Manic Joys of Stressful Seasons

So we are now into our fourth week of watching Forrest 24 hours a day. He was hit by a car on Halloween morning, had to have a leg amputated, and had surgery on his other back leg. For the first week, his liver almost failed, and he was on his deathbed, then on the second week, he snapped out of it, and became his same old silly self.

After he came home, with the price tag of a new car, I have watched him for most of the 24 hours each day. He had to have a second surgery on his one back leg because the sutures didn't stay after the first day of recovery. So now he has a bigger cast, and it has a rounded bottom, which makes him shakey on it. Every time he goes out, we need to keep him on a sling to keep him from bouncing too hard on his back leg. So each time he stirs in the night, I am up to see how he is doing. Since Forrest has always stirred a lot at night - so do I.

Tonight April came to visit. April was the first person to help Forrest when he was hit by a car. Somehow he got up with his seriously mangled leg, and hopped to her. She was two cars behind the car which hit Forrest. She drives a trash truck, and stopped to help him. She held him, and used her hand to stop the bleeding until I arrived on the scene. She probably saved his life. In all the furious action to get Forrest to the Vet Hospital, we never actually met April, nor did we hear the story until tonight. Somehow she tracked him down at the Vet, and then found us, and wanted to come visit him.

In the midst of a series of stresses, and tragedies over the last year, meeting April seemed to bring joy to the house.

Of course, I question myself and wonder: Will the joy last for an evening, and dissipate quickly to the bland feeling which comes with discouragement? or will it prove to be one of those steps up toward normality?" (Perhaps I should have used the word normalcy, because normalcy wasn't a word until a President used it in a speech, and as we know normal doesn't exist.) Is this just the manic up of a bi-polar swing?

Over the last three weeks I have slept few hours each night working my doggy-nursing position. I am sure sleep deprivation, added to stress helps create a sense of having bi-polar disorder. Dog accidents, sickness in the family, financial stress, and naughty Christian leaders can help create stress which leads to sleep deprivation - we know here at 7 Upham Street.

I saw Elijah go from slow to happy yesterday as well. He was feeling terrible - which is common as his kidneys are failing, but he found out that it was primarily because his blood pressure was so low. That means that he had to stop taking one of his meds which is supposed to bring his blood pressure down. That was something like mildly good news, so he was happier when he came home from his Nephrologist visit. Up, down, up, down we go in this house lately.

I've never been bi-polar, although I've experienced the swings from mania to depression which mark its presence over this season of stress. I am hoping that mania, and depression are fading away into the stability of simple joy. April's visit may be a simple return to joy, but perhaps it is a mild manic swing. I'll let you know. But right now, we're smiling here at 7 Upham Street, and we are not even taking any happy meds.

Bland with a B and the Creation of Brainless Christianity

I continue to have periodic attacks of bland moments. You know - my brain goes into that gelatinous, tasteless time warp. I had to add the word tasteless, because grape, or lime jello might actually be a cool thing to get stuck in for a few moments. So it happened again while I was looking at agent B's reply to my last post. I stared at a spot on the screen, and went blank. I think that I was staring at a little button on the blogger screen. I am certain it wasn't agent B's fault. I don't think that his writing has that effect on people, but then you'll have to check out his blog, and find out if it does that to you. Perhaps Mike of Earthsea could discover if agent B is a Jedi Master. Then I will know that I am being intellectually infiltrated by the undercover operatives from Abilene. Agent B does reference Obi Wan in his blog of July 8th, but then perhaps I developing paranoid moments along with my Bipolar/PTS/Autistic/Bland moments - and any other symptoms of stress I have not yet identified but may manifest like demons in a corny episode of Charmed. Oh right, there are no non-corny episodes of Charmed.

Well, back to my blandidity (which is cooler word than blandness.) I want to experiment with writing about what actually goes on in my mind in those blandiditynesses (which is now a really cool new word.) I was staring at the screen, and now I will write the thoughts that came to me while I looked at what I think was the "Save as Draft" button. This is what was in my mind for the those brief 5-7 seconds:



"hmmmm."



The end.

I think that this writing may have been more meaningful than the last. Last time I only thought "bug." Hmmmm may be pregnant with potential thought. I think. Then again maybe I didn't think. My wife was saying at church that scientists have proven that the mind is never in neutral. I'm not so sure after experiencing blandidity, because there truly was some blank space before and after hmmmm.


hmmmm....


Okay that was a thinking hmmmm, and so I added the elipsees.

Is it possible that the manner in which heavy-handed Christian leaders abuse their flocks actually creates brainless Christians? My experience is that after having been treacherously treated blandidity (my cool new word for which I am really proud of myself) sets in. It attaches itself like that huge blob of tar which got stuck to our tire a few days ago.

Authoritarian Christian leaders creating brainless Christians through subtle abuse - is it possible?


hmmmm....

or was that hmmmm?

Bland Leading the Bland?

My buddy Allan loves to use this quote which he picked up from his days working with YWAM. "It's the bland leading the bland." I'm sure it is a reference to non-pentecostal, unemotional worship found in many churches, but I am thinking that it might be a reference to my frame of mind from time to time.

Over the last three months I have been writing snippets of my story in experimental prose. I have attempted to write in such a way as to portray my thought life as outwardly unemotional and simple, but inwardly tumultous and confused - like a child with autism, because that is how I was feeling at times. With less success I have written stories in an attempt to portray the emotional rollercoaster of being bipolar. The same experiment was given to Post Traumatic Stress with greater success.

But what does one say about feeling like nothing?

I have been having a writing cramp. No, a full brain cramp. No, something more than that.

The church has been doing well. We have quite a few new faces which have appeared over the last couple months, and they are a really colorful bunch, who love being together - those who have met Jesus, and those who are only just discovering that He still hangs around humans in nearly tangible presence.

Despite this season of blessing, I could get stuck staring at a wall with barely a thought for extended time periods. What does one compose about these bland moments? I suppose I could fill a page with phony references to transendental states of consciousness, but the fact of the matter is that I am occasionally frozen in the present as though time became gelatin, and I was swimming deep in a flavorless vat of it. I suppose I could write about the things which I end up staring at, and the thoughts which fill my mind. Okay so the following is my first experimental attempt to write about my bland state of being, and my captivity in the object of my vision:


bug.

Bipolar disorder is viral!

I have a new theory. Bipolarity is viral, and it mutates in the next generation of hosts to Tourette Syndrome.

One day I was a hero, and two weeks later I was a goat. This came from the the same individual - the same "leader." I was talking to my buddy Steve shortly after I became a goat, and he responded with these words, "What is he? Bipolar?" I laughed for a long time, and still laugh when I think of that moment. Not that I think that being manic depressive is funny, but that it so perfectly defined the moment.

Unfortunately, leadership which works from a bipolar model creates tensions in the people who suffer under its cruel mood swings, and in turn we become moody by virtue of the pressure, and the suffering we endure.

I have noticed a growing tendency for Christians to swear like bikers. (Hmmmm, did I just speak disparagingly of the noble class of individuals who ride chopped Harleys? I must rethink my typecastings.) And when the new found variety of Christian curses like a sailor, it holds less guilt than purchasing an ugly sweater. (Whoops, my brother was a sailor, and he is extremely polite. Typecasting #2 down the toilet and out into the ocean.)

I have noticed that cursing Christians are generally non-institutionally minded, tired of the same old churchlife, seen enough to feel sick about the state of Christianity kind of people. Many of them have been burned by leadership in the church, and its politics. They have experienced the mental and emotional sickness of manic-depressive, two-tongued leadership, and have suffered under its frightening vacillations.

I have been vacillating emotionally myself lately. It has been brought on by being jerked back and forth by a bipolar leadership style. That bipolar leadership has spoken its own cursings to me. Not the four letter word variety, but the formal curses - those words of destruction which tear at the soul. In turn I find my mind filling up with words of the four letter variety, and having to fight them back.

I've always hated the word "crap." I even dislike typing it at this moment. It is considered a minor curse by some, and a simple descriptive exclamation without the typical "four letter" distinction by others. Despite not liking the word, it has been rolling off my tongue in moments of frustration when I am alone. Unfortunately, because the pressure of life is great, the lone moments of frustration come far too often each day. Simple things like waiting in traffic, or hearing a crying kid in grocery store can frustrate me. I normally can smile about those things.

Have I contracted the bipolar disease from bipolar leaders? Has it infected my mind, and is it mutating to Tourette Syndrome?