ok, ok, duly chastised... :) (thanks, Jayne Wilcox!)
so i made bold claims and hopeful promises in my last post: claims to blog through my brother's illness and surgery. and clearly, that did not happen.
i realized and was subsequently paralyzed by the idea that people i know will read those posts.
Duh.
i'm the one who told them about this blog.
but when i thought about what i was going to write in several instances, i found myself thinking, "oh wait, what if so-and-so reads this? will s/he understand me? or will it be misconstrued? hmm.. this is more dangerous than i thought." (Don't worry, Mom, it's not you! :))
Sooo... deep apologies for not following through on my promise.
The quick update on my brother is that he is now fine. just fine.
The surgery went exceptionally well. they removed a benign tumor that was pressing on his spinal cord, but was not enmeshed in it. they got it all. there was no particular reason for the tumor, no known cause. he was off work for about a month, and then back at work on light duty. it's sad to say, but i don't even know for sure if he has returned to regular duty, but i assume he has. :) haha. Mom, you can correct that fact, when you read this. :)
I was glad that i went down to Houston to see him before the surgery. For those of you who live far from some friends and family, you know the weird feeling/experience of hearing about serious conditions and events that occur, but you can't really imagine the severity of it. What i mean is, when i talk to my family back home, and they tell me about everything from weather conditions to health conditions, i don't really get it. My dad can tell me about the crazy rain they got (he checks his rain gauge every day and records on his calendar the amount of rain they got. Very meticulous, that man.), and all i can do is think back to when i lived there and imagine that and assume that it is similar. Or when my mom says my dad is sick with a cold, i have emotional distance and just trust that it is minor (but when you are 75 years old, can a cold really "just be minor"?)
So all of that so say, when i went to Houston for the surgery, i saw how bad my brother had gotten. it was a little frightening to see his teetering walk up stairs or his inability to use his left hand or arm. If i had not gone down, i think i would have had emotional distance and just assumed that it wasn't too bad, ya know?
But he experienced some almost immediate recovery. That is, in the recovery room, as the anesthesia was wearing off, he was able to respond in ways that he wasn't able to even a week prior. He had already regained some crucial feeling in his left hand, and those things seemed to improve very quickly.
Likewise, i got to meet his new wife, Jennifer. She seems very swell, and they both seem very happy. yay! :)
hmm... i think i have lots of news to catch up on...
newsflash: i have decided not to do the International Student Ministry with Intervarsity. This was a difficult decision for me, especially since i love the concept and value the work being done there. In a lot of ways, i am suited for it, but in the end, my heart wasn't really in it. After going to Houston to see my brother, mom, and new sister-in-law, i think i had a little time to think. It wasn't that anything particularly happened, but rather, just the down-time to think. And i realized that i was continuing more out of a desire not to let Bill down (Bill is the one who is doing the ministry now, and who has been so key in helping me in the application process). And it really made me physically sick to my stomach to think that i would be letting him down. But i knew that THAT was not a good enough reason to do the ministry.
So where does that leave me? well, church is growing and expanding. we are praying about another church plant, specifically in the Bolton Hill/Mount Vernon areas of Baltimore. Since this comprises the schools of MICA and Peabody, it will most likely be an Arts-focused church. I'm really excited about that. I'm not really interested in doing church in such a way that just uses the arts as a cosmetic-overlay-with-the-intent-of-being-hip-and-cool. That is, i don't want to have "the same old church" that just makes use of the arts in the service of appealing to people because we are new and different. Instead, i would like it to be a church that explores the creative and the theology of God as Creator, and our role as created and creative beings. i'm not sure what that will look like, but i'm excited to think that it might be something that is, at its core, fundamentally different, but also interested in furthering the kingdom of God.
All that to say, i've started working part-time at church. Of course, most people at church think i'm full-time there already, and have been for a long time. but this is my first employment at church. haha. i'm still part-time at the pastry shop, and my work has been REALLY fantastic about it. I'm currently 2 days a week at church, and 3 days at the pastry shop. it's a 4 month trial period, to see how well we all fit. You, the reader, might think that's silly, but we haven't always worked well together. some of that has been miscommunication, some has been unclear expectations, and yet some other has been lack of self-knowledge on my part. ;) (i was explaining it to my co-worker at the shop like this: PR is a man with goals and expectations. he has vision and a list of things that need to get accomplished. Those are not negatives. But when my response and work-ethic was often, "uh, i forgot," it wasn't really helpful. :) Time has given me much emotional distance from this. :))
But, like i said, my pastry-shop-job is giving me a lot of latitude to explore this possibility. By that, i mean that they are being so accommodating by letting me go part-time, with the option of returning to full-time if it doesn't work out. Thanks, Jessica, for being so swell! i promise to do my best to be worthy of your investment.
hmm.. i guess that is all for now. a friend is headed over and i need to get dinner together! :) (mmmm.... chicken soup! and rice. and maybe porkchops with a delicious compound butter i made... mmm... haha!)
so i made bold claims and hopeful promises in my last post: claims to blog through my brother's illness and surgery. and clearly, that did not happen.
i realized and was subsequently paralyzed by the idea that people i know will read those posts.
Duh.
i'm the one who told them about this blog.
but when i thought about what i was going to write in several instances, i found myself thinking, "oh wait, what if so-and-so reads this? will s/he understand me? or will it be misconstrued? hmm.. this is more dangerous than i thought." (Don't worry, Mom, it's not you! :))
Sooo... deep apologies for not following through on my promise.
The quick update on my brother is that he is now fine. just fine.
The surgery went exceptionally well. they removed a benign tumor that was pressing on his spinal cord, but was not enmeshed in it. they got it all. there was no particular reason for the tumor, no known cause. he was off work for about a month, and then back at work on light duty. it's sad to say, but i don't even know for sure if he has returned to regular duty, but i assume he has. :) haha. Mom, you can correct that fact, when you read this. :)
I was glad that i went down to Houston to see him before the surgery. For those of you who live far from some friends and family, you know the weird feeling/experience of hearing about serious conditions and events that occur, but you can't really imagine the severity of it. What i mean is, when i talk to my family back home, and they tell me about everything from weather conditions to health conditions, i don't really get it. My dad can tell me about the crazy rain they got (he checks his rain gauge every day and records on his calendar the amount of rain they got. Very meticulous, that man.), and all i can do is think back to when i lived there and imagine that and assume that it is similar. Or when my mom says my dad is sick with a cold, i have emotional distance and just trust that it is minor (but when you are 75 years old, can a cold really "just be minor"?)
So all of that so say, when i went to Houston for the surgery, i saw how bad my brother had gotten. it was a little frightening to see his teetering walk up stairs or his inability to use his left hand or arm. If i had not gone down, i think i would have had emotional distance and just assumed that it wasn't too bad, ya know?
But he experienced some almost immediate recovery. That is, in the recovery room, as the anesthesia was wearing off, he was able to respond in ways that he wasn't able to even a week prior. He had already regained some crucial feeling in his left hand, and those things seemed to improve very quickly.
Likewise, i got to meet his new wife, Jennifer. She seems very swell, and they both seem very happy. yay! :)
hmm... i think i have lots of news to catch up on...
newsflash: i have decided not to do the International Student Ministry with Intervarsity. This was a difficult decision for me, especially since i love the concept and value the work being done there. In a lot of ways, i am suited for it, but in the end, my heart wasn't really in it. After going to Houston to see my brother, mom, and new sister-in-law, i think i had a little time to think. It wasn't that anything particularly happened, but rather, just the down-time to think. And i realized that i was continuing more out of a desire not to let Bill down (Bill is the one who is doing the ministry now, and who has been so key in helping me in the application process). And it really made me physically sick to my stomach to think that i would be letting him down. But i knew that THAT was not a good enough reason to do the ministry.
So where does that leave me? well, church is growing and expanding. we are praying about another church plant, specifically in the Bolton Hill/Mount Vernon areas of Baltimore. Since this comprises the schools of MICA and Peabody, it will most likely be an Arts-focused church. I'm really excited about that. I'm not really interested in doing church in such a way that just uses the arts as a cosmetic-overlay-with-the-intent-of-being-hip-and-cool. That is, i don't want to have "the same old church" that just makes use of the arts in the service of appealing to people because we are new and different. Instead, i would like it to be a church that explores the creative and the theology of God as Creator, and our role as created and creative beings. i'm not sure what that will look like, but i'm excited to think that it might be something that is, at its core, fundamentally different, but also interested in furthering the kingdom of God.
All that to say, i've started working part-time at church. Of course, most people at church think i'm full-time there already, and have been for a long time. but this is my first employment at church. haha. i'm still part-time at the pastry shop, and my work has been REALLY fantastic about it. I'm currently 2 days a week at church, and 3 days at the pastry shop. it's a 4 month trial period, to see how well we all fit. You, the reader, might think that's silly, but we haven't always worked well together. some of that has been miscommunication, some has been unclear expectations, and yet some other has been lack of self-knowledge on my part. ;) (i was explaining it to my co-worker at the shop like this: PR is a man with goals and expectations. he has vision and a list of things that need to get accomplished. Those are not negatives. But when my response and work-ethic was often, "uh, i forgot," it wasn't really helpful. :) Time has given me much emotional distance from this. :))
But, like i said, my pastry-shop-job is giving me a lot of latitude to explore this possibility. By that, i mean that they are being so accommodating by letting me go part-time, with the option of returning to full-time if it doesn't work out. Thanks, Jessica, for being so swell! i promise to do my best to be worthy of your investment.
hmm.. i guess that is all for now. a friend is headed over and i need to get dinner together! :) (mmmm.... chicken soup! and rice. and maybe porkchops with a delicious compound butter i made... mmm... haha!)
posted by kristi at
7:05 PM
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2 comments
