It Must Be the Drugs

We keep telling ourselves this when we encounter a new side effect to our daily routine.   This year’s side effect for me is getting both of my original hips replaced. 

I’ve had these bad boys since birth and they finally wore down to the point where my quality of life (in my humble estimation) has decreased. It was time for them to go.

This is the end of the first week since my left hip was done.  One down, one to go, perhaps in 6-8 weeks.  For those of you playing along at home the procedure is a total hip replacement or arthroplasty.

So far, the recovery has become a routine of physical therapy in the home every other day, a nurse visit on the days in between, and as many opportunities in between all visits of walking laps around the living room couch to keep the new joint loose and workable.

There’s still some pain, but I have a pill for that.   Then that pill affects the frequency of my bowel movements (apologies if this is too much information).  No problem…there’s another pill for that!   If that doesn’t work then take a laxative. 

 

Then there all the other pills that are supposed to expedite my healing.  Whatever!   I’ll leave it to mortals greater then myself to write about their health scares and somehow make it entertaining for the blogosphere.

Bottom line: I am doing fine and recovering nicely.  Thank you to all who have left get well messages on Warrior Queen’s blog.

There are, after all, bigger fish to fry.

We began this week with an actual debate about what constitutes truth in today’s world.  Seriously, we need to dialogue on this now?   Seriously, it turns out we do.  Or again we could blame the drugs.

Newspaper columnist Solomon Jones attempted to explain it all in terms of racial truth.  The white community has their version of the truth and the black community has their own version of the truth.  The elephant in the room known as American history is that these two truths have all too seldom intersected and co-mingled for the common good.  Mr. Jones ended his essay with a reference which might possibly explain what is real and not real: “shades of truth.”

The term jogged my memory to a song from a long time ago: Shades of Gray. The song is a nostalgic ode to a simpler time. I may have posted this video before, but what the hell, let’s do it again. 

The simpler time is a delusion.  Life was never simple; the world and its problems have always been complicated.  Each of us were taught simple truths to help us get through our lives.

As we grew up and away from these truths we gathered and accumulated our own life experiences.  In the process “life” became more complicated.

As we gathered our truths we encountered others who were gathering their own life experiences.  Their voices cried out to us and we realized that our life experiences shared one goal: attainment of the values of what is right and what is wrong for everyone and all of us.

Many people believe this is the purpose of organized religion.  In America the predominant religion—or at least the religion which believes it should be the predominant religion—follows the teachings of a Jewish rabbi from many years ago who revolutionized a set of beliefs to care for one another and seek justice for all.

Caring for one another? Justice for all?  Go figure!

Unfortunately, these same followers in more recent times have adopted a more consumer-centric version of the truth.  They argue that, “Hey, I got mine.  Let the others get theirs.  We shouldn’t help them even if they need it.”

Immigrants?   Baa!  Refugees?  Give us a break!   We are scared of them.  We would rather live in fear, than coexist in faith.

We could probably dismiss this with the label “I, Me, Mine Evangelical Christianity.”  These same people are now spending their time trying to drown out the calls for justice and—here’s that “T” word again--truth.   Real truth.

The experiences of others don’t jibe with theirs, so we shouldn’t listen to them.  All the others are not true, false and fake.  As their leader is wont to say, “Sad!”

Whatever!  It’s clear one of us desperately needs a truth arthroplasty.

Now another shade of truth to consider: the world was never black and white.  We grew older and expected the world to be shaped around us.  Actually, we should shape the world around each other.  At least I think that’s what that rabbi from so long ago was trying to say.

All voices and experiences deserve to be heard and shared.  Their messages, like them or not, should not be ignored.  Regardless if they are shouted out in the town squares of America, or communicated silently in a kneeling position on the sidelines of a football field.  This is true especially for the ones kneeling: their message should not be ignored.

It would be sad to think that our national conflict about the truth without any resolution of universal justice for all is the way life was always meant to be.  

Or maybe it was the drugs all this time after all.

(Thank you for reading. Pop them if you got them!)