This Road I'm On...

So I'm planning on getting my MAR in pastoral counseling from Liberty University...and here's why. I spent the summer in Buffalo, and...I think I've talked about this before, but it may bear repeating. When I was in Buffalo this summer, I couldn't believe what I saw. People sleeping in bus shelters and parks...begging for change in Lafayette Square. A woman and her two kids at the Boulevard Mall, all three of them looking like they haven't eaten in awhile. The West Side (and East Side) falling apart. Escalating violence. Cops guarding my church on Sunday mornings. Seeing all this makes me feel that my time at UB was seriously self-serving. Of course, if I hadn't gone to UB, I wouldn't be seeing things the way I'm seeing them (That's another note, guys, already written). Me getting a religion degree from Liberty University would be like Indiana Jones not being afraid of snakes.

So here's the plan. I did the application today, targeting Fall 2011. The program's going to cost me $6,600. I want to pay for it myself, without student loans (got a bunch of those already), but there is a scholarship I'm going to apply for. The program will take me 3 semesters. 45 credits, no project (Championship!!), and then...urban ministry. Somewhere. I'd personally love to be in Pittsburgh, but if I can't get there right off, it can wait. The homeless woman in the bus shelters of Delaware Avenue, the woman and her two children at the Boulevard...they can't wait. And there are people just like them in urban areas all over the place. Something needs to be done. But I, and anyone else...we all need to get our feet on the ground first. I'm getting my MAR in pastoral counseling. My friend Leann's going to the Police Academy. Places like Buffalo...Syracuse...Albany...Rochester...Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis...we want to turn them upside down. Who wants to join us?

Moment of Surrender

I’ve been meaning to put this in words for awhile, but I wasn’t sure where to start. I might as well start back about 2001, the year I turned 17. It was also the year everything changed – the first time. I had discovered a certain Irish band (where had I been, seriously??), and many I went to high school with can attest to this. Within a year I had all their albums, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Suffice it to say, I thought U2 was the best band ever, and they’re still up there for me, almost ten years later.

September 10th, 2001. I turn 17 and unwrap U2′s All That You Can’t Leave Behind. It had been out for a year, but I was just getting it. You know how when you listen to an album, the first time is always unique, of course, because, well…it’s the first time. This was different though, and I’ll tell you why. Remember the date. September 10th. 2001. I listened to that album once and the next day, everything changed, beginning with the New York skyline. Everything fell apart. At school, at home…at school that day, we did nothing but watch TV from 5th period on. I’d first heard earlier, but the news didn’t officially break til the end of the 4th period. Sidenote – you know it’s bad when the principal gets on the PA system. But anyway. I get home after school, and my parents are all, “Oh, aren’t you going to watch the news with us??” Guys, what do ya think I’ve been doing all day?? Mum watched the news that night and then went back to her regularly scheduled programming, if you will. My bro was at that age where when things happen, you sort of get it, but the world hasn’t yet exploded. Sort of occupied with other stuff, you know? My dad, now…days, weeks, afterward, he was on the Internet. All. The. Time. So in a sense, I was left alone. No one to really talk to or anything…but remember that album I got? I turned to that. Over and over again. To this day, it’s a reminder of that day, but at the same time, it’s always been a source of comfort. I don’t even know if I can explain this, but I have to wonder if God was knocking and I was ignoring Him. People familiar with U2 know about the religious messages in their music. I was an atheist at the time, so some might wonder why I found this band fascinating even then. But I did.

Fast forward eight years, and I’m up at 2 AM in my apartment on UB North, waiting for U2′s No Line on the Horizon to show up on iTunes, which it does, and I snag it. I’ve been saved for just over a year at this point. I was hearing my first new U2 album since finding God. I had heard all the rest of the albums from both sides, if you will, so this was the first album I would only ever hear from one side…I wouldn’t even look at the other. Trust me…there’s a cross around my neck everywhere I go…there’s no going back. So this one, along with All That You Can’t Leave Behind, is very special.

Right now, I’m reading about U2′s spiritual journey in Walk On, by Steve Stockman. When it first came out, I saw it in a bookstore. Picked it up, saw what it was about, and put it back down again. I forget when this was…maybe 2003? Some seven years later, I’m reading it. In U2′s music, the religious messages are there, but if you don’t get them, you don’t get them. The band isn’t exactly hitting you over the head with a spiritual sledgehammer. Like I said earlier, God may have been behind the door in 2001, but it took a football team and a friendship forged over a love for that team to break the door down. Over the past two years, I’m seeing everything differently. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Still Thanking God Even After All That

People have been asking, so here goes. 2009? Didn't end so hot, and here's why. I started noticing something was wrong probably about March-ish. I ignored it, and was able to, because I had stuff going on, people to see, things to do. I had distractions, you know? Of course then I get home in July, and it's like, "Oh hey. not good." The pain was manageable (the best I can describe it was a pulling, like something was caught...which it was), but I started losing sleep (2 hours a night, yay!), I could only sleep on my back, and my workouts really started getting affected. It was getting harder to breathe while running, for one thing. So I started going to doctors. I think the final count was 7. They took blood, which I gave willingly, and when I do that, you know it's bad. They did x-rays, CT scans...all of it showed nothing. We went to my neurosurgeon in Burlington, because we thought the tube on my shunt was stuck on something, and they determined that it was actually disconnected. The doc said that if nothing else was found, that they would go in and either reconnect it or take the tube out. And so, when nothing else was found, they went in.

I had surgery on December 14th. Two days prior to this, they did an MRI, so that they could determine whether or not the valve in my brain was pumping. Now, the MRI...so not cool. When they do it of the head, they put this thing that looks like a stormtrooper helmet over your face. And then stuff you in a tube. I take one look at the helmet and am like, "Oh, no. NO WAY." All the while actually backing out of the room. Seriously. Luckily, they had an open MRI with the "helmet" looking more like a goalie mask. OK. Two thumbs up. We get the MRI done, we go home. Sunday. I go to church, then go home and start packing, because surgery is scheduled for 7:30 the next morning. A little while before my mom and I leave, the phone rings. Mum checks the caller ID and is like, "Sharon? I don't know a Sharon...oh...Sharon, PA...oh wait." Yeah, Mum, pick up the phone because you're closer...unless you want me to run you over. That call meant a lot...you know who you are, if you're reading this. Still want those 19,000 cookies? (LOL)

But the next morning, we had to be there at 6. The nurse who was putting in my IV told me first she couldn't find her glasses because some other nurse had them. Oooooooooook. This is not boding well. But she gets her glasses and gets the IV in on the first try. They do the surgery, and after removing the scar tissue we suspected was in there, had to reconnect the shunt. They had to do this, because my body had created another path for the fluid to get to where it was supposed to go. When they went in, this path was disrupted. So they put in a new tube and reconnected it. Finished, right? Wrong.

Guys, one has to remember that the valve in my brain was 25 years old. It had been unhooked for at least a year. Between how old it was and how much fluid had accumulated in my brain, the shunt could no longer handle what they were asking it to do. It was flowing too fast, so every time I tried to sit up, the headaches that I had would get worse, I would get sick (which was fun with nothing in my stomach and 5 holes in my core), and the room would just spin. I spent three days flat on my back, barely conscious, and let me tell you this: Because of the pain, which the painkillers did little to deter, I remember hardly any of it. It's like I have a jigsaw puzzle and have no idea what piece goes where, because I remember things, but if you ask me when these things happened...I couldn't tell you. I remember having a CT scan, x-rays...kicking a nurse out of my room, because she couldn't draw blood properly ("Hold your breath while I move the needle." "GET OUT!!!"). I love how she was like, "I'm not trying to torture you, I've been doing this for 20 years." Er...get out. Just get out. But did that happen Tuesday or Wednesday? Not a clue. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that I was sending my best friend his Scriptures at 3 AM, when the nurses would make their rounds. Those were my only real lucid moments, I think, when I would put those together and send them. If I woke you, champ, I'm sorry...just wanted to make sure you had them :)

They went in again, I think on Thursday. This time to replace the valve in my brain, which they replaced with a programmable valve that is set with a magnet. So I can't be near refrigerator doors, hold my cell phone to my right ear, among other things. But anyway. By Thursday night, Friday morning, I was able to sit up again. And eat. And I went home on Saturday. They did have to change the setting on the valve when I went for my post-op visit last week, but hopefully this is it. They do want me back in a month, but I want to say...and you guys know who you are...the prayers, encouragement, and friendship mean the world. God bless you all :)