let's get on with it

 I must have started this blog entry a dozen times so far.  I think this is the one.

It’s been a minute since I’ve blogged anything, and in that minute, MUCH has happened on the health front.  Right before Thanksgiving, 2023, I started having a lot of swelling on my legs and feet and that old, “congested” feeling was coming back- yeah.  Great.  The heart stents from 2020 have failed, and it’s gonna be time for the big cutdown triple bypass operation.  And, on top of that, I had been laid off from my job of the last 5 years (a company I dearly loved), and we just bought a new house, and work is scarce, and……..well, shit.

Except that it wasn’t my heart.  It was fine.  The problem was that I was what is known as “diabetic ketoacidosis” or DKA, which is weird.  Shouldn’t be happening at all.  My diabetes was pretty well controlled- but guess what?  It wasn’t. I had a blood sugar of over 430, an A1C of 13.7 and a creatnine level of 7.8 (anything over a 2 is very bad) and my protein level was immeasurably low- super anemic.  Bottom line: I was dying.  For real.  My kidneys had gone the way of the dodo, and I was staring down the barrel of being forced onto peritoneal dialysis. 

Oh, it’s fun to be me………..

After 2 weeks of being in and out of the hospital, with at 15-20 needle sticks/injections/infusions per day (I could make whistling noises if I walked fast enough- if I could walk, that is) I was sent home, where I am now.  Things are on the mend now, and numbers are looking a little better each day, but I have a LONG road ahead of me, and those that know me will understand the gravity of this statement- this is, by far, the single hardest health issue I’ve ever experienced.  Full stop.  But none of that has anything to do with why I’m writing this blog entry.

Because of this and a few other happenings in my life, I’ve gone into what I can only describe as a “soul searching walkabout”, where I am re-evaluating many, many things in my life.  And being the critical thinker that I try to be, I decided that no matter where the evidence and trail leads, I will follow without preconceived notions or hangups.   Everything is up for grabs, and I do mean EVERYTHING.  In doing this, I decided to try and start small- my diet.  That’s controllable.  I’ve removed an awful lot of things out of my diet – kind of scorched earth like, too- no carbs, really low fat, NOTHING fried, no potatoes or pasta, etc.  The result?  My A1C this morning was 8.8.  It’s working.  Next was rest and trying to unplug.  That seems to be helping my blood pressure- I’m onto something.  Let’s keep going and see where this takes us……….

And it was inevitable- I found myself really and truly re-examining relationships in my life and my faith.  I knew I’d hit this at some point, but I honestly didn’t think it would happen that soon, but boy it did and HARD.

What I realized was that my relationships weren’t surrounded by my faith as much as they were rooted in my faith, which is completely different.  I had this recalcitrant idea in my head that, as long as someone believed in something like I did (not necessarily WHAT I believed in) that I could have a relationship with them.  What I didn’t realize is that when one of my best friends came to me and told me that he was renouncing his Christianity earlier this year, I instantly had a very difficult time relating to this person.  They didn’t change, and I didn’t change- we just “lost” a commonality that had a lot of meaning, but I still love this person very, very much and I know they love me, but something was different and I couldn’t figure it out.  Until I got very, very sick.  Then it was all too clear, and even though I pledged to follow this trail no matter where it leads, I really, really hated what I was seeing.

My faith has been a lie.  The whole time.  And I never, ever saw it that way, and I didn’t see it coming.

Now, mind you, and I want to be crystal clear here: I am still a Christian.  Very, very much.  But I am not the Christian I was 60 days ago.  Not even close.  I am an ardent fan of Jesus, and I can honestly say that since I’ve been thinking about this, I feel even closer to Him now in many, many ways.  I have figured out what has been missing all this time in my life now – and it’s not what you think (hell, it wasn’t what I thought it would be!) – and it’s simply this:

People need to be Jesus to others.  People DO NOT NEED to be told to do things to MAKE them like Jesus.  In other words, what people need from you is support, help, assistance, empathy, compassion, caring and love.  They DO NOT NEED you telling them that they need to be that way.  You should do this without the need for reciprocity or an expected return.  Don’t castigate them if they don’t do as you do.  Don’t yell at them.  Don’t tell them that they are going to hell, because you don’t get to make that call.  (I don’t either, but there are those I like to encourage...)  Live and let live.  Love EVERYBODY all the time and stop this absolute bullshit practice of saying that “love doesn’t constitute acceptance” – because it DOES.  An example of this-

Remember the woman at the Jacob’s well in Samaria?  He tells her what she did wrong in her life – but he doesn’t condemn her for it- and he tells her to go and sin no more- guess what?  I’ll bet you a shiny new nickel that that woman DID sin again, because even though she was forgiven – by Jesus directly – she was still a flawed and frail human being.  Was she still forgiven?  You bet she was.   Was that first forgiveness null and void because she absolutely committed a sin later in life?  Not at all.    Was Jesus, who knew everything about this woman and who more than likely knew that she would sin again wrong for even doing this in the first place?  Nope.  Did Jesus want her to sin again?  No.  Then for Him to do this, he had to both LOVE her and ACCEPT that this was going to happen.  You just cannot get around this, folks.  Jesus didn’t spend one pico-second telling her that if she didn’t listen to Him that she was going to go to Hell, nor did He give a 45 minute sermon on the wages of Sin and Death- He showed up, was present, exhibited love and acceptance and launched His ministry.

Sidenote: All of you miscreants who think that women have a lesser place in ministry or are somehow not imbued with the “correct spiritual acumen” need to collectively remove your craniums from your gluteus maximums: in every, single reveal of Jesus’s ministry and miracles, it was to a woman FIRST.  Every.  Single.  Time. 

Now, here’s where it gets a little more pointed, and I’ll say right now that I am not sorry if I offend folks with this last part.  As of this writing, this has become a 100% non-negotiable for me, and that’s not gonna change.  What I mean is that if you’re first reaction to this is to try and correct me or sell me on some kind of “theology” that says that I am “backsliding” or bending to fit societal norms or something, I will consider that hostile and toxic, and you can go straight to…….somewhere else (because I don’t believe in Hell) and we are done.  I ain’t kidding.  This is sure to cause some rancor in some of my relationships, and I can honestly say that I don’t care.  You don’t even have to say goodbye- in fact, I ask that you don’t.  Just unsubscribe and unfriend and un-Insta-G or whatever you want to do.  I’ll not wish you a good life (I won’t begrudge you one, either) but nothing is getting in the way of me seeing this through.  NOTHING.  There are relationships within my own family (one in particular that is really toxic) that are about to get a Biblical send-off from me, and that’s just how it has to be. 

So, let’s get on with it.

More to come.