Book Pigout, With Knitting

I'm currently indulging in a medical non-fiction orgy, which I figure I can justify because of my med-school work. Yesterday I finished devouring Pauline Chen's Final Exam, an uncommonly moving exploration of physicians' difficult relationship to death. During my Tolkien exam this afternoon, I inhaled half of Atul Gawande's Better, a wide-ranging collection of essays about improvements in medical performance, and then promptly came home and ordered his first book, Complications. While I was at it, I also bought Jerome Groopman's How Doctors Think, recommended both by Gary's mom and by med-school colleagues, along with my college classmate Lisa Belkin's book about medical ethics, First, Do No Harm.

And then I looked at all of the books by one of my favorite medical writers, Perri Klass, to see if I'd missed any . . . and discovered that she's published a collection of knitting columns! So of course I had to order that, too, even though it's not related to med-school work.

Perri Klass knits! Squeeeee! (I gather that if I read Knitter's Magazine, where she's a columnist, I'd already have known this, but I don't and I didn't.)

I'm already thinking of other books I wish I'd ordered, but they'll have to wait! Anyway, if anyone out there has recommendations for great medical nonfiction, please let me know.

More Little Earthquakes

We're still having them, although most are too small to feel. The activity's certainly died down, but hasn't stopped; but then, I guess it never does really stop here. We just usually aren't aware of it.

Last night there was a 3-something jolt around 11:00. I'd been reading in bed, and Harley was lying on my chest. When the quake hit, he leaped into the air and onto the floor, using me as a springboard. Fortunately, I wasn't badly scratched!

My WisCon Schedule

I'm on fewer panels than I wanted to be -- somehow I missed the preliminary sign-up and had to be squeezed in at the last minute -- but these look like they'll be interesting, and I'll be talking with some very accomplished people!

Title: What Can't We Forgive?

" SF/F fans can be forgiving sorts; we'll let violations of physical laws go by without too much notice, permit battles with armies too large to be supported by their populations, and so on. What won't we forgive and read on? Some people won't forgive Orson Scott his personal politics, while some won't forgive the moral worldview of his fiction. Some won't forgive Anne McCaffrey her tent-peg hypothesis, while others won't let Heinlein get away with any of a wide variety of sins. Some people can't forgive China Mieville's preaching, or Samuel R. Delany's depictions of underage sex. Where do people draw the line, either with regards to an author's work or their personal behavior, and what does it mean when we can't forgive? "
Saturday, 4:00-5:15 P.M.
Capitol A

M: Steven Schwartz
Susan Palwick
Judith Moffett
Ian Hagemann
Vylar Kaftan

Title: Narrative and Politics

"A group of writers discuss the politics of narrative. How does narrative reinforce traditional notions of power and identity? How does it challenge them? If you don't want to tell the same story as before, how do you need to change the structure of what you write?"
Sunday, 10:00-11:15 A.M.
Wisconsin

M: L. Timmel Duchamp
Susan Palwick
Carolyn Gilman
Pat Murphy
Eileen Gunn

Chicago, Here I Come! With a Rare Family Find!

In June, I'll be going to Chicago for a training institute in the Literature & Medicine program, which a med-school colleague and I will be trying to start here within the next year. It's an exciting idea, and I really hope we can get it off the ground.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to the conference. I have to say that part of the draw is that the conference accomodations are less than a mile from The Art Institute of Chicago. My grandfather, Jerome Rozen, and his twin brother George were both students there, and later taught there. The school's where they met their wives, who were also both artists. So it's a big piece of family history, but I've never been. I can't wait to go!

Doing a search on Jerome, I just found this picture of him, taken in 1985, two years before he died. He and George painted a lot of covers for magazines like The Shadow; late in life, he was commissioned to recreate some of his and George's covers by Anthony Tollin, who took this photo. In the picture, Jerome's holding up a Shadow cover painting and another for Doc Savage.

I'd never seen this photo before, and it moves me very much. I remember watching Jerome painting the recreations in his garage, and I remember meeting the Tollins at his funeral. I miss Jerome, as I suspect everyone does who knew him. He was an incredibly sweet and generous man, and very much the patriarch of our extended family.

Wow. What a wonderful find!

More on the Christian Left

A recent commenter asked for "more on the Christian Left," so here you go!

Classes ended yesterday (although I still have an exam to give and grading to do). Because of our campus-area rapist/killer, who's been blessedly quiet for some months now -- knock wood -- one of my students has been giving me a ride back to my car, since she parks closer than I do. Parking on campus is complicated; suffice it to say that I pay through the nose for a space some distance from my office, while she parks at a closer meter.

This is the student who was with me the evening I discovered that my "Christian, Not Closed-Minded" bumper sticker had been defaced. She's not Christian and has expressed overt skepticism about that or any faith, but was very sympathetic when we found the bumper sticker. Later she told me, "If that had been my car, I wouldn't have been able to sleep that night."

As we pulled up to my car last night, Nancy said, "Uh-oh, you've got company." Two scruffy, twenty-something young guys wearing cardboard McDonald's crowns were standing behind my car, staring at my bumper stickers. "Want me to stay here until you've pulled out?"

"Please," I said, and got out of the car, my stomach tightening a bit. I walked over to the kids and said, "Hi. This is my car. Is there a problem?"

"Oh, no!" one of them said. "We were just looking at your bumper stickers."

"Are you pro or con?" I asked.

"I dunno. I'm not sure I understand that 'Christian Left' one. What does that mean?"

"Well, it's the opposite of the Christian Right. It's Christians who actually believe in love, forgiveness, feeding the hungry -- "

The young guy's face lit up. "Oooooh! It's Christianity the way it's supposed to be!"

"You got it," I said.

The kids left. As I got into my car, Nancy flashed me a thumb's-up sign through her open window.

There. The new bumper stickers are doing their job!

(Note: I know that there are plenty of individuals on the Christian Right who believe in love, forgiveness, and feeding the hungry, but it's difficult to figure that out from listening to some of the politicians who claim the label.)

I'm Back

Ooops! I got buried under work stuff for a few days, and just discovered that some comments never got posted because I didn't get the e-mails (luckily, they were still on the comments moderation page). So that's been fixed!

And speaking of blogging, this week's Grand Rounds is up. Looks like a great edition!

Happy Birthday, Harley!

Sir Harlequin the Magnificent is nine today. We brought him home on July 2, 1999, when he was exactly eight weeks old. I'd been going to the local shelter every day to look for our cat Grendel, who'd gone outside and never came back. We never found Grendie -- we think he must have become a meal for coyotes -- but I did find Harley, who was one of a large litter of black-and-white fuzzballs. Someone's cat had had kittens at home: the person kept the kittens until they were eight weeks old, and then dumped the whole lot off at the shelter. (Don't ask me who could voluntarily part with such adorable animals after living with them for eight weeks!)

All of the kittens had been put in one large cage. Most of them were huddled together on a towel, but one of the fuzzballs had climbed the horizontal bars of the cage and was hanging halfway up by his toes, ears flattened, meeping indignantly. "Take me home! Take me home!"

So I did. I've never regretted it.

My mother was visiting when we got Harley. She'd come with me to the shelter, but refused to come inside, because it made her too sad. She didn't think I should get a kitten so soon after losing Grendel, and had been very disapproving of the entire project, but when I went back outside, held the carrying case up to the passenger-side window, and said, "Mom, meet Harlequin," her face immediately softened into adoration.

"Oooooh! The sweet little thing!" She took him out of the case and held him the whole way home, and has been his biggest fan ever since.

Well, one of his biggest fans, after me and Gary.

A few years ago, Mom gave me a coffee mug that reads, "Harley Mama." Naturally, this has nothing whatsoever to do with motorcycles.

Little Stuff

Today we had a 3.0 quake while I was in my office. I felt my couch shaking, but that was it. I'm getting more used to the small quakes, although I certainly hope we don't have a big one!

My Dansko shoes came today, and I love them. They seem to fit perfectly. I've been wearing them for the past hour. I'm sure there will be a breaking-in period, but I foresee a long and happy partnership here.

In knitting news, I'm working on two projects: a birthday gift for a friend and the first of many Christmas projects. I hope I can get them all done by Christmas!

I've been badly behind on writing columns for the "Faith and Health" newsletter the Church Health Center will start publishing later this year. The editor, John Shorb, asked me to contribute a regular column based on my blog, which was more than a little flattering. He wanted twelve (a whole year's worth of content) by May 1, but as of the day before yesterday, I only had seven, even though I had plenty of ideas!

I wrote number eight yesterday and number nine this morning, and hope to write number ten tonight. Eleven and twelve are slated for tomorrow and Friday, respectively. These things are immense fun to write, but I've been bad about budgeting my time! I hope John will forgive me the deadline slippage.

My last set of classes is Monday; I give a final the following Friday and have a final party/reading for my fiction workshop the Monday after that. In the meantime, there are lots of meetings and events at work. Two weeks from tomorrow, we fly back East -- God willing and the airline doesn't go bankrupt -- for our niece's wedding. Gary will be flying straight back here, but I'll be detouring through Madison for WisCon, where I'll see Inez.

It's nice to lead a full life, when I have enough energy!

Grand Rounds Smackdown

This week's edition is up, with a World Wrestling theme. I didn't submit because the theme doesn't do much for me, but I'm sure it will be fun to read!

Yet More Fun!

At 10:51, we had a "minor earthquake" measuring 3.1, followed at 11:01 by a "microearthquake" measuring 2.8. They were small, but we definitely felt both of them.

Hey, the partying never stops around here.

I've been sitting in my study, which is probably the least earthquake-safe room in the house. I think I'll get into bed now!

Earthquake Stories

This morning at 4:33, Gary and I were woken up by a 4.2 quake. The walls rattled, but nothing fell over, and we managed to get back to sleep.

People were swapping stories at school, of course. My workshop class had a lively conversation about the reaction of pets, both to these earthquakes and to others (several of my students have gone through big earthquakes in California). There was the cat who kept pouncing on the floor, trying to catch the earthquake; the cat who ate steadily and obliviously through the earthquake; the cat who threw up for twelve hours straight after the earthquake -- poor kitty! -- and the five cats who became giant bristling furballs and then "slowly deflated," after which all five of them made a frantic dive for the foodbowls and commenced stress eating.

One of my students has friends whose fifty-gallon fish tank broke, soaking their living room and killing several of the fish. He also said that there were gas leaks on his street. A student whose daughter is epileptic said that now she knows how her daughter feels when the uncontrollable shaking starts.

I was glad to learn that I wasn't the only person who was freaked out and super-jumpy. That seems to have been a fairly common reaction.

This evening, Gary and I went to the supermarket and chatted with our checkout lady about the quakes. She and her manager were the only people in the store -- which is closer to the epicenter than our house is -- when the Friday night quake hit. She said bottles were shooting off the shelves. The store lost thousands of dollars of stock, and the clean-up was a hideous, smelly, slippery mess, especially in the liquor department. They had to use snow shovels to clean up all the broken glass.

Luckily, a lot of employees who weren't working showed up to help with the clean-up. Good for them!

Gary and I had noticed that bottles were now positioned well away from the edge of shelves, and also that bottled water was very scarce. Evidently the store ordered immense amounts of bottled water, but hasn't been able to keep it in stock.

I've also been keeping my gas tank as close to full as possible, just in case something happens and gas stations aren't working for a while. I haven't noticed unusual lines at the pumps, though.

And, of course, there were lots of people who didn't feel a thing during any of the earthquakes, and couldn't figure out what the fuss was about. Lucky them!

Reclaiming Christ

Here's yesterday's homily. I told our clergy that I was nervous that it might be too political, but after the first service, our deacon told me, "It's not political enough!" And one of our priests asked me for a copy and then e-mailed me today to find out where he could order his own Christian Left bumper sticker (that would be from Cafe Press, which also has a slew of Episcopal products covering every conceivable political and religious position).

The funniest moment came in the eighth paragraph, in the line, "If we look upon others with condemnation, instead of compassion, the world will rightly assume that Christ came not to save the world, but to condemn it." Just as I reached the word "condemnation," the windows started rattling, because we were having another earthquake (a small one, fortunately!). Everyone laughed. Gotta love that divine sense of humor.

The Gospel is John 14:15-21.

*

For the past few months, we’ve heard a series of homilies devoted to the Eucharist, working our way piece by piece through our Sunday service. This will be the last one. My part begins with the invitation to the feast and ends with the deacon’s dismissal.

Nine years ago, in my pre-baptismal classes, I learned that the Eucharist is the center of worship. We come here to receive the bread and wine, to be fed with the body and blood of Christ. Everything else that happens on Sunday morning, as important as it may be, is secondary.

But what is the purpose of the Eucharist? What is communion for? To remind us that we are part of Christ, who is also part of us? Yes, certainly. To comfort us in times of sorrow and need? Yes to that, too. I don’t know about you, but I rarely feel as safe and loved as when I’m waiting at the altar rail, holding out my hands to receive the bread. I always feel like a baby bird, secure in the nest, waiting with gaping beak for the mother bird to come and feed me.

There’s an even more important reason for communion, though, and it’s emphasized in the post-communion prayer. After we have thanked God for feeding us, we say, “And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses to Christ our Lord.” The dismissal, a few minutes later, repeats the point. “Let us go in peace,” the deacon says, “to love and serve the Lord.”

Communion is food for the journey, the meal that strengthens us to go into the world and do the work Christ has given us: to love God, our neighbors, and ourselves, and to serve the lost, the needy, and the broken. Seen this way, the Eucharist isn’t why we come to church after all. The point of coming to church is to leave it again: refreshed, resolved, and ready for ministry. The baby bird has to learn to fly. That’s why her mother fed her all those tasty morsels: to make sure that her wings will be healthy and strong, so that she’ll soar instead of falling.

People at St. Stephen’s have many ways of loving and serving the world. We’re active in prison ministry, bring services to nursing homes, distribute bread to the needy, help feed and shelter homeless families, set up Eco-Palian booths at Earth Day festivities, visit sick friends and strangers, pray for the needs of people both near and far, and contribute time and money to many worthy causes. We do a lot, but because we’re Episcopalians, we tend to do it quietly. Many of us favor the maxim of St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel without ceasing. If necessary, use words.”

If I weren’t very comfortable with that approach, I wouldn’t be here. But there are as many other approaches as there are other kinds of Christians, and I’ve recently been reminded, to my dismay, that some of those styles give all the others, including ours, a bad name. In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his followers, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.” We see Jesus, but the rest of the world sees us. We are Christ’s disciples, his visible legacy. As St. Teresa of Avila reminds us: “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion looks out on the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.”

Whatever the world sees us do in Christ’s name, it will attribute to Him. If we sow fear and hatred, the world will rightly assume that our Lord is a God of fear and hatred, rather than love. If we curse and shun others, rather than blessing them, the world will rightly assume that Christ offers threats, not welcome. And if we live in compassion, love and blessing, but don’t specifically name Christ as our Lord and teacher, the world will have no way of knowing that there are Christians who don’t believe that exclusion, fear and hatred are the Keys to the Kingdom.

I believe that most Christians believe in, and try to walk in, love. But we all know that there are some who don’t, and we also know that some of the people who favor that other style have gotten a great deal of publicity. For one thing, fear and hatred make better news headlines than love does. Remember the famous -– or infamous -– Christian who announced that feminists and the ACLU were responsible for 9/11? Yes, now you know the truth: it was all my fault.

I’ve met a lot of people who fear and hate Christians, because they think we’re all like that. And when I tell these people that I’m Christian, but that neither I nor my Christian friends are anything like that, they don’t believe me. They haven’t seen evidence of Christian love, only of Christian condemnation. Whatever I say to the contrary, I’m only one person. Those of us who want to reclaim Christ from the hate-mongers need to become a lot more visible.

This is hard work. People see what they expect to see, and they often simply dismiss anything that conflicts with their worldview. For years, my car boasted two bumper stickers, one that read, “Christian, Not Closed-Minded,” and another that said, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” Last week, I discovered that the first bumper sticker had been defaced to read, “Christian, Closed-Minded.” Someone, apparently oblivious to the second sticker, had used a magic marker to cross out the “Not.” I ordered more bumper stickers. I now have one that reads, “Christian Left,” next to an Episcopal Church shield. Certainly not everyone agrees with that pairing, but at least it establishes that not all Christians have the same political views.

Bumper stickers probably aren’t the best way of letting people know where we stand. Personal testimony, as much as we might cringe at the phrase, works much better. The world needs to hear firsthand that there’s more than one way of being Christian.

A few years ago, a group of Christians set up camp in front of the UNR library. They waved signs claiming that anyone who didn’t follow Jesus would go to hell. They yelled hateful things about Jews, Muslims and sexual minorities into bullhorns. They ignored anyone who tried to talk to them. They were very loud and very unpleasant. Everyone on campus was on edge. In both of my classes that day, I told my students, “I need to tell you that I’m Christian too, and I don’t agree with those guys. Lots of us believe that Jesus is about love, not about hatred.”

I think my words reassured my students, but my own approach bothered me. Wasn’t I just setting up another us/them dichotomy, becoming the very thing I hated? Thinking about the believers with their bullhorns outside the library, I remembered reading a book called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. When Miller was in college, he and some other Christian students set up a confession booth during a large campus event. Most people who stopped by the booth said something like, “So I’m supposed to tell you what I’ve done wrong and ask God’s forgiveness, right?” But Miller and his friends explained that the booth was for something else entirely. The Christian students wanted their neighbors’ forgiveness. They wanted to confess, and apologize for, all the pain and damage Christians had caused in the name of God.

The booth got a lot of business. Maybe St. Stephen’s and other churches should set up booths like that. In the meantime, as each of us takes communion, I ask us to think about how we will do Christ’s work this week. As we become Christ’s hand and feet and heart in the world, how will we use love to proclaim our faith? How will we reclaim Christ from, and offer Christ to, those we believe have misunderstood him? How will we feed others as we have been fed?

Amen.

Quake Update

Last night's quake has actually been downgraded to a 4.7. That's a refreshing change!

Thanks to everyone who left comments on my previous posts. Several of you said that these little quakes are letting off steam so we won't get a big one; I'd have assumed that, too, except that the magnitudes have been increasing, which is evidently very unusual. So all kinds of bulletins are going out about what to do In the Event of a Major Earthquake. We even made the front page of AOL, which specializes in breathless, fear-mongering headlines. "BIG EARTHQUAKE SET TO STRIKE? Scientists tell city to get ready!"

Some houses had a bit of structural damage from last night's quake, and lots of ketchup bottles and mayonnaise bottles fell off supermarket shelves. Let's hope we don't get anything worse. Meanwhile, I ate on the "safe" side of the dining room table again tonight, and also skipped swimming in favor of taking a walk. When I thought about swimming, all I could see was the rest of the building collapsing into the ground-floor pool. I'm sure the building's safer than that, but I still felt safer walking.

Gary and I both twitch whenever we feel anything resembling a tremor: cats jumping onto furniture, the other person tapping a foot, the fridge making noises, etc. Don't anybody jump out at me and yell "boo" for a while, okay?

Okay, That One Was Scary

We just had another quake, bigger than the others we've had -- the whole house shook for ten or twenty seconds -- although I don't know magnitude because nobody's reported on it yet. A fair amount of crashing in the house, and what sounded like glass breaking, but we can't find any actual damage, just some stuff knocked over.

One of the crosses hanging on my study wall was still swinging back and forth several minutes later.

There were two, I think, small aftershocks afterwards.

We're more rattled emotionally than physically. The fact that these have been getting bigger is somewhat alarming. And of course, there's no way to predict if/when another one will hit.

We've put extra water in the fridge, and I've put the most valuable of the breakables in my study on the couch, cushioned by pillows.

I said to Gary, "I'm starting to rethink the wisdom of living in a two-story house," and he said, "I'm starting to rethink the wisdom of living in Nevada."

Okay, here's the story. The initial estimate is that it was a 4.9, followed by a 3.0 a few minutes later. But I know I felt two aftershocks.

I'll be interested to see if that estimate changes; the intensities of several of these recent quakes have been revised upwards.

Enough, Already!

Some of you may have heard about the earthquake swarm Reno's been having for the last few days. They've all been small, but they're still unnerving, especially since they keep happening.

I was at the hospital yesterday when we had three within about ten minutes, although I only felt the last one. Gary, who was home, told me later that the third one made our plastic shower doors shake and clatter. The cats stared at Gary with "What the hell are you doing?" looks on their faces.

We both felt one in the early evening; based on that, I decided to sit on Gary's side of the dining room, the one across the table from our six-foot bookshelves (they're bolted to each other, but not to the wall).

Today seemed quiet until a bit after six, when we were eating dinner and felt a short, sharp shock. Nothing in the house fell -- or even moved, that I could detect -- but I still moved back to Gary's side of the table. Having my back to the six-foot bookshelves didn't seem like such a great idea.

This has reminded us that we're not especially well prepared for an emergency. We have candles, flashlights, and battery-powered radios, and would probably be okay for food, but we don't have extra gallons of water lying around. I suppose we ought to do something about that.

Behold the Bumper Stickers

Here's the new bumper-sticker configuration. The "Christian Left" one is a bit wobbly, because there are air bubbles under there and when I lifted the sticker to try to get them out, it stretched. And when I put it back, there were still air bubbles. So I'm just going to leave it the way it is.

I hope these don't get vandalized, but if they do, I have others in reserve.

The sites I was browsing had both left-leaning and right-leaning Episcopal stickers, and one of the latter said something about how the Episcopal Church gets its preachers out of Crackerjack boxes. This makes me wonder if there's some controversy over lay preachers that I've missed. I wouldn't be surprised.

Homesick for Grand Rounds

This week's edition is up, and looks terrific! Dr. Val Jones has organized posts according to the limbic system, the dominant emotion each post is likely to arouse in readers. My dominant emotion, looking at this edition, is homesickness, because I haven't submitted to GR in so long!

I have to do something about that. But since I have 160+ pages of grading to do by next Monday -- and a homily to write for this Sunday -- it may have to wait yet another week.

I've also started having long, wistful, complicated dreams about the hospital. I'm not sure what that means; maybe that my brain wants me to get back to writing hospital posts?

KnitKitty

Harley, who isn't ordinarily a lap cat, loves to rest under (or preferably on) my knitting. Today I got this shot of him cuddling under my latest shawl, which is almost finished; this is the one for my cousin Scott's wife.

Figaro shows no interest in knitting. Bali likes wool, but scorns the acrylic I'm using here.

Harley looks decidedly annoyed at having his photo taken; he got off my lap, in a huff, shortly after I snapped this picture.

Dear visitor from Winston Salem,

Site Meter shows me what people searched on to get here. That's how I know that your Google search for HOW MUCH INSULIN NEEDED TO COMMIT SUICIDE led you to my post Heaven Can Wait.

I hope you aren't suicidal. I hope you were doing research for a book or something. But if you are suicidal, I hope that post convinced you to wait, to call someone for help, to stay alive at least a little longer.

The Internet is a strange and sometimes wonderful thing. It can lead people who want to kill themselves to resources that, with luck and grace, will keep them from killing themselves. I would be humbled if my post were one of those resources.

North Carolina's a long way from here, and I don't even know your name. But please know that I'm praying for you.

Happy Earth Day!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rejoice!

We live on a beautiful planet. Let's all do whatever we can to keep it that way, shall we?

Hug a tree for Christ. Or, if you don't believe in Christ, hug a tree for your grandchildren. If you don't have grandkids, hug a tree for your friends' grandkids.