Sacred Mundane: The Blog

Take some time to check out the new pages to your left:  I’ve updated my bio (which may not interest you), but added a Word for Today page, a Food for Thought page, and a Honey for our Souls page.  Check them out, and if I haven’t ever mentioned this to you:  Thank you for reading.  I’m honored you’d take the time to be here with me. 

                                          ~Kari

So, for the past three months I’ve had itchy shoulders.  Jeff thinks it’s hilarious; I think it’s infuriating.  The strange thing is that I have no rash, no redness, no bumps, and it gets much more intense at night.  During the day I rarely notice it, and I thought perhaps that it was just psychological, but no, last night I was awake until 3am with burning, itching arms–ah!  So today I finally researched.  What did I find?  I have a rare, enigmatic condition called Brachioradial pruritus.  I thought that sounded like something affecting my lungs, but apparently it is a real thing that causes unrelenting bouts of itchy arms for prolonged periods of time.  It’s been linked to both sun exposure (probably my culprit) or arthritis in the neck which causes nerve damage in the upper arm and shoulder area.  Therefore the sufferer’s average age is considerably higher than 27.  However, everything I read, including online conversations, blogs, and posted questions, all point to this diagnosis.  It strikes in the late summer/or early fall, or after prolonged sun exposure such as a visit to a sunny climate.  Its intensity peaks and falls with no apparent predictability, and some people have it for a few months and several claimed to have had it (off and on) for over 25 years!  The sufferers wrote at length about being sleep-deprived because this ridiculous itchiness drives them absolutely mad all night.  Why is it worse at night?  Apparently the heat from blankets causes the condition to become worse.  Some people sleep with ice packs on their arms, others with wet towls wrapped around their biceps.  Fortunately for me, I discovered a decade-old bottle of anti-itch gel in the bathroom drawer and doused both arms.  It felt like a cool breeze blowing on my arms all night long. 

All day I’ve been trying to think of some really significant spiritual insight to gain from this ridiculous disorder.  I can think of none.  Of course we talked about the itch of self-regard.  And yes, I can wholeheartedly agree with CS Lewis and say that it is FAR better to not have any itch in the first place than to have an itch and scratch it.  Scratching it just makes it worse!  But, really, that’s a pretty lame application.  Or, perhaps the lesson is that we should obey our husbands when they tell us to wear a long-sleeved shirt in the summer to avoid too much sun exposure (experts say sunscreen doesn’t help prevent this condition).  Or, the lesson may be to keep a handy bottle of anti-itch gel handy just in case you are ever unexpectedly plagued with Brachioradial pruritus in the middle of the night.  Who knows.  If you have any insights or spiritual lessons for me, please, comment below.  I’ll just be sitting here, scratching my shoulders. 

This week I had the now-rare experience of being on my own.  Jeff is always gone Mondays and Tuesdays for class and teaching, and this week he was at a Spiritual Warfare retreat Wednesday through Friday, then Saturday he had a leadership mini-retreat for the day with Foothills.  Mom and Dad are in Montana on vacation for ten days.  So, for the better part of six days, the Dutcher and I were home alone.  Jeff made me promise that I would not waste my time doing practical things like cleaning the house and painstakingly organizing our life (which is my default mode), but to spend some time doing enjoyable things, like reading.  The week before, my sister-in-law Nikki gave me a year’s worth of my favorite magazine, Real Simple.  So, after Dutch was in bed, I’d curl up with my magazine and read.  Though certainly a secular magazine, one article rang true in my heart, the subject of which was that not everyone in the world will like you.  I know.  You must be thinking, “Wow, Kari, you’re just now figuring out that lots of people don’t like you?  I could have told you that!”  But really, we are just approval-addicts and people-pleasers, and the way this particular author worded her article, it really made sense to me. 

She talked about our flavor.  What is my flavor? Am I chocolate milk or coca-cola or (more likely in my case) green tea?  Are we spicy or mild?  She explained that the only thing in the whole world that everybody likes is water, because it has no flavor.  But we are not like water, we have flavor, and it only follows that some people will naturally like our flavor and some naturally won’t.  That’s ok!  Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not a license to be offensive.  Certainly if people do not like us because we are proud or rude or arrogant or haughty or insensitive, then that is a problem–and we need to fix it.  But, I’d say I’m far more likely to err on the side or worrying about people liking me, rather than erring on being rude and mean to people.  (If I’m wrong in that and you think I’m really rude please email me rather than posting a comment in response!) 

Jeff has been a major catalyst in my journey with freedom in this area.  A few weeks ago, I was having a difficulty in a relationship.  He saw that I was agonizing over it, worrying about it, and obsessing over doing the right thing, saying the right thing, making everybody happy.  He pulled me into his arms and just began telling me all the things he loved about me, specifically.  I cried as I laid there, in his arms, showered with his words of affirmation.  He kept saying, “Just be you.  Just be you.”  I realized as I let the words sink in, that that was all I had to do.  I’d been clinging to the verse, “As much as depends on you, live at peace with all people,” but I think I’d misinterpreted the “as much as depends on you” to mean “as much as depends on you . . . and it all does!”  The truth is that it doesn’t.  I’m still going to do all that I can to live at peace with all people, to be accomodating and adaptive in order to bless those around me as best as I know how, but really, when I start to think that it’s my job to make everybody around me happy, I’ve bought into a lie that places far too much importance on one person–me. 

So, I’m learning.  I am a flavor only.  In this huge mix ingredients, I am but one.  God knits us all together and creates a delicious concoction using us all.  While we should all be able to fit together, it is not my job to do this.  He’s the one who makes the flavors blend. 

So what flavor are you?  The more I write, and the more I do character sketches, the more I want to learn about people.  People are fascinating!  One night this week, while Jeff was gone, one of my best friends came over and spent the whole evening with me.  We ate cookie dough (can that be my flavor?!) and sat on the counters and talked and played legos with Dutch.  It was a rare time because we were in no hurry.  Dutch went to bed, Jeff was gone, and it was just the two of us, with nowhere to go.  I confessed to her that I can spend hours online looking at house plans.  She admitted that she goes on Craigslist everyday and looks at Mazda 3s.  I learned more about her flavor.  And now, I value her and love her even more, because I know her just a little better.  That’s why, even though I despise forwards, I really love those little questionairre things that get sent around every few months.  Sure, some of the questions are corny, but that’s the point.  I love reading them because I learn about the person’s flavor, and usually, the more I understand a person, the more I can love and relate to them.  Sure, there’s risk in being us.  The risk is that we’ll expose our flavor and people will say, “Yuck!  You taste like Brussels sprouts!”  But, don’t give up.  Give it some time and keep exposing your flavor.  You might just be an acquired taste.