General – The Laughing Wolf

A Smile Amidst…

I won’t go into everything, but really do think Mother M, the nun who just passed into repose, would have been highly amused at some of the smaller things that have gone on. Last night, the choir for the special funeral service for monks and nuns turned out to be all male. Not bad, in fact sort of fun, but the service was written for monks and everything had to be converted from he/him to she/her on the fly. I think she would have been highly amused at the occasional slip.

Very Lite Posting This Week

Posting will be very lite this week. In addition to all that was planned, we unfortunately had a nun, Mother M, enter repose this week. She was an integral part of two different churches over the years, and tonight we are doing a service and tomorrow morning the other church will have a service for her and she will be buried there. I went in this morning to take a shift reading Psalms over her, and am headed back shortly to help finish getting things set for this evening.

I do wish more of the newer members had gotten to meet her before her health started keeping her away. She had a sharp mind and managed the bookstore at my church for many years. I enjoyed and appreciated the time with her.

May the Lord bless and keep her, now and always.

Thank You!

To whomever sent the Mane and Tail and the citric acid from the Amazon wish list, thank you! No paperwork, truly anonymous, and very much appreciated. Thank you.

It’s A New Week

And it’s going to be interesting in terms of posting. First up, I didn’t get much posted at the end of last week. Friday, I got to spend some time with my Godmother, which is always a delight. She’s trying to finish a book on early German/Germanic saints and I go over on occasion to be her on-site, on-call tech support as she and the computer do not always get along. We have a good time, usually a good visit on top of that, and it is fun seeing how she is trying to put the book in question together.

Saturday was full, as I had some work to do for the church early, and then went up to the Carmel Farmer’s Market. I was really hoping that one particular vendor would have some items in stock; but, sadly, it will be a few weeks until they have them again. To be honest, they have some of the best dried sausages I’ve had outside of Europe and I wanted some for a little trip at the end of this week. I’ll get by. Picked up some locally made cheeses, some meat, and one vendor gave me a jug of goat’s milk to try with the goat cheese I bought from him.

Think I’ve mentioned before that I’ve started cooking with goat butter a good bit. I love the flavor, the nutrition profile is off the charts, and at lower heats it works as well or better than cow butter. I am cooking my breakfast mini-omelette in it and to say the results are tasty is an understatement.

More church work afterwards, and, of course, I rarely post on Sundays. Yesterday was a busy day of worship, and that evening we had a picnic at the home of our priest and his family that was delightful. Actually got home after my normal bedtime, so was a slug and slept in until 7 this morning.

Posting may be a bit odd this week as there are a few things going on, and I will be going to our Diocesan conference at the end of the week. Our church actually hosted it a few years back, but I spent the entire time in the kitchen helping cook the meals for it. So, this year I actually am going to get to go attend and observe, and learn some different facets of Church life. I’m looking forward to it.

Remember to keep your friends and family close, your clothes where you can find them in the dark, be prepared, and have faith. More soon.

Please check out my Summer Bleg.

Getting hit by lightning is not fun! It is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. If you would like to help me with seminary courses, pilgrimages, and more, feel free to hit the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo, use the options in the Tip Jar in the upper right, or drop me a line to discuss other methods. There is also the Amazon Wish List in the Bard’s Jar. Thank you.

A Summer Bleg

UPDATES BELOW

I was going to wait a couple of weeks on this, but an anonymous donor has kicked things off with a $1,000.00 donation towards more seminary courses. I’ve talked a little bit about taking more courses, and there are some other things in work as well, so here we go.

The Winter Bleg only raised about a third of it’s goal. I had enough to go on the pilgrimage, but not enough to cover seminary and more. So, there is some debt that I want very much to eliminate.

On top of that, the experiment that was my first seminary course worked out very well. While it was a challenge, I passed and in fact earned a B+ or A- in the course. It was fun, I learned a lot (both about the material and what I need to do to handle taking a course), and verified that I can keep learning — at least through distance learning. For all that the testing said I should be able to do so, real results were needed to verify that being hit by lightning had not taken away my ability to learn. It hasn’t, though it is a challenge to make sure the conditions to form new memories are present.

What I would like to do next is take two courses this fall. If I can handle two courses and do well in them, that increases the possibility that I could pursue full-time study. The more I do, the better for my brain. Right now, however, I need to test, develop the systems that work for me to handle a larger learning load, and hopefully have some fun even as I learn to learn on multiple levels.

This means, however, that I also need to stay undeclared and a part-time student. Which also means no financial aid. The recent $1k donation is a huge step towards that, as I am looking at around $8k in tuition plus the need to pay off around $3k from last semester.

While I am not planning on any long pilgrimages the rest of this year, I am looking at a couple of short ones here in the United States, and would like to do a bit more if I can. I’m not even going to put a dollar figure on it yet, as seminary comes first but it needs to be in the planning.

So, this summer bleg is focused on taking more seminary courses, and paying off debt. If enough comes in to also do a couple of short pilgrimages here in the U.S., great. But, the thing is to get me where I can continue my studies and try to get my brain in shape for possible full-time studies while developing the systems to support such.

Any and all help would be very much appreciated. Your prayers and gifts have gotten me through some very rough times. They have allowed me to work towards figuring out a new life after the lightning strike. Now, I hope to start truly building that new life.

UPDATE I: Things are off to a slow start, but there is movement. I’ve been talking with guidance at the Seminary and have two courses picked out for the fall semester pending some approval and blessings. More details once those approvals and blessings come in. Also, thank you to whomever sent the item off my Amazon wish list. Again, any and all help is appreciated. One course was a challenge, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes with two courses.

Whew

Sorry to miss yesterday, but we had a special service at church that kept me occupied into the afternoon. It was made even more delightful by getting to meet our priest’s month-old daughter. She was born while I was on pilgrimage and yesterday was her first day in church.

I ran errands early this morning, and am trying to decide if I really need to do one thing I forgot or if I can put it off until tomorrow. We are supposed to get some storms tonight that should help cool things down. Meantime, it’s summer in Indiana which means hot and very humid. Interesting that it very similar to the weather pattern 125 years ago, as well as a reminder this is not a new thing.

Plan to get up my usual July 4th post early in the morning, as we have a baptism tomorrow morning and vespers (only, no matins) tomorrow evening. Wondering if I will be able to see any fireworks tomorrow night as I don’t plan on going out again after I get home from vespers. Things have already gotten crazy here as Indianaman and Indidanakids are giving Floridaman a run for his money.

More soon.

UPDATE: This will show as edited as I’ve changed the boilerplate below as part of some general clean-up and editing of widgets and more. I’ve even cleaned up the Amazon wish list a bit to reflect some changes I see coming. Hopefully the mostly-behind-the-scenes stuff will make things a little cleaner and better.

Today I Turn 5

Today, I am five-years-old. No joke. My life ended five years ago.

You see, today is my “Alive Day.” Among the mil-community, there is a concept that your Alive Day is the day that, but for the Grace of God, you should have died. It’s possible to have more than one Alive Day, and in fact I’m one of those who does have more than one.

In fact, if you hang around a number of the military/veteran blogs, you will see comments to posts like this one with someone grumping that they have several alive days. It is a sad bit of chest-thumping, but it is chest-thumping that can serve some good by getting all of us to sit down and give thanks for all the times God has spared our lives.

But, there is always that one big one. The one that truly ended your previous life and left you starting a new one. Sometimes radically so, as you face TBI and cognitive issues, loss of limbs or chunks, paralysis, etc. Sometimes it is more subtle: I knew someone in college who was in a car wreck, and was a totally different person afterwards. Radical personality change is a polite and understated description.

Five years ago today, at roughly 0445 hours, the life I had ended. A bolt of lightning hit a tree just off the porch where I was drinking coffee and reading the news. The doctors who have treated me since still have academic debates about what happened. The best/most likely scenario, worked out with those who actually work with the patients and one doctor who specializes in treating lightning strike and high-voltage electrical shock survivors, is that I did take a direct hit just behind my right ear plus got a load of inductance.

The good thing was, the right side took the brunt of things and the flow through my body. It exited my right foot via the ball of the foot (podiatrist was unsurprised at that), melted through my shoe and left a “scar” on the bottom of the shoe where it ran off. I’ve described the mental process here before, but will just say that the part of me that is me stayed alert and “thinking” even as my world turned white, then dark. Before the lights came back on, I wondered if I would see heaven, hell, or something else when they did come back on. I admit relief that I saw the porch when the lights came back on. In fact, I was convinced for a bit that I hadn’t been hit, and even said a prayer of thanks to God and the Theotokos that I was alive and it had missed me. Even then, part of me knew it was by Grace that I was alive.

You can read one account of what I felt at the time here; and, you can read up on this particular journey here. The high-level overview is that since then I’ve had open heart surgery, both shoulders replaced, found out that my right ear qualifies for a hearing aid but getting one is useless as about half the nerves are fried, dealt with a number of digestive system issues, and have spent more time in hospitals and doctor’s offices than I care for. I’ve fired a couple of doctors and found at least one good new doc. The oddest things that have happened are that I had to relearn how to sing, my eyes changed colour, and garbanzo beans/chick peas now can put me in the hospital. Some of the most effective things that have happened are speech/cognitive therapy, physical therapy, and massage therapy.

The best thing that has happened are several things that all tie together in one thing. Before I was hit, I was an unhappy Roman Catholic. Traditional Catholicism was being attacked from within and without, and the church I had been attending was no longer an option. Trying to find a new one near to me was frustrating. So, I widened my search parameters online and otherwise, and almost immediately three different things pointed me not only to Orthodoxy, but to one particular church. Not too long after I started attending that church, a change in cardiologist (much needed) raised the possibility of more open-heart surgery and I even thought a bit about a transplant (I decided no at the time).

Then, I was baptized into Orthodox Christianity. Not long after, a day of heart imaging showed that not only did I not need more surgery, but that all the damage from the strike had been healed. There was also some other healing physical, mental, and spiritual. That is an ongoing process. I began sharing that here, and elsewhere, but tried to keep it low-key in many respects. Turning the blog into an online ‘Hour of Glower’ was not and is not the plan as it is the fastest way to send people running rapidly away. Faith is a part of everyday life, and I think sharing it that way is the best way.

Today, I am five-years-old. No joke. My life ended five years ago. When I stood up again, the person I had been and the life I had were gone. Nor do I want them back. I was given the opportunity to live a new life and to grow into a new and better person through that process. There is more I could say, and over time I will share it. For now, there is one thing I think it very important to state for the record.

Today, I am five-years-old. Thank you to all my readers who have been with me over the years, particularly these last few years. Thank you to all my readers who have joined in since I started my new life. Thank you to all who just pop in every now and then. Your prayers, your support, and your gifts have kept me going and helped me to heal and grow. You have all been a valuable and important part of this new life, and I can’t thank you enough for that.

I think my journey is about to accelerate, and I hope you will all come along for the ride. In addition, there are some fascinating developments underway in space exploration and exploitation, interesting medical research, and a good bit more that I hope to share. And to my veteran friends and readers, if I ever do go ‘Hour of Glower’ you are free to have a verbal sock party and set me straight.

There is more, much more I suspect, to come. After all, I’m only five-years-old today.

If you would like to help me with this trip, seminary courses, and more, feel free to hit the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo, use the options in the Tip Jar in the upper right, or drop me a line to discuss other methods. I’ve added Cash App ($CliffPow7) and Venmo (@Clifford-Powers-5). There is also the Amazon Wish List in the Bard’s Jar. Getting hit by lightning is not fun! It is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. Thank you.

General Stuff

Good Morning! The morning is being nibbled to death by ducks, but getting some stuff done. One domain renewal, lots of minor stuff. The presentation at church went well, may end up putting together some separate presentations on art, architecture, and other topics. Hope to have a real post later today.

More soon.

Changes

When I selected “A New Life” as the title and theme for my recovery from being hit by lightning, as well as my ongoing fundraiser, I had no idea how appropriate it was. My old life ended in a flash of light, and a new one began when I got back up afterwards. There were a lot of changes physically and otherwise.

One I didn’t fully appreciate at the start was that it was also the start of a new spiritual life. In the aftermath, I began searching for a new Roman Catholic church. That search proved disappointing, from a lack of traditional services to having a priest blow off visiting me in the aftermath of surgery with no word or follow-up. This led to my expanding some of the parameters of my search, and having my search and some other events point me to a particular Orthodox church. I went, and have never looked back.

It has been a rather intense journey, and by Orthodox standards it has been extremely rapid. Orthodoxy likes to take it’s time and a measured (and proven) approach to growing in the faith. This does many things, from avoiding burnout to preventing heresy and miscommunications. It also helps ensure that any member, convert or otherwise, takes the time to discern their path and to be sure it is the correct one.

In my case, that discernment has indicated a path towards the altar. While I think I know the destination, it could actually be one of several possibilities. The thing is, the first steps are the same for all of them, and my focus is on taking those steps and proceeding down the path that lies before me. If I don’t start walking, I’m never getting anywhere.

That is going to result in some changes here. There are enough political pundits out there that my small contributions to such are not needed and not likely to be missed in the roar of the crowd. My intent here is going to be to continue to write about preparedness and related issues, travel and food, and on my journey towards a very new and different life. I may offer takes on potential futures if I think it’s about to rain. There will likely still be some snark and puns, as they are too much a part of me to disappear. This is also going to be reflected in my limited presence on other social media.

Not long after I got up again after being hit, the feeling that I was spared to do something grew. I had actually had the feeling for years that I was supposed to be doing something but hadn’t done as much with it as I should have. In private, I’ve joked that the lightning was the equivalent of being hit in the head with a large dead fish both to get my full attention and get me active in figuring out what that “something” was and taking action. And I am doing so as I have no desire to find out what comes after lightning to get my attention and focus.

More than three years ago I began attending that Orthodox Christian church to which several things pointed me. More than two years ago, I was baptized into the Church and began the process of giving myself to God. Now, I am taking the steps to fully give myself and walk the path laid before me. I am human, I am going to make mistakes, and I will always be a sinner. God didn’t send his Son to save the perfect, but the sinners.

My late Godfather, a priest, told me one time that he had thought of putting up a banner on the church saying “Only Sinners Need Apply” to drive home that point. One thing that became clear on my recent pilgrimage is that the idea that I was too much a sinner, and not perfect enough to be more than I am, is not true but a lie in the dark used to encourage people not to try. There is a line from Babylon 5 that resonates with me, and even my priest liked it: ‘Sin lies not in falling down, but in failing to get back up again.’

I’ve been knocked down more than once in my life, and there are some nasty wounds in body, mind, and soul — but an amazing amount of healing has already happened. It’s a reminder that I alone can do nothing; but, with God, I can do anything. I got back up that morning almost exactly five years ago, and it’s time to fully stand up and start walking. No matter your beliefs, I hope you will follow my journey and even walk with me a bit on occasion.

On a practical note, I’m going to have to do a summer bleg here soon as the winter bleg didn’t get a third of the goal, and I want to take two seminary courses this fall if I can. Also, I hope to do some more pilgrimages as I’ve had two monasteries ask me to come back and stay a while to aid healing, learning, and growth and I would love to do that, to visit new places including the Holy Lands, and get to visit again with some of the new friends I made on this trip.

I’m also going to be selling off many of my current possessions, particularly those in storage. Yard sales, online, and anything else needed will be coming up in the next couple of months I hope. Provided my books have survived storage, I am even thinking of selling off my Science Fiction/Fantasy library, a number of which are autographed. There are some books I want to keep, plan on keeping my kitchen gear, and a few sentimental items. Also my tools, especially hand tools as I like to be able to do things even if the power is off. Other than that, going to try to get it gone. Have the feeling I need to lighten and become as agile as possible.

Even with the focus here changing somewhat, I hope that all my regular readers will stick around, and it wouldn’t be bad if a few more joined in. More soon.

AV Day

Sorry, overslept this morning so running behind. I’m headed down to the church to test my laptop with some of our limited AV equipment. I want to be sure everything works for my presentation on Sunday. My priest wants to find out what is working and get rid of anything not working. Win-Win.

The presentation will be this Sunday following our “coffee” which follows our liturgy. We fast before the service as we partake of the body and blood of Christ (Eucharist) as part of the liturgy. After the service, we then have “coffee” which usually is a meal. People take turns cooking or bringing things in for the coffee and some of our members are really good cooks. The coffee is usually quite good as one of our members has family that runs a coffee roasting business.

If you are in or near Indianapolis you are welcome to come for the presentation. You don’t have to attend the full service, which starts at 0900 (sorta, there are days we operate on Orthodox time, which has been described as mañana without the sense of urgency). We actually have some things going on before the service (usually confession and someone reading/singing), so don’t think you are interrupting or such. You are not. If you are just wanting to see the presentation, show up about 1030 and come on in.

As for where, Joy of All Who Sorrow Bulgarian Orthodox Church is at 16th and Delaware, and the website has more information.

If you’ve never been to an Orthodox service before, let me know you are coming and I will be glad to welcome you and get you paired up with someone who can explain what is going on. Keep in mind that as our guest, short of deliberately trying to disrupt things/commit violence, you can do no wrong. It is a long service, similar in length to the Latin Mass (1.5 hours), but it “moves” pretty quickly.

If you just want to see the presentation, show up about 1015-1030 and the service should be wrapping up. Join us for coffee and once people are fed we will do the presentation. Hope to see you there.