epilepsy

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to February!

art, Civil War, epilepsy, Evangelism, exercise, Faith, Food, Forgiveness, generosity, Healing, Health, holidays, Love, Ministry, rabbits, Reflection, Spirituality, Valentine’s Day

Mother Theresa

February is a cold month here in the northern hemisphere. Maybe that’s why we rabbits yearn for the warmth of love, since those emotions kindle a fire in our hearts. It’s a cold, dead heart of a bunny that can’t quicken with love. I find those who have difficulty loving others often are struggling with an inner pain or grief, which often expresses itself in depression. Depression closes a person off from others. As we used to say when we were young, “Been down so long, it looks like up to me.” That phrase was originally used by bluesman Furry Lewis in his 1928 song “I Will Turn Your Money Green.” Both Jim Morrison of the Doors in 1966 and Bob Dylan in 1978 incorporated a lyric from the old bluesman’s song.

Reliquary Arm of St. Valentine, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art, New York City

Yet February is also known as a month for love. In the middle of the month, for this one has only 28 days, we celebrate Valentine’s Day. Of course, history gives us not one, but three men by the name of Valentinus, Latin for strong or powerful. It was a common name in the Roman Empire back in the early years of the Christian church. One Valentinus was a general stationed in North Africa, who died on February 14th with his men in battle. The other two, who also died on the same date, have a better claim to the sainthood. One was the bishop of Terni, who healed a crippled boy and converted his whole family to Christianity.

The Roman senate heard of this heresy, arrested Valentinus, and decapitated him. The boy’s family arranged to take his body back to Terni, but all of the funeral procession was killed by the Romans. Chopping up bodies doesn’t just belong to Zombie movies. This is how pieces of the saints’ bones were distributed to various churches. Of course, sometimes this results in multiple skulls, but the saints didn’t have double heads.

Roman emperors didn’t like contending with other gods

The third Valentinus had a similar story about healing and conversion. He came to the attention of the emperor because he was preaching Christianity.  Then he was sent to house arrest, where the owner was promised a bounty if he could dissuade Valentinus from his faith. Instead, the faithful man healed his jailer’s daughter. Then he baptized the householder and all who lived there, more than forty in all. Of course, everyone went to jail and did not pass go. No one collected $200. There was no get out of jail free card. This is how one becomes a red martyr, which is why our Valentine hearts are red, not white or blue.

Vintage Valentine

What’s interesting is none of the historic Valentines were ever connected to love and affection. They were known instead for healing and faith, especially epilepsy. There are almost 40 saints associated with epilepsy, a number only surpassed by those related to the black plague. In France they were called “saints convulsionnaires” (convulsion saints). During the middle ages the difference between epilepsy and chorea (neurodegenerative diseases affecting movements) wasn’t well known yet. This is how St. Vitus became one of the saints to which patients with epilepsy prayed more often for help. Epileptic people also sought the help of St. Willibrord, St. John the Baptist and St. Matthew.

19th CE German card: St. Valentine Healing an Epileptic Youth

Undoubtedly, the most renowned was Valentine. The cult began in several European countries, up to the point that this condition became linked with the saint’s name. In France epilepsy was called “maladie de Saint Valentin,” in Germany the “plague of Saint Valentine” and in Dutch the word sintvelten was a synonym of the type of epilepsy with falling seizures. In German, Valentine is pronounced “fallentin” and is connected with one of the symptoms of epilepsy, the falling sickness or the falling-down disease.

Every birdie needs some birdie to love

How did we get to cute cupids with tiny bows and heart shaped arrows aimed at our sweetie pie’s love center? We can thank Chaucer, who wrote The Parliament of Fowls in 1380, and mentioned “seynt Volantynys day/ Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make. [Saint Valentine’s day, when every bird comes there to choose his mate.]” Bird love apparently occurred on Valentine’s feast day at the start of the English spring. If birds can do it, maybe we rabbits and humans should take the hint. After all, it’s been a long cold winter.

Bad bun puns abound

February 2nd is Ground Hog Day, and if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow on Groundhog Day, then that means there are six more weeks of winter. If not, then we’ll have an early spring. Or so the legend goes. Of course, any time Phil’s prediction has turned out to be wrong, it’s always been a result of a “mistranslation” by his handlers. Of course, we’ll have what we have. We rabbits take the good with the bad. An early spring means fresh greens in Mr. McGregor’s garden, while more winter means more warm soup and cuddling by the fireplace.

Music score illustration in heart shaped book

Everybody needs somebody to love. We can love another person, we can love our country, we can love our neighbors, we can love god, and we can’t forget to love ourselves. Love is one of the most popular themes in music, as the lion’s share of pop music lyrics in every decade contained references to relationships and love (67.3%) and/or sex and sexual desire (29.9%). In my own music library, I found 117 songs for 8 hours and 43 minutes worth of “love” playlist.

When I think of love, I remember the many texts I’ve preached to various congregations over my time in ministry. The most important is 1 John 4:19-20—

“We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

With Love

Gods love for God’s creation is the source of all other love, for if we’ve known God’s unconditional love for us, then we can share that same love for others. Our lack of forgiveness for others and our need to control them “so they deserve our love,” only shows how little most of the rabbit population understands the steadfast love of God, which persists, even when our love fails and turns away.

Popular music reminds us over and over, “Everybody needs somebody to love.” Jerry Wexler signed Solomon Burke to Atlantic Records in the early ’60s. Together, with producer Bert Berns, they turned that song for the offering into Burke’s most famous 1964 song: “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love.” You can hear him preach and sing it here:

The original Everybody Needs Somebody to Love

We probably know this same song better from The Blues Brothers movie. The Blues Brothers’ version of “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” not only included Burke’s introductory spoken words, it modified those words to adapt to the plot. It was the climactic performance of the movie, and as such, it became one of the more memorable renditions of the song. In 1989, The Blues Brothers’ “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” was released as a single in the UK, peaking at Number 12. Here’s the movie clip:

The Blues Brothers at their Best

“Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” has been covered by groups as famous as The Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, as well as Wilson Pickett, not to mention psychedelic garage rock bands. Those rabbits are still having flashbacks, and there’s no accounting for taste if they’re still listening to that in garages today.

If bunnies could talk…

February 20th is Love your Pet day. I know you want to give your pet the love and attention it deserves as one of God’s creatures, for it didn’t ask to be born into this world and it depends on us, just as a child does. Pets give us unconditional love and appreciation, something we can learn from them. Too often we love only if someone reciprocates tit for tat for us. This is called conditional love. It’s transactional, a give and get, or a mutual backscratching. This is the lowest form of rabbit love: “I’ll give you a carrot if you don’t interrupt me for fifteen minutes.” I confess I’ve stooped to this in my life with my own small daughter bun.

The third Monday is always Presidents’ Day, which is a three day holiday for many people. This is a day to love your country. It celebrates George Washington, our first President, who led our ragtag armies, but was a man of deep thought: “The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.”

The other President we honor is Abraham Lincoln, who steered our nation through its most divisive period, the Civil War. In his first Inaugural Address to Congress on March 4, 1861, he closed with these fateful words, only to have the Confederate States fire on Fort Sumpter in the early morning hours of April 12, 1861.

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect and defend” it.

I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

In 1862, Confederate soldier Robert King made this basket weave folded card for his wife from scrounged paper. Opened up, it showed two crying lovers, a particularly sad foretelling of his death.

So much for the “war of northern aggression,” for some rabbits have been dispensing “alternative facts” for over a century and a half. But, we yearn always to make the broken whole, for like the Saints Valentinus of old, love is a healing balm. The love of God flows through these miracle workers and it’s God’s power, not the human beings, that heals the afflicted. Indeed, even today, when we have modern medicine, we faithful rabbits say, God called people into healing ministries, God provided the resources of intelligence and inspiration, and also the generosity of funding.

Visiting the Rabbit Doctor

Some rabbits want to restrict God’s miracles to those which happen without medical assistance (extraordinary means), but some of us recognize God most often works in and through ordinary means. This isn’t an alternative fact, but healing miracles happen all the time. At the time of the Civil War, life expectancy in the USA was only 40 years. Today, it’s almost twice that! We have 40 more years to live, love, and laugh. We now have 40 years to be “over the hill,” so I think for every rabbit’s sake, we need to banish this ridiculous rite of passage, or at least move it to age 50.

If today’s rabbits would take better care of their bodies than my generation, they might extend the life expectancy and enjoyment by some years. Love your body and care for it with nutritious food, adequate sleep each night, and appropriate exercise at least three to five days a week. Also think of activity minutes, and move about a bit every hour, rather than just sitting all day.

Love is a divine energy

There’s many a holiday in February, but Fat Tuesday will be March 1 with Ash Wednesday on the following day. So let’s practice LOVE all month long to prepare our hearts for the greatest gift of love of all (John 3:16-17):

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Remember, Every bunny needs some bunny to love!

Joy, peace, and love,

Cornelia

Percentage of top-40 songs referring to 19 content categories by decade. | Download Table

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Percentage-of-top-40-songs-referring-to-19-content-categories-by-decade_tbl1_322664390

Been Down So Long by The Doors – Songfacts

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-doors/been-down-so-long

Who Was Saint Valentine? A History of The Figure’s Origins – HistoryExtra

https://www.historyextra.com/period/roman/valentine-day-history-saint-who-real-story-cured/

Saint Valentine: Patron of lovers and epilepsy – ScienceDirect

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0121737217300833

George Washington, The First Inaugural Address

First Inaugural Address

Cover Songs Uncovered: “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” – The Pop Culture Experiment

https://popcultureexperiment.com/2016/11/21/cover-songs-uncovered-everybody-needs-somebody-to-love/

Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861)

Click to access Lincoln01-763.pdf

United States: life expectancy 1860-2020 | Statista

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-united-states-all-time/

Crossroads and Callings

art, Attitudes, Creativity, epilepsy, Faith, Food, grief, Habits, Healing, Health, Icons, Medical care, Mental Illness, ministry, purpose, purpose, renewal, salvation, Spirituality, stewardship, Stress, Uncategorized, vision, vision

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Road to Damascus

Nine years ago…how time flies when you’re having fun! I was at a crossroads in my life, however, with a preexisting health condition I’d managed to live with successfully through three high stress careers since 1977. Accumulated stress isn’t good for the body, so my seizure disorder began to make itself visible.

When my neurologist told me I’d never be able to do the work of a full time church pastor again, I had to revision and rehear my calling from God. If we define a role so strictly it’s a one way highway, it can become “my way or the highway.” This extreme dividing drives clergy and laity into producers and consumers, instead of encouraging shared ministry experiences.

If being a “source of all blessings for everyone” is a short term good for a pastor’s ego, it can also lead to a long term harm in health costs or emotional burnout. For the laity, losing the opportunity to live out their shared witness to the mighty acts of God in Jesus Christ means they don’t fulfill their roles as the priesthood of all believers.

ARTANDICON in 2009: Bravely Smiling

The basic teaching of “make disciples of all nations” doesn’t have much effectiveness if we first are not disciples ourselves. So the old saw is true, we may be saved by the grace of God, and not by our good works, but if we want to become learners or disciples, our spiritual life takes some work, just as doing good for others is a hands on job.

I count myself fortunate to have a creative and curious mind, for I’ve always been the child who asked, “Why,” or went, ”Oh, I need to look that up and learn more about it!” Learning for the test, only to forget it later, has never been my strong suit.

The system as a whole also interests me more than the individual parts (I confess this is my shortcoming in relationships, since I have a few deep friendships, many good friends, and lots of friendly folks I like, and many people I know. Not enough people to count on one hand to say I totally dislike, although some I’ve set boundaries for their presence in my life because of their addiction issues).

When I set my preconceived notions of my ordination aside, I listened for a new calling from God. If I couldn’t serve IN the church BUILDING , perhaps I could still serve in the church as the BODY OF CHRIST. The body of Christ exists everywhere, both within and without the edifice we call the sanctuary, for we come and go.

In fact, we have people without churches, people who believe in god, or who are merely spiritual, all around us. Most of us are too busy dealing with our own congregations to reach out to these people. They don’t need traditional stories or sermons. I started a science fiction journal on faith.

Why not? Who else is doing it? Will it make money? Who cares? Do I get feedback? Not often. If we’re in this for the affirmation from human beings, we’re worshiping a false god. Idolatry. I can say things like this and not worry about ruffling the big givers. The taste of freedom is sweet.

Of course, I said this type of thing anyhow my entire ministry career, so I moved a lot, but the churches had good stewardship while I was there and repaired all their unmet facility needs. I left it better than I found it because the people came together to make it happen.

In the solitude of your own studio, writing room, or hangout, there’s no people to gather together to make it happen. A person only has the thoughts of what once was, what has been lost, and what will never be again. It’s the first stage of grief, a shock. It can turn into despair or depression, for everything is overwhelming.

Medication, or “better living through chemistry” can help lift the brain fog so a person can get their ducks in a row. This is no easy task, if you’ve ever tried to herd ducks. Worse than herding cats. Ducks will turn around and peck you. Trust me on this. Childhood memory.

Some people think a prescription is a faith cop out, since they should trust God’s grace alone to sustain them in a difficult time. I think God’s providing grace gave us the knowledge to create the medicine to help us heal our bodies. God can heal by ordinary means, such as health providers or medicines; or extraordinary means, such as miracles. More often God’s working in the ordinary, or we wouldn’t use the exclamation point after miracle!

I also returned to my art, for I find painting the holy icons and natural landscapes both bring me closer to God. As I got more used to being on the computer, I taught myself how to set up WordPress blogs and Facebook Pages for my special interests in health, spirituality, and art. Actually all of these get combined together, because of “systems thinking,” since we can’t lop off art from spirituality, or health from cooking, or any other combination thereabouts.

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Antique Aluminum Jello Mold

Now nine years later, I’m in a good place, enjoying my new callings, and in much better health. I will always have my condition, but my condition does not have me. Of course, I have to maintain a disciplined lifestyle, unlike the rest of the world, which runs at pellmell pace until it runs out of gas and crashes. But of course, you wouldn’t do that—you have too much good sense for that, I’m sure.

Joy and Peace, Cornelia

WALKING INTO LIFE

Creativity, epilepsy, Health, home, photography, Physical Training, purpose, renewal, sleep, Strength, Stress, Travel, Uncategorized, vision

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I went walking Thursday night with the Spa City Pacers in our downtown area. The humidity was high and the evening breezes of a few weeks ago were’t stirring any longer. My ice melted in my carry cup before we left the old train depot.

I’ve signed up for the HOT SPRINGS 5K FUN WALK. It’s held in conjunction with the SPA 5K/10K RUN, both of which are timed qualifying events for larger races. As a walker with some health challenges, I sometimes think I need an Instant Gratification Fun Run–I sign up, show up and get my tshirt .

Then again, how would I become healthier or stronger? If I don’t challenge my body bit by bit, I won’t take it to a new level. I’m realistic enough to accept that my progress won’t be quick or great. If I’m able to walk a hill today when last year I had difficulty making a level mile, I can say I’ve improved. The more years I can stay in my own home, the better off I will be. For any of us as we grow older, the challenges of using our body “as we used to” begin to come closer together. Just changing a light bulb is a challenge if your balance isn’t just right. Use it or lose it is a slogan the silver haired need to repeat often!

It doesn’t matter what level you are at now. This is your baseline. You aren’t running the race against anyone else or against a certain standard. All you need to do is to persevere and not be discouraged. Some days the heat and humidity sap my strength. I do less but I do something. I’ve had three emotionally trying weeks. Early this morning I had a visual seizure while I was still in bed. I went back to sleep for four more hours. Even this can’t stop me from making my appointed workout, but I did make it lighter.

There are folks at my local YMCA that are in far worse shape than me. They are my heroes: they give their all with great passion even though some have twisted bodies, disabled bodies, artificial limbs, disease or venerable years. We also have some pretty bodies who also work out there, but most of us are just ordinary people who want to make the most extraordinary use of this vessel the good Lord has given us so that we can do all the good we are able, as long as we can, to all we can, by any means we can.

When I go back Tuesday night, I’ll walk with a renewed delight that I’m out in the midst of a beautiful city, that I have companion walkers who desire a healthier life just as I do, and we can share that camaraderie of meeting the challenge of one more day on the journey. I can see the reflection of the old buildings in the new mirrored glass building. I can see the same sky in the mirror and above me. I can breathe in the molecules of air the ancient citizens who walked these steps once breathed, as well as the molecules breathed by the quicker runners and faster walkers who breezed through here this evening.

I may not be in the same group, but I am on the same streets and I am alive.

TO LIVE IN A WATERED GARDEN!

Creativity, epilepsy, Fear, garden, generosity, Health, Imagination, Ministry, poverty, purpose, Spirituality, Strength, Stress, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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The various named storms of this winter season are piling up like the laundry in my baskets, but the cold weather and the bad roads are keeping me inside and away from the commercial laundromat that I frequent. Since when did we start naming winter storms like summer hurricanes anyway? I must have been asleep, but until this winter in Arkansas, I’ve not paid much attention to the weather channel, for our best predictions here are “wait five minutes and it will be something else” and “nobody ever gets it right.”

“Cold and dark” are the two best Arkansas winter predictions, followed by “unusually sunny and warm.” These will follow each other as sure as day follows the night, for I remember the weekend a decade ago when most of my people skipped church to go to the lake because it was 70 degrees in NW Arkansas. However, the very next Sunday we were inundated with 3 feet of snow at Mount Sequoyah Retreat Center and everyone who was on the mountain stayed there. The workers couldn’t leave, so Mount Sequoyah gave them rooms to winter over the storm. Some of the extreme cold shut down the heating systems in the old buildings and the repair crew couldn’t drive up the iced mountain incline, so the staff gave us newer accommodations at no extra charge. A sudden virus began to work its way through our retreat group, but we had a doctor among us who was taking a week’s retreat before she began work at a new clinic for the uninsured. She made morning and afternoon rounds of the incapacitated in their cabins and dosed them with a preparation she had made at the local pharmacy.

This must be what life is like in a tended garden. We are cared for while strong and when we are weak. We are fed, kept safe from invaders, covered when it’s too cold, and nursed when we seem to weaken. Our gardener not only loves us, but cares for us and provides what we need. We may want gilding for our lilies, but our gardener knows the difference between needs and superfluous wants. We will have “enough,” of that we need not fear.

More money will not make us happier. We would give all the money we have in this world to have our child returned to life from a too early death, our spouse brought back from the living death that is Alzheimer’s Disease, or to save a loved one from the ravages of some addictive substance. Money will not buy these things. Money cannot buy peace of mind itself, for if we focus on money, then we will get anxious. The value of money goes up and down with every sneeze of the president, the arguments of congress, and the ebbs and flows of our economy. Yet we who are people of faith “live in a watered garden,” tended and cared for by a gracious and good God and we “shall never languish again.”

“…their life shall become like a watered garden,
and they shall never languish again.” Jeremiah 31:12

Time and Eternity: Standing Still While the World Rushes By

Dreamscape, epilepsy, Family, Food, Health, Imagination, Love, Mental Illness, Ministry, mystery, New Year, purpose, Secrets, Spirituality, Strength, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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Greetings at the transition of the old year and the beginning of the new year. I took a long break from my weekly journal to participate in the National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it’s so fondly called. The goal is 50,000 words in 30 days. I didn’t make it, but I didn’t join until 10/12 and I took off four days for Thanksgiving. Still, I managed 27,000+ words and got 47,000 in by the second deadline of November 8th. I felt pretty good about my first shot at a novel.

So, if you bear with me, you will get a chapter a week in this place I call ARTANDICON. The title is “The Wandering Soul”: a priestess of the god of care and compassion discovers that her epileptic seizures are unique, for they dislocate her in both time and space. She travels to a distant planet, which is earth, and there observes and interacts with the cultures and religions of that world. She comes back in our time, but also in other more ancient times. A very strange dis-ease, but it gives me the opportunity to reflect on life, love, mystery, purpose, meaning, and all the other great themes we wrestle with as we journey through our days.