The kiss of Jesus

Last week I read a quote about failure. Mother Teresa said that failure is the kiss of Jesus on our lives. They drive us back to God. I like that perspective.

The courage to live

Polio victim dies after lifetime in iron lung

Despite limitations, she wrote a book, earned a degree

Woody Baird, Associated Press

Thursday, May 29, 2008

=05-29) 04:00 PDT Memphis --

A woman who spent nearly six decades of her life in an iron lung after being diagnosed with polio as a child died Wednesday after a power failure shut down the machine that kept her breathing, her family said.

Dianne Odell, 61, had been confined to the 7-foot-long machine since she was stricken by polio at 3 years old.

Family members were unable to get an emergency generator working for the iron lung after the power failure knocked out electricity to the Odell family's residence near Jackson, Tenn., about 80 miles northeast of Memphis, brother-in-law Will Beyer said.

"We did everything we could do, but we couldn't keep her breathing," said Beyer, who was called to the home shortly after the power failed. "Dianne had gotten a lot weaker over the past several months, and she just didn't have the strength to keep going."

Capt. Jerry Elston of the Madison County Sheriff's Department said emergency crews were called to the scene but could do little to help.

Odell was afflicted with "bulbo-spinal" polio three years before a polio vaccine was discovered and largely stopped the spread of the crippling childhood disease.

She spent her life in the iron lung, cared for by her parents and other family members. Though confined inside the 750-pound apparatus, Odell managed to get a high school diploma, take college courses and write a children's book.

The iron lung that she used was a cylindrical chamber with a seal at the neck. She lay on her back in the device with only her head exposed, and made eye contact with visitors using an angled mirror above her head.

The lung worked by producing positive and negative pressure on the lungs that caused them to expand and contract so that she could breathe.

Iron lungs were first used to sustain life in 1928, and were largely replaced by positive-pressure airway ventilators in the late 1950s. A spinal deformity from the polio made it impossible for Odell to wear a more modern, portable breathing apparatus, so she continued to use the older machine.

It is not known how many polio survivors still use iron lungs, but Odell was believed to have used it for longer than most.

Odell was determined to live a full life - she earned a diploma from Jackson High School as a home-bound student and an honorary degree from Freed-Hardeman College.

A voice-activated computer allowed her to write a children's book, "Less Light," about Blinky, a tiny star who dreams of becoming a wishing star.

In a 2001 interview with the Associated Press, she said she wanted to show children, especially those with physical disabilities, that they should never give up.

"It's amazing what you can accomplish if you see someone do the same thing," she said.

This article appeared on page A - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Luther quote

"To speak is not an art, but it is given to only a few to speak aptly. Nobody ought to take anything upon himself unless it has been given to him from on high."

--Martin Luther

From absurdity to obedience

"Absurd comes from the Latin surdus, meaning 'deaf'. Obedience comes from the Latin ob audire, meaning 'to listen to'. Our busy world too often makes us deaf to the voice of God who speaks to us in silence.

Thus it is not surprising that we often wonder, in the midst of our occupied and preoccupied lives, if anything is really happening. Our lives may be filled to overflowing--so many events and commitments that we wonder how we'll get it all done. Yet at the same time, we might feel unfulfilled and wonder if anything is worth living for. Being filled yet unfilled, busy yet bored, involved yet lonely, these are the symptoms of the absurd lifestyle that makes us inattentive to spiritual realities.

I came here [a retreat into silence and solitude] to listen to the Voice whispering in nature, in Word and sacrament, in the people who have crossed my path and touched my life. Today I wandered along a nature trail through a dense redwood forest humming aloud, 'When through the woods and forest glades I wander...' I have a vivid image of myself staring up at one-hundred-fifty-foot redwoods in stillness, feeling tiny and insignificant and whispering, 'How great thou art! O Abba, who is man that you should be mindful of him?' At night I have been staring, shivering, up at the stars. There is a freshness about finding the Milky Way when you haven't seen it for a while. The stars call us out of ourselves."

--Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus

Papers, books, ideas...

I've been moving offices this week, moving from the office in the hallway leading toward Pastor Gerber's office to office once occupied by Pastor Zorb. Windows. Sunshine. Space. Three of the blessings that come from the move. For those who hadn't had the pleasure of entering my old office, picture a small windowless room and you're picturing my old office.

As I've moved books, files, and papers...I've been thinking. How much of the information on the pages of the books, files, and papers are stored in my head? Not all of it. I'm not that smart. But what percentage has remained words on a page, and how much of it has become reality? That's the real question it seems. The files and papers represent work done over the past six years being here at All Saints. They hold memories of time passed, people touched, ideas shared and not shared...basically representations of God's work.

If I look at such books, papers, and files (oh my!) as God's activity over the course of six years...could we also look at the Bible as a record of God's activity over the course of thousands of years? I think so.

I think I'll pitch most of the papers...but thankfully we'll never pitch the Bible.

Thanks for reading.