PERSONAL PARALYSIS

 3958

I have previously reflected on the following experience, but not having ready access to that story among far too many files, and far too little time, I feel inclined to reflect on it again.

A few years ago I decided to trim my neighbor’s tree. Generally, I would not have been quite so altruistic, but the limbs of the tree hung over my driveway, and as spring approached each year a healthy supply of oak pollen showered my car, and the pavement upon which it was parked.

And since there was a basketball post just beneath the offending tree, it seemed good to me to prop my straight ladder against it, and having done so, I set about the task at hand.

Did I mention round posts and straight ladders are altogether incompatible? (Well, they are).

Suddenly, the ladder accomplished a task for which it was never intended. It became mobile. And I became its unintended pilot. Given the choice to ride the thing to the ground, or jump, I chose the latter.

And as I “winged my way to worlds unknown” I chose to land upright, (or something approximating it) and twisted my body just enough in my failed flight to the concrete to land on my right foot.

I knew. I just knew

My ankle was broken

After lying there a moment, and using my car for leverage, I stood upon my left foot, hop-scotched to my front door, opened it, and made my wife aware of my injury.

Fast forward several weeks, and I found myself in a prep room at Tampa General Hospital preparing to have my ankle reconstructed; since it was not only broken, but it was badly shattered.

Just prior to being wheeled into the operating room a nurse administered an injection to my right thigh, and explained that shortly thereafter my leg would develop a state of paralysis, and that when I awoke I would experience this condition for several hours prior to the restoration of feeling.

As she predicted, when I came to I was provided an entre into a state of being to which I had never before been privy.

For a full 65 years I had enjoyed complete use of all four limbs. Suddenly, I was short one. Initially, my paralytic experience was nothing more, nothing less than interesting. The natural scheme of things in which we move, and live and have our being had been interrupted. Perhaps if I expended a little more thought, a little more will power I could lift my leg an inch off the bed. (Well,… no). Perhaps if I focused all my energies on my little toe, I could wiggle that tiny digit. (Nice try).

Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch

By this time I had gone from being an interested observer to a concerned participant.

I imagined the worst. I mean, I could just see myself being discharged in this condition, and having to use a cane the last third of my life; while all the while dragging a useless limb behind me.

Alarmed, I spoke,

“Nurse, uh, you’re probably aware that my leg is paralyzed. Uhmm, does this sorta thing ever go wrong? Is there any chance I’m stuck with this dead leg for the duration?”

“Nurse Simms” assured me that the paralysis would abate, and that I’d regain complete sensation and mobility in the limb within a few hours.”

And true to her word, that is exactly how things fell together.

I think this is a major reason Jesus came to the earth. In the eons which preceded God assuming human form, and adding the three letter suffix, “man” to His title, He had never been subject to flesh, frailty, fatigue or the limits of time and space. Suddenly, having purposely limited Himself, He was given personal access to the human condition; in a manner not heretofore possible.

Having experienced momentary paralysis I can empathize with the disabled in a way that I could have never hoped to do before the event.

Having taken on flesh and having lived among us, I am confident that our Lord Jesus Christ was afforded the wherewithal to empathize with mankind in a manner in which He had never before been able.

My favorite passage of scripture speaks to this concept, and my personal experience which I have just recounted causes it to be that much more precious to me.

“We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but He was in all points tempted as we are; yet without sin.

Let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy for our failures, and grace to help in the time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16)

by William McDonald, PhD

HEAVENLY VISITATIONS

 3957

Pt. 1

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law were with us yesterday for Thanksgiving. And during the course of our meal, we began talking about the reality (or lack thereof) of ghosts.

My niece, their daughter, once witnessed something along an old local road which could not be explained; an apparition which appeared as she neared a curve along that two mile stretch of pavement. She and I once attempted to recreate whatever she saw, but as we passed that particular spot on the road, we witnessed absolutely nothing.

I have often wondered about the existence of what we refer to as ghosts, and have, for many years, been convinced that they simply don't exist. Of course, for those, like me, who claim to have seen something fleeting and nebulous, this poses the obvious questions, 

"If not ghosts, what, if anything, are these apparitions?"

(and)

"What exactly is their raison d'etre?" (as the French might ask).

I have to admit that in spite of my lack of faith in the theory that ghosts exist, as I have inferred, I have experienced things which cannot be explained, (except the way I will attempt to explain them before I conclude this thesis).

Pt. 2

Speaking of "seeing something," after my father passed away, my mother told me she was sitting in bed one evening. Looking up over the corner of her book, she was surprised to see daddy seated in a nearby rocking chair. He never said a word, but he wore a wonderful smile on his face. A few seconds later, he disappeared.

I have read that as many as half of widows and widowers claim to have seen their husbands and wives after they departed this mortal sphere. So, in the scheme of things, and given the numbers, my mother's experience wasn't all that unusual.

And while I have never seen a dearly departed relative or friend after their departure, in the wee hours of the morning I once witnessed what I am convinced was an angel walking towards me on a nearby sidewalk. I had been pedaling my bike that morning, had stopped at a stop sign, looked left and right, saw an individual, looked away for a moment, and when I turned my eyes that way again, the heavenly visitor had disappeared.

Pt. 3

After my precious little Shih Tzu, Buddy, crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 2006, I was lying in bed one night, and suddenly I felt something against my right shoulder, and then what seemed to be breathing in and out, in and out. That night, or not long thereafter, I felt something settle against my feet. Buddy had slept on a pillow in that location. A week or two later, I was enjoying my recurring nightly walk, and a little white dog appeared in my pathway; only to disappear in seconds. Just short of a decade and a half later, I was seated in residential center where I did counseling, and I perceived some invisible little paws against my leg. Tears welled up in my eyes. After an almost duplicate little Shih Tzu, Queenie, passed last year, I experienced several similar things, including a momentary vision of her near her water bowl, and something which nuzzled against my hand as I sat on the sofa.

Post-script

Given the apparent reality of these heavenly visitations, I have reached the conclusion that what I and many others have experienced, at least those experiences which might be thought of as positive, can be summed up by the word Grace. 

God's grace, His love and care for His creation, and His purposeful intention to encourage those who have been left behind.

by William McDonald, PhD

THANK GOD FOR THE FLEAS!!!

3956

1 Thes. 5:16-18 Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Yesterday, actor Robert Clary of Hogan's Heroes fame passed away at the age of 96.  Upon reading his autobiography, Mr. Clary was the youngest of 14 children. However, 10 of his siblings were tragically killed during the Holocaust.  He survived his captivity in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in 1942.  Upon reading his story, and with thanksgiving coming this week in the United States reminded me of another story by Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian survivor of the Holocaust because of her willingness to protect Jews during World War 2.

In her book, “The Hiding Place,” Corrie ten Boom relates an incident that taught her always to be thankful. She and her sister Betsy had just been transferred to the worst German prison camp they had seen yet, called Ravensbruck. The barracks were extremely overcrowded and horribly flea-infested.

After their scripture reading in 1st Thessalonians that morning, where the Lord reminded them always to rejoice, pray constantly, and give thanks in all circumstances.

Betsy suggested they stop and thank the Lord for every detail of their new living quarters. At first, Corrie was appalled by the idea. She flatly refused to give thanks for that smelly, dirty, flea-ridden place. But Betsy persisted -- and Corrie finally succumbed to her pleadings.

It was by a miracle of God that Corrie and Betsy were able to smuggle their Bible into the camp. If the guards found out that the women were holding nightly Bible studies in their barracks, they surely would have been punished harshly, maybe even killed. During the months they spent at that camp, no guard ever said one word.

It was not until several months later that they learned the reason why the guards would hardly ever come into their barracks. They wouldn't enter the barracks because of the fleas!

Perhaps you're dealing with some difficult circumstances today. But who knows? There may be a purpose beyond our understanding! Let's choose to trust the Lord and maintain an attitude of thankfulness in every situation, no matter how hard it may be!

(from an internet daily devotional)

LET THEM GO

                                                                               

3955

“This is what I learned in all of my years on this earth. If somebody wants to walk out of your life… Let them go. Especially if you know you have done everything you can. You’ve been the best man or woman you can be and they still want to go, let ‘em go. Whatever they’re running after, they’ll see what they had in a minute, but by then it will be too late. Half of these people you’re crying about, you’re worrying about, two or three years from now, you won’t even remember their last name. How many times you’ve seen folks say, ‘What the **** was I thinking? What was wrong with me? I must have been lonely as **** to hook up with you.’

Let folks go, son. Some come for a lifetime. Some come for a season. You got to know which is which. And you gonna always mess up when you mix them season of people up with lifetime expectations. You got people who have gotten married to people they were only supposed to be with for a season. They got married to people they were only supposed to be with for a season and they wonder why they have so much hell in their life. That was a person who was supposed to teach you one thing. You didn’t know it so you just fell in love and now you wonder why you don’t have peace nowhere you go.

No, no. Listen. I put everybody that comes into my life in the category of a tree. Some people are like leaves on a tree. The wind blows, they’re over here. It blows the other way, they’re over there. They’re unstable. Seasons change. They wither and die. They’re gone. That’s alright. Most people in the world are like that. They’re just there to take from the tree. They aren’t going to do anything but take and give shade every now and then. That’s all they can do. Don’t get mad at people like that. That’s who they are. They were put on the earth to be a leaf. Some people are like a branch on the tree. You gotta be careful of those branches too. They’ll fool you. They make you think they’re a good friend and they’re real strong, but you step out there on them, and they break and they leave you high and dry.

But if you find you two or three people in your life just like the roots at the bottom of that tree, you are blessed ‘cause them the kind of people that ain’t going nowhere. They ain’t worried about being seen. Don’t nobody have to know they know you. Don’t have to know what they’re doing for you. But if those roots weren’t there, that tree couldn’t live. A tree can have a hundred million branches, but there’s only a few roots down at the bottom. I’m telling you son, when you get some roots, hang onto them. But the rest of them, let it go. Let folks go.

Nobody said it will be easy, but it gets easier when you learn how to love yourself. When you get to the point in your life where you look at people and you go, ‘Okay, wait a minute. You or me. You will make a decision.’ I’ve never in my life told nobody, ‘Don’t bother me. Don’t talk to me.’ But what I do, I say, ‘Look. This thing you’re doing right here. That’s gonna cause a problem. You gotta fix that. Cause if we’re gonna be friends, we gonna be cool, you’re gonna fix that. And if you don’t, we’re gonna have an issue.’ If you see somebody fix it, or even trying to fix it that’s somebody that cares. Keep them people around. That’s a leaf that’s trying to grow up and be something else. You understand?

But if you tell somebody ‘what you doing is hurting me, you need to stop,’ but they keep doing it, they don’t care. Move on. Let them go. No matter how much it hurt, let them go. And it will get easier. Every day it will get easier and easier, you just gotta make it through. You need to learn to be by yourself. People have to learn how to be alone. I don’t understand all these people who pray, ‘Lord, where is my man? Lord, where is my woman?’ That is crazier as ****. If you don’t know how to be by yourself, what you gonna do with somebody else? Stop praying about it. Shut up and wait. Go work on you. ****, that’s what that time is for to get yourself together. I’d rather be in the corner by myself with a puppet and a goldfish, and be happy than to be sitting around with somebody in my house, and I’m wondering ‘what the **** they there for?’

You would be surprised at what people put up with just to have somebody to say they love them. I don’t understand it. I can’t live in dysfunction. I’m sorry. I’ve done come through too much **** and high water to let you come up in my adult life when I’m supposed to be at peace and give me all kind of ****. Only two places on this earth you gonna have peace. The grave and your house. And if you can’t wake up in your house and have peace, something’s wrong. I’m sorry.”

(“Madea” – Tyler Perry)

TOUCHING VACATIONS

                                                                             

3954

Pt. 1

Six or eight years ago, my wife and I drove up to Kentucky to visit our daughter and son in law and their family. And since I am a military retiree, we often rent a hotel room on the nearest Army, Air Force or Navy installation. And this vacation was no exception. We booked a couple of nights at Fort Knox. (And no, Ft. Knox is not just the repository of our nation's gold supply).

While we were at this particular installation, perhaps the best known of all military forts and bases, (due to its immediate connection with the world's most precious metal), we visited the General George Patton Museum.

As we entered the museum, one of the first exhibits we came across was General Patton's staff car. This was, per the placard standing next to it, the very vehicle in which this famous military man was involved in what ultimately proved to be a fatal accident. As a result, General Patton was immediately paralyzed, and died days later.

As we walked a respectful distance away from the car, which was surrounded by a rope line, I could not help myself. Totally oblivious of the likelihood of video cameras, I reached out and quickly touched the hood of the vehicle. Thankfully, alarms didn't sound, not did military policemen run towards me, manhandle me, and slap me in handcuffs.

As we continued to walk through the museum, (which I never knew existed 'til I just happened upon it), I noticed an oddly familiar table with mannequins sitting around its perimeter.

Reading the sign next to the table, I realized why it was so familiar. 

"Surrender Table - Persian Gulf War"

Here was the table upon which General Norman Schwartzkopf and a couple of Iraqi generals discussed peace terms in 1992. Once again, I could not help myself. Once again, I stretched out my hand, and did what I had done before.

Pt. 2

And once again, I found myself looking around to see if a video camera or security guard had seen me in the course of fulfilling my temptation to touch a significant historical relic. 

But once again, there was no apparent camera, nor security person to be seen. Now, suddenly, I remembered a couple of stories I had seen on the news and/or internet of military retirees who were arrested for one thing or another they had done; and which were somehow connected to the Army or Navy or Air Force. I figured if I got past the lone individual at the front desk, I was home free. Ten feet, five feet, two feet. Now we were out the door. 

There were other times in which I touched a couple of super famous, super expensive historical items. Once we were at the Kennedy Space Center and I touched the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Another time I touched an SR-71 Blackbird aircraft on display at Werner-Robbins Air Force Base. However, in both instances 'touches' were permitted, if not welcomed.

 A few years ago, my wife and I visited Scotland and Ireland, and we toured what is referred to as the White Castle; located in the former of the two countries. 

As the tour guide walked us through the sundry rooms of the castle, we were told that Queen Victoria visited the place a century and a half before us, and "by the way, she slept in that bed."

Of course, once again I felt the tempestuous juices beginning to circulate in my body. And, once again I could not help myself. Thus, when the tour guide momentarily turned her back, I stretched out my right index finger, and (you guessed it) I tapped the side rail of the bedstead. (Yeah, I did)!

Pt. 3

Then there was the prized possession of a famous military figure, also a four star general; (whom the previous general, mentioned above, may very well have known). 

General James Van Fleet was, at one time, overall commander of U.S. forces during the Korean War. President Harry Truman claimed he was the finest military officer that America had ever produced. (And while I am a bit "ahead of myself," here, he was also America's longest lived general of all time; dying at the advanced age of 100).

Well, Gen. Van Fleet owned what is referred to as a cane and barley rocking chair; which was manufactured at least a century ago. The general had purchased the chair about 1925 from his landlord in California when he was a mid-grade officer. Ultimately, he went on to serve during WWI, WWII and Korea, and after his retirement he was recalled by President Kennedy during the Vietnam War, and was sent on a diplomatic mission to Greece.

However, speaking of the rocking chair, a friend of mine who oversees estate sales had notified me that he had been selected to handle an auction of General Van Fleet's personal possessions, and he thought I might be interested in buying the chair prior to the auction. Anyone who knows me knows that I almost literally "jumped" at the opportunity to make it mine.

All this to say, that as soon as I retrieved the chair from Calvin's shed, ran the passenger seat forward, put the chair in my backseat, drove home, unloaded it, and brought it into my house, I immediately satisfied my intense temptation to install my posterior where the general had often installed his own.

Afterward

As any astute reader of this blog might have easily deduced, each and every individual whom I have enumerated here are... dead; (while the writer, as he pens these words, is still very much alive). The cars, and tables, and rocking chairs and bedsteads that "begged" to be touched, now strangely unimportant, except to those, like me, who the notables of the earth left behind.

People such as Generals Patton, Schwartzkopf, and Van Fleet, and Queen Victoria have, each in their own turn, "crossed the proverbial Jordan River." 

The great and mighty of the earth, now brought low before the King of kings and Lord of lords, and who will stand as humble and unassuming as the rest of us when God, the Father imposes His rightful judgement on us all; be it good or bad.

by William McDonald, PhD

LOOKING FOR THAT ONE

 3953

    I was watching a movie today about a military doctor who was assigned a patient with severe dental and lip injuries; as a result of an automobile accident.

 

   This surgeon took extraordinary measures to assist his patient, and spent multiplied hours planning the initial, and subsequent operations. Never in his surgical career had he felt such empathy for a patient. Never in his life had he devoted such caring effort, or taken his responsibility so much to heart.

 

    And though the young woman was gruesome to behold, and though her injuries were the worst he’d ever witnessed, he painstakingly went about his task. And for those several months and years he assumed a duel role; that of physician and prophet. For he could see the invisible as though it was visible.

 

    The young woman often lashed out at him, wavering between despondency, anxiety, discouragement and outright rage. But nothing deterred him from his task, and over the course of years he performed surgery after surgery. And with each operation his dream took shape, and his young client seemed more confident about the ultimate result.

 

    More than once someone accused the doctor of playing God. And though their remarks were critical in tone, the physician chose to regard them as compliments.

 

    And what of the young lady, the recipient of all his skill and labor? Her facial deformities became less obvious, less hideous to those who beheld her. And with time the results of her unfortunate accident were almost imperceptible, until all that was left was a slight scar on one edge of her recreated lips.  And her joy and the corresponding joy of her surgeon overflowed, and seemed to fill up the world around them. She was whole again. Her shame was vanquished. 

 

    And I think I forgot to tell you. Before her injury, our little heroine had been a military nurse. And she returned to her duties with more vigor and more enthusiasm than she had ever felt before. For having once been a patient, she could empathize far better than most.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about that “playing God” analogy, and at first glance it’s a repugnant characterization, since there’s One God and I’m not Him. But that old adage, “Some people have to have a God with flesh on” rings true. We have been given a rare opportunity; an opportunity to play both prophet and God, and I say that with all due respect, and submission to the only One and True God.

 

    There are those in our midst who will never excel, nor attempt to do so. There are those in our company who will be content to squander their God-given hopes and dreams. There are those who will make the cemetery richer; for the local cemetery is among the richest pieces of ground on earth. It is filled with all the unexplored and unfulfilled dreams of thousands of God’s creations; lying dormant, never to find fruition.

 

    My message to you tonight is to look for that one; that one person among many who displays the kind of unexplored, just under the surface potential to be singular, to be great, to be used of Our Lord. Look for that man or woman who can be shaped, molded, impacted; for that one who, though sick, or sad, or even selfish has a pliable and contrite spirit, and who is increasingly ready to assume their God-given place on the earth.

 

    Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty is a verse: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teaming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” (Emma Lazarus)

 

    Our mission is to people like that. The tired, the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refuse, the homeless. And we have a lamp to light their pathway. And we offer them a golden door; a door that leads to freedom.

 

    But many will refuse our comfort, and many will drift away. But if we can touch just one at a time. We may not be able to change the world, but we may be able to change the world of one person. Pour your efforts into all who seek help, who pleads for deliverance. Do this. Do this.

 

    But look for that one; that one who seems to provoke you to do a little more. That one who not only needs a little more attention, but who, by words or action, places themselves in your hands, and bids you mold them into something lovely. Look for that one.

 

    For you are both a physician and a prophet. So reminiscent of that doctor who bestowed his best labor on the little patient, earlier in this story. God calls you to pour healing suave in their wounds. He gives you dreams in the night on their behalf, and provokes you to see the invisible and impossible. You are a both a physician and a prophet.

 

    Look for that One, that One who seems to provoke you to do a little more. That One who not only needs a little more attention, but who, by words or action, places themselves in your hands and bids you mold them into Something lovely. Look for that One.

 

(William McDonald, PhD)