Persist my Friend

by   January 21, 2022 with No Comments

By Roger Barbee

                         

On January 20, 2011, Reynolds Price died from complications of a heart attack. He was 77.

In April 1997 Price received a letter from Jim Fox who had read Price’s memoir, A Whole New Life, his story of the 1984 diagnosis of spinal cord cancer, which caused paralysis of his legs, placing him in a wheelchair. Jim Fox, a young medical student who experienced his own cancer diagnosis, read the memoir, and asked Price, “Does God exist, and does he care?” Their correspondence was brief because Fox died soon after, but Price’s answer to him was published as Letter to a Man in the Fire.

            In August of 2001 I suffered an injury that, like Price, caused paralysis of my legs. During my rehab I experienced a myriad of emotions and a deep sense of loss. I suffered, but received great care from  the hospital staff, family, and friends. But, I had so much to learn at the age of 55: Incontinence. How to manage the purple wheelchair. Dependency for many matters. The loss of long, morning runs with Jay and Caleb. Loss loomed and frightened me. However, one night I woke to a warm, calming light that appeared at my face and out of it a sweet, kind voice told me not to worry, that everything would be okay.

            In his answer to Fox, Price writes: “Starting on a warm afternoon in the summer of 1939, …I’ve experienced moments of sustained calm awareness that subsequent questioning has never discounted. Those moments, which recurred at unpredictable and widely space intervals till some thirteen years ago, still seem to me undeniable manifestations of the Creator’s benign or patiently watchful interest in particular stretches of my life, though perhaps not all of it.”

            The light and voice was not, I knew, a dream. It was real, but I kept my experience close, and only shared it with Reynolds Price in a phone call. His response was, “Why, Roger, you had a visitation.” Shortly after our conversation, I received a copy of Letters in which Price had inscribed, “Persist, my friend.”

            Price– the North Carolina novelist, poet, scholar of Milton, teacher at Duke, Rhodes Scholar, cancer victim, had used the best word, a simple verb that expressed the perfect attitude that only a good writer who was surviving a cancer, could. His choice of persist came out of his struggle with cancer,  but also out of his experiences like that of the summer day in 1939.

            Price, a student of religions, especially the Gospels, draws on literature, several religions and beliefs, and his own faith to answer Jim Fox’s question concerning God and His involvement in our lives. Yet, and perhaps of my own experience from the fall of 2001, I return over and over to Price’s words,” I’ve experienced moments of sustained calm awareness that subsequent questioning has never discounted….”

            That is, for me, a complete explanation of God’s presence in our lives. If we believe and listen we will persist.

At What Age Can Kids Run

by   January 18, 2022 with No Comments

By David Freeze

As a proud granddad, I had envisioned that the new baby would be ready for her first running watch within a week or so. I got her one! And that her first steps would be followed by a desire to run. Her mom said, “What if she doesn’t want to be a runner?” She had to be kidding!!!

By about 18 months, she began to run short distances. Then very soon, her mom and I had her racing in the driveway. Little 20-30-yard sprints that began with, “Get ready, Go!” There have been a few falls, but the girl has never lost a race. She’s just about two years and three months now, and runs everywhere, in the house and outside.

The baby’s name is Monroe, but much more well known by her nickname, “the Booper.” I’ve begun to explore what the experts say about kids running and when they can safely start. One of my favorite photos ever was published in the Post a few weeks ago, showing me leading kids from age six and up in a mile run around the Granite Quarry Elementary School gym. A dozen years or so ago, all the afterschool sites partnered with the YMCA on a kids’ running program. It went on for about four years and I learned a lot while leading that program. Younger kids want to be active and its easy for them. At most of the schools, a nine-year-old could likely be the best runner in the program. Older kids, 12 and up, often struggled. It is my belief that young kids are meant to run and society changes that for most of them as they age.

Whattoexpect.com says that somewhere between 18 and 24 months old, a toddler will begin to pick up the pace from walking to running — though you can expect a few spills along the way. By the time they turn three, running should come easily. Playing games like hide and seek and Simon Says, or just chasing your toddler helps them gain confidence.

Women’s Running says, “If you watch kids on a playground, zipping across the baseball field, or just trying to catch the bus, you will notice they run with an easy, natural stride. After all, as soon as we learn to walk, we start to run. And when we do it in our youth, we usually do it for one reason: for fun. Keeping it that way is one of the biggest opportunities, but also can be one of the biggest challenges.”

Most of the Rowan’s elementary schools participate in the Daily Mile, a program that gets them out of the classroom and on the track for a mile every day. Kids get lots of the same benefits that adults do out of running, Benefits from running early include improved sleep, increased self-esteem, improved concentration and confidence, decreased risk of developing type 2 diabetes and lower blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels.

The resounding medical advice says if the child is excited and interested and there are no major injuries, running at almost any age is acceptable.

Erica Gminski, youth programs director for the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) agrees that as long as running is presented as fun and not overly structured for very young children, it should be fine at any age.

Dr. Mark Halstead, a pediatric sports medicine specialist at Washington University in St. Louis. “A child’s individual rate of development and desire to run matters more than his or her actual age.”

“Some kids aren’t interested in ball sports or team sports to begin with, so presenting running as an activity that they can participate in may be attractive,” says Gminski.

I had the kids carry an egg while they ran, and laughter and fun were astounding. When I had them race me as a team, they were laughing and screaming for a win. Just make it fun, and any age will enjoy it.

Winter Flight, the area’s biggest race, is just three weeks away. Check it and other events at www.salisburyrowanrunners.org .

In A Word

by   January 17, 2022 with No Comments

By Lynna Clark

This is the year! 2022 is when you will FINALLY read the Bible cover to cover. Even the maps! But not the Concordance. That would just be weird. As it turns out, it’s a LOT of reading. You’re five days into the new year and already you find yourself three days behind. But you’ll catch up! Honest you will!
May I humbly make an observation? If not, stop reading here.


This is your exit. This is where you will jump off the guilt train. When reading Scripture becomes a chore, then you might need a different plan. Can I make a confession? I’m not sure if chemo caused it or just plain getting old. But currently I am dealing with a large amount of brain fog. For whatever reason, I have a really hard time hearing the words coming off the pages. I seem to have the attention span of a puppy in a yard full of squirrels. Focus is just not happening.


So! Here’s what I’m trying and it seems to be working. I hold my Bible to my chest and get as still as I can. Since it’s all I can do not to look out the windows at the birds on the feeder and the neighbor’s cat and the plethora of squirrels jumping from limb to limb and my bottle tree as it catches the light…


Wait. Where was I.


Oh! I was clutching a real Bible with honest to goodness paper pages which have notations of trials past and answered prayers. I was hugging it to my chest with my eyes closed and I was waiting. Silently asking God for the Words. This week the word Philippians came to mind. One “L” and two “P’s.” Philippians.


So I opened there.


After the intro I read one small paragraph and didn’t hear a thing. So I read it again. Then again. It began to be clearer. So I read it again and asked God for help. More meat was found on that bone. So I stopped and wrote the blog Certain of the Good Work. It wasn’t astounding but it was definitely a word from the Word.


Here’s the thought for today. Let’s not go through the motions in our relationship with God. Let’s not start the day by giving Him His marching orders or by instructing Him on how to handle the things on our mind. Let’s rest in Him. Let’s listen. Let’s pay attention as best we can. Let’s go so far as to ask God for this from Philippians 1:10a.


I want to understand what really matters.


Bless the Lord!

A New Adventure

by   January 15, 2022 with No Comments

By Doug Creamer

            Just before Christmas I received the news that my job teaching Chinese students was coming to an end. The rumor mill had been running for months before, declaring the end was coming. The end finally arrived, and I hated to see my Chinese students go. I also hated to see my income go, especially at the holidays.

            I had applied for a job late in the fall and never heard a thing about it. About a week before Christmas I received an email asking if I could do an interview over Zoom. Naturally, I was very interested. The interviewer and I connected almost instantly. We have the same heart and the same desire to help people.

            I love being a teacher. The job is teaching students who are working to earn their GED. I am teaching math and English. I am so excited about this new opportunity. My creativity is exploding inside of me with ways to help my students understand their material.

            I have lots to learn about the specifics of what my students need to understand so they can be successful when taking their GED test. My supervisor has provided tons of resources for me. I want to look at all of them and figure out all the lessons all at once. I have to quiet myself and focus on what I need for tomorrow and the rest of this week.

            I am really looking forward to teaching in a classroom again. But with COVID numbers being so high, we are teaching virtually for now. I have been up to my classroom several times and can’t wait to teach there. I’m looking forward to doing some planning there just so I can be up in my room. Having the opportunity to engage and connect with students is so fulfilling.

            The truth is I am facing quite a bit of work setting up these new courses for the first time. The first time you teach anything, it is always very demanding. I want to find all the best materials for my students. I also want to discover the best method to get the material across to my students. Naturally, I want to do all this perfectly. While my heart knows it is impossible to be perfect, my head keeps pushing me toward that goal.

            I know that after I teach these courses a few times I will build a solid foundation for what the students will need to know in order to earn their GED. After that I will need to figure out how to vary the instruction depending on my students’ strengths and abilities. Being an educator is always a process of improving and developing new methods of instruction.

            A new adventure has begun. It is hard to see the path ahead, but I know beyond a shadow of doubt that God is leading me on this new adventure. He has given me numerous signs of confirmation along the way. Some people believe that when God is leading us the path will always be easy. God often leads us down paths that challenge us so we can grow in our dependence on Him.

            God is more interested in our spiritual growth than any of us might realize. God’s desire it to make us more like Christ. If that means leading us into places that will challenge us, then that will be the path He chooses. The good news is that He will walk with us down this new path. He would never leave us alone. He will always be there to strengthen and guide us along the way. He wants to see our spiritual muscles grow stronger.

            God loves us so much that He doesn’t want to leave us in the condition in which He found us. He wants to see us mature. He wants to heal our brokenness. He wants to see us grow in our relationship with Him. He wants us to become light to those who are living in darkness around us. In order to do all this, He has to push, pull, and sometimes even drag us out of the mess He found us in.

            I want to encourage you to be willing to go on a new adventure with God. It might feel scary to take those first few steps, but God is going to be there for you. He promises to never leave you or forsake you. He also promises that He is making good plans for your future. He wants you to grow and prosper. So connect your faith with God and see where the adventure takes you.  

Contact Doug Creamer at PO Box 777, Faith, NC 28041or doug@dougcreamer.com

Old Wrestlers

by   January 14, 2022 with No Comments

By Roger Barbee

Soon following our move to Lake Norman almost five years ago, my wife Mary Ann looked for a representative for a particular beauty product she used. Scanning a long list of saleswomen, she randomly chose one and called her. After their long conversation had finished, Mary Ann came to the library to tell me how pleasant Terri the saleswoman was and how much she looked forward to working with her. It was then that her phone rang, and Terri asked, “Did you say your husband’s name was Roger?”

In 1823 the English Romantic poet, Lord Byron, wrote his poem, Don Juan, in which he writes: “‘ Tis strange – but true; for truth is always strange; /Stranger than fiction; if it could be told,…” Over the years many other writers have expressed the same idea in various words, but no matter what version is written, all readers eventually learn the truth of Byron’s words.

There it was for me: Strange but True;  Life not Fiction.  The husband of Terri and I had wrestled against each other in high school. Mike wrestled for Mooresville High School, and I for A.L. Brown in Kannapolis. We competed in the same weight class for two years over fifty years ago and now we meet again, just not on a wrestling mat.

We four had the obligatory lunch to meet and talk and explore. Mike and I then continued sharing lunches, coffee in my shop, and he guided me around our new home, Lake Norman, which he knew well because his career was with the power company that built the Lake.  We soon discovered that we had much in common.: Both of our hometowns had been textile towns when we were wrestling against each other; our parents had worked in the mills; we lived in mill houses, and both of those houses are still family occupied. So much, besides wrestling, shared.

Each week he would call and ask, “Want a coffee?” then in a few minutes he would appear with a soda for himself and the promised coffee for me. Each weekly visit found Mike helping me with some project in the yard or my shop. He is most responsible for the deck that expanded my small shop– giving me much needed work space. A trained engineer, he made certain it was correct and safe. Exact, even. He would rake the abundant pine needles fallen from the 42 pine trees in our yard to use for mulch in his gardens.  Our weekly visit often included lunch, and when we ate at his favorite fast-food eatery, he would pull a rash of coupons from a pocket before paying and say, “A poor man spends money like he is rich, but a rich man spends it like he is poor.”  Then as we ate, some finer points of theology or politics would be discussed. I will always remember how he once looked at me during one of these “discussions” and asked, “Are you that naïve?”

When I work with a project on the deck that Mike more or less built or move in my wheelchair around the yard gleaning pine cones, I see his presence. The bluebird nesting-box with the red roof still graces the pine tree where he fastened it after I “mentioned” to him how it needed to be there. When I admired a long row of irises in a neighbor’s yard, I asked Mike one day as we returned from a road trip to knock on the unreachable (for my wheelchair) door to inquire if I could have some. The kind, elderly lady must of approved of Mike because she gave me permission to take any irises I wanted, and now next to the back garden gate is a small, varied-colored growth of purple irises that Mike and I planted; and, like our friendship, it grows and thickens and blooms.

Both our lives, like all lives, have had their dips and twists and failures and mountaintops. But for two boys from the mill hills of small, textile towns, we have been blessed and have done well. And as I share life with Mike long after our competitive days, I appreciate more and more the odd, interesting, and fulfilling paths that we all travel, whether planned or not. Mary Ann and I moved to Lake Norman not knowing that the “Stranger than fiction” of Byron would happen, and that a friendship would be forged out of a time long ago when two scrappy, mill-hill boys competed against each other. Byron also writes that “…truth is always strange.”  He’s right, of course, but not always in the way it may appear. It’s not strange that Mike and I respected each other as wrestlers. Nor is it strange that there is something deeper now.

Addressing LDL Cholesterol

by   January 11, 2022 with No Comments

By David Freeze

As part of my annual physical, I didn’t expect any unusual results. Fortunately, nearly all my markers turn out well. The only long time issue has been a higher than normal LDL cholesterol level, even though my total cholesterol has always been good. LDL is called the bad cholesterol. My recent test showed a level of 115 mg., higher than the normal level of anything below 99.

Over at least the previous 35 years, I have been very fortunate to have regularly used only two Novant family medicine doctors. Mostly it’s been sort of boring, except for the lively change of pace when I got blood clots during or immediately following the bike rides of 2013 and 2021. All has gone well with getting rid of them and I don’t have the blood markers to continue medication full-time.

But since I have paid attention to blood tests, I have had higher levels of LDL, low density lipoproteins. That higher level has been a heredity thing as it runs in my family. Once I tried niacin, a B vitamin that was then the current rage to lower cholesterol. It had little effect and I hated the hot flashes. After that, we just checked it off to heredity and moved on.

One thing caught my attention last week. There is a 10-year risk factor for heart attack and stroke calculated based on overall cholesterol results and age. My new doctor pointed out that mine is higher than it should be based on the good readings for HDL, triglycerides, VLDL and total cholesterol. My target is now the LDL, no longer dismissing it.

My new doctor, replacing one of those long-term favorites who recently retired, pushed me to address it but she wanted me to start regularly taking a statin drug to address the LDL. I am very hesitant on medications and spent an evening researching the particular drug, specifically the side effects. I didn’t like what I read and suggested to my new doctor that I preferred to address the situation with lifestyle changes. She agreed, and we plan to retest the cholesterol levels in six months.

So what happens in those six months? I will begin to practice what I teach. As a long time running and wellness coach, I talk about certain specific risk factors that matter in your overall health and are directly linked to cholesterol levels. I don’t smoke or drink and do exercise well past the recommended amounts. Some medicines and medical conditions can raise LDL levels and I don’t have these. These things are already in my corner, but two others need some work.

Two remaining cholesterol risk factors will be the targets! The first is amount and quality of sleep. I am absolutely terrible at this and consider it as a lifelong issue. I don’t sleep enough, finally giving up my day too late and impatient to start the next one. Often the hours in the middle are interrupted by thoughts of things to do. Total sleep time nightly probably averages five hours, not nearly enough.

My diet is full of fruits and good carbs, plus decent amounts of vegetables. I don’t drink sugared drinks and usually do well on water intake. Eggs are a good thing again. My problems come with too much processed foods, a big red flag for LDL cholesterol levels. Certain things have become staples, like post run Pop Tarts every morning and packaged crackers plus a few favorites that are named Little Debbie. And those single serve pecan pies in the Food Lion deli.

Finally, cholesterol in total is a good thing. Our body has to have it and 20% of the body’s total cholesterol is needed the brain. But LDL can cause plaque buildup in the arteries leading to arteriosclerosis and other issues. I’m on a mission, have made it public and will report back later on the results.

Up next on the local racing scene is the granddaddy of them all, the 39th Annual New Sarum Brewing Winter Flight 8K/5K and fun run on Jan. 30. Look for it and other events at www.salisburyrowanrunners.org .  

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