There's only one end for all living things.

Words become harsher the more precise they get.

A stomach pain becomes an infection that turns into inflamed lymph nodes. Inflamed becomes growths becomes masses becomes tumours becomes cancer.

Cancer that wasn't there three months ago. Cancer that has spread from my grandmothers lungs (where tumours surround her lung) to her abdomen (where a tumour presses on her stomach) to her spine.

The doctors are still doing tests - they know that the cancer hasn't spread to her bones and they swear that there's none in her brain but none of the news that comes is good. She's weak, she can't (or maybe won't) eat and so she's malnourished and dehydrated in spite of the fluids she's receiving through the IV. Her pain is high and stays there in spite of the different drugs they've been trying.

She's confused and forgetful - more than she was a week ago when she went into the hospital. We're not sure if it's the lack of nutrients (she 'eats' a single Ensure a day and refuses to eat more - her doctor has told her that if she won't try to eat more he will put a tube in her stomach - sometimes threats are the only way to work with my grandmother) or the pain killers (we have doubts as do the doctors - she was unable to spell her own name this afternoon and she hadn't had any strong pain killers today) or something else that we just don't know yet.

My cousin doesn't think she'll last a week.

The doctors keep talking about sending her to 'rehab' which I think is code for 'hospice' but no one is admitting it yet since her cancer hasn't been fine-tooth diagnosed. They think it's lung cancer, which only makes sense. My grandmother has smoked for sixty odd years. I'd be surprised if it was anything other than lung cancer.

I don't believe that she will ever go home again.

She wants to finish the crib quilt that she started for Baby Bakin' but we all know that right now she couldn't do it. She can't stand up without help.

She's cold all the time, in spite of running the heater in the room and the mountain of blankets piled on her.

I don't suppose that it will surprise anyone when I say that we're praying. I don't know what my parents are praying for but I'm not looking for a miracle. I don't believe that one is needed. This isn't a life being cut short, this is a life well lived coming to its natural end.

I pray for ease and peace for my grandmother and strength for my family, especially my mother on whom so many decisions rest.

*taps mic*

ETA: That moment when a day later you realize that you used the wrong 'mike' in your title. *hides in shame* English is my ONLY LANGUAGE AND I CANNOT USE IT CORRECTLY!

Sheesh this place is dusty.

Okay, gonna try and be a good blogger (or any kind of blogger at all really) and get going again for the new year.

I've been busy at work with the new job, so that's awesome. Nearly got myself fired once (well, I *feel* like I nearly should have been fired because I made a huge mistake but no one was like, 'If you do this again...*cutting motions over throat*' but I felt super shitty about it)

My best friend is pregnant. Again. Funnily, she's due the same week her first baby (Evesdottir) was born. So that should be fun. Also I've been asked to be a Labor Assistant or some slightly longer title which I translate to, 'Hold my hand while I scream and see things you never wanted to see!' but also I get to see Baby Bakin' (2nd childs nickname which we are all never, never, EVER telling Eve, okay?) being born and that will be awesome.

And possibly traumatising.

I have been crowned the Queen of the Bad Words because I accidentally said 'Fuck' in front of a ten year old.

Who proceeded to rat me out to my mother. (She works at the school he attends.)

Yet I still have no crown. Which is sad.

Nothing much has changed except that I might have a Lego problem. I started with one tiny set and um...they may have taken over.

I regret nothing.

My grandmother is in the hospital and we're just sort of waiting to see what happens. According to the doctors she either has an infection, which they can treat, or she has cancer which they may or may not be able to treat. So it's wait and see at this point. They have to biopsy the masses in her chest and stomach and they're going to do that this weekend, possibly, if they can get her liver and kidneys to where they need to be (she has other health problems with those organs that have nothing to do with the masses - she's 83 and not in superb health).

I have seen the Hobbit far more times than is healthy and I would see it again and again.

Silly Confession Time

I swear I will write that post about marriage soon. But first!

One of my favorite sandwiches is a Cuban. Basically it's ham, smoked pork, swiss cheese, pickles and mustard on Cuban bread that is then pressed. It's the best, most delicious sandwich ever.

This is a Cuban:

Onto the confession part.

A few years back my mother was getting us subs at Publix and asked my sister what to get for me. My sister knew that I loved Cubans so told my mom to get that. My mother, not knowing what was on a Cuban, trusted my sister's list of ingredients.

This list, unfortunately, was incorrect. And I keep forgetting to inform my mother of this. So, to this day, she orders me a 'Cuban' from Publix that is made with mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. No pickles, no mustard (because I don't generally like mustard - only in special situations) and not pressed.

Basically a ham and cheese sandwich.

And at this point it's gone on too long for me to tell her the truth.

God only knows what the people at the deli think.

My parents are having their 'worship team' (the band that plays in their church and yes that bothers me a lot) over tomorrow afternoon for a party. One of the members is moving to another country so it's a going away party.

I have been asked, politely, to not argue with anyone at the party.

Then what, I ask, is the point of having a bunch of religious people over to the house if I'm not allowed to discuss religion with them?

Bah.

Mahwidge...

I'm about to finish God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage by Bishop Gene Robinson (Episcopal, of course).

I intend to do a post about it, because it is interesting, but first I wanted to get you guys' thoughts on what exactly marriage is. Get as detailed as you like: what is marriage? Who does what in a marriage ceremony? (Not like who stands where, but what is the role of the pastor/priest/imam/officiant, the family/friends, the individuals getting married, like that.) At what point are the couple married? Secularly? Religiously? What's the point of marriage? Stuff like that.

Judges 11

So I'm listening to the Catholic radio station on my way to the gym this evening and they were playing a show called Catholic Answers Live. The guest was a priest, Father Trigilio, I believe.

A gentleman called in and was questioning a story that he had read in a children's Bible. It was, as you might guess by the title of the post, the story contained in Judges 11, the story of Jephthah. For those unfamiliar with the story, the text is below:

11 Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.  

² Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family,” they said, “because you are the son of another woman.”  

³ So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him.

⁴ Some time later, when the Ammonites were fighting against Israel,  
⁵ the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob. 
⁶ “Come,” they said, “be our commander, so we can fight the Ammonites.”
⁷ Jephthah said to them, “Didn’t you hate me and drive me from my father’s house? Why do you come to me now, when you’re in trouble?”
⁸ The elders of Gilead said to him, “Nevertheless, we are turning to you now; come with us to fight the Ammonites, and you will be head over all of us who live in Gilead.”
⁹ Jephthah answered, “Suppose you take me back to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gives them to me—will I really be your head?”
¹⁰ The elders of Gilead replied, “The Lord is our witness; we will certainly do as you say.”  
¹¹ So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them. And he repeated all his words before the Lord in Mizpah.
¹² Then Jephthah sent messengers to the Ammonite king with the question: “What do you have against me that you have attacked my country?”
¹³ The king of the Ammonites answered Jephthah’s messengers, “When Israel came up out of Egypt, they took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, all the way to the Jordan. Now give it back peaceably.”
¹⁴ Jephthah sent back messengers to the Ammonite king,  

¹⁵ saying:“This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites.  

¹⁶ But when they came up out of Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea and on to Kadesh.  

¹⁷ Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Give us permission to go through your country,’ but the king of Edom would not listen. They sent also to the king of Moab, and he refused. So Israel stayed at Kadesh.

¹⁸ “Next they traveled through the wilderness, skirted the lands of Edom and Moab, passed along the eastern side of the country of Moab, and camped on the other side of the Arnon. They did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was its border.
¹⁹ “Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon, and said to him, ‘Let us pass through your country to our own place.’ ²⁰ Sihon, however, did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. He mustered all his troops and encamped at Jahaz and fought with Israel.
²¹ “Then the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and his whole army into Israel’s hands, and they defeated them. Israel took over all the land of the Amorites who lived in that country,  
²² capturing all of it from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the desert to the Jordan.
²³ “Now since the Lord, the God of Israel, has driven the Amorites out before his people Israel, what right have you to take it over?  
²⁴ Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess.  
²⁵ Are you any better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever quarrel with Israel or fight with them?  
²⁶ For three hundred years Israel occupied Heshbon, Aroer, the surrounding settlements and all the towns along the Arnon. Why didn’t you retake them during that time?  
²⁷ I have not wronged you, but you are doing me wrong by waging war against me. Let the Lord, the Judge, decide the dispute this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”

²⁸ The king of Ammon, however, paid no attention to the message Jephthah sent him.

²⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.  
³⁰ And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands,  
³¹ whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
³² Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. 
³³ He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.
³⁴ When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter.  
³⁵ When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.”
³⁶ “My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. 
³⁷ But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”
³⁸ “You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. 
³⁹ After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.
From this comes the Israelite tradition  
⁴⁰ that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

Right. So the man was questioning what the purpose was of having a story like that in the Bible, where a man sacrifices his own daughter to God. And the Father answered him, talking about the inadvisability of making such general, sweeping vows and the illicitness of making vows that go against God's law such as human sacrifice.

All fine and good. And then the host chimes in and is all, 'Well if you read to the end of the chapter he didn't end up sacrificing his daughter. It goes into another battle....and....'

Which is the point where I eyed my radio real hard. It bugged me so much that I made a point to remember to look up the chapter when I got home. Because I remember this story. Jephthah *did* uphold his vow.

Now there's some discussion over whether he killed his daughter or she was turned over to the Temple as a virginal servant or something like that. I'm pretty sure that sanil, our resident seminarian and knower of such things, did a post on this on her old blog, but it's gone now. Or..wait. Actually I think it might have been Susanne. Hang on.

Bugger. I can't find the post there either. But it does exist. Somewhere.

Susanne found it! Here it is.

I personally come down on the side of human sacrifice here, but there is some room for debate as to her actual fate. Regardless, one way or the other Jephthah's daughter was sacrificed.

This *really* bothers me, that the radio host said this. It's blatantly false!

Jephthah vowed to make a burnt offering out of whatever came out of his house first to greet him. Verse 39 says 'she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed'. I'm not sure how you get 'they went another way...' from that.

He killed his daughter and there is no textual criticism of him for doing so. The book goes on to talk about another battle that he fought and won and then he dies, supposedly from natural causes since it's not laid out.

Short rambling about kids

I don't know that I have much to say tonight, but I'm at work for another 2 hours so babble I shall!

The night shift girl took today off because it's her birthday and I can't really fault her since I do my best to take the whole week off for my birthday every year. :D

I've been thinking about kids, recently.

You all remember my friend Eve and her daughter Evesdottir. Who is my 'goddaughter', though what that means with a child that is unchurched, a father that was Seventh Day Adventist and a mother who was Methodist and a woman who bounces mentally back and forth between traditional Christianity (as seen in Catholicism and Orthodoxy) and Islam is something we've yet to really have to explore.

I look at her and sometimes I think, 'I want one. I want a dozen.' and then I think about a husband and a family and my own home and it's all nice and good and then I remember that I don't fall in love and that my life would be much easier if someone would just arrange a marriage for me. :p

And then I look at her and I hear stories of Eve staying up all night because Evesdottir was sick (she's fine) and having to clean up the mess (it was a *BIG* mess, poor baby) and I'm happy that I don't have one or a dozen because Evesdottir loves books and she was over at my house the other day and that's all well and good except she's only a year and a half and sometimes she still wants to put the book in her mouth and give Auntie Amber a heart attack.

And then I look at her and I think that if anything ever happened to her I'd fuck up the universe to make it right or get justice and I worry about what I would do if I had my own children because apparently kicking the shit out of other parents is frowned upon or something, I don't know.

And this is all a part of the reasons why it's probably good that I don't have kids.

Aside from the whole I don't believe in lying to them so my children would be full of terrible, 'non age appropriate' knowledge.

Like death. Why do we lie to kids about death? It's a hard concept, sure, but it's hard for adults too. What happens when someone or something (a pet) dies? They cease to be *here*, but what does that mean? Isn't that what religion is supposed to answer? If a parent has faith, why can't they just embrace that with their child in this instance?

And don't get me started on those parents who don't teach their kids the proper names for certain body parts. Ugh.

Kids are complicated and wonderful and I think they make the universe a little more bearable by their existence.