We’re admitting you!

A couple weeks ago I spent 16 days in the hospital, Fletcher Allen Health Center in Burlington. During that time I learned some interesting things that I thought might be worth passing along.

• Those ‘Johnnies’ are meant for the convenience of the doctors, not your comfort or sense of modesty.
• The nurses on the floor have their own stash of food and drink; you don’t have to wait for the cafeteria!
• There are cards, board games and magazines available for patients, but they don’t go out of the way to mention it.
• Don’t let the Emergency Room people put an IV port in the crook of your elbow. It’s a bad place to do it and the nurses on the floor will probably not want to change it. Spending a week like that is sheer torture.
• Those ‘Johnnies’ have pajama bottoms they don’t tell you about until the fourth day.
• The hospital is a terrible place to try to rest. There are too many interruptions between medical equipment alarms, blood draws, vital sign checks, medication administration and the lady down the hall who keeps yelling about the hospital being on fire.
• Be nice to the nurses and LNA's. They really are trying to help you and have a tough job. Besides, they control things like how often you get woken during the night, so you want to be on their good side!
• Daytime TV really does suck your mind out. Someday they'll have a study that finds it a cause of memory loss, drooling and vacant stares.
• The Johnnies are actually three pieces, but they don’t tell you that until you are ready to leave. They not only have pajama bottoms, they come with a robe.
• No matter how long you stay, you only get ONE pair of slipper socks, so ask someone to bring some slippers and socks from home for you. Otherwise your feet are going to get really dirty and stinky by Day 3.
• The hospital would like you to exercise, so walk around the hallway. The alternative is a shot to prevent blood clots…given in the belly. If I were you, I’d walk!
• Oh, and don’t bother asking for any equipment to exercise, like resistance bands. You need to ask the nurse, who will need a referral from your doctor to Physical Therapy, who will then need to do an assessment along with approval from your insurance company, and then they MIGHT give you a piece of rubber to use. Just have someone go to Walmart and get the six dollar set to bring in for you. It’s faster, cheaper and less frustrating.
• Don’t spit in the urinal bottle. It makes the nurses nervous when they examine it. We had quite a laugh when my roommate did so and had a nurse and Physicians Assistant trying to figure out what he had passed.
• Finally, find your humor wherever you can. It really does help to laugh.
  

So, enjoy your hospital stay! It’s probably not as bad as it sounds.

Tracks in the snow

This last Sunday my wife and I were driving to church, taking the highway. If you’ve ever been in Vermont you know the one I mean, because it is one of two in the state and the one used by more people than the other. Of course, there are only two lanes each way for the entire length of Route 89, which would barely qualify as a highway in most places. But it is ours and we like it (and hate it, too).

To get back to the story, we were between Exit 18 and Exit 19, and looking off to the right I noticed a set of tracks in the snow. I knew they weren’t rabbit…wrong pattern. Too small to be a deer. Too many to be a dog, fox or coyote. Too big to be rodents. Then we saw them, a nice little flock of wild turkeys by the side of the road, weaving in and out of the undergrowth searching for breakfast.

When we lived ‘down south’ we’d be excited to see the occasional groundhog sitting up on the shoulder of the highway watching traffic go by. Seldom did we see anything more out of the ordinary. But in Vermont we are treated to regular glimpses of wildlife. At Exit 17 when getting onto the on ramp, at least several times a month I will see deer. A few weeks ago there were five running across the field, tails showing high alert.

My wife has seen moose on more than one occasion, including having one run into the side of the car in Williston near 'Best Buy'! Coyote, fox and rabbits are all frequent visitors. My wife’s birdfeeder is patronized by perhaps a score of species. Along Route 89 and Route 7 we can see various raptors as they watch the fields for tender mouse morsels. The banks of the Lamoille River near Georgia High Bridge provide summer entertainment with muskrats and water birds.

To no ones delight we found that our nice warm house was attractive to field mice in the fall and the occasional spring garter snake. But Northern Vermont is bereft of poisonous species, so we take comfort in that knowledge. One of our more humorous incidents involved a chipmunk running through the house during a church summer social!

So, why do we love living in Vermont? Many reasons, but one of the strongest is the connection back to the wild life that we have, even if it is largely vicarious and seen through glass. It still reminds us that there are other things in life than television, traffic and shopping malls.

“ And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky…let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so…And God saw that it was good." Gen 1:20, 24-25(NIV)

Sliding Backwards

A trend in churches which we must be attentive to is that when a denomination grows older it loses some of the emphasis on basics of the Christian faith. Some of its morals and ethics lapse. For instance, there are several major denominations right now fighting such issues as recognition of gay clergy, acceptance of couples ‘living together’, emphasis on biblical authority and other actions which until the last few decades would have been simply put down as sin. Such denominations are in a life and death struggle and risk becoming theologically liberal at the least and apostate at the worst.

Other denominations fight different battles, but none the less significant. The slide back into the bondage of fundamentalist theology is fueled by lack of education and understanding of some basic theological issues. Women in the clergy is one such issue the Church of the Nazarene faces right now. History shows us that the Church of the Nazarene and sister denominations like the Salvation Army have a proud lineage of women in the pulpit. As a matter of fact, in “1908, one-sixth of the 178 ordained ministers in the Holiness Church of Christ were women” (1) , the Holiness Church of Christ being one of the formative branches of the Nazarene church. As a matter of fact, “as late as 1955, women pastored 230 Churches of the Nazarene." (2) The sad fact is that fundamentalist influences caught up with Nazarenes in the 1960’s and years following, and combined with a lack of good teaching on the subject resulted in a tragic decrease in women in ministry. “In 1985, the number decreased to 52” (3) , that is women pastoring Nazarene churches. “Dr. Stan Ingersol, director of the Nazarene Archives and author of a biography of Mary Harris Cagle, says it is because holiness churches have tried so hard to blend in with the evangelical “mainstream,” which has tended to oppose women in ministry” (4) .

We do the church a great disservice by not recognizing the call of women into ministry. Women have always been part of the church and, if not for women, it is likely that the church would not have survived to where it is today. Great women have been teachers and preachers, like Gen. Catherine Booth, Phoebe Palmer, Hannah Whitall Smith, Amanda Berry Smith, Susan Norris Fitkin, Gen. Eva Burrows and Nina Gunter. On our own New England District we have the first black woman to be a District Superintendent, Dr. Jossie Owens. And yet, on our District of one-hundred plus churches we have a tiny percentage (between 7 and 8 percent) of Senior Pastors who are female (depending on how you cut the numbers).

Education about women in ministry is certainly going to be a key item to getting more women into senior positions, but so is some boldness. The Gospel tells us that we must stand up for the truth and champion those who need it. David Thompson of the Wesleyan Church puts it well when he says, “…the problem is not lack of biblical warrant, but lack of leadership and conviction. We have to take responsibility in local churches for calling, and at district levels for appointing to leadership ministries, the women whom God is gifting and calling for those ministries in The Wesleyan Church. And we must do it now.” (5) We need to take a stand for the women among us who are called by God (note…by God, not by men!), given undeniable gifts and graces, and find opportunities for them to minister in the way God wants them , not relegated to conveniently out-of-sight, back-room ministry.

1 http://www.nazarene.org/ministries/ssm/adult/women/clergy/history/display.aspx
2 http://www.nazarene.org/ministries/ssm/adult/women/clergy/history/display.aspx
3 http://www.nazarene.org/ministries/ssm/adult/women/clergy/history/display.aspx
4 http://www.whwomenclergy.org/article68.htm
5 http://www.whwomenclergy.org/article5.htm