I am Returning to Blogging

For the past nine years I have been a blogger. Since my movement has been restricted by my need for oxygen and my bum leg, most of my time is spent sitting or sleeping. For quite a while, most of that sitting was done in front of my computer writing blog posts; I suppose one could have said that blogging had become my media of ministry. However, with FaceBook and Twitter I have found that I have been doing much less blogging. And, I believe, that I have spread my thoughts and ministry much too thin. 

A couple of days ago I was attacked on FaceBook by a right-wing troll ("a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people," ~ Wikipedia), flaming ("Flaming usually occurs in the social context,,, frequently the result of the discussion of heated real-world issues such as politics, religion, and philosophy... Deliberate flaming, as opposed to flaming as a result of emotional discussions, is carried out by individuals known as flamers, who are specifically motivated to incite flaming. These users specialize in flaming and target specific aspects of a controversial conversation. Some websites even cater to flamers and trolls, by allowing them a free environment, such as Flame-Wars forum." ~ Wikipedia) me over and over to the point that I finally had to block him.

I admit that the experience seriously troubled me—I have not encountered such a sadistic troll since my first years on the internet. His attacks revolved around personal incidents I was relating, stories about my life, pain, suffering, love, compassion, peace, justice, etc.—as I have been doing in my sermons for thirty years and blogs for nine years— so I have begun to mull over whether or not FaceBook is the place to publically share my personal stories, even my ministry.

I have decided that FaceBook is not the place to share my personal stories, my ministry, primarily because my FaceBook posts are viewed by people who do not know me, my stories, or ministries. Folks who read my blogs (at the moment about 500 a day) come to them intentionally because they want to read what I’m sharing. Those who stumble onto Nick’s Bytes don’t have to stay or return. This is the difference between FaceBooking and Blogging. 

Therefore, I am returning to full-time blogging and shall be spending much less time on FaceBook and Twitter. I will not promise a new blog post every day; my goal is a minimum of four a week. I hope you'll be back to see what I'm doing and spread the word that Nick's Bytes is again an active blog not limited to jokes and humor (although Too Bad It's Monday Humor with KATZ and Friday Funnies will both continue).

Shalom, my friends!

When Something Goes Crash in the Night

Yesterday was an amazing day. I wish I could articulate all of the energy I had—and how little pain. The physical stuff that I did yesterday was more than I could normally accomplish in a month or two. I thank God is a wonderful day.

A strange thing happened last night after I went to sleep. I was awakened by crash—actually two-- and severe pain in my left thigh. Because I could not locate the floor lamp next to my chair, I fumbled and finally found the flashlight I keep on the table beside me next to my CPAP. 

Once I had raised chair I sleep in, looked around, noted a 3 inch bleeding gash in my left thigh, that the floor lamp was literally on the floor, and a cat—Sugar-- running circles near the patio door and screeching as if she were scared.

The first thing I did was go to Sugar, who, upon my arrival, began scratching the patio door. She seemed to be so frightened that I opened the door and let her go outside. I then wash the blood off my leg and applied a triple antibiotic ointment. Then I tried to figure out what had happened.

My best guess is that one of the Kitty Kids—Sugar?—leaped from somewhere, knocked over the lamp, and landed claws-first on my thigh. I checked on the other two Kitty Kids, who were both okay: Alex was sleeping on an empty pizza box that I did not throw away because he likes to use it as a mattress and Midnight was at the patio door with her head in the Venetian blinds looking at Sugar on the patio.

I eventually went back to sleep. Now, at noon, I have returned to my spring cleaning, although not with as much energy as I had yesterday and with a weakness in my left leg—not caused by the claw scratch, but by the tank injury 44 years ago. I believe today is going to be a very good day.

Blessings, justice, and shalom to you, my friends.

`

Please: we have 78 cents left until May 1 when my pension is deposited into my bank; next month will be worse with our rent raised $100/month.

The Return of The Muffin Saga, Part XII

As I am writing The Muffin Saga, I am realizing how much my life was intertwined with Muffin's. I really miss my friend.

Muffin stayed at a doggie hotel while I was on my road trip to Tucson for the first part of the certification course for intentional interim ministry. She evidently enjoyed the stay: she had other doggies for company and a very large fenced area to play with her new friends. Of course, I couldn't leave her at my mother’s house. Mom couldn't have taken care of her and Muffin may have repeated the whining, crying, and howling behavior she did while I was hospitalized.

The course in Tucson was a week long, Monday through Friday. Since I had decided to drive to Tucson and make a detour on the way back, I arranged a two week stay for Muffin at the doggie hotel. With my car packed for the trip, I dropped Muffin off at her temporary home on Thursday morning and began following the southern route (Kentucky—Tennessee—Arkansas—Texas—New Mexico—Arizona) to Tucson, a drive of about 1800 miles.

The drive was OK and I arrived in Tucson late Sunday night. The next morning I found the retreat center, which was located in the desert overlooking the city. Recently I located some of the photographs of the center and folks with whom I shared the week:

My small group at Interim Ministry Network certidication course

Meditation trail at retreat center

The chapel at the retreat center

Early morning coffee

View of Tucson from above the retreat center

The return trip to Louisville was longer (2,350 miles) than the trip to Tucson. I drove west to Phoenix to visit a friend, then north to the Grand Canyon National Park where I visited with an Internet friend, then to Bryce Canyon National Park where I visited my son, Rob, and his wife who were working at the lodge, and finally back to Louisville.

I arrived at my mother’s house at about 4:00 a.m. to find the security bolt on the front door. Thus, I entered the back door, setting off the burglar alarm and, I think, awakening folks a block in each direction.

After a good bit of sleep—I had driven straight through from the Kansas border to Louisville without sleeping (about 950 miles)—I went to the doggie hotel where I retrieved a very excited Muffin. When the attendant brought her to me, she pulled so hard on her leash that she almost got away from the young woman. Of course, she wasn't trying to escape; she was heading for me and when I bent down to her I received as much of a wet tongue licking as I had when I returned from the hospital.

Muffin was so excited that we had to take a Muffin walk around the parking lot before getting into the car. She pulled me up to the fence around the outside play area were some of her doggie chums were and said good-bye to them before we left. I felt that I was taking her away from something special: her new friends, human and doggies, and a play area where she could run without a leash. There were so many transitions going on in both out lives that I may have been projecting my own feelings onto Muffin.

However, we were soon off on another adventure—moving from my mother’s basement into an apartment of our own—and neither Muffin nor I had time to reflect on the past.

I shall publish part XIII of The Muffin Saga next Sunday.


To all of my Down Under friends:

Please

The Muffin Saga: Part XI

Becoming adjusted to living in Louisville was fun for both Muffin and me. Muffin met a new friend, the Australian Sheepdog of Marc, another U.C.C. pastor, who had served churches in Australia for several years before returning to the U.S. When he began serving a congregation in Louisville, he brought two beloved things with him: a Range Rover and his dog.

Marc showed Muffin and me some neat places, including an area in a city park where dogs were allowed to run free of leashes. Muffin enjoyed being free of a leash. Unfortunately there were no garbage cans in the park to explore. She did frolic on a hillside meadow and roll around in the grass. As Spring came, Muffin met other dogs and had the joy of sticking her nose around their butts. Such is a doggie’s life and joys.

Muffin also met Caryl, who became her veterinarian long before she became Alex’s vet. There were two animal clinics close to where my mother lived. One was a huge, hospital like building with a half dozen vets on duty at any time. It was open twenty-four hours a day, every day. The other was a smaller place that had two vets, only one of which was ever on duty. It was much more like the practice that Muffin’s vet in southern Indiana had: fewer animals in the waiting room and a vet who knew Muffin personally.

The second is the one we, Muffin and I, chose. On our first visit Muffin had a physical, her doggie shots updated, and we purchased the dog license the county required. Caryl and Muffin got on well, which was good because they would see each other frequently over the coming years.

As I recovered from the bout of pneumonia and the time approached for me to leave for Tucson, I began looking for a permanent home for us. I’ll admit that my primary concern was finding a place that was doggie friendly. After several days of looking, I found what I thought a good place. However, before I signed the rental contract, I took Muffin for a visit.

It was a large, multiple building apartment complex. Running along one side was a creek, which was unique since the complex was in the city. Throughout the complex were grassy areas perfect for doggie walks. The day I took Muffin for the visit, we explore everywhere. Muffin even made the acquaintance of two other doggies who lived there. And I learned what my sons meant when they said that Muffin was a “babe magnet.”

Part XII of The Muffin Saga will be published next Sunday.

The Muffin Saga, Part X

How to make God laugh: Tell him your future plans. ~ Woody Allen

Eight days hospitalized can blow anyone’s plans and it certainly blew mine. There was no possible way for me to attend the Interim Ministry Network’s certification course in Oklahoma City in mid-January. So I contacted the Network’s national office and rescheduled for the course taking place in Tucson, Arizona, in March.

I’m fairly certain that that was OK with Muffin. She had evidently been traumatized by both my illness and my absence. When I returned to my temporary abode in my mother’s basement, she greeted me by jumping as high as she could and licking my face over and over. She was reluctant to let me out of her sight. She even followed me to the bathroom door and scratched at it while it was closed. That was new behavior for Muffin.

Meanwhile I was so weak that I couldn’t go anywhere so Muffin’s fear of my leaving again wasn’t to be realized for a while. I was much too frail to go out for any length of time. I needed to rest and recover.

The only real recovery problem that I had was that when I left the hospital after eight days of being treated for pneumonia, along with other medications, I was prescribed a bunch of steroids supposedly to wean me off the steroids I had been receiving intravenously while hospitalized. The instructions were to take four pills for three days, then three pills for three days, and so forth.

I had never heard of roid rage until I experienced it, which I did on the third or fourth day of the weaning routine. I was irrationally angry, yelling at my mother and Muffin, even feeling like kicking Muffin, which, thank God, I did not do. At some point I left the house, got into my car, put it in reverse, and stomped on the accelerator. I had to slam on the breaks to prevent ending up in the yard across the street. I sat in the car and took deep breaths to regain some sanity. Then I slowly drove back up the driveway and went in the house, where Muffin greeted me as she had when I returned from the hospital.

I did not know what was happening with me, except that I wasn’t OK. I petted Muffin and began to feel some calmness returning. Then I telephoned the physician who treated me for pneumonia while I was hospitalized. As luck—good luck—would have it, he was out of town, so I made a long-distance call to Indiana and the physician who had been my doctor for the past eleven years. This was the excellent, because he was an acknowledged expert in sports medicine.

After I explained what was going on and told him the medications I was prescribed at the hospital, he informed me that I was suffering from steroid rage, which he said affects some folks. He recommended that I flush all the pills except three down the toilet and take those, one per day, for the next three days. I followed his advice and quickly returned to normal.

Again, Muffin had saved me. She was a calming presence when my body felt anything but calm.

With almost two month before I had to leave for Tucson, Muffin and I began to explore Louisville, where I had not lived for more than twenty years. Unfortunately, my mother’s house didn’t have a fenced yard and the county had a leash law. Muffin couldn't go exploring on her own.

Thus Muffin and I began taking long walks with her on her leash. We explored the subdivision where I had lived from the age of ten to eighteen. Muffin, who was so often led by her nose and stomach, really wanted to raid garbage cans, which wasn’t on my agenda. I spent an abnormal amount of our walking time tugging on her leash to keep her away from cans that, according to her nose, contained food scraps.

We needed another place to walk—a non-residential area where Muffin wasn’t tempted by garbage. I had already made contact with fellow clergypersons in Louisville and so asked their advice. Several spots, almost all of them parks, were recommended, so Muffin and I began daily drives (Muffin loved riding in the car) to explore these parks. And we walked—we walked a lot. And I loved it and Muffin loved it.

Part XI of The Muffin Saga will be published next Sunday.

The Muffin Saga, Part IX

Muffin was standing on the futon beside me, licking the perspiration from my face, each time I surfaced into consciousness. I was terribly thirsty. Somehow, with Muffin beside me, I rose from the bed and climbed the steps from my mother’s basement to the kitchen where I drank water—lots of water. Then I staggered down the stairs, climbed back onto the futon, replaced the CPAP mask, and again fell asleep. The process was repeated I don’t know how many times over two and a half days. Each time I returned to consciousness, Muffin was beside me.

It had begun the day after New Year 1998. Since I’d returned to Louisville I had assumed from my Uncle John the responsibility for the care of my 89-year-old Aunt Lill. She had been in and out of nursing homes during the years I had been living in Missouri and Indiana. Uncle John, her youngest and only surviving brother, had arranged for 24/7 care takers in her home from an ever changing group he found through newspaper ads.

I would visit Aunt Lill a couple of times a week, doing her grocery shopping, arranging visits to her doctors, doing her banking, and being with her at times when her caretaker took time off. My relatives, including my mother, also visited her.

There had always conflict between Aunt Lill and the caretakers. Finally I decided that a job description needed to be developed for the caretaker to define duties and expectations on the part of both my aunt and her employee. So on January 2^nd I informed her current caretaker that we would negotiate a job description after I returned from making a trip to the grocery. When I returned to Aunt Lill’s house, I found the woman had packed her car with her belonging and was sitting in it in the driveway. As I got out of my car, she yelled, “Your uncle said I’d be paid under the table. I’m not staying.” She drove away.

I was in a conundrum! I had no caretaker for Aunt Lill. So I began calling agencies listed in the Yellow Pages until I found one who said they could supply a caretaker immediately. The owner, who was also the intake worker, came to my aunt’s house and we signed a contract. I was told that the caretaker would arrive in a few hours. She didn’t.

Through whatever mess up the agency had, over the next three days no caretaker arrived, although I was promised time and time again that one was on the way. Meanwhile, I couldn’t leave my aunt alone, nor could I provide her with adequate care. For example, she would not allow me, whose diaper she had changed fifty or so years before, to change her diaper.

I could find no relatives to help with her care. And, without the CPAP, I wasn’t able to sleep. By the third day I was ill—seriously ill. My mother reluctantly agreed to exchange places with me. When I returned to my apartment in Mom’s basement, Muffin greeted me with obvious joy. Exhausted, I collapsed on the futon.

I have no idea how long I slept, but when I awoke I was shaking and covered in perspiration. Muffin was beside me, licking the perspiration from my face. Muffin stayed at my side. She was always there when I awoke, nursing me with all of the doggy skills she possessed. But my mind wasn’t working. I knew I was ill, but I didn’t know what to do about it. With Muffin at my side, I managed to make it up the stairs, drink water, take Tylenol, and use the bathroom. Muffin never left me.

At some point I located a thermometer in my mother’s medicine cabinet. My temperature was 104 (F). I was getting sicker each day.

By the third day I knew I had to do something. So I staggered to my car and somehow (the medical folks were amazed) drove the four or five miles to a 24-hour emergency medical center. At the center I sat in the waiting room for about an hour and a half before being seen. Of course, I was unconscious during most of the wait.

Within minutes of entering the examining room, I was hooked up to oxygen and an ambulance was called to transport me to hospital. I had an acute case of double pneumonia and was hospitalized for eight days, a remarkably long period I am told.

Meanwhile the care providers finally located someone to stay with Aunt Lill and my mother returned home. Muffin, however, was beside her doggy self. She refused to climb the stairs from my mom’s basement, she refused to go outside, she refused to eat. What she did do was whimper and howl continually. Evidently Muffin, my caretaker, was concerned about me. My mother finally telephoned my wife, who came to her house and calmed and fed Muffin.

When I returned from hospital Muffin greeted me as I imagine the Father greeted his Prodigal Son. And I greeted her as I imagine the Man Who Was Robbed greeted the Good Samaritan.

The Muffin Saga will continue. There are still quite a few Muffin stories to share.

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The Muffin Saga, Part X

I’m sorry, but your dog is just too old. She won’t be able to keep up with the younger dogs.

Cattleman 1: I suppose I have to do what you’ve got to do and put down my old bull and get another.

Cattleman 2: Maybe not. I’ve decided to keep my old bull.

Cattleman 1: But why? That bull hasn’t performed in a year.

Cattleman 2: Well, I called the vet to talk about humanely putting down the old fellow and the vet suggested that I try this new miracle tonic first. So I bought a bottle of it and forced a quarter cup of it down the bull's throat and by the third day he’d serviced a cow and by the fifth day he serviced three more. He’s got the vigor of a five-year-old!

Cattleman 1: Amazing! I wonder what’s in that miracle tonic?

Cattleman 2: I don’t know, but it tastes like very sweet Coca-Cola.

I didn’t sample the “tonic” that Muffin’s veterinarian prescribed for her. Whatever it was, it put pet into her—lots of pep. I became concerned that she was locked in the apartment most of the day while I was pastoring the church. She needed to be outside, playing and running around, as she had before we moved to Louisville. Then I remembered that the doggie hotel where Muffin stayed while I was on my road trip to Tucson advertised doggie day care. I telephoned and made an appointment to enroll her in the program.

When the woman who ran the program refused to accept Muffin because, she said, that Muffin was just too old. She won’t be able to keep up with the younger dogs, I was flabbergasted. I told her that she just didn’t know Muffin. She might be fourteen or fifteen years old, but she was behaving like a four-year-old!

That didn’t help: the woman said that the doggie day care center had “rules” and the cut off age was something like eight years old. I looked for other doggie day care centers, but never found one for geriatric pooches. I suspect that if I had found one and enrolled Muffin in it, she would have run circles around the other dogs.

About a month later I had to go to a denominational conference in Indianapolis where I would be from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning. I was reluctant to leave Muffin at that doggie hotel, even though she seemed to enjoy it while I was in Arizona. Perhaps she wasn’t allowed out to play with the other doggies during the day as I had thought. Perhaps they considered her too old. I was in a pickle.

About that time I was surprised by being contacted by Gina, who had been my secretary at the church in Indiana for a year or so. She and her family had moved to Louisville from Connecticut where she had moved from southern Indiana about six or so years earlier. Gina asked me about Muffin, who had been her good buddy when she worked at the church and I brought her up to date on the Muffin saga.

Gina is the kind of person who collects animals—dogs, cats, cockatiels, etc. When I told her about my upcoming trip to Indianapolis, she actually begged me to allow Muffin to stay with her, her children, and her pets. Of course, it sounded great to me and, when Muffin and I arrived at Gina’s house and saw the very large fenced in back yard, I knew it would be perfect for Muff. And, to top it off, Muffin remembered Gina and they got on like two girlfriends who meet after years of not seeing each other! So, I drove north feeling very secure that both Gina and Muffin would have a happy time together.

When I returned late Sunday morning, I went home and carried my luggage into the apartment. I planned on having lunch and then picking up Muffin from Gina’s house. As it turned out, lunch was postponed! I telephoned Gina to say I’d be by to pick up Muffin in an hour or so.

Gina: Come now! I’m at my wits end.

Me: Is something wrong?

Gina: You’re damned right there is something wrong! Muffin won’t eat or drink or play with my dogs or me or the kids. All she does is whimper and howl. All night long she howls! She’s been doing this since Thursday evening. Come get her. NOW!!!!

It seems that Muffin had reverted to the behavior she had evinced while I was hospitalized with pneumonia just after we moved to Louisville. Remember. She must have been terrified that I had abandoned her. When Muff saw me come through the gate into Gina’s back yard, she scampered to me, jumped up on her hind legs with her front paws on my body, and licked and licked and licked me. She was still licking me as I thanked Gina—and apologized for Muffin’s unladylike behavior.

On the drive home Muffin continued licking my face so that I had to continually push her over to her side of the car so that I could drive. When we arrived at the apartment complex, she wanted to go for a Muffin-walk and we took the grand tour, even watching—from a "safe" distance—the mallard families in the creek. Once in the apartment, Muffin consumed a double-sized—or was it triple-sized?—portion of doggie food and continued to keep both her eyes on me, literally not allowing me out of her sight.

Note: Previously I wrote that this installment of The Muffin Saga would be about the road trip that Muff and I took to Michigan. However, as I write I realize that quite a bit happened that summer that I don’t want to leave out of the saga. We’ll get to Michigan, probably in the installment after the next one. OK?

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The Muffin Saga, Part VIII

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

~ Robert Burns

When my wife made the decision to move to Louisville to attend school full time, I promised to join her within the next year. By mid-summer I had made arrangements to switch from “settled” pastoral ministry to “intentional” interim ministry, which meant taking additional courses for certification. The plan was simple:

• Resign as pastor of St. John and move to Louisville at the end of November
• Put household goods in storage and stay in the apartment in my mother’s basement until after the first certification class
• Attend initial certification class in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in early January

From the moment I began the implementation of the plan, the lives of Muffin and me changed. I had less time to take Muffin walks. Muffin was confused about all of the activities in the parsonage: packing stuff, going through property belonging to my wife and two sons; making arrangements for auctioning off items I decided not to move. More than once Muffin intercepted me in the hallway and barked that I really ought to sit down, relax, and pet her. She was right.

In late August or early September my wife visited to help me decide on how to dispose of some of the stuff. It was then that she informed me that she wanted to be married “only a little bit” and as of that moment considered us formally separated.

I felt as if I had been kicked in the head by a mule! If we were separated, then why was I making this move from a church I had pastored for over ten years to Louisville and interim ministry?

Muffin ministered to me. When I would sit in a chair staring at nothing, she would sit beside me, usually licking my hand or face until I was willing to get up and on with life. One evening a parishioner came by the parsonage on her way to watch her son play basketball at the city gym which was behind the church. We sat in the living room rather than then my study. Of course, Muffin sat beside me.

Marsha knew—the whole congregation knew—what was going on between my wife and me. A couple of the elderly women had even told me a year before when my wife moved into the dormitory in Louisville that I had better follow her fast or our marriage was over.

As we sat in the living room, Marsha said, “You know, Nick, when I was going through my horrible divorce a few years ago a very wise man told me that the pain wouldn’t last for ever. It just seemed like it would. Then he gave me a hug. And he was right. The healing came. That wise man was you and I hope you can listen to your own wisdom and know that there are many of us in this community reaching out to you as you reached out to us.”

Then she gave me a hug and, of course, Muffin, who never wanted to be left out of hugs, joined in.

The week before the move four of the widows in the congregation, a couple of the men, and a teenage girl who wasn’t part of the congregation but who I had counseled for a couple of years all came to the parsonage to help with the final packing. Muffin alternated between trying to help and territorially barking, “Don’t touch that!”

On the day of the move the same folks were there, plus two more parishioners and their friends to load and go with me to unload my stuff in Louisville. The teenager had permission from her family to go along and she rode with me in the big rental truck, holding Muffin in her lap. Muffin was, of course, excited about going for a ride and had no idea that out lives were changing forever.

Part IX of The Muffin Saga will be posted next Sunday.

Please?