Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God

I have received a few batches of letters from my students, all showing concern and caring as I am home now to recuperate from my surgery.

It is obvious as an educator who spent more time with these kids during the week than their parents, they don't grasp the time-span of my 4-6 week recovery period. They live on-the-fly, making decisions and forming attitudes on the emotional roller coaster called early adolescence. Of course, to their credit, before this wake-up call, I spent my time in a regimen of balancing my time between job, family, cross-training, blogging, and caring for perennials. I'm totally in my students' corner on this one: what AM I doing now?

(1) I am doing what the doctor orders: no exercise (there goes the cross-training, a positive addiction), Percocet - no more than 1-pill every four hours for pain, and plenty of water to get my last kidney used to doing all the heavy lifting (I guess I AM getting SOME exercise).

(2) I am realizing the trauma that my body underwent in a 4-hour surgery a week ago. Evidence of it is that I feel new kinds of pain nearly every day as this and that organ and/or set of nerves wake up from being in shock -- yes, in shock. Again, thank goodness for Percocet.

(3) I do not expect students to understand any of the above, nor if it comes to it, anyone who has not been told that (a) without this surgery you will die of cancer and (b) do exactly as you are told until 4-6 weeks pass with frequent monitoring to follow. The comeuppance is I find myself in a very select club and lifestyle very unlike the one I have practiced for most my adult life.

The upside is, I am spending a lot of time reading things I want to read: some Tolkien and more of Pope Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth than I had before. I am dozing under the influence of drugs. I am praying using a Rosary blessed by the Holy Father when he was on his Mission to the United States. I am wondering, if I get a clear bill of health, how long it will take to get back to my former state of conditioning. Only the last item sounds very selfish and a little silly -- after all, it didn't keep cancer away did it?

But I must have hopes -- small 'h' -- and the only way I can have hopes is by believing in a Great Hope -- the kind that Cardinal Newman spoke of.

And so, gentle reader, I beg your forgiveness if I am off the mainline, out of the loop, and in a side current not of my own volition or doing. I also ask for your prayers and intentions as I try my best to be faithful, hopeful, and loving in this desert time of my life. Many thanks.