Post cards from last century

POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE–VOICES FROM THE LAST PANDEMIC

I found several dozen letters and personal accounts from the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918 in the U.S. on the CDC website, and I’ve included some here as a context of what our ancestors experienced back then, and in terms of what we’re going through now. You can see that during the flu pandemic, people were urged to stay home, limit social activities, and churches and schools were closed even as now. By and large, Americans back then saw it as their...

CHRISTIANS AND NARCISSISM

The terms “Christian” and “narcissism” should be mutually exclusive, but unfortunatelty they are not for reasons that will shortly become evident. The word “narcissism” has a very interesting origin. Narcissus was a figure in Greek mythology. He was exceptional in beauty and prowess (and he knew he was.) There was also a cursed nymph named Echo. Echo was cursed by Hera because Echo would try to distract Hera from finding Here’s usband Zeus carrying on with another woman. Echo’s curse was that...

SALT AS A NEW TESTAMENT METAPHOR

  • February 1, 2021
  • /
  • Faith

If you ask twenty-five people what single thing they’d like to have with them if stranded on a desert island, the chances are at least one person will say “salt.”  Personally, this mineral (commonly called Halite and symbolized as NaCl) would be at the top of my list, because I often crave salt or salted snacks much like other people crave sugar, chocolate, and other sweets. Salt has always been important to civilization.  Our word “salary” comes from the Latin word salis, which...

CT Scan

MY JOURNEY WITH CANCER

Jump to most recent post The new year is barely two weeks old, and I’m already finding out what 2023 will bring. While some people will be coping with war and peace, poverty, inflation and unemployment, love and marriage, happiness and sadness, I (and my loving wife, Deena) will find ourselves meeting new people, visiting new places, experiencing new things and the common denominator is cancer. Our plans to travel to my homeland in Germany next winter may not occur...

My Cancer Journal

MY CANCER JOURNAL (7/2023)

SUNDAY, JULY 2, 2023 (C DAY +156) The second round of my chemotherapy treatment begins early tomorrow morning. I have no reason to think it will be any different than before. Dreams Over the past few months I seem to be having more dreams than ever before. I don’t know why? Parkinson’s Disease? The medication that treats Parkinsonism? Subconscious thoughts about my cancer?Increasing age? Something else? My neurologist does say that vivid dreaming and acting out dreams is a hallmark...