Gratitude Thursday

Thank you God that I am past the hump of Wednesday in the long and often debilitating soul destroying work week. Thank you that none of my patients died this week in the fentanyl epidemic.  Thank you that my dreams are not disrupted with nightmares.  Thank you that I have work. Thank you that I slept through the night. Thank you that my blind dog greeted me with wagging tail and wanting to play ball. Thank you that the crazy cat was rubbing against my legs as I made coffee and cleaned dishes. Thanks for running water. Thanks for electricity and light and heat. Thanks for propane and heat. Thanks for the rain for the plants sake. Thanks for my vehicle for the awful commutes.

Thanks for the day. Thanks for the prospect of a weekend to catch up on so many things that have overwhelmed me these last weeks. Thanks that I got book keeping done yesterday. Thanks for the meeting. Thanks for the persisting health of a good old friend just out of hospital after 2 months.  May he rally.  Thanks for the friendly faces and the crowds of good people I saw yesterday reminding me that the zombies haven’t won.  I liked the bright eyes and warmth.

Help me Lord to know what to say when people ask “Do you remember me or say You don’t remember me or ask me if I remember their names.”  I don’t know Lord but increasingly ‘put on the spot’ and ‘ambushed’ I feel traumatized like I’m back in school and the teacher pulls a ‘surprise test’.  All of the testing and the constant questioning and never being perfect as demanded by the authorities and state which is failing everywhere troubles me.  I feel like I will be glad to go to my grave if only to get away from the masters who say I’m stupid and uneducated and insensitive and not good enough.  I feel weighted down by the bullying and toxicity and constant condemnation always coupled with the smug Monday morning quarter back attitudes of judges and apparatchiks who insist by their arrogance that if they were there they’d have done better. I feel the strain of personal failure for not wearing a tie or not having cut my hair while I’ve day in day out for decades gone above and beyond the call of duty only now to be called a fool, a workaholic and somehow diseased to not have had balance. And why don’t I drive a better car and why don’t I live in a mansion and what a failure I am not to be like them.

Forgive me Lord for listening to them and letting them get under my skin with their threats and sanctions and condemnation. I am so thankful for the people who thanked me this week for saving their lives.  I was thanked by someone for showing up for work and appreciated that. “I”ve not been able to face this world for months. I appreciate your seeing me. You’re never been mean to me and that’s all I’ve known these last years.  “. I was thankful to hear that.  

There’s ample evidence that I am a worthy human.  I shouldn’t feel that I am ‘stupid’ because I disagree with almost everything that Trudeau stands for. I shouldn’t think that I’m ‘uneducated’ because I find the Laurier University administration fascist communist and frightening and that in Canada such gross administrative bullying is so common.

Help me avoid the propaganda of media. Help me turn off the internet and the radio and avoid the fake news papers in Canada but rather listen to pod casts of medical research and read the Bible verses and remember that this too will pass.

How strange to mingle with friends and talk about whose died and think how soon it will be before we’re considering whose still alive.  I’ve had so many older friends and I have younger friends too but I am only aware of my friends ages by their illnesses.  These storms are before me. Whatever waters I’m sailing in now are nothing compared to those of others. Thank you Lord for my relatively calm seas. Thank you that my boat still floats. Help me to get back to following winds and safe harbours. 

Our father who aren’t in heaven hallowed be thy name, 

Grant me the serenity.

Be still

All shall be well.