A Surreal Space

My obsession began when I was in my teens unfortunately. A doctor, whom I liked a great deal, added to that obsession, certainly with unintended long-lasting consequences.

In my early teens I had begun to have some incidents of extremely high heart rates, 175bpm at one doctor visit.

That scared me of course, and the fear only worsened the problem. When that doctor who I had been seeing suggested that I seek psychological assistance, my family rejected that notion. Their intention was not to harm me but rather to protect me, perhaps from long-standing stereotypes about mental health issues, but more so during that period of our lives likely from the negative light in which the church we were attending viewed seeking “counsel from the world.”

The doctor we chose next, based on a friend’s recommendation, was a good man, kind, sincere. He ordered a 24 hour Holter monitor and an echocardiogram for me, and he suggested that I monitor my heart rate for one week as well, recording my pulse whenever I felt that my heart rate was becoming rapid. It was at that point that I began to focus intensely on my heart and what it was doing.

The Holter monitored showed PVCs, what he described to me as “the extra beats you feel.” He told me that nearly everyone experiences them, and some of us have the misfortune of noticing them. He also said that the echocardiogram was normal. It didn’t show mitral valve prolapse the primary concern of his as it causes palpitations. My heart was basically healthy.

Throughout my life, that news has never reassured me to the extent that one might think it would, nor to the extent that I would have thought it should.

I was monitored again in 2009 after another round of intense and frequent palpitations with much the same conclusion, basically a healthy heart, PVCs that are inexplicable and just part of my life.

I had another memorable bout in 2013, during a very stressful time in my life while finishing the Bachelor’s degree in exercise physiology at EMU. My doctor suggested a stress echo and monitor, but since she wanted to do the stress echo first, I declined. I had just spent a week doing observation as part of my course work at EMU. Every time someone had a stress echo, they finished their testing session by vomiting. One patient was even taken immediately to the cath lab. No, I decided; nothing good comes from having a stress echo.

I continued to notice the PVCs, skipped beats, or “extra beats” on and off throughout the years, as I have nearly all of my life.

During the last month, they have become worse again, and more recently they began to seem to change a bit. Whereas I used to be able to get them to stop by breathing consciously or changing positions, I could no longer make them stop.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, I found myself walking close beside my husband through the sliding doors of our local emergency department.

The last time I went to the emergency department, we weren’t even married – so over 15 years ago. It was the weekend then as well, and I had a UTI, and I knew it. I just needed the meds. Now, if one has a UTI one can likely do a virtual appointment and get a scrip called in for the antibacterial, no need to go sit at urgent care or the ED.

As I went through check in and triage this time, I kept wondering what I was doing in the emergency department. Last time I knew, this time was different. I believed I would be released that day, but as the triage staff discussed doing an ECG and took me immediately back, I knew that this could go several different ways.

Enough of my family members have had heart issues, serious ones like heart attacks, that I knew that I would have an ECG and a blood draw.

The ECG was done immediately. The blood draw came after the doctor was in, but I saw that troponin had been ordered STAT when I later looked at my lab results in my patient portal.

The nurse who had been assigned to me told me a chest x-ray had been ordered. Transport came to get me for the x-ray. As we wound our way through the dim and deserted corridors of the hospital to the imaging area, I became afraid for the first time during that visit.

I was alone then. I was placed into a curtained area, though for a very short time. I didn’t know when I would get taken back to the room where my husband was. I didn’t know if the doctor had ordered anything else that would call for the need for me to be wheeled through those sterile and lonely hallways to some unknown destination in the windowless world of diagnostic and treatment areas.

But I was returned to my room quite quickly, and for that I was grateful. I was also discharged after about three hours.

The doctor said that I had “checked out quite well.” Several incidents of PVCs registered on my monitor, some even with the monitor alarming at their frequency or pairing. The doctor affirmed that they are real, but they are something that will once again need to be monitored “out in the world” during the course of my normal daily activities.

Soon I will be wearing a monitor again. We will see what comes of that. Often, there is no explanation for PVCs when the heart is determined to be otherwise healthy As one heart rhythm specialist put it in a column I read, “It’s best not to try too hard to understand PVCs. We often don’t know why they come, or why they leave again.”

As I lie in bed that night after having been released from the emergency department, I thought about the emotional toll it had taken. It was not as though it was traumatic. It was much more subtle.

Both my dad and my mom have been in the ED, mom fairly frequently for a time. I thought about them. I have thought that they are braver than am I, and I believe I found my assessment to be correct as I remembered those dim and desolate hallways that I encountered on the way to imaging, how lonely I felt, and how out of my control my life felt in those moments. I wondered how they did it.

Not only did I feel like I wasn’t all that brave, or as brave as I would have liked to be, I also felt like I had left a great deal undone. I started to think about what would happen if didn’t get cleared to leave that night.

Once we had decided to go to the ED, we just left the house, me assuming I would be back in a few hours. But what if I hadn’t come back after a few hours?

We have finally made it to our new town, settled in our forever home. I wanted to go home, to be with the family, and my pets, who would be there without me if I got admitted.

Worse yet, I had started to think just a little bit about the big “what if.”

I certainly wasn’t ready to die, not after being so close to seeing all of the pieces of the puzzle finally coming together like we had hoped, with not only us settling into our new place, but also with my husband’s family and my family having done or about to do the same.

I want to enjoy all of what we hoped was ahead, more time with the people we love, more good memories to make, more success to be found.

Then I thought about the pressure I had been placing on myself, not just recently but really all of my life, and I began to wonder if all of this was my fault. PVCs, like so many health issues, are made worse by stress. What if I was in this surreal space in a strange hospital because of me!

As I tried to sort those things out in the darkness in my bedroom that night, I was grateful that I was able to be back in my own room, but I was also saddened and somewhat confused by the thoughts and emotions that had arisen based on a relatively benign visit to our local emergency department.

As I sort this out through writing, I have no cathartic revelation to share. I suppose I have more sorting and thinking to do. Perhaps my thoughts will lead to some action – and likely – some changes.

I am a person of faith. I am working with a therapist both privately and in group to better my mental health. I continue to work to address my physical health through exercise, nutrition, and this year weight loss.

Perhaps it’s not change but continued progress that I seek, because after all, as long as God grants me time in His broken but beautiful world, I will be a work in progress. Perhaps giving the best I can is all I can ask of myself.

Atheism, An Easier Path?

Do people of faith lack intellectual prowess? Do they lack the capacity for reason? Have they surrendered their discernment to doctrines?

Many people believe that these statements are true of people of faith. Critics commonly call out Christians in particular for believing in “a sky fairy,” liken faith to that of a child who believes in an Easter bunny, or just simply write off the entire population of believers as unreasonable, if not uneducated.

Though there are certainly people of faith who allow someone in a position of authority to make their decisions for them (at one time I lived among that group of people), the vast majority of people who live a life of religious faith are intelligent, educated, wise, bright lights in this world.

Given that many people of faith are thoughtful, reasonable, successful people who live in this world and contribute to it, why then the bias and the stereotype?

Are there no areligious people who allow someone to do their thinking for them? Certainly some people who would never heed the words of a spiritual leader will turn on their favorite news channel and ingest without questions every word that their favorite anchor or news show host has to say, and even worse, some people hang on every word, every endorsement, or every critical response that their favorite celebrity spits out.

Religion, or lack thereof, is not a determining factor in whether or not people allow themselves to become intellectually lazy.

Then what leads to the disdain of the religious by many in the secular realm?

As I have read and listened to what people have had to say throughout the years, many cannot reconcile the “good God” with the suffering in the world. Having been a Christian for a very long time, I personally find that I tire of that argument. But the Spirit reminds me that their crisis of faith – or the lack of faith – is valid. It’s valid because people with that particular dilemma are either experiencing great pain or have seen significant suffering.

Even the most devout have reported experiencing their own crisis of faith due to the harsh realities that we see day after day in this world. It is widely known that Mother Teresa experienced some challenging circumstances given the mission to which she was called and the people who she served. She found though that doubt led her to prayer: “If our bones were not sending whispers of doubt to our hearts, there would be no need for prayer at all.”

For people who view doubts like Mother Teresa, the doubts serve the purpose of bolstering the search for answers within their faith. For those who are not yet connected through faith to God, the doubts and questions could drive them further from making a connection at all.

Beyond the sincere questions, that often do arise from a painful place, I believe that much of the disdain for faith, and for those who adhere to a religious worldview, comes from a place of hubris.

Those who do struggle to reconcile our worldview, that is centered on the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, truly do struggle daily with living in a physical and tangible world while trying to reconcile our beliefs and actions with a spiritual ethos.

We too wrestle with the suffering in the world. We try to discern truth in a world where lies are becoming more acceptable. We try not to fall prey to the culture that allows for lowering the standard of behavior to that extent. We work to figure out practical things, like what it means to obey those who God has placed in authority over us, especially when they lack discretion or abuse their authority, taking away our God-given rights.

We even wonder how to best care for our health and for that of the people we love. We care about putting the needs of others first, but we try to strike a delicate balance between meeting those needs that others have while not neglecting our own to the detriment of our wellbeing.

Living a life that would be pleasing to God in a world that He left with the free will to choose Him or not is work.

Living a life without having to think about God’s point of view, His requirements, or His leading seems to me to be an easier path.

To whom does an atheist answer? Clearly we all have to live to some extent by the laws within our state, territory, or nation, or we will face the consequences associated with breaking the laws or violating the ordinances or codes of conduct.

But beyond that, with whom does an atheist really have to reconcile his thoughts, his opinions, his choices, and his actions? Looking at atheism, I see that the only truth possible for a person who chooses that belief system is not an absolute and timeless truth, but rather a relative and fluid truth – a “my truth” mindset.

Given the criteria that an atheist, whether affirmed or by default, can think what he wants, can formulate his opinions, can make his own choices, and can do whatever he believes is right, and all of that can change at any point based on something as significant as a shift in cultural norms to a change in his own temperament.

Given that criteria, I believe that atheism, at least as it relates to the ideological and philosophical, is an easier path.

What say you?

Midland’s May Day

For several years my husband and I had been talking about moving to the Midland area. Some of our family members already resided in the general area, and we had talked with others about the possibility of moving closer, making the mid-state area something of a family hub.

In May of 2020 that was still in the planning phases. With the state, as well as parts of the country and the world, enduring COVID lockdowns, we were making some progress, but we had no idea what the next several months would bring. The people of our future hometown likely didn’t either.

On the evening of May 19, 2020, after heavy rains throughout the state, the Edenville Dam, located north of the city of Midland, failed. About an hour later, the Sanford Dam failed.

According to coverage of the dam breeches by Chemical City Paper the day following, the City of Midland’s website had issued this warning to its residents: “residents should seek higher ground as far east and west of the Tittabawassee River as possible, as the National Weather Service projected the river to crest at 38 feet today. That is about five feet over the current record-setting flood in 1986, which crested at 33.89 feet and was deemed “the worst natural disaster in the state’s modern history.'”

The governor, who still had the state on lockdown and hotels closed to all travelers with the exception of “essential workers” issued the following statement as recorded in Chemical City Paper: “We are anticipating a historic high-water level. This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen in Midland County,” she continued. If you have a family member or loved one in another part of the state, go there now.”

Though rains contributed to the situation to an extent, the dam breeches that occurred that day were much less a natural disaster than a man-made problem, and a problem that had been passed off for quite some time, the proverbial kicking the can down the road.

Unfortunately, the end of the road was closer than some wanted to believe, even though warnings such as the following, reported by the Detroit Free Press in 2017, had been issued:  “The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality oversees 88 potential high-hazard damns in the state, and all but six of them are approaching or past 50 years old, the average engineered life span for a dam. Overall, more than 90 percent of Michigan’s nearly 2,600 dams will reach or exceed their design life by 2020, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) stated in a 2009 report.”

Warnings more than 10 years old were issued, but went unheeded, at least in the case of the Edenville and Sanford Dams. The estimates state that as many as 150 homes were a total loss while around 1,650 were damaged, and still about 640 more were deemed “otherwise effected.” Total damage estimates range from $175 million to $200 million.

It was in June of 2020, barely a month after the disaster, that we began to look for a house in Midland.

Crazy? Maybe.

As we drove around the city one June weekend after attending an open house for a small but nice house located outside of the flood area, we saw the piles and piles of soaked carped rolls, damaged furniture, and warped drywall sitting along the curb awaiting removal by a DPW that worked for months to remove the debris.

As we looked at listings throughout the summer, trying to find our forever home, we saw listing after listing of the gutted houses that were in need of almost complete rebuilding. We weren’t interested in renovating a flood-damaged house, but one realtor we had met the first day of our search, at an open house, had told us that all of those houses would need to meet not only city codes but also FEMA codes for flooding before they would be deemed to be habitable once again.

After we sold our house in our former city – surprisingly quickly – in August of 2020, we had settled in a nice apartment on the dry side of Midland. It was in October that we found the one. We’ve been living in our new home since December of last year.

As we sat in church this Sunday, May 16, 2021, we were reminded that it was one year ago this week that our now hometown experienced that devastating flood. The worship pastor prayed for residents of the city, still in recovery in many ways, committed to continuing to be involved with the recovery efforts, and joined the worship team as they sang “Goodness of God.”

Having settled here in the aftermath of the flood, and knowing that many of the people in the church had endured all of it, I experienced two specific thoughts about the events of last May.

First I felt proud of the church we now call “our” church.

When we moved into the apartment on that warm August morning, it would have been just my husband and me were it not for two younger and stronger assistant pastors from our church. They didn’t know us then, but they responded to my husband’s request for anyone willing to help us move in, for a decent pay per hour. They came and helped, declining any compensation. They told us that they had plenty of practice moving over the past several months as they did the physical work needed to help people clean out their damaged homes.

Not only has our church been helpful in contributing to the physical labor needed by residents to clean up after such a destructive event, but nearly every church in the area was involved in some way with helping residents through providing grab-and-go meals to household items to making monetary contributions.

I was reminded of something that Tim Keller, pastor and founder of the Redeemer Presbyterian congregations throughout New York City, says. He encourages churches to be so involved in helping with the tangible needs in the communities in which they are located that their departure would cause the local government great concern were they to have to leave the community, because of the void they would leave in meeting the needs of the community.

Though I have read that organizations such as United Way and the Red Cross were certainly involved in helping the residents of Midland, Sanford, and surrounding areas to recover after the flood, it seems to me that churches in the area also shone through in the way that Tim Keller described, based of course on the scriptural description of the way the church should demonstrate God’s love to a community in need.

Second, I thought about how fortunate we are to be where we are now.

It was the pandemic to a great extent that advanced our plan to relocate, by about a year. Yet the flood happened and could have threatened our plan. Instead we found ourselves in a community that has not only survived the flood, but it also seems to be thriving once again, just a year after the flood within the COVID response.

Following our anniversary dinner downtown just last week, we drove past the Tridge and along the river. My husband commented that it was hard to believe that the very parking lot through which we were driving had been under water just one year earlier. And the restaurant where we had dined was threatened by the water but was spared, though just barely, as it sat on higher ground.

If you look at the picture, you will see the green “ring.” That structure is located in the parking lot of the park where we drove last week after dinner.

Following “Goodness of God” the praise team led the church in “Do It Again.” The entire song is so appropriate, especially as they acknowledged a bit of somber anniversary, but part of the lyrics say, “You made a way where there was no way, and I believe I’ll see You do it again.” Indeed He did make a way, not only for the community, to a significant extent through believers, but He also made a way for us to become part of this dynamic community.

Dogma In Disguise

I was 13 years old, and I had found out we would be moving.

I had so badly wanted to try out for the JV basketball team or the soccer team, but I never got the chance. I never played a JV or high school sport.

The parochial school I had attended after we moved didn’t offer any intermural sports. I didn’t go to high school dances, didn’t go to prom – we didn’t have those things.

We didn’t go to movies with friends. We didn’t go roller skating. Some people didn’t even go to bowling alleys. And the most devoted people definitely didn’t go to the beach.

Sports was a distraction, and one where we might encounter teenagers from other schools who didn’t believe the way we were told we believed.

Dances were not at all part of the social scene (we really didn’t have a social scene). Dances would lead to thoughts of sex.

We weren’t allowed to go to “Hollywood movies” because there was something wrong with each and every one of them, even the rated G ones. Trust me, there was always something.

Roller skating rinks were off limits when the public skated because of the rock music, among other things, but on the rare occasion (once I believe) that the church did arrange for a church members only event at the rink, it was organ music all evening.

The more pious avoided bowling alleys because alcohol is often served there, and at one time people could smoke in bowling alleys. The smoking was actually the only good reason to avoid bowling alleys.

Words like cool, man, dude, shoot, and bogue were banned from school and youth group activities because they weren’t just teenage nonsense slang, they were worldly words.

Girls weren’t allowed to wear jeans, or denim jackets, or anything else that would have been considered current fashion. Make-up that was too dark was too punk. Too much make-up was too suggestive.

Jewelry was potentially okay, but too much jewelry, or earrings that were “too big,” was considered tawdry.

The peace symbol, the circular one that has long appeared on everything from t-shirts to necklaces, was banned as a symbol of the hippy movement.

If you had athletic talent and just wanted to participate in sports, that didn’t matter. There were more important things. If you liked to roller skate because it was fun, that didn’t matter. Find something more saintly to do. If you weren’t a girly-girl and liked jeans, you needed to get right and dress more modestly. If you liked bright, fun colors or funky earrings, you needed to tame your wild spirit.

One’s intent did not matter. No questions were actually asked about one’s intent. The leadership didn’t need to ask; they knew the intent, not only of teenagers who may seek to dissent from the expectations that were being imposed, but also of the adults who dared challenge it as well.

If after reading this you think that this kind of life would have been stifling, repressive, and even oppressive, you would be correct. It was.

It created a false narrative of who was good and who was evil based on the often arbitrary rules set by those who had assumed positions of power, and who had created the constricting expectations.

Quite often when the word dogma is used, the word religious precedes it. Dogma is not subject to religion alone though.

Everything from activities, like eating at Chick-Fil-A, to legally owning a gun, to going bowling, or even choosing whether or not to get a vaccine is now subject to some arbitrary labeling. Such choices can be considered homophobic, transphobic, nationalist – even white nationalist, and science denying.

Even words are deemed phobic, racist, nationalist, or any other “ist.” The intention of the user does not matter to those who have assumed some sense of power/ Usually that power is spurious at best.

Unfortunately it is the case that some of the unwarranted, fabricated accusations have led to actual incidents of everything from harassment on social media to loss of jobs and to even more serious attempts to ruin the life of the “offender.” The self-righteous outrage mob angrily chants “crucify them” at everyone who violates their bizarre and maniacal expectations of behavior.

Many people who strongly oppose the imposition of religious dogma upon a society are the very people who are waring to impose a dogma upon the society. Many people who believe there is no absolute truth, except their truth, are attempting to impose their truth, however manipulated it may be, upon a free nation.

The scripture tells us that “So if the Son sets free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36) In my soul, I somehow knew that. The Spirit must have given me the gift of that knowledge.

I had then dared to question, even in that religiously oppressive environment. It was the only way to become free indeed and to live the life that God had intended for me to live, in the church (though clearly not that church) and in the world as a whole.

The same is true as it relates to the dogma of the woke. In order to be free, you have to question the agenda of those who are trying to manipulate and to gain power and control over you.

Do not allow the mob to ascribe intent where they have no insight. Do not allow them to exercise control when they have no conscience. Do not give them power when they have no wisdom.

Dogma is defined as “a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.” Be careful to check the source of the dogma that is being presented to you as truth. The truth can only set you free if the truth has a foundation in the One who is not only the same yesterday, today, and always, but in the One in whom there is no self-interest, no manipulation, and no evil intent.