First, I read Gary Null's book, Death By Medicine, which promptly gave me a kidney stone. Well, okay, I know the book didn't, but it sure felt that way.
For those interested, my weight loss is going extremely well. I am told that actual numbers "trigger" people in various and sundry ways, so I will refrain from providing actual poundages. I will simply say that my BMI is now in the merely "overweight" category, and has exited the alarming "obese" category. I lost 10% of my body weight during Lent, which believe it or not, wasn't that hard. Now we are approaching the same weight I have dealt with my whole life, which likely will be hard. Still, I have to say, after being repeatedly guaranteed that a woman my age with thyroid disease SIMPLY CAN'T lose weight, I am glad to report that this is another myth. Yes, it is possible... and in fact (here's the dirty secret), I think it's far easier since I no longer have a surplus of estrogen coursing through my body, demanding that I eat to ensure the safety of my progeny. You know those deadly-serious cravings you get about 10 days before the end of the menstrual cycle? (I guess the time-span is different for everyone, but you know what I mean.) Well, I am happy to report that THE CYCLICAL CRAVINGS ARE GONE. Along with my estrogen, that is... which of course means there is a down side to everything.
And I feel great (sans kidney stone), and my left knee stopped hurting!!! (Right knee? A stubborn lil sucker!) I took the kidney stone as a symptom of rapid weight loss, as gallstones can be also.
After reading Gary's scary book, I decided to avoid doctors, since I knew exactly what they would say anyway (I typed medical records, including nephrology, for a good long while) and realized they would use this golden opportunity to test me to an obscenely-expensive fare-thee-well. No tests, no crap, no sirree Bob!
I figured: 1) it probably was a stone, from the symptoms and likely cause and 2) ain't nothing you can do about it except take their nasty toxic drugs and wait for it to flush out. (I also knew that I should go to the ER if I started running a fever, which was virtually impossible while sweating non-stop, as I was.) So, I opted for what I tell my customers: literally gallons of dandelion tea and magnesium citrate. It passed within a day, but it was um, quite memorable... and during this unpleasant time, I locked my keys in my car while it was running and had to call Mr Daisy away from work (he was unusually kind and sympathetic about my stupidity!)...
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If you think it's easy for a big-mouth like me to shut up for 6 weeks, you are RIGHT. Thus, I didn't.
I commented here (Alas, a Blog) on the newest pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church, and called on the Pope to resign. Of course, no one seriously replied to me (as they never do over there)... but I needed to post that somewhere to get it off my chest immediately.
Easter Sunday, woke up to more infuriating news that the whole scandal has been reduced to "petty gossip" by the Vatican.
(((Daisy yowls for emphasis)))
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One of my favorite spiritual books, The Joy of Compassion by Lama Zopa Rinpoche which I also posted about here. It's a wonderful study guide for the layperson to use! I had two genuine moments of all-encompassing karuna during Lent, that took me by storm. I was startled and unprepared. They were only a few minutes or so in duration, but they were overwhelming.
I was reminded of a passage from the William Butler Yeats poem, Vacillation (and such a perfect title):
My fiftieth year had come and gone,I felt great compassion for everyone on earth, even the people I dislike most. Maybe especially for them; I could suddenly see how they had become the people they were. I could see their suffering, and how they/we have bent ourselves into all sorts of unreasonable shapes and angles, to avoid that suffering (which of course, causes even more).
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.
In both cases, in both instances, I was left very shaken by this awareness. I felt myself almost deliberately withdrawing from this consciousness in the last instance: But I don't want to feel compassion for bad people! And I was fighting my own awareness. Concurrently, I realized I was withdrawing my request for enlightenment by fighting the compassion. My ego, my innate desire to feel superiority to others, my desire (need?) to dislike others, all defilements rooted in the material world, fought my desire for enlightenment.
And I heard my deepest self's incredulity: But isn't this what you wanted?
Ego replies: I don't WANT to feel compassion for evil people, they don't deserve it!
Deepest self: Do you deserve it?
Ouch! I remembered the Eucharistic liturgy, and the specific request that God not grant us what we truly deserve. During the (endless) Good Friday liturgy, and subsequent Veneration of the Cross, I took note of the role of the laity in the liturgy: we are the ones who shout "Crucify him!"... it isn't someone else who does it.
Give us Barabbas, not this one!
Do we forget our role in the Passion? Why do we think it would be any different if He returned now? We would do the same thing, all over again.
Look around, we do it all the time.
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Glad to be back. Hope all is well with you, and please take note of my new moderation policy, inspired by people who would tell me getting an abortion is majorly right-on and terrific, but chew me out over trying to prevent a heart attack. No more, folks. New sheriff in town, etc.
I loves you guys and I missed you!!! (((sobs)))