Bible Thumpers

What does it mean if you find commercials in your messages from God?  Is it worrisome if you find that you hold exactly the same point of view on a number of topics as a large number of other people?  Do you worry that you have become a "ditto-head", or do you take pride in it?

My father was an early graduate of the Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.  Attendance at this school was a long deployment of three years so my mother started looking around to complete her social life by attending a local church.  She had always attended the Congregational Church in her hometown of Hopkinton, Massachusetts so it was natural for her to choose the same  denomination in Monterey.

Herrmann Hall - U.S.. Naval Postgraduate School

She dressed up for church and showed up, only to find that she was lacking.  At the start of the service all the  members of the church were asked to hold up their bibles as a testament to their faith.  Somehow, that had never been a part of what my mother always carried when she went to church, so she felt shamed and unwelcome.  She never went back.  She would sometimes refer to "bible thumpers" with disgust, at least for the first decade or so after that.

We lived in many places after that and every new home was accompanied by a search for a suitable church.  When I was in high school I participated in those searches and she would accommodate my preferences, perhaps in hopes that I would continue to attend church with her after everyone else in the family had long since made it too unpleasant for her to force them to continue.  We considered such important criteria as the quality of the music/choir, the comfort of the pews, and the level of inspiration of the sermons.  Out of such things eventually is constructed deep and abiding faith - perhaps even rabid faith such as drove my mother away from that church in Monterey so many years before.

At the end of her life my mother would have been perfectly at home attending that church, forgiving their arrogance and their fetishes, dishing out love where there was pettiness.  Church was always very important to her but I think sometimes that she was the true believer in those crowds, masquerading as an ordinary congregant.  There,  I will be arrogant about her faith where she could never be.

The Light Within

Nothing that I possess, nothing that anyone has, is safe from loss.  Even my love for my family could degenerate under the onslaught of disease and undermine everything that is most important to me.  That is why, in my rather extensive internal conceptual framework, I cherish the most my love for the people around me and for the world in general - above everything else.  The hope is that as every element of my mind is slowly dissolved away in some worst case scenario,  the most strongly held foundations will hang on the longest.  I want my love to be like the sun shining in the sky for billions of years - sometimes perhaps hidden by clouds but never to be doubted as to its reality.

The sun and Mount Fuji

Prayer

The majority of the people who know about my cancer tell me that they are praying for me.  Some of them [who know about my religious views] also ask if it is okay for them to pray for me.  It is my understanding that praying for someone is an act of kindness.  For that reason I always answer, "Of course, [it is okay for pray for me]".  I accept all sorts of intangible kindness from anyone who has it to offer.

I overlook the reciprocity principle in this case since it is unlikely that I will ever pray for them.  I have often thought that funerals are for the living.  I suppose that I also believe that prayers are for the one who is praying.  I know that the people doing the praying are fully aware of the benefits they receive - as illustrated by the phrase "not by my will but by Yours (God's)".  My mother was not one who ever failed to provide commentary and often in her prayers she had specific wants and desires but yet the realization always was there: what was going to happen was up to God.

I have been witness to a lot of prayer.  It is my failing that I have failed to witness miraculous results.  Once, however, the Seahawks won the Superbowl.

So then, my failure to pray for others is probably an act of unkindness.  Would it be better for me to pray knowing that I have extreme doubts about its efficacy?  Such an act reeks of insincerity, hypocrisy even.  It is the sort of act that I have often seen in religious people - where they are plainly doing something without faith, going through the motions because without that "they got nothing".  I estimate that there are more opioid addicts than there are people with authentic prayers - people who are more than rote sock puppets.

The more I write, the deeper I enter the realms of unkindness.  Beyond the unkindness, however, there is a deep sympathy for the condition where we all find ourselves enmeshed.  If the internal pain and tears I experience when I see people suffering amounts to a prayer then maybe there is at least one authentic prayer being rendered for them.

James Tissot, Jesus Wept (Jésus pleura)

A story: In my late twenties I worked as an orderly in the imaging department of a hospital.  As orderly it was my duty to appear every Saturday morning and ease the task load of the technicians who had to work that morning.  On one occasion I recall miscalculating how much alcohol I could drink and still work in the morning.  I showed up in a state of suffering.

Bronze statue of Avalokiteśvara from Sri Lanka, ca. 750 CE

In the course of the morning my headache and my nausea came and went inexplicably, until I discovered that so long as I was focused on caring for the person in the wheelchair I was free from pain.  Science has yet to explore how much suffering can be relieved by caring for someone else.

I am not superstitious.  I believe that I discovered something fundamental (oxytocin?) about what it means to be human.  I specifically exclude the possibility that I was using my "aura" to suck energy away from my patients.  There are some nasty memes out there.

Mahayana Buddhism has kinder memes.  Avalokiteśvara is "he who hears the sound of the world".  Among the Chinese he becomes a she, Kuan Yin the goddess of mercy.  As a system of faith, Buddhism comes the closest to avoiding all superstition.  They strongly believe in the power of prayer, to the point of automating the process endlessly with wheels and flags.

Chinese statue of Avalokiteśvara (Kuan Yin) looking out over the sea, c. 1025 CE

I prefer to deny the possibility that superstition and "magic" leverage any part of the objective/real universe.  It would be painful to discover that I have inadvertently hurt anyone.  It has been painful when I have inadvertently hurt someone.

So tell me:  If there is a prayer in the heart of the forest yet there is no heart present to make or hear that prayer - is there a prayer?

Electric Prayer Wheels

Limitations (Things I Learned from Mother Boeing)

In the world of manufacturing there are three dimensions: "quality, speed, and price (pick two)".  There are many more catch phrases than that of course.  Everyone wants to make everything easy.  Everyone is looking for the formula that will make them rich without effort.  Every few years during my career a new initiative would come along.  For a while we all got on the band wagon and each of us sponsored some improvement, greater or smaller.  Often we got a t-shirt.

 

It was all part of the job and we all understood that any balking would result in a quick path to a stagnant career, or worse.  I find that I am, once again, struck dumb with regard to any discussion of the details.  My rather adequate memory would reveal all too much about the foibles of management in the large organization.  One thing though is that they were trying and usually their intentions were good.

I genuinely love the Boeing Company.  It is the whole foundation of a very good life that I have led.  I literally cried when Boeing planes were used to bring down the NY Trade Towers.  There is real pride in being part of a great enterprise that builds a great product.

One of the more consequential initiatives at Boeing was the introduction of "lean" disciplines into Boeing manufacturing systems.  The entire workforce was required to attend extensive training in "lean" techniques and learn all the "lean" catch phrases.  It changed the company forever.  Various "powers that be" made or broke their careers on the shoals of "Lean".  I could write many postings about my perceptions of what happened and how Boeing was affected by its particularly global enterprise and the mismatch between the dream and the reality of the Boeing supplier chains.  I also sometimes reflect on the Amazonian reality that has reshaped our lives - on how it must inevitably be permeated with Lean thinking.

I drank the kool-aid.  I still believe in the efficacy of Lean disciplines, not just in manufacturing but also potentially for the restructuring of our whole economic infrastructure.  I spent a number of years, roughly between 1997 and 2007, promoting advanced transportation systems to streamline our economy and take us to the next level.  I do not believe that "rock" moved one iota during the entire time I spent pushing on it.  I decided to stop banging my head on that wall (mostly).

I have always wanted to "fix the world".  I have never, however, just accepted any particular approach to fixing the world.  Marxism, for instance, was not an ideology I could accept.  Likewise, Capitalism is where we expect to find "death panels" and a lack of sympathy for the disadvantaged.  Steering an eclectic course one has to expect opposition.  Sometimes the opposition is unexpected, coming from someone who does not understand what you are trying to do.  More often it is from established forces in our society such as unions and engineering consulting firms - an unexpected alliance if one does not consider history.

Entire books have been written about failure.  These days I am mostly working on my garden.  Over time, "my garden" is more the Lake Wilderness Arboretum and less my own plot of land.  I have many times participated in the salvage of some special garden that would otherwise be extinguished by developers.  I want the work that I do to extend beyond my own life into the indefinite future.  I believe in cause and effect, especially subtle effects, so I know that my life is not meaningless.  I do not need eternal life or salvation.  I do not even need to see and understand the eventual outcome.

https://forums.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/threads/magnolia-campbellii-subsp-mollicomata-lanarth.441/

 My own garden will one day fall under development, nor do I have the resources to endow it for any lengthy period of time into the future.  Some rich people do that, creating smaller or greater plots of acreage that will preserve a memory of a life style their children knew growing up, but which will never adequately serve the needs of species conservation or even of horticultural achievement.

Sadly, I am not being kind now.  It is time for me to quit.

Status/Weather Report

Last Thursday my surgeon called at 6:30 PM while I was lying on the couch.  It was the second day of my second cycle of chemo yet I was feeling pretty good and planning to attend the board meeting of my HOA.  I am so proud of the board of my HOA.  They have all stepped up to lift the load off of me since I came down with cancer.  That is important because I am president.  I am trying to carry on while also using this as an exercise in managing the continuity of the organization.

Dr. Dash is a urologist and he is planning to perform major surgery on me in early January.  He already called me one other time and now we are like "old friends".  He has now scheduled another cystoscopy on November 13th to remove the stents from my ureters.  He agrees with Dr. Wright that having two stents is a sign that my disease is "clinically" T-3 rather than T-2.  This is not a problem for me since I worship the truth, whatever that may turn out to be.

November 13th will the final day of my third chemo cycle, the final cycle commencing on the 14th.  The second cycle was more tiring than the first.  I am learning to deal with these ups and downs.  I went on a spending binge recently so $600 worth of plants were delivered to the house today.  I will take them to the arboretum in the morning to be unpacked and repotted.

I think that I will be having another CT scan soon.  My oncologist is concerned that I may develop active TB since there are minor scars in my lungs - perhaps from 65 years ago when my mother had a Christian Science friend who died of TB.  Mom said that we all have positive TB tests.  That may be the reason.  It is the possible reason that she named.  There is also the fact that Dad's mother died of TB.  Grandma Murphy's TB, though, was supposed to be bovine TB - caught from the family milking cow while they were in Peace River, Alberta homesteading.

I have daily granix shots for two more days then five days resting before it all starts again.  I will have December off completely.  There has been no recurrence of the pain from that one granix shot.  I have a big bruise from that shot so something went wrong that time.

I need to start up the lights in the garage and move all my tender plants out of the weather.  I have taken a few pictures over the last few days.  No frost is predicted in the next ten days.

Weeping Maple Fall Color

Angel's Trumpet

Rhododendron 'Aleksandr Isayevich'

Hostas shedding leaves.  'Halcyon' is running late. 'Frances Williams' is gone.

Some Music

Music has always been important to me.  I treat music like everything else so it turns out that I am not so important to music.  I was never going to appear in Carnegie Hall the way my cello teacher in Santa Clara suggested I might want, as I was leaving the last time that I saw him.  I heard that he died only a short time later from Hong Kong flu.  I do not have perfect pitch.  Over the years I have developed ringing in my ears, which I am able to ignore.

I cannot share music as I might like in this blog so I will make this relatively simple.  For me, the music that I know forms a pattern in my mind.  Like most people music eventually fades into a kind of boredom where I do not want to hear it anymore.  In some cases I use music as an index into my (associative) memory.  When a memory is special the associated music becomes special, often for silly or childish reasons.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/20/12242806/chronicle-of-amber-tv-adaptation-robert-kirkman-skybound

In the book, "Nine Princes in Amber", there is a pattern written in the floor in a room in the palace in Amber, just as there is also an identical pattern written in a floor in the sub-sea palace in Rebma.  One who is "of the blood" of Amber can walk the pattern and receive the gift of walking all the patterns of all the alternate universes in that fantasy.

Here is a pattern, a sonata, that I sometimes play while waiting for sleep, to restore order in my mind and to restore purpose.  In the third version the artist is very "declarative" and the music is rendered without any human failings and without the need to "push through" barriers.  I go to another version for all of that (the first cut), when I need to feel a little more hope.  With Depeche Mode the arpeggios are just that.  Alternations in the first cut make them more melodic.  The other versions are probably best seen as corrupt, but in the end it is all art.

Rationalizing

Today I started my second round of chemotherapy.  Before hand I had a consultation with my oncologist.

From the beginning, I was offered a choice to have either chemotherapy plus radiation therapy or else chemotherapy plus surgery to remove my bladder+prostate.  The second alternative (which is not offered to the very old or weak) is the recommended one.  There is never the possibility of a "total cure" with radiation therapy since suspect tissues are left in place.  Also, there is "scarring" with radiation therapy.

Many years ago my father (now 96 years old)  had lymphoma.  I do not know all the details of his treatment, other than that it was effective.  I believe that there was radiation therapy and I have seen the mass of scars on his belly.  Those scars became infected on Christmas Day the last time he came up for Christmas (a number of years ago).  He and I had some quality time in the emergency room at Valley Medical that day.

Angelina Jolie famously had a preventative double mastectomy.  It would seem to take great faith in modern medicine to take those kinds of steps.  I find that I too, in the end took the doctors' best advice seriously.  I will now be able to join some of my elderly friends in an informal competition to see who can live and prosper with the smallest number of "unnecessary" organs. 

New Forest Pony, Dorset

I conducted a search of the Internet for a list of all organs unneeded to sustain life but the lists that came up were more "off the wall" than comprehensive.  Neither the bladder nor the prostate made the lists.  I am holding out for an actual vital social (rather than sexual) function for the vomeronasal organ.

Fun "bunny trail"(digression): The Flehmen Response

The "Infusion" RNs started with a round of blood tests to make sure that my liver and kidney functions were up to the challenge.  My oncologist is more worried about my kidneys so she has warned me away from Ibuprophen in favor of acetaminophen or even percocet.  Fine.

There were interesting protocols (liturgy) surrounding the administration of the chemotherapy.  After the blood test results were approved the drugs were ordered from the pharmacy.  The drugs were sent across the hospital via pneumatic tubes.  They were checked and scanned in with a cross scan of my wrist band.  Then a second RN double-checked the array of drugs against those that were ordered and signed off on them, once again scanning both the drug labels and my wrist band.  I was shown the list of drugs and the pile of IV bags and asked to approve them, just as if I could actually pass judgment on the actions of medical professionals.  I scanned the list and it all looked as I expected it to look so, of course, the sock puppet approved it.  I have now been through this ritual three times.

As usual, I slept through most of the infusions of various chemicals into my body. I felt drowsiness overcoming me from the moment I walked into the treatment room with Barb, so it was not anything medical involved.  Since working graveyard shift I find that I can fall asleep at will in certain situations.  Visiting in-laws...  Waiting for dinner...  Receiving infusions...

We got out around 5:00 PM for a total duration of about 6 hours of infusions.  Barb and I went to Ivar's for Alaskan Cod and chips for dinner.  We both added cole slaw sides to our orders and I added a small cherry Coke.  I ate my whole dinner.  Since then I have added a glass of cranberry juice and a root-beer float to my intake.  Part of the infusion is 1.5 liters of saline so there has been a couple of trips to the bathroom for extended "leak" sessions.  I have had a slight headache since my session at the Infusion Center but I medicated that and feel pretty good now.

Valley Med Cancer Center under Construction

 Speaking of the Infusion Center, there is a giant crater in the center of the Valley Medical hospital complex where the new Cancer Center will consolidate various departments from all over the campus (and elsewhere?).  Cancer is big these days and possibly even profitable to some.  Valley Medical is now a part of UW Medicine so in theory it is part of a top-of-the-line medical institution.  I suspect that the Cancer Center is part of a large UW Medicine development plan.  We have encountered some commuter traffic around Valley Med but nothing like exists on the freeways around Seattle and Bellevue.  Alan's commute was taking as much as two hours each way to commute to a job at Puget Sound Energy in Bellevue.  Then there is the parking.

I visited the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and UW Medicine when I went to get my second opinions on diagnosis and treatment.  They refused to tell me that I was perfectly well and needed no further medical treatment (ha, ha).  In fact, the UW urologist rated my cancer at "clinically" T-3, instead of the usual consensus that I am T-2.  Faith is one of the virtues around which this blog revolves.  I am being perfectly rational.  I am playing the odds.  I am using faith in accepting the judgements of my medical experts.  They told me that my treatment at Valley Med would be exactly the same as what I would receive at the SCCA.  My surgery will take place at the "surgery pavilion" at UW Medicine, so even that has similarities.

The traffic and parking at the SCCA and UW Medicine are stressful and cost money.  I am glad not to have to make that trip every day.

It is a really good thing that I am fully ambulatory.  Everywhere I go there is a lot of walking.