“God made the food . . .

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. . . and he wanted people to take it and thank him for it” (I Timothy 4:3b Worldwide English trans.).

My husband is fond of quoting Martin Luther’s description of humankind as a drunkard on a horse:  he goes down the road for awhile and then falls off and rolls into the ditch on the right.  Then he staggers back up on the horse and stays on for awhile until he falls off again and this time rolls into the ditch on the left.  He spends very little time in the saddle actually going down the middle of the road.

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How a two-hour class . . .

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. . . added to my happiness.

I’m often reminded about the necessity of pressing on with our plans and resolutions in spite of our inability to fulfill them perfectly.  What keeps us going, though?  Where does the motivation come from?  We often think that bawling ourselves out and heaping on the blame will work, but those methods are counter-productive.  What does work?  Inspiration.  “I have to do this or else” has to become “I get to do this.  I want to do this.”  

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The braces are off and the hair is back!

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Gideon looking healthy, with hair and no bracesI said that there would be one more post on this blog and then, unless there’s something big to report, that would be the end of it.  Of course, no story on earth ever really ends.  “And they all lived happily ever after” won’t be true until we get to Heaven.

HOWEVER, this part of the story is over for now.  I’ve been waiting and waiting to use the title for today’s post.  Yesterday we finally got into see Dr. Anant Kumar, Gideon’s spine doctor/neurosurgeon, and he gave the go-ahead for him to take off the braces completely.  While Dr. Rifkin, the oncologist, is a total ray of sunshine, Dr. Kumar tends very much to the darker view of things.  He said that Gideon’s Tae Kwon Do activities are probably now in the past, that there will always be weak spots on his backbone, and that the readings of scans are always a result of human interpretation.  He pointed out a space on Gideon’s tailbone that still has not grown back, saying that represented a “lesion” that was still there.  To me, the word “lesion” means “tumor.”  I usually find myself trying to argue with him when he makes these rather dire statements, and yesterday was no exception, but what’s the point?  He thinks what he thinks.  I was a bit down in the mouth after this appointment, to be honest, but Gideon was quite upbeat.  He pointed out something I’d forgotten:  the tailbone tumor (or TT) did not get radiation therapy back in May since it wasn’t threatening his spine and they were trying to give him as little radiation as possible.  So that tumor didn’t go away completely until well into chemo, several months later.  I would hope that in a few more months that bone will have regrown, too.  But there’s a limit to how many scans can and should be done.  There’s a third PET scan this Friday and the monthly visit with Dr. Rifkin next Wednesday.  We expect there to be no new news from either of those.  Now comes the anti-climactic but almost harder part:  getting back to normal physically.  Dr. Kumar gave Gideon some neck-strengthening exercises to do, as he hasn’t been able to turn his head since May.  He suggested swimming, so we need to get going on a rec center membership.  School starts on Tuesday for Gideon, and he’s taking 18 hours.  The internship that he didn’t get to do last summer is pretty much on for this one.  We’re through this chapter of the story, but there are lots of new ones to come.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and expressions of concern.

How two small medical scares . . .

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. . . are helping me keep some of my New Year’s resolutions.  We “obligers” need lots of outside prods.  (Don’t know what an “obliger” is?  Read about the “Four Rubin Tendencies” here.  I think she’s really onto something.)

I write about my efforts to quit my small-but-annoying habit of picking at my fingers and chewing on hangnails in the chapter on habits in my book.  I’ve been doing pretty well, but there have been some slips.  A couple of weeks ago I had to get a filling redone at the gumline, third bottom tooth over from the center on the right.  I hate getting fillings!  Hate it, hate it, hate it.  It takes forever.  And those needles!

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An Entertaining Philosophical Overview

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Classical Philosophy:  A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Vol. 1, by Peter Adamson, Oxford University Press, 2014.

You have to be to be intrigued by an author who says, “I wrote this book because my back hurt.”  I won’t go into his explanation of that statement, so you’ll have to read it for yourself.  Adamson is a philosophy professor, but if you think that makes him dull and dry, think again.  He is quite amusing, and he does his dead level best to make the subject of ancient philosophy fresh, funny, and relevant.   I think he has succeeded, for at least every section in the book except the one about Aristotle.  I’m afraid I didn’t finish those chapters.  But I made it through page 295 out of 316, so that’s not too bad.  And the rest of the book is well worth your time.  It’s fascinating to realize that people have been pondering the same questions since there were people around to ponder:  Why are we here?  What make an act good or bad?  How do we govern ourselves?  What’s the universe made of?  I must say that my fascination with Plato was only intensified by reading the section about him.  (You may remember that the first post on this blog included a book about Plato; Gideon read that and decided he needed to take a look at the real thing and so checked out a collection of the Dialogues; I haven’t quite gotten that far.  There’s also a great section in A Shot of Faith to the Head, also reviewed in this blog, about Plato.)  You probably wouldn’t sit down and devour this book, but it was something I enjoyed reading a chapter or two at a time.  The print is awfully small, which I found to be a problem at times when I was trying to read it under less-than-optimal lighting conditions.  Hmmm.  That didn’t used to bother me!  Anyway, do take a look.

If You Bring Your Best Wine to the Wedding . . .

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. . . everyone will have a good time!

Brian Patrick Leatherman, the director of the Cherry Creek Chorale, said this, or something very like this, at our rehearsal this week, in the context of the necessity for each of us to bring the best that we can to the music.  I was so struck by the comment that I asked him for the source, and he said it was a sideways reference to the wedding at Cana.  I had to think about that for a bit, but I think I get his drift. You’ll remember, I’m sure, that the wine Jesus made was much better than anything that had been served up till then.   “Thou has saved the best till now,” the governor of the feast says.  I guess I always just figured that the wine was better because it was miraculous, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t have just been more of the same stuff they’d already been serving.  No one would have ever known.  Jesus did more than He had to, and so should we.  So I gained a whole new facet of meaning for a story I’ve been hearing since childhood.

By the way, my favorite part is a little phrase tucked in near the end:  “But the servants that drew the water knew.”  The ones eating and drinking at the feast had no idea that there had been a miracle performed, but those who were actually doing the work got to be in on it.  (Read the full story in the Gospel of John 2:1-11.)

The only person I can change . . .

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. . . is myself.

Just one more day of the old year.  I think my only resolution should be to remember that I can only make resolutions for myself.   I want to set the very highest standards for myself but refuse to apply those standards to others, to remind myself that people are (or at least may be) doing the best that they can, to carry out the description of love in I Corinthians 13:5:  “It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”  As I’ve said many, many times, I am the Queen of Grudge-Holders.  If I concentrated on just that italicized phrase all year I’d be much easier to live with.  (“If thou, O Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, who should stand?”)

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Another Unusual Cheesecake

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White chocolate cheesecake with ginger I’ve been serving this cheesecake for many years, having gotten the original recipe from the old Gourmet magazine. (I think.)  It’s very unusual, with a flavor combination of white chocolate and ginger that’s just delicious. As with any good cheesecake it’s very rich, but that richness means that a little goes a long way. Dividing it up into muffin cups is a great portion control mechanism. If you eat only one you’ll be well within the 25-gram added-sugar limit for one day. The picture, however, is of a leftover portion baked in a small pie plate.

Get the recipe here: “Another Unusual Cheesecake”

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