Not Listening

Some years back, Phil started to wear head phones

All the time around the house. 

I remember I hated it at first, as he cut himself off.

But then I did the same, listening to 

Audio books, lectures, sermons, webinars, documentaries,

Courses . . . anything to keep me occupied 

During the long hours in the kitchen.

But between no spend month, where I won’t buy anything new

(Though there is plenty to listen to in my library already),

And between experiments in prayer while cleaning 

(Now a two-day failure—oops),

I have noticed that, without my headphones on,

Phil and I are talking more. 

Sharing thoughts about the boys, or work . . . 

The stuff of daily life.

Commentary

“When we read a book from one side of the war,

That side seems right.

But when we read a book from the other side of the war,

That side seems right.”

—Joe, age 10

My work here may not be done, 

But it is well begun.

Today

In my mind, the day of prayer was Wednesday,

But when I woke on Tuesday, I thought I should double-check.

Unsurprised, I learned that Tuesday was the day.

And so I prayed on Tuesday, as I went about my day,

Nothing particularly special or out-of-the-ordinary,

But a regular and continual beseeching that the Holy Spirit would act.

And the report came back that he did:

That teaching was clear, that computer programmers broke out

In heart-felt cries for revival, that all had a renewed sense of

What God can do with a prayerful people.

Sinus Infection

Pressure build up

Deep under the nose,

Foggy head,

Scratchy throat,

Feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck.

Ugh.

Experimenting

I wanted to pray a half hour a day.

I’ve been trying, these three weeks and more.

I have missed on occasion, 

But tell myself to carry on. 

Don’t make it up, but get started again.

And I’ve experimented a little.

A half hour in the early morning is lovely,

But I don’t always get up in the early morning,

And don’t like starting school at 11am.

A half hour in the afternoon is fine on Sunday,

When I have a few hours with nothing to do,

But it’s stressful during the week, when I’m thinking

About work and dinner and whether I should take a nap.

Right now I’m a few days in to praying in the kitchen

Like Brother Lawrence, 

That monk peeling potatoes (or so I’ve been told).

It’s maybe not quite as focused, perhaps feels less powerful,

But also feels like it might be most consistently done. 

No-Spend Month

While I will be surprised 

If we can live an entire month

Off just the contents of the pantry

(Well, unless we want literally 

Just beans and rice and salt),

I find this exercise fascinating,

As every day thus far I have thought 

Of something to buy:

Two good books on sale on Audible.

More tea to make kombucha.

Pickles for deviled eggs. 

More school materials for a son.

None of these are vital. 

This is the way the money goes.

Euphoria

At the end of the work week,

I had read for fun, and studied homeopathy,

Done the school work I had hoped,

Worked and cleaned,

Prepared food . . . 

And a sense of euphoria and gladness

Overtook me.

Kitchen Time

It was late, and I had not yet prayed my half hour.

I had to pick clean a chicken,

So I thought to combine the two,

The mostly mindless task with the eternal.

Earlier in the day I had finished an Agatha Christie book

Which, rather than leaving me feel cheery,

Left me feeling violated.

If I could spend my meal prep time praying,

Rather than semi-mindless learning

Or feeling violated by a bad book,

I could pray.

Violent Aggravation

A homeopath of yesteryear 

Wrote of “a violent aggravation.”

A woman with breast cancer took a remedy

And her “breast sloughed off.”

This was, really, “a perfect surgical incision,”

Done without a surgeon or knife.

But can you imagine how traumatic?

Take a tiny white pill,

Have the breast fall off?

Redux

If there’s no time limit,

I think I should have gotten 100%,

But I’ll take the 98%.

Quiz #2

I have four questions of 32 when the timer went off.

The first time in my memory that I haven’t finished a test on time.

Four were dispatched quickly.

The fifth stretched on and on, weighing options

Crossing off possibilities.

I think I got the right answer, in the end,

But if I’m docked points for time limit . . . 

We shall see.

In truth, the test was an excellent test of my knowledge.

Very little that I knew off the top of my head,

But much that I could access quickly, using a search tool.

Realistically

Joette Calabrese teaches homeopathy

As a wonder and a privilege,

A way to avoid drugs,

An effective method (at least with the Banerjis)

For cancer, autism, mental health, allergies.

I have not personally seen this,

And with a case of systemic ringworm recently,

That did require drugs,

I have grown a bit disheartened. 

It makes me think that, 

As Christ-followers are the salt of the earth,

Perhaps this is the role for homeopathy, too:

A preservative, at best, against the final enemy,

Death.

Four Questions

Cultural commentator John Stonestreet,

Suggests we ask:

What is good that I can celebrate?

What is missing that I can contribute?

What is evil that I can stop?

What is broken that I can restore?

Ouch

I sent off a case to my supervisor

And found, when it was returned,

Cutting comments throughout.

Phil said: “It’s school.

Just keep your head down.”

Which is disappointing, if I’m trying to learn.

No Way

My goal at the start of 2018

Was to finish the school program 

We were working on,

And get through 30 weeks of the next.

Totaling the time that remains,

There’s pretty much no hope of that,

And I expect I’ll end at least three,

But maybe four or five weeks short.

I am disappointed.

Tapping in the Night

Emotional Freedom Technique—

Tapping—

Hits acupressure points to release tension.

When I can’t fall asleep, I tap out my day,

Always astonished at how many 

Negative, failure thoughts

I have on any given day.

Morning Meeting

If I have a work-related meeting 

In the middle of my morning,

I tend to just keep on working,

And school is ignored for the day.

Dumb and Dumber

I remember watching this with my tennis partner

And thinking, “That was nowhere near as funny 

As I was expecting it to be. 

How dumb!”

With a house full of sore throats, 

The whole family watched this movie.

The boys ages 10 to 16 laughed their way through,

Sometimes almost hysterically.

When we finished at 11pm,

The energy in the house was at a fever pitch,

And I heard them quoting late into the night.

I am hoping they don’t use it as a how-to guide to life.

Bond-Servant

Suppose your servant says, “I will not leave you,” because he loves you and your family, and he has done well with you. In that case, take an awl and push it through his earlobe into the door. After that, he will be your servant for life.

Paul, James, Peter, John,

All bond-servants.

Willingly serving a beloved master,

Though given the freedom to go.

A service of love, not compulsion.

Good Recipes

When everything I make tastes amazing,

I want to be in the kitchen all the time.

A Weekend of Cases

Three clinical cases to work up on Saturday.

An acute to write up on Sunday.

A constitutional case to reinterpret, too.

Don’t Be Proud

Invited to a workshop on better homeopathic practice,

I already knew what was covered in the first two minutes,

And even (for a few minutes) thought, 

“Of course I’m advanced beyond this.”

Not true. 

Oh, Lord, remind me to stay humble and open,

As there is, in truth, so much I still need to learn.

Caleb Pipes Up

In the middle of reading school books

To the older boys,

Caleb will sometimes comment

About Helen Keller, or Old Yeller,

Or Ralph Moody

That shows that he understands, too.

Look

Joe has never been able to spell “look.”

That short-u sound, made with two o’s,

Has been a confusion every time.

So I was pleased to see yesterday

That he wrote “lu” . . .

Then paused and erased 

And spelled “look.”

Hard to Get Ahead

I went up to get rid of twenty more books

And found a 47-pound box waiting on the driveway.

So I went through those books instead.

Everything Tastes Good

How delightful,

To prepare food

And be excited

For every bite.

Comparison

I’ve studied diets at length.

The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook

Compares

Veganism/Vegetarianism

Raw Vegan

The Mediterranean Diet

The Weston A. Price Diet

Paleo

How fascinating, to see the good points

And the bad

For each of these!

The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook

Tried three recipes in two days.

All outstanding. 

So excited.

Joe Is Sick Again II

Four bowls of ice cream later,

Joe had the energy to get up and play.

Joe Is Sick Again

I’m not sure what to do to support 

My son’s immune system.

Sick two or three weeks,

Now sick again. 

Dietary change, boosted vitamins,

More time in the son, less allergens?

Salad for Dinner

My boys are getting older. 

I served a salad with chicken for dinner. 

The three older took it without a fuss.

I glanced up at one point to see Abraham,

With a bit of a distressed and guilty expression,

Moving an orange bell pepper to the side of his plate.

I’m not sure what he was planning to do with it.

We have no dog under the table, waiting for scraps.

No matter.

I reassured him that he didn’t need to eat it.

He looked relieved and said, “I don’t much like peppers,

Except for pepperoni.”

Old Yeller, Two Ways

I had read Old Yeller as a girl.

Then I watched it in class at school.

I’ve avoided revisiting it since,

So was surprised to find, 

As I finished it with my sons,

That in the book, Travis says that he’ll shoot the dog

On the first page—fair warning—

And then does the shooting while Yeller is still sane.

In the movie, they wait to make sure he really has it,

And Travis comes out to find a foaming, raging beast,

Inserting an element of horror and terror

Into an already traumatic situation. 

I prefer the book.

Weight Back to Normal

I’ve been roughly the same weight for my entire adult life.

In January, my weight started to creep up.

I wondered if it was daily essential oil use, so quit them.

My weight stopped increasing and moved down, just a bit.

Five days now I’ve been gluten-free,

Plus avoiding a few others. My weight is back to normal.

I realize now that I started eating gluten again in January,

After eighteen months of avoiding.

Two Fuses

Phil had bought two fuses for the tractor.

He wasn’t sure he could find the second, unused one.

He came in: “Did you hear anything?”

The tractor had started up.

He had found the fuse.

Answered Prayer

A few weeks or a month now, our tractor is stopped.

Phil was digging, and stopped for lunch or the night

And came back to no click of the ignition.

Then it rained every day for weeks,

And the grass grew as tall as I’ve ever seen.

And the tractor was parked on a slope, 

Outriggers down,

Difficult to access.

But even pulling to the level was thwarted.

He was about ready to call our mechanic 

And find out if he made house calls 

Or could recommend someone who did,

When he had one final idea.

The tractor has, essentially, a fuse,

Terribly hard to access, but it had blown before.

That was the issue. 

Diagnosed doesn’t quite mean restarted,

But it’s the first step.

Sunday Cooking

I read of a family that does most meal prep

On the weekend, 

Then finishes it on each weekday. 

This Sunday I made

A double batch of clam chowder 

A pot of pinto beans

A pot of chili

A pot of garbanzo beans

A container of hummus

Two loaves of seed bread.

My week is well-started.

Positive Results

My brother, losing five pounds a week to

(Suspected) hyperthyroid,

Stopped dairy, corn, soy, gluten,

Started drinking quantities of grapefruit juice,

And took homeopathic Lachesis LM daily.

After four doses, 

His weight had stabilized,

And mom reported that he was his old self again.

No longer panicked, but cheery and engaged.

Heavy Metal Detox?

I drank the new-to-me 

Heavy metal detox smoothie:

Bananas, blueberries, spirulina,

Cilantro.

I had woken euphoric, 

But by the time we reached church,

I felt exhausted beyond compare,

And eager to leave after the service.

I had finished my nap by 2:30,

A time when we are often just rolling in.

I don’t know what made me so tired—

Perhaps I was chelating!

School on Saturday

We didn’t get quite everything done

During the school week,

So I made the boys listen to a 

Half hour of history

And felt more satisfied with 

How the week went.

Ringworm

A friend’s daughters

Have systemic ringworm, 

Probably picked up 

From their guinea pig.

Not much was helping 

Homeopathically.

So we stopped for a half hour

And analyzed the situation.

The issue was different for them both,

And seated more emotionally. 

With the right remedy,

They turned the corner.

Stomach Noises

Caleb, when hungry,

Stands at the door and says,

“Grrr-UM-ble,”

Palpating his belly.

One Day

I blended two old cucumbers 

And choked down the juice;

Drank three pints of water with lemon;

Avoided soy, corn, eggs, gluten, dairy

(Except for colostrum supplement). 

I am always surprised by how quickly

Liquid runs through me. 

Thwarted

Yogurt ties up my InstantPot for eight hours.

During that time, I can make 

No beans,

No chicken stock,

No mashed potatoes,

No roasts. 

I might need a second one.

A Perfect Storm

After two days in the hot sun,

Sweating through clothes repeatedly;

After two early mornings

And not particularly early evenings;

After a meal at a fast food place

That’s probably not the most clean;

After breathing in machine chemicals

And wood dust and other particulates;

After sharing a small piece of 

Rich chocolate cake and ice cream . . .

I guess I should be surprised that 

Phil was down for the count all day.

(But the homeopathy concoction

Gave him a four hour nap—drug-free recovery!)

Sitting in the Car

Waiting for judo to end,

Caleb and I watched 

Railroad crossing bars go down.

We heard the clang-clang

Of the two engines.

Then counted fifty-six cars,

Trundling slowly through town.

Scavenger Hunt

To find the big present,

My son went 

To the car

To the volleyball net

To his bed

To the motor home

To the trailer

Where he found a magnificent Lego set.

I’m not sure which part made him more glad,

The search 

Or the find.

Widows and Orphans Policy

Charlottesville Tree Service

Has a policy I love:

Reduced rates for widows and orphans,

In keeping with James chapter one. 

They finished their first job

Under this policy,

And as the woman saw their work 

And paid her bill,

She grew teary.

What a blessing these men gave.

And what a blessing she is:

Husband died at 40,

Dropped dead in the church lobby

After a board meeting. 

They had been missionaries in South America.

She cared for his parents,

Then cared for hers,

Her mother, now ninety-nine,

The only one left. 

A touch, a connection, a blessing.

Thanks be to God.