The Saving One

I attribute this post to two events: my upcoming graduation and Easter.

I think anytime you reach a milestone in your life (such as graduation), it is prudent to take some time to reflect. To blow past these “markers” without quiet meditation may suggest you are actually not giving much thought to your life. Or, maybe not enough thought.

Furthermore, holidays are about remembering. That’s why businesses close and people spend time with family: in theory, so we have time to remember. Family pictures. Egg hunts. New dress clothes. Sunday afternoon feasts. Even church itself can become part of the annual sequence of events that create a schedule that does not allow reflection. What if we, who are remembering Easter for what it is, the joyous celebration of Jesus Christ’s victory over Death, devoted ourselves to remembering, as we ought? I think it would likely look like the exact opposite. Family pictures can wait. Easter egg hunts and bunnies are shamelessly off target. Our wardrobe is already full of nice clothes. Fasting would be a better way to remember than gorging ourselves. And Church is an important part, but not the only part.

I didn’t enter the wilderness for 40 days without food (it was only half a day and I took a bagel), but I did take some time off to think this weekend. I mounted my bicycle and rode it south along the shore of Lake Michigan until I was…well, frankly, I probably wasn’t supposed to be there. But it was some really isolated, private harbor hidden at the back of a nature reserve. Anyway, it was quiet and that was the point. I thought I would share a piece of my journal entry…

“My last semester at Parkside has been awful, not unlike the previous 7 semesters of college. Not in a worldly sense. No, on the contrary, I have been shockingly successful in my studies and work and having friends and financially and…everything else that has left me empty. My struggles have been spiritual, in nature.”

“…To actually tie my failures in some way to being in college off on my own somewhere would be idiotic, though. I chalk it up to opportunism that it was this point in time when my life got hard. God would have found some other method of exposing my heart if it wasn’t being alone at a secular university. I was given the opportunity to pass these testings of my faith, and I veered to the right and to the left. The cycle of sin is a nauseating one.”

“My thoughts are not hidden from Him. It is infinitely humiliating to think the deep places of my heart that no one else knows about or could even suspect are completely exposed to a perfect Being. A perfect Being who will judge me one day. You would think that knowing this would shock and horrify me into obedience whether I actually love Him or not, but no…my sinful heart persists. It is a picture of how desperately I need a Savior. It is a picture of how merciful my God is in providing that Savior, His Son. In love He came. Justice He satisfied. Now in glory, He reigns on high. What it would be like to love as God loves! Finally…a love that satisfies me and fills me.”

“From slavery and shame, I am redeemed.”

stephen

 

Without Limbs

I am twenty-two years old.

I am HIV negative. I have no cancer. I have no chronic diseases. I have never suffered from serious acute illnesses. I have had chickenpox. I have never broken a bone in my body. I have no joint problems. I am lactose tolerant. I do not have heartburn. I have no hearing problems. I have perfect vision without contacts or glasses. I can run ten miles on any day of the week. I play soccer and basketball. I can swim over a mile. I can hold my breath underwater for over two minutes. I have three older sisters and four younger brothers who are all in excellent health. I have healthy parents who love me and continue to provide for me. I play piano and guitar and own my own guitar. I am seven months from having a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology with a medical concentration. I have the ability and option to go to graduate school. I have a solid-paying job where I can work as many hours as I need to. I have a warm place to live that is close to school and work. I have all the clothes and shoes a person could need. I have a computer to type this message…

I could go on, but that’s not the point. My point is this: what’s stopping me from being a key player in this world? It’s rhetorical, but let’s say it isn’t. Let’s say I want an answer to that question. What could stop someone from being a key player in this world? Well, with a smirk, one might suggest having no arms or legs could stop someone. And then you would probably agree that this is an exception. But what if I said a man with no arms and no legs was doing more than you to contribute to this world? I think that you, like myself, would not believe it.

The question is obviously not whether I have been equipped with the ability to help this dying world. And frankly, the question is not whether you have been equipped with the ability to help this dying world. We are equipped. In the end, the only question that will be asked is if we actually helped this dying world. And the only thing…the ONLY thing stopping us is our attitude.

This is one time I will argue that living on the wild side is not just the most exciting way to live, but it is the right way to live.

 

How to Spend a Winter Night

How should I spend my evening when the weather is bitterly cold, snow has filled the sky, and I can hear the wind trying to blow the house down?

Let me preface by admitting this is not a completely relevant question to everyone who might be reading this. It does not get bitterly cold in Jamaica. Snow certainly does not fill the air. And the only thing that generates enough wind to blow down a house that close to the equator is a hurricane. But, for some, this is a relevant question. For me, an extremely relevant question. After moving to Wisconsin, nestled in next to Lake Michigan, the temperature hovers around 0 degrees for a few months every year. By default, all activities are moved indoors, and maybe that is logical. For me, not logical. I needed a compromise. I call it a “compromise” because I do, indeed, dislike this kind of cold, but I also dislike resorting to what everyone else is doing. After all, that is not living on the wild side. That’s dreadfully boring, and at the end of the day, there is not much worth talking about. I wanted to do something manly not in an attempt to prove my manliness. I needed an avenue by which I could relieve an unhealthy amount of pent-up manliness already inside of me.

So, back to my compromise. I needed to be outdoors, but I don’t like the cold. Eskimos. I needed to think like an Eskimo. Eskimos are trapped in icy conditions for a depressing percentage of their lives. What do they do? Well, they mainly do stuff to stay warm. At first glance, this train of thought just became circular. I’m sitting in a warm house trying to figure out what to do outside to have fun. The Eskimos are out in the cold doing everything they can to stay warm. But don’t be so narrow-minded. Push on to unreached heights of imagination.

This is my situation. I am a homeless wanderer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. An Eskimo far from home. The temperature is dropping. The wind is blowing. Snow is falling. I go back to my roots. I need a pile of snow. It’s time to build a cave dwelling. An igloo. An ice mansion. Somewhere to stay warm for the night.

It was late…maybe 11:00 pm, but I put on my coveralls and searched through a dark barn long enough to stumble onto a couple of old wooden shovels and a crow bar. That’s all I needed. There is a Walmart and a Sam’s Club built next to eachother not far from where I live. The parking lots are obviously enormous, and in the winter they plow all the snow into the back corner of the Sam’s Club parking lot. This results in one ridiculously large pile of snow towering 15 feet high into the air. This was the site of my new dwelling…my habitation. I went to town on it, too. A few stray cars, including a police officer, strolled by slowly. I laughed at the thought of the conversation that must have taken place as they beheld the sight of a young man working tirelessly to dig a hole into a hopelessly large heap of snow at midnight. Every other person my age was out drinking alcohol. They were rightfully a bit curious.

At any rate, I eventually pierced into the heart of the snow pile. It was not without difficulty. As long as I was near the surface, I could just toss the snow out with the shovel. As I got deeper, I had to bust up the snow with the shovel, and then go in head-first to gather up the loose snow with my arms and carry it out. It took some experimenting to figure out the most efficient method, but after awhile, it came. By my estimates, my tunnel ended up being about twenty feet long with a small opening in the middle.

And for the record, it was quite warm inside that tunnel. Warm enough to spend the night had I so desired.

 

Ghetto Run

Relocating is an inevitable adventure. If you move farther into rural America, you have to face the elements: the beasts of the land. If you move farther into urban America, you still have to face the elements: the drugged-up gangs. Don’t misunderstand me: I haven’t moved to the Bronx or Detroit, or Gary, Indiana. I moved into downtown Kenosha, Wisconsin. The truth is, the city is not that bad, but for dramatic purposes I will lead you to believe that  it is, indeed, quite terrible and a real menace to my well-being.

A few detailed descriptions of my new neighborhood…

To the south, we essentially share a driveway with a Hispanic family. Our premiere local eatery, Tacos To Go, is located only a block farther south (walking distance for anyone under 310 lbs). The local bar is across the road from Tacos To Go, if the Mexican cuisine doesn’t suit your fancy. Two houses down, on the other side of my street, I am now convinced there is a drug house. Directly across the street from me, another Hispanic family lives, and water fights occur there at least once a day. To the north of us, directly beyond the window next to my bed, is the frat house. Mostly, they just fight, but there’s an asian dude who makes t-shirts on the balcony with spray paint. About a half mile east, passing half a dozen more bars, a railway underpass, several more drughouses, and dark streets all the way, is Lake Michigan.

Being a single male living on my own, I am prone to engage in impulsive activities. One evening, I was laying around on the couch. I had talked repeatedly of how I was going to go for a run. I started talking about this infamous run in late afternoon. By 10:30 pm, both of my roommates had retired to bed, and I was still waiting for the perfect time to go for my run. Finally, the perfect time had come just after 11:00 pm. Ignoring any thought of caution, I set out for the lakefront.

Although my run was without incident, many were critical of my judgment. But it would be an assumption to say, or think, that I mindlessly went for a four mile run through the ghetto, returning to my house around midnight, without any assessment of my safety. No, on the contrary, I did assess.

If you were a mugger, would you not choose victims with a low probability of risk to yourself? A lone, 6’3, shirtless, white man running 11 mph through dark side streets at nearly midnight carries a lot of risk to a predator, I would say. First,  if the runner is alone, assuming he’s not crazy(which is the safe assumption), then he’s clearly confident in himself and one is left to wonder what is making him so confident, an unnerving thought to a potential mugger. Second, he’s rather large and likely to fight back with some degree of success unless there is a group of more than four offenders. Third, one would have to catch the runner in order to mug him, and he’s running too bloody fast, and God only knows how much faster he could run with a surge of adrenaline. Fourth, finally, and most importantly, he has red hair, and never ever EVER piss of an Irishman.

Furthermore, I have a beard. Messing with a bearded man is almost always fatal. The obvious exception is when a bearded man messes with a bearded man, at which point, all bets are off…

Don’t try to tell me I don’t assess.

 

Blood Pressure

To those undiagnosed with diabetes, the words “blood pressure” do not mean a lot, if anything. We know what “THE CUFF” is, and we know where it goes, and we know there’s a pump that inflates the cuff, and some know what a good reading is, and if you are ridiculously informed, you may even know that the name of the device used to measure your blood pressure is a sphygmomanometer.

Assuming you are part of the majority, let me give you a brief education: “Blood pressure is the pressure of the blood against the walls of the arteries”, according to the American Heart Association. In other words, your heart is pumping blood through vessels(arteries) to the cells of organs in your body. This force (or blood pressure) is a function of how much blood the heart is pumping into the arteries and the resistance encountered by the blood in the arteries. The heart must be capable of maintaining a healthy average blood pressure by adjusting its blood flow based on the resistance of the arteries. The average pressure is calculated by finding the systolic pressure(high point) and the diastolic pressure(low point). Now, the consequences of high blood pressure (hypertension) and low blood pressure (hypotension) are a deterioration of the blood vessels, which is accompanied by a range of serious to fatal side effects. The most serious would be reduced blood flow to the brain causing a stroke.

Okay. Your education is complete but remember these numbers as I recount this short story.

Normal BP: 120/80                       Prehypertension:   120-139/80-89

Hypertension: greater than 140/90

I work nights at the hospital and primarily take care of elderly patients. Unless a special circumstance warrants it, I only take vital signs twice a night: once when I arrive around midnight and once around 4:00 am. I had an 83 year old lady for three consecutive nights, admitted for “weakness and dehydration”. I was aware her blood pressure had been high. On this third night, the first blood pressure was bad, but not ridiculously. Just before 4:00 in the morning, I strolled in to take her second blood pressure reading. She was wide awake, as usual.

The reading was 196/98 (and remember the numbers listed above). Here is what followed…

Me:  ”Giiiirl. You gotta get that blood pressure DOWN.”

Patient: “Ehh…what was it?” (rather flippantly)

Me: “196/98!”

Patient: “Mm!…not too bad.”

I busted out laughing. “Really? And what is ‘bad’ for you, exactly?”

Patient: “Anything under 200 is pretty good.”

Some are quite informed about their health and others are clueless. This patient was absolutely clueless, and her nonchalant “mm…not bad” had me laughing the remainder of the night.

 

Pier boys

I currently live half a mile from a harbor on Lake Michigan. A concrete pier, maybe two hundred yards long, forms the north side of the channel that boats must use to traverse back and forth between the harbor and the open lake. During warm weather, this pier is a social gathering point for hoards of high schoolers.

Yesterday, I rode my bike down to the pier, went for a run on the beach, and then took a couple dives off the end of the pier. However, I was a bit disgusted with the genre of conversations I was overhearing so I decided to walk to the other end of the pier to lay down and take a nap while waiting for my clothes to dry. Now don’t misunderstand me. I enjoy conversations that some would rank very high on the stupidity scale, but even I have my limits. And my limits are especially strained when young kids are being inappropriate.

Where I was resting, everyone had to pass within 10 yards of me if they wanted to exit the pier so I still had the incredible privilege of hearing bits of their conversations. Three boys came strolling by, two of them on a bicycle, and the ensuing dialogue was worth retelling. This, as best I can remember, is what I heard:

Bike boy #1 speaking to bike boy #2: “We’re gonna go to the other side of the  harbor.”

Bikeless boy speaking to bike boy #2: “We’re gonna drive the car, but you can throw your bike in the trunk and ride with”

Bike boy #1: “Dude. No. We can’t take him. There’s not room in the trunk.”

Bikeless boy: “Yah there is. It’ll fit.”

Bike boy #1: “No they won’t. We can’t fit two 20 inch bikes in the trunk of my car!”

Bikeless boy:  ”Yah we can! Dude, we put your sisters in there yesterday. If they can fit, two twenty inch bikes can!”

…at which point their conversation went out of ear range…

What made me laugh was not necessarily what he said, but the way he said it. He didn’t laugh or smile or suggest another reason why the bikes would fit. He wasn’t even aware someone else was listening so he could not have been trying to be funny. He felt he was making a valid argument.

Arguments would be so much more enjoyable if everyone would formulate points and use examples like “If your sisters can fit in the trunk, so can our bicycles.”