Thank Heavens for Health

I am in fairly rapid recovery from a fairly violent urinary tract infection. The secret of my recovery is the homeopathic remedy Cantharis. I have gone from utter misery and a fever to relative comfort and normality within the space of about 20 hours. This is good. It makes me extra grateful for health and well being. I guess that it is helpful now and then to get sick. It reminds us of how good it feel to be well.
I dislike the term 'wellness' intensively. 'Good Health' is an excellent description of the state opposite 'disease'. I guess the word derives as an opposite of sickness. Perhaps it is supposed to be an analogue of 'Happiness'.
I feel relatively well at this point. I can still feel the effects of the disease, but I am not suffering. Hmm, I realize now how many terms there are for the misery of disease and decrepitude. Maybe the people who pushed the term 'wellness' felt it was necessary to add to the terms we could employ to describe a state of felling good, without affliction, etc., but I would like to see it lose currency.

My Nearest Friend Died Suddenly

Sue called me at 4 AM Monday morning and I was up to take the call, which is unusual since I am a sound and steady sleeper, rarely waking and easily getting back to sleep when I wake. I woke around 1:30 AM, around the time she fell on her kitchen floor. I tried to go to sleep, but finally resigned myself to using the time constructively by looking into airline fares online for a trip I was planning. She asked me to bring Arnica since she thought she might be bruised. I also took a walker I inherited from my father.
I soon realized it was likely she had broken a bone in her right leg near the hip. I cleared her entry so a gurney could be brought in and after getting a few things in order, called 911. I drove to the hospital and found my friend the center of a lot of frantic activity. Later I learned that she had chatted with the paramedics, then said 'I'm passing out'. The paramedics gave her oxygen but she was not breathing. For the next forty five minutes or so they tried to revive her while I called her relatives.
Her death was sudden, likely caused by marrow spilled into the blood by the fracture, causing heart failure. My sorrow at her passing is greatly relieved by the feeling that this was how she would have chosen to pass away, without a lengthy period of invalidism and dependence.

Making Things Better (Or Not)

I have been trying to sign into this blog and make a new post. Meanwhile Google changed things around, making it difficult to simply sign in and post. I hope that I can remember the new rules. I am sure that the people doing this are practically breaking their arms patting themselves on the back with self-congratulation. I wonder how many people have given up the fight and simply gone with another provider.

U 93 and Family Matters

I'm watching U 93, another exception to my decision to avoid R rated movies. I remember the day the world changed. Perhaps I had dreamed intimations of that day. I cannot say for sure. But when I was called into the living room of my parent's home by one of my sisters and watched the World Trade Center being destroyed by a devilishly clever innovation in warfare, I sensed that not only my nation but my family would be impacted by the act.
In France my son Sam was serving a mission. When he heard the news he said he knew that if he had not been serving the Lord at the time, and was home in Provo, he would have gone to a recruiting office right away. As it happened, Same was still in France when the decision was made to invade Afghanistan because of Taliban support of AlQuida, the organization that had planned the use of American Airliners as bombs. When Sam eventually returned to the US after finishing his mission, he returned to college. He finished his degree in Mathematics, applied to graduate school in Electronic engineering, and joined the Army Reserve. In early 2005 he entered boot camp and began his training to become an American soldier. As a reservist he was not immediately deployed, but he was waiting to do so. He returned to college and completed a semester of graduate studies before his division was organized and it was time for him to take additional training in his specialty. He was home when I broke my ankle on January 31 of 2006. Then he was gone again. After some additional preparation he was flown to Afghanistan. Today there is activity there. The American forces are combining with the Afghans to drive the Taliban out of their strongholds. I haven't heard from Sam by blog or e-mail for some time. I pray that he is not in danger, but of course, that was his accepted path. He put himself into a position of risk, and I am proud of him. Proud and prayerful.

Yokes and Burdens

One day I heard something that really enlightened me about a scripture that had been unclear to me. "Take my yoke upon you" was the message. At the time I first heard it and for some time after I thought it was a request for me to take more on myself for the sake of Christ. I was willing, but I wondered how it fit with the promise that in Him I would find rest. It seemed I was being asked to take on even more than I already had to deal with.
Then I listened to a woman who described the nature of yokes. They are used in many areas of the world for both humans and beasts of burden. A good yoke is personally fit to the individual man or beast. It is specifically designed to make it a lot easier to carry whatever weight must be borne. When Christ asks us to take his yoke upon us, he is offering relief, not additional work. His yoke is easy and his burden is light, not the heavy, aching burdens we must bear without the help of the yoke he offers us. Loving, giving, finding joy, creating beauty, offering gratitude, forgiving, staying our frantic pace and contemplating wonder, all come with taking on his yoke.
Life has given me many opportunities to exercise the qualities He asks of me. Forgiving is possibly the hardest part of the yoke, and now that I look back on the path of my life, I can say I have forgiven and it has always blessed me to do so.

The Start of Hmmmmm

I will post my thoughts on various subjects on this blog now and then. Today I want to publish the UVAG newsletter which is almost finished as far as formatting is concerned. This isn't a particularly deep thought, but it's what is mostly on my mind, that and getting my website and home page prettied up for public viewing. Who knows? I may become famous or infamous for some reason and people will start to access my various musings.

Learning to use this blog

Each site has it's own protocol for signing in and making comments. It will be interesting to continue this experiment. I made some major renovations in my Xanga account, basing my background on one Sam uses.

Sometimes I am a Thinker: August 2006

Sometimes I am a Thinker: August 2006
I like the look of this 'skin' so I won't try to mess with it. I borrowed Sam's background image from his Xanga site to make my own Xanga look better. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery as they say.

Making Sure My Identity is Secured

Several years ago I wrote a dozen books I called the Chronicles of Okishdu. While it is unlikely that the books will ever be conventionally published, I began using the name Okishdu for a number of purposes online. Recently I created another identity for a different purpose and soon found that many people used the same name. Therefore, I am going around to various blog provider and securing the name of Okishdu in each one.