428. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 45 (Gilbert, pt. 1; Fioramonti, pt. 1)

Yesterday was a bit of a long day for me, with the two medical appointments spaced a couple hours apart and geographically located so it wasn't worth it to come home between them.  And I hardly ever take naps and if I do just sort of collapse out of exhaustion on a couch or something and start to fall asleep I usually get up pretty quickly because I'm afraid I'll just sleep until the next morning, so I just keep going... sort of drag myself around the apartment exhausted (in the evenings especially).  I just don't have stamina.  I usually get 7 hours sleep, no matter what time I go to bed - 11:00 or 3:00.  But last night I got 10 hours sleep, which is practically unheard of for me, and it sure felt good!  I guess I'm glad it doesn't happen all the time though.

I think this is so, and this is how I explained it to the neurologist too, because I do still have fibromyalgia underlying all these other things and one of the major symptoms of fibromyalgia is fatigue.  Besides, the back conditions, the various aches and pains (rheumatoid arthritis, neuritis in the feet, fibromyalgia, migraine, spinal stenosis - for which I just had the epdural a couple weeks ago, etc),  and all these pain sources cause extra fatigue in themselves too. 

Altogether, I think I do pretty well, considering everything I'm dealing with. But I'm really pushing my limits and lately I've been thinking I need to find a housecleaning to help me out some because even though I designed this place to make it easier to clean, I'm finding it difficult to keep up.  Right now I'm doing my morning 45-minute stimulator session.  I took my pre-breakfast medicines & supplements and then when I'm done with the stimulator I'll have breakfast and then start getting washed up for the day. 

I have no appointments today, but the neurologist yesterday said to take it easy the next couple days and if I don't get better (for the dizziness) by the weekend to take the medrol dosepack script he gave me.  And I have to go over my meds to see if I need to get any refills for tomorrow when I will portion them out for the week.  And I really should make new portion bags because it's hard to read the ones I have now I've used them so much. They just need replacing.  I need to look at my financial things too.  And it's really important that I keep my stress down because that's the last thing I need with my fibromyalgia and migraine, so I'll have to pick the things to do today because realistically I won't be able to do all of these today, even if you might be able to, as a healthy person.  I just can't zip-zip-zip through things.  And then I have to take breaks from physically demanding things.  And then my day is broken up by when I have to take my meds and I have to make myself sit down and drink full glasses of water at meals because my g.i. system is such a mess.  I think taking the time also is a stress break too, though.

Anyway, I'm just saying, this is the kind of thing that I deal with day in and day out.  I just can't up and go and do things really easily, and I tire easily and my body can go out of whack so easily it can set me back for days or weeks.   I'm sort of a slave to my body, when you think about it. 

***

The next article is:

Gilbert, B. C. (1972). Value education. Military Chaplains' Review, 1(2), 49-51.

This article is from the very first year of this journal that so many of these articles have come from!

***

"Army chaplains have for years been involved in the work of value maintenance and formation.  Character Guidance, Moral Heritage and Human Self-Development programs are nominal testimony to the fact that we have taken seriously this function which amplifies the spirit of the chaplain's role as advisor to commanders in matters of morality and morals.  Some of us have justified this aspect of the ministry by calling it a kind of "tent making" which puts us in a position to go about our Father's real business.  Others have considered it a duty in which we as citizens have a special talent and a special training.  Still others have considered it an entrée with men and women who might not otherwise relate to us.  In any event we have been the Army's primary specialists in moral education." (p. 49)

So I guess individual chaplains develop or come into the work with metaphors or visions as to how they see themselves and their work.  Let's, consider each perspective, one by one.

1. Tent-making.

I've said a lot about tentmaking already, and even posted my unpublished article (post 214) on it.  There's a keyword "tentmaking" that you can check all the articles on it. 

I'll just summarize to say that Paul worked (made tents) in order not to be a burden on the believers.  It had absolutely nothing to do with his accessing or getting into various communities or whatever.  He just didn't want to be a burden or there be the potential for people thinking he was taking advantage of them.   This is where the idea of tentmaking comes from, but erroneously so, in my opinion.

2.  Citizen's duty with special talent.

I have also already said that I consider my citizenship to be primarily in heaven, that I am a pilgrim here on earth and that I am an ambassador for Christ.

With this in mind, it is true that I may be born into an earthly citizenship and that the government might exact certain rights and responsibilities from me, the earthly authority must in all cases be subject to the heavenly authority. 

But in this case the heavenly (chaplain) becomes subject to the earthly (military).  How backwards is that? 

3.  Entrée/way to relate to Army members.

Is this sort of like becoming a drug addict helps one minister to drug addicts?  Do you really absolutely have to become a soldier to minister to the soldiers?  Is it possible to minister to them without becoming one?  Have other people and groups successfully done so without becoming soldiers?  

***

I thought there was another passage to comment on, but I don't have anything to say about it, so I'll pick another text.

Fioramonti, Mary E. (1993, Spring). The Army chaplaincy and change. The Army Chaplaincy, 18-20.

This is, by the way, the first female author in this file.

***

This section of text falls within the contex of advising the chaplain as to how to gage the health and effectiveness of their ministry team.  This text suggest one aspect of that process:

"Every soldier goes through a formation stage.  The challenges to face include belonging and acceptance, settling personal family concerns, and learning about leaders and other soldiers.

The next stage is development.  A soldier learns to trust leaders and others, find close friends, decide who is in charge, accept the way things are done, adjust to feelings, and overcome family vs. unit conflict.

The final stage, sustainment, is where a soldier begins to assist and trust other team members, whare iteas and feelings freely, sustain trust and confidence, share mission and values, experience feelings of pride in the unit and cope with personal and family problems." (p. 20; bold in original)

In this particular situation we're talking about adjusting to working in a ministry team, but ministry teams could include somewhat diverse religious groupings in the military setting as the chaplaincy attempts to meet the needs of the various religious backgounds represented in the troup (or whatever size unit they're in).  So, while the team member might not have to make an adjustment to a secular setting, he will have to make the adjustment to a somewhat religiously diverse one and also the ramifications of being located inside the army.

 In language learning, when we find words that are the same or very similar in different languages was call them "false friends" - they look the same, but they really mean something different.  For example, if you look at the Russian transliterated word mashina you probably automatically think "machine," right?  Wrong.  The Russian word mashina means car, so it is a false friend, it is not what you think it means even though it looks a lot like a word we have in English.   I think that life in the ministry team compared with life in a civilian church in a comparable position, say as a deacon or board member of some sort, would be a "false friend".  Maybe the new recruits to the ministry team might think they know what to expect with a lot of church or other religious background but the differences could catch them by surprise unless they have a very good (realistic) idea before hand about what to expect. 

But this blog isn't, ultimately, about the military, now is it?  So what tripped me up in Vienna?  Was it because I was my father's daughter and there wasn't a thing I could do about it, I was going to have problems no matter what happened?  Or did I really come all that naively, not knowing anything about what was going on?  Or did I know too much and stood my ground too ardently and rejected their tighthold too vigorously? 

So let's use these stages on me as pertains to the Vienna mission.

For me the formation stage was a matter of getting to know people and the ropes and all.  If formation meant being paranoid, however, I wasn't particularly interested.  There's a fine line between paranoia and being careful and discerning, and the mission didn't know the difference.  I'm selected in what I form to, and they made it difficult to really want to form to them.

As to development... I already discussed trust in some detail and how the mission didn't do anything to make me want to trust them.  My values remained unchanged, but where values wheren't an issue I had no problem accepting the way certain things were done.  Throughout all this I never really could adjust my feelings, which were basically a shipwreck and there was so much family and mission conflict I could have single-handedly started the third-world war, I think.

I never even came anywhere near sustainment, so I'm not even going to attempt that one.

This was a little different take on my experience with the mission, and each approach provides some more information, I think, to what happened.

331. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 55 (Graham, pt. 1)

Being sick is for the birds.  Anyone who's had the flu can attest for that, but imagine being sick for years on end.  And then there's the people who say they get this or that malady that me also have, like migrains, for example.  But usually you don't have the chance to really take them up on their comparison (them against me).  They often want to insinuate that I'm lazy and I should be working.  But, given enough time, this is the kind of comparison I would like to make.

1.  Comparison of number of times spent in medical appointments of various kinds in the past month.
2.  Comparison of number of prescriptions medicines each of us takes on a routine basis.
3.  How much time otherwise is spent daily on health maintenance (including such things as my twice daily 45 minute e-stimulator session, and weekly portioning out of medicines and inventory management of medicines and supplements.)
4. Total disposal income spend on health maintenance on a routine basis every month.

You see, in this world, you're lazy until proven otherwise, and it's the ill person's responsibility to prove themselves ill to the rest of the world.  That means the ill person better be equipped with some pretty good proving skills or s/he is going to have to put up with some prejudice.

***

Sometimes when I read mom's journals it starts me thinking in different directions.  Talking to family members (via phone - none of them are nearby) can do that too.  I keep trying to figure things out about this family.  Unfortunately I was a child when some of the things probably started and even when I was a teenager I was off in my world and oblivious to things about dad's work and even about mom and dad.

I mentioned to someone not long ago about mom's giving me money when I lived in Chicago to get my hair cut and it made me mad because I was hungry and all she cared about was my hair looking nice.  I think she wanted me to get an Mrs. degree, which we used to joke about some girls going to Bible school just to get married.  But I wasn't one of them.  That is, I wasn't opposed to it, but I was really focused on the mission field and it was going to have to be someone else who was also focused on the same thing and we were going the same direction if I was going to get married, because I was serious about what I was preparing for (which, if you can imagine, made it all the more devastating what happened in Vienna).

The thing is though, that since mom's death I've thought even more about mom and trying to understand her.  I couldn't have changed what I did, but I wanted to understand her more.  I think there were several signs that she was grasping at keeping me closer to her.  When I was in college, as an undergraguate, I went to school there in my hometown and I could live with my parents to save money which, since the school was a private school and since we were middle class but not really well off, was a way to save money, was okay with me.  But the thing was that mom kept coming down stairs (my bedroom was alone in the basement) to talk with me, making it hard to study.  I kept trying to tell her I was trying to study, but when my Grandmother was in Florida 6 months of the year I took the opportunity to stay in her house so I could study better.  When I talked with mom about that later she said I should have told her, but I did and she wouldn't stop, and I don't think she could have.  I think she was just needy that way.  However, I don't think it was too hard on her having me gone when I left Seattle.

So I got my European Studies degree and then I moved to the midwest to attend Bible school, and mom sends money to get my hair cut, presumably to make me a better catch to get married.

And then when she visits me in Vienna she wants to help and I am able to arrange for her to teach health (she was a nurse) at a new English speaking Christian school there (that some of the Vienna missionaries are key in helping start).  My mom was, in fact treated more respectfully than I ever was by the Vienna mission.  And in Russia all we do by way of ministry is sing "How Great Thou Art" in English", but the thing is that I never was invited to have any public ministry like that at the church that I was a member of there.  That was a Russian Pentecostal church (that didn't have any obvious sign gifts).

So my mom pushed my to marry a good chunk of my life and then given a chance outshined me at work.  She couldn't outshine me at teaching English as a Second Language, interestingly enough, however, because I doubt that there would have been opportunity for that in Russia.

Remember that dad had said he would help with my student loan if I went into missions, so he was reasonably supportive of me in that.  But mom evidently wasn't quit so supportive or at least wanted me to be married in any event.  I never got any indication that this was an issue with dad.

Anyway, my mind just goes off in these various directions until it hits a snag or something in real life interrupts my train of thought.   And then the fact that something happened is quite a different thing than attributing this or that potential meaning to it.

But to our new text...

***

This text is on a somewhat different subject.

Graham, Jill W. (1991) An essay on organizational citizenship behavior. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 4(4), 249-270.

I'll summarize the introduction to say that the author attempts in this article to present a paradigm of employee citizenship behavior that builds on what had preceded it and appeared to be lacking and draws on the political model of citizenship.

***

"Part I: The Nature of Political Citizenship"

"In ordinary usage, citizenship describes the status of belonging somewhere, and it implies both rights and responsibilities.  These three concepts are closely connected." (p. 251)

I won't comment on this yet... it's just by way of introduction.

***

"Relational Ties"


"An interdisciplinary review offers organizational scholars numerous typologies for the purpose of characterizing the relational ties between individual members and their collectivities.  For example, in her classic study of commitment and community, Kantner (1972, p. 148) discusses 'two strains in social life': 

...Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Gemeinscheft relations include nonrational, affective, emotional, traditional, and expressive components of social action, as in a family; Gesellschaft relations comprise the rational, contractual, instrumental, and task-oriented actions, as in a business corporation.

...While coercive relationships exemplify a diminished form of Gesellschaft relations, covenantal relationships are an enhanced form of Gemeinshaft relations.  Shared moral commitments strengthen  the ties that bind people together.  Kelman's distinction between identification and internalizationas bases for psychological attachment captures the differences between normal and covenantal Gemeinschaft relations.


...Covenantal relationships tolerate risk and forgive errors...


While the parties to a covenantal relationship can forgive one another should disappointing performance occasionally occur, a contractual relationship (Gesellschaft) is either terminated or penalties are assessed on the erring performer... As noted by Daniel Elazar (1980, p. 10) 'The partners [in a covenantal relationship] do not automatically live happily ever after, but they are bound by covenant toward such an end.'


The emphasis on struggle is important.  Covenantal relationships are not conflict-free... Instead, the mutual trust typical of covenant ties allows members sufficient confidence in their status as permanent partners to release the energy needed for experimentation and progress during difficult times, with space for disagreement,  mistakes, forgiveness, and mutual learning." (p.251-253)

This is a lot, but I didn't want to break it up.  At first glance, the Vienna mission seems to have elements of both Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft:  It had a family type atmosphere but it was also a workplace.  I've also discusses elsewhere in this blog internalization and identification of mission norms and values, and how the mission expected its members to internalize them.  So in that respect, the mission would have been more like covenantal Gemeinschaft relations.

The mission did not tolerate risk and may only have forgiven the occassional error, especially inconsequential onces or ones committed while learning something new.  These are because of the security issue and potential for damage to its ministry and harm to to those it worked with, both the students and other missions.  

I think the rest of the discussion about forgiveness and struggle is importent and interesting.  I'm not aware of anyone, other than new recruits perhaps as they learn the ropes, making mistakes.  So I am not aware of how mistakes would actually have been handled.  This in itself might be telling, I supposed.  Did mistakes just not exist?  Were they hidden from view so no one knew about them except those closest to the source? 

In any case, I have a hard time envision the likes of "conflict" "disagreement" forgiveness" "mutual learning" etc. occurring in any real way (i.e., not stilted).  If there was going to be any learning it was going to be on the part of the erring one, and it was not going to be particularly mutual.  Conflict would not end happily, unless departure of the errant one be considered happy.    In other words, the mission held the upper hand and so the relationship was very lopsided. 

It's ironic that I, as I have said here numerous times, reciprocal trust was very important in the mission, but that trust was not for the purpose of experiementation and it was not the kind of trust that made one feel comfortable to experiment necessarily.  Within strict bounds there was some professional leeway, but they were pretty strict bounds.  For example, if you were going to be teaching on an upcoming ministry trip you had some latitude, within the syllabus, as to some of the content you used or teaching methods.

But really, compared to other professional jobs I've had ( ESL instructor, librarian) there was little creative latitude at the Vienna mission.  And when I compare it to the level of trust expected between members at the mission and at other places I've worked it's completely opposite.  So the other places I've worked didn't require anything like that kind of trust, but allowed a lot more professional leeway than the Vienna mission, which is opposite of what the text seems to be saying.

***

I'm going to end here because it's late.  I wanted to get farther, but we'll pick up here next time.

314. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 38 (Luthans, pt. 1)

Okay, I seem to be fairing the migrain medicine change okay so far, so I'm going to give it a shot at trying to pick up where I left off again.

I had another heart flutter today.  It was pretty brief though, at least as far as I was able to catch on the oxymeter.  By the time I caught it all I got was a jump from 113 to 58 and then back to about 90 and then it stayed around 88-90 or so.  I think these things could happen without me really knowing it, though.  It's not like the SVTs where your heart just starts racing and you have to lie down and you're pretty well wiped out for the rest of the day.

Another piece of big news... I'm so tired of this roller coaster life.  Last night after my dinner guests had left and the dishes were done in the dishwasher.   I got a call from security.  It was around 10:20-10:30 at night.  My neighbors below me were complaining about me moving furniture and asking me to stop it.  Huh?  What was I doing to raise such ire?  Emptying the dishwasher!  Now, granted, a few minutes prior I was ironing, so maybe they were refering to my setting up the ironing board as "moving furniture".   I told the guard that I was emptying the dishwasher (which I was at that moment when he called) and was not moving any furniture.

Because there was a whole history of this, which I've documented, and I'd already decided I needed to call the police to start a harassment case about these calls, I did call the police.  So the police officer came about 20 minutes later and opened a case about it.  I told her about the history of this, such as the last time when I was putting a glass shelf in an empty display cabinet when I got the call from the guard.  The police officer suggested I consider suing the neighbor for the stress affecting my health. (Stress does affect fibromyalgia and migraines.)  I really don't want to do that, but if the neighbor downstairs is stupid enough to push me too far that may be a possibility.  I hate to imagine how many calls I'd get if I didn't wear slippers at home (most Americans don't) and wore noisy shoes on the tile floor.

In case you think that only "problem" people cross my path, I want to tell you about this wonderful customer service agent at Book-Cases-Shelves.com.  I ordered 2 bookcases/cabinets from them, but one came with faulty doors.  It's been a long process to get that taken care of, but she's been really good at trying to figure things out, despire several mishaps, and she's been very good at communicating and keeping me abreast regarding what's going on.  Really, she's a paragon of customer service, a gem in a world of automation.  Someone should give her a raise... So when I have contact with people like her I remember that no matter how I feel like the whole world is against me (the remodelers doing poor work, thefts, the neighbor downstairs, etc.), I am reminded that maybe not everyone is against me.  Maybe just most people.

***

This next text is actually part of a book chapter.  The book is:

Luthans, F. (1989). Organizational Behavior, 5h ed. N. Y., N. Y. : McGraw-Hill.

We'll be taking sections from chapter 3, "Organizational Culture."

***

The first quote will be from the section "The Nature of Organizational Culture" and the first sub-ection "Definition and Characteristics."

"Organizational culture has a number of important characteristics.  Some of the most readily agreed upon are the following:


1. Observed behavioral regularties.  When organizational participants interact with one another, they use common language, terminology, and rituals related to deference and demeanor." (p. 50)

When mom came to Vienna the second time to help me pack and leave I knew enough of the culture to be able to point some irregularities out to her - things that were happening that were out of the norm for the group and hence specific for how they were treating me/us (in many of the cases).  She didn't recognize these because she didn't know what was normative for the group and what wasn't.  Although there were a lot of things I never really understood, because I never felt I was a true insider, I did understand some things.

***

"2. Norms. Standards of behavior exist including guidelines on how much work to do, which in many organizations come down to 'Do not do too much; do not do too little.'" (p. 50)

There were norms a-plenty in the Vienna mission, but regarding work, I think the norm would have been more like this:  While work is important and we all need to work together well, and do the best work we can, we need to keep our tasks in perspective.  At times relationships, or security or other concerns might need to be juggled with work and these other areas should not suffer for the sake of work.  We need to work together as a group to make sure that all of these various issues and concerns are met, starting at the department level.

***

"3. Dominant values.  There are major values that the organization advocates and expects the participants to share.  Typical examples are high product quality and low absenteeism, and high efficiency." (p. 51)

In the case of the Vienna mission the dominant values were a lot deeper than this.  Theological match is a no brainer.  But once in Vienna, to me it became clear that one was expected to become so security minded as to 1) indicate lack of faith in God and 2) paranoia.  In addition, the license that this security mindedness provided (deception, etc.) was another major value that the mission "advocated and expected" the missionaries to share.  To me it also seemed that while one was in Vienna one had to be pretty much 24/7 devoted to the mission, whatever it wanted.  I guess that would have been okay if it would have been a better fit, but it wasn't, and I was very clear before arriving in Vienna about my intentions about after hours ministry in Vienna, yet the whole time I was there I was under pressure to quit that effort.

"4. Philosophy. There are policies that set forth the organization's beliefs about how employees and/or customers are to be treated." (p. 51).

I'll start with how customers were to be treated (because that's easier to answer).  The mission's "customers" were the students living in the Eastern European countries, and they were to be protected at all cost.  Under no circumstance did we want to cause any harm to them.  You have to understand that Westerners, if found to be connected to them, could by that very connection, even if the nature of the connection is otherwise unknown, cause thelocal  believer problems with the authorities.  This varied from country to country as to the severity of the consequences, etc.

I'm not sure what the mission's beliefs are about how "employees" (i.e., staff missionaries) are to be treated, but I know how I was treated and, although a sample of 1 might not, on one hand seem very generalizable, on the other hand, since my ill-treatment was more or less constant the whole time I was with the mission, you have to account for how they were able to sustain that kind of treatment of me for so long and so there must have been some kind of policy and/or belief provision for cases like me.  Such policies and beliefs might not have been general knowledge of the group, or maybe they were known among many, or at least the department heads.

In any case, when they sent me back to the States I began to believe that anyone was expendable.  That is, no one was so critical to the mission that it couldn't function withoit him or her, so, given the right provocation, the mission could expel that person (in one way or another, depending on the situation, I expect).  But I also came to believe that the mission thought that the US military interests were more important than a Christian heeding the call to serve Christ with them.  (This is assuming that they treated me as they did - at least to a great extent - because of my dad, who worked in S.D.I. at Boeing.)

My experience also taught me that the mission didn't really care whether the missionaries used their gifts or not.  In my case, I felt very stunted and held back from most things I might have been able to offer and I wasted a lot of time with the mission, because they didn't give me enough work.

I'm sure I could go on, but I'll leave it at that for now.

***

"5. Rules. There are strict guidelines related to getting along in the organization.  Newcomers must learn these 'ropes' in order to be accepted as full-fledged members of the group." (p. 51)

This is socialization, which I've talked about at length elsewhere, so I won't belabor it here.  The 'ropes' as far as the Vienna mission was concerned could be summed up in two words: total submission.  That's what the mission required and once you'd proven yourself in this regard, then you'd be accepted as a full-fledge member.  This is precisely why I never completely felt like a full-fledged member (because I never totally submitted to the mission.)

***

"6. Organizational climate.  This is an overall 'feeling' that is conveyed by the physical layout, the way in which participants interact, and the way in which members of the organization conduct themselves with customers or other outsiders." (p. 51)

To the casual observer, the untrained eye, the drop-in visitor or the short-term helper the "feeling" that would be conveyed by the mission would be one of warmth, caring and attentiveness.

I'm not sure how insiders view the mission, but I think that the mission leadership would still want members to perceive those same things, but maybe some other things also.  There's a lot of stress in the work so they work to keep that down also, but that is something they would need to control as far as organizational climate is concerned.  I also think that once you've been an insider for some time you really get to trust the other members, so there develops a high level of trust between members, especially within departments, but not only.  So then trust would also be part of the organizational climate.  Another aspect is the sense that there aren't any secrets.  That is, it feels, I think, like there is someone in the organization (say a boss or mentor) that knows you perhaps more than you'd like.

***

That's it for that sub-section, and I'm getting to tired to try to go farther, so hopefully I'll be able to keep with this and finish this text soon.

313. Migraine & Current Events

I saw the neurologist yesterday and he wants to try a new medicine, which isn't surprising since I was pretty well maxed out (on about as high a dose as they give) of the one I was on).  It's the same medicine as one of the ones that helps me sleep for fibromyalgia, though.  So we're decreasing the medicine I've been on at the same time we're increasing that one (as needed).  I'm sort of skeptical about the prognosis of this one, but my physical therapist, whom I saw later in the afternoon, said I should give it a chance.  (Although she was skeptical about how much she could do with physical therapy for my legs, so techincally I could have turned the tables on her too - if the problem is neurological she can only do so much, though.).

The next few weeks could be a nightmare if this new medicine doesn't work, and if that's the case, then it might be a while before I'm up to serious mental work.

Today I got my new glasses.  My optometrist is on the south end of town where I lived when I first moved here in 2006.  I didn't think I was up to driving through the city, so I took advantage of the disabled transportation service here, which is like a group taxi.  I'm glad I did, but it took up most of my day.

Then I've been gradually working my way through the condo doing a deep cleaning, especially around the baseboards and window sills - I haven't done the windows yet.  It's going slowly because I don't feel well and everything is slow with me and I have various interruptions too.  Well, I was working on the dining room a little bit ago in the area where the patch of new floor was put in, where there formerly was a platform area.  And it turns out that some of the grout is already coming out!  So now that is one more thing to address in my complaints and that brings in another worker.  While I wasn't terribly impressed with the painting job of the painter, it wasn't bad enough to make a stink about, but the painter is the one who did this and this is something that most definitely would need to be fixed.  The other things that need fixing are from the work of the plumber/electrician.  I need to pull together all the concrete details and call the  Better Business Bureau, because that's the next place I want to try to see if I can get these things resolved.  I was hoping that the interior decorator and her company would help out, but they aren't.  I just feel so violated by these kinds of things and by the thefts, and on top of my being sick and not able to really adequately monitor things and I though that I was being sent reliable and trustworthy workers and neither the interior decorator nor the furniture store she works for seem to care at all about that, yet that's the main reason why I chose them because I thought they'd be more trustworthy.  Did I ever get that one wrong.  It really hurts though and I don't have limitless money and now that money that I'd spend on things that were stolen or work that was poorly done is more or less money down the drain.  So if you don't trust people you're paranoid, or if you do trust people you're a fool and get taken advantage of.

Well, I'm going to try to have people over Sunday after church.  I really like both cooking and entertaining, but I"m not much up to either so it's going to be a challenge.  I told them it's going to be simple - as in very simple, and I figure people should understand, that it's mainly about getting together anyway.   So it's a couple and a gal with 3 kids.  I'm having pulled beef sandwiches, which I'll start tomorrow.   And I'll have a sort of a molded coleslaw salad - being molded means you can make it ahead easier.  Then I'll have stuffed celery sticks and homemade tortilla chips.  The couple are bringing ice cream for dessert.  I haven't decided what to serve for drinks yet.  Anyway, the thing is that I can make it all in advance so that's what I'm doing tomorrow, and that's about all I'm doing tomorrow.

I guess that's all for now.  I'm really nervous about the migraine medicine change though.

312. Migraine Reprieve

I don't know how to describe this because from everything I've heard and read my 6-month headache is not like the typical migraine, but maybe there is a range as far as what is considered migraine and this is a less common type, I don't know.

Anyway, whatever it is, it's getting the better of me and although it's actually not the most serious of my ailments, it is the one most affecting my thinking and possibly even the most limiting altogether at this moment - the past few days.  The headache is only of moderate pain (although I am on 100 mg of topomax twice a day for it, so that's the pain level when I'm on that medicine anyway).  But it also affects my balance and my vision even sometimes.  And it just all around makes me feel crummy.  So I just don't feel up to doing the kind of writing and thinking this blog demands.

I'll see if I can get one of my doctors to increase my pain medicine.  I see my primary care doctor tomorrow, but she might defer to the neurologists.  I saw a neurologist today, but he hasn't been doing much and he mainly just wanted to not do anything until the heart issue was taken care of.  So the ball's in the other neurologist's court to increase my pain medicine if he's so inclined.  I saw him last week and at that time the headache pain was just starting to increase above what the current dose could handle but I didn't yet think it was bad enough to ask for an increase... but not I do.  And the thing is that the headache affects my fibromyalgia more than most other conditions too, so that's another concern as well.

Hopefully I can get this taken care of soon and I'll be back here in a few days.  It takes a couple days for an increase in the topomax to really take affect, so it'll be three days minimum, I guess, barring anything unforeseen that might bring me back here sooner.

298. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 24 (Gray & Starke, pt. 3)

I'm sorry about the sudden break in posts, but these things happen in life... my health is a roller coaster, and you just witnessed an example of this.


I think I mentioned having a lightheaded experience on my way to physical therapy a couple weeks ago which ended out being a high pulse and heard rate and raised concern because of my history of supraventricular tachycardia (rapid heart beat).  Then I had a couple incidents of erratic heart beat, but I was the only one to catch them on my oxymeter because by the time professional medical people were involved it had stopped, although the second time my heard rate was still ca. 115 or so, which is high for me as a resting heart rate.

The first time it happened I went to my primary care doctor and I brought my oxymeter and we did verify that mine is accurate (it's new and fr a reputable company).  So then when it happened again the next day at about the same time I decided to call 911 (emergency) and they took me to the hospital and they ended out admitting me for 24 hour surveillance and I had a heart monitor.

Well, the other thing was that I was supposed to be hosting a couple coming through town for church and a lot of people were away at a conference and we're not a large church, so this was a problem.  I thought I'd be out by Saturday night, but by late Saturday afternoon when the cardiologist still hadn't come by and my discharge was dependent on his say so, I resigned myself to another night in the hospital.

Another couple, who'd just hosted a bunch of people for a wedding and had their house all upended and even had the door off the hook for the guest room for some project that needed to be done, came by to get the key to my condo from me at the hospital so that the guests could get in and I tried to think of what they needed to know.  I didn't have everything ready for them, but fortunately, they were very laid back.  At least the place was mostly clean.

When I left the hospital I really felt vulnerable.  I think that's a good word to describe how I felt.  It's not just that everything seems to go wrong, because not everything does - some things don't.  But it's like I have absolutely no control over anything.  No matter how hard I try, that's what it seems like.  That's how I felt when I got home from the hospital.  I wanted to be a good hostess.

Then I got another shock.  When I saw my primary care doctor the first time I had the erratic heart beat the nurse, in reviewing my meds as recorded in my chart listed ultram (a narcotic pain medicine) and I corrected her and said I haven't been on that for quite some time now (since last summer).  I thought she corrected it then, but when I was in the hospital (and it's my primary care doctor that admits me) in the first round of meds they tried to give me ultram!  I told the nurse I do not take ultram!  (Really and truly, I am NOT a "drug seeker"!).  That didn't happen again.  But I wanted to get my medical records because I might have appointments with doctors who might be interested in some of the information.  It turns out I was also interested in some of the information.  Here's from my Laboratory Tests  in the emergency room (before I was admitted) at 16:05

Toxicology:
Urine Opiates Screen (2000 CUTOFF)                              None Detected
Ur Barbiturates Screen (200 CUTOFF)                              None Detected
Ur Amphetemine Screen (1000 CUTOFF)                         None Detected
Ur  Benzodiazepines Scrn (200 CUTOFF)                          None Detected
Urine Cocaine Screen (300 CUTOFF)                                 None Detected
U Cannabinoids Screen (50 CUTOFF)                                None Detected

I just hope it wasn't my primary care doctor that ordered those tests.  If it was, maybe she should have added ultram to the list.

 I had made an appointment with the cardiologist who did my cardiac ablation in 2007, and when I made the appointment I asked if they take my insurance now and they said they'd deal with that later, which surprised me, but this week they called to say the don't take my insurance so I would either have to pay out of pocket or if I wanted to pick a doctor under my insurance I could run some of those doctors by my old doctor to see who he might recommend.  So I e-mailed the list of about 15 or so doctors late yesterday afternoon and am waiting for a response.  I hope there's someone there he likes.  

***

Anyway, I've been trying to get back in gear since my 36 hour stint in the hospital, but I sort of feel like I've been through the wringer and my medical conditions just keep multiplying.  One thing I've been doing, though is continuing to work on the settling in process, so that's been sort of a positive concrete diversion to keep my mind off serious things (like health, family and mom).  I learned how to use "Mint" my robotic vacuum.  It actually sweeps and mops, but it does a pretty good job and then it frees me up from that task, or at least much of it, which is nice.

Tomorrow they're finally supposed to pack up and take the defective book case/cabinet (it has glass doors) to be fixed.  I also had to call Samsung because my refrigerator ice maker isn't working and repairmen are supposed to come for that tomorrow too.  I just remembered, though, that they didn't call to confirm and I forgot to call them when they didn't call.  I hope they still come.

Even though I'm really burned out but I'm doing my best to find strength, peace, meaning and joy even in the midst of trials.  I'm used to picking myself up and dusting myself off and continuing on - heaven knows I've done it enough.

***

There's still some 15 pages, approximately, of text left, so I probably won't finish.    This next main chapter section is "CONCEPTS OF THE INFORMAL ORGANIZATION."   The first sub-section we're going to look at is "Status."

"Status is the rank or relative position of an individual in a group...


A certain status attribute is valued if two conditions are met: the attribute must be perceived by the relevant group as being scarce and desirable. " (p. 436)

What attributes might have been perceived as being scarce and desirable to the Vienna mission?  I think education - a certain kind of theological education - would be right up there near the top.  Experience, especially if accompanied by education, might be valued, but not as much as education, I don't think. Teaching and leadership skills might also have been valued.

***

"Status itself can be of two varieties, ascribed and achieved.  Ascribed status is that social position occupied because of attributes inherent in the individual, such as race, sex, and age, while achieved status is the position a person attains through personal choice, such as education, skills, or marital status. In both formal and informal organizations, the actual status of a person is the result of an interaction of ascribed and achieved status, with the effect of each determined by the relative weight given each by the group." (p. 437)

In the Vienna mission we were all Caucasian, so race was not an issue.  But the issue there was gender, and roles within the mission were clearly divided along gendered lines.  For example, all the textbook writers were males, all the secretaries were females, all the layout staff were females, all the h.r. administration were males, all the senior administration (including h.r.) were males.  The only female instructors were in the women's ministry team.  If you needed help moving, men did it; if you needed a babysitter, the gals did it, etc., etc.  The mission was so divided along gender lines that basically, whether you were male or female, you could just look at half the mission and see what your ministry opportunities might be because that half that matched your gender would give you an idea of your options.

***

Some of the authors' discussion on status is interesting, but I'm not sure I want to quote the whole large section(s).

The first topic is about status symbols, such as the proverbial corner office that everyone covets.  In the Vienna mission the administration had their offices on the second floor, everyone, including the two secretaries had their own offices (with a view).  But the women's ministry team was also up on the second floor.

On one hand the idea of status symbol in a Christian mission seems like an oxymoron (at least to me it does), but when you consider the other things going on there and that they did want to maintain their authority and control over things (for security's sake, etc.), then it's not so surprising after all.  It wasn't the kind of thing that the administration just gloated in for it's own sake, having such great office locations, for example. But on the other hand, the fact that they had those offices and others didn't served as a reminder of who was in charge and where the buck stopped.  I'm probably making more of the offices than I should, but that was just one thing among many that under-gird that way of thinking about the administration.

The text also discusses status symbols in the informal organization, but, as I've said before, the informal organization in the Vienna mission, was really created by the administration.  But since the organization was run virtually completely by men (the women's ministry team had a say in the administrative meetings), the informal women's monthly meetings, which was run largely by wives of the instructors, was one opportunity for women to be in leadership positions and run their own program.  In this women's world of the Vienna mission I think there were some somewhat different views on status.

For example, in that world, it was not only where your office was, what your position was, and how long you'd been with the mission, but also who your husband was and who you worked for and what your relationship was like to your boss' wife or to certain other wives or female staff members.  So among the women, especially when you included the wives in the mix, you might come up with a different status system than if you were just considering the office workers alone.  The men wouldn't have had to deal with that, because all the adult males were working at the office; it was only adult females that might be at-home wives & mothers.  If a male worker had a secretary he would have had a vested interest in seeing to it that his secretary and his wife got along, I think, though.

***

"Why Is Status Important? Status is important in organizations because it satisfies the basic human need for personal identification... When individuals behave in a manner significantly different from what is expected, social sanctions may be used to bring behavior in line with expectations: or, if the behavior does not change, social interactions may cease." (p. 439, bold in original)

It's hard to know where to begin with this one.  In principle, I should have wanted to identify with the Vienna mission and gain some kind of status in it.  But that's assuming that the mission was something other than what I seem to have found it to be.  Practically the whole time I was with the mission I had a hard time identifying with the mission, although I always could identify with its stated purpose.   The things I witnessed and experienced in the mission that I disagreed with and even gave me great concern were greater than my need for personal identification or status in the mission.

However, this being said, I think giving these things up were part of the great internal struggle the continued the first year or so after my return home to the States.  It was a very difficult thing for me to hold my own, and I did keep hoping that they weren't so bad as it seemed and I'd be able to talk with them and they'd make concessions and we'd straighten things out.  But the way things were I couldn't identify with them, at least not as much as they'd have liked.

As to the sanctions, etc.  The thing is, and I've mentioned this before, I often had trouble figuring out exactly what they wanted.  I mean, I don't want to hear something like "unconditional trust," because that only goes to God.  So I'm looking for concrete things that they wanted me to do or not do.  And I don't think that if you looked at me that I did anything that was really amiss for a missionary.  No one ever said I complained, did bad work, had a bad attitude, was lazy, led a raucous lifestyle, whatever.  I was hospitable, friendly, sociable, took initiative at work, etc.  So what did I do wrong?  The only thing(s) I could possibly have done wrong would have been something regarding security, such as being my father's daughter, for example (he was working as a program manager in the strategic defense initiative - star wars).  So, maybe they just didn't want me there in the first place because of him.  That's not the only possibility, but it's a promising theory.  In any case, I definitely did something wrong because I was most certainly sanctioned and social interactions did cease towards the end of my stay in Vienna.  So the issue then is what I did wrong, because I most certainly did something wrong.

***

I'm tired and I think I'll stop here.  I went to Home Depot this afternoon to try to figure out a way I can connect my outdoor hose to my shower.  All my other faucets, etc. are not the types to connect anything too now that I got all new plumbing fixtures (except in that shower).  I have indoor hoses, but they all have permanently attached sprayers and they're 50 feet (ca. 16 meters)  long which is like 10 feet (3 meters) or so too short.  So the workers at the store helped me, but the connecting piece is a little too wide for the shower head, although the hose fits perfectly on the other end of it.  So I have an Oxygenator showerhead (which I took off for doing this) which fine but came with instructions as to what to do if it didn't fit, so I'm going to see if there's anything there I can use to help me get this piece to fit.  The things is that often enough I shouldn't be lifting heavy things because of back problems so if I can water my plants on my balcony with a hose rather than a watering pot it would make things a lot easier for me... if I can ever get this thing to work...

287. Health (Again!) and Moving (Finally!)

My health took another turn for the worst again this past week, so I'm on tenderhooks.  We don't exactly know what's wrong yet, but it's something neurological that seems to be affecting a good part of my body and may be connected to the strange headaches I've been getting the past two months.  I'm supposed to rest this weekend and then try to get into the neurologist early next week.

HOWEVER (yes, that's a big "however"), I'm also moving this week and am here all alone with no reliable help.  So I have to somehow make it through this week without going into a major health crisis (one that puts me completely out of commission).  Fortunately, I'm pretty well packed except for the last minute odds and ends so I can afford the luxury of relaxing.

Today I had to be at the condo for the floor cleaners and I laid down in the car the whole time they were working.  Monday and Tuesday I have furniture deliveries coming to the condo that I have to be for, and also the telephone company is coming to set things up there, so I have to be at the condo for these things too.  Fortunately, Monday the sectional sofa and bed are being delivered, so I can lay down on those if need be and do the minimal of what I need to do for these various things to get done.

Monday could be a real challenge though.  I have to try to make it to the neurologist and then a few people from church are coming to take liquid things (soaps, cooking oils, etc.) and the like over to the condo.  These are things that mostly the movers don't carry and liquids are heavy, so it would be too much for me to carry all at once.  This could be a long day for me.

Wednesday is going to be the killer, however, and I could use mega prayers to make it through that one. While the movers are at my current place the cabinet people will be bringing the new kitchen and bathroom cabinets to the new condo.  When we arrive at the condo they'll be installing the cabinets while the movers are moving everything in.  I'm going to have them try to put all the boxes in single layers as much as possible to minimize my having to lift boxes to see what's in lower boxes.  Unpacking is going to be slow, for sure.

After I move there is still some things that will have to be done, such as some furniture to be assembled, the new steam shower jacuzzi (which I wanted for my fibromyalgia and other health issues and should arrive later this week) has to be installed, etc.  But at least I'll be there and if I have to I can drop the moving things and focus on health issues.  My health goal for this week is to manage to at least maintain where I am and not get any worse.  I hope I succeed.

I told my neighbor here that after I leave she's going to have to resort to soap operas for excitement!  In any case, she didn't argue against that suggestion.

281. Blog May Stand Still, But Life Doesn't!

It's hard for me to return to talking about the past when so much is happening in the present! I'm still here at my same address, though (i.e., I haven't moved yet). That's for the most part because I'm still waiting for the bank to decide whether they'll accept my offer (it's for a "short sale," which - for those not versed in U.S. real estate lingo - is a sale of a property with a for less than the going market rate. The bank holding the mortgage has to decide whether it will accept the offer from a potential buyer. In my case, I offered the amount the seller - representatives handling the estate of the now deceased owner - presented as being "pre-authorized" by the bank holding the mortgage. However, I eventually learned that this sale amount wasn't "pre-authorized" in the usual formal sense of the word. Rather, it was the amount that the bank had counter-offered to a potential buyer not long before I came on the scene, so the estate handlers sort of assumed that this amount was "pre-authorized".

Anyway, I've been continuing to work on getting the condo set up, and in any case, I'm going to buy a condo at this complex, whether it's this unit or not. But other than that, my health has provided more fodder for news and excitement than I like. This isn't a case where "no news is good news" can be used. That is, the fact that I haven't written here does not mean that I have nothing of interest to write. Au contraire! No, since the last time I wrote to you I've been in e.r. twice (after consulting with my doctors' and health insurance's after-hours services. And, I've been admitted likewise twice into the hospital. However, they still haven't determined with great certainty what is causing my symptoms. O, yeah, and I also have been walking with a walker since my last week-long hospital stay. And the walker is a whole story in itself!

***

The story of the walker goes like this: on my 5th day in the hospital last time a nurse told me she thought my trouble walking was because I wasn't up and walking around enough. Huh? Armed with that stupidity in mind, I vowed to get up and walk around after having my shower (which I had to take sitting on the floor of the bath tub because their rules disallowed either taking a bath (there was not plug for the drain) or sitting on a chair in the shower and I wasn't stable enough to risk standing to take a shower.

This was mid evening. So true to my word, after the shower I made myself presentable (by hospital standards, which means mostly wearing a bath robe in order to be properly covered up and not displaying ones backside, wear the hospital gown ties up. I should mention that the entire time in the hospital when a physical therapist came s/he'd bring a walker and go with me walking up and down the hall a bit, but then take the walker away when the session ended. So I was left to my own devices when it came to walking in the absence of a physical therapist. So walking after my shower meant trying to walk without the aid of a walker. So I got by by holding on the rail along the hall. I reached a corner in the hallway - like a T-intersection where you have to decide whether to go right or left because straight ahead is not an option - I looked both ways and who should I meet but my rheumatologist! He was doing something at a computer in the hallway maybe 20 feet or so away from me. I had missed an appointment with him because of being in the hospital and had asked for a consult with him. He didn't recognize me at first, which isn't that surprising since he'd never seen me in my bathroom and with my head wrapped up in a towel turban-style. After I told him my name he cam over and I told him why I was walking around - what the nurse had said, and he agreed that my trouble walking was not because of muscular weakness due to lack of use (of the muscle(s)). He also offered to write a prescription for a walker for me.

The next morning I asked the nurse about the walker, and she acknowledged having seen the script for the walker in my chart but told me that I wouldn't be given the walker until discharge from the hospital. So based on this information I didn't ask about it again until I was being discharged.

Upon learning I was being discharged I had to arrange for follow up appointments for the following week, figure out how I was getting home (I'd come via ambulance), and otherwise go through the usual discharge routine. However, this was being done by nurses at the same time they were taking care of their other patients too. So somewhere in there I inquired about the promised walker... only to learn that there evidently wasn't a script for it. I insisted that there was a script and the nurse checked and double checked, and it wasn't in my records. So then the nurse said that the doctor would have to physically come in to sign the script. I told them that my rheumatologist had already written the script, and I was told that he wasn't my doctor while in the hospital (?!). I eventually understood that the script had either been either intentionally taken out of my records or accidentally misplaced. I said I wouldn't leave without the walker so I had to say another night. The next morning I was told the script was signed and I'd get the walker Monday at home. Satisfied with that (oh foolish me!), I agreed to be discharged.

Upon arrival at home my neighbor lent me her walker on the assumption that it would be only 2 days, until Monday. I waited... and waited... finally by Tuesday mid-day with no word about the phantom walker I was to receive, I called my doctor's office, the rheumatologist and also my primary care doctor, and I also mentioned it to the neurosurgeon, whom I saw on Monday. So at that point both the rheumatologist and neurosurgeon were working on the walker, but my primary care seemed to be AWOL (absent without leave, a military crime worthy of court martial). Finally, by Thursday I got a call from a company arranging to bring me a walker. The next day someone else came by with a walker, which I did not accept. It turns out that that second walker was from the rheumatologist, so I guess I got the walker the neurosurgeon prescribed. Anyway, I'm still walking with a walker, although the physical therapist is helping me and sometimes I'm able to use just a cane.

***

And this brings me to another point... when I was discharged from the hospital I was sent home with a script for physical therapy at home and a home health aid. A nurse comes by from time to time too.

And what are my symptoms? It quite possibly might be easier to answer that are NOT my symptoms, but I'll try my best to answer what ARE my symptoms: weakness and poor control in the legs, tingling and sometimes pain in my feet, cold feet, poor balance, acting up of my autoimmune allergic reaction (specifically redness in the upper chest and facial swelling), tingling in the face accompanied by fatigue, pain in the mid back and also in the gut, g.i. system slow down/malfunction, loss of feeling in my feet (not good for driving a stick shift/automatic transmission car). So now I have increased medications, have dizziness excercises tacked on to my usual heath routine, have to keep my legs elevated to minimize foot pain, tingling and lack of sensation, have to pay more attention to my g.i. system, etc., etc.

***

At the same time I'm working on getting set up in the new condo and hoping against hope that my general contractor is honest, because I just can't deal with problems on that front on top of everything else. But now I'm living in a personal canyon of boxes in my dinky little apartment. Part of the boxes are from packing up, but a good chunk of them are things I've ordered for the new apartment when I find things I've liked at good prices. I'm having to be my own interior decorator, because even if I could afford an interior decorator, noone will work for you until you own the place. But knowing my health I feel like I have to do as much as I can while I'm reasonably able, because I never know when my health will "head south" as they say (i.e., worsen). And, as a bit of insurance against contractor problems, I'm buying most of the things that they have to install. But things are starting to slow down regarding condo set up, at least as far as what can be done before I actually own the unit.

I must say, however, that my health and the condo prep has been a good diversion from thinking about mom and family. There's no getting around the idea that she's happier where she is now (from a Christian standpoint), but it's hard to deal with all the suffering she'd gone through prior to her death. Lately I've thought about it a bit as things otherwise slow down for me some.

***

Here's the real trigger to my writing today, though. I got a call from a cousin, who's a Christian and has spent some time with mom and my brother in recent years, after dad's death 5 years ago in particular. She called yesterday to ask my forgiveness for her not believing me about my concerns about how my brother there was treating mom. It turns out that since mom's death she's seen the angry side of him that she hadn't seen before, and now one of this cousin's brothers (who isn't a Christian) doesn't want anything to do with my brother because of his anger.

In these kinds of things it's not really appropriate to gloat about being right, because it would be better if I hadn't have been right, and mom's the one that suffered. I've told you here how I've been stymied at ways to help mom, but that mom and dad had things set up so that my influence in family matters was negligible, but my brothers played a major role also in making sure things were set up that way. Still, I'm sorry that mom had to suffer in this way - from my brother. But I hope that you will also see that people eventually come to recognize that I'm right in many of my interpretations of events and people. While it would probably be foolish to claim to be right all the time, I hope you can see that at the very least my perspectives on things probably should not be dismissed lightly. My family had build up an informal mechanism for keeping family issues secret and this mechanism could even fool people close to them, but I saw it for something otherwise (than what they wanted people to believe) and stuck to my beliefs with the conviction that I had enough to go on that I was convinced I was right. One other thing you can learn about me from this is that I don't change convictions easily and also I'm not afraid of going against the flow in my thinking.

It's hard, really, to deal with getting this confirmation that mom was abused by my brother (emotionally and verbally if not physically). The fact that I did as much as I could to try to help maybe alleviates any guilt feeling I might have, but it doesn't help the sorrow of this confirmation that she experienced this kind of treatment. You can see from other things I've written here that my relationship with mom has sometimes been rocky, but in all actuality, I think the ultimate cause of this goes back to the men in our family and the fact that mom was so dependent on them and they were so "persuasive" in affecting her views on things.

In the weeks or couple months before mom's death she had told me that she and dad didn't know about the things I'm writing here. But the thing is that they couldn't have known because I didn't trust dad enough to tell them. If dad had found out I was thinking or experiencing these things he would have very convincingly dismissed them and mom would have believed him and disbelieved me. It would have been very difficult for me to write some of these things things when dad was still alive.

***

I still have a couple more things I need to get done before I return to this blog in full force.

***

P.S. I got to thinking that there is one time when I messed up when I might have been able to maybe help mom. That was when I was living in New York and my brother and mom came out to visit me and my other brother and his boys (mom and brother in Pacific N.W. and other brother with his boys in New England; I was living in an apartment owned by my brother in New England, since I'd lost my second job for health reasons.

The scenario was that I hadn't had a holiday with the family in years so I went overboard on preparations. I should have spent more time with mom, but the thing is that after she left from that visit things would be exactly like they were before and it wasn't like she was going to start let me help her apart from my brothers' efforts. So these kinds of things felt to me manipulative ways to try to sort of suck me into the family "game playing" (in the socio-psychological sense of the term; other members of the family would undoubtedly deny there was any "game playing" going on). The last thing anyone in my family was ever going to do was let me have independent relations with mom. While dad was alive, he could maintain direct relations with me because he was astute at some of the familial issues and had clout enough to keep the upper hand. In any regard, no one in the family but me had any realistic potential of countering him. Dad, for example, was where the buck stopped as far as framing (of issues, individuals, events, etc.) went. I was the only one who questioned him with any conviction. I think I was able to do this because of things I'd experienced apart from the family, but also because of certain knowledge I'd gained and also because of my personality. My experiences independent from the family led to independence of judgement and change in some of my values and opinions. Under the purview of my family it would have been more difficult to come to these divergent perspectives, so the geographic and attitudinal distance combined with certain personality traits provided the opportunity to diverge from our family mindset. One of the personality traits that allowed me this opportunity was that of being independent in nature, which dad blamed for my problems in Vienna with the mission. I will remind you, however, that independent of thought is a well-known American value, which Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous book "Democracy in America" noted in the 19th century. Americans valued independence so much that they speer-headed the unfettered free trade movement in the 20th century. I mean the kind of free trade that is unencumbered with legal limitations and lets the market go where it will. Let's just say that I'm the embodiment of that value and Americans should recognize me as their true child that I am, independent spirit and all. (I hope you understand I'm speaking tongue in cheek here.) And dad, who was quite politicized, held to republican hands-off rule, where the rights individuals and businesses aren't encroached upon by big government. In other words, he valued independence... except, it would appear, in me. Or maybe it wasn't so much that I was the problem as it was that there were limitations to his valuing of independence and I fit into one of these exceptions to the right-of-freedom belief. Or possibly, he was just acknowledging how in reality things worked, but in any case, I felt that he agreed with the limitations of freedom thrust on me (by the mission in Vienna, etc.), so my independence in this particular situation was out of line, and those attempting to limit my independence were right in limiting me. In this case, however, one must try to disentangle what was independence acceptable and when wasn't it, or what kind of independence was acceptable and what kind wasn't.

Anyway, this is all to say that I might have helped mom during her visit to New England, when I was living there. But since I wasn't going to join in the family relations as they were, this help would just have been a short-lived event, until they returned back home and my brother there would once again be the one to come between me and any help mom might get. The only way my help could have been more enduring would have been if she would have stepped in so that I could on an ongoing basis have direct access to her to help her. That wasn't going to happen, because doing this was beyond what she could accept emotionally. Giving me that kind of access to her would be tacitly (if not actively) acknowledging that our family was something other than idyllic.