Sprinter in a Marathon

That pretty much sizes up my situation.

I’ve been buried this week with work, and depressed because of it. Well, a variety of things have depressed me, but the positive is how I  cope with depression. I grow serious (my wife doesn’t like that), I go into my cave (don’t like that), and I get very logical. And I work. So at least that’s one way out of the hole I’ve dug for myself.

Trouble is, I’ve just run my best-ever first mile of a 26.2 mile marathon.

Shelly keeps telling me to be grateful in this economic climate that we have jobs. And I am.

But my jobs always seem to head the same way. I have a talent for being versatile. In fact, that’s a skill that I encourage my students to develop. But the down side of versatility is that you end up being asked to do more and more different things, rather than allowing you to do what you love to do, what you took the job in the first place to do.

If this job were food, it would be beans and rice. Or maybe cornbread and beans. Definitely beans.

So where’s the strawberry shortcake? Where’s the ribeye steak with a baked potato with everything on it? Where’s the Rocky Road ice cream?

Hey, my rational mind tells me, suck it up. It’s a job. Jobs means work. Work means getting paid.

Sigh. Enough whining.

Cast Iron Bowtie

No epiphonies or revelations today. I want to talk to you about the way I dress.

I am presently wearing a transparent cast iron bowtie around my neck. It wasn’t my idea. Somehow it came back with me when I left the hospital.

I start out fine every morning, but by the afternoon, that bugger is starting to get heavy. I can’t see it, because it’s transparent, and well, it’s on my throat, but I know it’s there. And I wish the dress code was ties optional.

Next Monday I have an appointment to see the doctor and have him take the stitches out from my surgery and I plan on asking him about this heavy bowtie. It is getting really annoying.

Or maybe it’s just that I swallowed a baseball and it is stuck just above my collarbone…..

Brave new world

My father had a saying that he used quite often. “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

Well, I beg to differ with my father. I’ve done, and I’ve taught. In the end, the reason why I’ve chosen to teach others is twofold.

The first is that, as an editor, I saw a serious need to develop good Christian writers. The message is there, but those who can communicate it effectively are in short supply. That’s what I am here for; to train new troops.

The second reason is that I never got over being a student. I love learning. And I would wager that students who talk to your professors will find most of them in the same boat. Even when we don’t have to, we go out of our way to learn something new. It’s cool, and it’s fun. And I hope that my students are having as much fun as I’m having.

And the reality is, learning never stops if you’re a teacher, nor should it. Consider what’s going on in journalism, in communication, in media, and you increase that tenfold. Every year I’m challenged to not only keep up with changes in technology but turn around and teach them to my students. And more than once I’ve said in class, “We’ll learn this together.”

We’re in the middle of a major overhaul of the way we do things in the communication department. The Southwesterner was probably the first indication of that. More things are coming, though. Exciting things, driven by the massive changes in technology. And these are things that are overdue.

But what’s really cool is that I’m learning as much or more about these changes than my students are. And even though I learn through reading, exploring on the Web, and experimenting, I also learn by just watching my students.

Case in point. An epiphany came to me as I considered e-mail. The school has tried for years to get students to activate their campus e-mail accounts so that important announcements would get to them. But the reality is, most students don’t use e-mail in the same way that adults my age do. E-mail is a necessary evil to them, and often not even that. The reality is: if they don’t have to use e-mail, they won’t.

So how do students communicate? To learn, all you have to do is watch them, or even just ask them. Students use two ways to communicate: Facebook and texting. None of this waiting to get back to your desktop or laptop to communicate with someone. If it’s important, text me. If it’s not important, I will catch it on Facebook. And that doesn’t even consider the impact of smart phones.

They move around in a world that expects the important to find them, rather than them seeking it. They are deluged by information, and really don’t want to go out of their way to get more of it. When you are surrounded by noise, why turn up the volume?

I had a fellow editor at Pacific Press years ago bemoan the fact that so few kids read books. “We have to get more kids to read books,” he said. “No,” I told him. “Our job is not to teach them to read. Our job is to communicate the message to them in whatever method it takes to get through to them.”

And that’s the brave new world, with implications to teaching, communication, publishing and a variety of other disciplines. We are talking, but not to them. And they are listening, but not to us. It’s our job to find the channel that we have in common, and communicate the important message that we have. And often that starts with simply listening. And observing. And learning.

After all, isn’t that what school’s all about?

Casualties of war

I’d like to think it was because my most recent blog mentioned my father’s fight with lung cancer back on 1993. Maybe it’s because of my surgery scheduled for next week. But I know the reality of it. I’ve been thinking about cancer this morning, and most especially how unfair and arbitrary it seems to be. And the reason I have is because of news I got last night.

I have a friend who has struggled with health problems for quite a while. Last night I learned that she had a primary diagnosis: cancer of the liver. This young woman is a brilliant, vibrant young woman, and I am speechless even now as I consider the news. And of course, the obvious question is, why her? Why does God, or Fate, or the Devil, or Mother Nature pick out what always seems like the most vivacious, most talented people to attack with this century’s most notorious plague?

That’s not to say that cancer is an automatic death sentence. Far from it. My mother struggled with various forms of cancer for a decade or more, and lived to be 83. One of our professors here has struggled with cancer twice, presumably receiving a death sentence the second time around, only to have doctors pronounce him cancer-free. But miracles are called miracles simply because they don’t happen that often. They’re not something you can count on when the going gets rough.

My roommate at college had a younger brother who was so talented and brilliant that he put the both of us to shame. He fought for five years with cancer of the optic nerve. They removed his eye, then did radiation and chemo therapy. He had a wife who adored him and a two year old son. And in the end he died. His last words to his wife were, “Don’t let the Devil get you down.”

It’s easy to fall back on clichés and platitudes. The most common one in this situation is, “We’re involved in the Great Controversy. Disease is a natural result of sin. As long as we live on this sinful earth, people will get sick. People will die.” And I know. I’ve used those very words myself. But that doesn’t answer the very arbitrariness of it all.

One does have to understand, however, that clichés become that way because they are used so much. And they are used so much because there is always some truth to the words. So I can’t immediately discard those words.

But I have another thought. It comes from I Corinthians 13, there at the end: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” A lot of people use that verse to say, hey, we’re human and we don’t know everything. God does, and when we get to heaven He will explain everything to us. And that’s true. But I have another slant on that.

All we know in our material existence is what we see and hear and smell around us. That’s the basis of the scientific method: if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist. But if you are a believer, you have to believe that there is more to the universe than what can be measured by our meager instruments. How do you measure faith? Or the power of love? Or hope? I have seen these things move mountains, yet I doubt very much that there is any laboratory instrument that could measure any of these things.

And so I say to you that what we are experiencing as humans living on this earth is only a small part of our potential existence. God knows that, and He has been trying to convince of that fact for a long time. Thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice, death shouldn’t be something to be afraid of. Because it opens a whole new universe of possibilities. Death, at most, is a speed bump.

Mind you, I am speaking in metaphysical, philosophical terms. And the visceral part of death still gets to me. But I am trying to understand God when He tells us not to be afraid—of anything. And I suspect that He knows a lot about it.

Cancer—and the process of fighting it—is serious business. It’s a battle that many of us will be faced with some time in our lives. But if you believe in the spiritual, if you believe in the power of Jesus Christ, if you truly believe, it should become a little less scary.

When the world gives you vultures…

The saying is, when the world gives you lemons, make lemonade.

I haven’t always believed that way, but in the past decade or so, that’s been my approach to life. And so far, it’s been pretty helpful. I’ll give you a somewhat shocking, yet true to life, example. In 1993 my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. I went with him and my mother to the oncologist, who told him in no uncertain terms that he was going to die. And he did die, three months later. The news was hard on all of us. It was devastating to me, so much so that I had to see a counselor. My father wasn’t the talking type, and there was a lot left unsaid between us. I tried to talk to him, and ended up writing him letters, which I knew he would never respond to, which he didn’t.

So what’s the upside of all of this? In the process of grieving, I started writing short stories about my relationship with my Dad, or inspired by same. And suddenly I started gettting published. Out of a horrible personal experience I learned that life wasn’t over, at least for me. That has been a turning point in my life, and probably where I started truly believing in the Lemonade saying.

OK, so let’s apply that today and see if it still works. Yesterday I finished lunch and was driving back to my office. I looked up through my windshield just in time to see a vulture fly over the top of my pickup. As I watched, he opened his mouth and vomited on my windshield. Not just a little bit. Gobs and handfuls of stinking animal innards. I gasped, but as I was late to getting back to my office, I kept going. I got a paper towel when I got there and tried to clean it up, but wasn’t real successful. After work, I went to a car wash and paid full price for a very thorough washing.

So where’s the upside? I got something to tell on my Facebook status, I got a blog out of it, and I suspect that somewhere in coming months and years I will turn it into part of a story. That’s the cool thing about being a writer. Everything that happens to you is fodder for another story.

That doesn’t mean I am pleased about a vulture vomiting on my truck, mind you.

Surgery: An author bares all

I chose the title of this blog for two reasons. First, I realized that letting the surgical cat out of the bag on Facebook meant that I would be answering the same questions over and over again unless I announced it definitively somewhere like here. Second, I really, really hate those surgical garbs they make you wear. Egad, the procedure I went through this week was on my neck and they still had me strip down to my birthday suit and put one of those blasted things on! Come on!

My story starts with my physical exam six weeks ago. I have a female physician, Nancy Kimbrow. And although there are times when having one can be a little awkward–such as the regular prostate exam (“Drop your trousers and bend over please.”)–she is a very good, very thorough doctor. I suspect that what I am going through is due to her diligence, but at the same time, she could have very well saved my life in the process.

She noticed a lump on the right side of my throat that I even hadn’t noticed. She recommended that I get an ultrasound. I did so, and when the results came back, she told me that I had a cyst of about 3.5 centimeters in my thyroid. Thyroids apparently are notorious for having cysts–about 15% of people have them–but almost all are less than 1 centimeter in size. The size alarmed her, which caused her to refer me to an endicrinologist, who then referred me to a ear-nose-throat surgeon.

The first thing the ENT wanted to do was called a ultrasound-guided needle biopsy. They take a paddle and run it up and down your throat to make sure they have the right spot. Then they stick a needle attached to a suction machine into the side of your throat. Sounds like fun? Not really. I went through the usual pre-procedural business with the hospital, then went in for my biopsy last Wednesday.

Since they were working on my throat, I thought it would be a matter of me taking off my shirt, numbing the area and doing what they had to do while I sat in a chair, read a book or played Angry Birds on my iPhone. Oh, was I naive. As I mentioned at the beginning, they acted as if I was going in for major surgery or something. “Strip everything off except your socks,” the nurse told me. I grumbled and fussed, but did what I was told. I didn’t even object when I heard them call me MISTER Robinson at least a dozen times. I must be getting old and mild mannered.

They had me put on that stupid gown that features a cold, white butt sticking out the back, and got in the bed with the wheels. They were nice enough to bring me a couple of heated blankets, since I was already cold. After an hour of watching TV with Shelly–and, of course, playing Angry Birds–they came and got me and wheeled me to the outpatient surgery area. The bed reminded me of one of those shopping carts you get at Wal-Mart. You know, one that had been dropped from the roof so many times that the wheels didn’t work. Either that, or the walls were magnetized, because the bed kept wanting to bang into the walls all the way down the hall.

But we got there. I got two nurses and two doctors to work on me. They draped me with sterile cloth, some of it partially over my face to disguise me. They set up the screen for the ultrasound on my left and started working on my right. (There was some confusion at the beginning as to whether the lump was on the left or the right. The doctor’s orders said it was on the left, but I corrected them and told them it was on the right. I actually made the surgeon correct himself. But hey, I’m a doctor too.)

As I mentioned before, they numbed the area with Lidocaine (the stuff that dentists use) and then got busy jamming the suction needle into the side of my neck. I watched the screen out of the corner of my eye and could see the little cystic culprit up there on the screen (actually, he didn’t look that little). Then I watched the needle come in from the side of the screen and poke its way into the cyst. First it sucked out some old blood that was there. Then it slowly evacuated some of the tissue that was there as well.

They put the needle in twice and sucked stuff out. Then the pathologist told me that it appeared to be a “hemorrhagic cyst,” and that it was “very likely” benign. That made me breathe easier. I knew that the official word wouldn’t come until Friday, but that was room for hope.

Friday I called the doctor’s office to get the results. They told me that the doc was in surgery all day and that the lab results would not be in until next Tuesday. A couple of hours later, the doc himself called me, which alarmed me.

Doc said that the tissue taken from the procedure was inconclusive, and he didn’t think another needle biopsy would tell him any more. He couldn’t guarantee that there was no cancer unless we did surgery. Therefore he recommended that we go in for surgery and remove the right portion of my thyroid. If they got in there and found that it was cancerous, they would remove the left portion as well.

Surgery is something I don’t like to think about. Add the word cancer and it gets pretty scary. But I knew from the very beginning that that was the right thing to do. Still, I asked that he give me the weekend to think about it, as I wanted to talk to Shelly. He said there was no rush, since he couldn’t get me on the surgical schedule until after September 22.

So that’s where I am. Earlier he told me that I had my age and my gender going against me. What I had going for me was the fact that apparently whatever is in the cyst is self-contained, it hasn’t spread anywhere else in my neck, including my lymph glands. I like to believe that I also going for me my firm belief in God’s providence, my health and my rugged good looks. But hey, he’s only a surgeon. I’m a university professor. Which one of us knows more?

I’ll keep my faithful readers posted as I learn more. Just don’t get on Facebook and ask me what’s going on. That’s what the blog is for.

Stay tuned.

“Unity, not uniformity”

I recently interviewed the academic dean of our fair university about something called the Success Initiative. It is a concerted action by faculty and administrators to direct the efforts of students toward “success”–that is, their ability to become the adults they should be when they graduate. It involves CORE–a series of classes that intentionally establish their mindset and the university culture in the direction of spiritual, intellectual and emotional maturity.

That’s all well and good. I applaud the dean and the taskforce that is working on this Initiative. I do know that changing corporate culture is not something to be taken lightly. In fact, in most cases, an institution’s efforts to change its own culture usually fail. The only way they succeed is if the people involved–ALL the people involved–buy into the change.

That’s the thing about organizational culture. It’s organic. It consists of unwritten rules and mores established by those who consider themselves part and parcel of the culture. We had a university president who came to the school a few years ago (not the president we have now) who didn’t like the way things were done. He determined to change things–and it was duck for cover time for the rest of us. Three years later, he was being shown the door, and the organizational culture went back to being the way it had always been.

And so I tell the academic dean–and the Taskforce–“Good luck.” Their intentions are meritorious. I hope they succeed. I’ll do what I can to help them. But there are no guarantees.

One phrase that came out of the interview with the dean stuck with me. Maybe it did because it was one I liked, one I firmly believe in. He referred to the University supporting “unity, not uniformity.” Well said. <applauds>

I live in the Bible belt. I have always attended relatively conservative churches, some more conservative than others. Some of my fellow church members considered me liberal. My own children consider me conservative. And I consider myself a moderate. The reality is, like most everyone, there are some things I am pretty liberal about and others I am conservative about. I read science fiction, am a pacifist and listen to NPR, which some Christians would consider pretty liberal. I listen to classical music, own two shotguns and am relatively pro-life, which in itself can be considered conservative. And so, I don’t think it’s fair to peg me in one camp, just as I hesitate to label others “liberal” or “conservative.”

I have no problem with conservatives–or liberals. I do have a problem with closed-minded people. I feel sad for those who feel a certain way, and are so convinced that their way is right that they just know that anyone who believes otherwise needs to be corrected–or stoned. Maybe it’s my education that has taught me to be this way. It’s a term I call pluralism, a dirty word in some people’s vocabulary. But to me, it just makes sense.

I am a firm believer in unity, but not in uniformity. I don’t believe in cookie cutter religion, or politics, or education. I do believe in values. My wife and I are vastly different people. But we do share common values about the importance of family, and putting God first. We respect our differences. We cherish our commonality.

I’m glad we have an academic dean who can promote and proceed with a policy that establishes values for our school. I wish him luck and will pray for his success. In the meantime, I applaud the call for unity. Unity without uniformity.

Way to go, dean.

Where are the green Christians?

I love Texas. I will, however, admit that it took me a while to get to that point. Texas grows on you, which is saying a lot when you take a look at my lawn this time of year.

I took a teaching job here in 1998 and moved here with my family from Idaho. My wife was happy to leave snow far behind us and welcome (relatively) warm winters. Of course, we moved here in June, and it was 105 degrees at 10 p.m. the night we arrived. So the change in climate was pretty much the first difference we noticed.

The second difference was a change in attitude about the environment. Coming from the Northwest, we had gotten used to recycling, not littering, and being careful about pollution. Despite the slogan “Don’t Mess With Texas,” I haven’t gotten the same attitude here. I couldn’t hardly believe it when I saw the car on the road in front of us roll down their window and dump a bag of litter onto the side of the road. Do that in Oregon and you are likely to be shot.

Here’s where it hits close to home. I teach at Southwestern Adventist University, a place you’d expect to see recycling bins, work bees to pick up trash along the road, and rallies to recycle oil and other toxic liquids. In 12 years, I haven’t seen any of those things. Why?

Further, this is a Christian school. I have always associated caring about the world we live in with Genesis 2:15 where it talks about God putting Adam in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. I figured we have an obligation not only to our children, but to God, to take care of the only home we have in this lifetime.

But maybe my mistake was making that association. Maybe it falls into the same category as assuming all good Christians are Republicans, or all Adventists are vegetarians. It would be nice, but it just doesn’t work out that way.

I’ve been thinking about what this issue for years. I’ve meant to speak up for a long time. And, to be honest, the reason why I haven’t is because of something I learned long ago about committees. Never bring up a problem in committee unless you have a solution and you are willing to work on fixing the problem.

Well, I’m willing to work on fixing the problem. But I think the issue is bigger than one person.

How about it? Is there anyone else out there that thinks we need to be doing more at Southwestern–and in the state of Texas–about the environment? Maybe the old saying is true. Maybe together we really can make a difference.

I did it, and I am glad

As many who see my Facebook page are aware, yesterday I did something out of the ordinary for me. I’m no cupcake. I love football, I laugh hard and play hard. But yesterday was my first time getting both a manicure and a pedicure.

Here’s how it happened. Shelly, my wife, was scheduled for a spa visit–a gift from her job. She also wanted me to go clothes shopping for her in anticipation of vacation coming on Thursday. So I agreed to tag along, with thoughts that I would sit in the waiting area with my laptop and write on my ongoing novel.

Things didn’t go that way. I found that the power plug in the waiting area didn’t work, and my laptop was resisting attempts to work via battery. At the same time, Shelly had planned on an hour-long massage only to find out that the masseuse wasn’t there that day. So she settled for a manicure and pedicure. And since we had come a long way and she was unlikely to come back, she wondered if I could do it too.

On an impulse, I said yes. Why not? Like I said, you gotta do everything at least once. The young Vietnamese/Laotian woman who worked on me did a good job on first my feet, then my hands. And they sat us in those great massage chairs. Of course I drew a line at nail polish. That’s not me, believe it or not. But it was relaxing, I spent time sharing something with my wonderful wife, and got some new material for the blog.

So I’m getting in touch with my feminine side. I’m still a Raiders fan.

And watch out this season.

Last minute stuff

First of all, I want everyone to know–especially those who employ me–that my commitment to writing doesn’t mean that I don’t do anything else. I find that I can only focus on writing for a couple of hours at a time, so that leaves a lot of time for other stuff.

Writing is a funny thing. It’s a mind game, as I have often said. And although it really doesn’t take a lot of time commitment, it takes mental commitment, something that I have in short supply these days.

July 1–Thursday–I am joining Edward Cheever, and hopefully others, in our 30-day challenge. Thirty days, 1,500 words a day. We did it once this summer. My hope is that this time around I will be able to finish the rough draft on Elijah, the third book in my Champion series.

In the meantime, I am in the office. My plan is to get an article written for the University, do some outlining for my other book, Crash Corrigan, and sort through plans for my classes that start in September. More than anything, it’s just a matter of wrapping my mind around being here and the commitment that comes with being a professor.

As I say, it’s a mind game. They’ve been doing construction next door in the radio station, and that means the Internet and phones have been out–for about six weeks. Vacation! you might say. The only hitch is that it was open ended. We still had stuff we were expected to get done. Only problem was, we had no idea when Internet and phones would be back up. Well, guess what folks. They are officially up now. So no more excuses. I am back in the saddle.

I will be dropping a line here and there to try and keep people abreast of what I am doing, even after the 30-day challenge begins.