Dreading This Day

I have a hunch that no one looks forward to the preparation for a colonoscopy.

As I was working with my doctor’s office to finalize the appointment and confirm the prescription, I asked if the process for clearing my bowels had changed over the last nine years?

The scheduler who was working with me responded, “We can put a man on the moon, but the method for cleaning you out hasn’t changed.” I loved her humorous perspective.

When I went to the pharmacy to pickup my 1.5 liter jug of GoLytely, the clerk who checked me out, grinned at me and said, “have fun.”

On yes, I was looking to have lots of fun on Monday, February 26, and Tuesday, February 27.

With the help of my Commander Supreme, we read, and reread the dietary restrictions that I needed to follow prior to Monday. Then on Monday, my liquid diet began with bullion, jello, and the recommended beverages being slurped down at different times during the day.

I had already carefully mixed the intestinal clearing potion and added the lemon flavoring to the powdered mixture. Next, I stored this concoction in the refrigerator.

I wonder who sat around and figured out this whole miserable process?

My guess is these were deeply demented, mad medical researchers who worked for decades in a mysterious, subterranean lab in the catacombs of an unremarkable building out in the flatlands of America.

I wonder how they recruited the volunteers to test out these internal gutter clearing potions?

Wanted: Research project will pay for courageous, curious individuals who want to make a significant gastrointestinal contribution to mankind by testing the comfort level of toilet seats over a time frame of twelve hours.

Let me make this clear, there is nothing light about GoLytely once its activation started in my digestive tract. As my time on the toilet ticked along on Monday evening, I began to wonder if I would ever be able to go to sleep?

At some point close to midnight, the demons in my bowels said, “let’s shut this guy down for tonight, we’ll finish him up tomorrow, he is really overloaded with years of crap.”

In his book, The Patch and The Stream Where The American Fell, retired United States Air Force fighter pilot, Ed Sykes, describes an assortment of gauges that monitor the workings of the F-105 jet he flew during the Vietnam War.

Sykes discusses the exhaust gas temperature and the exhaust pressure ratio for the F-105 as these gases exited the engine. If those gauges had been part of monitoring my bowel clearing on Monday evening, the gauges would have broken. They would have become unreliable, inoperable.

Early on Tuesday morning, my intake of GoLytely continued and so did my toilet sitting. Yes, the cleansing continued. I had to finish the consumption of GoLytely by 10 a.m. Finally, my last fifteen minute interval arrived. I gulped down the last eight ounces of the this swill. Internally, I cheered.

At some point, my bowels said we’re done, I took a shower, and we made the short drive to St. Mary’s Hospital.

We parked in the deck. Made the quick walk to the main entrance to the hospital, and took an instant left into the registration area.

Once that was completed, a nice young lady walked us over to the waiting room for all who were enthusiastically anticipating their scoping procedure.

I don’t recall her words, but the receptionist used humor to try and calm us.

A lady sitting near us struck up a conversation with another patient. The lady who initiated the conversation with no hesitation started talking about recent legislation in Virginia related to medical marijuana. She was excited.

I overheard this chatter while my head was buried in Signed, Sealed, and Delivered The Soulful Journey of Stevie Wonder. My North Carolina, childhood friend, Joe Vanderford, and I are teaching a class on Stevie Wonder for the Osher Institute of Lifelong Learning at the University of Richmond in March.

At some point, the receptionist gave the Commander Supreme the scoop on how to read the monitors related to patient status, and then I heard my name called.

The Commander wished me luck, and I walked through the double doors with the nurse.

The first thing she asked me was my birth date. For some reason, I looked down at my wrist band. My birth date was incorrect on the wrist band.

Luckily, it did not take an act of our dysfunctional pals in Congress to have the required correction made.

I made one last trip to the restroom before changing into the hospital gown. Then, crawled on to the gurney that would be my home for the next couple of hours.

For several minutes, the nurse and I reviewed my medical history.

An IV was started on the top of my right hand.

Soon, the anesthesiologist introduced herself and walked me through how she was going to knock me out.

Just before I was wheeled into the invasion of the intestines room, the doctor, who looked to be about fifteen introduced himself and talked about the process.

As I was settled into my new location, more introductions from the people who would be taking care of me took place. Again, they verified that I was really me, and then I was out.

This brief period of snoozing was good, and at some point I started to wake up.

Nurses asked questions.

Gradually, a nurse gave me this startling update—the doctor removed five polyps from exploring my intestines. I was shocked at this news. This had never happened in previous invasions.

Eventually, I was awake enough to sip ginger ale and to get dressed. I received post-procedure orders, and then I was wheeled out to our car.

The commander confirmed her conversation with the doctor about the five polyps. Now, I had a two week wait for the lab analysis of those troubling tissues.

Back in 1992, when my mother died from throat cancer, I remember talking with our neighbor, Bennett Amick. I’ve never forgotten Mr. Amick’s words.

He said, “people ask me all the time—how are you doing? I tell them, I’m fine. But, the truth is—I really don’t know how my body is doing inside of me.”

Mr. Amick’s words resonated with me because I can seem to be fine, but I really don’t know what might be conspiring in the cells of my body for a collision.

And, I thought further about this purging, this temporary cleansing of my digestive tract.

Why can’t we cleanse ourselves of the evil that causes so many problems in our world today?

In our class for the Osher Institute, Joe and I will be taking a close look at three albums by Stevie Wonder. One of those albums Music of My Mind released in 1972 ends with a song titled “Evil.”

Lyricist Yvonne Wright ask a series of introspective questions about evil:

Evil, why have you engulfed so many hearts?
Evil, why have you destroyed so many minds?
Evil, why do you infest our purest thoughts with hatred?
Evil, why have you stolen so much love?
Evil, why have you taken over God’s children’s eyes?
Evil, why have you destroyed?

Here we are fifty two years later, and I’m afraid the questions raised by Wright about evil are even more prevalent in our world today. Why is that?

Well, my mind tells me there are multiple reasons.

Perhaps a reasonable starting point might be our inability to solve vicious generational challenges related to mental/physical health, housing, nutrition, unemployment, safety, justice, education, and equity. This is despite spending piles of money in these areas.

As a nation, we are more likely to spend billions—billions exploring space from every possible angle while America struggles to solve its fiscal, physical, and human infrastructure challenges.

Toss in our political divide, our inability to find common ground to work together, our nation’s spiritual decline, and we have a mess. But, if we are honest with ourselves, despite our good moments, America has always been a mess.

At some point in the last few weeks, we finally sat down and watched the movie, A Man Called Otto.

Yes, I will admit, Otto and I are very similar. We both excel in our grumpiness.

Essentially, Otto has three hearts.

Otto’s body heart suffers from a medical condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This condition causes the heart muscle to thicken making it hard for the heart to pump blood.

His second heart, is heartbroken over the death of his wife.

Otto’s third heart is a heart that lives in isolation. This heart refuses to let love come into his life.

As the movie progresses, Otto’s third heart begins to change. His neighbors impact the changes in his heart.

Otto comes to understand their needs. He begins to understand how his skills, experiences, and his own stubborn persistence can help his neighbors and the significant challenges they face.

But, it is through the collective determined hearts of Otto and his neighbors that they push back a bit of evil.

I’m not going to lie to you.

Just like I was dreading my colonoscopy on February 27, there is part of me that dreads skimming the news headlines every day. Quite often, these headlines are tainted with evil.

For years, we have been unable to find a lasting peace in the Middle East.

For years, no matter whether a Democrat or a Republican has been our President, we have never been able to develop and implement an immigration policy that works.

For years, Putin in Russia has been a perfect example of an evil dictator with no heart or conscience.The war with Ukraine and the death of his leading opponent,
Alexei Navalny, are only two examples of his vicious villainous empty chest.

For years, America has been unwilling to solve our never-ending loss of life from the use of firearms.

For years, the world has been unable to solve the challenges in Haiti.

For years, Americans have been searching for the ultimate high and subsequently dying from drug overdoses.

For years, for years, for years, for years, our challenges have remained relentless in wearing America down and pushing us into a despicable, disrespectful divide that threatens the soul of our democracy.

Our hearts need immediate work.

I wonder if there is a GoLytely for hearts?

Our hearts need a purging, a cleansing.

Our hearts can’t continue to live like this.

And the truth of the matter is we know our hearts can’t continue down this path, and yet, we appear unwilling to change them.

Steve Jobs once said: “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

In A Man Called Otto, screenwriter, David Magee, carries us deeper into Otto’s world at a graveside conversation that he has with his deceased wife, Sonya.

Otto is concerned that a local real estate company, Dye & Merika, wants to buy up the homes in his neighborhood and turn the land into condos.

In the conversation with his lost love, Otto states: “Dye & Merika—what idiot thought that was a good name for a real estate company? Sounds like ‘dying America’…It is, I suppose.

‘Dying America…’ it is, I suppose.’

Deep in my heart, I have sensed this feeling “dying America” for a long, long, long time.

Look, this will not be simple or easy, but our hearts can’t let our democracy die.

On Thursday, March 14, I was reading the daily devotional from the Upper Room. The suggested scripture reading was Hebrews Chapter 11.

Reading from the New Oxford Annotated Bible Revised Standard Version published in 1973, verse 16 immediately resonated with me: “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”

As I have stated many, many times, I’m no Biblical scholar. I’m not the person to give you the historical angles for this chapter in Hebrews, nor its significance.Yet, “they desire a better country” hit me.

I wonder how those words hit you?

Deep in our conflicted, divided, stubborn hearts isn’t that what we all want “ a better country” for all?

If you, me, we, us want to truly reclaim “a better country” for all, maybe we need to ponder more deeply in our hearts this quote from Winston Churchill: “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”