Sunday, December 28, 2014

"Straight, Daddy?"





I was walking and talking with God by the river tonight, watching and listening to the Canadian geese, thinking all over again about how they can lift off out of the St. Joseph's River and fly confidently to a place in the South where they've possibly never been before.

I leaned against the side of the wooden bridge, overcome by God's presence, by his reassurance that he is that, and so much more, to us.  We will know.  We will lift off in faith, unafraid when he calls, whether to heaven (that thing we call death) or just to step back out into the hallway at work, and face something we are sure we cannot face.

As I hurried to get home before it was too much darker, a little boy ran past me.  I had heard him earlier, calling to his family.  He got to the end of our bridge, where the path divides, and stopped, and hollered, "Straight, Daddy?"

I didn't hear his father's answer, but the boy stopped and waited.  God is like that too.  He knows the best way home.  He have only to ask, and wait for his instructions. 

He will always, always answer.

We are safer than the Canadian goose in the sky, safer than the boy in his father's arms.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Oh, Bring Us Some Pig Stomach....

Thank you for your interest in my weight-loss/school building fundraiser.  I had my official weigh-in this morning, following last night's burger and fries at Red Robin with friends, and coffee and warm donuts at Krispy Kreme.  Day One went well (no Red Robin or Krispy Kreme); only 97 more days to go!  In future weeks, I may post my weight loss at the end of my blog to keep you up-to-date.  (Yes, I had a cardiologist ask me point blank, as he evaluated my fundraiser letter, "So, what do you weigh?" No, I didn't answer and don't intend to post that.)

Although talking about food may not be in my best interest, there is someone (besides Red Robin and Krispy Kreme) that I need to blame for my high weight this morning.

On Christmas Eve, my neighbor Mary called me over to her house for some food.  Before I could leave, my neighbor Blanca rang my door bell and handed in a foil-wrapped cheesecake, still warm from baking. I ate too much of it, then re-wrapped it and took it with me to Mary's to share. 

Mary's kitchen was in a flurry, for an "I'm not going to cook this year" situation. In the oven, steaks and a ham were curing for the next day.  Miscellaneous pots and pies crowded the stovetop.

Mary piled my plate with cheese-sprinkled cornbread and greens.  She also ladled on several sections of pig stomach, otherwise known as maw (according to Mary) or tripe (according to Dr. Dickson, when I asked him if he'd ever had any).  

I haven't studied stomach in an anatomy book lately, but I still recognized the folded, fluted stomach formation.  I also took note of the inner and outer lining of the stomach and the fleshy portion in between.   

I sprinkled hot sauce on it, as I was told.  It was mild, with an almost too-soft texture, but truly good, especially with the hot sauce.

"You can get it at Martins or Kroger, or Meijer," Mary insisted.  "It's expensive!  At Thanksgiving they were all sold out, every store."

I forked up pig stomach while Mary gave me the stuffing versus dressing lecture.  

"They are not the same thing," she said.  "You put stuff in stuffing...some people put pecans, raisins, onions." 

Dressing on the other hand, is largely bread based, she explained.  

The next day as we played Monopoly following her meal of ham, steak, butter beans, sweet potatoes, STUFFING, cornbread, greens and homemade cranberry sauce, Mary brought out desserts and coffee, and monitored our conformity to the rules of Monopoly. 

First, pieces of apple pie appeared. Next, wedges of strawberry pie with a strawberry glaze. 

"Carlos, did you want a piece of cake, you say?"

"Yeah, I wanted a piece of cake."  

When we were thoroughly stuffed, Mary said, "Does anyone want some banana pudding?"  

How were we to know the best had been sequestered until the end? We spooned up bites of pudding and crumbs in between Mary's critiquing of our rolling of the dice. 

"Well if it ain't in the rule book now, it was then," Mary sniffed at our modern indifference to a rule she remembered.

I'm glad I missed the chitlins, pig intestines that have been cleaned of poop, and boiled. 

"If you can smell them, DON'T EAT THEM!" Mary told me.  "If you walk into someone's house and smell them, even if it's my house, don't eat them, they're not clean!"

Thankfully, Mary is also a big support when I talk about needing to lose weight. 

And I don't think there are a lot of calories in pig stomach.   Although it seems a bit much to have my stomach digesting the stomach of something else.

Merry Christmas friends! 

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining, 
til he appeared and the soul felt its worth..."
Placide Cappeau

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Losing Weight to Build a School....Oh Great.

"I wonder if there's anyone else who ever did something this idiotic?" I asked my aunt, from my position on her carpet, as I stuffed letters into envelopes. 

It all started with the calls and letters from Wisconsin, my family and friends somewhat urgently trying to raise $330,000 for a new school building.

This is the school where I started my teaching career with a six year stint, and where before that, I attended as a student.

I don't really have a lot of spare money.  So what can I do to help, I mused to myself.  What do I have that I don't need?

Ha!  Pounds!  Easy answer.  Hence, the letter as follows.



“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short;
but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” --Michelangelo

At the risk of great personal peril and painful transparency, I am inviting you to help me as I lose weight in an effort to build a school.

 In my first life as a teacher, I taught at a small Mennonite school in Stratford, Wisconsin.  My younger brother, a champion of solid, creative education from first grade to high school, is now the principal of the school.  The students come from large, hard-working families, many with parents who only went to eighth grade.  In the last few years, the enrollment has mushroomed, requiring a larger school, soon.  Raising the $330,000 by the fall of 2016 is a monumental task for only 20 families.   They are hoping to have a lot of it raised by May of 2015.

In my second life as a nurse, I find myself surrounded by surgeons and cardiologists who frequently bemoan America's obesity.  I have been at least somewhat overweight most of my life, so I have sympathy for our overweight patients.  However I also deeply admire the Dr. Hallorans and Dr. Mehtas of the world, even as I suspect that they have no idea how hard it is to lose weight.   


The collision of these two situations leads me to challenge myself to help build the new school by inviting people to contribute per pound of weight I lose from Christmas to Easter.  If I don’t lose much, your donation will be small; if I lose a lot your donation will be larger!  If you can take this risk, please complete the form below and give it to me. I will return it to you after Easter, with your total donation calculated.    (For your own records:  I am pledging $_____ per pound.)

Thank you!


 Katrina Hoover
 ***************************************************************

        $0.50 per pound  (paint brush?)                      
        $1 per pound        (gallon of paint?)                
        $2 per pound        (chair?)                                             
        $10 per pound      (window?)                                           
        $25 per pound      (bathroom fixtures?)                               
        $40 per pound      (carpet for a room?)             
                   _____ per pound


Would you like a receipt for tax purposes?  Yes____ No____
Make checks payable at that time to Bethany Christian School.

                 _______ (your donation per pound) x ______ (total pounds I lose)=
__________ (total donation to BCS)
 



Back to me on my aunt's carpet.

"Well, it's interesting," she replied to my question.  She insists it's a good idea.

I can't argue with the fact that it's interesting.  And certainly, the next few months will be as well.

"What if I just lose my mind?" I asked.

"Just hope it weighs a lot," my cousin replied.

Thanks, Jordan.  You're a great support.  

Note: If you would like to contribute to the fundraiser, and crank up the pressure on my weight loss, please comment, or email me at khoover500@gmail.com. 

Saturday, December 13, 2014

A Stomach: Need or Want?

The next time I say, "I need central air" or "I need a new computer", I hope I remember the shuttle driver.  

I was bouncing along in the mechanic shop shuttle, which was giving me a free ride to a place of business while the mechanics nosed out a manufacturer's error in my Fiesta.  Rain splattered the windshield of the  courtesy shuttle, and the shuttle driver with the red fleece vest activated the windshield wipers as we turned north on Ironwood.  

"I suppose you'd rather have the conventional stomach, but it's not too bad," he said.

Other than a foggy memory from nursing school, I had kind of forgotten that stomachs are disposable.  

Turns out, they are.  You can't live without your heart or brain, but you can dispense with your stomach.  You need at least one lung and at least one kidney, but if push comes to shove, you don't need a stomach.  

The guy in the driver's seat of my shuttle had lost his in the process of a battle with stomach cancer. 

Being grateful when our blessings evaporate is a challenge.  Being positive about pain is hard.  Being okay with the loss of what we thought we needed....so difficult!  But we never know whose life we might touch. 

I'm pretty sure if someone told the shuttle driver, "I think you blessed that Mennonite girl the other day," he would say, "Don't be ridiculous, I'm sure not."

But he would be wrong. 

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Depending how you define "Day of Solitude"....




Does it count as a day of solitude, if you're alone in a crowd of strangers?

I take my seat in the rows of human beings and start the audiobook I've bought for this purpose.  I'm burdened about life. I feel like I'm struggling to be what God wants me to be, and my mind replays my weaknesses, my fears for the future.  Oh God, you need to speak!  This is why I need a day with you!

The brown fields of northern Indiana morph into the brown buildings of south Chicago, as I listen to Ravi Zacharias read his book, Jesus Among Other Gods.  

He talks about the hunger of our hearts, and how various religions try to deal with these hungers, and then how Jesus deals with them.   Like the woman at the well, when transformed by Jesus Christ, our hearts become part of the solution for hunger rather than part of the problem.  No other religion dares to suggest that the answer to our hunger is a person.  Jesus didn't say he would show us the way.  He just said, "I am the way."
I arrive in Chicago at Orchestra Hall, my favorite haunt for hearing The Messiah by the Apollo Chorus.

I hear the ancient words, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive..." and right there, as Ravi Zacharias pointed out in the train, the story of Jesus Christ steps out of the realm of the natural. 




On the way back, I begin to feel alone, and my mind re-hashes my weaknesses.  The train is hurtling back the way we came, flashing past Subway and Taco Bell and the United States Steel Yard and a florescent sign for Miller Lite and acres of pole lights.

"Watch your step, next stop East Chicago," the abrasive voice blares through the train.

I'm listening to the song, "If you say go, we will go; if you say wait, we will wait", when God says to me, "You would go."  It's not a question or a command.  I begin to cry, right across the aisle from the young guy twisting a plastic Coke bottle, but I don't care who sees me, because I suddenly know that God is with me.  God, who knows my weaknesses, my failures, my lack of discipline, my desire to be a people pleaser, by tendency to let people control me, still says, "I know you're trying. Stop beating dead horses.  Get up and try again tomorrow." 

So I'm wiping my eyes.  I feel God all around me, and I realize that of all the people on the train, I am the least alone of anyone.  No matter who you went to Chicago with, there's always something you don't know about them, and something they don't understand about you.

But God knows me perfectly, knows the mess I make of things daily, and still he has just quieted my heart with one touch of his hand on my shoulder:  "Shhhhh.  Be quiet.  Just keep going and stop agonizing."    

This is why I love to take a day of solitude in a crowd every now and then.  Because it's not really solitude. People think I'm alone, when they look over at the empty seat beside me.  

But they're wrong.  


Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Why I'm here in the ER

It's been a long day, starting at 4 am.  It's now 10:30, and the lights are dimmed in our little ER room.  The nurse dressed in blue, pushing anti-nausea medication into the IV, is the husband of a veteran nurse I work with upstairs.  He teases his patient that he'll bring her ice chips only because she's a friend of Katrina, who is a friend of his wife.

I'd rather be home in bed, if I had to choose right now.

But Mary, whose excruciating headaches have overtaken her again, is my inspiration.  She's resting her head on her arm, her elbow propped on the side rail of the ER bed.  She's okay now, with the pain medication.

Recently, I stopped at her house to decompress about work.

I babble for awhile, collapsed on her couch in her immaculate living room. 

Mary listens and changes channels. 

Sometimes I think I'm going to lose my mind, I tell her.

Mary, who knows the key parts of my story, comes up out of her recliner.  She shakes her finger at me.

"Do you think, Katrina....DO YOU THINK," she hollers at me, "that God's going to put you somewhere where you're going to lose your mind?" 

She has no mercy on my whining.  She pushes me forward and reminds me that God is bigger than my perceived problems. 

"The one word God doesn't want to hear us say is 'can't'," she tells me.

He brings the ice chips.

"Ooo, yum," she says.

I would like to say that I'm here because of my strength and compassion.

But I'm actually here because of hers.