Archive of My Posts

Below is an archive of all my posts to date, starting in September 2015. This also includes the posts I’d written prior to the launch of my book a year later. To read any of them, click on the title shown. This archive will be updated on an ongoing basis.

Thanks, Carlen
carlen@carlenmaddux.com

PRE-LAUNCH POSTS…

• To Be Afraid or Not Be Afraid

• A Spiritual Journey Doesn’t Require Much. Either You Go All In or You Stay Out

• It’s Not Real Comfortable Outside Our Comfort Zones, Is It? But That’s Where Growth Comes

• Either I Focus on My Problems or I Focus on God. I Can’t Do Both

• Am I Too Busy and Important to Be Quiet?

• If You Step on to the Path Guides Will Come

• The Best Advice I Ever Had Came in the First Grade—Stop! Look! Listen!

• A Spiritual Journey Can Be Lonely, So Invite Your Family and Close Friends Along

• God Loves Me, God Loves Me Not. Could This Be the Most Important Lesson I’ll Ever Learn?

WEEKLY POSTS...

09.18.15… Where’s the Joy in an Unimaginable Tragedy?
09.25.15… Finding Unexpected Gifts Deep in a Crisis

10.02.15… At 52, I learned What Real Fear Is
10.09.15… The Power of Art and Poetry in a Crisis
10.16.15… Why I Started a Blog-Newsletter
10.23.15… How Keeping a Journal Helped Save My Life
10.30.15… Why I Spent 300 Days in a Monastery

11.06.15… We Were On This Path All Along, but I Didn’t Realize It
11.13.15… What Would I, at 70, Tell Me at 40?
11.20.15… My One Regret
11.27.15… A Thanksgiving Memory

12.04.15… The Latest News on My Book
12.11.15… The Hardest Thing I Ever Had to Do
12.18.15… A Christmas Memory

01.08.16… Why Your Story Calls Out Mine, and Mine Yours
01.15.16… “That’s My Mom, Bringing Joy to Others”
01.22.16… Why Didn’t I Just Accept Our Fate, and Live with It?
01.29.16… Thomas Merton, Me, and My Free Book Giveaway

02.05.16… What a Doctor Prescribes on Learning He Has Alzheimer’s
02.12.16… How Learning to Forgive Changed My Life—Fr. Matthew Kelty
02.19.16… How My Book Is Being Launched
02.26.16… The Monk of Mercy and My Next Book Giveaway

03.04.16… How a Friend Found Meaning in a Job Loss
03.11.16… “I Didn’t Say It Was Easy, Carlen. I Said It Works”
03.18.16… “To Say Anything More Is Dangerous”
03.25.16… Peering into Anne Lamott’s Weirdly Joyous World

04.01.16… Is Alzheimer’s a Baby-Boomer’s Greatest Fear?
04.08.16… What Is the Caregiver’s First Commandment?
04.15.16… Why Alzheimer's Can Shred Your Confidence
04.22.16... A Quick Update on My Book

05.06.16... Five Top Tips When Caring for One You Love
05.13.16… A Sampling of My Readings Along the Way
05.26.16... May I Ask You for a Special Favor?

06.09.16… A Few Simple (and Effective) Tips from My Wife’s Caregiver
06.23.16… Do You Want to See My Book’s Cover?

        07.07.16… Discovering a Bedrock Hope When I Was Most Desperate        
        07.21.16… Why Have These People Not Given Up?

08.04.16... Surprise! Now You Can Pre-order My Book on Amazon
08.18.16... Our Community's Surge in Interest, Strength, and Influence

09.01.16... Somewhere Over the Rainbow
09.13.16... You Can Win a Free Copy of My Book
09.28.16… ‘A Path Revealed’ Is Now Released

10.21.16... What Are People Saying About My Book?
11.10.16... Why Did I Start Searching, and What Was I Looking For?
11.23.16... A Thanksgiving Memory Redux

12.08.16... Five Simple Questions, No Easy Answers
12.22.16... May I Share with You These Entries from My Journal?

01.05.17... Why Being Gentle with Yourself Can Be So Hard
01.19.17... A Friend Asks About Our Odyssey Through Alzheimer's

02.02.17... What This Doctor Is Learning About Caregiving
02.16.17... It's About Quality of Life, Not Quantity

03.02.17... Desperate, I Needed to Be Quiet and Still
03.16.17... A Thank You Note from Me to You
03.30.17... Will You Help Me?

04.13.17... May I Introduce You to One of My Heroes?
04.27.17... One Year Later: This Doctor with Alzheimer's Diagnoses His Progress

06.01.17... What I Heard on My Book Tour
06.22.17... Are You Going to Love Me Forever and Ever?

07.13.17... Eight Ways You Can Help a Friend Trapped by Alzheimer's
08.13.17... A Buddhist, a Christian, and a Jew Go to a Birthday Party
08.24.17... A Love Story: Love Means Having to Say Goodbye

09.21.17... Irma, Alzheimer's, Martha and Me
10.12.17... Because That's What Friends Do

11.02.17... My Busy Three Weeks
11.23.17... From One Caregiver to Another

12.14.17... Why He Steps into the World of Alzheimer's 
12.24.17... Remembering the Forgotten

01.18.18... Alzheimer's Communication
01.31.18... After 27 Years, Their Steadfast Dream for an Alzheimer's Stamp Turns True 

03.01.18... How She Learned the Art of Contemplative Care
03.28.18... Why This Neurologist Became a Hospital Chaplain

04.12.18... The New Alzheimer's Stamp Is Off to a Strong Start
05.03.18... Why I Went Public with Our Family's Alzheimer's Story

05.24.18... What More Is This Doctor Doing About His Early Dementia?
06.21.18... A Conversation with My Wife's Neurologist
06.25.18... The Joy of Martha's Art

07.11.18... The Stigma of Dementia: Is the Fog Finally Lifting? 
08.28.18... Her Prayer for All Who Live with Dementia Worldwide

09.20.18… What This Care Partner Is Still Learning Years Later
10.11.18… How Can Forgiveness Improve a Caregiver’s Life?
10.24.18… What His Father Taught This Doctor About Alzheimer’s

11.02.18… “Keep Asking Questions Until You Get the Answers”
12.06.18… Can We Talk? That’s Me at 73 Asking Me at 52
12.27.18… In the Face of Fear, Grace

01.22.19… On Defusing the Stigma of Dementia
02.06.19… “When You Cared for Your Mom, You Stole My Joy”
03.21.19… One Caregiver’s Story: ‘Advocacy Saved My Life’

05.10.19… What the World Needs Now
06.05.19… Out of Deep Despair, a Seasoned Hope

07.26.19… To Test for Genetics, or Not? Read On…
08.08.19… Three Voices of Encouragement
08.28.19… Illuminating the Dark Heart of Dementia

09.13.19… 31 Lessons Learned from Persons Living with Dementia & Care Partners
09.25.19… “You either get on with living, or get on with dying. I’m getting on with living.
10.16.19… The Joy in Knowing and in Being Known

11.08.19… Pay It Forward: From One Caregiver to the Next
12.18.19… Her Strategies for Living Day to Day with Alzheimer’s
12.24.19… Grieving at Christmas

01.16.20… Why Sharing Our Stories Is So Important
02.05.20… ‘The Lessons My Mother Taught Me on Our 30-Year Journey’
05.14.20… Emerging from a Hard Season of Dementia, Pandemic, and Death

06.18.20… Let Me Breathe!
08.13.20… You’re Smart to Be Alert to This Hidden Grief
10.01.20… The Countdown Begins: Day 5-4-3-2-1

11.11.20… A Hard Thing for Me to Learn as a Caregiver
11.24.20… Our First Thanksgiving
12.17.20… A Prayer for the Caregiver’s Struggle this Holiday Season

01.27.21… A Doctor Speaks to the Spiritual Dimensions of Caregiving

06.16.22… My Song, My Ode, to Caregivers and Their Loved Ones Who Live with alzheimer’s

12.08.22… Two Meditations for This Season

01.26.23… A Conversation Worth Your Time
04.12.23… What Would I at 77 Tell Myself at 47?

A Quick Update on My Book

I’m deep into reviewing and making changes in my manuscript, so I’ll make this short and sweet. 

Paraclete’s editor, Phil Fox Rose, says my book is still coming out this fall. Which month is yet to be determined. There are a lot of moving parts to this process, and Phil, his staff, and I have much work to do. But we’re making good progress. So far we’ve had very few disagreements, and those few have been resolved quickly and amicably. This is yet one more reason I feel fortunate to be working with Phil and Paraclete Press.

Their production staff surprised me by presenting a cover concept on Monday. I didn’t realize we’d gotten that far. The cover is attractive, but it didn’t reflect our story so I asked them to reconsider.

Simply put, our story is about a path emerging out of a darkness that threatened to engulf our family. This is a rough and uneven path, but true. It kept calling Martha, our children, and me forward. The further we walked the more we realized a light was breaking through from deep within, yielding tears of hope, love, and joy.

     Kathryn, Rachel, Martha, and David cooling their heels

My book's working title and subtitle continue to survive the editorial process. When the book comes off the press, I’ll know for sure whether A Path Revealed: How Hope, Love, and Joy Found Us Deep in a Maze Called Alzheimer’s has stuck.

That’s the news on my book.

Thanks, Carlen
carlen@carlenmaddux.com

Why Alzheimer's Can Shred Your Confidence

Many of you know firsthand that caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s will test you in ways you never imagined. And your self-image and confidence will be challenged… sorry, wrong word. Your self-image and confidence will at times be shredded, stripped of all illusions and all that you thought was good about yourself.

Many caregiver guide books—for Alzheimer’s and other major crises—are available today with good practical advice. But unless those guides deal with the deep, and frequently dark, spiritual issues that are sure to surface, such advice will leave caregivers and loved ones hobbling on one leg.   

A personal example: In 1999, sixteen months after my wife Martha was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, our Sunday school class was reading Philip Yancey’s book What’s So Amazing About Grace? This is my journal entry dated February 11: “I laughed and cried when Philip Yancey described himself as a ‘recovering legalist.’ I immediately knew what he was talking about.”

This entry nailed my struggle in trying to care for Martha. I was swinging between wanting to control an uncontrollable situation and needing a break from it all.  

For those not into religious lingo, let me explain Yancey’s description this way: As I read him, it became clear there is not a whit’s difference between a self-righteous “legalist” and an alcoholic. Both are addicted; both try to control their relationships and surroundings; both can be passive-aggressive; and both often are driven by fear, anxiety, anger, and depression.

Hopefully, you are among the fortunate ones not to get entrapped by certain harsh rules of right and wrong as you grew up, those rules—religious or otherwise—that often can shape our character and behavior negatively over a lifetime. I wasn’t that fortunate.

Yancey gave me a name for the pain I’d felt in many spheres of my life—self-righteous legalist. And I wanted out! I not only wanted out of this pain, I also wanted out of the situation Martha and I were trapped in, which too often accentuated my uglier traits.

Last week I discussed what I call the Caregiver’s First Commandment: “If you’re going to care for a loved one, then you also must learn to take care of yourself.”

Swimming against this current called Alzheimer’s, I tried to do just that—to take care of myself while caring for Martha.

As I did it came ever more clear to me: I was in as much need of healing in my own way as Martha was in hers. But I wasn’t sure how or where to find it.

One practice Martha and I did start was meditation, which I’ve discussed already.

A journal entry, November 21, 1998… “Martha and I have meditated fairly consistently, twice a day, 20-30 minutes a time for almost a year. Two days ago I experienced a lightness of spirit never felt before, twice in fact. But since then the struggles with my “demons” have intensified. Father Matthew Kelty is right, I think, on two fronts: 1) Meditation will make you face reality; and 2) Where God is, evil lurks ready to pounce. The message I’m getting is this: As God draws me closer, my old habits are rebelling.”

Another practice I began to explore was spiritual healing. This was a huge change for me; my bias was strongly against so-called “faith healing.” I’d seen too many hucksters pass thru my small Tennessee hometown and on TV. But I learned early that a true spiritual path can force you out of your comfort zones. The first book I picked up on the subject was at the downtown Episcopal book store; it was called Healing by Francis MacNutt, a former Catholic priest. His approach was much more reasonable than I had anticipated.    

Nov. 27, 1997… “In another book, The Prayer that Heals, MacNutt says that the person who has a harder time receiving healing is ‘controlled … who has to think everything through before acting; a person who is filled with explanations and wants you to give them, too; a person who has furrows in the brow and a critical spirit. Often, such persons are religious and try to live exemplary lives, but letting go and receiving love—even from God—is hard for them.’”

Ouch!

“This, regrettably, describes me,” I wrote in closing that journal entry.

January 12-14, 1999… “Martha and I went to Francis MacNutt’s 3-day conference in Jacksonville, FL. One concept discussed there was to pay attention to the images that come to mind. Do not force your imagination to conjure up images. Yet don’t ignore the images that may arise. Pray over those images until God takes you to their source, then let God heal or rejoice with you over that memory, be it good or bad. God’s love is a river of life. Let it flow over the boulders of your heart and mind until they are washed away.”

Tapping into my imagination as another avenue for healing piqued my curiosity. I’ll share a couple of personal examples in a later post.    

Thank you,

Carlen
carlen@carlenmaddux.com

P.S. Great News! I just received my manuscript from Paraclete’s editor, Phil Fox Rose. Now the work begins. For those of you just joining us, this is my book’s working title and subtitle: A Path Revealed: How Hope, Love, and Joy Found Us Deep in a Maze Called Alzheimer’s. It’s scheduled to come out next fall. While I work through Phil’s comments and edits, I’ll send you a couple of different kinds of posts. Plus, I may have to skip a Friday or two, depending on any manuscript complications. Stay tuned. 

P.P.S. If you'd like to receive my free weekly posts, you can by clicking here.

What Is the Caregiver's First Commandment?

“I found a copper penny in the street—roughed up, beaten, and defaced by the traffic. I picked it up and kept it, for there’s still value there. As I dropped it in my pocket, I thought: There’s my life, too. Roughed up, beaten, and defaced, yet God still is the center of my soul, to paraphrase St. John of the Cross from the 16th century.”

This excerpt from my journal is dated October 18, 1998—a year after my wife Martha was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. As you might suspect, the entries in my 14-volume journal swing wildly from fear and despair to hope, trust, and joy, especially through the early years.

When we got this troubling news, I had a fearful sense that my experience was too shallow and thin for what lay ahead. As much as anything, this desperate sense is what drove me to search for answers in many realms—medical, physical, emotional, mental, relational, and spiritual.

Based on my conversations, readings, and experience since 1997, I finally learned this about caring for Martha: If you’re going to care for a loved one, then you also must take care of yourself.

I call this the ‘Caregiver’s First Commandment.’

This hard-earned principle applies to anyone, not just those dealing with Alzheimer’s. I think most of us have to learn through experience that we must let love, humor, trust, intelligence, and joy filter through our hearts and minds if the brazenness of fear is to be dispelled. I continue to learn this.  

Thomas Merton put it this way: “He who attempts to act and do things for others... without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others.” I copied this journal entry from the book Alzheimer’s Disease: Frequently Asked Questions by Frena Gray-Davidson.

A few weeks ago I posted some raw notes from my journal. This was received well enough that I plan to do this more often as we go forward. There’s real value in sharing our reflective thoughts. But there’s also equal value in sharing our feelings in real time. It permits the reader to see that they are not alone in the midst of their crisis. My crisis is not yours, but there can be a shared bonding—a shared community, if you will—if we’re willing to open ourselves to each other and to those raw feelings.

I looked for ways to shore up Martha’s confidence, which had been shattered by her news. I shared last fall the delightful experience she had with water-color painting.

Here are some other journal entries highlighting moments of both confidence and disappointment:

November 23, 1997… This was Martha’s first Sunday to sing in the choir. She looked like a natural and was beautiful in that robe. Singing is one of her great passions.

March 25, 1998… The YWCA recognized Martha as Outstanding Woman in Tampa Bay in the Civic Volunteer category. Great confidence booster! Martha had her buddies and me there to share in the glow—Tedi, Jennie, Nancy, KK, Grace Elizabeth.

Friday, March 27, 1998… Martha was one of the many VIPs invited to open the stadium for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball team. (NOTE: Martha had been the swing vote on the City Council that decided to build what is now Tropicana Field.) We saw them play their very first game there—beat the Atlanta Braves 5-0 in a spring exhibition.

November 26, 1997… Martha began an experimental test program through our neurologist. Don’t know whether she’s taking a placebo or the experimental drug, called Lazabemide. It sounds hopeful.

January 1998… (NOTE: At the time of Martha’s diagnosis, aluminum was thought to be a contributing cause of Alzheimer’s—maybe.) Once I read this, I tossed out all aluminum cookware. And I threw out all deodorants after I found one that didn’t contain aluminum. Do you know how many deodorants have aluminum?! I also ordered a water sample kit to test the local water for aluminum.

(NOTE: A couple of years later, researchers announced that this aluminum warning was a false alarm.)

February 1, 1998… Four months after her diagnosis Martha decided it was time to tell Frank and Grace Elizabeth (her parents), and we did at their house. It went well as could be expected. They were shocked, but very supportive.

A Note to our children...

Thanksgiving 1998

Dearest Rachel, Kathryn, & David…

This day, this year is especially meaningful to Mommie and me. You’ve shared fully in our fears and grief. We want you to share in our joy, too.

Enclosed are some thoughts spinning out of our 12-month visit with Mommie’s doctor. Your love, your warmth, and your prayers have been an incredible healing force in our fight with Mommie’s Alzheimer’s.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Mommie & Daddy

The enclosed is from my journal…

November 24, 1998

12-month review of Martha. Real good news! Her doctor says he detects no change in Martha from 12 months ago, maybe even a slight improvement. Short of a marked or full recovery, stabilization was our goal the past 12 months. Persons Martha’s age (50 at the time of her diagnosis) often decline precipitously, the doctor says. Martha has not. What has stabilized her?

• Martha’s experimental medication? Or was she on a placebo? (NOTE: Several months later we learned the drug was proved ineffective.)
• Exercise, especially swimming?
• Prayers of Father Matthew and Sister Elaine? Lacy’s prayers? Prayers of our friends?
• Our meditation and prayers for Martha’s healing?
• Martha’s staying active socially?
• My increased involvement in Martha’s life?
• The vitamin supplements heavy on anti-oxidants?
• Martha’s positive outlook and faith? Mine?
• The children’s support? Martha’s family’s?
• The doctor and his staff’s warmth and forthrightness?

Some or all of these things may have helped. Then maybe there’s something we haven’t even identified. I happen to believe all are contributing factors. Seeking God’s heart permits a healing atmosphere to form around us, within which these actions do have influence and within which the healing qualities of Martha’s body and mind emerge.

Thank you for your interest in these notes.

Carlen
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. Congratulations to Susan S., who won Anne Lamott’s book Traveling Mercies.

P.P.S. If you’d like to receive my free weekly posts, you may by clicking here.  

Is Alzheimer's a Baby Boomer's Greatest Fear?

All but four or five hands went up when I asked the question: “How many of you have a family member or friend who’s been touched by Alzheimer’s?”

I was speaking to about fifty members and guests of the Downtown St. Petersburg Rotary Club, one of the more active civic clubs in town.

  For my concerned friends: I did have a coat and tie on for my talk            with Rotary.

Frankly, I was surprised by the show of hands. I think I was expecting to see half of the audience, at most, acknowledging they’ve experienced the fallout from this disease to one degree or another.

But 45 of those 50 in attendance?!

Granted, this was a small sample of an older than average age group, but our story may have a wider reach than I’ve imagined. 

Seeing those hands go up reinforced a growing conviction of mine: Alzheimer’s ranks right at the top of baby boomers’ fears as this generation steamrolls into its 60’s and 70’s. It’s up there with cancer. 

I’ve written a manuscript and a lot of on-line posts about our family’s journey through Alzheimer’s, but this Rotary meeting was the first time I’ve talked publicly about our experience.

Despite being a bit rusty at public speaking, I could tell that more than a few in the audience seemed unusually attentive.

My friend Bob Carter told me afterwards that as I shared our experience he looked especially at those who didn’t know my wife Martha or me, and saw several with rather poignant looks on their faces.

I first read to these Rotarians an excerpt from an earlier post about the time we were told Martha has Alzheimer’s. She’d just turned fifty.

I also shared moments from our visit with the nun and the monk in Kentucky a few weeks after learning of Martha’s diagnosis.

Time was short, so I had to cut out some information from my talk, which you may find of interest. These facts and figures are from the Alzheimer’s Association and relate only to the United States:

1)    Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia. Early symptoms often include depression, apathy, and difficulty remembering recent conversations, names, and events. Later symptoms include impaired communication, disorientation, poor judgment, and difficulty speaking, swallowing, and walking.

2)    Alzheimer’s is the sixth-leading cause of death, and it’s the only one among the top ten causes of death that cannot be prevented, cured, or even slowed.

 3)    Between 2000 and 2013, deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s rose by 71 percent while deaths from other diseases declined—HIV/AIDS, down 52 percent; strokes, down 23 percent; heart disease, down 14 percent; prostate cancer, down 11 percent; and breast cancer, down 2 percent.

4)    Almost two-thirds of those persons with Alzheimer’s are women.

5)    Of those persons with Alzheimer’s, the burden shared by age group is:  

• Under 65—4 percent.    
• 65 to 74—15 percent.
• 75 to 84—43 percent.
• 85 and older—38 percen t.

6)    Of those persons 65 and older, one in nine has Alzheimer’s.

7)    An estimated 5.3 million individuals had Alzheimer’s in 2015. Approximately 200,000 are under 65.

8)    By 2025, the number of persons 65 and older with Alzheimer’s is estimated to grow from 5.1 million today to 7.2 million by 2025. That’s a 40 percent increase, barring any major medical breakthroughs.

      Source: 2015 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures report

These statistics are stark, and they can be scary. But I want to emphasize yet again that Alzheimer’s is not the focus of our family’s story. It’s the context: I can’t tell our story without talking about Alzheimer’s.

The focus of our story is the path that opened before us during our darkest hours. This path is not always easy to discern or to follow, but after several years it did lead Martha, our children, and me to a place that helped us transcend the emotional and mental distress precipitated by this disease.

These posts do not permit enough time or space to go into detail about where and how this path unfolded before us. That’s why I’ve written a book, which should come out this fall. Its working title-subtitle is A Path Revealed: How Hope, Love, and Joy Found Us Deep in a Maze Called Alzheimer’s.  

Thank you,
Carlen
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. If you’d like to receive my free weekly posts, please click here.

Peering into Anne Lamott's Weirdly Joyous World

Anne Lamott is a rare bird. A free-styling child of the ‘60s, this California girl could very well go down as one of her generation’s top-prize, blue-ribbon theologians.

Ohhh … I can already hear some of my friends screaming at me, those with Calvinistic or Augustinian tendencies.

Those familiar with Lamott know this best-selling author is not an academic theologian. She’s a confessional-let-it-all-hang-out, how-can-I-get-through-this-day kind. What Lamott is so good at is taking those stuffy religious phrases that nobody understands other than a few academics, rips them open to see what’s inside, and then lays out the innards for us all to see. She’s Frederick Buechner-like in the way she wields the English language as a knife to slit open the meaning of conventional religious talk, except she’s a dash more California-hip with her use of slang.   

I had been hearing about her for awhile before reading any of her works. The first book of hers that I read three years ago was Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. “That sounds straight enough, in fact a little stiff,” I thought before deciding to buy it.

Was I in for a surprising joyride.

Lamott’s background and style couldn’t be further from mine, but there are some striking echoes between our “faith-journeys.” For instance, neither of us woke up to the thinness of our beliefs until our lives crashed on to the rocks of reality. Hers from one too many cocaine overdoses. Mine when my wife Martha was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age fifty.

I’ve decided therefore to make Traveling Mercies the third book I’m giving away. My two earlier ones were Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and Father Matthew Kelty's My Song Is of Mercy. For those of you just joining us, I hold a free book drawing the last Friday of each month. That is, until I decide not to. You can catch the rules further down.

My writing can’t do justice to Lamott’s take on her life and views. So I’ll share three samples from Traveling Mercies.

In a section revealing her differing views of God when growing up, from pages 7 and 8:

“Looking back on the God my friend believed in, he seems a little erratic, not entirely unlike her father—God as borderline personality. It was like believing in the guy who ran the dime store, someone with a kind face but who was running behind and had already heard every one of your lame excuses a dozen times before—why you didn’t have a receipt, why you hadn’t noticed the product’s flaw before you bought it. This God could be loving and reassuring one minute, sure that you had potential, and then fiercely disappointed the next, noticing every little mistake and just in general what a fraud you really were. He was a God whom his children could talk to, confide in, and trust, unless his mood shifted suddenly and he decided instead to blow up Sodom and Gomorrah.”

When Anne Lamott felt like she was cracking up and going to die, she decided over serious doubts to visit an Episcopal minister named Bill, an old civil rights priest. Pages 41-43:

“I wasn’t remotely ready for Christianity, though. I mean, I wasn’t that far gone.”

“Still, I had never stopped believing in God since that day in Eva Grossman’s class. Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus.”

“(Bill) was about the first Christian I ever met whom I could stand to be in the same room with. Most Christians seemed almost hostile in their belief that they were saved and you weren’t. Bill said it bothered him too, but you had to listen to what was underneath their words. What did it mean to be saved, I asked, although I knew the word smacked of Elmer Gantry for both of us.”

Here’s Lamott’s take on “grace” from page 139:    

“I understand that Auden meant grace in the theological sense, meant it as the force that infuses our lives and keeps letting us off the hook. It is unearned love—the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.”

If you're unfamiliar with Lamott, this should give you a taste of her style and wit. If you do know her but haven’t read this book, you may want to put your name into Carlen’s Lotto drawing.

Psst … don’t let Lamott’s progressive politics throw you off. She injects that stuff at unexpected moments. If you don't share her political viewpoint, just do an end run to get to the meaningful insights.

Here are some quick rules if you want to sign up for this drawing:

• Anyone is eligible, whether you subscribe to my newsletter or not. Simply send an email to carlen@carlenmaddux.com between this Friday, March 25, and next Wednesday, March 30, by 11:59 PM EST. Indicate that you would like to be included in this month’s book giveaway. It will help me if you put in the subject line: BOOK GIVEAWAY.
• One person—maybe you!—will be selected at random from those entering. I will send you a confirmation email on Thursday, March 31. You will have 48 hours to respond to my email. If I don’t hear back from you by then, someone else will be selected at random.
• For more details, click Book Giveaway.

Thanks for tuning in.

Carlen
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. I sense that many of you are passing along my posts to family and friends. Thanks for doing that. If they would like to sign up for my free weekly posts, they can by clicking here.

"To Say Anything More Is Dangerous"

“Patients tend to move along the path of their expectations, whether on the upside or the downside.”

That’s a conclusion drawn by Norman Cousins after spending ten years on the staff of UCLA’s medical school. Cousins wrote about this experience in Head First: The Biology of Hope.

A second conclusion: “A strong will to live, along with other positive emotions—faith, love, purpose, determination, humor—are bio-chemical realities that can affect the environment of medical care. The positive emotions are no less a physiological factor on the upside than are the negative emotions on the downside.”

            Norman Cousins

These observations by the late editor of Saturday Review magazine are lifted from notes in the opening pages of my journal, which I began keeping shortly after my wife Martha was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in September 1997.

Rather than try to wrap up my thoughts in a cohesive theme, I thought it might be interesting for you to read some of my journal’s raw notes as Martha and I moved forward. The notes here are from October 1997, after our friend Rev. Lacy Harwell encouraged us to visit his friend at the Sisters of Loretto in Kentucky.

You may remember that while visiting Sister Elaine we also traveled nearby to the Abbey of Gethsemani and stumbled upon Father Matthew Kelty, whom Martha and I heard and met with over three days. These notes are from our time there:

• “Suffering has something to do with salvation. We know that much,” Fr. Matthew said in one of his homilies. “To say anything more is dangerous.”
• This poet-monk suggested we read together, aloud, from the “Immortal Poems of the English Language.”
• After Martha met privately with Fr. Matthew, he told us that suffering and illness offer no easy answer for why they occur. “This is now a spiritual journey,” he said while standing with us in the monastery library. “Don’t go bitter; draw on faith’s deepest strength. Drink deep from God’s well. It’s his gift.”
• He suggested that when Martha returned home she set aside a time for silence away from the house, in a favorite church or solitary spot. He also told Martha to take one of the monastery’s Psalters and use it as a devotional. The Psalter is the book of Psalms set to music akin to a Gregorian chant. Finally, Fr. Matthew looked straight into Martha’s eyes and said: “You came calling on me. You are now one of us. So from now on, you are in my prayer.”
• After Fr. Matthew left, Martha had difficulty explaining to me all they discussed during their private conversation. But I could tell that whatever it was, it was meaningful. For the first time in weeks, Martha’s face appeared relaxed. She carried herself with an air of confidence, as though she were saying, “I know something that you don’t.” Her eyes were as clear and blue as I’ve ever seen. Martha called Fr. Matthew “my new friend.”

Loretto Motherhouse--Nerinx KY              Photo by Patricia Drury

• During our time with Sister Elaine, she suggested: “You may want to look into the difference between willfulness and willingness. Examine your lives along these lines.” She pointed us to a book by Dr. Gerald G. May: Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology.
• Note to myself: I don’t have a clue as to what Sr. Elaine is getting at with this “willfulness and willingness.” I don’t think Martha does either. (Yet as I look back over this 17-year journey, this theme kept surfacing along the way: Am I willing or am I being willful? It still does).
• “Learning to trust God is your goal,” Sr. Elaine told us toward the end of our visit. She suggested structuring a set of daily disciplines or practices:

1. Realize that our foundation is a growing relationship with God.
2. Help provide emotional reinforcement for Martha.
3. Mental and physical exercises.
4. Look into alternative healing practices.

      Rev. Lacy Harwell

• We met with Lacy again shortly after returning from Kentucky, and shared our experiences with him.  These were his observations:

1.  Our program is sufficient—we must now work it.
2. Contemplative prayer depends on two things: Persistence and humility—not being articulate; not good works; not wealth; not good looks. Protestants have no contemplative prayer tradition, Lacy says. For this, he had to turn to the Catholics, who have a rich heritage.
3. Don’t become obsessed with Alzheimer’s. Do all that we know to do; give the disease to God; get into things Martha enjoys; move on with life.
4. Help Martha visualize herself in her favorite setting; visualize turning Alzheimer’s over to God.
5. Re. Martha telling her parents, ask Christ Jesus: a) to prepare them to receive the news; b) to show Martha the right time to tell them; and c) when we tell them, “You must get an absolute commitment to confidentiality. Only Martha can tell someone!!”
6. Finally, Lacy picked up on Fr. Matthew’s point about “suffering has something to do with salvation…” Lacy: “Something ‘beautiful’ will come out of this Alzheimer’s—be ready and watch for God’s hand.”

• As we prepared to leave Loretto, Sr. Elaine shared an ancient description of contemplative prayer from the Eastern Church: “Fold the wings of your mind. Put your mind in your heart. Come into the presence of God.”

As you can see, the advice we received in late 1997 along with my thoughts about how to proceed were scattered—and tentative, as I remember. But these ideas were good, and they needed time to take root.

Reviewing and sharing these raw notes today has refreshed me. I hope you find something meaningful here as well.

Thank you,
Carlen
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. I know you get tired of seeing this, but we do have new readers coming aboard all the time. So feel free to pass this post along to your family and friends, who may sign up for my free weekly newsletter here.

"I Didn't Say It Was Easy, Carlen. I Said It Works."

Those words from Canon Jim Glennon still ring in my mind after 17 years. He was discussing the critical need for me to stop focusing on our problems. My wife Martha had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years earlier, in 1997, and it seemed impossible to focus on little else but the symptoms exhibited daily by this disease.

Canon Glennon, now deceased, stayed on point with his message better than anyone I’ve met. We became good friends over the course of our six-year conversation. He led a spiritual healing ministry for decades in his Anglican church in Sydney, Australia. Jim’s message majored on two themes: The absolute need to forgive. And the often overlooked need to realize and accept God’s kingdom in all its richness and potency.

These themes may sound theological and “churchy” to you. And they can be. But Jim thought that their practical value was far more vital. He learned through hard experience that these two themes are at ground-zero for our health and well-being, whether mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual.

A caveat for those not into the spiritual: I’ve mentioned earlier that I cannot tell our story without discussing its spiritual implications. The only sane way I found to deal with Alzheimer’s over 17 years is through a deep exploration of the spiritual. While I have no desire to convince anyone of my thinking, please know that I can talk only about what I’ve seen, heard, and felt—what I’ve experienced.

        Canon Jim Glennon

I’ve shared a good bit about forgiveness here and here, so I won’t go there today. Instead, I’m diving into this “kingdom” that Jim emphasized so clearly in our conversations and in his book, Your Healing Is Within You.  

To do that I’m reopening a conversation between myself at 70 and me at 40. More specifically: How did I-at-40 deal with the pressures of running our business magazine, and how am I-at-70 trying to deal with the pressures of getting my book launched next fall? Those pressures are not dissimilar. There are deadlines to meet, stories to tell, copy to edit, plans to promote, connections to make, and never enough time to do all that you think needs to be done.

Me at 70 to me at 40: How did you handle those pressures—the fears, the risks, the successes, the rejections, the too many deadlines, the staff to manage? Not just with the magazine, but also with Martha’s civic and political career and with the children and their activities. Didn’t you like being that “on-the-go couple who could do it all”?

Me at 40: To be honest, no. On the surface, I think Martha and I did OK. But internally I was a mess. With so much coming at me so fast, I didn’t know what to do other than to let it sink deep within. After awhile things got so compressed there was little room for anything else. Anxiety and fear set in. So did irritability, self-righteousness, and resentments.

So what about you, Carlen at 70? How’s that book working out?

Our magazine's 2004 cover featuring    Tampa Bay's colony of nationally syndicated cartoonists.

Me at 70: I thought I had learned the hard lessons after Martha and I went through what we did. But the emotional stuff you’re describing is returning like some maniacal whirling dervish.  

Me at 40: So you’re handling the pressures no better than I did?

Me at 70: Yes and no. Yes, my inept response to these pressures has caught me by surprise. No, I am trying to use the “tools” I’ve learned to help me deal with them. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes not.

Me at 40: What kind of tools?

Me at 70: First and foremost is the assertion by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount: “Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness … do not be anxious about tomorrow…” (Matt. 6:33-34). This insight is now pivotal to my efforts in trying to cope with these pressures.

Me at 40: That sounds impractical, not to mention impossible.

Me at 70: I used to think so, too. There’s not enough time or space to flesh out my present understanding. But let me say this: The “kingdom” doesn’t refer to powerful governments, military might, and wealthy resources. Nor does it refer to church theologies, orthodoxies, policies, and the sweet by-and-by.  

The kingdom, as I see it today, is the ever-unfolding expression of God’s nature planted within me, within others, and within the world around us. It’s the real and practical applications of life, love, mindfulness, joy, trust, and hope toward every endeavor of my life, every need, and every relationship. I now interpret Jesus’ insight this way: When your problems overwhelm you, stop looking at them. Look instead on God’s character—focus on it, absorb it, rest in it. Then, Carlen, you won’t be anxious about tomorrow, regardless of your problems.   

Hearing that you may think I’ve got everything figured out, but I don’t. I’ll be working on this the rest of my life.

Me at 40: What do you mean?

Me at 70: Here’s a recent example. I awoke early one morning with an overwhelming fear that my book won’t reach the people it needs to, and I can’t do anything about it.

Me at 40: Oh, I know that kind of fear well.

Me at 70: Yes, you do. A fear of failing has tracked me throughout my life. This time I awoke, tossing and turning in bed. I moved to my chair to see if that would help. It didn’t. Sitting there, I kept trying to shift from the problems ricocheting through my mind to the Spirit’s peace and power. I was stuck in this mindset. Eventually, though, I sensed the Christ-presence within my imagination, his hand resting lightly on my shoulder. As I relaxed, that rock-hard fear began to crumble. I felt what I can only describe as divine Love trickling in, silently bringing a message: It’s OK to fail, Carlen. I’m in charge here.

A grain of gratitude opened within me, an awareness that I don’t have to be enslaved by such oppression. As this gratitude grew, I sensed this Love streaming through the dark corridors of my consciousness. I cried. Then I crawled back in bed and went to sleep.

This brief experience is a glimpse into my unfolding view of God’s kingdom and its dynamic nature.

Me at 40: Did it accomplish anything?

Me at 70: Hard to tell immediately. I believe, though, that it’s better to let a power greater than me confront those issues in real time than to let those fears slink away into my subconsciousness. Will similar fears return? Probably. But no longer am I forced to let them shape and cement my personality.

Carlen
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. Thirty years ago, Canon Glennon gave a series of talks on God’s kingdom, which were transcribed into 15 daily meditations. If you’d like a free PDF copy, please email me at carlen@carlenmaddux.com. Subject line: Meditations.

P.P.S. Congratulations to Anne M. for winning my latest book, Father Matthew Kelty’s My Song Is of Mercy. 

P.P.S. As always, feel free to share this post with your family and friends. They can sign on to my free newsletter by clicking here.

How a Friend Found Meaning in a Job Loss

Has a key breadwinner in your family lost their job with no prospects in sight? Or have you ever felt trapped in a job by your need to earn an income?

I suspect few of us have been lucky enough to not feel these pressures at one point in our lives. If you're among the unlucky, then you know that these uncertain periods often can be as stressful and fearful as a dread disease. When you’re stranded like that, you’re often left wondering: Is there any meaning to all this? If so, where is it?

Nancy Nordenson was confronted by such questions nearly a decade ago. She was a freelance medical writer from Minneapolis who felt an inner desire, a deep calling if you will, to a more spiritual form of literary work. But just as she began that transition her husband lost his job. Their two sons were still in college, and she had started a two-year program to earn a Master’s of Fine Art in Creative Writing.

“Should I quit school and postpone this perceived calling?” Nancy asks, reflecting back on that period. “Or stay in school and continue my full-time job of medical writing?” Did she even have a choice?

Nancy decided to do both. “It was a complex time,” she says simply.

It was during this period, when her husband needed space at home for his job search, that her office and worktable sharply symbolized the degree of that complexity, as Nancy portrays in her book, Finding Livelihood: A Progress of Work and Leisure.  

She writes in the essay ‘A Place at the Table’: “Sometimes I walk past the door, see the lamp’s glow cast across the desk, and miss sitting there so badly. I glimpse my husband’s white coffee cup and long to throw it away and replace it with the cup of my choosing. I see the worktable covered with his stacks and want to clear them off with a single defiant sweep of my arm. I’d pull my chair up to the table and reclaim it. Toss his notes of false leads and plate of leftover lunch. Hang a NO TRESPASSING sign on the door.”

“I was angry,” Nancy says today. “When I started writing that particular essay, it was a kind of vent.”

Writing about that job loss and consequent financial pressure turned out to be the seed crystal from which her book sprang.

Her book is not a memoir. And it’s certainly not a self-help guide book. Instead, Nancy’s book is a deep, and at times humorous, exploration into our working lives. Her book asks: How and where do I find meaning in my work, no matter what I’m doing?  

And yet there’s something more. Intentionally or otherwise, Nancy uses work as a metaphor for a deeper probe into the realm of life itself: How do I find meaning in my life, regardless of my circumstance?

That’s exactly the question that pressed on Martha and me after her diagnosis in 1997. I just didn’t know it at the time. Only through wrestling with the symptoms of Alzheimer’s for 17 years did this question come clear. Its answers, too.

Nancy’s initial essay and resultant book was “a cleansing process.” It was difficult to sense any meaning, she says, when it felt like “God had pulled a bait-and-switch.”

Eventually, though, her anger and fear subsided. “Our guiding principle,” she says of her husband, “was to stay committed to each other, to stay committed to God, and to stay committed to our sons. I don’t remember one big meeting between my husband and me; we just kept confirming we’re in this together.”

The meaning of it all didn’t unfold instantaneously. Eight years transpired from that first essay to the publication of her book in early 2015. Says Nancy: “As the shaping and re-shaping of my book moved forward, I saw that God’s call is not for just one aspect of my life. You can’t pick apart your life. Meaning has to work for the whole package.”

“I really came to realize that without periods of contemplation and prayer (individually and as a couple), I couldn’t see the wholeness in all we were doing.” She couldn’t fathom the mystery of it all, she adds. “It’s all part of that spiritual journey.”

What would have been the fallout, if any, had Nancy not searched for the meaning underlying their circumstance? 

“I think you would fall into this trap of ‘Is this all there is?’” she says. “If you don’t look for that transcendent reality, there’s little or no joy, no hope. There’s a hole of bitterness that would make it hard to stay together.”       

Nancy continues today with her full-time medical writing. “It’s good work for which I’m grateful, and I’ve never doubted that it’s meaningful work,” she says, even though she would have liked to divide her time more evenly between it and spiritual creative writing.  

In writing Finding Livelihood, she wanted to “push back” at the directives that “impress on us to follow our passion and our desires as the way to meaningful work.” That’s what a number of life coaches and teachers, secular as well as Christian, are telling us today, she says.

“These principles of ‘common wisdom’ are not universal truths at all,” she says. “They’re not even biblical. They leave out people who choose to stay in a paying job to earn needed money. They leave out those who do everything they can to do the work they think God wants them to do, but hit a dead end. They leave out everyone whose work life is less than ideal.”

Nancy closes our conversation: “Surely we all have access to meaning regardless of our jobs or our place in life or our situation. We all can be in the flow of God’s grace.”

“We all have God's call on us in all kinds of different and mysterious ways that not even we can know the specifics of for ourselves, and sometimes all we can do is stay in relationship through prayer and Scripture and other kinds of devotion and trust that our path is his.”

Thank you, Nancy. These insights are good regardless of our crisis. You can find Nancy's website here.

Since starting this blog last September, I’ve written largely about how our family was forced to contend with Alzheimer’s. But I’ve tried to be clear: The focus of our story is the spiritual path that unfolded before my wife Martha and me. Alzheimer’s happens to have been the context of our story, not its focus. So on occasion I am broadening my posts to include others—like Nancy and Dr. David Compton—who are willing to share how they’ve dealt with life-changing crises, regardless of the issue.

Thanks for tuning in. Carlen.
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. Those of you from St. Petersburg might be interested to know that Nancy (Erickson) Nordenson grew up here and graduated from Northeast High in 1975. One of her first paying jobs was as a teen model with the now defunct downtown Maas Brothers department store.

P.P.S. You can read my future posts, and my past ones, by signing up for my free newsletter here.

The Monk of Mercy and My Next Book Giveaway

Still fresh on my mind, Father Matthew Kelty has a book that deepened and broadened my take on forgiveness and mercy, and on learning to actually enjoy the process. My wife Martha and I read it nearly two decades ago, shortly after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

My Song Is of Mercy is as fresh today as it was then.

So I’ve decided to make it the second book I’m giving away. For those who’ve recently signed on, I began in January to give away monthly a book that meant something to us along this path.

                            Father Matthew Kelty at his finest

My Song Is of Mercy is not a how-to-forgive book. Rather, it’s a collection of Fr. Matthew’s homilies and sermons spanning nearly a quarter century from 1970 to 1993. When Martha and I read it, we laughed, we cried, we danced, and we sought forgiveness. It’s a prime reason why I call Fr. Matthew the Monk of Mercy.

The opening third of the book is a revised edition of the popular Flute Solo, Fr. Matthew’s reflections on his eight-year stay as a solitary, or hermit, in Papua New Guinea. He reflects back on that period as having been “…there long ago singing psalms on a hill by the sea on the north coast. One could have done worse. Praise God!”

The balance of the book is a compilation of 69 homilies and sermons. These talks cover a wide range of topics—from monastic architecture to the rising cost of a McDonald’s cup of coffee to Fr. Matthew barreling into town in a bright red convertible, monk’s habit flapping in the wind.         

Here’s a sampling of titles:
~ The Pansy Sermon
~ Two Men Went Up to the Temple to Pray
~ Losers Get Prizes, Too
~ Knock Your Socks Off Christianity

If My Song Is of Mercy captures your fancy and you’d like to participate in this round of what I call Carlen’s Lotto, here are a few rules:

• Anyone is eligible, whether you subscribe to my newsletter or not. Simply send an email to carlen@carlenmaddux.com between this Friday, February 26, and next Wednesday, March 2, by 11:59 PM EST. Indicate that you would like to be included in this month’s book giveaway. It will help me if you put in the subject line: BOOK GIVEAWAY.
• One person—maybe you!—will be selected at random from those entering. I will send you a confirmation email on Thursday, March 3. You will have 48 hours to respond to my email. If I don’t hear back from you by then, someone else will be selected at random.
• For more details, click Book Giveaway rules.

Thank you,
Carlen Maddux
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. If you'd like to sign up for my free newsletter, you can by clicking here.

How My Book Is Being Launched

“Now that you’ve written your book and waiting for it to come out, what are you doing with all your time?”

I’ve heard that question often enough in one version or another that I decided to write this note to set the record straight.

Having been in the newspaper and magazine business for four decades, I knew there would be a lot of moving parts to publishing a book. Little did I know!
 

Launching a boat is easier than launching a book. Martha with Kathryn in her lap; David at the helm; Rachel in my lap—a decade before Martha’s diagnosis.

First off, as much as I enjoy writing these posts they require more time and emotional energy than I initially thought. (Reflecting on this, a tangential memory came to mind that I share in my P.S. below.)   

The second thing I quickly learned: The days of an author writing his book and doing little else are long gone—unless you’re a Stephen King or J.K. Rowling.

As a result, I’m in the process of developing and executing my book’s marketing and promotional plans for the day it comes out. The latest I’ve heard from my publisher, Paraclete Press, is that my book should be released by late September. Cross your fingers.

With that date in mind, here are some things I’m doing. Don’t worry. I won’t bore you with too much business jargon.

Paraclete and I are partners in this effort, and I’m letting them do what they do best: Connect and promote to their network of several thousand, including distributors, book stores, libraries, churches, conferences, organizations, magazines and journals, individuals, and seminaries.

On my front, I’m developing plans for both an air game and a ground game.

You’re a key player in my ‘air game’ strategy. As a recipient of my email and Facebook posts, you’re helping me increase the number of prospective readers by passing along my posts to family and friends. Since launching my blog last September, scores of new subscribers have signed on. So thank you for helping swell our ranks.

Also as part of this air game:
1)    I’m working with an online consultant named Dan Blank. He set up my website, my email service company, and my Facebook and Twitter accounts. More importantly, he’s helping me explore and take advantage of online expansion possibilities.
2)    I’m seeking guest post opportunities. I have one scheduled right now; I just need to write it. I’ll let you know when it’s done.
3)   I’ll be calling on you as I assemble my “Street Team.” Anyone interested in helping will get a free advance version of my book. I’ll be asking for two or three favors in return, all voluntary of course. As these plans shape up, you’ll be the first to know.

Now a quick look at my ‘ground game.’ I’m focused locally on engaging with the people and groups Martha and I have come to know through our 40 years in St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay.

Here are a few of my efforts:
1)    I’m coordinating with my PR friend Bob Carter to help me connect with civic groups, book stores, and churches. Also with the local media, including radio, TV, and newspapers.
2)    I have my first speaking engagement in March. Wish me luck.
3)    I’m meeting with local pastors and briefing them in advance of my book’s launch, asking them at the right time to inform their members and others in their network.
4)   I’ll also connect with friends in my hometown of Cookeville, TN, and in Montreat, NC, which is a major retreat center for the Presbyterian Church USA. We’ve had a summer cabin there since the early ‘80s.

Whew! That’s enough for now. Makes me tired thinking about it.

One last point: I’ve been asked several times if my blog posts are the same as my book’s story. They’re similar but not the same. They are similar in that both focus on the spiritual path that opened before Martha and me after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1997. The context of that journey—not its focus—happens to be Alzheimer’s.

My book reveals in fuller depth the stories, mentors, places, relationships, insights, and revelations we encountered as we traveled along this 17-year path. My posts echo some of these stories, but they’re not identical. If you’re unaware, my book’s working title and subtitle is: A Path Revealed: How Hope, Love, and Joy Found Us Deep in a Maze Called Alzheimer’s.

Last Week’s Post on Father Matthew and Forgiveness
The interaction with last week’s post tells me that some folks have experienced as much trouble with forgiveness as I have. A one-page guide helped me considerably when I didn’t know how to move forward. If you would like a copy of that, email me at carlen@carlenmaddux.com. Please put in the subject line: The Guide.

Thank you,
Carlen
www.carlenmaddux.com

A Parenthetical P.S. A memory arose as I thought about the time and energy I’m investing in my posts. I was reminded of a former boss at the nationally recognized St. Petersburg Times, the late Editor and President Eugene C. Patterson. Earlier in his career Patterson, a Pulitzer Prize winner, served as Editor of the Atlanta Constitution while also writing a column every day of the week during the white-hot civil rights years of 1960-1968. An amazing feat. It’s one thing to concentrate on writing and editing. It’s quite another to do that during one of the most tumultuous eras this country has ever experienced, the South in particular, all while overseeing a huge staff. I stand in awe.  

P.P.S. If you haven’t yet, you can sign up for my free e-newsletter here.

How Learning to Forgive Changed My Life

Faced with the most severe challenge of our lives, my wife Martha and I learned that choosing not to forgive, consciously or unconsciously, can seriously impact our health and well-being, not to mention our relationships. Not forgiving on any and every front can permit fear and bitterness to fester and grow deep within. And we were scared.

Until Martha was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I naively thought that I could choose who, when, and where to forgive, as long as I remained nice enough on the outside. So did Martha. I’ve shared before about our need to forgive; I’m afraid I can’t share this enough. It took two guides to set Martha and me straight. One was Canon Jim Glennon of Sydney. The other was Father Matthew Kelty.

Fr. Matthew is the monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani who was Thomas Merton’s good friend and confessor. He befriended Martha when we visited in the fall of 1997, shortly after her diagnosis. We heard Fr. Matthew’s homilies for three straight nights. He met with Martha one afternoon, and gave her a special blessing along with a Psalter (the Psalms set to song). Martha kept that Psalter nearby for the longest time.

Fr. Matthew, now deceased, was a unique man. This Boston Irishman was a classic curmudgeon—crusty on the outside, warm on the inside. He was a poet, a writer, a hermit, a monk, a teacher, a storyteller. In other words, a child of God. When listening to him, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’ve heard and read him enough that I call him the Monk of Mercy. In another era he may have been a troubadour, singing songs of mercy wherever he traveled.

I recently discovered one of Fr. Matthew’s homilies online. It’s in two parts:

Part 1: Fr. Matthew Kelty on Forgiving God.
Part 2: Fr. Matthew Kelty on Forgiving My Neighbor and Myself.

Some quick points he makes:

• To forgive God is no small thing.
• To forgive your neighbor is a tall order, but there’s no dodging the issue.
• Of the three—God, neighbor, self—forgiving myself is the worst. Here’s where the lack of mercy becomes most obvious.
• Forgiveness is a superb act of love.

I understand what it’s like to read online posts—you scan and then delete.

But if you can set aside 30 minutes today or over the weekend to see and hear this poet-monk talk on forgiveness, it may very well change the trajectory of your life. It did ours.

If you have only 15 minutes, then start with Part 2.

Thank you,
Carlen
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. Congratulations to Jenny M! Her name was randomly drawn for the first book I’m giving away—Thomas Merton’s autobiography Seven Storey Mountain. The next drawing from Carlen’s Lotto will be Friday, February 26. Stay tuned.  

P.P.S. Thank you for forwarding these posts to your family and friends. They may, if interested, sign up for my free newsletter here.

What a Doctor Prescribes on Learning He Has Alzheimer’s

“If I can get into the woods, I’m happy. I make sure I take my camera, back pack, poncho, and my iPhone with its maps. I study those maps repeatedly, obsessively.” 

That’s Dr. David Compton. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in May of 2015, although he and his wife began to wonder what was going on back in 2011. 

“I quit my family practice in early 2014,” he says. He was one of nine partners in his clinic. “I was having a terrible time remembering. I was going into the office first and leaving last, getting up at 4 o’clock to do my paperwork. We began using Electronic Medical Records (EMR), and I just couldn’t pick up on the technology.” He reverted to using pen and pad, he says, but instead of using one pad at a time as he always did, he had several scattered throughout his office. 

“I was getting quite depressed.”  

“This piece of driftwood looks just like a sea serpent. It’s gotten lots of comments on Instagram and Facebook.”

David lives in the Knoxville area where he practiced family medicine for 30 years in nearby Oak Ridge. He and I grew up in the same small Tennessee town of Cookeville, and our families went to the same church. Until recently, our paths had not crossed since 1963 when I graduated from high school. David graduated nine years later. Our sisters were good friends.

He’s willing to discuss his challenges publicly, David says, because “talking about this helps me to know where I’ve been and where I am now.” It’s another form of mapping, which he’s always done. “As a kid, I drew maps all over my room.”

While still practicing, David says he was overcome with ‘panic attacks.’ “The struggle was worsening every day.” Those attacks disappeared when he retired, although nightmares continued for a while. “But I rarely have one anymore.”

When hit with the diagnosis last May, he says, “It took me six months to accept it. I was not displaying the symptoms I’d seen in some of my older patients. Finally, my doctor told me that we’d caught this at a very early stage, and she said, ‘That’s a good thing.’”

David works closely with a therapist to help cope with fear and other issues that arise. They meet for an hour or so every other week. The counselor helps him set up daily routines and stick with them.

“I don’t have as much fear now that I’ve accepted the diagnosis,” he says. “And I’m no longer afraid for our future, although I am still concerned. I could always solve problems easy. But now I get frustrated, super-frustrated.”

A top priority for David is to reduce the stress in his life. “I probably would still be working if I’d been in a less demanding career.”

A key to reducing the stress, he says, is to walk up to five miles every day, weather permitting. David is usually alone when he goes trekking out in the woods. “I make sure my iPhone (with its maps and GPS) is fully charged.”

“This was taken on a nice cool day. I was struck by the ripple of the waters with the leaf floating along. I just love the ripple effects.”

Other ways David seeks to relax and relieve stress include:

• Photography. He picked up this hobby after retiring. “I use these pictures to help remind me what I felt when I was there.” He seems to have a natural eye, based on the three photos shown here. 
   
• He’s applied to get into a Phase 2 experimental study for persons at his particular stage with this disease. “This is an exciting time in Alzheimer’s research,” he says. 
   
• He goes to an inner city church on Tuesdays where he helps prepare and serve meals. Very important to him is Jesus’ statement in Matthew 25:35-40: “…for I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.…” Says David: “Nobody in the United States should go to bed hungry.”
   
• “I deal with my frustration and anger not by just talking about it,” he says, “but by doing something about it.” Like serving meals and walking in the woods and shooting photos.

“I got a new camera to help me with flower shots. I remember this was taken on a pretty hot day. When I saw this flower I thought, ‘Gosh, this is so beautiful.’ ” 

A big problem now, he says, “is struggling to put words together.” That, however, did not surface during our telephone conversations, which were fluent and coherent.

“I like that part of your post (from two weeks ago) about defying the verdict,” says David. 

“As my doctor tells me, my ‘job’ now is to eat correctly, walk five miles a day, do other exercise, and do all the brain exercise I can tolerate. That’s how I will try to defy the verdict.” 

Thank you, Dr. David Compton, for your willingness to share with us. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.

Carlen Maddux
 www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. As usual, feel free to forward this post. If you haven’t yet, you may sign up to receive my free weekly newsletter here. 

Thomas Merton, Me, and My Free Book Giveaway

Let’s have some fun. With this post I’m announcing a book-a-month giveaway. For starters I’m offering a book by Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk. For free. All you have to do is enter and be the lucky one to have your name drawn. Call it the Carlen Lotto. 

Here’s why I’m picking Merton as my first author. 

Last September, Pope Francis blew away some thick cobwebs from my memory. That’s when he spoke to members of the U.S. Congress, calling out Merton in the same breath with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and social activist Dorothy Day.

I was reminded instantly of the role Merton played early in our journey when my wife Martha was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I was struck by this realization: Few authors have influenced the direction of my thinking more than Thomas Merton. Last week I mentioned briefly how his writings helped prepare me for our crisis.

Merton died a couple of decades before I discovered him in the early 1990s. Out of that discovery I learned, among other things, about St. Anthony and the other Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 3rd and 4th centuries; about St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross of the 16th century; and about the practice of contemplative prayer and a simple but meaningful approach to reading Scripture called Lectio Divina.

Scanning my bookshelves today, I see three dozen or more books that Merton wrote, or that were written about him, or that he’d directed me to. I spent a week alone in Merton’s hermitage (or cabin) in the thick of our crisis, about which I devote a chapter in my forthcoming book. And Martha and I, shortly after her diagnosis, met with the monk who was a Merton “trainee” and ultimately was Merton’s confessor, who also quickly became the object of Martha’s school-girl crush.      

The Merton Book I’m Giving Away

Among the first books I read of Merton’s was his best-selling autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. It fascinated me: born to artist parents in France; losing his mother at six; shuffling between America and Europe; trying on a bohemian lifestyle. A student at Columbia University, Merton showed early signs of a brilliant literary future when, at 26, he decided to become a Trappist monk and entered the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Five years later, he wrote this autobiography. Few people have the courage—or is it the audacity?—to write an autobiography when they are 31 years old.

I read this book a couple of decades ago, so I suspect my take today would be different from when I was in my late 40s. Even Merton is said to have had second thoughts. In 1998, Merton’s friend and book publisher Robert Giroux wrote in a piece for The New York Times: “Two years before (Merton’s) death he wrote a preface to the Japanese edition of The Seven Storey Mountain, containing his second thoughts about the book almost 20 years after he had written it: ‘Perhaps if I were to attempt this book today, it would be written differently. Who knows? But it was written when I was still quite young, and that is the way it remains. The story no longer belongs to me. ’ ”

Regardless, The Seven Storey Mountain is still a fresh and worthwhile read, having influenced millions through the years. So this is the book I’m giving away today, the paperback edition. If you’re interested in participating, here are some rules of the road: 

• Anyone is eligible, whether you subscribe to my newsletter or not. Simply send an email to carlen@carlenmaddux.com between this Friday, January 29, and next Wednesday, February 3, by 11:59 PM EST. Indicate that you would like to be included in this month’s book giveaway. It will help me if you put in the subject line: BOOK GIVEAWAY.
• One person—maybe you!—will be selected at random from those entering. I will send you a congratulatory email on Thursday, February 4. You will have 48 hours to respond to my email. If I don’t hear back from you by then, someone else will be selected at random.
• I plan to give away several more books from different authors in the coming months, via posts on the last Friday of the month.
• For more details, click Book Giveaway. 

A Poignant Ending

With the recent celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I’ll close with this story. Merton and King had never met as far as I can tell, although they had corresponded for a few years. Both were, among many things, peace activists opposing the Vietnam War. They had several mutual friends, including the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who was exiled from Vietnam for his opposition to the war.  

Merton invited King to Gethsemani for some much needed rest. King finally found the time for a visit, and let Merton know in early 1968 he would come to Gethsemani after a stopover in Memphis to support a strike by black sanitary workers.

Eight months after King’s assassination, Merton was accidentally killed in Bangkok, the victim of an electrical shock. King was 39; Merton, 53.

I wonder to this day what might have emerged had this Baptist minister and Catholic monk been able to share experiences face-to-face, in communion with God and with each other.          

Thanks, Carlen
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. Feel free to send this offer to your friends. If you haven’t signed up for my free weekly newsletter and would like to, please go here. 

Note: The photograph of Thomas Merton is by John Lyons. Used with permission of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY.

Why Didn’t I Just Accept Our Fate, and Live with It?

Over lunch recently a friend asked me, “Why did you go to those monasteries and fly all the way to Australia? I don’t know many who would do that.” 

After pausing he then asked: “What were you looking for?”

I’ve often asked myself that question since 1997, when my wife Martha was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I’m still not sure what prompted my search. Nor am I certain what I was looking for other than I wanted to find a way out of our crisis—a dire situation that was impossible to escape, the medical community said back then. It still does.   

So why didn’t I just accept our fate, and live with it? Live with it in a suffering, stoic kind of way

As I reflect on this question, I see several influencers along the path that arose before Martha and me.

First off, Martha and I rarely, if ever, faced a problem that didn’t have either a solution or some way around it. Why should this be any different? Martha had been heavily involved in local politics, and if one tactic didn’t work a couple of others usually did. I experienced the same with the magazine I launched and ran for 26 years. Call us naïve, but that was the way our minds worked. 

A sharp influence was Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and writer. I began reading him a few years before Martha’s diagnosis. I’d been raised in a rather stringent Protestant church, and this Catholic monk’s exploratory approach to life and spirituality lit up my heart and mind. He pointed me to Christian traditions and practices that I’d never heard of, let alone experienced. I’ll describe more of his influence in a later post.

Then there was the nun in Kentucky who we visited soon after Martha’s diagnosis. This nun’s faith echoed Merton’s---humble, inquisitive, and experiential. Her last words to us were, “You might want to explore meditation and alternative forms of healing.”

I took her seriously. 

One of the first “medical” books I read was by Norman Cousins, the late author and former editor of Saturday Review magazine. In Head First: The Biology of Hope, Cousins marshaled scientific evidence that backed up his hard-won conviction that “the mind can help mobilize the body’s healing resources.”

Years before, he had developed a mysterious illness that doctors declared was irreversible and likely fatal. Cousins took matters into his own hands, as he describes in an earlier book, Anatomy of an Illness. I vividly remember two of his tactics: First, working with his primary physician he moved from the hospital to a nearby hotel room. The hotel was quieter, more restful, and more sanitary, he said, offering an improved chance for healing. Besides, he added half tongue-in-cheek, the hotel was much less expensive. 

Second, he contacted his friend Allen Funt. Those of you old enough will remember Funt as the producer and director of the popular TV show Candid Camera. Cousins asked for Funt’s back episodes. Once in hand, Cousins began to watch them, belly-laughing his way through an otherwise desperate situation. He ultimately recovered his health, and Cousins subsequently was invited to serve as an adjunct professor at UCLA’s School of Medicine (the only lay person to have been so invited), where he did research on the biochemistry of human emotions. 

After reading his books, I embraced Cousin’s mantra with a passion: “Don’t deny the diagnosis. Try to defy the verdict.” I set out to defy the verdict that the name “Alzheimer’s” had rendered to Martha and me in so many ugly ways. 

Another strong influence is the late Canon Jim Glennon, the Anglican minister with a spiritual healing ministry in Sydney, Australia. I’ve written about him here and here and here. These many years later, his message still resonates within me: “Either focus on God and his kingdom, Carlen, or focus on your problems. You can’t do both.” His book, Your Healing Is Within You, along with a set of his tapes and our friendship continue to deeply influence my thinking and daily practice. 

As I reflect back on the early years of our path, I realize that I was running with a mindset that can only be described as desperate and stubborn: “I’m going to find a way out of this, or die trying.” These are the traits that the nun in Kentucky called me out on when she suggested that both Martha and I explore the difference between “willfulness and willingness.”  I describe this conversation more fully in my forthcoming book, A Path Revealed.    

I recall Jesus’ statement: “Seek and you will find.” Over the course of seventeen, often fitful years I came to understand his statement this way: You won’t necessarily find what you’re looking for initially. But you will receive what you need.

And what our family continues to receive I would trade for nothing else.  

Thanks, 
Carlen 

www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. Last week I put forward a request. I’ve had such a strong response to the posts where I, at 70, am talking with me at 40, I’d like to hear from you: What’s the one thing you would tell your younger self if you could? Look back at least a decade, preferably further.  

If you’re up for sharing this publicly please email me at carlen@carlenmaddux.com. Try to keep it to 100 words or less. If I get enough of these I’ll share them with the rest of us. And PLEASE put in the subject line: MY STORY; otherwise I might miss it.

“That’s My Mom, Bringing Joy to Others”

“After a year and a half, the caregiver reality is beginning to set in for me,” a fellow traveler wrote. “I have to keep track of everything now. Thanks for what you are doing. I look forward to your newsletter and book.”

Last week I shared why your story calls out mine, and mine yours. If you’re just now reading my posts, my wife Martha was diagnosed in 1997 with Alzheimer’s, at the early age of fifty. As I go forward with this blog, I’ll be sharing more how others are contending with their own particular crises, whether they are dealing with Alzheimer’s, cancer, other health issues, or job and family and financial crises.

Here are a few more stories I’ve received, edited and abbreviated for conciseness. Again, I maintain their confidentiality…

• “Your first newsletter was very emotional for me as I struggled to read it without bursting out in tears. It’s like a walk through a part of Martha’s life I didn’t know. I continue to be amazed at her art work.”

(To see more of Martha’s art after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, click the picture above, titled “Piano Man.”)

• “I’ve found contemplative or meditative prayer to be an invaluable part of my daily life. I trust it helps me be more attentive to that ‘still, small voice,’ which has so much more to say than my own tiresome thoughts.”
   
• “I just forwarded your email to several close friends who deeply appreciate it. As usual, I found myself with tears, empathy, joy, excitement as I read through your note while responding with ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Your way of transparency, of combining empathy and efficiency, truth and love…it’s so helpful. Poetry and art, sweat work, play—there are so many tools in God’s hands to help us heal and grow.”
   
• “Everyone has been, or will be, touched by an illness like Alzheimer’s. And I’m no exception. My mother, now 94, has suffered from dementia for nearly two decades. For years we’ve asked ourselves what purpose is being served by her continued life, albeit a life of quiet and comfort.
  
  “One brother offered up this possible answer: When he visited our mother recently, a worker in the nursing home introduced herself. ‘Some days get pretty bad around here,’ she said, ‘but I know I can come in and visit your mother. She always makes me feel better.’ 
  
  “That’s my mom, bringing joy to others even if she doesn’t realize it. But down deep, really deep, she probably does.”
   
• “Your writing is thought provoking. The night after I read your post on forgiveness I had this insight that to forgive as God forgives includes releasing others from my judgment, condemnation, and criticism—to allow God space in my heart for His creative, restorative, reconciling action. Judging is so ingrained in our culture and every culture I’m familiar with. Maybe forgiveness means for me to pray as God prays, think as God thinks, react as God reacts. This is a totally humbling goal, and without God's direct intervention I can never do this.”
   
• “I’ve been journaling for many years. I sometimes refer to it as my ‘communion time’ with God. I can speak to and hear God more clearly and feel more uplifted and inspired. I also use my journals to think of the hundreds of things I have to be grateful for each day and to acknowledge their Source. To focus on the blessings helps lighten the darkness of anger, confusion, loneliness, and despair.”

While reviewing these and other responses during Christmas week, I was listening to this moving five-minute rendition of O Come, O Come Emmanuel by The Piano Guys. As I did, tears filled my eyes. For this carol took on a richness I’d never realized. This hymn, this week, was calling out your stories and mine from somewhere deep within: “O come, o come…”

In closing, Frederick Buechner shares more from Telling Secrets: “Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity…that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally.”

I hope you find these stories as meaningful as I do.

Carlen
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. I do have an immediate request. I’ve had such a strong response to the posts where I at 70 am talking with me at 40, I’d like to hear from you: What’s the one thing you would tell your younger self if you could? Look back at least a decade, preferably further.  

If you’re up for sharing this publicly please email me at carlen@carlenmaddux.com, trying to keep it to 100 words or less. If I get enough of these I’ll share them with the rest of us. And PLEASE put in the subject line: MY STORY; otherwise I might miss it. 

Why Your Story Calls Out Mine, and Mine Yours

When I set out last September to share takeaways from our family’s story with Alzheimer’s, I was a bit scared. It’s risky business laying your life out there publicly and not knowing how it would be received. My worst fear was dead silence—that there would be no response.

That fear was misplaced. 

I’m unsure what my expectations were, but the response has far exceeded my best hope. Hundreds of folks have signed on to receive my blog posts via email. And from the feedback I’ve received I sense that scores more are reading pass-alongs or catching my posts on Facebook.

A handful of friends from my elementary-school years are following our story, and even more from high school. This is my second-grade class, the picture compliments of Mollie, Nick, Ella, and Jenny. Guess where I am. (Psst…I’ll let you know at the end of this post.)

A little over half of the subscribers reading our takeaway posts are friends, acquaintances, or family. As for the remainder, I have no idea how they showed up. But I’m glad they did. 

A former newspaper colleague and I have reconnected after three decades. Another reading my posts crossed paths with Martha early in our marriage and kept up with her during her City Council days. I’ve heard from a football teammate who I haven’t seen since Georgia Tech. An adult friendship has begun with a guy several years my junior—we haven’t seen each other since 1963, when I graduated from high school.

As you might expect, several who are reading these posts have dealt with or are contending with varying degrees of dementia, either as patient or caregiver. But a lot more seem to be wrestling with a wide variety of crises. 

In all, I’ve heard from a hundred or more folks sharing their own stories.   

What’s going on? 

In Telling Secrets, Frederick Buechner describes it this way: “But I talk about my life anyway because if, on the one hand, hardly anything could be less important, on the other hand, hardly anything could be more important. My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.”

While maintaining confidentiality here are some of the responses I’ve received, which I’ve edited for conciseness… 

• “Thank you so much for writing about forgiveness. I am turning 45 tomorrow and want to add this to my journey. I have a sibling where forgiveness is a constant issue because just as I work through one she adds another. Maybe I’m forgiving incidents rather than the person, myself, and the relationship…”
   
• “I could hardly imagine a worse disease than Alzheimer’s. My husband was diagnosed with it—his was not early onset, as he was much older than your Martha. I am extremely interested in knowing more about how other families coped with the challenges.”
   
• “I do struggle with a lot of fear. I feel as if I have lost control of life’s course but have realized that I never really had control. That is a false perception on my part. That I need to let God be God. But then fear creeps back up. So it’s a cycle.”
   
• “Once again I’m in tears. Not only do I have my journey with my husband’s illness, but also one of my dearest friends is going through early onset Alzheimer’s. So your words make me cry, laugh, and be grateful. Thank you.”
   
• “I have been in a Bible study with the same girls for nine years. I am sharing your blurbs with them every Wednesday. We are getting so excited about your book. I love that you are writing from your heart and soul. I’m already looking for my quiet places that you wrote about.”
   
• “We always celebrate Thanksgiving where my wife grew up. It’s always with a blended family; attendance ranges from 30 to 60. Soon after I arrived on Thursday I was chatting with the host, who normally offers a pre-meal prayer, and I showed him your email on A Thanksgiving Memory. He asked if he could use the prayer you sent, and of course I agreed. His recitation was a moving one.” 
   

I’ll close with a link to a website post you may want to check out. While aimed at caregivers contending with Alzheimer’s, many of these hard-learned lessons would make good chicken soup for almost any crisis: 25 Lessons Learned from Alzheimer’s Caregivers. 

BTW…In the picture above, I’m on the top row, fourth from our teacher, Mrs. Henry. 

Carlen
carlen@carlenmaddux.com

P.S. I’ve received many other comments, several of which I’ll share next week and later.

P.P.S. Forgive me if I bore you with my reminders. But you may share this post and others with your friends and family. Or they may sign up to receive their own copy at www.carlenmaddux.com.

From Bone-Chilling Fear to Love’s Deep Healing

Typically I don’t make an effort to review my year past, and I suspect I’m no different than most of you. But having started this blog, I thought it a good idea to make this year an exception.  

As I scanned back over three months of weekly posts, I was surprised.  

I was surprised by the pattern that emerged. My intention had been to share certain takeaways from our family’s story but in no particular order. 

Yet in hindsight I see a defining arc. From my first post to the latest conversation with myself, there’s a distinct movement. 

If you’ve followed my posts from the start, you know that my wife Martha was told at 50 years of age she likely has Alzheimer’s disease. We felt as though we’d been tossed out into a hostile wilderness, left to die.

That’s where my blog opens, but that’s not where our story leads. 

From that bizarre news our story weaves through good times and bad, more often bad. The path opening before us, however, led us to a place that somehow transcended this insidious disease. 

Yet it was more a presence than a place. 

This presence, which I came to know as Christ Jesus, somehow kept picking us up and drawing us along the way. I began to see that we were being led toward some kind of healing ground. 

The closer we stepped, the less I feared. As did Martha, I think.   

That’s the defining arc of our story—from bone-chilling fear to what I can describe only as God’s deep warmth and healing.   

Call it a redemptive arc. 

If you’d like to review these earlier posts, or see them for the first time, I link them here in ascending order, from September through December 2015:

1. Where’s the Joy in an Unimaginable Tragedy? 
2. Finding Unexpected Gifts Deep in a Crisis
3. At 52, I learned What Real Fear Is
4. The Power of Art and Poetry in a Crisis
5. Why I Started a Blog-Newsletter
6. How Keeping a Journal Helped Save My Life
7. Why I Spent 300 Days in a Monastery
8. We Were On This Path All Along, but I Didn’t Realize It
9. What Would I, at 70, Tell Me at 40?
10. My One Regret
11. A Thanksgiving Memory
12. The Latest News on My Book
13. The Hardest Thing I Ever Had to Do

May you give with all your heart this New Year. And may 2016 bring all you need, and nothing more. 

Carlen

A Christmas Memory

A lifelong friend from first grade dug this 1994 Christmas card out of some dusty box and passed it along. “I thought you might like to have this,” she said recently. The picture was shot three years before Martha and I were hit with the news of Alzheimer’s. 

In the spirit that Ella passed this Christmas memory to me, I share it with you.  

Our two attractive redheads are Rachel, 17, holding Punky, and Kathryn, 13, standing to her mother’s left. The handsome guy to my right is David, 19, discreetly hiding his ponytail.   

Today, David lives in Tampa with wife Katie and children Libby (9), Nelson (7), and Bennett (3). David runs his own investment firm, which Katie keeps organized. 

Rachel lives in St. Petersburg with husband Sergio DeSanto, an architect, and children Olivia Grace (4) and Victor (1) and docile cat Niña. Rachel is a tenured professor at a local community college, teaching English as a Second Language, or ESL. 

Kathryn lives in Washington, D.C., with her partner Jacinta Alves, an attorney, and their hyper-pup Sephy. Kathryn works for an office of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 

Our family wishes you a wonderful Christmas season. 

May you give with all your heart. And may you receive all you need, and nothing more. 

Carlen
carlen@carlenmaddux.com
www.carlenmaddux.com

P.S. I’m taking a holiday break next week, as you may be. I’ll be back the following week. 

The Hardest Thing I Ever Had to Do

“You believed in God your whole life, but that wasn’t enough when you and Martha got slammed by Alzheimer’s, was it?”

That’s me at 40 asking an impertinent question of me at 70. A question I did not want to answer. A question I was afraid to answer. Yet it’s the one question that demanded an answer. 

So in response I, at 70, decided to write another letter to me at 40.  

My dear Carlen at 40, 

This letter doesn’t permit time or space to describe the ways an answer to your question unfolded over the course of our 17-year journey, often surprisingly. That’s why I decided to write a book. I’ll try, however, to describe some highlights.

For starters, this conversation would be impossible had the tough lessons we discussed in recent weeks not been learned: First, to forgive yourself and others as quickly as you can and second, to be quiet and still.

After all we’ve been through you may be wondering, Carlen at 40, why I still believe in God. 

And my answer is: I don’t.  

At least not in the way that I did for most of my life. 

You see, the belief I carried into adulthood was a rather fabricated one. It had been built from what I’d heard others say they believed: my parents, grandparents, preachers, acquaintances, peers, friends, religious authors, writers of the Bible. 

For much of my life I’d heard that God loves me. So much so that he gave his son for me and the world. That may be true, but long before Martha’s diagnosis I didn’t feel that love.

And I certainly didn’t feel any love when Martha and I got the news regarding Alzheimer’s. If I felt anything other than numb I felt we’d been abandoned. 

My faith quickly began to unravel.

In the beginning, I went searching for a solution. I wanted to find out if there was any way to get Martha out of this thing called Alzheimer’s, the doctor’s prognosis notwithstanding. Yet somehow—don’t ask me how—that search morphed into a spiritual search for God’s love, for Martha’s healing, for a wholeness that my fractured life hadn’t experienced.

Not long after I began the practice of meditation, I felt a gulf open deep and wide between God and me. I peered into this abyss with my mind’s eye, longing for something to hold on to, anything. Yet I felt nothing but desolation. The despair was palpable. 

Then as I looked more closely…poof! This gulf dissolved as quickly as it had appeared. 

As it did, my mind went quiet. My heart stilled. A drop of something fresh flowed through me. “It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted,” I thought, as a peace flooded my mind and body. I’d read enough of the more sublime writings in the Bible, as well as those of some saints and mystics, to have a passing insight into their depictions of divine Love. “That’s what this tastes like, like the Love described in those accounts.”

Then, that sweetness also vanished.  

“I want more!” I remember crying out loud. “How do I taste more of whatever this is—this Love? What do I need to do? How can I get across this chasm?”

I met with an older friend who impressed me as being experienced in the ways of things spiritual. “How can I get across this chasm?” I asked him. “How can I find this Love that I tasted, this wholeness?”   

He told me, “This kind of search can be frustrating and challenging, even overwhelming.” Yet he quickly added, “It also could be the richest thing you ever do.” 

He cautioned me, though, should I decide to strike out in this direction: “If you remember nothing else from our conversation, Carlen, remember this: Be gentle on yourself.”

Those words of caution frequently saved me as I ran down a number of rabbit trails searching for a way out of the obscure maze that had engulfed Martha and me. The harder I searched the more my heart and mind froze. The faster I ran, the more walls I hit.

When times are good it’s easy to let the words trip off my lips: God loves me, and I love God. Yet it seemed impossible when I felt lost in a wilderness, chased by fear and uncertainty.   

Finally, through the practice of meditation—and after learning to forgive Martha, her parents, my parents, those we had hurt and who had hurt us, and equally important, to forgive myself—I began to relax. 

I was learning to be “gentle on myself.”

Since then, there have been too many encounters with this presence I know as God, too many whispers within my heart for me to deny this Love’s existence, to deny her embrace. 

There were the weekends at St. Leo Abbey. There was that week in Thomas Merton’s cabin. There was the last night of my visit in Sydney with Canon Jim Glennon. And there was the message Rev. Lacy Harwell conveyed to me between sandwich bites at Demen’s Landing in St. Pete.

I remember well one moment at St. Leo when I was praying that Alzheimer’s be lifted from Martha and our family. As I did, I heard a whisper deep within. “What are you saying?” I asked. I couldn’t understand the words, yet their meaning was clear: “Carlen, you don’t have to settle for this fractured existence being dished out by Alzheimer’s.”

That whispered impression startled me. “Exactly how do you find anything but a fractured existence in this tragedy,” I complained silently. “How can I feel anything but the pain… the pain of seeing Martha slip away?”

Then out of this cloud of confusion a faint question curled upward. This question had a certain familiarity, as though it had shadowed me for a lifetime. It often arose in the early morning when Martha was asleep by my side: “Do I believe? No…do I know? Do I know deep within, down there where the rawest of memories and fears hide out? Do I know that the Lord my God loves me with all his heart? Do I know that my God loves me with all his soul? With all his strength? And with all his mind?”    

After that moment and many like it, I now have an inkling of what Jesus meant when he told me to do as he does: “…love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30).

That “inkling” arose from a growing certainty that regardless of any circumstance, good or bad, I am loved and intimately embraced by the Creator of this vast, complex, ever-changing world.   

The arc of God’s love, I now see, leads not to theologically correct beliefs. It leads to a wholeness I've experienced nowhere else.

So returning to your original question, Carlen at 40… 

It’s true, I no longer believe in God. 

Now, I believe God. 

Or, at least I seek to—and that’s a big difference.      

I love you dearly, 
Carlen at 70
carlen@carlenmaddux.com

P.S. If you’ve never written to your younger self, try it. These three recent conversations were eye-openers for me, and apparently for many who connected with them, based on the response I’ve received. If you do write, take your time to let your feelings bubble to the surface. Don’t try to FedEx a letter to yourself.  

P.P.S. As usual, you may pass this post and others along to your friends and family. Or they may receive my free weekly newsletter by signing up at www.carlenmaddux.com.