Hmmm. New Blog. I notice there are like minded folks that blog here. Some I’d like to comment on. So to gain the privilege of commenting I have to set up another blog.
I am told I can edit or delete the first comment, but I do not know how. I am home alone most of the time as my dear spouse works some 40 minutes away. It is very cold, -8ºC. That is unusual for Salem, Oregon. I googled the same latitude in New Zealand and found a nice park lodge on the west coast of the South Island that reminds me of Nietarts and Siletz Bays. It is summer there. Since it is to cold to go trapsing about with my walker, waiting for a bus, and then traipsing several hundred yards from the stop I end up at before I am safe again from the cold, I wish I was there.
I wish folks would visit me on a weekly basis. But I cannot keep up with the day to day use of our small trailer. I feel ashamed when someone comes by, though I thrive on conversation and scholastic discourse. We used to live in a tiny trailer. Small was a step up. Before that we lived in a tenement in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. There it is double digits below 0º. We are glad we spent only one winter there, I was unemployed, disabled and waiting for SSD to kick in.
I miss my Ffriends at Whittier Friends Meeting and some of our Ffriends at West Branch Friends Church miss me. Our Ffriends at Musquakie Friends Center, Tama, Iowa, with whom we shared a connection at Kickapoo Friends Center in McLoud, OK, still keep in touch. My Ffriends in Indiana, Earlham School of Religion cohorts and staff, First Friends Church of Richmond, Williamsburg Friends Church, Clear Creek Meeting, West Richmond Friends Church and University Friends Church are all still dear in my thoughts and prayers. I also appreciate Arba Friends Church, a snapshot in time, for the privilege of being their interim pastor. During those years, there was never a lack of people sharing their company.
It is odd to me for a church to feel that seniors must arrange for visitation. That was pretty much the way it was at Oklahoma City Friends Meeting which I hear is on its last legs. With the mobility and career options that are so far flung, nearby extended families are rare, and insular communities do not warm up to newcomers very well. Their loss. When I was loneliest, I often went and worked in the theatre, but now I cannot. At home in Oklahoma, there were Indian activities: dances, sobriety groups, dinners and church outings. Now, I barely have the stamina to “walker” down to the mailbox and collect my mail. The last time I walked in a grand entry with Native American Veterans at a Pow-wow hosted by the University of Iowa in 2004.
More liberal thinking Friends seem to forget that the aged, disabled and lonely are afraid of rejection and are more likely to avoid setting themselves up for being put off. As a pastor, I learned that from those who I saw as my duty to look in on, now I see that sentiment in my own life. I live in a community where the tipi is not allowed, drum beating is discouraged, neighbors keep to themselves and the street lights keep me from my romance with the stars.
Rocks have become more interesting. They make nice jewelry and decorations. I love to make Southern Plains weather rocks. It is a rock hanging from a beam across a tipi frame. When it is dry and you can see what color it is the weather is sunny to fair. When it is wet it is raining. When there is ice on it it is freezing and if it is coverd with white fluff it is snowing or two bald eagles have been fighting over it (more likely the former). If the rock is swinging it is windy, if it is jumping up and down it is an earthquake, if it starts whirling and then flies away you had better be in your hidey hole.
I am grateful for my dog Lucy, she has such a loving disposition, but she is not much for face to face conversation or collegial discourse.
Should Friends as well as other insular church bodies study more the ministry to the aged and disabled? Should the elderly and disabled be expected to ask for visitation or help? I know that I am not always lucid so I would like to see my meeting be more proactive.
Morningbear's Smokesignals 