http://allnurses.com/hospice-nursing/accusing-hospice-980160.html

A Question of Faith

The journey of faith is no easy path; the journey of no faith is harder still.

As I read the Old Testament, I am besieged by stories of fire coming from heaven, of plagues brought on by the people’s whining for meat and of the crushing weight of the people’s perceived expectations of God. Who is this God that I see there?

The people blamed a fire in the camp on him; they blamed a contagion that spread on him; they saw God as a finger-pointing, lighting-flashing disciplinarian, always ready to wipe the slate clean of them and their kind, never satisfied, always looking to find in them some deficiency.

I cringe to read about this God. He is unfamiliar to me. He is not the loving Father that occupies the whole of my heart. As my God, personified in Jesus, takes my hand and guides me gently, I cannot recognize this other God told about through Moses. Where is He? “I AM” seems foreign, unknown.

But do I deceive myself? Do I concentrate only on the aspects of God that don’t offend me? Do I emasculate a God who is beyond comprehension and size him down to something that fits my mindset?

We self-righteously look at the Israelites with pity as they struggle to understand this Holy God. They see him through the limited understanding of a people who have lived under rule for several generations, brought up by rigid task masters to follow rules, to obey, or to face harsh consequences in disobedience. A God of love and compassion is as foreign to them as this harsh slave-driver version is to me.

So how do we pull the scriptures together, when the Old and New are so far apart? Enter, the presence of the Holy Spirit, a whisper that speaks loudly across the span of centuries of revelation. A Presence that makes all things new, that does more than we can ask or imagine.

I stand empty at the crossroads of Old and New. I ask the Holy One to fill me up with his truth. I focus on the parts that I understand with a glimmer of hope: God came down, he died for me because His great desire is to always draw us to himself, not in a master/slave relationship but in a Father/child love bond.

And so I journey on. The faith I continue to explore is hard to find, but a mustard seed in size, growing imperceptibly larger day by day. I look beside me to the scoffers, to those who chose unbelief and who say, “You cannot reconcile these two gods. The Old and the New. Renounce your faith and die. (Job 2:9)” To them I say, my way is hard, but your way is harder. For every day, to maintain an absence of faith, you must wake up to a world without Hope and anesthetize the part of you that longs for the Truth. Your work, in quenching the Spirit, is harder than mine in feeding it. So I pray, for my faith to grow and for yours to find a way to take root. I pray with love for the believer and the unbeliever, because I know that the journey is hard.

“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful. Kindle in us the fire of your love.”

Walking in the Snow

Fat flakes floating
Giant biscuits of beauty
Feeding my spirit
As they land
gently.
Self-immolating
on my outstretched tongue.
An offering
of refreshment,
renewal.
Powerless individual flakes
Mount together
And become
An equalizing force,
Leveling high and low,
Softening sharp edges
Muting clanging symbols,
Making all things new.
Sins and blessings
Covered
Under a blanket of
Purity and
Whiteness
That reaches to the sky.

2/20/15

A new article in AllNurses.com…

Live Oak

Sultry sway in the summer breeze
Just fine.
Swags of moss,
Hanging tendrils adorn.
Beauty shines as
Sun caresses
Leaves a-shimmer
With a lick of morning dew.

She stands
Erect
Guardian of the river
She waves at passersby
And holds out hands—
Safe harbor
for bird ornaments
Perched to watch
from her view
Ages of water
Gone by.

Benevolent gaze
In still summer
Turns angry as agitated winds
Pull her locks
Straining to dislodge
Earth
That live oak grips in
rooted fists
Protective
of the
Bank
That she clasps to her bosom.

Storm moves on
Giving her one last shake
On her backside.
Freshly cleaned limbs
Dance in the residual breeze
Chuckling
An inside joke with the river
Ages of water
Going by.

6/20/14
Joy Eastridge

Here is a link to an article that I published on all nurses.com.

http://allnurses.com/hospice-nursing/end-of-life-969849.html

Words matter all the time. It’s just that at the end of life, there are so few of them left, that we must count carefully to make sure there is no waste. That awareness keeps us from using them foolishly. As we leave the bedside of the dying, may we carry with us the desire to use our words carefully, every day, not just on the final ones.

Hunting

“Whatcha hunting for?” my kindly husband asked as I stuck my head further into the darkened recesses of a lower cabinet. “Oh, I’m hunting for the lid to this tupperware,” I replied, delving even further into rarely probed corners.

I don’t know about other places where they speak the English language but around these parts we “hunt for stuff.” In fact, here at my house we spend lots of time hunting and not just for tupperware lids. We also seek out keys, wallets, lonely socks, misplaced credit cards and all-important passwords. Sometimes our hunts are active and involve going up and down stairs, looking under beds and shuffling through jackets. But other times the hunts are all performed from the relative ease of a chair, thinking, thinking. “Where, or where did I last see that _______?”

Fortunately, our hunts are usually rewarded with eventual success and we rejoice with a loud, “Aha! There it is!” Finding the lost item often brings a sense of triumph and relief as we hold up and proudly display the treasure.

Studying God’s Word can be a hunt, too. Just as we are not likely to find a sought for item with a cursory look, so it is with a serious student of the Bible. Finding deeper truths and meanings takes concerted effort.

First, we must open our eyes to look for new truths. It is easy for the busyness of our days to pull a veil of dullness over our spirits. If we desire to receive new revelations, our initial commitment in the search is to open the eyes of the heart.

Secondly, we must prepare ourselves to take action on the truth that is revealed to us. Just as a hunter assiduously pursues his prey, he must also prepare to capture it once it is found. But how do we “capture” new truths? In the spiritual realm, it may mean not just hearing it, but putting it into practice. James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”

Teachers know that when students hear the lecture, that is only the first step in actually assimilating the lesson. Learning goes a step further when the pupil is able to interact with the material in some way on their own—re-writing, re-phrasing, re-telling the concept. With scripture, we find the same process works: we hear the lesson but unless we write it down or meditate on it or find a way to carry it from words to deeds, then we don’t truly accept and believe it.

In Matthew 7:7,8 we read, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”  As we seek out wisdom and discernment and greater knowledge of God’s Word, we have a promise that we will be rewarded. So let us ask God for more knowledge, seek out the truth, and go through the door when it opens—all in order to be able to take what we find and share it with others.

Now, where did I put those keys?? 1/15

The Final Word

“If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” James 3:2

I reach down to touch Anne’s* hand, my own fingers still chilled by the outside morning air. Her eyelids flutter, letting me know she was aware of my presence. I speak gently, trying to not disturb the threads of silence that still hang heavily in the room. “How are you doing?” She does not voice a response, but the furrowed brow tells me that she is thinking of how to answer my question.

As a hospice nurse, I come on the stage of life when others have played their parts and now stand silently in the wings, witnesses to life and death. The chemo team is gone, the transfusions are mostly over; the doctors with their serious pronouncements have faded into the background. Standing beside the bed are the one best friend, two of the six children, and a few others that come and go to leave their gifts of steaming soup or fragrant flowers, attempts to brighten the long journey home.

Anne’s eyes open and she looks at me, focusing through the curtain of pain and the blessed numbness of opiates. “I’m ok,” slides out in a whisper. I stand by, struggling to find the best words, the question that might help her along the way, the voice that will not hurt, but instead help. At times like these, everything matters and the burden of that knowledge, keeps my mouth still, waiting for the Holy One to fill it with direction.

The others leave the room. I still hold her fingers in mine, while palpating her pulse, assessing her color, monitoring her respirations, checking her skin for signs of breaks. As I wait, the question spills out, “What is the one thing that bothers you the most about all this?” A single tear, creeps down her tissue dry cheek and she answers, “I’m afraid of leaving the children. I’m afraid that they will grow apart after I am gone. I won’t be here for them to come home to.” She speaks with some effort, but as the words well up, expressed from her spirit, they also relieve some of the pain, pent up in her aching heart.

I have no response. None is needed. Saying the words and shedding the tear, seem to ease the crack in her heart. Her respirations even out, her eyes close, apparently more focused on the beyond.

Words matter all the time. It’s just that at the end of life, there are so few of them left, that we must count carefully to make sure there is no waste. That awareness keeps us from using them foolishly. As we leave the bedside of the dying, may we carry with us the desire to use our words carefully, every day, not just on the final ones.

Dear God, Grant me your words today. Let me be silent or let me speak only at your prompting. Give me a renewed awareness that words matter.  Amen.

*Name changed to protect privacy.