Hyperthyroid

The runaway thyroid runs in my family. 

My dad had his destroyed more than thirty years ago.

I would have thought medical advances 

Had developed a new way to deal with the problem.

But no. Unless you choose an alternative route,

And try to heal the autoimmune disease that causes it,

There’s not much hope. 

Kill the thyroid, then wait for the cascade of

Cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and a hastened death.

Praise

My dad was so impressed with a piece of writing I did.

Which felt fantastic . . .

Until I remembered that this writing was 

Over a year old,

And unlikely to see the light of day.

That turned my day to the bitter side.

One of Three

In my case, I felt like there were three options.

One: Treat for a traumatic brain injury, which may or may not be there.

Two: Treat for the highest repertorized case. It fits reasonably well.

Three: Treat for the miasm, with symptoms. This is my preference.

But I don’t have to make the final call!

Taking a Case

It is precious to be permitted

To talk to someone for two hours, 

To hear the story of their suffering.

It is meaningful to spend eight hours

Thinking and researching,

Trying to find a starting place for treatment.

And it is a relief to send off my best thinking

To a professional, to look over my notes

And offer a redirection or a commendation.

Second Prayer of the Day

While staff workers prayer-walked

Around the University of Denver,

I joined them by prayer-walking 

Around my farm. 

If I would be momentarily distracted

By weeds, or fear of snakes, or lush growth,

Or cars approaching, 

I tried to turn all of those into prayers.

Yet despite my best efforts, 

No tears sprang to my eyes.

The prayers felt like they bounced off 

The tops of the trees—no higher.

It makes me think that the burden of sin

On my farm, on the campus,

Is thick and deep.

Praise God I know a redeemer.

First Prayer of the Day

I drove to a friend’s house.

The time coincided with a call to pray.

Within twenty seconds I was in tears,

Two minutes after that I was sobbing

So as to scarcely see the road.

New disciplers, with cell phone 

And porn addictions,

Young themselves, 

Yet with the desire to serve.

God, may they not be eaten alive.

Call to Pray

Friends invited me to pray for the missions conference.

For a half hour, starting at 10pm,

I sat on the swing outside and 

Wept and pleaded and worshiped and was silent.

I think this might be part of my call for the next season.

Two Bins

My storage trailer is filled to overflowing. 

For my sanity,

I emptied the trash,

Removed one bag for Goodwill,

Pulled out an enormous bin of reading and spelling materials,

Pulled out an enormous bin of math materials.

We won’t be needing any of these things.

With that bit of additional space,

Perhaps now I can move and work more effectively.

So Many Books

I’ve been thinking about my book collection lately.

700 picture books

750 novels for all ages

300 nonfiction

100 historical fiction

100 Christian living

300 specifically to me

1000 (or just shy) Sonlight books

Why do I have them all? 

The ones that make me truly happy

Are a small fraction.

Where did the rest come from?

And if I choose to keep only the ones I truly love,

What about the ones that I only vaguely remember?

What is the dividing line of medium-liking

Between those I keep and those I give away?

Summer Evening

I remember reading Magical Melons,

The sequel to Caddie Woodlawn, as a girl.

Perhaps I read it to the older boys, too,

As certain plot points stand out strongly in my mind.

Abraham was building a Lego set,

Joe was solving a color Sudoku,

Caleb was flitting about,

And they all begged me to read on and on.

Common House

An artistic space.

Pay the monthly fee

And fellowship.

New Glasses

Staring back at me I now have

Peter Parker and  

An evil genius from a movie.

Things are getting interesting around here!

Nap

I was wide awake after six hours of sleep.

By eleven in the morning, 

I couldn’t keep my eyes open,

And headed to bed for a nap.

I woke at noon, and checked my calendar.

I had a meeting at noon. 

So I called in, fully refreshed,

And ready for the next twelve hours of 

Endeavor.

Fall-Like Weather

When it turns just a bit cool

In July,

Weather in the upper 70s,

As long as you can sit outside,

Rejoice.

Just don’t try to move in the humidity.

Nine Minutes

I spent nine minutes in silent prayer yesterday.

Then I worked almost eight hours,

Homeschooled,

Talked to my sister for an hour,

Cleaned the kitchen and family room,

Researched homeopathic remedies for a friend,

Studied homeopathy for an hour,

Spent time with Phil,

Read to Caleb for two hours,

Made dinner,

Looked over bonus resources,

And generally had a very productive, rich day.

I’d say that prayer request was answered.

Long and Long

Homeopathy studies

Have grown long and long.

And the path before me stretches

Long and long for a long time.

Discouraged, I fell asleep,

And woke again to keep walking forward.

Fruit Left Out

We ended up with more fresh berries and cherries

Than normal. 

To empty my refrigerator, 

I put them out,

And the two pounds

Vanish.

No Pause

The lightning and thunder came

Simultaneously.

Did the lightning itself crackle?

The trees around are higher than our house,

Otherwise

I would think that was a direct hit.

Vertical Again

Two weeks ago, my Joe went to bed

And has stayed there mostly ever since.

Sure, he walked the Columbus Zoo

For four hours, 

But he sought benches that weren’t in front of animals,

Desperate to sit and rest.

I finally started homeopathic 

Carbolic acid, a remedy to help speed recovery 

After a long illness.

Five doses later, he started sitting up.

Two days later, he got up and played.

Seconds

I had seconds on the multi-vegetable salad

With homemade ranch dressing,

The shaved Brussels sprouts 

With bacon and onions,

The salmon, baked, then spread 

With garlic and ginger, olive oil and tamarin.

I probably should have stuck with firsts.

Coincidences

“When I pray, coincidences happen. When I don’t, they don’t.” 

—Archbishop William Temple

C.S. Lewis describes the difficulty:

Prayer requests denied seem no different 

Than prayer requests unanswered.

Prayer requests accepted 

Work through natural means,

And so seem no different than 

Coincidence, or prayer requests unanswered.

The Phantom of the Opera

A two-month production, 

Daily practices in the morning.

A Christine who could hit even the highest notes.

Astonishing performances.

Live theater is a privilege to witness.

But it is exhausting, too, watching so much

Emoting on the stage. 

The Old Television

The office had an ancient television.

Abraham walked in and said,

“It’s a fat screen tv!”

I Like to Write

After some hours of miscellaneous jobs,

I came at last to the job I’d been waiting for:

Writing for a new website.

Strictly speaking, this isn’t assigned to me,

But the words are bubbling up

And there’s nothing for it but to get them out.

Fry’s Spring Station

Our favorite restaurant in town, 

These days we go only when a visitor treats us.

The boys get gluten-free “Piggie Smalls,” 

A delicious mix of pepperoni, sausage, ham,

All clean and well-cured.

My mushroom pizza came with 

The perfect amount of melted cheese,

Plus a white sauce with sweet onions and arugula.

I ate five pieces (probably should have had four)

And left, feeling thoroughly satisfied.

One Thousand Hours

If I had read to Caleb for a half hour a day, 

That would have been roughly four hours a week,

Two hundred hours a year.

In five years, he would have had the necessary

One thousand hours of book language 

To be ready to read.

But I didn’t do that with Caleb.

Not even five, and he’s already behind.

Math Challenges

My son spent years wrestling with math.

Of course—if he could hardly make out the numbers.

I didn’t make him memorize the facts,

But gave him a paper with all the answers in a grid,

For him to find for himself, every time.

It took a while, but he could locate them.

I tried a few programs, and finally settled on 

A program I had initially discarded, Math-U-See.

(I didn’t like how the program taught fractions.)

We started almost at the beginning, 

But he had already spent four years or so learning math,

So I let him progress at his pace . . . Rapidly.

What a relief to hear this decision absolutely confirmed.

Right program, right approach, 

And with vision correction, perhaps soon even grade level.

Devastation

My sons had heard that they needed glasses,

But they were thinking—as I found out later—

Reading glasses, an occasional aid.

We were choosing frames when they realized

These glasses would be their constant companions.

They kept it together, but barely.

Caffeine

I don’t consume caffeine in any form.

If I have five swallows at five in the afternoon,

I won’t fall asleep until two the next morning.

The stimulant works for me.

So when I found myself yawning uncontrollably

With five hours of driving to go,

I cracked open a Coke and

Continued driving, safely.

Answers II

Abraham has always moved forward with reading,

But always a few years behind grade level.

He has an against the rule astigmatism, 

Worse in one eye than the other,

Along with convergence issues

And focusing issues,

Which so surely leads to tracking issues,

The doctor didn’t bother checking.

On hearing this diagnosis, a reading expert said,

“It’s a miracle with a capital M 

That he has learned to read at all.”

Answers

Farsighted children have an easier time seeing far away objects than near-point details. It is caused by the eye being too short or the cornea/lens power being too weak (curvature/thickness). A farsighted child must exert extra focusing power in order to see clearly. He does this by using the focusing muscles that are normally just used to focus up-close. He must then focus even harder to see a near-point target. Farsightedness has been closely linked to developmental delays, difficulty with learning, and increased risk for developing a number of binocular vision disorders. These children almost always pass vision screenings. Farsightedness is best detected by doing a dilated (or cycloplegic) refraction.

Five years I’ve been teaching my son to read. 

It took three years for him to learn the letter sounds, 

And whatever incremental progress we’ve made since then

Has been painfully, painfully slow.

We drove six hours for an eye exam:

Significantly far-sighted. 

He’s been working at least three times harder than he should have had to.

But once he gets glasses, 

His ability will spring forward.

Testify

The black bear paced a few inches away from the glass.

No wonder Sarah Whitcher imagined a bear to be a dog—they’re of a size.

The polar bears stood on the glass of the underwater viewing station,

Swam and dove and hung upside-down to lure in fish. 

The brown bears wrestled and play-fought,

Enormous and beautiful, five feet—and thick glass—away.

In Africa, the lionesses pressed up to the glass for their nap,

While the lion paced to the watering hold and drank.

The cheetahs reclined, touching the glass, so we could look in their eyes,

See their skinny bodies.

We ate half our sandwiches watching the Amur tigers.

Several sleeping, one grooming; we could almost touch the white patches on the ears.

We saw geckos on glass, a kiwi scratching, a bald eagle with its aerie,

The stately rhinoceros, elephants using their trunks with precision, manatees.

We raced past the big apes (none of our favorites), 

Until we came to the end, the piece we’d been waiting for:

The koala, sitting on a branch. And the zookeeper brought new eucalyptus,

And the koala moved! It walked to one location,

Then back, then on. It stared at us from protruding amber eyes, 

Like marbles, then tucked into its lunch.

We sat on the benches and enjoyed our food,

Soaking in the glory of an ambulatory koala, and no one else around.

And as a final treat, we stayed for the little play,

With trained dogs and cats, a skunk, some pigs, and masses of birds.

A day at the Columbus Zoo: spectacular. 

Beyond all expectations and hopes . . . 

Like every minute was planned and provided,

Gifted to travelers, one sick and weary, all hot: a gift.

Straight Through

With The Horse and His Boy playing,

Joe, Abraham, and I got in the rental car

In Charlottesville at 12:05

And didn’t emerge against until

Columbus, Ohio, at about 6:05.

No gas station, no lunch, no stretching . . .

Just go, go, go. 

Sudoku

At the end of a week, 

If I’ve put in my hours

And am ready for a special treat

I do one Sudoku.

I’ve heard it keeps the mind young,

But I also just think that it’s fun.

Looking at Science

Five and a half hours I spent,

Listening again to a lecture on 

The science of homeopathy,

Taking notes and organizing them,

Tracking down abstracts,

Web links, publications,

Trying to put into some semblance of order

The homeopathic data.

It’s not something I enjoy,

But I think it must be done.

Caddie Woodlawn

Reading to the boys from the old classic book,

We got to the part about Warren reciting.

He was supposed to say,

If at first you don’t succeed,

Try, try again.

His brother laughed and said,

If at first you don’t fricassee,

Fry, fry a hen.

Warren laughed, 

And the boys chuckled, 

And when I paused the reading and said,

“You can guess where this is going,”

They laughed harder.

And when the actual moment of recitation arrived,

And all the predictions came to pass,

They demonstrated that normally-not-literal cliche,

Rolling on the floor, laughing out loud.

Moses in the Promised Land

Moses disobeyed.

He did not enter the Promised Land.

No pleading enough to 

Change God’s mind.

Interesting, then, 

That there he is with Jesus, 

On the Mount of Transfiguration.

Beautiful, how Jesus makes all things new.

Pizza Bar

My son fell asleep Saturday afternoon.

Now it’s Thursday,

And he hasn’t really gotten out of bed since.

He has a small cough, 

And does not appear really ill—

He’s just wiped, lying in bed day after day.

I’ve made cookies to tempt him to eat.

Today it was pizza. 

He asked for milk to drink.

I made him eat three slices,

And he drank perhaps six glasses of milk.

Then he came out to watch a movie with grandma.

My Body Went Sideways

In January, I detoxed

For more than three weeks.

Lost four pounds.

Felt absolutely exhausted.

Made no difference to my skin.

In the last six months, I’ve gained back

The four pounds, and gradually,

Inexorably, gained four more. 

Or maybe five.

My hair has been falling out, too.

I exercise, 

Fast fourteen hours most days.

Eat more vegetables than I have in years.

This was not what I would have expected.

Could it be perimenopause before 40?

A lecturer mentioned that my symptoms,

Plus full breasts (oh, I have that, too)

Shows signs of estrogen dominance.

But I eat almost no soy, sesame, flax.

And I take no hormonal supplements.

Ah—but I started using essential oils,

Filled with phytoestogrens, 

In late December. Rolling them on daily

Under my arms with no thought of harm.

I thought they were healthy.

So I will stop, and see what happens.

I suspect this is the missing link. 

Bring down the estrogen,

Bring up the testosterone. 

See if that brings back the Amy of some months back.

Feedback

Re: My homeopathy book

“I just finished it and am amazed.”

I’ve been waiting a week for some response.

I’ll take that one!