Fixing It

Thursday I had a great visit with our gastroenterologist, Dr. Axelrad. The examine did hurt (more than I anticipated) and he gave me a prescription that seems to have already had a good affect. He also recommended a surgeon, one that not only would address my current issue, but possibly the primary cancer as well. But that will be another doctor visit at a later date and time.

Wednesday evening was one turning point this week. Thursday night was another. One dose of the medicine Dr Axelrad prescribed and I was feeling much, much better. This medicine, too, has the potential side effect of fatigue. What is up with that? Is there nothing that I can have for relief that doesn't leave me in the least exhausted? Last night while trying to post this I fell hard in sleep. No pun intended, but I am tired of that.

So it is Christmas Eve and I'm reflecting over the last year and all that has happened while I am waiting to prepare breakfast. A single year, with many momentous events, now memories like wisps of fog that linger for a while, not really clearly visible. A good affect of these ruminations of mine is that memories tie to other, farther distant memories. A little frustrating in the unpredictable "travel" but enjoyable nonetheless. I like re-thinking, or re-visiting these moments gone by. I suppose everyone does.

Lately, I have been thinking about my Baptism, which then makes me think of Glenwood Baptist Church, and the pastor I grew up with, Rev. Jarvis Brock. I once picked on him abbot being kin (he was not) to then St Louis Cardinal's left fielder Lou Brock. Yes, McDonough, I do know a little about the Cards. Rev. Brock had boxes of really old electric train stuff that he gave to me as they were preparing to move to their next pastorate. I will always remember him for his leading me through questions that were tough for a seven or eight year old, and for his farming a little parcel of land between the church and the parsonage.

While at Glenwood, there was an elderly couple that I talked with occasionally, especially as I got closer to driving age, because their car was like the Bat-mobile, or the Green Hornet's car with lots of light and switches. I knew many of the folks in that church because my mom's parents also attended there, so I became familiar with many of them. Like the couple that sat behind my grandparents, Claude and Louise Rampey. My grandfather and Claude would talk before the service started, but neither could hear well, so it was more like a shouting match that my grandmother always lost trying to break up. Lousie "fixed" (a southern colloquialism) my grandmother's hair, and sometimes my mom's hair. I guess our hair doesn't need fixing anymore.

Fixing is our big struggle. We know things aren't right, so we spend a lifetime, unimaginable energy and untold resources trying to fix it. And at the end of the day, we come face to face in fear and trembling to the jarring realization that we can't. All our scheming, conniving, planning, stepping on people to get an advantage has not worked. The fear exposes our realization that we have failed.

But one solitary life - God become man, the Word made flesh - who left his glory, counting it something to let go of so that he could live as man among men, was given so that it would be fixed. The "it" is all our corruption and the fear of not measuring up, the fear of having demeaning or purpose or significance. Those fears that cause us to grow callouses and hardened against others and the truth builds throughout life creating bitterness and pain. These build because we remember. We remember, even hold onto, past hurts, disappointments, failures, and unfulfilled expectations that leads to a festering pain that we feel deepest in the quietness of our soul. And we cry out in still more pain.

In the noise and tumult of a census, God the King came as a baby. He left his glory to be born to poor parents in a cattle stall. He lived among us to show us the Father and the kingdom through his signs and his teaching. He went to the cross obediently to provide the propitiation for our rebellion, suffering death (the separation from God) that we are due and so purchase our salvation.

Now, we no longer have to fix it. Things are still broken, this world still bears the effect of our corruption, and we, too, struggle against trying to fix it and the truth of God's grace. But Christ lives through his body, the believers to do God's will toward reconciliation and restoration now.

Merry Christmas to you all.