Secondhand...

(Prompt or not: Secondhand)

~*~

I wonder why the pointers on an analog clock are called hands? Hour-hand. Minute-hand. Second-hand. The second-hand is actually a third-hand. Or maybe the first-hand, if one counts seconds first, before minutes and before hours.

Clocks. Last night I watched Neil deGrasse Tyson taking me into Possible Worlds of light and the history of the scientific discovery of how light works. (Waves. No, particles. Waves and particles?) And how by the act of a witness observing the light, its particles change into waves. Or something like that. And still, no science can explain how that happens. How that just by a witness observing the light changes the way light expresses itself. He spoke of a quantum clock made with the element strontium. 

Strontium?! I take a strontium supplement every day for my bone health. 

Along with calcium and vitamin D and the consumption of leafy greens. And I take the drug Boniva every 6 weeks, right before my every-6-week injections which alternate between a steroid lumbar epidural and steroid cervical spine trigger points. Steroids help keep me mobile, help keep me functioning. I had to start on the Boniva a few years ago in order to continue my corticosteroid treatments. I wish I didn't have to get steroid injections every six weeks and take prednisone every day. 

Roids and I. We have a very long relationship. I could write volumes on their effects, their side effects, their moods and swings and confusion. And the relief they bring. Decades ago I labeled them "the trash can drug." You think you are better, but you're not. They hide symptoms, like putting a lid on a trash can. The trash is still inside. 

As I watched deGrasse Tyson last night, I was enthralled with the idea of possibilities, with the little I know of energy medicine that perhaps most allopathic western physicians consider woo-woo. But, I've had experiences that I can't deny, with energy modalities. 

Today I felt scattered, disoriented, a type of hypomania. Partly, mostly, due to my routine epidural I received Monday. This morning, when I went to unplug my headlamp from charging, the green blinking light would not go off. 

Are you hypomanic too? 

My headlamp works as my reading light. Today my reading included some of Leviticus, which I'm slowly getting through (after detours for Hebrews and Job). Which led me to reading about the history of the God Molech. All the sacrifices and blood shed to these gods. It's appalling. 

I unplugged my headlamp and it just kept blinking, without being plugged in. It does that on occasion. And when it does, it won't turn on. But usually the blinking stops in about 30 seconds. Yet, not today.

After about 3 minutes, I decided to hold it in my palm and try some energy woo-woo, tidbits I'd read up on some years back. Plus, if observation can change the way light manifests, maybe my intention of peace could stop the blinking. 

It worked. 

Probably coincidence. But it's a fun thing to think about.

Monday was my 32nd epidural. I received my first one in December, 2013. I get wearied, but I muster gratitude. In comparison to most of the world, if I die tonight, I've lived a rich life. 

A peek inside...

(Prompt or not: Hiding)

~*~

My brain feels so scattered, disoriented. I don't know if I can write anything worth sharing tonight in the writing workshop. 

Do I just go back through my journal pages? Which too are scattered, literally. Some pages are in my handwritten journal, some in my current Sudoku puzzle book, some on my private blog. 

I really like my current Sudoku book. I'll be sad when I've finished all its puzzles. I have only 9 to go, of 162. The book is spiral bound. The pages have wide margins, and the paper is really nice -- sturdy, easy to draw on. In the margins, I often doodle and sometimes journal. I Sudoku and doodle and journal as I lie in bed awaiting sleep, at night or at a daytime nap.  

My doodles end up with lots of faces. All sorts of faces made out of random, abstract lines and circles that I allow my hand to freely draw. In the abstracts, I see foreheads and noses and indention areas for eyes. So, I draw them into characters. Birdy characters. Bears. People. Aliens. A seal riding a bicycle. What is it with faces? Most always, I draw a smile. I want them to be happy.

The word "happy" has gotten a bad wrap, maybe? In The Way, we were taught that happiness is circumstance oriented. But that joy is an inside job, not dependent on circumstances. Joy is godly; happiness is worldly. "Worldly," meaning not spiritual; but rather of the material, temporal realm. Joy is eternal.  

What a sucky way to complicate emotions which are already complicated enough. And it calls into question one's motives. Like, if I'm only happy and not joyful, I'm living in the material, temporal realm; not the spiritual, eternal. 

Sometimes I doodle what I call "Squigglies," faces with eyes made out of a twirly motion which I can't describe in words. Sometimes I doodle "Wrinklies," faces with wrinkled borders. 

~*~

Deer friends...

I lay in bed last night, waiting for sleep.

And I began to cry. 

I feel so defeated. Defeated. 

More tears flowed as I cataloged my losses.

Mainly friends who have gone missing. 

Though I'm really the one who went missing.

Then I counted the few friends who I still communicate with. 

I really am not able to do more. 

Neurological fatigue simply doesn't allow it.

This morning, I awoke to tears.

I pushed my weary body out of bed.

I opened the blinds.

A lone deer was in the back yard.

Meandering. 

Sniffing the ground. 

She came almost, all the way, up to the deck.

My heart smiled.

The other night, three doe and two fawns were laying in the back yard.

They bring me comfort.

I'm still dealing with shingles.

The boils are gone, along with the intense pain.

But the fatigue continues, multiplying my normal fatigue.

And my head, inner ear, and jaw still hurt. 

On my right side.

Low level pain. 

And they itch.

And a sore appeared in my mouth.

On my top gum, right side.

Another shingles gift, I reckon.

My next epidural is on November 30th.

It will be number 32. 

I wonder how long Job was sick?

Bitch on a bike? No... ~ Space Pirate? Yes...

I originally posted the piece below on 11/16, in the morning. By evening, I was feeling self-conscious about it, a bit too vulnerable. So, I put it in draft. I've been known to do that. I also wanted to edit it. I've been know to do that too, a lot. 

I wrote it on 11/15.

~*~

11/15/20

Can I make sense of these journal entries? Sense enough to put together something to maybe post on my blog? Something to read aloud to my fellow writers in the phone/Zoom writing workshop? I do the call-in-phone option. Someone would have to drag me resisting and grunting to do Zoom. 

I want to fall in love with writing again. It has become laborious to put together pieces for publishing. Anymore, I only "publish" on my blog and in the workshops. My blog gets very few readers. It used to get more, but in February, 2015, I disabled the search engine function.  

I thought this morning, Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps writing has become laborious because of the amount of detail that goes into my selfcare each day. Maybe I can't paint a picture with words because my detail allotment is drained. Maybe the workshops will help me. Help me to write again, beyond journaling. But maybe journaling is all I can do. Write in less detail because I already know the details.

I used to love words. All kinds of words. And etymologies. And making up words. I don't know the names of many birds or plants or flowers. So I tell myself, If  I were to name this flower, I'd name it Starburst. My made-up name is just as legitimate as whomever made up the name that stuck.

I guess I still love words; I just play with them less. 

When I was a Bible believer, I'd spend hours on word studies. Using a concordance and lexicon. Big, heavy, important books. Before the days of internet. 

The internet. A net that catches things and then dumps them onto a screen. Mostly I'm thankful for the internet, and mostly I'm not. 

Writing used to be my passion, my escape into reality. Sometimes I'd feel guilty because I spent so much time journaling. And it saved my soul, maybe even my family. I have over 20 journals. Why do I keep them when those deemed more wise than I have advised me to toss them or burn them because they put off some sort of negative energy as they sit on a shelf or recline in a box. And that negative energy keeps me stuck. 

I don't fully embrace that belief, though it kinda might be true. But for now, I keep my journals. 

The movie, The Martian. The scene where Mark Watney passes out as he hits 12 Gs after being launched from Mars in the stripped-down MAV. MAV stands for "Mars ascent vehicle." Right before he passes out, he's swimmy. His head rocks from side to side, his eyes roll back, and then he goes under.

That swimmy moment is how I feel on my bad days, during my roughest weeks. Like I'm going to collapse. This has been a regular occurrence for the past eight years. At first it was alarming. Now it's part of my normal. In my worst years, before getting my toxic heavy-metal levels down,  I'd also feel like all my organs were going to fail.

But my organs did not fail. 

And I've never collapsed. 

One of my most difficult symptoms is cognitive fatigue. Most people call it "brain fog;" I call it "brain mud," because it's so thick. The muddiness takes turns with "scrambled eggs," a different brain feeling -- blobs of separated, scrambled clumps lodge around my brain. 

And then there is the "vortex" -- like a dark tornado but it goes down instead of up -- and I'm caught in it as it tries to suck me into its void. I kind of relax into it because I know fighting it just makes it harder to endure. It's like the scene in the Wizard of Oz where Miss Almira Gulch, the mean bike lady who becomes the wicked witch, rides her bike and then her broom round and round while she's caught inside the tornado. 

I don't want to be the wicked-witch or the bitch-on-a-bike. 

But I like the idea of being Mark Watney, Space Pirate. 

Spontaneous eruptions...

This is my canvas. 

I can throw upon it whatever I desire.

I can display it.

Frame it.

Trash it. 

Currently I'm living with shingles. It began Wednesday, 10/07/20. That morning, as I was going through some of my stretches which I would call routine, and they are routine, except that I don't perform them as routinely as I'd like to. I would say as routinely as I "should," except for that word, "should." My "should" antennas wiggle reminding me to mind my "shoulds." That is to limit them because there are soooo many "shoulds."

The best mental health provider I've had, Dr. McColloch, who I greatly miss since he's retired, addressed my "shoulds" back in 2000. My should-basket was too full. "Unrelenting standards," he called them. So, I changed my vocabulary for awhile to eliminate the word "should." Changed it to "it'd be nice if..." That change helped me tremendously back then and continues to help me now.

On Wednesday, 10/07, as I performed my it'd-be-nice-if-I-stretched-more-routinely stretches, I noticed soreness in the nape of my neck, down to my shoulder, on my right side. 

What's this? I wondered. Did I favor my right side when I was biking yesterday? 

My left low-back-hip area had become exacerbated on Saturday, 10/03, from it's regular continual low-level pain to almost a spasmodic pain, for a day. Thus I wondered if I'd favored the right side when biking. My left hip is the hip that has endured trauma from the now-replaced defective, metal-leaching hip implant. Back in 2017ish, the surgeon told me I may always have low-level pain in that area, due to the trauma. So, I live with it and manage the best I can. 

Or is it just another weird pain springing from my right side?

Back in May, I'd had an upper-back spasm-spot, in my right lung area. It was so bad, John had to stay home from work that day. Long story short, I ended up with some breathing issues and had to pull out my nebulizer which I rediscovered was broken so the doc's office issued me a new one. The PA at my doc's office ended up sending me to the ER for a Covid-19 test. At my ER visit, I was given quite the work up. (My heart is in good shape.) Thankfully, my C-19 was negative. But the lung issue, shortness of breath, low-grade pain persisted for a few months, slowly clearing up. Still don't know what that was.

And here was my right side again, with a weird symptom. Sometimes I wonder if these odd, spontaneous symptoms manifest because my body is pushing out heavy metals that have been stored in fatty tissues. Probably not, but I do wonder. 

By Friday, 10/09, the soreness in my neck-nape was gone, but had morphed into a sporadic shooting pain up the back of my neck, into my head, and toward my temple -- in a direct line, not spread out. And  the back of my head was feeling bruised on that side, like I'd been hit in the head with a blunt object. The pain in my left hip had ameliorated for a couple days previous only to become exacerbated again on Thursday. I felt like one of those black ink drawings of a human with pains springing out of body parts. 

On Friday, I saw my acupuncturist, who is also an herbalist. The treatment really helped my low-back-hip area, and he mixed me up some pain herbs from me to drink, to add to my regimen. I went for a 20-mile bike ride after my acupuncture session. 

By Saturday afternoon, I had a small lump on my head in the area where it felt like it'd been hit. Puzzling. 

Why didn't I go to the allopathic, western, medical doctor? Because I have lived with lots of weird, spontaneous nerve pains for years. They appear, sometimes morph, sometimes disappear. They come, and they go. I've learned to wait, instead of jump, to see what they do. 

Saturday, I went online and read about blood clots and aneurysms, wondering if I should go to the ER. I've had lots of ER experience and really don't like going. My symptoms didn't match either clots or aneurysms. I said to John, somewhat jokingly, "Do I have a spontaneous concussion?" I've had a spontaneous black eye in the past few years which we never found a cause for. 

As I lay in bed late Saturday night gently guiding my fingers over my tender scalp,  I felt two small sores. Did I get bit by an insect biking on the New River Trail Tuesday? 

When I awoke Sunday morning, I had boils on the front of my neck, which made me wonder more about an insect bite. Then I thought, Is this shingles? But then dismissed or got distracted from that thought until suppertime as the boils began to appear in my ear and John said, "I wonder if it's shingles?" 

So, I looked up shingles and was relieved that my symptoms appeared to match shingles. "I think it's shingles." After I moment I added, "It's something normal!" Except it was in head and on my scalp instead of the typical shingles-torso-waistband area. I thought it ironic that it's "all in my head." 

I was at the doc Monday morning. Due to Covid, we met outside in the back of Edward the Explorer. That's what I had to do in May too. She confirmed it was shingles and I began valacyclovir, an antiviral drug that addresses shingles. Like other antivirals, it needs to be started in a certain window of time to be effective. I was in the window. 

As the shingles progressed and my inner ear began hurting and I communicated with my doc through my patient portal on Wednesday,  we upped my regular prednisone dose from below 10 mg to 60 mg. Shingles in the ear can cause Ramsay Hunt Syndrome which can cause deafness. Adding steroids to valacyclovir  can help keep that from developing. 

I again had an Edward the Explorer visit with the doc on Wednesday so she could look at my ear drum. She felt confident Ramsay Hunt would be held at bay. *knock on wood*

But, now the head pain was spreading to my frontal area, all the way across my forehead. It was low grade and I thought maybe it was from wearing my glasses askew due to the boils behind my ears. So I decided not to do that anymore. 

I began to feel really bad in the wee morning hours of Thursday. The frontal head pain was stretching down my face to my teeth. And nausea had set in, like a migraine. I was miserable. 

I called the doc Thursday morning. The nurse called back within an hour, and we started me on gabapentin. By Thursday evening, the frontal head pain had eased. It's still there, but not debilitating. 

Yesterday, John and I went on a Blue Ridge Parkway drive. Typically the BRP refreshes both of us and where we go in Virginia isn't too crowded, even in the fall, as far as crowds go. But yesterday, was different. We'd never seen it so crowded in Meadows of Dan and at Mabry Mill and on the Parkway itself. Our back-route drive up to and back from the BRP was more refreshing than the Parkway itself. 

On the way home I told John, "I need to bathe and cut my nails after we get home." Two self-care tasks that are no longer monumental, but still require effort beyond what an abled-body would require. 

John replied, "Remember when I used to have to help you cut your nails? Must have been over a year I had to do that." 

"It was at least a couple years," I replied.

A nice reminder of how far I've come. 

 

Stuckness

I've been working on a writing, or rather rewriting, project. And I am stuck. Which really doesn't surprise me. Why am I stuck, and why am I not surprised?

I'm not sure I can fully answer the first part of that question. It's deeply complex. Us humans, our hearts and minds, our relationships, our interpretations, our histories -- they are complex.

Part of my stuckness is in regard to memory. I realized the other week that I had disremembered at least a couple timeframes and the reasoning behind a decision I made way-back-when. But I also question that reremembrance of the disremembrance. Just how accurate is my reremembrance regarding my motivation way-back-then? But motivations can be layered; there can be multiple sides, some not in our conscience awareness.

How much might I be filtering? Memoir is not an autobiography. It captures the essence of given experiences and the narrator's view, even if some of the linear facts and details might be disremembered.

Another part of the why to the stuckness -- the past couple days, as I've been able to think more clearly due to my recent epidural treatment, I've come to acknowledge just how much more deeply the experiences of the years which I am revisiting probably affected me. That doesn't mean I've not realized that depth before. But maybe I'm now realizing, or better realizing, it on another level.

How do I allow myself to address that realization? How do I put it into words? How can approach it without becoming emotionally involved or engulfed? "Engulfed" seems too extreme of a word. "Involved" doesn't quite capture the pull. I will be emotionally involved; I don't see how that can be avoided. But I also want to keep a distance to help my clarity. I neither want to minimize and dismiss the effect on me, nor do I want to overstate it. But maybe I should experiment with both ends - engulfment and distance.

Regardless, the impact was deep and consequential.

Why am I not surprised? Because, as stated above, I'm not ignorant of the impact that time period had on my psyche and body.

I first AWOLed the Way Corps in 1980 and again in 1983. Not until 2017/2018 did the thought hit me that perhaps my younger self was actually trying to keep my integrity, rather than abandoning it by not fulfilling my Corps vow, though I still regret the method in which I left the Corps. But my leaving was, at least in part and maybe a big part, my self, however awkwardly, trying to be who I was and not what I thought I should be, not what I felt was my obligation to be. And again, it's probably more complex than that. But, what if it's not?

The main point is how so very deeply those years may still influence me, maybe more than I dare want to admit.

Disability defensiveness

Them and Us
Other and Self
Abled and Disabled

It entered my conscience recently that I have tripped myself with an Us-Them mentality when it comes to my disability. On one extreme, I have consciously and unconsciously, felt/thought that the Abled (the Them) cannot begin to understand the cognitive, emotional, physical, and neurological fatigue I (the Us) struggle with, sometimes battle with. That can set up a resistance, an avoidance, in me (the Self) to engage the Abled (the Other). How can They possibly know where I am coming from? That mindset and behavior can set one up for isolation. That seems kind of obvious as I type it out.

I know, factually, that I am not alone in this struggle when it comes to living with an often laborious-arduous-onerous chronic illness and/or disability. I also know that others have it much worse than I. I know I endeavor to put on the abled-face and words and persona when I'm conversing with others (2D or 3D), and I endeavor to don the "healthy" appearance, regardless of my capacity that day. Sometimes I fail and fall into the explanation pit of trying to convey just how much I struggle. And the mindset unconsciously enters that Us-Them territory, where our differences become larger than our commonality. (This is mostly all in my head, I think?) Especially because I can ride a bike, and that may come across that I don't suffer with extreme fatigue and weakness.

And here I am again, as I type this, entering the territory of explanation.

I have told myself that when I find myself defensive about my limited abilities, to catch it before words come out of my mouth, and to direct my intention not as a defense, but rather to educate, if/when it feels appropriate to talk about how nerve damage works. But, too often, I've ended up going into too much detail, and still do sometimes. Then afterwards, I second and third and fourth guess myself and start thinking that maybe I came across with a victim mentality, or have actually entered into a victim mentality, or that I shared too much about myself, which I may have. At times when that has happened and John has been with me, I've asked him something like, "Did I say too much? Did I sound like a victim?" Most always, or maybe always, he tells me, "No, and no." But, John lives with me and has intimately witnessed my struggle and the self-care I go through to function. He's not an unbiased observer.

Another thing...the loss of friendships. But, they aren't really "lost." Rather they have become "absent." I could pick up the phone and call friends whom I used to keep in touch with. But, I don't have the cognitive and emotional capacity to do so. I am extremely limited when it comes to cultivating a friendship. On the other hand, the friends with whom I've not been in contact could always reach out to me. But, even if they did, I don't have the energy to cultivate more relationships; I can't give like I once did when I was more-abled. So I cut off that quasi-desire. (I have a quasi-superstitious quasi-belief about "be careful what you wish for.")

Again, from reading about others who live with visible and "invisible" disability and chronic illness, I know I am not alone in these type struggles.

One of the main points in writing out some of these feeling-thoughts (or thoughty-feelings) is the Us-Them mindset. I had never considered it in the Disabled-Abled context. It's something I'm gonna ponder a bit more, endeavor to catch when that mindset-shift is happening within me, and then endeavor to regulate it.

How do I regulate it? At the top of my list is to remember Dad.

When Dad was around 63 he was rendered a quadriplegic. I was intimately involved in his almost-daily care for nine months. Then almost-weekly (one and more times per week) for the following eleven years until he died. Even with all that, I couldn't fully understand what he went through (especially in his head) on a day-to-day basis. I got a glimpse, for a couple years, when my nerve damage was bad, bad. When I'd lay on the floor or bed and ceiling-stare because my physical body was so very heavy, when rolling over was a monumental task. (Not to mention dressing and bathing and feeding myself.) I'd think of Dad having to wait for whomever was on turning duty that night to come turn him to avoid his body developing bed sores. (Not to mention bathing and and feeding and dressing and bowel-and-pee functions, to list a few of the challenges.)

These are things the Abled (in those categories) may not be able to wrap their experiential head around; and that's okay. I've never lost a child or lived in adverse poverty or a war zone, or lots of other things. I can only grasp so much of another's suffering without having suffered it myself. This is part of being human.

Another thing I can do is, to the best of my ability on any given day, be aware when I might be entering defensive territory. And, if I'm able, reset that intention. And in all that, be easy with myself. Less critical. Surely that's possible? My defensiveness is not evil; it's understandable. That said, I can redirect it toward education (if that's appropriate) or changing the subject, if I have the energy to listen well enough. Put myself in the Other's shoes. Be more cognizant of our commonalities; we all have struggles, and those on a continuum.

There's more. But that's all I feel like writing now.

Epidural #31

I receive epidural #31 tomorrow. I received epidural #1 in December, 2013.

The past three weeks have been rough. My normal depression has been abnormally high in intensity and duration, along with anxiety. Thinking is difficult, making choices monumental. I'm having great difficulty accessing the part of my brain/mind that houses the tools to manage the psychological roller coaster. So, I just hold on, knowing it will end. But, it just keeps on chugging. I'm tired.

This morning as I was thinking about how to flip my perception -- (Something I do to find silver linings in given circumstances. Doing such can really shift my thinking patterns into a larger context of life.) -- the thought hit me, It needs to rest. "It" being my mental-health-navigational compartment.

The thought caused me pause and a sliver of clarity. I don't recall ever considering such. That that part of my mind -- the part that helps me so often, a part I think of as more mechanical(?) in nature -- needs to rest too. It makes sense; even machines need rest. In order to rest, that part of me, that regulator, has simply shut down...temporarily. Surely, it is temporary.

And perhaps it feels shut down because of the increased load that has been put on it the past three weeks. Capacity overload to an already taxed system wearied from years/decades of toil; especially the recent years managing polyradiculitis, metallosis, etc., and all their repercussions.

My hope is that the effects of my epidural tomorrow will help, and I'll once again have the cognitive, emotional, and physical energy to navigate better. One of my concerns with this recent, almost incessant, struggle is that a pattern of negative loop thinking will create a pathway that becomes more difficult to divert. That has happened before. And, if it happens again, I may need to hire professional help to get back on track.

Six weeks ago, in my last round of cervical spine trigger point injections, I received 20 mg less steroid medication in my injections, 100 mg instead of 120, an experiment, which I asked to give a try. (I get the cervical spine, trigger point injections every twelve weeks alternating with the every-twelve-week lumbar epidurals.) I did not fare as well as usual and had to take higher-than-usual daily doses of prednisone (which may be a factor in the more intense emotional roller coaster). It's hard for me to believe that 20 mg could make that much of a difference...but maybe it does.

There has been a more-than-the-usual amount of butterflies in the back yard, most of them Yellow Tiger Swallowtails. I've enjoyed watching them, how they sometimes float and sometimes fly. One flew really high into a tall tree. I had no idea butterflies could fly that high. I looked up the subject on the internet and read that people flying gliders have seen butterflies as high as 11,000 feet! What seems such a delicate creature is actually quite strong, equipped to endure winds and the cooler temperatures at higher altitudes. Fascinating.

Another thing I thought about this morning:
I don't have much of a support system, when it comes to people checking in on me. But then, seldom do I ask for support. After years of this chronic condition, it's just so "routine." And I seldom engage people anymore, because of the energy expenditure required. I'm not quite sure how to put this without maybe coming across as "woe is me." But this morning I thought, My epidurals are like a haircut. That is, they are so routine they seem no more significant than receiving a haircut. Why would I ever ask for support when it comes to getting a haircut? But I know epidurals aren't haircuts. And (in reality) I don't think others think of them as haircuts.

I doubt most people think of epidurals at all, mine or anyone's.

~*~

9/08/20, 3:15 PM, just before leaving the house for my 4:00 neurologist appointment to receive
epidural #31:
Hubby hands me a card that had arrived in our mailbox. Normally our mail doesn't arrive until 5:00 PM or so. The card is from a long-distance friend in Chicago, just checking in and letting me know how much I'm valued. She even put a cycling postage stamp on it. (I'd like to get some of those stamps.) The Listeners had perfect timing.

Word Over the World: Scene Four

Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.

~*~

In September 1979, at 20 years old, I entered in-residence training with the 10th Way Corps at The Way College of Emporia in Kansas. Though outreach was part of the Corps' "lifetime commitment to Christian service," the Way Corps program was not an outreach program like WOW. It was The Way's "leadership training program;" only Way believers with natural leadership ability were to apply. 

Before entering in-residence training, a Corps candidate had to complete the Power for Abundant Living Class series: the PFAL Foundational Class, the PFAL Intermediate Class, and the PFAL Advanced Class. In order to complete that series, a believer had to complete The Way's Advanced Study Courses which included The Renewed Mind, The Way Tree, Witnessing and Undershepherding, Christian Family and Sex, Basic Keys to Research, and Dealing with the Adversary.

Way Corps training consisted of four years: a first-year apprenticeship, when a trainee served closely with Way Corps on the field or at a Root Locale; a second year in-residence at Way Root Locales; a third year as an interim year, when the trainee served wherever assigned by The Way; and a fourth year back in-residence at Way Root Locales. The in-residence years were work/study programs; trainees helped maintain the campuses while taking courses which were mostly taught by Way Corps. Training was financed via funds solicited by the Way Corps trainee. Those who funded the trainee were called "Spiritual Partners" and agreed to a monthly, or other, financial donation. The Way Corps trainee was to daily pray for and to monthly write to each Spiritual Partner.

Through my Corps years I spent time at three Root Locales: Kansas, Indiana, and Ohio. I spent a couple weeks in New Mexico at The Way's LEAD Outdoor Academy. LEAD stood for Leadership, Education, Adventure, and Direction. It was The Way's wilderness, rock climbing program which I thoroughly enjoyed. I did not spend any Corps time at The Way's Root Locale in Gunnison, Colorado. 

Along with the work/study program the in-residence training years included a few outreach exercises. "Witnessing days" were held at random; trainees would go out in their Root Locale communities and "speak the Word," to find those "hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Once a year in-resident trainees served as Lightbearers: a two-week assignment when trainees lived on the field with Way believers and endeavored to recruit enough new people for the area to run a PFAL Foundational Class. 

Hitchhiking was another requirement; trainees were to witness to those who gave them rides and were to "believe God" to arrive at assigned destinations within given time frames. 

I hitchhiked over four thousand miles while in The Way Corps. On one of my hitchhiking assignments, from Kansas to New Mexico, my partner and I did not arrive in the allotted time; we were four minutes late. Our "believing" wasn't "big enough;" somewhere in route, we "must have missed it." ("It" being God's direction, either by inspiration or revelation.) Otherwise, we would have met the deadline. We had to turn right around and hitchhike back to Kansas. 

I have fond memories of my in-resident training and felt I thrived there. Even though our lives were scheduled for us, and we seldom had to think about choices of how to fill our time, I found it challenging, absorbing, and fun.

I was in a cocoon, temporarily protected from the unbelieving world, so that I could grow and hone my skills. I was a willing participant and mostly obedient follower. I felt and thought I was where I was supposed to be -- learning how to do things right so that I could best serve God's people.  I believed, and still believe, that is why most followers entered The Way Corps -- to serve.

~*~

Scene Five, on hold...

~*~

To swim in her chestnut eyes...

~*~

Phone Note. Logged Monday, 8/17/20, 3:20 PM.

At NRT. FF. Plan is to ride to Allisonia and back.
Been crying most all day. Or on the verge of tears.
Has to do with insignificance. Feeling it today.
Dismissed. Really, really non-existent.
Don't know if anything will greet me on the trail today.
A groundhog greeted me on the road. Stopped. In my lane. Looking at Edward and me.
I had to stop. He waddled off the road. Then a couple butterflies.
But I have no idea why cycling the trail helps any of the animals or the earth.

End phone note.

NRT is the New River Trail. FF is Foster Falls. Edward is my vehicle, a 1999 Ford Explorer.

That morning, I'd had deep depression with suicidal ideation. Sadly this used to be a regular occurrence for me. Fortunately, suicidal ideation seldom visits anymore. But this week, it's visited twice. I'm processing and endeavoring to identify any triggers. I do this to help me in the future. More importantly, I'm coming out of the deep depression, I think. Just that I'm writing this post is proof. I'm opening up, as opposed to staying shut down.

The recent suicidal ideation. I don't feel like sharing the details. But, I've been on that desperate, isolated island often enough to know what to do to navigate the elements. It was a hard Monday.

~*~

Earlier on Monday.

I am crying in heaves. But I make myself call Hubby. He's at work. He answers. We talk between my heaves.

I go through the motions of the morning and midday. I pack my biking and food needs and load them into Edward. I hadn't pulled out or packed part of the suicide gear, the pistol.

On the drive up the mountain, my insides are closed off. If I allow myself to open too much...well I just can't do that. It's too painful. So, I shut down. I'm sure it's a coping mechanism. I've lived with this gremlin since the mid-90s. It's not new.

But, I'm not completely shut down.

Feelings of valuelessness.
Isolation. So very, very alone.
Dismissed and misunderstood.
But it must be because of my inability to communicate well. So why try.
Abyss of pointlessness.
A hollow pit.
I have nothing worthwhile to share.

Then the groundhog encounter, which has never happened before. It's rare I see a groundhog on the road, and if I do, it runs. I've never had to stop. The encounter lasts about ten seconds.

Then I pull into the State Park and park Edward. I write my note in my phone. I think about not biking; but rather, just lying down in the back of Edward and taking a nap. Or taking a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. But I know biking will help.

Will anything of significance happen on the trail? Stop Carol. Have no expectations. If you have no expectations, you won't be disappointed.

I begin my ride, heading north on the trail.

The trail parallels the New River most of the trail's 57 miles. There are old, now-closed lead mines along the trail and river. It's a rail trail; at one time railroad tracks and ties lay here carrying an iron horse through this section of the Blue Ridge. The railroad ties and tracks were removed, and now there is a dirt and gravel trail, wide enough still for a locomotive. Only authorized motor vehicles, like Park Rangers and a few locals' golf carts, are allowed.

I stop at Lone Ash, my 5.3 mile mark. No people are on the trail. I text Hubby a photo and message, "..Pretty empty up here. Empty of humans..."

I ponder, Maybe I should just ride back to Foster Falls. But that'd only be 10ish miles. I really ought to ride the full 24.

I continue north on my 24-mile ride.

I hadn't gone a mile when a doe with two fawns are in my path. I slow down. Typically deer run when I approach. But they aren't running. When I'm about 40 feet from them, I stop. I don't dismount to the side; that will scare them off. Instead I slowly slide off Bleu's saddle and stand balancing her between my legs. I don't pull out my phone to take a picture; that too will scare them.

Our eyes meet, the doe's and mine. And we gaze within each other. Her eyes. So peaceful, even trusting. I am mesmerized swimming within the dark chestnut, deep windows to her soul. Then, she nods her head as if to say, "Hello." I slowly nod to her, acknowledging and returning the greeting.

Her eyes seem to shift, like she sees something behind me. I slowly turn my head to look over my right shoulder. I see nothing but trail and woods. I turn back to my new friend.

Again, our eyes meet. And, we pick up where we'd left off. Then, she takes one-and-a-half steps toward me.

This doesn't seem real. But, it is.

My forearms are resting, palm-sides down, on Bleu's handle bars. I turn them to palms-side up, still resting them on the handle bars. My palms are open.

So, what are you going to do? I ask the doe in thought.

Then I hear it. She does too. A fighter jet approaching. It arrives in a second above us, and is gone the next. They are so fast and loud and low. She and her fawns take off in a dart through the woods.

The contrast is startling. The encounter profound. Tears trickle down my cheeks.

No wonder the deer run from us.

I feel anger at the human war machines. Humans and our wars.

The whole encounter felt like an eternal moment. In reality, it was probably only fifty-five seconds, maybe seventy-five.

I finish my ride, 24.5 miles, back to Edward. I encounter more deer, who behave like deer, and some rabbits and butterflies and birds and squirrels. I only see seven humans on the trail and those within a half-mile of my starting and ending point at Foster Falls. One couple walking and one cyclist at my start. And a family of four at my completion.

For twenty-three miles, no humans.

"..Pretty empty up here. Empty of humans..." 

~*~

8/27/20

A few days after posting this piece, I wondered if maybe the doe I encountered was Cove. I'm sure she wouldn't remember me specifically, but she was raised by humans after they rescued her when her mom drowned. She grew up with them about 15 miles south of my 8/17/20 encounter.
John and I met Cove while biking the New River Trail on August 26, 2017.

Word Over the World: Scene Three

Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.
~*~

In August 1978, at nineteen years old, I was "commissioned" as a Word Over the World Ambassador, one of about 1000 volunteers that year. Before going WOW, I made the commitment to enter The Way's leadership training program, the Way Corps. My WOW year would serve as my first year of Corps training known as the apprenticeship year. WOW was a one-year commitment; the Way Corps was for life.

I was sent to Milwaukee and was designated a WOW Family Coordinator. Along with overseeing the WOW family, I oversaw our Twig Fellowship. There were four WOWs in my family, all of us barely adults -- myself, Mary, Tom, and Luke. Our family was assigned with six other WOW families which made up a WOW Branch. David, an 8th Way Corps trainee on his interim year assignment, was our WOW Branch Leader.

The first task for WOWs was to secure jobs, housing, and furnishings. Our family found a small, dingy, lower-level dwelling (one of two, stacked) located on an alleyway off Bartlett Avenue on the East Side near the University of Wisconsin. We did our best to brighten it up. Through the year I worked part-time jobs as an office girl, a bus girl at a restaurant, and an ice cream cart driver selling frozen treats at Lake Michigan and around the East Side.

During my first few months on the field, I had lots of doubts and was tempted to leave. I doubted if I was good enough to be WOW or Way Corps, or sometimes even a believer. I'd repeat scriptures over and over in my mind to counter and suppress the doubts. I talked multiple times to Cindy, one of our Limb Leaders, about my doubts and temptation to leave. At our last Carol's-self-doubt-not-good-enough talk, she responded sternly questioning if I really believed Jesus Christ had died for me. I determined then that I had to stay. I couldn't break my commitment; I loved God and believed Jesus Christ was my Lord and Savior. Plus, if I broke my WOW commitment, I'd also be breaking my Way Corps commitment. To break either was shameful, a moral and spiritual failing.

Luke, one of my WOW brothers, was my boyfriend. We had met at the end of Summer Outreach in North Carolina a few weeks before the Rock; it was love at first sight. We sat together through WOW training at the Rock knowing we would be separated for the upcoming year, never imagining that we would be assigned to the same WOW family. It was unhear if for any WOWs to know each other before being assigned together in a WOW family.

We were stunned when we opened our assignment envelopes. How could we serve God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength while living together with teenage love hormones coursing through our loins? Luke was 18; I was 19. I thought that surely God would take care of this and allow a reassignment.

Shortly after all us WOWs had opened our envelopes, we gathered with our WOW Families and Branches in designated sections on the tarmac under the giant big top so we could meet each other for the first time. I privately told David, our WOW Branch Leader, that Luke and I couldn't be in the same family; we were in love.

David took my concern up the Way Tree to higher leadership. The verdict came back. All WOW assignments were by revelation from God. Luke and I were to stay together.

Being in love with Luke and living together made the first months even harder. We couldn't keep our hands off each other. I grappled with how to love God when I loved Luke so much. These struggles only contributed to my self-doubts and feelings of not being good enough, not being able to live up to the standards.

Unlike mainstream Christian doctrine, The Way didn't teach that sexual intercourse before marriage was sinful, but neither did it teach that it wasn't. It was an ambiguous subject, one of those standards that depended upon circumstances and "needs" in the given situation. According to The Way, the word "fornication" in the Bible referred mainly to "spiritual fornication" (loving and worshipping other gods), rather than sexual fornication. 

During WOW training sex was addressed. After all, a bunch of mostly young single people were being put together in mixed genders to live in family units. I don't recall anything from those sex talks at WOW training, other than Wierwille stating something like, "No unbeliever's penis has any business being in a believer's vagina." In other words, keep it in the family.

I was pregnant by October. I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, where our Limb Leaders lived, to get an abortion. My mom paid for it.

I stayed in the Limb Home for a few days after the procedure. The Limb Leaders were kind, but to my recollection we did not discuss the abortion. I spent a lot of time alone in a guest bedroom, crying and bleeding. Other than Luke and David no one else in the WOW Branch knew, at least that I was aware of. The other WOWs thought I made the trip to the Limb Home for something to do with my apprenticeship Corps training. After my few-days-stay, I returned to my WOW family like nothing had happened. At that time in The Way, abortion was considered as nothing more than removing a splinter; except, you could talk about a splinter.

At Christmas, Luke was reassigned to a different WOW family in the Branch.

All that heartache could have been avoided, if not for "revelation."

The year moved forward and was deemed a success. Our WOW family had built a Twig Fellowship. We were taking new believers to the Rock that year; a few were even going WOW and later would go into the Way Corps. Through the year there were times aplenty of laughter, tenderness, and fellowship; times when I had to call the police due to a couple of assaults; times when we didn't have enough money for food, but God always came through.

I was proud I'd made it through the year without deserting my post; proof that I wasn't a spiritual failure. But neither was I genuinely confident.

I was now twenty years old.

~*~

Click here for Scene Four.

Word Over the World: Scene Two

Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.

~*~

Word Over the World
Scene Two

The Way was structured like a tree known as The Way Tree. It consisted of a Trunk, Limbs, Branches, Twigs, Leaves, and Roots. The Trunk represented a country, such as the Trunk of the USA or the Trunk of Canada. Limbs were states, such as the Limb of New York. Branches were areas within a state and were typically composed of about seven Twigs. Twigs were small fellowships held three to four times a week in Way believers' homes. An individual believer was sometimes referred to as a Leaf. Two terms not related to parts of a tree were a Region, which was composed of several states, and an Area, which was smaller than a Branch.

The Roots of the Tree represented the research of God's Word stemming from Wierwille and the Research Department at Way Headquarters in New Knoxville, Ohio. Headquarters is located on the old Wierwille farm, property once owned by the Wierwille family and deeded to The Way in February, 1957. In the 1970s and '80s The Way purchased other training locations in Kansas, Indiana, and Colorado which were collectively called "Root Locales." After The Way experienced a huge exodus of followers in the late 1980s and early '90s, the Indiana and Kansas campuses were sold.

In the early 1990s the concept of The Way Tree faded, and the term "Twig" was replaced with "Household Fellowship." The Way owns no church buildings. It's main gathering place is in the home where believers meet in small groups. A common phrase in the 1970s and '80s was, "Life is in the Twig." For larger meetings, conference rooms are rented.

From the early 1970s through the mid 1990s, The Way's main outreach program was Word Over the World Ambassador, or WOW. The WOW program was promoted as being mainly for the individual's spiritual growth. Part of the reason, if not the main reason, a person went WOW was to learn to hear God's voice more clearly, to learn to operate "all nine all the time," referring to the nine manifestations of the spirit listed in I Corinthians 12. Wierwille said that when a believer went WOW, he or she would "grow ten years in one."

WOW volunteers were sent out in groups called "WOW families." A typical WOW family consisted of four to five believers who were assigned together by Way leadership whom followers believed were directly inspired by God. Except for married couples, and their children if they had any, it was rare that members of a WOW family knew each other before going WOW. They met one another and learned where they were being sent during WOW training at The Way's week-long festival, the Rock of Ages, held each August at Way Headquarters.

The Rock was a huge yearly gathering of Way believers from all over the world. They gathered to "welcome home," with great fanfare, the incoming WOWs from their year of service and to witness the "commissioning," also with great fanfare, of new WOWs as they embarked upon their year of service. The week was filled with fellowship, music, food, and teachings. Most people would camp on grounds in tents or RVs. Others would stay in local hotel rooms. It was like a giant family reunion, complete with a petting zoo, and was deemed a "mini-gathering together," referencing the future time when believers, alive and dead, will meet Jesus together in the air. A common saying through the year between each gathering was, "See you at the Rock!" The Way sold bumper stickers that said the same. At its peak, around 16,000 believers attended the festival. In 1995, after twenty-four years, the Rock of Ages and the WOW program were discontinued.

All WOWs served for one year, from August to August, wherever assigned by The Way. Each WOW was required to work a secular job twenty to thirty hours per week and to do the work of the Ministry forty hours per week. We were to tithe, a tenth or more, from our income to The Way. We were to take one day a week off from our secular job and ministry work. We were to be in bed by midnight each night and up by 6AM to begin each day with at least thirty minutes of prayer and reading the Word. Except for a death in one's biological family, a WOW was not to leave the field during the year of service. One's marital status could not change while on the WOW field, and no births were allowed. The WOW Handbook outlined most of these, and more, guidelines.

I still have one of my WOW Handbooks. On page three it asks: "Who is a WOW Ambassador?"
And it answers: "You as a Way believer make a one-year out-and-out commitment to give yourself as an Ambassador for God on special assignment to hold forth the integrity and accuracy of God's Word. As a WOW Ambassador you are ready and willing to serve in any area you are needed. Share with others what God did for you and what God will do for them also."

At the bottom of that third page, I handwrote a note, a quote from Dr. Wierwille during WOW training: "The only way to get you out of your [WOW] family, is to kill you and carry you out!"

 
He didn't mean that literally, of course; it was figurative driving home the gravity of our commitment. We were sold out, "bond slaves for the Lord Jesus Christ" to stay faithful to our WOW commitment for one year, no matter what.

To desert the WOW field was a spiritual and moral failing.

There were exceptions to guidelines depending on revelation or inspiration from God working within the believer, especially within leadership. Revelation never went against the written Scriptures; it went beyond. Even though there was only one proper interpretation of Scripture, there was latitude within that interpretation. It was like there were at least two standards: a written standard, and an oral standard which changed according to circumstance. Whatever the standard, it was always to be undergirded by the love of God. We were taught that "things are to be used; people are to be loved."

This freedom-in-Christ, adjustable-according-to-need doctrine was one characteristic that drew people to The Way. It appeared genuine; not artificial, like religion. Grace (God's divine favor) and mercy (God's withholding of merited judgement) were wide. Yet, at the same time, that grace and mercy were confined by Way jargon and a rigid, yet ambiguous, doctrine.

~*~

Click here for Scene Three.

Ninety years later...

I'm working on a writing project. Something I've thought about for a couple years. I've finally begun.

The project?

• Refine my story narrative I first wrote in 2008, which I've expanded since then.
• Select memoir pieces, refining them as well, that go more in-depth (than the narrative) into certain life events.
• Print out the narrative and select pieces so I have hard copies, which I will place in three-ring binders.

I think of the two different writings (narrative and memoir) like a bowl.
The narrative is the rim.
The memoir pieces fill the bowl.

I'm to the second part of the narrative. And it's getting hard. Just plain hard.

One (there are more) of the hard things is that I want to be accurate, but memory isn't the most reliable source. I know people know that. And that is part of memoir -- knowing that some things might be disremembered. It's not that the narrator is dishonest or making things up; but rather, the way our brains work, filtering and categorizing. Some memories are vivid, but still might not be accurate. Someone else might remember the same event differently. Other memories are vague, but might be more accurate than the vivid ones. Other memories are stored deep in the memory banks, and maybe forever filed away.

*~*

6/28/20

I meet with Marta tomorrow.
Carol, you've got to work on your story.
But I need to find Mrs. Wierwille's book to get that one section done.
That means I need to go through the boxes. Uugh.

I hired Marta as my mentor. We meet via phone every two to three weeks. I read to her whatever I've reworked in my story. She gives me feedback. Hiring her also gives me a follow-thru incentive; she's like an accountability person.

Maybe you shouldn't be doing this project. You've been dragging your feet.
But you know if you start typing, you're feet will pick up pace.
But what difference does it make? It will probably never be read, except by me.
Maybe the kids will be interested when they are 60.
And maybe not.

Go find Mrs. Wierwille's book.

As I rummage through the stacks of boxes, I come across all sorts of memorabilia. Even some of John's paystubs from jobs he had while in high school. That was funny.

But I can't find Mrs. Wierwille's book.

Damn it. I hope I didn't loan I it out and it went down the black hole. That's a signed copy, with a personal note from her. There's a whole story around that. A significant story. Dang it.

As I continue to rummage, feelings of discouragement lurk about whispering, What difference does printing out my story make?

I open another box.
And staring at me is Memories of the Civil War. A loose leaf, nine-page, typed memoir piece written by my great aunt, Drucilla Watkins Cotner, in 1930 when she was seventy-six years old.

Wow, I'd forgotten about this...

I pause and flip through the pages.

Wow....
What a find. Especially now during our current civil unrest.
I'll read this tomorrow, or at least this week.

I gotta find Mrs. Wierwille's book.

I finish looking through the boxes in the stacks. No Mrs. Wierwille book to be found.

As I walk away searching my brain, wondering where the book could be, I see a large box under the table. I'd moved it there, away from the other box-stacks, when Covid started to make room for a grocery-sanitizing station.

I open the box and there it is, Born Again to Serve by Dorothea Kipp Wierwille.

It was the easiest box to get to, but the last place I looked.

But if I hadn't rummaged through the other boxes, I'd never have found the treasure.

The next day I read Aunt Drucilla's words.
Ninety years after she penned them...

Bane in my quiver...

I used to be challenged with thinking I was unintelligent; I still am at times. It's been a bane in my quiver since at least my high school daze.

"Bane in my quiver." Is that even a thing?

A quiver holds arrows. A bane is something that causes distress. Archaically, bane is something, typically poisonous, that causes death.

I guess a quiver could hold arrows of ideas. And the bane of thinking one's ideas are unintelligent can stop 'em dead. Poison.

One way I used to counter this bane was by thinking of my husband. He's intelligent. Why would he marry someone who is unintelligent?

Too many times I've given the benefit of someone else's knowledge/opinion/intelligence over my own, even when I know the subject well. I still catch myself doing this, and it irks me. Perhaps it's one reason I so enjoy the company of animals and trees.

~*~

I read political and current-event news; I seldom listen to it or watch it. I endeavor to partake in limited doses, but I still overdose too often.

Sometimes instead of reading the news, I watch it. My husband and I don't watch enough TV to justify paying for cable or satellite. With an indoor antenna we don't get any news channels, which is nice. We could watch programs from those 24-hour news channels online. But we don't (though sometimes I watch clips).

When I watch the news, I like the PBS News Hour. I especially enjoy the David Brooks and Mark Shields segment, when I catch it. Hubby likes it too.

On a side note: David Brooks looks like my father, now deceased. Mark Shields looks like, from what I can remember, my Old Testament History college professor at Montreat-Anderson whom I liked a lot, Dr. Newton, also deceased.

When we can, Hubby and I like watching NC Spin and Front Row with Marc Rotterman, both on PBS, UNC-TV. The dialog and debate are respectful. Sometimes it gets a little heated, but we've never witnessed anyone go so low as name calling or treating another condescendingly or assuming the other's motives originate from ill-will.

Hubby and I regularly discuss current events and politics. John lands in the Libertarian camp. I'm somewhere in the middle of the right/left categories. Ideologically I'd be very liberal if I thought it could work -- no borders, no guns, the lion and the lamb living in harmony. Practically, I know that will not happen, at least in this heaven and earth. Some of our species murder and maim and steal and treat our own with complete contempt, as if the "other" isn't worthy of the air they breathe. Many of our laws and regulations are needed because some of our species take advantage of the vulnerable. If we walked in love, we wouldn't need as many regulations and laws. If only life were that simple.

Anyway...I endeavor to educate myself on current events, on history, on cultures and peoples, on ideas from various angles. How much do I retain from what I read? Not much, probably. But I at least get it in my noggin.

In October, 2019, I think it was, I signed up for a newsletter that was just being launched at the time, The Dispatch. I liked it so much that in January I paid money to continue to get full access to their reporting. I look forward most everyday to The Dispatch newsletter in my inbox. It is conservative leaning, though some on the right would say it's not conservative enough. Some in the Trump camp would probably say it's not conservative at all; but rather that the contributors are "RINOs" (Republicans In Name Only).

~*~

The terms RINO and DINO (Democrat In Name Only) remind me of The Way and sticks.

Used to be that Way Home Fellowships were called Twigs. In the late 1980's when The Way began to experience some major exoduses, some of the people that left The Way started their own ministries with their own home fellowships. We folks still in The Way at the time called those fellowships, "Sticks." Unlike a twig which is alive and can bear fruit, a stick is dead. Any Christian outside The Way was considered an "unbelieving believer." A true believer stood with The Way, God's (true) household.

I guess a Way believer could say those "unbelieving believers" and "stick" people are "BINOs." "Believers In Name Only."

~*~

David French is a Senior Editor at The Dispatch. (And yes, I know he's an evangelical and, if I recall correctly, was part of the Christian Right in politics.) Every Sunday I look forward to David's Sunday piece, which focuses on Christianity and current events/news. He always includes a Christian song that has been posted on YouTube, and I most always listen to and watch it. Even though I no longer fall into the Bible-believer camp, I enjoy David's sharings and usually the music.

At the end of reading this morning's piece, America Is in the Grips of a Fundamentalist Revival -- But it’s not Christian, well...I was unsettled. It wasn't new news to me; this "fundamentalism" in the US cultural and political camps.

I have observed on media outlets and on (a)social media similar to what I experienced in the "cult" (ie: The Way) and then in the "anti-cult" movement. It was like two sides of the same coin. We're right; they're wrong. We're good; they're bad. Our motives are pure; their motives are evil. Black; white. No room for nuance or consideration that the "other" may be right, at least about some things?

I have lots of thoughts about the subject, and feelings which waffle about. At times I want to try to put into writing these thoughts and ponderings and observations. And sometimes I do, in my journal. But to put something together to post in public...well...I just don't want to put my energy there. This piece is probably as close I'll get.

The ever-widening gap in the USA? I just don't fall into either side. And I don't want to.

While reading David's piece this morning I thought, Isn't there a rising middle?

And then, "Middle" isn't the right word.... It's more like an oasis between the two fiery extremes.

That's the camp I want to be in. That oasis.

And I thought of some authors/pundits/folks I've discovered the past few years who are part of that oasis - Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt, David Brooks, Bo Winegard, Charleen Adams, John Woods Jr. and folks with Braver Angels, Scott Barry Kaufman, folks at The Dispatch, Brant Hansen, and others. (Hmmm...those are mostly men. Think I'll keep an eye out for more women.) I thought of Hubby and our kids. I thought of friends, 2D and 3D. I thought of my Twitter connections (the only social media platform I'm on), most of whom have a deep love and respect for nature and her variety of species, including humans.

And I realized that that oasis does exists and may be larger than I realize.

I, for one, sure hope so...

This too is America...

6/26/20

I arrive at the little convenience store with three single gas pumps out front, and a drink machine with a full length Dr. Pepper front panel. The store sits at the intersection of state Highway 16 and Grassy Creek Road, right at the NC/VA border.

Oh good, the porta-jon is still out back.

I park Sir Edward, the 1999 Ford Explorer, in the dirt lot behind the store near the porta-jon, which I readily make use of.

It's a beautiful day. Vibrant blue sky. Fluffy white clouds. Temperature around 77 degrees F. Perfect day for a bike ride.

On the 1-1/2 hour drive up I had the thought, I'm feeling well. My epidural from last week is working. Maybe I should skip biking and just head up to Grayson Highlands. I wonder if I could actually hike to Thomas Knob Shelter?

Due to nerve damage, I haven't been able to do the shelter-hike since 2014. It's a rugged, 7-mile round trip with lots of rocks.

No, no way. I can barely hike two miles, much less seven. And on those rocks.

I open Edward's hatchback door and pull out Bleu, my Trek 820 bicycle. I balance her on her kickstand and drop oil on her chain. To distribute the oil along the chain, I kick up the stand and hold Blue's boy-bar with my left hand while spinning the pedals backward with my right. I then kick down the stand, and she balances on her own again.

I apply sunscreen to my arms and face and bug repellent to vulnerable body parts. I sit in the back of Edward, legs dangling over the back bumper, with the hatchback door raised. I pull up one leg at a time and place that foot on the bumper while I take off my Teva sandals and put on my Teva biking shoes, which technically aren't biking shoes.

I strap Bleu's headlight to her right handle bar and pull up-and-out her already-attached-to-the-left-handle-bar rearview mirror. I put my water bottle in the holder attached to her angled bar below her boy-bar. "Her" "boy-bar;" she's a true bi-cycle.

I lock Edward with a beep from my key fob. I hide the keys under the sheepskin on the driver's seat and close all his doors except the hatchback. Edward has a keypad entry. No need to carry keys with me.

I don my yellow-and-black biking gloves and strap on my screaming-yellow brain-bucket. I buckle my black hip pack around my waist and slide it so that the pouch is in the back.

Hip pack necessities include empty baggies for devices in case of rain, a baggie with tissue if I need to pee, a baggie to put any used tissue in, a little metal tin that holds stomach-acid relievers, my asthma inhaler, a referee whistle for bears or emergencies, an old driver's license for idee, a $10 bill, my bluetooth to listen to music, and a mask in case I need to have close contact with a person.

I turn on Blue's flashing headlight and flashing taillight. Grassy Creek Road is a lightly traveled, country auto-road, not a greenway. I take the motto "be seen" seriously.

I tap Cyclemeter on my phone-screen, the app to track my mileage and other particulars. My phone has no service up here, but the app works offline. My Pandora music app also has offline stations. I might listen to music on the last half of my ride. I strategically place a couple paper napkins over my phone-screen to protect it from overheating in the sunlight and stuff it in the zipper pouch that's part of my black carry-pocket attached with Velcro to Bleu's boy-bar. I leave the zipper part-way open to keep the insides from getting too hot for my phone.

My black carry-pocket holds a spare tire tube, two small air canisters with one small pump, and three tire levers for changing out the tube if I have a flat. I don't have the strength to change a tube. But trail-magic has worked both times I've had a flat when riding; an "angel" comes along adept at tube-changing.

I better check with the store folks to make sure it's still okay that I park in the back. The clerk is warm and friendly and gives me a thumbs up.

I bike around eight miles - six on Grassy Creek and two on Brook Green. Three cars pass, only one going my direction.

On Brook Green I encounter two sets of dogs, two dogs in each set. I dismount and walk my bike letting them know I respect their territories. One set belongs to a couple kids out playing. The kids come over to hold the dogs who look like mixed-breed spaniels, beautiful markings. The kids and I chat for a few moments as I walk by pushing Bleu. The other set of dogs look like mixed-breed pitbulls. On their second barking round I take off my helmet to look less strange. On their third barking round as I walk pass talking to them in a friendly, respectful manner and keeping my fear scent in check, the owner walks out of his dwelling and calls them back. We exchange a friendly chat. Once passed the pits' territory, I put my helmet back on, get on the saddle and ride.

On my return ride back to Edward, I was, as usual taken by the scenery.

Blue skies. White clouds. Rolling Virginia hills of the Blue Ridge. A gentle breeze kisses my cheeks. In the distance cows graze; a tractor rolls across a dirt field.

I dismount. I breathe in the scene, taking pause...

This too is America...

Such a contrast to what I read in some news' takes, right and left, about the "carnage," "destruction," "chaos," "war zones," "anarchy," and how "horrible" this country is, supposedly on "the brink of collapse." Exaggerations? In my opinion, yes. At least for now. And when viewed in a historical perspective.

I have no doubt that at some point there will be war, in the truest sense, on our soil. War that wreaks havoc strewn across our landscapes and concrete jungles. It seems inevitable, because that's what greed does.

But the scenes before me this day are hopeful.
Peaceful.
Holding their joys and sorrows from the past.
Survival.

Once back to Edward, I doff my biking gear and let it all air in the sun while I eat my turkey sandwich and orange as I sit on Edward's back bumper with the hatch open. The scene now in front of me. Worn metal storage units, an old VW Beetle, a dumpster. Dirt, gravel, green grass and trees. Blue sky, sunshine, white clouds.

This too is America...

After eating I load everything up for the 20-minute drive to the magical Grayson Highlands wondering what awaits me.

I'll get to visit my friend Grandfather Fir, my prayer tree...

Word Over the World: Scene One

I'm currently working on a personal project which involves editing/reworking my story, Seeking Life Along The Way, a three-part narrative I first wrote in 2008.

In refining the narrative I am dividing each Part into Scenes. Following is the first scene of Part 2.

(To read the reworked Part 1, click here: Why Would Anyone Join a Cult?)

~*~

Word Over the World
Scene One

After dropping out of college in December, 1977, I moved back to Hickory, North Carolina, my hometown, where I had just finished my first Power for Abundant Living class. Also called "PFAL" and "The Class."

I, my friend Janet who had taken The Class for her first time along with me, and Belinda who was serving her apprentice year for the ninth Way Corps moved in together to form a "Way Home." We would do our part helping to "move the Word over the world" by running Way classes and home fellowships (called Twigs), witnessing to unbelievers, daily praying together, reading the Bible and Way publications, memorizing scripture verses, and having "believers meetings." That's what you did in a Way Home.

A "believers meeting" is a gathering of at least three "fully-instructed" believers to "hear from God." To be "fully instructed" means that a believer knows how to properly operate the "inspiration manifestations of speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, and prophecy." One Way believer leads the meeting and calls on three or four believers, one at a time, to bring forth a message from God via tongues with interpretation or prophecy. The Way draws its instructions from various scriptures in I Corinthians 14.

By January, I'd landed a job at a local hospital in the laundry department folding human wraps, hot and staticky fresh out of the large industrial driers. Linens, blankets, gowns, towels, washcloths. One of my fellow folders, Michael, was my first Way recruit. Michael was a year or so older than I.

I spoke the Word everywhere I went, talking the Bible and The Class, inviting people to Twig, sometimes going "door-to-door witnessing" solo. One of my Twig leaders, when introducing me to Way state leadership, said "Carol witnesses to everything that moves."

Victor Paul Wierwille was The Way's founder and first president. He received his Bachelor of Theology degree in 1940 from Mission House College and Seminary (now Lakeland University) in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He received his Masters of Theology in 1941 from Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. That same year he was ordained into the Evangelical and Reformed Church, which he continued with until 1957. In 1948, he received his Doctorate of Theology through correspondence work from Pikes Peak Seminary (now defunct) in Manitou Springs, Colorado.

Pikes Peak Seminary was located in a 4500 square-foot house, had no resident instruction, no list of faculty and no accreditation. The legitimacy of Wierwille's doctorate is questionable. But, at the time, that didn't matter to me. Jesus had few, if any, worldly credentials. And he was the Son of God.

I first met Wierwille in February 1978, at a large Way gathering called a Heartbeat Festival held at the Omni Hotel in Virginia Beach. I waited, alone, sitting in an upholstered chair in a dimly lit alcove outside a conference room where Wierwille was meeting with the Word Over the World Ambassadors. At midnight, he walked out of the room. I stood up, walked over to him, introduced myself, and said, "I want to go WOW this year." (WOW, an acronym for Word Over the World, was The Way's main lay outreach program, volunteers serving for one year, from August to August, wherever assigned by The Way.)

The next morning, I sat on the front row in the large meeting of hundreds, if not a thousand or more, people. At the end of his teaching from the stage, Doctor pointed at me and said, "You're going WOW next year; aren't you honey?" I nodded my head yes.

And then he asked, "Have you signed up yet?" I shook my head no.

He responded with a bellow, "Well come on up here!" He motioned his arm for me to join him on the elevated stage, which I did, and he personally signed me up to go WOW.

As I stood with him on the stage in front of the sea of onlookers, he again enthusiastically bellowed, this time to the whole audience, "Who else wants to go W.O.W!?!"

 As people came up to the stage, I helped hand out the blue WOW sign-up cards.

Little eighteen-year-old me, on stage with the "man of God of the world," our "father in the Word." "Doctor," as followers affectionately referred to him. I felt large and small at the same time. Privileged. Awed. Humbled. I was doing God's will for my life.

It was intoxicating, but not in a scary or uncontrollable way. I was high on the "love of God." I thought there was nowhere else on earth where one could experience this unique oneness, unity of purpose, synchronicity. I later came to call it "the chewy, caramel center of God's heart." It was almost tangible and was a feeling that would be duplicated at Way functions multiple times in the following decades.

Before going WOW in August, I jumped on board with The Way's statewide summer outreach program, WONC - Word Over North Carolina. I was assigned with three other young ladies to Fayetteville, North Carolina, the home of Fort Bragg Military Base. We witnessed to a lot of soldiers and ran one Power For Abundant Living Foundational class. I got a job driving a taxicab. My second Way recruit was one of my passengers, Velton, a teenager about a year younger than I.

I was nineteen years old.

~*~

Click here for Scene Two.

From my ride on June 8, 2020...

Little boy solo,
pedaling the winding boardwalk.
Trees, like gentle giants,
watch over him,
providing shade,
dappled with sunlight.
Trust...

Made a new friend, Rufus.
Smiled for his pic.
It was his twelfth birthday...

Bleu leans.
Watching Rufus
in the distance.
It's a long and winding road...

Resentment 2020: Part Two, 3/31 & 4/01

Click here for Part One.
~*~

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

I have felt resentment the past week.
And anger.
Not toward the virus, but toward the able-bodied.
And it has been fierce at times.
Not rageful; but fierce.

May you, the able-bodied, never again minimize situations in which you know nothing, or little, about. You might think you understand. But maybe now you have a taste of the emotional toll of being forced to go solo, just one of the complexities of living with disability or chronic illness.

May you never again sit in some sort of absolute judgement of those less able-bodied or able-minded than you.

May you never again judge another's motive based on your limited assessment of that person's life.

May you never again place your so-called intuition, or God-working-in-you, or God-revealing-to-you your unsolicited so-called counsel and concern.

Stop it!!!

And that goes for me too, for I also am human with my biases.

But damn it folks, keep a check on it.
Consider what your life would be had you walked in the person's sandals on whom you pass your self-righteous declarations.

~*~

April 1, 2020

Writing now, I again feel the anger in my body.

Stop Carol.

Breathe.

Heart-soak the resentment so that it softens.
Allow it to dissolve.
Breathe in gratitude.
Breathe out resentment.

Recall those first years of your current chronic-illness life. After you had to drop out of socializing, even online. Drop out, for the most part, of grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, making anything with your hands, working, hiking, reaching out to help others, conversing with others...

You have had time to adapt.
This is your normal.
So Carol, Easy. Easy.
Reign your judgement.
Temper your anger.

And yes, I know I'm not "completely alone" in managing my illness...

I have a husband who comes home every night, unless he has a trip out of town. Monday thru Friday he leaves for work at 7:00 AM and gets home around 6:30 PM. His round-trip commute is at least 2-1/2 hours each day. He also does most all the laundry and grocery shopping. He used to take care of the yardwork and housecleaning as best he could. But once I began receiving a disability check, I hired a housecleaner and a lawn maintenance crew. That freed up some of his time and eased his care load. In the warmest seasons, he joins me on many-a-Saturday bike ride.

Nor am I "completely disabled"...

I don't have to use a wheelchair; I use trekking poles or a rollator. I can even ride a bike.

Am I complaining? That's up to the reader to judge; all-be-it remember the above from my Tuesday, 3/31, journal entry...keep a check on your judgement.
Am I asking for advice? No, I'm not. So please, don't give any.

This resentment and anger has taken me by surprise, an unexpected reaction to the current circumstances.
Over the years I have felt resentment and anger at times about my disability; it comes with the package.
But I don't recall it being so persistent and fierce, so widespread.

~*~

Resentment 2020: Part One, 3/13 & 3/16

Friday, March 13, 2020

Worked six hours at the studio yesterday. Way too long.
Awoke today with severe pain in my right lower back.
It then spread to my right flank area.

This morning I thought, I must have pulled something sitting for so long. I know I shouldn't work over four hours. And really I should only work two at a time. The price I pay in symptoms is too high.

The conversation from Wednesday night with John didn't enter my thoughts.
The conversation about Covid-19 and me feeling a kind of resentment(?) toward the able-bodied.
I knew the resentment was just a feeling, and I tempered it with logic.
But that really didn't help much.

And two days later, I have back spasms.

~*~

Monday, March 16, 2020

I stop riding for a moment.
I stand balancing Bleu, my Trek 820 bicycle, between my legs.
I look around at Jamieson Park.
Jamieson is located at Muddy Creek Greenway.

It's more quiet than usual.
Covid-19 is happening.
Folks are starting to shelter.
It feels like a physical-distancing incubation period.
Like folks are acquainting themselves with sheltering.
I understand that.

A sentence appears in my brain,
The playing field has been leveled people.

I breath deeply, slowly...
In and out.
One time each.

Carol, that's a terrible thing to think.

I try to identify what I'm feeling.
Breathe...
In and out.
One time each.

What are you feeling?

Resentment. Anger

Both are an unexpected response.

~*~

Click her for Part Two.

Why would anyone join a cult: Scene Six

Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.

~*~

Why would anyone join a cult?
Final Scene: Six

I enrolled in The Way's Power for Abundant Living Foundational and Intermediate classes which, at that time, were combined as one class. The fee at the time was $100; a one-time, non-refundable "donation" paid to The Way International. New students had to attend every session and arrive on time; there were no make-up sessions. If a new student was late or missed a session, she would have to drop that class but would be able to attend the next class starting over at the beginning. Once a student completed the class, she could take it as many times as desired without further payment.

I drove a three-hour round trip, from Montreat to Hickory, to attend the fifteen three-hour audio sessions. The class was held in an apartment on a lower level. There were around thirty attendees; most were repeat students. Seven of us were first-timers. I was good friends with two of the new students, Janet and Gretta.

All students sat in folding, metal chairs which were arranged in straight rows; new students sat on the front row. The voice of The Way's founder and first president, Victor Paul Wierwille, with his Ohio accent played through the speakers from cassette tapes while a Way volunteer sat at the front of the class flipping eight-and-half-by-eleven inch sized charts provided by The Way, a visual to illustrate what Wierwille's voice was sharing. New students were not allowed to take notes. We each received a syllabus and Way books authored by Wierwille. We were instructed to write down any questions we had. If the questions were not answered in Wierwille's teachings over the fifteen class sessions, we could present them at the end of class.

I was rivetted by Wierwille's teachings. Finally, I was getting answers to many of the questions that plagued me. Apparent contradictions in the Bible were explained. I learned that scripture "interprets itself in the verse, in the context, and used before." I learned the importance of understanding biblical customs and mannerisms in order to allow the Word to interpret itself, and the importance of the precise usage of Greek and Hebrew words. I learned that I was righteous before God and that I had "sonship rights." I began to "retemorize" King James scripture verses, repeating them over and over and over in my mind, convincing myself of "the truth." I believed with all my heart that I was learning God's will for my life; it was all revealed in His "rightly-divided" Word.

In my college Old Testament History Class I wrote an answer in response to a test essay question asking to compare Old Testament faith with New Testament faith. My essay was based on Wierwille's research. I received an A+ with a handwritten note from my professor, Dr. Newton, "Excellent research. I have questions about some of your findings." Having been warned The Way was a cult, I felt too uncomfortable and insecure to approach him on the matter.

My prayer-group friends were concerned about me and staged a type of intervention. The six of us met in a small classroom. Some of the metal school desks had been arranged in a semi-circle facing the chalkboard. Matt, our group's leader, stood at the chalkboard and opened with prayer which included ridding the room of any demons. I was seated. The others sometimes sat and sometimes stood.

My friends took turns speaking at me, sometimes hollering perhaps in an attempt to wake me from what they considered my delusion, to save me from the "cult." They each tried to convince me that Wierwille was a false prophet. On the chalkboard Matt wrote scripture references trying to prove to me that Jesus is God. But their words, regardless of how loud they declared them, did not match my experiences with The Way nor what I saw as truth from the scriptures. Yet I also knew that the devil comes in sheep's clothing, Was I being deceived by The Way?

I left the room filled with self-doubt and fear, trying to weigh and sort out my different experiences, and asking myself, Was this the love of God?

Not long after the attempted intervention my college roommate, Grace, who suffered with mental illness, was found in the parking lot on her hands and knees trying to pick up "the sparkling diamonds" that twinkled in the pavement. She had also recently begun using the window, instead of the door, to enter and exit our college dorm room. My prayer-group friends blamed me for Grace's state of mind and bizarre behavior. I had tainted Grace causing her to get "possessed with demons," all because I was attending a Way class and fellowships. I was the only student at Montreat involved with The Way.

These were the people warning me The Way was a "cult." Their approach, for obvious reasons, sent me running in the other direction, to The Way, where my spiritual, mental, and emotional hunger was being fed. One of my favorite Twig Fellowship songs was, "I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God..."

I mailed a handwritten letter to Dr. Wierwille whom I had listened to for over forty hours on audio tape. I shared with him what had happened with my prayer-group friends. I never expected to hear back. But I did. I received a typed letter in an envelope with a return address from "The Teacher" in New Knoxville, Ohio. He commended me for my bold stand and wrote, "When people throw dirt at God's Word, all they do is get their hands dirty."

I finished my first semester at Montreat-Anderson and then dropped out of college to study and serve with The Way. Jesus promised, "Seek and ye shall find." I had found.

I was still eighteen years old.


~*~

Click here to continue to Part 2, Word Over the World: Scene One.