Rivers and Streams...

I am struggling to write another update, prompted once again by Becky and Carey at the home office of Godspeed as they prepare a newsletter and need something from me about our current status. In the past I would just wait for the Spirit/muse to bring something to mind and would find the words flowing, a river of discourse that I usually would have to then edit to avoid excess; today, there is only a mere trickle, with insufficient volume to determine any direction.  So, dipping in to retrieve and offer a sip here and there from…

…a dwindling stream: Karen’s health, my work, our options…

Things are not going well in this area. We had our annual review with the neurologists last week (we see them much more often, but this was an annual summary of tests which were reviewed to determine progress or decline) and were told that officially Karen is now in the “moderate” or “middle” stage of Alzheimer’s, also known as “moderately severe cognitive decline”, the fifth of seven stages of dementia as defined by researchers. No real news to me, but hearing it from the experts brought the reality home. I am still working two mornings per week but that may change in July as the prison system where I offer clinical care is coming under new management. I am still able to offer some counsel and consultation to the missionary community via e-mail and Skype, but as I am less and less visible and interactive in the “member care” community, I find fewer people seeking me out; this, in turn, is teaching me about…

…polluted waters: the sad state of the self…

“I’ve never had a selfless thought…” is a line from a C.S. Lewis poem, one with which I completely identify. As dealing with Karen’s illness has diminished the sphere of any influence that we may have ever had, I find myself in an arid place. I thrived on being useful to people, and it is increasingly evident that those efforts were more self-serving than altruistic. God is showing me just how much of my thought, my time, my energy has been expended to ensure that river barney flows unhindered. As we have been intensively studying the Gospel of Mark in church, examining Mark’s primary purpose of showing just who Jesus is, it dawned on me that I know much more about Alzheimer’s than I do about Jesus, that I think more about psychiatry and medical issues and flying and sailing and my need to be needed than I do about the reality of my salvation; in short, the waters of river barney are polluted with a lot of barney. And even writing about it is self-focused, a stagnant pool of first person singular. Which brings me to “…Who will save me from this body of death?”…

…living water: sometimes underground, sometimes turbulent, but always flowing…

In the midst of it all, in spite of it all, there is that sense that for reasons that can only be attributed to God’s grace, things will be alright. It isn’t about whether Karen responds to the new research drug, or is miraculously healed, or continues to decline into unresponsiveness. It isn’t about whether I will ever be of any useful service to prisoner, missionary, colleague, or spouse. Even though I cannot think for one moment outside my own inherently desiccated self, God has chosen to nourish me. I cannot explain it any better than that. Things are dry here, but there is plenty of water, flowing abundantly.

I customarily close my notes by saying that I would love to hear your comments; my puny stream of self, seeking to be fed by hearing how/that others think about me, is still meandering along. But better yet, take a look around your own circumstances and then let me know where you are hearing the waters in your own life, how you are being nourished in the midst of it all…

See you ‘round the bend….

BD, with Karen alongside

barneydavis@gmail.com