Days of Disabilities
Life doesn’t always conform to the plans I make for it. I
thought I’d return home from a laparoscopic surgery to repair a hernia
that had developed a mind of its own, grown a neck 5.5 centimeters wide
and wrapped itself around my stomach and my upper colon. A week to
recover, I estimated, two weeks at most.
The surgery to
repair this large paraesophageal hernia took place first thing Monday
morning, February 26; it is now the middle of April, and I am just
beginning to get dressed each morning, do a few things slowly (pay the
credit cards on time, wash the dishes and straighten the kitchen, maybe
make the bed) before I collapse into a non-functional fugue state—feet
up, stack of books I’m attempting to read beside me, heating pad
beneath my back due to the fact that I’m always cold. (Is spring and warming weather ever going to come back to Chicago?)
Each day, in fact, several times each day, I intentionally turn my mind to the good. Well,
I have time to pray and to give my heart to worship. There are people
of all kinds who have chronic disabilities of all kinds and must learn
to live with pain and fatigue and disappointment and energy that lasts
for only a few hours as a matter of course. Can you use your wakeful
moments (before going back to bed in the morning, before taking a nap
in the afternoon, before going to bed at night to sleep another nine or
ten hours) to pray for these other valiant ones it is so easy to forget
when you’re zooming through your regular schedule?
Can
you turn your heart to gratitude? You have only had to take one pain
pill during the days immediately after the operation. Every day, your
mind is a little less foggy, you have strength enough to do a little
more, then a little more. Look! A sunny morning. Light is shining
through the southern-facing windows and falling on the carpet and on
the chair you have placed where you can sit and read and watch the
birds gobble seed at the feeders—a flicker with its red head now
wrestles corn out of a hole, goldfinches, already wearing summer
yellow, rob the thistle feeder.
Then the thought comes: What
if this physical state, this depletion, this difficulty finding the
right foods that will slide down the esophagus (rather than get clogged
in the esophagus), what if this diminished state lasts for the rest of
your life? How will you make it a productive life nevertheless?
Inevitably,
at moments like these, during these unplanned and mostly frustrating
pauses, when I’m fighting to remain positive, I eventually hear that
clear steady reminder: Why
don’t you look for the gifts in this disability? Why don’t you hunt for
My surprises in this time when you have been physically set aside?
So
I did. I looked for the gifts in this unplanned post-surgical pause.
Without a doubt, it has become one of the most extraordinary learning
journeys of my life.
About
a year and a half ago, I stumbled across information about the
Montgomery Lynching Memorial. This is a project that caught my
attention. Headed by Bryan Stephenson of the Equal Justice Initiative,
it is an attempt to memorialize the more than 5000 lynchings that
occurred, mostly in the South, during the years after Reconstruction.
The project is almost completed and will open April 26. David and I
plan to drive down, making a pilgrimage of lamentation, as soon as I
feel strong enough to travel and as soon as I can swallow food in a way
that it doesn’t get stuck in my esophagus—a little tightness due to the
Nissen fundoplication procedure where the surgeon wraps the top edge of the stomach around the esophagus.
The
Montgomery Lynching Memorial is located on a six-acre site overlooking
Montgomery. The site includes a memorial square with 800 six-foot-tall
monuments to symbolize the 4400+ racial terror lynching victims in
the United States between 1877 and 1950. Each of the 800 steel
monuments represents a county where a lynching occurred. The names of
the lynching victims and dates of their deaths are included on the
columns. More about the Memorial: www.cnn.com/travel/article/lynching-memorial-montgomery-alabama/index.html
Since
I was pretty disabled and didn’t have the energy to get myself out of
the house, I went on an Amazon shopping spree. I ordered Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
by Bryan Stevenson, the Harvard-trained lawyer who has given his life
to freeing those unjustly condemned to death row. Not only was the book
a #1 New York Times Bestseller, it was named as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, TIME, and The Seattle Times.
Browsing through the book section of Amazon, I also noticed The Cross and the Lynching Tree
by James H. Cone, a theologian specializing in the spiritual world of
African-Americans. Robert Michael Franklin, President of Morehouse
College writes, “This book will upset your equilibrium in all the best
ways, inviting you to think, challenging you to act. James Cone mines
the deep insight of poetry and proclamation, song and sermon to compel
us to revisit the cross and the lynching tree as poignant symbols of
suffering and struggle. His book is an important reminder that the
quest for a post-racial society must pass through parts of American
history we do not want to claim as our own.” My equilibrium, such as it
was, given my physical depletion, was certainly upset, to say the least.
Unable
to go to church myself for Easter 2018 (or to plan a family
celebration), these were the two books I read over Maundy Thursday,
Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. Totally unexpected, I
went deeply into the meaning of the Cross through the sufferings of my
black brothers and sisters. I wept all four days. My intent is, when I
can bear it, to reread both books, this time with pen and marker in
hand. Sometime, perhaps at the beginning of May, David and I will make
a pilgrimage of lamentation to Montgomery, Alabama.
The
church David and I attend in Chicago is interracial. Since my painful
Easter meditation, I have come to realize that my dialogue on racial
issues needs to be deepened and matured. Consequently, in this interim
between post-laparoscopic surgery (my small incisions are practically
all healed and nearly invisible) and a bumpy recovery fraught with
unwelcome surprises (I couldn’t eat an English muffin this morning
though I ate one yesterday and I did successfully eat a fried chicken
wing, which I NEVER eat), I’ve nevertheless read, in between naps—many
naps—(1) Roadmap to Reconciliation, by Brenda Salter McNeil; (2) Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, by Claude M. Steele; (3) Still Evangelical?: Insiders Reconsider Political, Social and Theological Meaning, edited by Mark Labberton; (4) White Awake: An Honest look at What It Means to Be White, by Daniel Hill; (5) Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, by Mahzarin R. Banahi and Anthony Greenwald; (6) Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD.
Not
too bad, this incredible learning journey. The sun is out. This is the
first warm day we have had this spring (70°). I think I will take a
short walk. (This is the first time I’ve walked in months.) It’s
amazing what godly surprises are hidden in our days of disability. I’m
going to keep looking.
Karen Mains
NOTICES
Housecleaning of the SoulDo
you know that feeling you have when something that has been broken,
inconvenient and annoying finally gets repaired? “Fix me, fix me,” it
has been nagging and gnawing at the back of your mind. We have an old
Hoosier step-back farmhouse cupboard. The top hangs in the downstairs
bathroom, and the base, because of its flat surface and substantial
storage, sits in the middle of the kitchen. Shelves pull out, so little
grandchildren can pull up a stool, and have their own tabletop.
However, the big door fell off, came right off its hinges. Every time
it was opened to pull out equipment or to store supplies, it fell off
again. Yesterday, David and I finally fixed it. And did that look
great! Did that feel great! The screws are holding the hardware as
securely as secure can be. Is there anything more satisfying than
household repairs?
 The same is true of the household of the
soul. That inner broken thing we really, really need to tend to just
doesn’t receive our attention. To forgive, or spend time in
self-reflection, to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, or to clean
out that dark, filthy corner, throw away the junk and pull back the
curtains so light can shine in and disinfect the room is the purpose of
the one-day retreat: Housecleaning for the Soul.
If you
really need to give yourself time to do this work, check out this link.
We’d love to see you at Turtle Creek Acres. David and Karen Mains and
Doug and Melissa Timberlake are a great crew equipped to guide you in
gentle, but powerful work. And you know what, you’re going to feel
pretty terrific when you’re through! Registration: LifeLaunchMe.com/spring-retreat-of-silence Reminder!
The Soulish Food e-mails are
being
posted biweekly on the Hungry Souls Web
site. Newcomers can look that over and decide if they want to
register on the Web site to receive the biweekly newsletter. You might
want to recommend this to friends also. They can go to www.HungrySouls.org.
Hungry Souls Contact InformationADDRESS: 29W377 Hawthorne Lane
West Chicago, IL 60185
PHONE: 630-293-4500
EMAIL: karen@hungrysouls.org
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Karen Mains
Inevitably, at moments
like these, during these unplanned and mostly frustrating pauses, when
I’m fighting to remain positive, I eventually hear that clear steady
reminder: Why don’t you look for the
gifts in this disability? Why don’t you hunt for My surprises in this
time when you have been physically set aside?
BOOK CORNER
 Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
by Bryan Stevenson The Cross and the Lynching Tree
by James H. Cone
BACK-COVER COPY OF "JUST MERCY":
From
one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time comes an
unforgettable true story about the redeeming potential of mercy. Bryan
Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice
Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most
desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and
children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice
system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young
man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he
didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy,
political machinations, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his
understanding of mercy and justice forever. PRAISE FOR "THE CROSS AND THE LYNCHING TREE": "Based
on impressive research, Cone argues that the lynching tree is a viable
reality/symbol for reflection on the cross of Christ. According to
Cone, understandings of the cross and lynching tree can mutually inform
one another and explain how events of trauma and injustice can still
inspire hope for the African American community.” Christianity Today
"No
one has explored the spiritual world of African Americans with the
depth or breadth of Cone. Here he turns his attention to two symbols
that dominated not only the spiritual world but also the daily life of
African Americans in the twentieth century. In their inextricable tie,
he finds both the terror and hope that governed life under violent
racism as well as potent symbols of the African American past and
present in the United States." Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University Buy Just Mercy from Amazon.comBuy The Cross and the Lynching Tree from Amazon.com
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