Tuesday, July 17, 2012

I’ll Take My Heart Back


Who is this?
This reflection that I see?
Who am I?
With these empty eyes staring back at me?
What happened?
To the passions burning deep?
Is there life left behind
The death in these shallow heart beats?
Time to claim it before I lose it
Snatch it back before it’s gone.
I can no longer keep this treasure in your clutches.
I refuse to be the devil’s pawn. 

If you don’t mind, I’ll take my heart back.
It was never yours to keep.
It’s bruised and shattered now...
But what I sow, I guess also reap.
Don’t make me beg and please don’t make me plead.
Just give my heart back...
I’ll take it though it bleeds.

Who said...
It was yours for the having?
I don’t remember...ever giving it away.
What made you...
Think you could use it as you wanted?
Smeared and smudged, broken and undone, trashed and tossed away.
When were you...
Intending to come and ask me?
Permission never granted for the pulse you took away. 
Why would you...
Leave me here wanting?
Wanting for the life caught in those beats you’ve locked away.

So I’ll take my heart back.
It was never yours to keep.
It’s bruised and shattered now...
But what I sow, I guess also reap.
Don’t make me beg and please don’t make me plead.
Just give my heart back...
I’ll take it though it bleeds.

I never should have trusted
Hands that cannot hold.
I traded my heart strings...
A wellspring that shouldn’t have been sold.
I couldn’t deal with
All of its breaking mess.
I didn’t realize...
I needed nothing less.
Give me its shattered pieces.
The parts that rip and drip and bleed.
I’m here to take my heart back.
It’s time I am alive and I am free...

I’ll take my heart back
Because it was never yours to keep.
It’s bruised and shattered now...
But what I sow, I guess also reap.
Don’t make me beg and please don’t make me plead.
Just give me my heart back.
I’ve got nothing left...
And I’ll take it though it bleeds.





 AK July 2012 




Sunday, July 15, 2012

Up to my Elbows in Bowel Explosion.


This summer, at Michindoh, I am the Health Officer.  I am Wilderness and Remote Location First Responder trained and certified.  Therefore I meet the minimal requirements of the state of Michigan to do basic triage and dispense medication in a camp setting.  It makes me, in short, a professional drug dealer (as my counseling staff has so informed me).  But it is far from the extent of my job description... [Despite being told once, on an unofficial and definitely ignorant level, that I didn’t really have a lot to do. I laughed a little in attempt to cover up my inner weep.]  It is true that on a good day, my office can be quiet if my campers are involved in activity without injury, but I rarely pause for significant periods of time...and never long enough to truly get bored.  I wake up before the campers and go to bed long after they do.  I am doing paperwork, and filing old forms, and pouring medication and dispensing medication and double-checking health forms and making phone calls to parents to let them know their daughter was stepped on by a goat and no longer has a toenail on her left most big toe.  I am a dedicated boo-boo bandager, official homesick whisperer, tear wiper, complaint listener, water nazi, and sunblock enforcer.  I carry a radio and am on call 24 hours to anyone who needs me to fly at a moment’s notice to reach in and save the day.  And I do my best.

But my job comes with added bonuses.  Like the title “Health Officer” makes me the most qualified member of camp staff to deal with anything gross.  Like vomit.  In the Nature Center.  All over the coat closet.  And when a camper wets the bed...his clothes and sleeping bag end up in my biohazard bag and often my wash machine.  I put on my personal protection equipment (or PPE’s as the Red Cross likes to call them...aka: gloves) and hold my breath, pray for a strong stomach and smile while letting counselors and campers know that it isn’t a problem or an inconvenience and its part of the job and I’m happy to serve.  I’ll admit I don’t always take on these endeavors with a joyful heart and sometimes the smile is very forced.  [I’ll even admit that after dealing with a suitcase of clothes and bedding that had been peed on three nights in a row but not noticed until they had sat in 100+ degree weather... made me throw up.] But it is part of my job and onward I go...

And yet, nothing could have prepared me for the radio message I received this week.  The one with ominous cues forewarning me about the situation at hand.
“Andy to Anika”
“This is Anika.  Go ahead.”
“Anika...What is your location?”
“Main lodge.  What’s up?”
“We have a...situation...down at the teepee’s.  Could you bring down a biohazard bag?  Some one had an...accident.”
“Well, I’m waiting for a camper to return from her t-ball game.  Dad should be arriving within the next 10 minutes.  Is the situation contained?”
“Oh, it’s contained.  In the second port-a-potty.  I could take care of it but you have the bag and the gloves.  And, you’re going to need gloves...  You might want to come sooner than later...”

Needless to say, before the conversation was done we had verified this as a “Number 2” situation of rather intense proportions.  Bless Andy for trying to be so discreet over the radio but nothing could have prepared me for the moment I opened up “port-a-john, second from the right”... 

With a pile of fecal matter in a happy pile in the middle of the floor...and the rest splattered and covering the seat and walls and four articles of clothing and also a towel left behind, I was quite taken aback.  I do what I have to do – always. But I don’t “do poop”.  I hate poop.  I removed the clothing, tied it into the biohazard bag, turned to go back in with my bottle of bleach, and turned back out to gag.  I went green in the gills and pale in the face.  To the day camp counselor who had accompanied just to laugh from 10 feet away, I looked out and proclaimed “I’m going to need more bleach!” 

It was just as I finished removing the cowpie in the middle of the floor that my radio bleeped.  Andy again.  I emerged from the port-a-potty with my gloved but brown hands in the air as I looked despairingly at the black talking box.  My laughing accomplice brought the box to my face and pushed the button so I could talk.  Bless her.  10 minutes in to this cleaning endeavor and Andy had a new idea “Anika, if you want to just take care of the clothes...I’ll call [our boss] and have the company come out and clean the outhouse professionally....”  I started to laugh.  Laughter that came as the outcry of my uncomfortable and unfortunate position.  My accomplice kept trying to hold down the button with failure as it moved further and further from my mouth as our bodies convulsed.  Really?  You couldn’t have thought of that 10 minutes ago? Finally, regaining composure, I replied.  “I’m up to my elbows in a bowel explosion!  That would be great!”  [Despite being so far into the project, I was nothing short of ecstatic not to have to finish it].  As I cleaned up the basic mess and removed my PPE’s, I turned to my counselor friend and replied “Is it okay to say bowel explosion over the radio?”  Neither of us were sure and I was pretty sure the answer was “no”.  Oh well.  It was the truth.  And sometimes the truth hurts.

Needless, it has been the ongoing and retold story of the week...akin to much laughter and faces of shock, disgust, and horror.  And it has also made me an involuntary superhero.  [“Anika, I appreciate you!” has been a recurring exclamation.  Apparently there are others in the world who “do poop” worse than I do]. 

And yet, it’s made me reflective, as life often does.  Because it’s not the first time I’ve been up to my elbows in bowel explosion.  [“Crap happens” might be a registered and trademarked family expression, actually...] Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of life that stinks.  Is gross.  Unwarranted.  And not your problem. You didn’t cause it; it wasn’t you who pooped on the lid of a port-a-john!  But it has become your problem and is now somehow your responsibility. 

And somehow, in someway, it has to be dealt with.  It seems unfair and quite unfortunate but there is a rarely a team of professionals to come and clean up the mess.  And referencing a bowel explosion out loud?  Rarely acceptable.  We keep our own crap a secret (although we’re often too willing to express others’) and we go on because it is life and our job and part of the price we pay for being alive in an ever falling and breaking world.

The question then becomes whether or not bowel explosions can be prevented or whether they must simply be dealt with? 

Sometimes I don’t feel like we recognize our ability to start from the front end. To be proactive in eliminating what’s causing the problem from the beginning.  I honestly feel at loss with the tragic occurrence of Port-a-John #2 but what about the rest of life?  Where are we, in some ways, responsible (either directly or by sheer apathy), for the crap that results? Or where, at minimum, can we step in and step up instead of stepping back?

On the other hand, too often I think we assume crap must be simply dealt with.  And for the most part, I feel like that’s true.  But we “deal” with it the wrong way...by merely putting up with it.  Accepting it.  Almost like walking in, seeing the crap, stepping to the side, and completing our business. Sometimes we have to be willing to dive into the crap and do something about it.  Not for the accolades or the superhero status but because if not you, then who?  We see the crap, suck up our pride, put on our PPEs and dive into the world’s bowel explosions up to our elbows and try to rectify the problem and hope that leaving the situation better than we found it will somehow be enough... 

Crap happens and bowel explosions do too.  But that doesn’t mean the world has to stink...

 [...and other unfinished thoughts and incomplete conclusions.]

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Thirsty



It is a dry summer.

Even dryer than last summer if even if it is possible and if at all I had to guess.

And not only is it dry, I would dare say it is painfully dry. 

It’s one thing to be hot and sticky... But the sun-scorched grass, which is sharp as rocks, beginning to fall away to a dusty plain...somehow that is another story all together.

It hurts almost to look out at a season which should be teaming with life and instead see such an array of near death. 

You can almost see creation pleading for water.  Longing for refreshment.  Begging to be fulfilled that they may grow and produce as it was created to.  It is so...thirsty.


I am too.

It’s a dry season for me.

Endlessly dry.  Or perhaps just an endless season. 

And perhaps I would muddle through a simple dry season – they do come, this I know. But I’m not only dry; I would dare say I’m painfully dry.

It’s one thing to have a spell.  To have the reality of “dry” in place.  But somehow to have dry not move into restoration but to a life that’s falling away... seems like a whole another story all together.

It hurts; it confuses, to recognize a season which should be teaming with life... and instead be terrified of the reality of impending death.

I can see, I can feel, my soul pleading for water.  Longing for refreshment.  Begging to be fulfilled so that I can grow and produce as I was created to.  I am just, so...thirsty. 


How can I recognize such thirst, such longing, and still be so dry?  So unsatisfied?  Where is the passion, excitement, and joy of a life characterized by the presence of God and the reality of his streams of mercy and graces which fall like rain?  I am thirsty for God-alive (Psalm 42:1 – MSG).  So thirsty.  Where does one go to be filled? 


Psalm 42