Day: September 28, 2014

Lunch With an Old Friend

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halfdomeYesterday, I had lunch with a friend from Bible college that I had not seen for over 20 years. I met him and his oldest son Luke at the California Pizza Kitchen in Arcadia. We caught up on our lives, they told me about their impressive trek up Half Dome in Yosemite. I love a view. They showed me the picture of the cables one has to climb to make it up the last 400 feet of the ascent. When I saw the picture of the incline, which looked to me about 80%, I thought, but did not say, “Ohhhh, shit!” Instead, I think I just said, “Wow, that looks scary!”
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I’m sure my friend, who is now the president of my Alma Mater, Ozark Christian College, and his son have both heard people use that word. When ranking expletives, I think it’s one of the more innocuous ones, right? Anyway, we had a nice lunch. It had been prompted by an email I wrote a few months ago. I won’t go into that here, but Matt had reached out to me then and a couple weeks ago, he sent me an email asking if I wanted to meet him for lunch since he was coming my way.

Matt and I worked together in recruitment at our college when we were students. It was a great job, mostly we just sat on the phone talking to kids we’d met at summer camps and youth rallies in our time at OCC. While it was a sales job of sorts, I loved it because, more than anything, we were talking to kids a couple of years younger than us, about what they thought God’s plan for their life was.

Yesterday, we reminisced. I asked him about his wife Katie, whom you might know, has had some health challenges in recent years. He asked about my parents. He asked about Eric. We talked about the Joplin tornado of 2011 and the way the community came together in the aftermath. We talked about my blog and my not always successful hope to be a bridge between the gay community and conservative Christian community. We talked about movies.

At the end of the meal, he told me that he would like to pray for me. Then he asked me if there was something specific I would like for him to pray for, he suggested my job hunt and what the future holds for me. I said I would appreciate that. He also asked if there was anything he could pray about for Eric and I immediately thought about Eric’s Dad and how losing him is still, naturally, a source of sadness and weight. So we bowed our heads, and Matt offered our burdens up to the Lord in prayer. We said our goodbyes. They were going to a movie. I had to go to my Italian market before I drove back to LA. Like I said, it was a nice lunch.

Later when I met friends for dinner, I told them about meeting with Matt, my former classmate, now the president of my college. When I told them about him asking what he could pray for, one friend asked if I felt like that was condescending. It had not occurred to me, but I pondered John’s question. Was it condescending? I don’t think so. If you are a Christian or believe in the power of prayer, there is no greater gift, saying, “God, this is someone you love, this is what he’s going through, please give him direction and comfort.” And I must say, it made me feel good that he asked to pray for Eric, too.

Is it possible that in his more private prayers, Matt has prayed for me to turn away from a homosexual lifestyle or return to the conservative Christian fold? Yes, it’s probably likely that that has been his prayer. If his Biblical interpretation is that homosexuality is a sin, his concern for me would mandate for him to pray for me in that way. I am sure he went into this lunch, not with an agenda, but a hope that I would somehow return to the faith of my youth. I had my own hopes going into the lunch as well. I hope that knowing a bit more about my story, he might have more compassion and understanding when he meets other gay people, that he might see the similarities before he sees the differences.

I keep thinking about that climb up Half Dome though. (And those cables!) When he showed me the picture of him and Luke, atop that crest, sky so blue, the surrounding mountains so majestic, I marvelled at the beauty of the planet. It’s hard not to think of a Creator when you see vistas like that. And in his way, Matt, by meeting me for lunch, breaking bread over barbecue pizza and a Thai chicken salad, was saying, I still want you to climb this mountain, I still want you to see this view.

Guest Blogger, Michael Patrick Gaffney: I Hadn’t Had a Bath in 20 Years!

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My friend and frequent guest blogger Michael had a medical emergency this week. I’ll let him tell you. But even before the situation passed, so to speak, I asked him if he might want to write about it. Tonight he sent me this. I do believe that when we are processing life’s challenges, it can help to sit down and write about it. And if we decide to share what we’ve written, who knows, it might help the people who read it too. I’m glad you are feeling better, my friend. You are loved!

“I Hadn’t Had a Bath In 20 Years!”

Like most people in the world today, I’m often stressed out and always carrying around a certain amount of anxiety. I’ve tried yoga and meditation but I just don’t have the patience, I guess. But I do find my peaceful place in walking. I love to walk! I just love it! I am a self-proclaimed Power Walker. I love to walk my dog, I love to walk to the store, but most of all I love to take long walks up into the canyon where I live. I call it my church. I love to power walk up to the top of the hill, with my arms swinging back and forth like Oprah as Sophia in “The Color Purple”, and look out and watch the hawks glide past me. Tuesday was a typical day on my power walk and just as I was about start my way down I felt a slight pain in my right testicle. Hmmm…Weird. 10 minutes down the hill I started to feel a shooting pain in the middle of my back. Ouch! Really weird…By the time I arrived home I was moaning and groaning, deciding if this warranted calling 911. Instead I called a neighbor and asked her if she would take me to the E.R. A drive that should have taken us 20 minutes took over an hour in rush hour traffic. I screamed and cried and prayed out load. I took my seatbelt off at one point and got on all fours in the front seat. I couldn’t stop moving. I was like a terrified Pekingese heading to the vet. Then the nausea started, “I think I’m going to be sick”, I screamed! We were at a dead stop so I opened the car door, but it was a false alarm. But now all the people in the cars around us knew there was drama going on and kept staring, waiting for me to blow!

When we finally pulled into the Emergency Room drop off point my neighbor stopped the car and I jumped out and power walked through the front doors. There were about 20 other people sitting in the waiting area waiting to be seen. I knew enough about how these places worked, that I knew I had to act fast and not hold anything back. “Um…Hello. I’m here. What do I do?! I’m in a lot of pain. Please help me, HELP MEEEEEEE!!!” I was spinning around in circles swinging my murse around me. I think somebody must have called a code: CRAZY, because the next thing I knew I was in a wheelchair sitting at a desk with a woman asking for my I.D. Just as I pulled it out, I announced to the entire ER, “I’m going to be sick!!!” Magically, a pink bucket appeared from under her desk and onto my lap. In between retching and heaving, I apologized to the entire room, “I’m sorry everybody, I’m so sorry!” I heard giggling from the peanut gallery but I didn’t have the strength nor the quick wit to deal with a heckler in the crowd, so I let it go. Next thing I know I’m in triage and I hear one of the nurses say, “We can smell a kidney stone a mile away.” A very handsome, blue-eyed nurse named Gary tells me he is giving me a drug called Dilaudid. I feel it hit me in the back of my neck and then BAM! “That’s a Lindsay Lohan cocktail”, I mumble. “Mikey likey!”

I am wheeled to another room, given an MRI, where they confirm that I have two kidney stones, one of which is trying to make its way through my ureter to my bladder. The other is a much larger stone waiting in the wings of my kidney. I am wheeled to yet another room and as the nurse leans over me checking my I.V. I notice her name tag, which reads, Stella. Given the fact I am an actor and that I am flying high on a powerful pain-killer seven times stronger than morphine I give her my best Marlon Brando, “STELLAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” She just gives me a knowing smile and goes about her business.

An hour or so later the pain has subsided dramatically and I am discharged with a couple of prescriptions and a strainer to pee through and sent on my way.

The next couple of days were filled with intermittent bouts of pain, nausea, constipation and vomiting from the pain meds. Being in that kind of pain was very lonely and isolating. It made me think about people who deal with chronic pain, people who suffer in silence on a daily basis and how lonely they most feel.

On Thursday night, a friend suggested I try a hot bath before bed. I hadn’t had a bath in 20 years! I’m a shower only kind of guy, but thought it was worth a shot. I filled the tub and put on my New Age Essentials channel on Pandora. I laid there in that hot water and thought about the last few days and what I had gone through. I felt like a little boy again, minus the Mr. Bubble. I felt so aware of my body and my breath. I was comforted by the warm water and my breathing. I had found my peaceful place again. I dried off and went straight to bed. The next thing I knew it was 6:03am and I went to use the bathroom, and without any bells and whistles or drumroll or pain even, out popped my kidney stone. It was about the size of a small black pepper kernel. That tiny little thing had caused so much pain and suffering and brought me to my knees.

Looking back on it all, I think that that hot bath was a turning point. It was such a moment of self-preservation and being totally aware of my body and what was happening and accepting the pain and truly surrendering.

I do feel a little like a ticking time bomb now with that other stone waiting for the perfect inopportune moment to escape my kidney and send me back to the emergency room. But until then I will continue to take my power walks and my new nightly hot baths to find my peaceful place. I might even pick up a box of Mr. Bubble.