On Wednesday, October 20, Hilary drove me back to Grand View Hospital for MRIs on my spine. I spent over an hour in the MRI machine for standard and with contrast MRIs. The huge machine makes a constant noise that sounds like it is straight out of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” starring Danny Kaye: “tapokitta-tapokitta-tapokitta.” Then there are the loud noises when it is actually taking images. I was so cramped and in pain, yet this heavy metal music nearly lulled me to sleep. Of course, I had taken Percocet and Valium before I went. That could have had some impact on my perception.
Tuesday morning, I went to Grand View Outpatient Center for x-rays and to Upper Bucks Orthopedics for the first of three Synvisc shots into my right knee. This is the second round of these shots. They last about six months. I have no cartilage left in my right knee joint. I was back to limping and the knee was also hurting, but I hardly noticed that with the back pain.
Later that evening, I was in extreme discomfort and was running a fever of about 103. I called the doctor’s answering service. My doctor called me back and told me to go to the emergency room. Bethann & I arrived at the ER just after 8 PM. They took vials and vials of blood and wheeled me down the hall for more x-rays; then wheeled me back. They poked and prodded, hemmed and hawed and basically told me I was sick, but they had no clue what of. Fr. Noah visited us and prayed and anointed me in the ER room. They kept us there until 2 AM. I kept telling Bethann to go home, since she had to get up for work the next day. I told her I would hitchhike home. She told me that no one would pick me up all disheveled with a pained grimace on my face. So she waited.
I started to feel a pain in my back on Sunday, October 3. There was no good reason for it, as far as I could tell. I hadn’t lifted anything incorrectly or slept on it funny. It just started to hurt. The pain gradually grew more intense over the next two weeks. On Saturday, Oct 16, I co-led a “Living on the Street” tour in center city Philadelphia for The King’s Jubilee. I barely made it up onto the platform to Mark’s place. I sat at his table and drank coffee while the rest of the tour hiked through the underbrush to visit Fred’s old camp. The pain had spread, so that now when I coughed, it felt like my kidneys hurt.
By Sunday, I was continuously miserable. That afternoon was our granddaughter Isabella’s birthday party in the park and I was useless to load or unload anything. Bethann made me promise to go to the chiropractor the next day. Monday morning, I called the chiropractor and my medical doctor. I got back to back appointments. First I went to the chiropractor. He examined me, doing that thing where he pokes his fingers on either side of my spine working his way up the back. He didn’t find anything seriously amiss, but one point where he touched on the left side in the middle of my spine caused excruciating pain. He did a minor adjustment and put heat on my back. He was mystified. There was no chiropractic cause for the kind of pain I was having.
I went on to see my doctor. She examined me. I told her of my experience at the chiropractor and that I was afraid it must be something in my organs, perhaps my kidneys, that was causing the pain. I gave a urine sample. there was no blood, so that made it less likely that it was my kidneys. She agreed that it did not seem musculo-skeletal in cause, but not sure, and ordered x-rays to be done the following day.
I was given a prescriptions for Valium for a muscle relaxant (since I am allergic to Flexiril) and Percocet for the pain.
I finally finished our new icon corner. The two things in a house that a man should make himself, even if he makes nothing else, are the front door and a proper bright corner. A bright corner is a special place for prayer for the family. It is called the bright corner because it faces the rising sun and because it is where the icons are. Icons are windows to heaven, hence “bright”. It is either in a corner or along a wall, if possible toward the East. As Orthodox Christians, we face East to pray, because Christ was called the Sun of Righteousness in Malachi 4:2. We orient (face East) toward the rising sun as we anticipate Christ’s second coming in glory.
The bright corner is where morning, noon and evening prayers are said. There are many variations on the bright corner. Ours is not to be taken as typical or normative, but it works for us. Our bright corner is in the East corner of our den. There is a Cross on the wall near the corner. To its left is an icon of the Theotokos. To its right is an icon of Christ. This is the same basic arrangement as the iconostasis at church. This immediately connects us to church. Next to the Theotokos is an icon of the Conception of the Theotokos showing Ss. Joachim and Ann embracing. My wife, Bethann, has St. Ann for her patron. To the right Christ is the Epitaphios, because St. Joseph of Arimathea is my patron and it was the Burial Service and Lamentation Matins that really converted everyone in our family. Around this central cluster are arranged, in no particular order, icons of the patron Saints of our children, grandchildren, godparents, parents, godchildren, a couple of good friends, nieces, great nieces & great nephews. Some icons do double or triple duty as multiple people share the same patron. We chose to do it this way so our bright corner forms a very visual, permanent prayer list. As we see each person’s patron Saint we are reminded to pray for him or her and ask for their Saint’s intercession as well.
A vigil lamp is hanging from the ceiling, in front of the Cross and the icons of Christ and the Theotokos. This is to honor them. It also calls us to prayer. Our lamp was made by Nick Papas. The icon of St. Nicholas is on our wall as it his his patron and one of Fr. Bonifaces’s patrons, as well.
What I just made, was the cabinet below the icons and lamp. It is made of no VOC melamine from recycled materials, no VOC wheatstraw board, locally harvested and milled poplar bead board and stone tile. This was my first attempt at stone tile installation. Some of the tiles are partly upended. This is to form a plate rail to hold festal icons and prayer cards. The back boards are engraved with daylilies. I took a photograph of one of our daylily blooms and my neighbor and I used his Shopbot to carve it into these boards. There are open spaces around the daylily medallions so we can use 12 Gospels ribbons to tie palms and willows to the icon corner during Great Week.
I chose the daylily motif, because it is especially meaningful to us. This is an excerpt from an entry that I wrote on The King’s Jubilee‘s website:
Daylilies are amazing. They put forth a beautiful bloom and it is gone in a day, only to be replaced the next day with another glorious bloom. Jesus told us to consider the lilies of the field in order to encourage us to have faith in God’s provision for us. This in turn is to encourage us to share what God blessed us with today with others, knowing that God will have new blessings for us tomorrow.
Daylily detail
To be reminded of this as we say our daily prayers is encouraging.
On top of the icon corner are a candlestick, an incense burner, a prayer book, a box containing charcoal and matches. In the top compartment of the cabinet is a box of incense, a lighter, a New Testament, a Festal Menaion (hymns and prayers for the 12 major feasts), a service book and a supply of wicks for the oil lamp. We burn incense in our home as this also calls us to prayer. Incense is present in every prophetic vision of Heaven and was used in the Tabernacle and the Temple and has always been used in the Church. It is always associated with prayer. Using all of our senses in worship and prayer helps us to focus on eternal priorities.
The lower shelves of the cabinet holds other spiritual books and festal icons.
Of course, it does not matter how beautiful or well appointed a bright corner is, if no one stands before it to pray. Lord, teach us to pray!
Bethann and I just walked the lilies. Today, there are twenty varieties of daylilies blooming, plus the Easter lilies. We have them in our tiny front yard and on both sides of the driveway next to the house. The list will be different tomorrow. Here’s today’s list:
The first two houses we bought were obvious handyman specials. Our third (current) house is, too, but we just weren’t aware of it, since we were bamboozled by its charm. (Note to self: Never buy a charming house. Buy an ugly one and make it charming enough to bamboozle the next owner.) Our first house was a frame bungalow with gas, gravity flow heat. This means there was basically a slightly oversized stove burner inside a giant tin can in the basement with big, round duct arms stretching out to the perimeter of the house. One of these was right over the workbench. I bumped my head into it regularly. At least that spot was a little bit cushioned by the fiberglas patches the previous owner had placed there. The heat came up through a grate in the center of the house, the living room floor. It was not very effective for heating the house on -20° days, but we were newlyweds, so it hardly mattered.
Our second home had oil heat with hot water radiators. The summer-winter hook-up had been disconnected and we had a gas water heater. The first winter we lived there was fairly mild, and neither of us had grown up with oil, hot water heat, so we didn’t notice any major problems, other than it seemed pretty expensive. The second winter was a different story. It was cold and no matter how we set the thermostat, the house would never get above 52°. We invited friends over quite a bit. The added bodies would warm the house, or, at least, we would be distracted from how cold it was. Our friends would say to each other, “The Coulters invited us over. Time to visit the refrigerator.”
I had this theory about hiring professionals. I didn’t think it was worth it to hire somebody to do something who made more per hour than I did. Of course, I was making very little working in a poultry meat processing plant. I didn’t understand things like overhead, liability insurance and transportation costs. I also didn’t appreciate the efficiencies involved when someone truly knew what they were doing, as opposed to someone who was reading the totally misnamed Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual, such as myself.
The house was cold. I was ready to try anything. An old plumber had told me that one could clean the electrodes in the burner by pouring a tablespoon of salt over them as it was firing. I figured he was old. He must have done this any number of times and survived. I would give it a shot. He had failed to mention that one should not use an electrically conductive, metal spoon.
So I get a tablespoon out of the silverware drawer and fill it with table salt. I go down into the basement. I gingerly set the spoon on a shelf while I remove the shield above the burner gun. I pick up the spoon and carefully empty it, so that it falls through the arcing electricity between the electrodes or cathodes or whatever you call them. Oops! The spoon made contact with one of them. The electricity travelled up the spoon and threw it against the opposite wall of the basement, with my arm still firmly attached to it.
Bethann heard me crashing against the shelves and various tools falling. She hollered down to me, “Is everything OK?” I answered weakly, “It’ll be fine.” Then I put the cover back on the oil burner and went back upstairs.
That did not solve the problem. In fact, it got worse. I looked at the situation again on another evening. I noticed the boiler was hot and the basement seemed warm, but it wasn’t circulating to the radiators. I surmised that the circulating pump was shot. I drained the system and took off the pump assembly. Sure enough, the impeller was totally shot. I replaced the pump assembly and filled the system. I turned on the heat, expecting a toasty warm house. No such luck.
I was about to give up and call a plumber. Just then, my friend, Jim, stopped by and offered moral support. Bethann said, “Why don’t the two of you go down and take one last look? You know, another perspective and all that.” Jim thought to bring a flashlight. We look around. Everything looks normal. The thermostat is set properly. The fuses are good. Then he shines the light toward the ceiling joists where we see this big valve painted bright red. It had a lever on the side of it and words cast into it to mark three positions: “OPEN” “RUN” “CLOSED”. The lever was in the closed position. I moved it to “RUN” and voila, we had heat in the house. It was the valve to set it on summer or winter for the water heater that used to be attached to it. This explained the smashed impeller. It had been pushing against a closed circulation valve for two years.
So once again, my mom was right. Reading is the key that unlocks every door.
I have been on Facebook for about two weeks now, visiting old friends’ photo albums, ‘friending’ friends & friends of friends, reconnecting with members of our wedding party from nearly 35 years ago, etc. It got me thinking (often a dangerous thing) about the depersonalization of our everyday lives. Everywhere I go, I see people talking on their cellphones, sometimes looking like crazy people, because of the Bluetooth. People are walking down the sidewalk texting. People are engaged in airy persiflage and exchanging minutia on social networking sites. Yet, these same people do not say hello to their neighbors or people they pass on the sidewalk. They avoid letting their eyes meet with anyone in the grocery store or in the line at the bank.
All this cellphone talk! All this texting! All this networking! Yes, and all this blogging! Who are these people with so much to say? Is anybody really listening? Why don’t they say it to the person right in front of them?
The other day, we saw two teenage boys on one end of a block sitting on the ground texting two teenage girls sitting on the ground at the other end of the block. Talking to each other over a simple game of whist is a whole lot cheaper and considerably more personal. We avoid personal nowadays. Pay at the pump. Use the self check out lane. Shop online. There is no need to be sociable. We have Facebook for the illusion of a social life, where we can carefully screen who enters our circle and can instantly ‘unfriend’ anyone who challenges us, disagrees with us or makes us uncomfortable in any way. Not really an opportunity for growth there.
Yesterday, at the grocery store, I found myself studying the faces of the people I saw. I thought that there are probably any number of old friends I have lost track of right here in Souderton. Why should I seek to connect with people on the internet and not do the same in the real world? I actually spotted someone from church, whom I hadn’t seen for several months, because I took that second look. I almost didn’t recognize him with his buzzed head, and in a different context. It was good to talk with him and encourage each other.
If we can moderate our time on social networking sites and use them to actually meet face to face with people in the real world, they could be useful. But I fear that the net effect of the increased use of these sites is more detrimental to society and sociability.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup slivered blanched almonds
8 Medjool dates, pitted and chopped to 1/4″ pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup quinoa
1-1/2 cups hot water
2 cups boiling water
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
Directions:
Put quinoa in a small pan or a two cup measuring cup. Add the hot water. Let it soak for at least five minutes. While that’s soaking, pit & dice the dates, fill the teapot and start it heating, get your skillet out and start it heating. Pour off the water from the quinoa using a fine screen strainer to catch any that pour out.
Put the olive oil and the slivered almonds in the hot skillet and lightly toast them. Don’t walk away. They turn black and stinky very quickly; and you’ll have to start over. (voice of experience)
Remove the almonds from the skillet, trying to leave as much of the oil in the skillet as you can.
Pour the quinoa into the skillet. Toast it in the oil just long enough for it to turn slightly golden. This brings out a nutty flavor. Add two cups of boiling water, the diced dates, the cinnamon stick, the bay leaf and the toasted almonds to the skillet. Simmer uncovered, stirring often, until most of the water has been absorbed by the quinoa.
Then cover and remove from the heat. Let it stand for about another five minutes until all the remaining liquid has been absorbed by the quinoa.
Makes four generous servings.
Delicious! Bethann told me it was internet ready, so that’s why I published it.
That’s right folks! With very little skill you can build a system in your yard that will help purify streams and lakes. It will prevent many toxins from entering the waterways and improve water tables. But that’s not all! It will help freshen the air and provide shelter for some of God’s creatures. It can even help prevent some of your downhill or downstream neighbors from being flooded out! All this while adding beauty to your yard and reducing your mowing time! All this could be yours for the low, low price of some rocks, some native plants and a couple of afternoons of sweat equity!
Adrianne L. Blank, RLA, explaining rain gardens and swales
I’m talking about rain gardens and bioswales. Rain gardens and bioswales can be introduced into a landscape to help slow down the flow of water, allowing more of it to soak into the ground. This helps clean the water and alleviates flooding and improves ground water tables. A bioswale is basically a shallow ditch that slopes gradually down from the source of the water, whether that is a parking lot, a roof downspout, a roadway or a driveway. It can be lined with rocks or coarse gravel or eight to twelve inches of leaf compost and sand. It can include some native plants, but not solidly planted. It can be built up slightly on the low end to form a dam to allow two to four inches of water to remain in it and soak into the ground over the course of about two days after a rainstorm. This first level of filtering can remove most of any metals in the water and allows the water that doesn’t run over the low end to continue filtering through the ground.
The next stage of water purification and detention can be accomplished with a rain garden. For many years, building codes and zoning regulations have required detention basins for commercial developments and multiple unit housing developments. These help some, but not nearly as much as they could if they were planted and maintained as rain gardens. The average residential yard could help the water supply by using just 60 to 100 square feet for a rain garden (about the footprint of a mini-van). If commercial, church and development detention basins were to have their sod removed and replaced with a rain garden; it would go a long way to improving suburban and urban water tables and water quality.
A rain garden contains native flowers, bushes and sometimes, trees. 70% of water pollution comes from runoff. 80% of water that falls on a lawn runs off. The idea is to slow down the flow of the water to allow more of it to soak into the ground. Soil and plants filter out toxins to purify the water. Larger plants use more water. Local native plants help purify the air, moderate temperature and provide habitat for birds, butterflies and other creatures.
To build a residential rain garden, first, choose a suitable location. It should be where water flows to naturally, or you can create a bioswale or extend a downspout drainpipe to it. The finished ground level of the rain garden should be eight to twelve inches below surrounding grade level, with gentle slopes into it all around, if possible. It needs to be graded in such a way that the water enters it gently and is evenly dispersed, so it doesn’t erode and the full area is utilized to treat the water. The area needs to be dug down at least a foot deeper than the desired finished grade in order to mix compost into the soil. Then the area is planted with native flowers, bushes and trees. It is important to choose plants which tolerate wet conditions, yet tolerate drought. Local natives work best for this. A few sedges or ornamental grasses may be included in this, but not so much that the ground is completely covered. Remember to choose plants that are appropriate for your sun conditions.
If only local, native plants are used, the rain garden should be very low maintenance. It should be mowed no more than once a year, in the fall.
A painting from memory of Brad, acrylic on canvas 11″x14″ by Cranford Coulter
After serving on the street tonight with The King’s Jubilee, I had occasion to recall a homeless man, Brad, whom I met almost twenty years ago on a similar late spring evening. He was under 25, white, of slight build, literate. He had just found himself homeless. His mom had moved in with her boyfriend and there was no room for him. His dad had disappeared several years before. Brad was afraid of what might happen to him on the streets. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. He felt completely vulnerable.
The next week, Brad came to eat with us again. This time, he was all disheveled and he was talking to himself and arguing with himself the whole time he was in the line. I was able to speak with him privately after everyone had eaten and the crowd had dispersed. He told me that a couple of the old hands on the street told him that the number one rule of the street is that you never mess with a crazy person. So he decided to start acting crazy as a defense, so nobody would mess with him. He learned to survive and cope on the street. I tried to direct him to programs that might help him get off the street, but space was very limited, and he didn’t fit into any of the usual categories.
After a few months, Brad stopped coming by to eat with us. A few more months passed and he showed up again. He was acting like a full-blown, psychotic, paranoid schizophrenic or someone on a very bad trip. The problem was he wasn’t acting anymore. He had fully inhabited the role he had chosen and had forcibly driven himself crazy; like method acting gone terribly wrong. I still see him from time to time. Some nights he is better than others. Instead of the frightened young man, he is now a quite aggressive 40 something man and is quite direct in asking for or demanding what he wants. It reminds me of a program I heard on the radio about bullies. A psychologist described aggression as preemptive fear.
The irony with Brad is that his crazy behavior is not irrational. On one level, it has served him well. He is still alive after spending almost 20 years on the street, because no one messes with a crazy person.
I finally finished our new icon corner. The two things in a house that a man should make himself, even if he makes nothing else, are the front door and a proper bright corner. A bright corner is a special place for prayer for the family. It is called the bright corner because it faces the rising sun and because it is where the icons are. Icons are windows to heaven, hence “bright”. It is either in a corner or along a wall, if possible toward the East. As Orthodox Christians, we face East to pray, because Christ was called the Sun of Righteousness in Malachi 4:2. We orient (face East) toward the rising sun as we anticipate Christ’s second coming in glory.
I had this theory about hiring professionals. I didn’t think it was worth it to hire somebody to do something who made more per hour than I did. Of course, I was making very little working in a poultry meat processing plant. I didn’t understand things like overhead, liability insurance and transportation costs. I also didn’t appreciate the efficiencies involved when someone truly knew what they were doing, as opposed to someone who was reading the totally misnamed Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual, such as myself.
I have been on Facebook for about two weeks now, visiting old friends’ photo albums, ‘friending’ friends & friends of friends, reconnecting with members of our wedding party from nearly 35 years ago, etc. It got me thinking (often a dangerous thing) about the depersonalization of our everyday lives. Everywhere I go, I see people talking on their cellphones, sometimes looking like crazy people, because of the Bluetooth. People are walking down the sidewalk texting. People are engaged in airy persiflage and exchanging minutia on social networking sites. Yet, these same people do not say hello to their neighbors or people they pass on the sidewalk. They avoid letting their eyes meet with anyone in the grocery store or in the line at the bank.
