arcanum boni tenoris animae

This title I’m definitely leaving for you to research yourself, but I hope that you agree that it’s having good friends

Today was another bouncy one… I was in pain that was higher than normal, and we can’t find a cause. I’ve been moved into isolation again while they test me for everything.  I’ve already tested negative for Covid, C. Diff, MRSA, etc. We did another Covid test, because it’s apparently fun sticking swabs up my nose! And that’s less than a week since my last negative result.  Meanwhile, I continue with some dreadful diarrhea.

On the positive side, I walked 100m outside!!  In the open air! See the picnic table in the photo?  I walked there and back into the building!  There’s a slight incline, so I walked up and then back down.  All very exciting.  I’m in isolation again, but I overlook the little copse where I went for my walk this morning.  I saw an immature cardinal hopping around almost close enough for me to touch.  I was thrilled.  I’m of the view that my stomach is protesting a month of hospital food and that’s why it’s proving so challenging to diagnose and treat. My doctor said that he can’t cook for me, so I’ll have to cope with it, or (I think, anyway) that I get an order to let me bring in my own food.  A couple of days of Trini food and I should be fine.  Somehow that isn’t going over well.  Another good thing is that since Covid numbers are dropping around the city, I’m allowed a visitor on weekdays too. So Don is allowed to visit me, once I’m out of isolation.  Timing, I tell you!  My new room number is 2104; still at The Rehab Centre.

I’m hoping to get a visit from the hospital chaplain this week. We’ll see, because the rules vary from one area to another.  Seems bizarre, doesn’t it?  I guess it reflects the difference in how the hospital was affected itself.  Some areas had significant impact, while others weren’t really affected.  Same as with the population, I guess, where some people weren’t affected while others were struggling.  I think would be great but we don’t see it so we imagine it’s not really that bad. We only really accept what’s right in front of us.  It’s a perhaps unfortunate but humans really cannot process large traumatic events. We see them we say, “oh my goodness how tragic that is!” but in reality we just have no method for dealing with it.  Remember Lenin’s statement that one death is a tragedy, but a million is a statistic?  It’s more true than we want to admit.  Yes, we want to feel sad for every victim of a tragedy but it is  too much.  Our brains aren’t wired like that.  Perhaps it’s a good thing, on balance. The amount of pain present in every moment is high enough to extinguish all good feelings for days.  Have you ever listened to an atheist explain why they disbelieve in a God?  Very emotional speeches about suffering, and how it’s just cruel to have any affliction, etc.  I honestly think that it’s a modern human failure to believe that an absence of discomfort is a sign of the presence of God. We lead mainly comforting and comfortable lives, as did our our parents and grandparents before us. We’ve been raised to think that paradise is an absence of pain and suffering; that we will sit on clouds playing harps. How much does that sound good?  It sounds unsatisfactory because it is. They have created a heaven that’s so unacceptable that we won’t to reign in it.  There’s no joy, no room for striving or reaching, so it’s not for humanity, and our imagination doesn’t accept angels as anything but ceremonial humanity.  Let’s reimagine that, shall we?  That angel are not human, but another species of being between us and God.

Far from wanting us to sit on clouds playing the harp, they want us to make life better than us, here and now, by doing small things here. And we can do these things with small children rooms and Laurier Ave W. that acts as a drop off, and we find ways to improve lives for others.   This helps us make heaven present to us, and hopefully to others. Don’t be afraid to tell me that I have taken too many hits of my pain meds… but I think that we can probably do something that can change lives. I’ll leave it here for now, and we’ll return to it tomorrow.  Good night!