It Takes Too Long

An Inguinal Hernia is a medical condition where the intestines seep through a natural between the lower lateral abdominal muscles called the inguinal canal. This can happen naturally, as in from birth, and can happen through sedentary lifestyle, where the muscles aren't being properly exercised. See gratuitous medical gross-out images if you'd like.

I'm an impatient man. Perhaps through being spoiled by the invention of microwave ovens, cell phones and the internet I've come to expect the natural forces of nature to work with the same punctual immediacy.

But I've been learning something lately that God's Word says on the matter: "... let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." (James 1:4). It goes on to talk about asking in faith to receive wisdom, endurance and eventually healing. It mentions that faith without works is dead. It parallels the patience we need to have to that of a farmer, who does his work and waits for the garden to grow. "You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand." (James 5:8).

I have a strong feeling that James is writing to the Jews during the time of Shavuot, known as the feast of first fruits. That's a season when we reflect on God's goodness. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above...". We receive at the feast of first fruits the implanted produce that God brought to fullness. Similar farming allegorical references are made throughout the book of James, which is why Shavout comes to mind.

Back to patience - When a farmer starts he doesn't stop working. He's pulling out weeds, protecting the plants from hail and bugs, and warding off other animals that might devour his hard efforts. Patience takes action, and isn't entirely about waiting.

I've been warned by two different people that this will take at least six months to naturally heal. Poetic that a growing season lasts six to eight months.

There's plenty to do ... and plenty to *not* do. As a farmer, you don't look out at the crop a month after planting it and, not satisfied with how quickly the plant is growing uproot it. I have to remember this stuff - I'm not a farmer, so thinking this way doesn't come naturally. Exercises, meditation, prayer, diet, supplements, rest, acupuncture, and reflexology seem to all play a part in this. Not overexerting myself, not lifting items more than five pounds, not overeating, not eating junk food, not getting upset.

That last one - not getting upset - is the most difficult for me, and one of the greatest causes of my hernia flaring out. I can't explain it other than maybe by getting tense and upset my muscles down there tighten (like stiffening my neck when I get angry) which pushes the hernia, rather than pulls it. Excessive coughing fits have been known to create inguinal hernias where the "patient" hadn't had one before, so this seems feasible.

So to heal, I need to be patient. That seems to mean I don't get angry or upset when healing isn't happening fast enough to my liking. It also means that I take action in belief that this can be cured in time.

As a side note, I am not being foolish about this. I have educated myself on the dangers of this condition and am prepared to move towards surgery in the event that it heads towards a life threatening condition. I also have regular check ups with a doctor. "Watchful waiting" is being practiced intelligently.

Fading Melody

Years ago, half my life away, I wrote poetry and music regularly. They even won contests. Even though the poetry itself is backed up on some dusty floppy disk, the creative swarms are lost along with most of the colorful friends I had at the time. One activity I was engrossed in, and what helped during uncreative times, was poetry or lyric interpretation. I would go deep into some poem that already had enough levels of complexity that English teachers feared to tread into them because they could alone spawn half a semester of banter and commentary.

For example, T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men", which tends to address the journey of the soul from a newly acquired state of death to its completeness. There are allusions to Dante, Conrad, Morris and Kipling tied together to show political angst supposedly towards the Treaty of Versailles. I'd tend to think, as others do in this trying time, that most politicians are hollow, stuffed and already dead. Didn't Dante dedicate a special canto in hell just for them?

Other poetry was much easier to cypher, like Edna St. Vincent Millay's "A Few Figs From Thistles" which is primarily about blazing through life, though you'll make regrettable mistakes along the way ... and tends to go into typical relationship taboos such as adultery, cheating, lust and bondage.

Rush, Sixpence None the Richer, Tori Amos and Sarah McLauchlin were bands that I frequented concerts to, as news of them came to me, in the Austin area and had all albums available and ready to be brooded upon. The styles of the last two particularly influenced my style of music, though some strong religious differences and some blatant blasphemous songs from Tori Amos sent me on a decade long boycott.

For some time, music was what I breathed, ate, drank, slept. I surrounded myself with music every moment of the day when it made sense. But over the course of the past ten years that craving became more of an emptiness. Music lost most of its meaning and lyrics were chaff in the wind. Some of that is because of the gross amount of bad music that started coming out. But it had more to do with becoming more "responsible". Though the probability of most of these risks are the same, the consequences are much higher.

But what was interesting when reflecting over how the apathy towards music increased was noticing that, as one "civilizing" or "taming" event came after another, my spirit was eventually broken. My passion for much of anything was chopped at - hacked away - by worldly forces and I felt myself become just another work drone. I remember one employer laughing at me after one of those experiences and literally saying: "So you can be broken!"

Ugh!
Yes - but by breaking people you lose ... the creativity, the passion, the responsibility, the fearless risk taking, the adventurous spirit ... you kill it ... it dies like a fading melody into the grave of white-noise that was so easily attainable to begin with.

These are all necessary for art, beauty, entrepreneurship, adventuring, exploring - in short, it's required to really live out life. I have never met a suicidal person who was passionate about life and enjoying it. I have known one or two who were passionate but constantly getting brow-beaten by the world until they had nothing left to live for.

The challenge is to remember these lessons when my seven year old gets permanent paint on my jacket, or looks up longingly for approval on some messily crafted crayon drawing, or her eyes light up eagerly to pick up an expensive clarinet though she hasn't learned how to play a note. Eventually, and directly from my reactions, she'll either learn to love messes like Pollock and Picasso, or dream of it while she passively files papers. She'll either color the grey world like Julian Beever, or she'll quietly beat the pavements with the masses. She'll croon the world with new music like Goodman, or puff out sad sighs and conform. I don't want her to end up like me - at least not like the me that exists today.

Just like how trees that are chopped to the ground can grow back, that root of inspiration is still buried deep in my soul somewhere. It's a mess getting through the scar tissue and it's a fighting struggle to be enough of a conformist to support my wife and four kids, yet have enough creativity to show them that the world God made for us has more beauty in it than the government would have us believe.

Spiritual flaws and support for character assessment

OK. Here's the first part of a hot rant response on the career path program that occurred in my work place. Before I begin, I want to mention that the owners of the company are incredible. You will hardly ever find two more dedicated and wonderful people who love their work almost as much as they love helping others. They paid to have this executive level program brought to everyone in the company because they believe that it helps us in our walk of life.

Secondly, I want to mention that statistics can be deceptive. Without a full report on the target of the assessment and mention of the process with who was admitted and who was rejected from the sample, it's difficult to ascertain a full body of truth from the numbers. All the same, statistics and psychoanalysis are interesting and shouldn't be entirely rejected.

So to the first step - DiSC assessment. Well, I believe this is another facet of generalization that has similar pinings as astrology. I'm born in early August, which sticks me at the Leo portion of the astrology circle. But to be honest, I am more like a Capricorn than anything else. I haven't tried business matters, so I'm unable to determine how well I'd do there, but when I think I know what's best, I'm stubborn as a mule; it takes a very persuasive argument to lean me towards anything else. I also over think everything and you'd have to get through me first before you come close to hurting my family. Oh, and I'm also much like a Taurus - it is so me. I might have been civilized over the past seven years, but I am so passionate about certain aspects of life that I can't keep my mouth shut, which often leads me to trouble. Although I strongly believe people of all ages can change if they want to, I also believe that there are certain universal truths that should never change. I steam up quickly and hotly. But I also forgive others at a drop of a hat when they ask for it or when new evidence comes to light - I look for reasons to forgive them.

OK - cutting to the chase. It could be just me; I won't rule out that there are some people in this world like "The Pretender" who could slip into almost any role, and when I took the DiSC assessment, I sat almost perfectly in the center of the wheel. Supposedly that means I have the ability to become any personality I want to with the right motivated effort and environment. But I believe that God gave us an incredible ability to change.

He wouldn't give us commandments, especially through His Son, if He didn't believe it was possible for mankind to follow them to some extent. None of His commandments say we have to be able to fly or that we aren't allowed to love if we want to be saved. He does say, however, that He doesn't expect us to perfectly follow the basic ten commandments - so He sent someone to intercede for us. Interestingly, the message in the Gospel of repenting is common throughout the entire Bible. If He believes we can change - repent means to change direction back to Him - then we can. He made us and knows what we're capable of. End of story.

The trick is you have to head towards a goal. In this case, it's obvious that the Bible is referring to turning back to God and His righteousness. But it seems reasonable to me that anyone having faith enough can move in any direction they choose. The problem I have is having faith in a world of will-nots and can-nots. It's difficult to believe that I can change into who I know I can, and should, be when people are constantly telling me I will-not change because I'm too old or I can-not change because that's just not the way things happen.

Bah! Who said it would be easy!? In a society where instant gratification is the norm, they've lost touch with the real issues. People don't always change on a dime. We are wired to repeat an act until it becomes a habit, then repeat a habit until it consumes who we are, but with God all things are possible. I've seen people drop some really nasty habits without anything other than sheer willpower. They had no help from patches or therapy, and in some cases, not even help from a friend or an accountability partner.

I've been systematically tamed out of passions to the point that I'm more effectively controlled in the business world. That's not entirely bad. Even a wild stallion, as magnificent a creature as it is, is useless until it's been tamed. Meekness, I'm finding, is a valuable trait when used properly.

However, after watching people in the work place it's obvious that there are benefits at times to breaking the rules. People at work have become praised, if not marked as little heroes, for their willingness to do something clever that hadn't been suggested to them. That means there are certain unspoken "soft" boundaries, that although the general mantra in the work place is "do as you're told and nothing else", we can find something outside of that rule to bring laughter and joy and ease to others. Just don't toot your own horn. Even when you fix something important, it backfires in animated proportions.

My biggest challenge is keeping focused on the vision and keeping a motivated faith on it. My second biggest challenge is to regain the outside-the-box mentality that's been put aside for the sake of business, then learn how to wield it properly to the benefit of others to bring more joy and humor to the world.