What if God was one of us?

and I haven’t been posting. Must be my paranoia has taken control following the last hacker attack that occurred when I came to this site.

I sent an email to the administrators, asking about the hackers,  but they’re much too busy counting their cash to respond to my security question. In the meantime, I don’t think I’ll be sending my credit card info over this site.

Oh well, the Pop Up Blocker is still working, so I guess I can handle the free service. I’d still like to offer the support needed to keep this site going, but I won’t until I’m certain my bank account won’t be stripped by internet opportunists.

I’ve had a strange month. I’ve been making a quilt for the baby that was born into my small circle, and the tailor sit I use has knocked my hips out of joint again. I’ve been to the chiropractor’s twice, but the new ‘Dennis the Menace’ type boys we have on the children’s side have required ‘sitting wraps’ ( restraining holds where you hug them with their upper arms crossed, and they sit between your legs. I cross my legs over theirs, and they are held firmly against my body.) When I first started on the children’s unit, the intimacy of this hold led me to croon lullabies to the agitated child. Now I realize that this temporary ‘mothering’ might be a false lead, and  I’m trying to be more careful.

Institutionalized children become very fond of this ‘mothering’. They act up to get this sort of hugging and closeness. I know I can calm a child faster by singing my songs, and cuddling them when they’re  in this wrap, but I realize this is not a kindness when it leads to more acting out and self abusive behavior.

Case in Point: A young woman who was recently released after living in the hospital since she was 14 years old recently decided to ‘kill herself’. She was 22 years old, but in times of trial she would sing to herself songs I had sung to her when I would ‘wrap her up’. She decided to suicide 14 months out of the hospital, and she sat outside in extremely cold weather ( – 20 to 30 below, F or C it’s still damn cold).  When she was rescued, and brought to a local ICU, in her morphine induced delirium, she called for me throughout the night. Her attendant nurses phoned me at work, telling me that she was in pain, and wanting me to sing to her. I sang to her , as I always had when she was in pain.

When I taught her these songs,  I was trying to give her a language for her pain. The only common poetry anymore, is in music. She was an apt pupil.

When I visited her, with her frost bite blackened feet, and her depression induced  flatness/ dullness/ absence, I became afraid of this power. The power of my warm body, and my crooning, and my love and acceptance. I had ‘taught’ this girl to need me when she was in trouble.

I need to examine this. She had called me a month and a half before this suicide attempt to tell me that  things were o-k. She is still impulsive, so things went quickly down hill in that period.

This is a strange sort of mothering. Psychologists call it ‘transference’. I know this is true, and I need to be aware of my own part in it, particularly with these young, abandoned children.

This is why I pray….not because I necessarily believe in an omnipotent God… but because I need guidance, and a heart that is loving, and devoid of need or ambition.

I need to know how to be a mother, once removed, without causing harm. I need to know how to be a caring teacher. And with people who have been taught that being sad and discouraged is a sickness, I need to know how to be an effective nurse.

Amen.