An Evening with Roger

I had a pretty good day yesterday. I liked moving toward a new routine and am excited about doing some new things in new ways. The day started early, as usual, with my pre-breakfast time in my nice home office. Following breakfast with a less than enthusiastic family--wonder if had anything to do with a return to school--I went for a nice hilly five mile run. It was a frosty, chilly run, but I liked it.

Yesterday was one of significant interruptions, and if you know me, then you know one of my favorite quotes is from Henri Nouwen. Here I paraphrase:

Most of my life I complained about interruptions to my ministry. Then I realized the interruptions are my ministry.

One of my old friends, a person who used to work for me at Hoosier Uplands, came to the food pantry yesterday. She actually came down the hall looking for me, to say hello. I invited her in, and we had a really good chat about life. I'm going to get a couple of things and take to her family this week.

I had a couple of really good meetings/conversations with people I greatly respect, people who are wiser than me. This is one of my goals for the year - to spend time with people like this; off to a good start.

After a few other things, including a hospital visit, I headed home a little before 5. We had a nice supper together. Healthy food; anti-holiday food. [For January I am drinking nothing but one cup of coffee per day and water the rest of the time. And NO sweets! ONLY healthy foods! Boston 2012.]

After supper, Kedra was checking her email and found an urgent email from our deaf neighbor Roger, sent a couple of hours earlier. It was a request for help ASAP. We quickly changed clothes and made our way across the road. Honestly I was prepared to find him dead. He is so frail. I went in his house, which was totally dark. I turned on a light and saw him on the couch. Was he breathing? Yes.

Long story short: he was severely dehydrated and very weak. We managed to get him to agree to go the ER. He barely disagreed, which is significant. He is usually very stubborn about these sorts of things. We helped into the car and made our way over to the hospital. ER=Wait. They took him in immediately, but it seems to take so long to get all the tests done, etc. They finally admitted him about 10. I made contact with his brother in IL, and he was on his way. Today I'll check on Roger's house and hyper dog. We love old Roger.

I wonder what will happen today?