his eye, and I couldn't look away.

I did then pass an actual street person with a cup in his hand, but he didn't want to chat. As he said, "I ain't got no story, ma'am. I'm just cold and hoping to get some McDonald's."

I gave him the money. But I felt somewhat unfulfilled in my mission.

And I had turtle in my digestive system. That's just wrong.

(Original comments:

11 comments:
may said...

seriously, turtle? and the russians....hhhmmm. he could be right you know :)
7:45 PM Susan Palwick said...

Hi, Marcia! Good for you for trying with the street people. Eye contact's important even if you don't plan to give them money. Someone I know who used to be homeless told me, "If you don't want to give money, don't. But at least look at people and say hi. The worst part of being homeless is feeling invisible."

As for turtle . . . well, I love turtles -- they're sort of my totem animals -- so I'd have been distressed to learn that I'd eaten one without knowing it. I'm glad it tasted good, though!
10:29 AM Caleb Powers said...

Well, if it's any consolation, the turtle you ate was probably farmed. I visited a turtle farm once in the Cayman Islands, and it was quite interesting. I'm not sure that "wild" turtle is served in restaurants anymore. If it was wild turtle, it was probably the noble snapping turtle of my youth.

Either way, it wasn't the cute little red eared slider turtle in your photo; it was about 100 times the size and no doubt tastier. We used to catch and eat snapping turtles when I was growing up, and they are quite good, though you have to be careful of those jaws: they can take off a finger.

I always find it interesting how homogenized our food supply is getting. We are increasingly squeamish about eating things like turtle that have been traditional foods in western cookery for centuries. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I admire you for your talks with the homeless, too. Homeless people are not exactly common in Lexington, but they are here, and I always try to give them a little money when they ask. I often eat lunch on Saturdays at a McDonald's near downtown Lexington that is a kind of hangout for people who are, if not homeless, not quite with it economically.

I have never admitted to anyone that I go there to talk to homeless people, but I don't exactly go for the cuisine (No McTurtle on the menu there) Let's just say I've had some interesting conversations.

Christianity teaches us that we are to do what we can "for the least of these," and that certainly includes the homeless. I was moved by your description of doing just that.
11:49 PM apgaRN said...

He might have been more believable if he claimed that they were body-statching aliens, but Russians? Come on!
9:45 AM molly said...

LOL...
11:28 AM Marcia said...

I'm becoming more squeamish about eating any meat, really. I love a good hamburger and I love steak, but I have to not let myself think on it too much.

Yes, Russians. He was so serious, too.
11:30 AM Marcia said...

Hey, Molly, jinx.
11:32 AM Caleb Powers said...

Marcia, you know I can't let anything alone.

A few minutes of internet bliss suggests that what you ate was red snapper as opposed to turtle after all. So says the recipe from the hotel, published in the Chicago Tribune Good Eating Cookbook. It's available online at:

http://www.recipezaar.com/75333

So, perhaps the Soup Lady was wrong. I suspected this when she accused the waiter of deceiving her by referring to the soup as a "red snapper" soup when she claims he meant a red soup made of snapper.

Chicago's ABC TV affiliate says that the original Bookbinder's soup from Bookbinder's Restaurant in Philadelphia was made with snapping turtle, but at some point the Drake started using red snapper instead. This is at:

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=News&id=2588727

Ya know, nothing is more fun for me than tracking down totally usless bits of trivia. Maybe that's why I went to law school lo those many years ago . . .
3:42 PM Bryan Riley said...

Don't ruin her great post by turning the turtle into red snapper. The whole closing line was like the proverbial icing on the cake. It's like you just turned the wine back into water. Ugh.
9:24 PM Marcia said...

Yeah, Caleb, you could have emailed me that information and not ruined my post. ; )
8:59 AM Caleb Powers said...

Yeah, Marcia, but like, where would the fun have been in that???

And it certainly doesn't ruin your post, just adds to the mystery of what you ate . . .)