I usually view life as a fabulous adventure, full of joy and many gifts. In fact, most of the time my enthusiasm for life leads me in a thousand directions at once. Joyfully leaping into commitments and excitedly embracing multiple visions for the future. I am test marketing a vision statement. I'm starting two Entrepreneurial Ministry Support groups. I am talking with Oregon's UU Voices for Justice about the plan for the next few months. I am researching crowdfunding and grant funding. I am preparing for a Sunday service next week... and so much more... And then there are the weeks where there is a hitch.
This last week I spent more time in bed than out of it. I was coping with and attempting to shorten an arthritis flare. You see, I have a type of arthritis that is an immune disorder, it flares up, and subsides, seemingly at random. Luckily, most of the time medication keeps it in check. During a flare, standing up, walking, getting out of a car, all hurt. It feels like someone has sewn my legs to my torso, my calves to my thighs, and I have to pull out stitches in order to straighten. I remember my grandmother climbing out of a car, then pausing to remind her joints how to bend. She would invariably comment, 'I've got a hitch in my get-along."
I just returned from a fabulous week at General Assembly, gathered with thousands of my co-religionists, walking 20 blocks a day, getting hugs around every corner, listening to inspiring words, and witnessing inspiring deeds. After a fabulous week at General Assembly celebrating the end of cancer treatment and my return to relative health, I was feeling joyful about my forward motion, a reinvigoration of my ministry, and freedom to develop a vision of the future. This arthritis flare was a major hitch in my get-along.
Last night a friend said "You usually seem so healthy." and I went through a dislocation, an identity shift. I do feel the need to be doing things, to present as healthy and happy and with a full life. But that isn't my whole reality. Sometimes I'm too tired to think. Sometimes my hands don't have enough strength to turn a door-knob or pull up the comforter on the bed. Sometimes I fall and smash my knee and can only walk with crutches and sometimes my toes scream at me "you shall not walk." I usually push through it.
One of the realities of an arthritis flare is tiredness, a need to sleep. And one of the ways to shorten a flare is to get plenty of rest and reduce stress. So I spent more time in bed than out of it. This gave me plenty of time to experience frustration as the irons I had in the fire cooled. Plenty of time to remind myself that I was OK, even when not in motion. I had to remind myself that I have value, even when there is a hitch in my get-along. I've heard it said that one of the ways we ministers write sermons is that we say the thing which we most need to hear. So here it is: Sometimes it is enough just to spend the day breathing.
