Road in Retirement

Hagar Is Seen In the book of Genesis chapter 16 there’s an account of Abram's wife Sarai and her maid having a spat about childbearing. Sarai was promised a son for Abram by God but at this point in the story she was closing in on 90 and still childless. In her impatience she arranges for her much younger maid Hagar to have relations with Abraham and Hagar becomes pregnant. Sarai regrets that decision and starts treating Hagar harshly with disdain. In abject despair and fear, Hagar flees into the Mideast desert alone, afraid, pregnant and without hope; until. This is where you and I can get involved in the story because God is all knowing; and sees everything. An angel appears to Hagar, consoles her, tells her she will have a son named Ishmael, and he would be blessed greatly. But first she must return to Sarai and serve her respectfully. Hagar is amazed that “God sees.” Looking Ahead of Us In my struggle on this road in retirement with Parkinson’s, I must remind myself often that ...

The Withered Hand While teaching from the Old Testament in a synagogue in Galilee on the Sabbath, Jesus noticed a man with a withered hand. Jesus heals him (Luke 6:6). Maybe he had Parkinson’s? I say that tongue in cheek, but you never know, since Parkinson’s often leads to extreme stiffness, shriveled limbs, and rigidity in arms, hands, legs and even in the face (hypomimia). My arms/hands/fingers might have seemed “withered” in that era. Jesus heals this man in the presence of onlooking strict religious leaders of the day who were threatened by his ministry of compassion, love and good news of a saving heavenly father. These religious zealots were more interested in keeping the legal tenant of doing no work on the Sabbath; like healing someone. This was a common occurrence in Jesus’ three short ministry years: constant pestering, challenges, and trouble from rigid rule keepers. Although he was God, Jesus lived a human life and like us, and there were times he had to get out of the int...

Flurry of Updates There has been a flurry of travel activity on my road in retirement since my last blog. Welcome to early winter with Eileen. My communication abilities are limited, but Chris and I have managed another post. We are always believing and always hopeful for improved or sustained abilities to communicate. For crying out loud, I am a retired English teacher, and I need to say stuff. As a quick update regarding this wretched Parkinson’s Disease (PD), I am working with a speech therapist and a new augmented assistive communication (AAC) device to hopefully add more efficiency to my blogs. Also in January, we have another visit with a PD specialist in the Twin Cities to further work on experimenting with different deep brain stimulation (DBS) settings in my head. Yes, I have two electrical pulse probes that treat both sides of my brain; and you could say I am sort of a version of Mary Shelleys’ creature.   Holy Spirit Pokes In late November-early December I had sever...

Relationships This blog is a particularly hard one for me. My husband and I attended a memorial service of a former student at a funeral home. When we arrived about fifteen minutes early there were a couple dozen young  20- to 30-year-olds just hanging out at the front entrance—everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts or leis or both. The rest of the funeral home was jam packed and several former students said hello to us as we wheeled in and found a spot near the back of one already nearly filled wing. I won’t say much more on this except that at the finality of life, there can be lasting legacy in our relationships, especially good ones. I knew the power of relationships as a teacher and unfortunately I knew that relationships run the risks of experiencing deep pain as well. Like this celebration of life memorial service.   Connection—Finding the Imperishable Chris asked me recently the secret to educating and I immediately told him, connection. That was why I attended the stu...

Complaints About Aging It’s fall and things are starting to die and look old. Sort of like my disabled body and Chris’ 65-year-old body. I have issues with Parkinson’s, but Chris just has issues with being old. It’s not just him. It’s all of our friends as well. We all complain about our situations, but every human being that ever lived had to endure the same journey of getting old. I finally had to tell Chris that he was complaining too much. Soon after my admonition we were shopping in the gift section of one of my favorite stores across the river in Minnesota and he found a custom wood sign with an inscribed quote. He carefully placed the sign on my lap, took a photo with his phone, and said, “Next blog.” The Analogy of a Journey In that store a light bulb of revelation turned on in both of us and we decided to stop complaining, be more like Christ, and embrace the journey, our journey, while we still had a road to travel on. In early October flowers, greeting cards, candles, ...

One More Summer Challenge The highway in front of us oscillated from barely visible to “almost speed limit quality” and the misty fog required the thud-thud-thud of the windshield wiper as we headed west. I had one more segment of my summer road in retirement with Parkinson’s Disease to accomplish with a new command from God to "get in the boat." I was going fishing. It was actually working out beautifully. We rose at 4:30 am, grabbed a Starbucks for Chris and hit the road to the lake by 6 am. The thick misty fog cleared by the time we met our friend Rancher Ed and our fishing guide at, of all places, Ed’s Bait Shop in Devils Lake, North Dakota. God was shining on us, because a week ago this would have been a rainy, freezing cold venture, requiring snowmobile suits. Today, God had plans for me to catch fish, it was much warmer, and I was in the mood to face what seemed impossible a few weeks earlier. I’m Going Fishing He had witnessed blood and gore, and the man he respected ...