The Donkey History Museum: something to bray about

 I don’t know about you, but my spouse has occasionally warned me, “Don’t make an ass of yourself.”

Now, visiting Mesquite, Nevada—and its quartet of casinos tempting Arizona, Utah and Nevada I-15 travelers to detour for a bit of gambling—might pay off or deplete that RVing gas and groceries budget.

Hence the risk, amigos. Dreams of fortune versus, in my case, the wrath of my wife, she of Norwegian ancestry and the dormant genes of the Valkyrie: DNA and ancestry best left to rest in Valhalla—trust me.

So, on an overnight stay in this Virgin River Valley town of 20,000 on the northeastern fringe of the Mojave Desert, I found the perfect—and an educational—compromise: the Donkey History Museum.

*to read more of this article and see more photos, click here:

Swansea Ghost Town: A rough road to faded desert dreams

Having set up camp alongside the Colorado River near Parker, Arizona, my adventurous wife, Barbara, decided to take our trusty “toad” compact car to see a real ghost town.

It was a pleasant and warm day, barely a cloud in the sky. But we did not take our 2019 Ford Fiesta to the Tombstone “ghost town,” where the Shootout at the O.K. Corral made Wyatt Earp famous in 1881, and where tourists today can see a tamer, bloodless reenactment of the same while sipping on a cold craft brew.

No, not Tombstone. We also passed on a slew of other deserted Old West settlements in Arizona. We chose the remote La Paz County ghost town mining community of Swansea, AZ, our surrender to serendipity becoming a bumpy, dusty, and rough 65-mile round trip odyssey.

*To read the rest of this article of mine, and see more photos click here

First visit to Red Butte Garden: a long glimpse at earthly paradise

 It was my first ever visit to Red Butte Garden, more than 100 acres of botanical and hiking bliss along the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains that provide the eastern boundaries of Salt Lake City.

I know. First visit for me, courtesy of my son, Rob, to a glimpse -- and long one -- of earthly paradise.

Yes, I repeat with chagrin, my first visit, and I've been in Utah since 1982, when my journalistic career brought me first to the Salt Lake City Bureau of the Associated Press, and later The Salt Lake Tribune.

Now 71, and retired, I finally made it.

Thanks, son.

Heat wave escape: In Utah, just a drive into the snow-capped Wasatch Mountains

The Wasatch Front is in the throes of a heat wave, as is much of the Great Basin and Intermountain West.

Escape is nearby, up into the 11,000-foot Wasatch Mountains, those snow-packed 11,000-foot offshoots of the Rockies.

Thank God.

So, my wife Barbara and I drove up Parleys Canyon, along a couple scenic switchbacks, and basked in cooler temperatures, the scent of mountain wildflowers, pine trees, and aspen.

It was a nice few hours together in the snowcapped Wasatch Range.

Let's call the experience “ Babsendipity,” since it was Barb at the wheel.

beauty, steps, breaths, and ancient prayers -- perspective, and peace

Here, I've learned, is what to do if you wake up in a funk today.

I recently did, and decided to follow my parish priest’s (Fr. Paul Truebenbach’s) recent prescriptions for depression: prayer, exercise, focus on needs of others.

So, there I was, in the early morning trek through the icons of nature, the words of the Trisagion and Creed on my lips, as I hiked through and around forest trails, flowers, wildlife, and streams around the Wheeler Farm Historic Site.

For me, the beauty, steps, breaths, and ancient prayers culminated in perspective, and peace.

About my 'big sister,' the times and seasons of life, and love eternal

 Her name is Carolyn.

She has always been my "big sister," being born three years before me.

But because of her oxygen deprivation in the womb, and the cerebral palsy she was born with, it was my role from a young age to be her "big brother."

She needed surgery to correct her crossed-eyes as an infant, and physical and often painful strap on leather and metal braces to hobble a few steps. I was five years old when Mom took me outside on a warm Norwalk, Calif., day and explained why my sis still could speak only short sentences, and then only with intensively exhausting stutters.

"Carolyn is what the doctors call 'mentally retarded,'" Mom said softly. "She won't be able to learn like you. And since she is crippled, people stare at how she walks, and some kids will even tease and try to hurt her."

There were tears forming in Mom's eyes. "You will be her 'big brother,' more and more as you grow," she said, trying to smile encouragingly.

And so, I tried to be just that. Protecting my sister from neighborhood bullies got me in my first fights as a young boy, and the violence escalated from a punch in the stomach for a kid who pushed her to the ground, to blood and chipped teeth for both me and one, sometimes more bullies as I grew into adolescence.

But I could not protect Carolyn from the emotional swings and physical tantrums that came as she grew, too, though physically handicapped but strong as an adult. Still, she had the cognitive limits of a 4-to–5-year-old.

Mom, barely 5-foot-2, would try to keep the larger Carolyn from biting chunks out of her own arms in self-destructive rages; and often, Mom, too, would end up with bruises and lumps from my sister's kicks and bleeding, whaling fists.

When the rage subsided, a confused Carolyn would see, but not understand injuries to herself and Mom. Sis would cry, "S-s-s-orry, Mom, S-s-orry!" Mom would wince, but always hug, whispering loving assurances, her own face wet with tears.

Half a century ago, there were limited choices to address this crisis. Special Education classes then were little more than dumping grounds for any and all mentally and physically handicapped kids. 

Group homes for their care did not yet exist where we lived in Eastern Washington. But the situation with my tortured sister could not continue, and eventually medical and social workers consulted advised placing Carolyn in institutional care -- a nearby state-funded dormitory facility where she would be cared for along with 80 others "like her."

Mom and Dad reluctantly agreed. I was 12 when my sister was moved to a multi-story, brick Lakeland Village. Oh, we visited her there often, and holidays she would join us at home -- for a night or two -- but then would come time for her to go back, and still sometimes, not peacefully.

Over the ensuing years, Lakeland Village gradually placed its charges in smaller group homes. Physicians would now prescribe medications to ease the mood swings, social workers arranged regular outings and crafts, exercise, trips to the movies and church services.

The years passed. Mom and Dad would regularly visit Carolyn, keeping track of her clothing, medical, bedding, and growing stuffed animals collection. But then came their own aging, dementia, assisted living and then nursing home care, finally ending with their deaths in 2019.

I could not qualify under Washington state law to myself serve as Carolyn's legal guardian, since I had lived and worked 800 miles away in Utah for several decades; my sister came under the care of professional state-appointed guardians.

I have been able to talk with her on the telephone often and visit her in person on several occasions over the past few years. I saw her health deteriorating, her mobility requiring first an aluminum walker, and then a wheelchair. Her breathing became increasingly labored, and then in the past few months, trips to the hospital and long-term nursing care before a brief return to her own room and belongings at her residential group home.

I have been able to talk with her on the telephone often and visit her in person on several occasions over the past few years. 

Her breathing became increasingly labored, and then in the past few months, trips to the hospital and long-term nursing care before a brief return to her own room and belongings at her residential group home.

Last night, the call came from the director of her home. My "big sister" may not make her 74th birthday in July. 

Again she was rushed to the hospital, where doctors found her unable to safely swallow, her blood oxygen levels in the low 80s. She was put on supplemental oxygen, and a feeding tube inserted to stabilize her.

Once that is done, it was hoped Carolyn could return to the comfort of her group home room, in her own bed, surrounded by those stuffed animals, and what had become her caregiving sisters and family.

"Comfort care," was the term. It was an echo for me, being the same words that had been used to govern the final journeys of our parents, before they passed away in their sleep, just months apart a few years ago.

Despite my lack of legal status in Carolyn's case, her caregivers have been willing to keep me regularly apprised of her status. The immediate future, and how it unfolds for her, and me, her distant "big brother," is known only to the God we both love.

And so, once again, I wait, and I pray. 

I ask for physical healing, knowing that even if it comes for her, it will be a brief reprieve. Rather, I pray, too, for her ultimate healing -- a peaceful, painless release when the time comes -- and a heavenly welcome and embraces from Mom and Dad.

Love, after all, is eternal.

A year of medical recovery cycles, and forced -- yet blessed -- contemplation

 

  This year doesn't end for several more months, but already it has been one of my toughest ever.

  That's saying something, As of June 9, I marked 70 of those trips around Ol' Sol. In March, it was brain surgery, several months of recovery from removal of a benign tumor. In August, it was heart surgery, a re-replacement of a failing aortic valve. More recovery ahead, a 12-week hospital-run exercise and dietary program.

  Barbara, my 68-year-old wife, has completed her cataract surgeries this year, too; now, doctors have decided they want to do some precautionary tests on her heart as well. The past year-plus has been especially tough for her, too -- her father died, the subsequent emotional rollercoaster of grief and unraveling his estate, my medical crises, the usual marital dramas of our kids, the inevitable growing pains of grandchildren, etc.

  Trying to decide whether to do so, and then make inquiries about writing/editing freelance work on my own part has been an on-and-off again endeavor. I get recruited to write or edit by a travel news outfit here, or invited to apply for freelance gigs at an Orthodox Christian media company there . . . and then ghosted by both.

  What has been the one consistent priority in my 2023 life has been my faith, even with illnesses also plaguing those at my parish, clergy and staff alike -- resulting in last-minute cancellations of services, meetings, studies.

  And so, I pray, finding continuity and solace in candles, incense, and venerating those people and events depicted on my corner wall of icons. For me, it is an experience enveloped by and daily taking spiritual flight within the recitation of ancient praises, petitions, and the words of communion, and my far inferior yet sincere outpourings of gratitude, pain, love, and anger, ignorance, and epiphany -- all punctuating a silent inner dialogue on behalf of human beings living and departed.

  I read and learn from those brothers and sisters of faith present, sharing thoughts and insights in audio, video, and other modern media . . . and from reading the millennia-old lives and wisdom of those St. Paul referred to as that "great cloud of witnesses" supporting us just beyond the veil.

  And you know what? Those glimpses are into the timeless, eternal, and immortal environment in which we live, and breathe, and move, and have our being.  

 There is beauty, even in this mad world of ours. It can be in the words of a poet, or the prose of a gifted writer (hey, see, I know at least a couple!) who weaves beautiful accounts of history, culture, heroism, and the artistic miracles of mortal men and women that transcends their creators' lifetimes.

Beyond words, there is music. Beyond instruments and sound, there is nature: a breeze-caressed forest, the lapping of ocean waves on a rocky beach, fireflies scattering on a warm, humid night, and the untainted delight on the faces and in the eyes of children who chase them.

In a way, all these other things are good, and if you see the glow or hear the whispers of the sacramental with them, even holy -- if they are embraced amid the cadence of our heart beats and breaths.

These, too, can be our fleeting tastes of eternity.

 My wife and I look forward to experiencing such moments by soon resurrecting our RVing plans so delayed this year by life's unexpected events.

 

 

 

 

On the medical Yellow Brick Road

 

So, my sweet wife’s second cataract surgery done, she is bright eyed. Bushy tailed? None of your business!🤣

Now comes my week. Next three days bring yet more scans, tests, and then re-replacement of my aortic heart valve.

Brain surgery to evict a benign tumor in March has been declared success; now, having saved/received a brain on my medical Yellow Brick Road, I’m doubling down on a heart! Move aside, Scarecrow and Tin Man. 

Courage? That’s action overcoming fear, and a choice… so, no worries Lion.

And beyond waxing metaphorical and/or analogical, on a more serious note I am at peace through my faith and trust in God. I embrace the grace of knowing that His Love is with us, and me, whether in mortal time or incomprehensible eternity.

Getting older: Walking through the valley of the shadows

 
 "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."  (Psalm 23:4)

   In the past couple months Life has had me glancing at the shadows in that valley we all begin walking through the day we are born. The shadows have taken recognizable form of late, along with that feeling of having far more years behind me than ahead.

   It is a growing realization not of fear, nor unease, even as it is a bittersweet, decreasingly vague recognition.

   In May 2018, it was the too-soon demise of a lifelong career in journalism, scythed by economic imperatives of a newspaper industry on its knees. About half of the staff  eventually accompanied me out the door, a sort of death, professionally. I endured the cycle of grief in my own fashion -- sort of in reverse . . . internally forced acceptance, but inevitably spattered by the sense of loss, anger, depression. 

   "Closure" took months, and if I am honest years to process.

   But that was nothing. In 2019, I lost both my parents to dementia. It was not unexpected, and they were both in their 90s. Still, their "golden years" were anything but; along with the grief there was relief the ordeal -- theirs and, ignobly my own -- was over. 

   Last year, two beloved aunts passed, as well as an uncle I considered something of a second father. A couple weeks ago, my father-in-law, his long battle with cancer and pain over, died in hospice care.

   Live long enough, and the circle of mortality closes around you, slowly, like a lazy but persistent, patient fog.

   Finally, you are confronted with the perils of aging, and medical surprises. First, it was learning the artificial heart valve I received 11 years ago was wearing out; it will have to be replaced at some point in the near future. I'm a good candidate for the procedure, whether the same open-heart operation I had the first time, or an arterial insertion of an implant, a far-less invasive prospect.

   But it won't be the heart problem that puts me on a University of Utah Medical Center operating table this coming Thursday. That will be brain surgery to remove a meningioma pressuring my optic nerve. While believed to be benign, it has grown incrementally since being discovered by an MRI; not life-threatening, but eventually my eyesight could be at risk.

   Headaches, double vision, and brief but increasing bouts of vertigo have born witness to what that second MRI confirmed some weeks ago.

   As the neurosurgeon told me. removing my cranial interloper is a highly successful procedure. A few days in hospital, then home to recover for a few weeks.

   In a follow-up this week on the heart issue, my cardiologist assured me the valve replacement was not an immediate need, and we can revisit that after I recover from the brain surgery. So, that was good news.

    "What you need to understand is that both of these things are readily treatable. You have many years to look forward to," he said with a smile and pat on my shoulder.

   And, I do believe he is right. I am at peace, and my Eastern Orthodox Christian faith is a comfort that I am, have been and always will be, in God's hands. (As are we all).

   The point, and I know I have taken way too long to get to it, is that Life -- perhaps especially in one's sixth and seventh decades -- has a way of spotlighting those mile markers along the path through the valley of the shadows.

   We need to be aware of death, not with fear, but with sober acceptance that it comes to professions, loved ones, and us. And, as I've contemplated this of late, I am not ignorant of the all-too-human tendency to see the deaths of our loved ones, even ourselves, as somehow an especially grievous wound on the Cosmos.

   It is not entirely a sort of spiritual narcissism to feel thus. Still, when it comes to the grave, we often lack perspective. Tens of thousands of Turkish and Syrian innocents died in the recent earthquakes; tens of millions have been sacrificed on the altars of Nazism, Communism, and in endless wars large and small. 

   Suffering is humanity's common currency, not the dollar or Euro, Yuan or Yen.

    And in a matter of degrees of suffering, how many of us -- too often outraged at the vagaries of our mortal existence in a society where shelter, food, comfort, medical care, and mindless entertainment are considered our due -- dare to compare our sufferings to the myriads of those who perish horribly who so rarely enter our thoughts?

   It shouldn't, then, be a matter of "Why me?" Really, it is "Why not me?"

   For me, my faith has become not the expectation of divine rescue from trials and tribulations, but rather the expectation and belief that we are truly never alone -- and that life's detours and pain can, however unbidden or unwelcome, birth a sort of wisdom, deeper compassion, and banishment of mortal fear.

 

   St. John Chrysostom put it this way:

   "What is dying? Just what it is to put off a garment. For the body is about the soul as a garment; and after laying this aside for a short time by means of death, we shall resume it again with more splendor."

   In the meantime, we live. We love. We comfort. We judge ourselves harshly, even as we forgive liberally.

   Whether I have weeks, months, years or decades ahead, I want to live this way. That is my prayer -- borrowed from St. Philaret of Moscow and posted on the wall of my home office:

"O Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace. Help me in all things to rely upon Your holy will. In every hour of the day reveal Your will to me.

"Bless my dealings with all who surround me. Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all. In all my deeds and words guide my thoughts and feelings.

"In unforeseen events let me not forget that all are sent by You. Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others.

"Give me strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day with all that it shall bring. Direct my will, teach me to pray. Pray You Yourself in me."

 

                                                    ______________

   UPDATE:  Going into my fourth week since the operation, my recovery is steady and on its own schedule. Swelling along a much-larger-than-expected incision (running from the crown of my skull across to my right ear area and down to my ear lobe) was significant until the last few days, and is now all but gone. So far, the headaches, vision and vertigo symptoms are gone, and the moments of memory gaps -- in verbal expression, but not written, oddly enough -- have diminished sharply. --BM

St. Sophrony: Of faith, and faithfulness

Been reading ”We Shall See Him as He is,” the spiritual autobiography of St. Sophrony. This quotation touched me like trumpet of truth:

“Oh, what a paradoxical mixture is man — on the one hand he inspires delight and wonder; on the other, sad bewilderment at his cruelty and savagery. The soul decides to pray for the world but such prayer never attains its ultimate purpose, since no one and nothing can deprive people of freedom to yield to evil, to prefer darkness to light.”

The struggle, he says, must begin within, the weapons being humility and repentance— in the sense not only of recognition of the evil within us, but reformation… hence the “miracle” of both accepting and giving grace to others.

And even at age 69, that’s still a daunting and almost incomprehensible task.

So, Faith and faithfulness.

Click here for More about the saint