Faith, Family, Forests and the Field: December 2016

For this annual Christmas blog posting I cannot offer a ring-side seat to the Americanized Christmas bustle of activity. In fact, given the source of the title for this offering, an old Dom McLean tune comes to mind, swirling in its exceptional length of unintentional travel to becoming the ballad of American youth when I was growing up... American Pie. Just a few words from that song dance in my head at the moment, repeated over and over and over...

"...and the Jester on the sidelines in a cast."

This has probably been the most positive Christmas I have had in my lifetime. I actually got in the spirit early. I set up a Christmas tree around Thanksgiving. I dug out the lighted Christmas flying pig (blame Rhiannon for this) which has served as our staple outdoor decoration for years... and for the first time bought exterior Christmas lights.

I went LED of course, not wishing to make the electric meter spin in endless circles of doom ending in an astronomical figure on a slip of paper. I got larger color changing lights that switch between blue and white. I got colored lights for a Holly tree out front... yes, a real Holly. I put some lighted yard icons out one of which was a cross. For me, that is a first. Other than the pig, I have never put lights outside.

Next year will be even better but that will be a tale told twelve months from now.

Narwhal

We bought presents. Annette wrapped them (you do not want to see a gift that I have wrapped... I have zero talent there). We bought even more ornaments (as many of ours are still boxed from the move to the new house. Including a Narwhal... again, blame Rhiannon. The evil pig-lizard of a dog even gets a gift.

December came and I celebrated St. Nicholas Day with fervor, even if somewhat alone in my belief that this is the day we should be doing the gift giving and leave Christmas to a higher celebration.

My family and I have a lot to be thankful for this year. We finally managed to squeak by and get a new house. The biggest feature is that we now have space to move about and to organize. It has been a slow process but we are getting there. The wife has a new job which helps a lot.

Michael helping decorate

We spent an hour or so at the start of the month helping other church members with the hanging of the greens and the kids all had jobs to do in decorating the church for Advent. Simple, but all with meaning. It was satisfying work.

But this season is not without damper, many things have occurred this year that are so very negative.

This happens to many people every year and it takes its toll on the "expected" Christmas mood:

My wife's mother died earlier in the year.
As I wrote in last years Christmas blog, the Heroin and K2 problems in this country are non-stop.
We had one of the nastiest elections I have seen in my lifetime leaving a nation clearly divided.

And these are just a few...

In the last week, a co-worker lost her 15-year-old daughter in a car accident. She was out with friends one evening when an 18 year old drunk driver, Osiel Marroquin, who did not even have a driver's crossed a center line and took her life. It is a story we hear way too often. An intoxicated driver takes a life. When does it end?

Skylar Robinson was 15 years old. She has started to attend our Explorer Post at AMR as she was thinking about someday becoming a Paramedic. She never got the chance to join.

In EMS we are a family. Her mother is part of that family. AMR along with many others in local EMS and Fire have mobilized to support this family and give the writing of the final pages of Skylar's a respectful end. The obvious family of our brothers and sisters in public safety have come together to help.

In all of this, I have been the "Jester on the sidelines." I want to do so much more with this. It was about two months ago when her mother and I drove to Indy and back for some tasks with the AMR Indianapolis Operation. Six hours of travel time. What did we talk about? Our families... and the children.

They are sometimes taken from us way too soon.

I want to do more. But I sit. A Jester on the sidelines...

Last Saturday, I was trying to get out of the house to drive Michael about town to pick up items for his Eagle Project (packaging homeless assistance kits for distribution starting Christmas Day). I was coming down the stairs at home and heard a pop. After ending up in the emergency room

(following my first ever ambulance ride... and I was the patient refusing all kinds of care), I have several Meniscus tears in my left knee. The last week has been doctor appointments (taken care of by our Education master of all trades at AMR, Mike Shoulders who got me into the most lauded Orthopod in the area), an MRI, a follow-up visit, lab work and EKG... which will be followed by Surgery on December 27th. They were able to make it all happen so it would be covered by insurance being the end of the year. There will be physical therapy in January and I am sure that will be another story. For now, it is difficult to even go shopping for needed gifts.

So I am on crutches. I am not on them constantly, but if I go over about 30 feet of travel they become very needed.

Jester. Sidelines... This means I cannot be what I feel I need to be. I have limited ability to help a friend. I cannot help my EMS provider by jumping on an ambulance in a system overload or by covering a weekend. I am able to do only about half of the jobs I do at home... and there are still things to be moved from the old house. Large things. Watching other people do your work is never fun.

The first night was interesting. I try to never use prescribed narcotic analgesia for pain. I stick to things like Ibuprofen and Toradol. They gave me Narco (Hydrocodone and Acetaminophen). I took one and only one the first night following the injury.

Result as I posted on Facebook... "I was having an argument in my dreams with a green and red Christmas dragon, snorting purple tufts of flame in disagreement as we argued the finer points of Consubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Altar. No more dragons muttering "in, under and with" as it paces about trying to comprehend... purple nose flames punctuating each repeat of the line... nope... no more pain meds for me."

I am told I will be given more next week after the surgery. We will see how this goes. I may revolt and just deal with the pain.

I had peaked into my online health record and saw the results of the MRI before the follow-up visit. IMPRESSION (from MRI results): Tear of the posterior root medial meniscus. Probable tear of the body medial meniscus as well. Grade 1 sprain in the mediocollateral ligament. Mild tricompartmental osteoarthritis.

The repair will occur via several punctures using a camera and a pair of scissors. They tell me it will take five to ten minutes and all will be better. Followed by the torture of physical therapy.

I will do this. I do not like being on the sidelines. Especially at Christmas. So, I can say that even though I am in the best of Christmas spirits, I am somewhat depressed as well.

Our Tree

Tomorrow... gifts will be opened. There will be momentary pleasures at the receipt of material things. Hearts will be warmed by the thoughtfulness of others. In some places, the cold of death will have overshadowed the glow of Christmas as a holiday with all of its lights, gifts, trees, decorations and Santas.

But the cold of death cannot hold fast against the Christmas of the Gospel of Luke:

Luke 2:1-20 (ESV):
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Everyone knows this story. Luke's Gospel tells it concisely and eloquently. We also know how the story ends... or continues on for us.

It ends on a cross. It ends with this little baby, born of a virgin, sacrificed for our sins. That is the message of the season. I saw a recent piece of art that showed Mary holding up the baby Jesus, the shadow cast by the baby on the wall was the cross. It all culminates in a cross and empty tomb.

He is given so that all of the darkness of death is illuminated and driven back by the light of God. The debt that can only be paid by death has been paid in full by one held sinless. God himself hung on a tree for our sake so that we may have eternal life. Death cannot hold us.

Even if we die, by whatever manner, mechanism or cause, those in Christ will find that death to be temporal. That death will be but the door to eternal life.

It has been 15 years since I last had surgery. Sure I am a bit scared and somewhat worried about the procedure and the outcome. That and my lack of ability to be helpful in most arenas at the moment has me a bit depressed. But all of that is temporary too.

Christmas is here. Find hope and peace in the Christ. There is none elsewhere.

Merry Christmas.

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

(a few more view of our Advent-Christmas below)