My unfaithful episcopagus

 My husband Hal was a precocious little boy. He learned to read early and he loved science. His parents had received from a friend an old set of Encyclopedia Britannica volumes and he discovered the section on human anatomy. It fascinated him. His sight-reading ability was not quite up to the level of anatomical vocabulary, but he did the best he could, coming to his own unique pronunciation of certain words.

At dinner one night, he informed his parents that the food they were eating was going down their episcopagus to get to their stomach. The word delighted them and they adopted it. For the next couple of years none of the members of the Thomas family had an esophagus. They each had an espicopagus (pronounced e-pis-co-PA-gus).

Years later I wrote a poetry book for my grandkids based on actual funny things they or their parents said when they were kids. Here’s the poem about their Grandpa’s hilarious mispronunciation:

MY FAITHFUL EPISCOPAGUS

Yes, of course, I love my lips!
My belly button gives me flips!
I like my feet,
my eyebrows are neat,
and my little toe is really sweet,
but the body part I like the best
is my faithful episcopagus!

So sing up high, sing way down low!
Sing for your supper, but eat it slow.
And all of your days,
give high praise
for your faithful episcopagus!

It’s hidden inside me, after my mouth,
behind my throat, but further south.
It’s long and round,
and without a sound
it carries my food, every pound,
‘til it lands in my tummy a while to rest.
Oh, my faithful episcopagus!

So sing up high, sing way down low!
Sing for your supper, but eat it slow.
And all of your days,
give high praise
for your faithful episcopagus!

It carries jelly beans, spinach and peas.
It transports mango sauce and cheese,
all of my lunch,
my breakfast and brunch,
the yummy granola I love to crunch.
There’s none to compare in all the west
to my faithful episcopagus!

So sing up high, sing way down low!
Sing for your supper, but eat it slow.
And all of your days,
give high praise
for your faithful episcopagus!

Had enough?

I’ve had a different adventure recently involving my esophagus. For several years I’ve had trouble swallowing. I coughed and gagged frequently and had trouble sleeping with all the phlegm and other stuff coming up. I usually ended up spending the night in a recliner with my head raised.

This started during Covid and the medical people I could get to online misdiagnosed allergies, sinus problems, gastric reflux and other common maladies. They recommended a variety of over-the-counter remedies, none of which worked. I’m sure people began suspecting me of being a hypochondriac and chronic complainer.

Then late last year my primary-care-physician had me take a barium-swallow-test, and the two medical technicians found my problem five minutes into the test. They showed me the shadow on the X-ray and told me it was a large diverticulum (pouch) attached to the top of my esophagus. I had thought diverticuli developed only in the colon (where my husband harbors his), but no. They can also pop out on the esophagus. I was glad to finally have a name for what was happening in my body. I had an unfaithful episcopagus.

After the test, things happened relatively quickly (I’ll spare you the details), and at the end of January I had an operation on my esophagus. (To be medically precise, it was an Endoscopic Zenkers Diverticulectomy. Is that not impressive?!) The end result of it all is that I returned to normal. I can swallow again. The gaging is gone. I can sleep lying down all night long.

Normal is good.

It’s good to know that, even as we age, there are serious bodily ailments that can be fixed. In some areas of our lives, normal is possible.

I thank God for modern medical wonders, for non-invasive (though the mouth) procedures that were unthinkable even a decade ago.

I thank God for normal.

In addition to that-----

I’ll sing up high.
I’ll sing down low.
And all of my days
I’ll give high praise
for my faithful episcopagus!

illustration for the children's book

Loving the house of the Lord

 Lord, I love the house where you live,
the place where your glory dwells.  Psalm 26:8

That verse warmed me the other morning as I read it, curled up in my chair by the window. Then I asked myself where, exactly, is the Lord’s house. Surely it’s a metaphor for something other than a building. What?

As I thought about it, I realized that the phrase appears numerous times in the Scripture, with various meanings. It’s hard to pinpoint a location or describe its architecture. In one sense, God inhabits the whole earth and the expanse of the heavens. On the other hand, God’s house is used to refer to places where his people gather, be that tabernacle, temple, or local meeting house. “Let us go to the house of the Lord,” is a familiar call to get up on Sunday mornings and go to church.

It then occurred to me that, in a more intimate sense, my body is the house of the Lord. Paul calls it “the temple of the Holy Spirit.” My physical body. Now that thought intrigues me, because my body is no longer young and full of energetic promise. Is it still God’s house, the place where his glory dwells? Am I to love it as such?

Here’s the poem:

Loving the House of the Lord
Lord, I love the house where you live,
the place where your glory dwells.  Psalm 26:8

The Lord owns everything.
He is landlord of the earth.
He inhabits the Sahara Desert,
the Amazon rainforests.
He’s the original man-on-the-moon.
His glory shines scatter-shot
among the stars.
I’m awestruck, but it’s hard
to wrap my emotions around it all
on a regular basis.
My affections are limited.

He is Lord of the places
where his people gather
to sing, learn, eat
and sometimes squabble.
His houses have steeples, altars
and doors that open. And close.
I confess that sometimes
I don’t want to go
to the particular house of the Lord
just down the street.
How can I pretend to love it?

I’m told that my body
is God’s temple.
That if I abide in him
and he abides in me,
glorious possibilities
present themselves.
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus,
I sang as a child. And he did.
Somehow God found enough space
to make himself at home.

And I’m to love his house,
my body. My aging body.
Wrinkles, sags, neuropathy and all.
I’m to love my flesh, my spirit,
my mind, my emotions—
all of which are in some state
of rebellion. Spirit willing, flesh weak
on a daily basis.

Rather than fight it,
I’m to love it.
Treat it with affection.
Drink lots of water,
sleep long and well,
exercise, eat vegetables,
play outside, hug a tree,
hug myself. Laugh out loud.
Say Thank you more often.
Smile when I look in the mirror.
Tell myself, This is where God dwells.

Teach me how, Lord.
And let the glory descend.

Lord, I love the house where you live,
the place where your glory dwells.  Psalm 26:8

Coming unglued

It was a simple exercise in a poetry writing seminar. The idea intrigued me. The facilitator had told us to choose a common cultural idiom, a figure of speech everyone knows and uses. The exercise was to take that idiom literally and write a poem.

I chose the phrase “coming unglued.” I was hearing that a lot, occasionally applying it to myself when a too busy schedule was making me grumpy and disorganized. Similar to not “having it all together,” or not “having your ducks in a row.”  

As I engaged my imagination, the image of body parts slowly coming unattached from the trunk made me grin. I know, it’s gruesome, but I tend to find weird things funny (except when they’re not). I began writing as the pictures formed, basically just playing with words. Nothing serious in mind. But, as sometimes happens in creative endeavors, the poem itself took over and led me where I didn’t want to go. Hansel and Gretel walked into the story and the whole thing ended up with us entering a darkening forest. Not knowing where we were going or what would happen next.

Sometimes, when a person asks me what one of my poems means, I have to confess that I don’t know. It was that way with this poem, until I figured it out. Apparently my unconscious self wanted to bring something up to the surface where I could deal with it. Poems can act like dreams, telling us stuff we need to know.

But first, here’s the poem. (You’ll notice I don’t even use the phrase “coming unglued.” No need.)

Coming of Age

It's all right, he assured me
as his ear slid
slowly
down the side
of his face.
His right index finger dropped
off
next.
He had always
known this would happen
someday.
His hairline had begun
to recede
years before.
We walked out of
the room
single
file.
I stumbled on
his left
foot.
He hobbled ahead,
scattering appendages
like
bread
crumbs.
About twilight
we entered the forest.

At the time I wrote this poem Hal and I were in our early 50s, still young and somewhat vital (as I know from my current vantage point). But we were noticing subtle bodily changes, things like lower energy level, less visual acuity, aches in places that had never ached before, and, of course, those wrinkles and grey hairs. Hal especially faced some serious issues involving operations.

I always knew I’d grow old someday, but it wasn’t of great concern. I couldn’t actually picture myself with white hair, using a walker, or living in an “old folks’ home.” And I didn’t pay too much attention to the tales my aunts and uncles told about doctor visits and body parts wearing out. Boring.

But while I wasn’t consciously worried, something else was going on deep inside where monsters and dragons dwell. The poem told me that I was afraid of growing old and especially of what might happen to my body and mind. My mother had died in her 50s and my father at age 63, both from debilitating illnesses. I was approaching that age. Would I be like them? It was unknown territory.

It was good to get the fear out into the open and look it in the face. Hal and I could then talk about it, pray, and make plans for when we’d actually enter the forest.

I’m over 20 years from the writing of that poem and I’m actually living in a retirement community (which I would never refer to as an “old folks’ home”). It’s turned out to be a lovely old growth forest where the sun slants through the trees, although there are days when path ahead still looks dark.

But I must confess that the image of body parts coming unglued is no joke. This forest is full of decay; ironically, that’s part of what makes it healthy. We try to laugh about it, and most days we do.

There’s a joke about how that when older people get together to talk, it always turns into a musical event—an organ recital!

I hope I’m not about to give an organ recital here, but in order to illustrate the idea of slowly coming unglued, I will say that my main concern is something called vestibular migraines, but that my marvelous doctor is helping me control the symptoms. Other than that, I have a bit of osteoarthritis in my hands and neuropathy in my feet. (There’s some other stuff that I won’t mention. Be thankful.) All in all, not too bad.

Hal is another story. (Hal is always another story, but that’s what makes him so interesting.) He’s looking at three possible operations this year—lower back, prostrate, and left hand. Plus he continually fights diverticulosis, assorted skin rashes, and leg cramps. And both of us find ourselves saying WHAT? more than any other word in our vocabulary. Wonder why? I guess we’ll have to look into that.

On the other hand, we have good hearts, lungs, kidneys, brains and other organs that are growing older but still doing their good work. Since cataract removal surgery, we see the distant hills as well as the words in our books. We have much to be thankful for.

Now that I’ve written that, I am determined not to give you another organ recital. Ever. Please hold me to it.

We need to face the rebellion of body parts as a reality of aging. We have no guarantee that we will not get cancer, break a hip, or suffer dementia. I read the description in Psalm 92 of the upright person who “will still bear fruit in old age, who still stay fresh and green” like a cherry tree or a cedar. A beautiful image—and one I hold on to. But I will still grow older and one day I will die. What does this fruit in old age look like? What does it mean to stay fresh and green, even as some of my limbs break off and fruit drops to the ground? As I become unglued?

I don’t know exactly. I just know that, on most days, I’m no longer afraid.