by jphilo | Dec 1, 2008 | Family
Yesterday’s snowfall changed the look of my gravel road yesterday. But the changes wrought by the snowfall was nothing compared to the changes wrought by a series of phone calls yesterday and today.
The first phone call was from the Father at the monastery saying our monk had flown the coop, but that Allen had called and was returning. This morning’s phone call said he’d gotten back safely. The next call was from Allen himself, saying he wants to leave the monastery and seek counseling for what he’s finally acknowledged is post traumatic stress syndrome (caused by the medical trauma experienced from his birth through age five).
So tomorrow, I’m driving to West Virginia to pick up our young adult son. He’ll stay here a few days, until we put him on a plane for Walla Walla and his Philo relatives. He’ll receive treatment there. Once he’s completed that, he can decide about the monastery and his future.
Blog entries will be sparse until I return, so be patient. And pray for us, please – for safe travel, for good car conversation, for Hiram as he waits for us to return, for Anne’s clear head as she deals with this and finals, for our boy’s healing – along with praise for Allen’s desire to seek healing and live a healthy life. As soon as I can, I’ll update you on the trip.
Thanks, in advance, for your care and encouragement. We are so blessed.
by jphilo | Sep 17, 2008 | Family
I unofficially declare September 14-20 Crisis Week – at least at our house. Sunday was Mom’s decision to move in with my brother and sister-in-law and her unexpected move. Then I had two days of cleaning up after her move and tying up loose ends.
This morning, I was pumped because all that was behind me, and I had the day to write a devotion and then prepare for the American Fiction Christian Writers’ Conference. It begins tomorrow in Minneapolis. Then Allen, our monk, called. He was having a crisis, and we spent most of the morning counseling him. About noon he’d resolved the immediate issue, but we said good-bye to him knowing he has more struggles ahead.
I was too emotionally wrung out to write anything. Instead, I packed for the conference and made food for Hiram to eat while I’m gone. And I prayed for our son. A lot. He has matured so much in the monastery, but he has more maturing to do. He’s an adult, and all Hiram and I can do is watch and pray and encourage him as he makes hard decisions about the direction he wants his life to take.
It’s like when he was little and we would send him off to surgery, entrusting someone more skilled than us to save his life. We would sit in the waiting room, watching the clock and trying to imagine what was happening. Only this is spiritual surgery for a spiritual wound Allen’s carried for many years. The surgery will take a very long time. If you know Allen, would you keep him in your prayers? Pray for his healing and maturing. Pray for his decision-making. Pray for those around him who are helping him heal.
And pray for us. It’s lonely in the waiting room. It’s hard to relinquish control.
by jphilo | May 22, 2008 | Family
Last week, I became a goat-enlightened mother, thanks to my monk-farmer son, the Goat Guy. His topics of discussion included: birthing kids, contracted tendons, birthing placentas, desirable goat confirmation and personality, goat meat markets, udders, milking, cheese-making, grazing habits, herd behavior, goat weight, genetic arthritis and billy goat stink.
I am not making this up. Goat enlightenment is not a state I knew existed, nor one I ever aspired to achieve. But after twenty-six years as Allen’s mother, I shouldn’t be surprised to find him happy as a clam tending goats in a monastery in West Virginia.
Life with Allen has been an adventure since the day he was born (twenty-six years ago tomorrow) and he was flown from Rapid City to Omaha for surgery. God has a purpose for his life, and part of that purpose was to take us where few parents have gone before. Perhaps this explains his Star Trek fascination when he was a child.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised last week to find myself in a dark, musty goat shed, snapping goat glamour shots while a barn cat climbed my skirt. Hiram shouldn’t have been surprised to spend an afternoon in the pasture amongst frolicking goats.
We shouldn’t have been surprised, but we were. The biggest surprise was Allen’s attitude toward the critters. “They don’t care about me,” he said as filled the mangers with hay and goats flocked around him. “They only care about the food I bring. It’s a good thing to care for and love creatures who don’t love me back.”
Maybe my reaction to his words was more stunned than surprised. A delighted sort of stunned. A grateful sort of stunned. A “Hallelujah” sort of stunned.
If it took goats to mature our son, then I love goats. I love musty old goat barns. I love goat hay and goat facts and goat stink. But I draw the line at barn cats who ruin goat glamour shot sessions. The nerve of some animals!
by jphilo | May 14, 2008 | Out and About
May is the month for visiting a goat farm, especially a goat farm on a monastery. Soon after we arrived last Saturday our monk farmer son, Allen, introduced us to twin kids born two days earlier. He showed Anne and Hiram how to bottle feed them, and I’m not sure who had more fun in the process: the kids, the Iowans or the monk.
When the newborns’ tummies were full, Allen led us into the goat pasture where we watched another pair of twin kids, a couple weeks old, frolic in the sunshine. One minute, the kids are busy grazing. The next minute, their hind quarters twitched and the twitch turns into a spasm that mades them leap into the air, their legs flopping like rag dolls, before they landed and continued snacking as if nothing at all happened.
Their antics had us laughing so hard we couldn’t talk. We’ve spent the last few days trying to perfect our goat frolic imitations without great success. Today I remembered the digital camcorder we brought with us. Anne gave me a crash cinematography course and the battery is charging. If the weather holds and I manage to push the right buttons in the pasture later today, a genuine goat gambol podcast may grace this website in the near future.
A new kid was born while we were in Ohio for two days. Hopefully we’ll meet her today. And this afternoon, Allen wants Hiram to join him at a neighboring farm. He wants his dad to tackle a four hundred pound billy goat and hold him down while Allen trims its hooves. Hiram’s not nearly as excited about the prospect of male bonding time as Allen is. I think the outing has YouTube potential and can’t wait to film the action. Never a dull moment on goat farm in May.
No kidding!
