(Bishop David's Blog) LENT BEGINS ANEW TODAY

Milner-White's Prayer for the beginning of Lent

The Very Reverend Dr Eric Milner-White (1884 - 1963) was Dean of York between 1941 and his death in 1963. This prayer is taken from his collection, My God my Glory, SPCK London, 1967 edition.

LORD, bless to me this Lent.

Opinion

I think I just realized something.
If I am the only person on the planet with a particular opinion...
that rather places me in the minority.

Final Update on My Depression (I Hope)

Modern drugs are wonderful! They also have completely unseen side effects. I wish I could swear that I will never take them. I know so many people that have ruined their lives because they have self-medicated. The side effects are disaster.
Here is a case from a close friend that went through an unexpected depression only to discover later that it was induced by withdrawal from pain meds.
Add Michael's blog to your roster for daily posts and enjoy his entry from today.

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Final Update on My Depression (I Hope): "

It has been some time since I had an episode of depression. I cannot be sure, but I am fairly certain I know what caused it.

Neither my circumstances nor the pressures of my life have changed but I feel really good. I can be motivated, encouraged, and I am enjoying the things I normally enjoy. Yes, I did almost cry today when I listened to an old country classic with my wife, “Don’t Take the Girl” by Tim McGraw, but that is only to be expected! No more sadness over bizarre things like the aging of Matthew Mcconaughey, the memories of watching Justice League with my son Will, or my days at seminary. I think it is over.

When I wrote before, I said that I was not sure what triggered the depression. I only assumed that it was many things that had built up in my life that I failed to deal with properly. While those thing were factors during the depression, I do not believe that they caused it. So what did?

I mentioned about six months ago that I had been having trouble with my tail-bone. I have a fractured vertebra in my lower back from many years ago. Over the years it has given me lots of trouble. This time, according to the doctor, the trouble was “referred pain” into my tail-bone. I could not hardly sit down for a long time. After going to many doctors, the only solution they had was to get on pain meds until the inflammation went down. I have never been on pain meds before. I don’t even like to take aspirin (tough guy syndrome). But the pain was too bad this time. So I started taking Hydrocodone (Vicodin), which, as I understand it, is a powerful narcotic. It took the edge off and allowed me to function. It also put me in a pretty good mood.

I was taking about 30 per week under the supervision of my doctor. I knew that it was addictive, but I read up enough on it that I felt comfortable with my dosage and plans to get off. I was on it for about three months before the doctor started scaling down. I read up on side effects for coming off it and found that those who were addicted to it were taking much more than I was. Some of them took one hundred a day and did this for over a year! I figured I was safe.

After three and a half months, I decided to just quit cold turkey and skip any further scale downs. It was a week later that I went into the serious depression/panic. I know what you are thinking: “Duh . . . of course that was the cause.” I thought the same thing but dismissed it after I searched across the web looking for side effect of coming off the drug. Only rarely did they mention depression. Most of the time it was severe physical pain. I had none of that so I looked for other reasons. Plus, I watch House and know what he went through!

As you know, after about seven weeks, the depression symptoms disappeared completely. Since then I have talked with a few people who described the exact same thing after coming off the same drug. Because of this, even though I have not had any physical or mental inclination or drive to take the drug again, I have concluded that my depression was because I was addicted to the pain meds. I was going through withdrawals.

I think that there is a sufficiency in the probability that this was the cause due to the available evidence. Alternative theories are possibilities, but not probabilities! (Okay, inside stuff going on there.)

To be truthful, I am glad it was the drugs. I feel as if I don’t have to be timid and avoid emotionally distressing situations or thoughts. I had gotten to the point that I was scared to do certain things I needed to do fearing it would cause another collapse.

While in many ways it is “back to business” in my life, in other ways it will never be. I have said it before and I will say it again: that was the worst thing I have ever been through. I am glad it is over and I hope that I am right about the cause. Either way, my heart is with those who are there right now. Also, be careful with those pain meds. Count the cost for the small amount of relief (and euphoria) they provide. Right now, I will take tailbone pain a thousand times over rather than experience one day of the crash the drugs facilitate!

"

Evangelism Old Style

Some peoples still know how to do evangelism.





News Flash! It ain't us!

The Latest with me/us

Okay, there are maybe 3 readers here & that's cool. "Thanks mom" would be a funny comment here but she ain't got that innernet thangy. So whoever you are-thanks for stumbling into my blog.

We finally found the end of our fertility treatment. Here's a rough recap.
Last year we decided for many reasons to try fertility treatments to have another child. So off we went to a specialist. After the first round we had a miscarriage followed by more blood work. That blood work uncovered a problem with our DNA. So we thought we'd try again with a little more treatment than the 1st time to counter-act the DNA issue. But it failed again with another miscarriage. These two events were very, very hard on the Mrs. [not to mention months of shots and pills etc.]. Still we wanted to see if more could be done so that we could have a baby. After all many, many patients endure multiple miscarriages on the way to parenthood. Well, the only way in reality [says the specialist] is to remove one of the two of us from the genetic equation. This is when it gets really hurtful. Donation, surrogacy, etc. became the only options. Surrogacy is for rich folk because it is cost prohibitive. So we're down to egg or sperm donation. At this point all I knew was that it made me uncomfortable. So I set out to find answers. Was this morally right? How would we deal with this in the long run? Could we go through with this?

Where do you go to find answers like this for such new medical treatments?! Christians are divided over this issue. Some say it doesn't matter, so go ahead and do it. Some don't like the idea, but have very little more than anecdotal reasons. The former group sound very uncritical, even un-reflective. The latter sound very critical and uncompromising. One thing is for sure--they all have Bible verses to share. So where is a detailed analysis of this issue? I'm afraid the Anglican Churches have shied away from the issue with typical via-media posturing. Evangelicals can't seem to reason outside of the specific Bible verses they've found...on one side or the other. Then I found the document put out by Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae. 40 years ago the Church foresaw issues like this. And though HV does not specifically address our particular issue, it does say where life is supposed to come from. It discusses the Sacrament of Marriage, the only origin of life ordained from God. It was only a simple deduction for me to decide that we could not 'remove one of us from the equation'.

So it is not a matter of my wife having a baby, rather it is a matter of us having a baby. Today we only hear the media and lobbyists speak of an individual woman and her rights. They've gone too far because neither man nor woman are in this alone, God gave us each other to produce more life within the marriage relationship. Turning the emotional corner together as a couple was really difficult. We had a lot of intense fellowship! What does a couple do when they cannot have a baby?

We already knew the answer. Our 1st child just turned 5 years old. We adopted him at two days old. He is ours. He is a gift...from God...from his birth-mother...from all those who prayed for us through those days. So what, you may ask, is the difference between adopting a child that is not yours & utilizing egg or sperm that is not yours?

That was the biggest hurdle. It seems like wisdom. If you adopted a child from someone else, then it can't be wrong to receive genetic material from someone else so that you can have a child. Love is all that is important, right? Well, I disagree. We are not dealing with 'raw materials'. Physicians are so used to speaking and thinking that way. If my deduction from Humanae Vitae is correct, we should not breach the covenant we cut for any reason, not even to create life. In the case of adoption we did not create the life, yet we redeemed it through adoption. Fertility treatment is for married couples, not individuals, and this couple went as far as a married couple can go with treatment. The two have become one flesh--we cannot undo that for the purpose of bearing children. Our calling is to adopt kids or only have the one, our burden is that we cannot produce our own. So we trust God to help us heal from this hurt [and the hurt of miscarriages].

Already we have turned our attention to the adoption process again. Our son may yet be an only child and we are coming to grips with this too. What ever the future holds we trust God and walk on. What else can we do? As a very dear friend often says, "Life is what happens when there are no longer any options."
Amen.

What we've waited so long for

I know what you're thinking...
A strange picture of a rugby football.
Well, that's what I thought too.

Kidding aside, this is the first shot of the 'coming one' in utero. We have a shot of him in vitro, but we don't know which one of the three he is. Anyway, if you look to the far right 'point' of this rugby football you'll see him protruding into the amniotic sac [dark area at center of picture]. Next Monday we go for the shot of the heartbeat.