Author and Inspired Writer

Yup, you read that right.  The mister and I decided to start off the New Year with a new mattress.  Our other one wasn’t all that old, but both of us had been noticing various aches and pains, especially in the morning, and with the lack of other suspects, we decided to blame the mattress.  Besides, although that mattress was a pillow top, it was a pillow on top of springs.  So, it was time to try foam.

Off we went to the local mattress emporium, and I wasted no time plopping down on the first foam mattress in the display room.  Now, I’d never had any dealings with foam mattresses in the past, so I was unprepared for the experience.  “Oh Papa Bear,” I complained, “this bed is much too har…oh!”

What a lovely (and surprising) sensation to feel your prospective mattress gently give way to accommodate your Netherlands!  “You like?” it seemed to whisper.  “Then take me home, Mama Bear.”

We were only supposed to price mattresses that day, not buy, that foamy piece of heaven had us at “har…oh!”  Turns out, the price had been greatly reduced for end of the year shoppers, and that was the last day they were offering to pay the taxes on the mattress and the mattress cover.  Sold!

We’ve been enjoying it for the past two nights, and except for the rather unpleasant foam smell, (which we’ve been assured will dissipate in a few days) we’ve both been enjoying much better sleep.

A belated Christmas present to us both.

Colonoscopy.  Mm-hm.  Bet ya didn’t see that comin’.

Yes gentle readers, almost five years have gone past since my last colon screening and so it was time to face the music once again.  But it took me four months to get an appointment with my GI guy, so I figured when I saw him this past Tuesday, it would be at least another couple months before I’d get an appointment for the procedure.

“We have an opening on Thursday,” the receptionist informed me, but I heard, “We have openings on Thursdays.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “Thursdays are good.”

“How about 1 pm.?”

“OK, and what’s the date on that?”

“December 22nd.”

I froze and stared at her.  “This December 22nd?” I finally managed to squeek.

“Uh-huh.”

“Like, two days from now?”

“Yup.  Consider it an early Christmas present.”  She smiled.

The receptionists for gastroenterologists apparently have their own idea as to what constitutes “a present”.  Vastly different from the rest of us mortals.

Feeling just a tad blindsided, I did agree to the date, but inquired of my doctor if there was anything new in bowel preps.  Citro-Mag is the vilest tasting stuff on the face of the earth, and that other Go Lytely prep (a fiendishly ironic name) is barely better.  “C’mon,” I whined, “if we can put a man on the moon…”

But he interrupted my lecture by handing me a scrip for Pico-Salax, three little packets.  You take one (in just 5 oz. of water) three times on the prep day and although you still have to drink a lot of fluids, it can be tea or juice or broth – stuff you can stomach, pun intended.  What a difference it made for me!  I actually slept five hours the night before the procedure.  A different story from five years ago when I spent the night freezing, joints screaming, and only managed three ragged hours of shut-eye.  It’s not something I’d like to do any more often than every five years mind you, but I will sure take the improvement, thank you very much Pico-Salax!

But why put myself through all this in the first place?  Well, I lost one of my best friends to colon cancer a few years ago.  Early detection might have saved her.  To my mind, that’s the best reason to endure a little discomfort – do it for ourselves and for the ones we love.  So, hey, I guess it was an early Christmas present, after all.

Merry Christmas, everyone!  See you in the New Year!

In the spirit of “no good deed ever goes unpunished,” I was invited yesterday to preach again during the summer at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Amherstburg.  Only, unlike last year, I won’t be in the pulpit for a couple of Sundays, but rather the entire month of July and possibly a week in June.  Well.  All right then.

My first reaction was, what can I say to the congregation that they haven’t already heard?  It has to be something new each time you see, because one of our members, with a self-proclaimed photographic memory, says she’ll know instantly if I try to give a sermon I’ve already done, and that trying to do so would result in “consequences.”  What that might mean, I’m not altogether sure, unless she’d stand up in the middle of the sermon and yell “Booooooooring!”  But I’d rather not find out.  July is the fruit harvest down here and the pulpit doesn’t offer all that much cover.

Besides, you’d think with all the courses I’ve taken, books I’ve read, and sermons I’ve listened to it wouldn’t be hard to come up with five or six fresh topics.  Well, if God want’s me to preach, God will supply the inspiration.  Right, God?  Um, Lord?  Are you listening?  Oh, I forgot.  Someone told me this morning that Christmas is God’s busy season and it’s best not to bother him until the New Year.  Uh-HUH.  Kay.

But January 2nd, I start storming heaven!

So, the writing of the new manuscript is coming along, but I had to change the title.  Love Stronger than Death: The Passion of Mary Magdalene was just too wordy and high-falutin’.  Besides, everyone was referring to it as The Magdalene Poems, so I took that as a sign from You-Know-Who to make the alteration.  I like it much better, and I’m finding I just love the insights I’m gaining from the research, but also from my own writing.  Someone said, “I write to discover what I know.”  And for the first time I think I understand what that person meant.  But there’s so much interesting stuff I didn’t know I knew!

To that point, one of my colleagues at the last Writers’ Salon asked me what my image of Christ was.  A fascinating question, and one I had to think about for a moment.  I finally replied that my image of Christ changes with what I read.  And that’s true.  But what I’m discovering now is that my image of Christ also changes with what I write!  The Christ of The Magdalene Poems is vulnerable and shy, sometimes filled with doubts, capable of committing the most horrendous blunders, awkward, needy, kind, compassionate and funny.  I studied images of Christ in my Christology class but I’ve never known this Christ until now.

And I am becoming quite fond of him.