(should you wish to comment, sent to ortiz.tom103@gmail.com)

Friends,,

This edition is borrowed from the Henri Nouwen Society.  It was sent to me by my friend and mentor Bernadette Bach.  I had been lamenting to her on how I was struggling with not being productive during my recovery period, and how I had enjoyed the past activities pre-surgery. Shortly afterwards, she sent me this meditation below. By the way, today (Jan.6. two years ago) I had my first surgery. I have since returned to a lesser schedule of activity, and I am grateful that I have succeeded in recovery..

(NOTE: the text below are words of the author, not mine.)

Pruning

Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-dresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, to make it bear even more” (John 15:1–2). These words open a new perspective on suffering for me. Pruning helps trees to bear more fruit. Even when I bear fruit, even when I do things for God’s kingdom, even when people express gratitude for coming to know Jesus through me, I need a lot more pruning. Many unnecessary branches and twigs prevent the vine from bearing all the fruit it can. They have to be clipped off. This is a painful process, all the more so because I do not know that they are unnecessary. They often seem beautiful, charming, and very alive. But they need to be cut away so that more fruit can grow. It helps me to think about painful rejections, moments of loneliness, feelings of inner darkness and despair, and lack of support and human affection as God’s pruning. I am aware that I might have settled too soon for the few fruits that I can recognize in my life. I might say, “Well, I am doing some good here and there, and I should be grateful for and content with the little good I do.” But that might be false modesty and even a form of spiritual laziness. God calls me to more. God wants to prune me. A pruned vine does not look beautiful, but during harvest time it produces much fruit. The great challenge is to continue to recognize God’s pruning hand in my life. Then I can avoid resentment and depression and become even more grateful that I am called upon to bear even more fruit than I thought I could. Suffering then becomes a way of purification and allows me to rejoice in its fruits with deep gratitude and without pride.

Hey Bus Driver, why did you take me here?

(readers please note: this blog is not very good at forwarding replies.  If you wish to reply, please direct them to ortiz.tom103@gmail.com)

I never expected where the Driver took me in the last two years.  I can tell you that physically, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in June 2019.  After the diagnosis, everything changed in my life.  Multiple surgeries, complications, dozens of trips to Albuquerque. Countless days of physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional journeying.

While each surgery seemed to be the end of the story, sometimes weeks, sometimes days after each procedure, things would go south.  Another several weeks, sometimes months before "fix it" procedures were scheduled and planned.  A test of patience, endurance, trust, pain, anxiety.  Almost every emotion and challenge came my way.  

I am happy to say, all seems to be working and I don't anticipate any further treatment.

That being said, there are still challenges ahead.  I lost quite a bit of weight, so diet and exercise begin my new journey.  After effects of the surgeries have left me with other challenges.  Along the way, the Driver challenged me to accept each new phase, and grow stronger in faith.  Also contemplating the value of life, love, and acceptance.  Today, my goal is to cherish what I have, and learn from I could have easily called the last two years a waste of time, an unnecessary struggle. By the grace of God, I chose to seek a different path.  Some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit were necessary for me to endure.

1. Understanding.  Not that I fully understand why this happened, but I know I have grown through this experience.

2. Council.  I heard from, and reached out to so many people during this time, and genuine concern, council carried me through each struggle.

3.  Fortitude.  This experience has helped me endure, and have strengthened my resolve to face all challenges with total faith.

4. Knowledge.  I researched ad nauseum to learn about my condition.  In addition, I searched for the knowledge (see 1, 2,and 3) above.

5. Piety.  Boy did my prayer life change and increase.  I realize now that prayer need not be reserved only for the times of need, but has been part of my life in gratitude for having endured this journey, and helped me focus on what is important.

I had an army of people praying for me. The need  of  the hands of the professional medial personnel are essential, but in my experience, so is prayer   I feel blessed that the support team, starting with my amazing wife Pam.  Along with that, the doctors, hospital, staff, and everyone that worked with me (and on me and in me 😌 in spite of my struggles, they made my journey many times easier.  

Thank you God (the Bus Driver) for sheltering me on the bus and as I await the nest stop I will accept whatever you ask of me.  My life has changed, and in several ways, so have I.  Mostly, I understand better than ever, how precious life, family, and friends are.  Most importantly, I am grateful for my stronger relationship to God.   

 The day that Coco died:

I NEVER pick up stray animals.  One afternoon on my way back from the golf course, I saw this precious little girl on the side of the two lane highway.  She was scared, and it had just finished raining. I knew that she would not last long on that road.  I pulled over and put her in my passenger seat.  She had no idea who I was and I did not yet know who she was.  I brought her home.  That was almost 10 years ago.   She loved people, but we never had puppy dates so she did not interact well with other dogs.  We had, and still have Snickers, our smaller male mutt.  The quickly became buddies, and were inseparable.  

A few weeks ago, we noticed that Coco was loosing weight.  We started treating her for worms,  She showed no signs of distress, but was consuming lots of water.  Long story short, she jumped into the back seat of our son David's car, and went for a ride.  When David got home and checked on her in the back seat, she was lifeless.  She never gave us any heads up that she was needing more help than we were giving her.  I can only second guess if she could have gotten healthier if we had taken her to the vet.   She was loved, given a good home, and will be greatly missed.

I am now physically healing well after several surgeries,  and hope to become more active in a couple of months.  I was looking forward to taking her for walks, something I couldn't do because of my surgeries.  I am so sad!   I have some good pictures of her, and I have many memories of her being close to me.  I loved her.  

Darkness and Light

 I've struggled for quite a while what to write about.  So much has happend to everyone this year, it is difficult to understand, and as I say, 'we are all in this together yet separate'.

My life got turned upside down January 8 when I underwent surgery for prostate cancer.  Should have been a routine procedure, but boy did it go south quickly.  Rare and difficult complications put me in a lifestyle that has been a challenge to say the least.  With any luck, my life will return to normal before summer.

Adding to that, Pam's parents both passed away within six weeks of each other.  Dad went peacefully in his sleep.  Mom declined after Dad's passing, and we watched her linger.  They will be buried together on their wedding anniversary of 70 years.  Beautiful occasion as their marriage was strong and inspirational.

So now I come to Darkness and Light.  We just passed the Winter Solstice.  Ending the slow journey into the shortness of the day, and with that more darkness every day.  Then on December 21 it turned around, as it allways does with this event.  It has to be this way.  The earth is so perfectly balanced that all the natural phenomenon that happen throughout history are not optional, they are part of our existance and survival.  It is a beautiful thing.  Having said that, winter solstice is not always easy.  The long nights, the bitter cold (12 degrees tomorrow morning! Pray for our homeless).  And yet, we know that each day moving forward will get longer and give us more light of day, until summer solstice repeats the cycle.

As for me, I sometimes feel that the darkness can be unbearable in comfort and progress to get better.  Yet as I reflect on the winter solstice, I realize that what has happend in my life this year WILL turn around.  For every difficult challenge I have experienced, I have been blessed with an outpouring of support and love from so many people, and so has Pam with her loss.  Speaking of Pam, she has truly been my Guardian Angel.  Sometimes it takes getting knocked down before I can appreciate how much I really have.  I realize I cannot dwell on the past, and won't expect any more (or less) than what my dear Lord has waiting for me.  I have been blessed with many things, Faith, Love, Family, resources to live comfortaby and loving supporting friends.

I guess today's blog is my form of prayer in saying "Thank you God for all you have given me, and I pray that I have the strength to continue to appreciate these blessings."

PATIENCE !!!

Patience.  How long does it last?  How long does it take?  What is it?
Been working on it.  One of my weakest virtues.

Some have patience by nature, some by practice, some by suffocation.

With my recent situation, I have been "forced" into practicing patience, or giving up.  Turns out, giving up is not an option.  I'm okay with that.  I have longed to be able to practice patience for much of my life.  My father was the "poster boy" of patience.  I never really understood how he did it.  Some day, if I am lucky enough to meet him in heaven, I can ask him how he was able to find this place in life. 

Life has a way of drop kicking some of us into a place that makes us face challenges head on.  We have choices.  Move forward, retreat, wait.  Some  things limit our choices.

Because of my medical situation, I have been confronted with many choices, which have required choices.  How do I get through this?  Where do I go from here?  Why bother, whatever is going to happen will happen.  Do I care? Does it matter?

Ultimately, I realize I have one life to live, and I need to need to deal with what is happening, and what is the best path forward.  In my mind, this is my confronting patience.  Not easy, not fun, but necessary.

I have promised myself to move forward and trust the Driver to take me where He wants me to go.  I will follow him and trust in him, and be happy where He leads me. 

Sheesh

I got ready to sit down and write some profound ideas.  Earlier I went to the store (mask in place and gloves) to get a few things that we "needed".  Impulse buying.  I saw caramel vanilla ice cream.  Just now, I got ready to write, and thought, "I'm gonna have some of that".  I opened the carton and realized I picked up chocolate chip mint instead.  Oh well, I'll munch on it anyway.  So much for profound motivation  : >).

I've had a couple of songs going through my head recently.  We collectively have experienced some strange times.  The "Corona" virus has turned our world upside down.  Visit with your friends?, celebrate special occasions?, be part of the world?  Not so much.

The songs going through my head are, "Big yellow taxi - Joni Mitchell" and, "If your going through Hell - Rodney Akins".

Mitchell: Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got till it's gone, you take paradise and put up a parking lot.

Atkins: If you're going through Hell, keep on going, don't slow down.  If you're scared, don't show it.  you'll get out before the devil even knows you're there.

I guess change is inevitable, ie Mitchell.  Personal struggles we eventually all face, some more difficult than others, ie Atkins.

So the question is, what do we do with our lives and these challenges?

Personally, I can roll with the punches (Mitchell) on the virus thing.  Only so much we can control.  By the grace of God I don't have to go to work (retired!!).  I stay in touch with everyone that I love, and keep my mask on when I go out.

I've had significant physical struggles this year (Atkins).  I've learned that perseverance, patience, and trust are essential to "going through Hell",

I'm learning that so much is not under my control, so I have to let my Yellow Bus Driver decide the route, show me the way, and accept what He has in mind for me, and help me through the "tough times.

Please be safe, listen to the birds in the morning, and stay the course.  Blessings.

Life goes on

It's not my normal to post one day after another, but here it goes.

When I went out to get my newspaper at 4:45 AM today, (yup, still an early riser) I saw the moon in it's glory.  As I look outside at 4:00 PM I see rain dripping off the roof.

So where does this put me, or us in the world of struggle.  Be it corona virus or major surgeries it doesn't matter.

I remember when I was a young man (ancient history :-) ) sitting on a bluff waiting for an unlucky deer to wander by and put himself into my gun sights.  I saw birds flying, and squirrels running around.  This was during the Viet Nam war.  I remembered how in spite of the mess we were in, God took care of what he created.  The birds still flew, and the squirrels still scampered.  I'll never forget that.

The reason I reflected on that time, is that I realize that no matter what I, or the world faces right now, look at the birds, listen to them sing, watch them build their nests, watch the squirrels scamper.  There is a book written by Mac Lucado titled you'll get through this.

I realize that my journey is mapped by the Driver, not by what I expected from my "trip".  He is in charge!