ab•late ( ə-blāt ́ )

ABLATE:  to remove or destroy, especially by cutting, abrading or evaporating.

This banana has been ablated, but it's gonna make it.

The clock in the car read 11:27.  Since I knew for a fact that this clock was set 8 minutes fast and that church starts at 11:30 am, we were doing pretty well, time-wise, this particular Sunday morning.  My words to the children as we backed out of the garage were, "We might just make it today, kiddos.  We just might make it if we're lucky."  Well.  We had a certain kind of luck, for sure.

About 500 yards from home, as I was travelling a zippy but not extravagant 70 mph down the empty, ramrod-straight rural road, who on earth should pass me going in the opposite direction but a county sherriff?  You must appreciate the irony of my telling the officer, while he was writing me my speeding ticket, that I was on my way to church. Ha!  The kids took it all in stride:  Abner wrote a song to commemorate the event and the others sang along in harmony for the rest of the drive. (I'm serious!  Harmony!) It is set to the tune of "Oh Tannenbaum," the Christmas song, but the kids sang it like a dirge.  It goes like this:  "Oh officer, oh officer, we accident'ly speeded."

Despite my rush, we arrived 7 minutes late for church.  (The officer was kind enough to expedite the ticketing process, so that I wouldn't be too tardy!)  I looked up at Charles, on the stand, and could not contain an explosive giggle.  He gave me a "what's going on?" look--totally confused, and with good reason.  Most people in the congregation, including me, don't laugh during the sacrament hymn.  Though I couldn't explain it to him at the moment, I hoped he'd be giggling, too, if I somehow could have conveyed the joke.  I pride myself on being a low-maintenance woman.  I don't love to shop.  I buy my cosmetics at WalMart, my clothes from discount stores, I own precious little jewelry, only a few pairs of shoes, most of them quite old, and the last time I bought a handbag for myself was 2004, I think.  So, I don't cost my hardworking husband much money--except in speeding tickets and emergency medical bills!!  Super funny, right?

Not really, I know, but sometimes you have to laugh so that you don't cry.

I made a decision in church that day.  Church is a great place to turn over a new leaf and I did it then and there.  I realized that my choices were as follows:  1) speed to try to get places on time, and risk tickets, points on my license, public humiliation and being a terrible example for my kids,  2)  arrive late to church and other destinations, or 3)  try to control every aspect of everyone's getting ready process to make sure that,  no matter what, everyone is always ready way ahead of time so options 1 and 2 are not options.  Well, you probably have guessed that I don't choose any of those.

Getting somewhere on time can be like preparing for battle. . . .

.  . . . when my goal for my family demeanor looks more like THIS!

I'll have to explain the emergency medical bills thing before I tell you why I reject all three options.

I've always marched to a different drumbeat than normal people.  Though that may be true in the metaphorical sense too, I actually mean it literally, medically.  I have a really irregular heartbeat.  I have heard that most people don't notice their heartbeat unless they concentrate pretty hard.  When I tell people that I'm aware of almost every waking beat of my heart, they are usually incredulous, but I'm not lying or exaggerating.  My heart behaves like it wants my conscious attention by almost never thumping predictably.  I've had lots of tests, and the doctors and technicians have always said, "Yup, it's really irregular, but it's benign."  So, I've never taken any medication or altered my behavior in any way.

That changed this summer while I was at girls camp.  On Thursday of camp, I woke up especially early in the morning to teach an aerobics class for the girls and leaders.  It had been a very hot and humid week, I was probably dehydrated and was definitely overtired.  At some point during the workout, my heart started freaking out.  It felt like this:  thump . . . . . .  . . . . . . . (5 second pause) . . . . . . thump. . . . . . a flippity jiggity BAM BAM BAM twiddly diddly whoop-de-do . . . . . . . . . . . thump. . . . . . . . thump--and the pattern would repeat over and over. (I have NO idea of the proper way to convey heartbeat sounds--do you?)  I figured I would walk it off and that it would go away after a while, so I just kept on keepin' on, handing out the morning newspaper, chatting happily with campers and leaders.  After 90 minutes of this crazy heartbeat and the accompanying feelings of mild weakness, dizziness and general strangeness, I was really starting to worry, so I headed to the nurse's cabin and ended up being driven to meet an ambulance.  They hooked me up to an EKG in the back of the ambulance, and I swear  the strip of information they recorded spelled out the word, "HYPOCHONDRIAC."  There was my regular, irregular heartbeat and nothing more.  So, I went back to camp, some wonderful men gave me a blessing, and the beat went on.  (great pun, huh?)

this is not mine, btw.  (it doesn't spell hypochondriac!!)

A couple of weeks ago I found my heart giving me the exact same trouble after I went running on a hot, humid morning.  I called Eric, then called my doctor, and was advised to go straight to the ER.  I didn't want to, though.  I had planned to drive to Ann Arbor that morning with my friend.  I didn't want to be told that I was overreacting and that there was nothing wrong with me. . . . again.  I calculated that I had already spent my share of the family budget on the ambulance run and that an ER bill would only make things worse financially.  I went anyway, thanks to my kind friend who drove me to the hospital instead of driving to pick up a reconditioned tiller from Sears.

At the hospital, I was quickly wheelchaired back to a trauma room and hooked up to monitors.  I watched the anxious faces of the staff and heard statements like, "I'll need a crash cart!" and "Is she in V-fib?"  It was unreal.  And horrifying.  I had only heard those words before on TV.  I've decided that that's where I want them to stay--in make-believe entertainment world, not my world.  They gave me a drug, adenosine, to stop my heart.  They hoped that it would restart correctly.  It didn't work any of the 3 times they tried it.  Finally, my heart "converted" on its own and I was allowed to go home.  Before I left, however, I was lucky enough to have a few minutes with an electrophysiologist--a doctor who specializes in the electric properties of the cardiac system.  She looked at the EKG strip (which did NOT spell hypochondriac this time!) and told me that I should probably get a cardiac ablation.  In this procedure they stick a tube up through an artery in your leg/groin area, wind it up to your heart, find the electrically active areas, the rogue ones, and then ablate them.  I'll probably have that done within the next 6 weeks.

I explain all this not only to satisfy my need to tell my story, but also because I think the two incidents are related.

I am a rusher**.  I arrive everywhere breathless and disheveled.  I must like to be overwhelmed, and I think I dig the adrenaline of the race.  Sometimes I win and I'm on time; sometimes I lose the race and I'm late, but it's always a thrill!

Not anymore now.  I'm determined to ablate that trait.  I will not speed to get places on time.  I will set my car and my personality to cruise control.  If it is a choice between rushing, which turns out to be both unsafe and counterproductive (and expensive!), or being late, then I'll be late.  I figure it's one crime or another, and being late to church or school never cost anyone or hurt anyone.  I'm not just copping out and deciding to be late all the time, either.  I don't want to be late and I don't want to humiliate or curse my kids with chronic tardiness.  It's the middle road I'm going for:  We will calmly try to do the best we can all the time, but we won't rush and stress, because it's obviously not working for us.  And though I will temper my crazy heartbeat surgically, I really think, in my heart of hearts, that ablating the "need for speed," the "rush from the rush," will probably be just as therapeutic.

**when I'm not in a state of languor, of course.

fas•cism (fash′ iz´əm)

I picked this word this week because it was flung like a weapon at me in a facebook battle.  I wasn't prepared to do battle the day the word was placed before me, like a gauntlet being thrown down.  But once it happened, I realized that I needed to understand the word.  (All the better to fight you with, my dear!)

The battle began with my hunger, I'll admit it.  The truth is that when I'm hungry, I can be irritable.  So when an acquaintance posted a Sinclair Lewis quote which said "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible" I was already on edge.  I consider myself a person who could be wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible, so I took it pretty personally.  To be thorough, I would be wrapped in other things and carrying other things, too, lots of them, but my "self-symbolic outfit" would definitely include those two items.  It was not news to me that the politics of the woman who posted the quote were different from mine, and somewhere in my head a timid voice whispered that facebook battles are always, always a waste of valuable time, so I restrained my hands, though they were itching to  input a comment that would be both insightful and personally stinging to her.

Is this the face of a fascist?

"REAL MATURE! " I bet you're thinking, because when I read my own words, I'm thinking the same thing.  My sweet husband, Charles, urged restraint and a 24 hour waiting period, much like the one required when someone purchases a gun.  He's a smart and kind man.

I restrained for a couple of hours, all the way through our family home evening lesson (taught by Charles) about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego.  The thesis of the lesson was that these young men were 1) brave enough to stand up to the king's servant when they were required to do things they had covenanted not to and 2) wise enough to present a solution which would simultaneously   a.benefit the servant, the king and themselves and b.  prove the benefits of their covenant lifestyle.  A great example.

As the children were consuming their f. h. e. treat, I was already sitting at the computer (WAY before the 24 hour waiting period was up) composing the first of a dozen responses, each one wrong.  I finally came up with one which I thought would work.  It wasn't angry, it wasn't personal, and it probably wasn't very effective.  I typed, "Very hip sentiment, but it sounds like you're saying that patriotic Jews and Christians will be the downfall of America.  Is that what you intended?"

Of course she hadn't intended that, she said.  THAT would have been stupid and offensive.

So what DID she intend?  Now I can't be sure since my final defiant facebook act was to UNFRIEND her.  (Take that, you!)  From the posts I read before my exit from the arena, I gathered that she was mostly reacting to the news about the Restoring Honor Rally which took place on August 28th.  She didn't like it, and didn't like Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin.  They come wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible.  Are they fascist?  I don't know!  I don't think she knows, either.  I realized I'd better find out, especially if I was going to answer a claim which caused such a visceral defensiveness in me.

Fascism is defined in the dictionary as "a system of government characterized by dictatorship, belligerent nationalism and racism, militarism, etc."  (etc.?  In a dictionary definition?  It's like Webster is saying, "Why don't you go ahead and fill in the blanks."  What?)   Hitler was a fascist.  Mussolini was a fascist.  Some South American guys appear to be fascist, like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.  Apparently lots of other people get called fascists, too. . . Wikipedia had this to say, which I think hit the nail on the head.


 Richard Griffiths argued in 2005 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times".^[36]

Fascist?  I can't quite get my head around it!

<sup>And,


George Orwell wrote in 1944 that "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'".[79]</sup>



So maybe she was saying, basically, that patriotic, Bible-toting people are political bullies.  I had to think about that.  I would agree that many on-air personalities are trying to be bullies.  I, too, worry about their rhetoric.  I worry about extremists of all stripes.  (Nothing against striped people!  We're all God's children.) But I worry even more that the rally at the capitol represents the final, gasping breath of the concept that political opinions sprouted from the seeds of religious conviction are legitimate.  Before I responded to the Sinclair Lewis quote, I noticed that my friend's comment had caused several people to click the "like" button.  I looked at their faces as my computer presented them for my view.  All appeared to be college-aged.  Since I was, and still am, quite sure that none of those kids could pin down a definition of "fascism," I assume that they "like" the idea that patriotism and religion are baaaaaaaad.    (bleat this word out, like a goat would.) This is what our young citizens believe.  And it's not only them.  The people planning to attend the rally were instructed NOT to carry political signs of any type.  If this was to be a rally about morality and values, there was no place in it for politics.  That's what even the "extreme" right wingers had accepted as fact.  Does that scare anyone else?

George, being fascist.

George, being fascist.

Here's what Neal A. Maxwell had to say on that topic--in 1978.

"We will see, in our time, a maximum effort made to establish IRreligion as the state religion.  It is actually a new form of paganism which uses the carefully preserved and cultivated freedoms of western civilization to shrink freedom, even as it rejects the value-essence of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage.  Your discipleship may see the time come when religious convictions are heavily discounted.  A religious conviction is now a second-class conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus and to not get uppity about it.  This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain of people’s opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions. Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive, concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened.  In its mildest form, irreligion will merely be condescending towards those who hold to traditional Judeo-Christian values.  In its more harsh forms, as is always the case with those whose dogmatism is blinding, the secular church will do what it can to nullify the opinions of those who still worry over standards, such as those in the 10 commandments.  If people, however, are not permitted to advocate, to assert and to bring to bear in every legitimate way, the opinions and views they hold which grow out of their religious convictions, what manner of men and women would we be, anyway?  Our founding fathers did not wish to have a state church established, nor to have a particular religion favored by government.  They wanted religion to be free to make its own way.  But neither did they intend to have irreligion made into a favored state church."

Wow.

All opinions come from deeply held beliefs.  Why on earth would it help any of us to pretend that certain of our opinions are just shallow, surfacey political opinions, not connected with who we really are and really hope to be?  Don't we need people to live by their most important values in every aspect of their lives?

Don't we really need more Daniels--more people committed to holding firmly to what they believe, and working wisely to make it a winning situation for everyone?

There's nothing fascist about that.