Faith, incentivized!

 

Stephan Pastis does it again.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version of the cartoon at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

At least it wasn't bourbon.  That would have been filled with the wrong kind of spirit...

Peter

Preparing to die

 

Ben Sasse, former US Senator and former President of the University of Florida, announced last December that he'd been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

In a wide-ranging discussion with Ross Douthat, Mr. Sasse discusses his current state of health (parlous), and how he's preparing for his approaching death.  I found it a very moving discussion, particularly his courage and openness in speaking out about the end of his life and how he's trying to fill every remaining minute of it with important things.

The New York Times published an opinion column about this interview titled "How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying".  At present, it's not behind a paywall.  If you prefer to read rather than watch or listen, I highly recommend clicking over there to read it.  It's long, but well worth your time.  If you'd rather not read it, here's his hour-long-plus interview with Mr. Douthat.

I can only admire Mr. Sasse's faith, and his willingness to be so open about a subject often regarded as taboo among many people today.  I hope and pray that his example will inspire many to think about their own futures, and how "in the midst of life we are in death", to quote the ancient funeral ceremony.

May God be merciful to Mr. Sasse, and welcome him home to eternity when the time comes.

Peter

A fascinating legacy from a bygone era

 

This report caught my imagination.

In northern India's Uttar Pradesh state, a team of workers is carefully restoring a centuries-old royal kitchen that once fed the rulers of the former princely state of Awadh.

Tucked within the sprawling complex of Chota Imambara - a mausoleum and congregation hall - this kitchen in Lucknow is a reminder of a different kind of royal legacy. Built in 1837 by former Awadh ruler Muhammad Ali Shah, the site once served not just the elite, but the public too.

At its peak, the meals here were prepared for both the royal household and ordinary people, especially during religious gatherings and special occasions.

. . .

According to historians, in 1839, Muhammad Ali Shah gave 3.6m rupees - considered a vast sum in those days - to the East India Company, then a British trading enterprise, on the condition that it would be responsible for maintaining the monuments built by the Awadh nawabs, while the kitchen would continue to run on the interest earned from the fund.

After India became independent 1947, this money was transferred into a local bank.

Today, the kitchen is managed by the Hussainabad Trust - a state government-monitored body - which continues to use the interest to fund and manage the kitchen's operations.

That legacy lives on in the meals still served here, prepared to the same standards laid down generations ago.

. . .

Historian Roshan Taqui says the king was determined to ensure the kitchen kept running without interruption.

To handle the scale of cooking, he built two identical kitchens on either side of the Chota Imambara - a design that also reflects Awadhi architecture's heavy emphasis on symmetry, he adds.

The concept of twin kitchens is proving useful to this day.

"During this Ramadan, while restoration was underway in one of the kitchens, cooking continued in the other," Taqui says.

There's more at the link, including details of the ongoing restoration of the two-century-old kitchens using original materials and techniques.  There are several photographs of the process.

It's fascinating to think how different faiths such as Christianity and Islam could give rise to similar concepts of alms-giving on the part of the rich and powerful.  In Europe, knights and barons might endow a monastery or hospital or way-station for pilgrims, something that would be useful for generations to come, in the same way as Muhammad Ali Shah decreed that his palace kitchens would feed the poor as well as his household.  Both operated on the principle of "storing up treasure in heaven", where one's good deeds may help to offset the less good or downright sinful ones - a very common approach to faith in earlier times.

I could wish that some of our modern oligarchs and rulers might continue the practice . . .

Peter

Not an eschatological approach...

 

Stephan Pastis provides an answer to the materialist world.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

Reminds me of a man who told me, once upon a time, "Nothing succeeds like lack of success".  If you think about it, he's not wrong!

Peter

A very interesting analysis of the Iran war in a worldwide context

 

I'm obliged to Francis Turner for providing a link to an article titled "The Global System Rupture".  It's a very long article, far too long to summarize here;  to get the full impact, you'll have to click over to it and read it for yourself (which I do recommend).  I don't necessarily agree with all the author's points, but I don't think her overall thesis is far wrong.  Let me offer these paragraphs to whet your appetite.

We are not approaching a regional crisis that will be managed and absorbed. We are approaching a global system rupture, driven by cascading effects across every socio-economic network simultaneously: energy, food, water, finance, trade, governance, and security. And while the United States, China, and Russia each occupy a short-term winning position in this rupture, all three are generating the very conditions that could pull the entire system into an abyss from which none of them emerges structurally intact. The path away from that abyss requires something that none of them is currently willing to do alone. It requires coordination between the two rival blocs. And it requires it now.

. . .

The United States, China, and Russia are each winning in the short term. The US has demonstrably degraded Iran’s military infrastructure, eliminated its nuclear programme, and established a new precedent of deterrence in the region. Russia is extracting elevated energy revenues, geopolitical leverage on Ukraine, and a sanctions waiver. China is consolidating yuan settlement architecture, absorbing discounted Iranian crude, and widening its strategic position in the Pacific while the US is pinned in the Gulf. All three actors have short-term incentives that are being satisfied.

And all three are generating the conditions for a collapse that will devour those short-term gains.

Because what is accumulating in the background of each of those winning positions is the cascade: 8 mbpd of daily scarcity compounding into a fertiliser shock, a food security crisis across 15 to 20 vulnerable economies, a financial contagion running through sovereign debt and emerging market currencies, a desalination doctrine that threatens the civilisational baseline of the Arabian Peninsula, and a wave of political turmoil that will arrive on a 6 to 12-month lag and cannot be recalled once it begins. No actor wins in that world. Not even the actors who think they are winning now.

. . .

And [then] the question shifts from how to prevent the rupture to what can be reconstructed from the wreckage of a global system that three great powers allowed to break because none of them was willing to accept that their short-term winning position was being purchased at the cost of the system that makes winning meaningful.

There's much more at the link.

That's food for thought all right . . . possibly food for nightmares, if no progress is made.  The problem is, it's almost impossible to find anyone in Iran with whom to negotiate meaningfully.  Iran's fundamentalist Twelver leaders are more than willing to bring down the entire world with them, if they have to.  Some of them even believe that if they do, the Twelfth Imam will return - literally, be forced to return - to rule the nations and impose Shi'ite Islam upon them.  They are not acting logically or rationally, but theologically and ideologically.  We cannot find common ground with such people for a solution.  That's the fly in the above article's ointment.  I can see the author's opinions, and even agree with many of them - but if there is no rational discussion possible, how can her gloomy predictions be avoided?

If you know the answer to that conundrum, you're probably a better person than I . . . not to mention all the politicians and leaders on all sides that kicked the Iran can down the road until there was nowhere left for it to go!

Peter

Back from the hospital

 

The caudal injection seems to have gone OK, apart from a fair amount of pain during the procedure.  The doctor informed me that the mass of scar tissue in the area - the cumulative result of a bullet wound many years ago, followed by two spine surgeries after my disabling injury in 2004 - made it difficult to pass between the lumps to get at the caudal cavity, and resisted the needle, hence causing added pain.  However, once he got in there, it went well.

I'm back home now with a numb butt and vague feelings of posterior resentment.  This, too, shall pass.  Thanks for all the prayers and good wishes!

Peter

Another day at the hospital...

 

By the time this post auto-publishes, I'll be on the road to a local hospital for a procedure known as a caudal epidural injection.  It's designed to inject medication to control nerve pain into the caudal space, a hollow channel running up through the base of the spine.  It's an interim treatment for severe back pain and associated limitations on mobility.  If it works, it'll buy me time to prepare for the major back surgery that I'm going to need relatively shortly.  If it doesn't work, well, I won't be any worse off (apart from a punctured coccyx and a sore butt!  The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have nothing on the scalpels and needles of sadistic surgeons . . . )

I'm not looking forward to the procedure, but I don't have any alternative to it right now, so here's hoping.  Prayers for medical success would be appreciated.  I'm not sure who's the patron saint of injections through the butt into the spine, but if there is one, I'll gladly invoke their intercession!  (Saint Sebastian was shot through by arrows:  do you think he might qualify?)

Peter

It was meant to be! (Errr... sort of...)

 

For all the fans of predestination out there.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the 'Pearls Before Swine' Web page.

So much for AI inspiration!

Peter

Yet again, indulging transgender madness leads to tragedy

 

Yesterday saw yet another example of a transgender individual going insane and trying to destroy everyone around him - taking them with him, so to speak.

Ten people including the shooter are dead after ⁠an ⁠assailant opened fire at a high school in western ⁠Canada in the town of Tumbler Ridge on Tuesday in one of the country's deadliest mass casualty events in recent history.  Initial reports by local police and the Canadian media described the shooter as female.

However, the authorities reluctance to release the identity of the suspect was an immediate red flag.  Their reports only indicated that the shooter was a female in a dress.  

Independent journalists now say they have the identity of the alleged shooter, corroborated by family members:  Jesse Strang, a 17-year-old biological male who started identifying as a "woman" in 2023, is reportedly the culprit behind the school massacre which left 10 dead and 25 wounded.   

. . .

The tragedy represent yet more evidence that transgenderism is a dangerous mental health crisis.  Multiple mass shootings (including school shootings) have been perpetrated by transgender suspects in recent years, and suspected Charlie Kirk shooter, Tyler Robinson, was living with his transgender boyfriend at the time of the shooting.   

In almost every instance, the transgender status of the shooter has been covered up or dismissed by authorities and the establishment media. 

There's more at the link.

One has to ask whether someone who suffers from gender dysphoria, particularly if they insist on living a transgender lifestyle should not be automatically classified as potentially dangerous.  Not all of them are, of course;  I've known three genuinely transgender individuals, all of whom have undergone permanent sex-change surgery and lived as their chosen gender for decades.  However, they are the exceptions that prove the rule.  I've met dozens, perhaps scores, of "pseudo" transgender people whose behavior, outlook, etc. demonstrate serious mental problems, to the point that some might better be labeled as bat**** crazy.  Where does one draw the line?  Is it possible to draw a line and say that, if someone crosses it in any measurable way, he or she is more or less dangerous to society?

Strang killed nine victims, including his mother and younger brother, and injured 25.  The small, close-knit community where they lived will be haunted by the horror of his crimes for years to come.  May the souls of the victims of yesterday's shooting receive mercy from God, and may those who mourn them receive what comfort they may.  May the injured be blessed with healing, and may their families be given grace to help them recover.  And, please God, may the rest of us learn from this and all too many other tragic examples, and do what we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones from transgender insanity and violence.

Peter

That's mind-boggling...

 

Courtesy of a link provided by DiveMedic, we learn that human breast milk is one of the most complex systems nature has ever devised.

Milk is not just nutrition.
It is information.

. . .

When a baby nurses, microscopic amounts of saliva flow back into the breast. That saliva carries biological signals about the infant’s immune system. If the baby is getting sick, the mother’s body detects it.

Within hours, the milk changes.

White blood cells surge.
Macrophages multiply.
Targeted antibodies appear.

When the baby recovers, the milk returns to baseline.

This was not coincidence.
It was call and response.

A biological dialogue refined over millions of years. Invisible—until someone thought to listen.

. . .

Milk changes by time of day.
Foremilk differs from hindmilk.
Human milk contains over 200 oligosaccharides babies can’t digest—because they exist to feed beneficial gut bacteria.
Every mother’s milk is biologically unique.

. . .

Milk has been evolving for more than 200 million years—longer than dinosaurs walked the Earth. What we once dismissed as simple nourishment is one of the most sophisticated communication systems biology has ever produced.

Katie Hinde didn’t just study milk.
She revealed that nourishment is intelligence.
A living, responsive system shaping who we become before we ever speak.

There's more at the link.

That may be one of the most mind-blowing scientific analyses I've ever read.  I had no idea . . . and I guess most of the scientific and health community didn't, either.  It took one researcher who caught a glimpse of something tantalizing, enough to make her look further and go deeper - and she revealed a whole new wonder of nature.  Here's a TED talk she gave in 2018, before much of the most recent research was revealed.

The more I learn of this sort of complexity in nature, the more I shake my head at those who claim that evolution is responsible for everything, that we're merely cosmic "accidents", that there's no such thing as "intelligent design".  If there isn't, how does one account for the immense intelligence revealed just in the biological system of human milk - never mind everything else about us, and about life?

I know we'll never agree on that, but that's OK.  I'm just going to say, "Thank you, Lord", and leave it at that.

Peter

A happy, holy and blessed Christmas to all my readers

 

May the reason for the season find a home in your hearts, and may we all remember precisely Who we are celebrating at this time of year.

This blog will go silent tomorrow in honor of the day.  I'll be back on Friday.

And, for those who prefer a secular season, this kicked over my giggle-box!

Peter

Life and death in a social media age

 

Speaking as one who's had to deliver many sermons at funerals, I couldn't help laughing at Stephan Pastis' modernization (?) of the field.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version of the cartoon at the 'Pearls Before Swine' Web page.

Given the number of people I see with their heads buried in their cellphones, despite everything else going on around them (including their kids running amok!), this rings eerily true . . . I wonder if any pastor has looked down from his pulpit and found most of his congregation doing that?  I've heard of some churches putting the lyrics to hymns on their Web sites, so worshippers can follow on their phones and sing along during the service, but I've always felt that merely encouraged further slavish concentration on electronic devices rather than God.  Does that make me a spiritual Luddite?

Peter

Words to live by

 

I recently came across a post on Gab dating back to 2023.  User "Mandy_Poppins 🍎🍎🍎" posted:

Sayings of the Amish that go back to the 1600's

“Borrowing makes sorrowing.” (Bariye macht Sarige.)

"There are two kinds of leaders: those who are interested in the flock, and those who are interested in the fleece."

"That which controls your heart controls your life."

"A person may hoard up money, he may bury his talents, but you cannot hoard up love."

"He who has no money is poor; he who has nothing but money is even poorer."

"Many times we are climbing mountains when we ought to be quietly resting."

"Do more of less."

"The person who kills time has not learned the value of life."

"Today has one thing in which all of us are equal: time. All of us drew the same salary in seconds, minutes, and hours."

"An industrious wife is the best savings account."

"Generosity leaves a much better taste than stinginess."

"Wisdom enables one to be thrifty without being stingy, generous without being wasteful."

"Where love is, there riches be, keep us all from poverty."

"Beware of the barrenness of a too-busy life!"

Food for thought.

Peter

A song for Thanksgiving

 

Sometimes the old traditions speak more clearly to us than their modern descendants.  Here's Maddy Prior with a medley of "Marigold" and "Harvest Home".

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to all of you.  May we give thanks where they are due, and seek renewed blessings for the year ahead.

Peter

Faith (sort of) and life

Stephan Pastis does it again.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

Any experienced pastor will tell you never to ask questions like that.  The answers might surprise you - particularly from children!

Peter

A heartfelt "Thank you!" to my generous readers

 

In early October I asked for your help for James and Tirzah Burns, two friends of long standing.  James had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic disease, and was in hospital, and another friend had launched a fundraiser to help them with related expenses.  Many thanks to those who donated.

Sadly, James' illness was too far advanced.  He died on October 29th.  I mentioned it in these pages, and again asked for your help for the family with funeral and other expenses.  Again, some readers were generous, and helped a great deal.

Tirzah is now dealing with all the post-funeral bureaucratic paperwork, and preparing their two children for life without Dad at home.  It's going to be tough for them.  Despite all the distractions and the pain of her loss, she sent me this brief text message this morning:  "Peter, please thank your readers for me for such kind donations".  Together, we helped her keep the family afloat, financially speaking, while James was no longer able to earn a living, and now his life insurance and other assistance are in the process of kicking in (once all the paperwork is done).  They should be able to cope for several months at least.

I'd like to add my personal thanks to Tirzah's.  She's good people, as are her children.  My wife and I hope to have them visit us sometime soon, to relax and get over the stress of the past few months.  They're definitely the kind of people worthy of our support.

Peter

If there's a hell, those guilty of this should fear it

 

I'm sure that by now, many of my readers have heard the allegations that during the Bosnian War, elements of the Bosnian Serb forces invited outsiders - foreigners - to pay for "safaris" to hunt and murder Bosnian civilians in Sarajevo.

The foreigners, from Italy, the US, Russia and elsewhere, are accused of paying Serbian forces to take part in the shooting spree during the Bosnian War.

They were allegedly motivated by sympathy for the Serbian cause, sheer bloodthirstiness or a combination of the two, investigators say.

. . .

The amateur snipers paid the modern-day equivalent of €80,000 to €100,000 (median £80,000) to take part in the chilling “sport”, according to La Repubblica newspaper.

. . .

The case has been taken up by an Italian journalist and writer, Ezio Gavazzeni, with the backing of two lawyers and a former judge.

There was “a price tag for these killings: children cost more, then men, preferably in uniform and armed, women, and finally old people, who could be killed for free,” said Mr Gavazzeni.

There's more at the link, including earlier allegations that now appear to be vindicated by the latest evidence.  It appears that people from Italy, America and Russia were among the "tourist snipers".

When I first read that report, I got a sick feeling in my stomach, very similar to what I experienced when I realized the magnitude of the Catholic clergy child sex abuse crisis.  The thought of anyone casually handing over large sums of money for the "privilege" of hunting innocent civilians, murdering them for no reason except that they were available . . . it's almost beyond belief.  I've seen that kind of callous indifference among combat troops who'd been exposed to a war environment for too long, and had left at least part of their humanity behind, but I'd never dreamed that "normal" people might do the same.  (They're not "normal", of course:  they're monsters in human form, who've drowned their souls in the dregs of existence by their own choice.)

You'll understand that I still view life through the lens of a clergyman's calling, despite not having been professionally active in that field for a long time.  I wonder what I would do if someone who'd done that came to me and asked me to hear his confession of sin, and give him absolution?  I hope and pray that I wouldn't turn away from my calling, and would minister to him as best I could . . . but it would be extraordinarily difficult.  It was the same for me as a prison chaplain, when a multiple murder or rapist or whatever would feel the touch of grace, and want to repent before God.  To sit and listen to the litany of pure evil they unleashed in their confession was probably the hardest thing I had to do as a clergyman.  I can only hope and pray that God's mercy would reach out and cover their sins, even though as a human being I didn't know that such mercy would be possible.  I suppose it's a good thing I'm not God . . .

I can't say any more about it.  I've run out of words to describe the horror I felt reading this, and remembering those video news images of civilians being cut down in the streets of Sarajevo.  May those guilty of this repent of their sins;  but if they don't, may they suffer condign punishment and retribution in the hereafter.

Peter

Ten years ago today, the Paris massacres still horrify us

 

On November 13, 2015, a series of terrorist attacks took place in Paris, France.  Nine attackers, assisted by a tenth who escaped, used suicide bombs and assault rifles to strike a stadium, several restaurants, and the Bataclan theater.  137 victims died, most at the Bataclan, with a further 416 injured.

The echoes of the attacks continue to this day.  France commemorated them with public memorial services and other functions;  extremist Muslim terrorist groups celebrated them with paeans of praise to the "martyrs" who carried them out.  They are, in a sense, France's equivalent to the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States:  a landmark in our history that will never be forgotten.

As was only to be expected, the attacks inspired a wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric in France and elsewhere, and also inspired would-be fundamentalist terrorists to intensify their efforts.  Incidents like this always do that - they make the extremes more extreme, whilst driving most of society from the center towards those extremes.  The day after the attacks, I wrote:

The terrorists haven't thought about it, I'm sure, but they're going to produce a similar and even greater tragedy for their own people than they've inflicted on France.  The reaction from ordinary people like you and I won't be to truly think about the tragedy, to realize that the perpetrators were a very small minority of those who shared their faith, extremists who deserve the ultimate penalty as soon as it can be administered.  No.  The ordinary man and woman on the streets of France is going to wake up today hating all Muslims.  He or she will blame them all for the actions of a few, and will react to all of them as if they were all equally guilty.

One can't blame people for such attitudes.  When one simply can't tell whether or not an individual Muslim is also a terrorist fundamentalist, the only safety lies in treating all of them as if they presented that danger.  That's what the French people are going to do now.  That's what ordinary people all across Europe are going to do now, irrespective of whatever their politicians tell them.  Their politicians are protected in secure premises by armed guards.  They aren't.  Their survival is of more immediate concern;  so they're doing to do whatever they have to do to improve the odds in their favor.  If that means ostracizing Muslims, ghettoizing them, even using preemptive violence against them to force them off the streets . . . they're going to do it.

I've written before about how blaming all Muslims for the actions of a few is disingenuous and inexcusable.  I still believe that . . . but events have overtaken rationality.  People are going to start relating to 'Muslims' rather than to 'human beings', just as the extremists label all non-Muslims as 'kaffirs' or 'kufars' - unbelievers - rather than as human beings.  For the average man in a European street, a Muslim will no longer be a 'person'.  He's simply a Muslim, a label, a 'thing'.  He's no longer French, or American, or British, no matter what his passport says.  He's an 'other'.  He's 'one of them' . . . and because of that, he's no longer 'one of us'.  He's automatically defined - no, let's rather say (because it's easier to blame him) that he's defined himself - as a potential threat, merely by the religion he espouses.  He may have been born into it, and raised in a family and society and culture so saturated with it as to make it literally impossible, inconceivable, for him to be anything else . . . but that doesn't matter.  It's his choice to be Muslim, therefore he must take the consequences.  We're going to treat him with the same suspicion and exaggerated caution that we would a live, possibly armed hand-grenade.  He's asked for it, so we're going to give it to him.

That's the bitter fruit that extremism always produces.  It's done so throughout history.  There are innumerable examples of how enemies have become 'things'.  It's Crusaders versus Saracens, Cavaliers versus Roundheads, Yankees versus Rebels, doughboys versus Krauts . . . us versus them, for varying values of 'us' and 'them'.

. . .

And in the end, the bodies lying in the ruins, and the blood dripping onto our streets, and the weeping of those who've lost loved ones . . . they'll all be the same.  History is full of them.  When it comes to the crunch, there are no labels that can disguise human anguish.  People will suffer in every land, in every community, in every faith . . . and they'll turn to what they believe in to make sense of their suffering . . . and most of them will raise up the next generation to hate those whom they identify as the cause of their suffering . . . and the cycle will go on, for ever and ever, until the world ends.

There's more at the link.

And, sure enough, the cycle of the Paris attacks has produced yet more bitter fruit.  The BBC reports:

A former girlfriend of the only jihadist to survive the November 2015 attacks has been arrested on suspicion of plotting her own violent act.

The woman - a 27 year-old French convert to Islam named as Maëva B - began a letter-writing relationship with Salah Abdeslam, 36, who is serving a life sentence in jail near the Belgian border following his conviction in 2022.

When prison guards discovered that Abdeslam had been using a USB key containing jihadist propaganda, they traced its origin to face-to-face meetings that the prisoner had with Maëva B.

. . .

With France commemorating 10 years since the worst attack in its modern history, the arrest has focused minds on the enemy that never went away.

Six plots have been thwarted this year, says Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, and the threat level remains high.

Again, more at the link.

Say a prayer today for those who died in Paris that day, and their survivors, who live with the burden of their loss.  Pray, too, for those who work day and night to protect us against more such attacks.

Peter

Health update

 

I figured it was time to give you all an update on how my health situation is progressing (particularly those generous souls who donated to my fund-raising appeal).

My right kidney was removed on September 26.  It's been a long, slow recovery since then, with stringent restrictions on how much I can lift and what I can do.  The incisions (multiple) have been healing a lot more slowly than I'd like, and are still not fully covered with skin, but then they were very deep.  Also, as my surgeon has repeatedly pointed out, in one's late 60's one's body doesn't recover as fast as it did in one's late 20's!  Fortunately, the progress is all in the right direction, albeit a lot too slow for my impatient self.  With luck, I hope everything will be "skinned over" (if I can put it that way) by the beginning of December, when my other restrictions are scheduled to be eased.  That means I can get on with rehab and rebuilding my strength.

I've had a first consultation with a highly-rated local rehab facility, planning for post-operative reconditioning and extended work on strengthening my core and (hopefully) getting the muscles around my lower spine in better condition to support the surgery that's planned for that area.  It's going to take time to build up to three sessions a week, but I'm going to work at it.  Hopefully I'll combine stretching and conditioning (under supervision) with swimming and exercise bicycle/elliptical workouts.  I hope to start that in December, and plan to work on it for up to (and if necessary more than) a year, depending on what happens next.

I'm still undergoing tests to help the neurosurgeon decide what surgery would be most effective to address my spinal issues.  Unfortunately, the tests are uncovering complications that we hadn't expected.  On Monday this week I went to a neurologist for an electromyograph, both surface (using electrodes) and subcutaneous (using needles).  If I understood the technicians correctly, this is supposed to reveal current drop through the nerves and muscles, showing precisely which muscles are most affected by problems.  From that information, the neurosurgeon can deduce which part(s) of the spine are most affected, because it'll be the nerves flowing from it to the muscle(s) concerned that are the ones needing attention.  It's a bit complicated for a simple man like me (ahem), but I think that's the gist of it.  The test revealed definite deterioration since the last one I had, twenty years ago, but in different areas of the legs - which is not very helpful!

The test also revealed an additional nerve problem, peripheral neuropathy, which must now be tracked down to its source and taken into account when planning surgery.  I wasn't aware of that problem, but the neurologist explained it was because the level of pain from my already-damaged nerves was high enough to "mask" the lower-level pain and discomfort caused by the neuropathy.  What next?  Your guess is as good as mine.

(Oh - and further thanks to those of you who donated to my fund-raiser.  Monday's test billed at a cool $6,300 for a couple of hours being poked and prodded by two technicians and a neurosurgeon.  Thanks to you, that's no longer the financial headache it might otherwise have been.)

My next step, probably in early December, will be another consultation with my neurosurgeon, bringing together the results of all the tests I've been through over the last four months or so.  He'll tell me what he's diagnosed as a result, and the surgery he recommends to fix the problem(s).  At that point I'm going to put matters on hold locally, get full copies of all the tests and their results, and go see another neurosurgeon in DFW to get a second opinion.  Given the cost of this exercise and the potential for things to go wrong, I want to be very sure of my options before I move forward.  That will probably happen during the first quarter of 2026, after which we'll see what happens.

Thanks again for your help and support, and particularly for your prayers.  They're greatly appreciated.

Peter

Sad news

 

Regular readers will remember my bleg a few weeks ago to help James and Tirzah Burns.  James was suffering from pancreatic and other problems, and was in a bad way.  I linked to a GiveSendGo fundraiser for them.

Sadly, James didn't make it.  His illness was too far advanced.  He went home last week under hospice care, and died yesterday afternoon.

Tirzah is left with their two young children, a son and a daughter, and now has to take care of all the arrangements for the funeral and a host of legal paperwork.  James was the family breadwinner, so there's also the question of how the family will earn a living in future.  My wife and I love and highly respect Tirzah, so we're sure she'll be working hard to find solutions, but to lose one's "other half" is . . . well, to call it "traumatic" is a massive understatement!  She's got a very big load on her shoulders for the next few months.

If you're able, please click over to their fundraiser and help the family with even a small amount.  Every little helps.

May James rest in God's peace, and may his sins be forgiven him.

Peter