Witt's End

I hate not being believed. That's happened a lot recently. But the pain of this one has been offset by a pain that came before.  I want to take us back to COVID times. One of the darkest times in my life.  When COVID was tearing through this country. Early on in the process I was pulled up from working in long term care and hospice to help run an emergency unit for COVID patients. These patients were residents of the Washington State Veterans Home. The unit was dealing with an outbreak. We had to stand up and isolate a unit and pull staff from all over the hospital to help provide care for these veterans and spouses.  I was working in the Community Living Center as a nurse's aid. That portion of the VA was a two wing unit that was a rehab and hospice center. We had to clear all of those patients out and move them into other portions of the hospital to make our COVID unit.  During my time on that unit I helped nurses from primary care navigate the EHR they'd never use...

I believe in being earnest. More and more with time. I know I still have a sarcasm gene that I need to address, I can't deny that; but I feel a growing compulsion toward sincerity. This need to stand behind what I do, and what I say. To be true to the emotions and feelings I hold. Through it all I think there's a level of humility and integrity that can only come from being earnest. The world needs kindness, hope, and connection. And I truly have come to believe that we need earnestness to accomplish that. We need some sincerity and some seriousness. In everything we do. But especially in how we express ourselves. I try to say what I mean. In speech and by pen. Express it honestly. Always. The sincerity of what I try to write leads to scrupulousness. I’m very serious in my writing. To a fault. And because of that I take things to heart. Maybe too much.I don't know how well that's served me.  I've written in the past about the accusations of being softhearted, of bei...

Have we examined how problematic it is when we equate good health with righteousness? I want us to think about that for a moment. When we think about having faith to be healed, and the blessings of heaven, how do we react to chronic illness and permanent disability? Do we expect that there is a personal responsibility of the person who we describe as afflicted? Sit with that for a second.  We often start with language we often equate to sin and Satan. Now we don't always stay there. I would argue most don't. But the direction that our sympathies go isn't always healthy. Our attempts at empathy often past sympathy and wind up somewhere around pity. That effects how we interact with people. With those struggling or thriving with various illnesses, medical conditions, and disabilities being treated as near helpless. Earnest sentiments are expressed that are often harmful. We seem to divide people into the useful and the helpless when we do this. And whether we are super consci...

We as people of faith need to get better at apologizing. We do more harm than we realize; often by following our convictions. And we need to be more willing to seek forgiveness for it. That’s going to require a lot of humility, some genuine connection, and a dash of spiritual envy. But I think we can do it. And we need to do it. If we’re sincere in our faith then there’s a demand for it. I'm realizing how high and mighty I used to be. How okay I was with letting my surety trump my empathy. It's been a hard pill to swallow. As we look at our actions we need to realize w e aren’t always correct. We don’t have all the answers. We have faith because we don’t. And we need to embrace that. We need that humility. We need that recognition. We don't know everything. We can't know everything. And that means we won't always get it right.  Too often we find our selves calling people to repentance without knowing there hearts are. Without knowing what they are going through. Oft...

Process matters. How we do something is as important as the what and the why in government. I'm an institutionalist. And I'm worried about the long term ramifications of what we're seeing happening.  I'm all for putting in the work to streamline our national budget. We need to examine for waste, fraud, and abuse. I would argue the largest factor is waste with a lot of redundancies. We can do what we can to increase efficiency. But the executive needs to be restrained in how they do it. For two major reasons.  One, congress is delegated the purse. Period. Article one of the Constitution. Congress handles the budget and taxation. The most democratic portion of the the entire federal system (the house) is supposed to originate all related legislation. It's their job to fix this. To work on it. Now the executive can veto and can provide guidance. They're in the perfect place to address these issues. They could impound and work with congress through the proper proced...

Staring at the stars on a clear night. Staring into the ocean. A flight across the country. Going to a funeral. That feeling of your insignificance. All of those lead to introspection. It begs the questions of where we fit. And I find myself asking over and over. How much does God directly intervene in our lives?  That's a question that's taken a lot of my spiritual space lately. And it's led to a follow up, does it matter? I think how I've changed my prayers . And I think that answers the question but I'm not sure. For a long part of my life, especially as a child I believed that God would directly intervene in our prayers. That he could rescue me from various situations.  I don’t know I can prayer for that anymore. That I can ask for a metaphysical intervention. That there’s a purpose for that. For me or for anyone. It’s made me wonder more and more about the entire ideas of preordination and predestination. Whether they effect the interventions that can occur for...

 I’ve struggled many times to describe what I do for work. And I’ve struggled just as hard to explain how you get there.  This was especially apparent this week. People love the population I work with but have no idea what I do. What it means. I feel it’s important to illuminate it.  I am a Peer Support Specialist at the VA. I’m currently credentialed as a Peer Counselor in the state of Washington (the state will be transitioning to a Peer Specialist license with more training and education). What does that mean?  Peers are people with lived experience with mental health and/or substance abuse challenges. They are successful and involved in their recovery. Those peers working at the VA also have to be veterans. That’s who we are.  Now to what we do. All peers support people in their recovery. They may run support groups, they do accountability checks. Peers help people access their resources. Peers may work on therapy and recovery skills with people both in grou...

 I wasn't planning on writing anything today. Then my kids reminded me it was MLK day. And I just felt rage.  I've tried cracking open Strength To Love four times to day. And I'm going to find some peace after I get some thoughts out and spend some time with it. I'm beyond frustrated that some of the first executive orders are to attempt to end birthright citizenship and change the name of Denali back to Mt Mckinley.  One of these will have little to no policy changes the other could change the fabric of America.  Let's talk about the first for the second. For decades, native tribes of Alaska petitioned to change the name of their sacred mountain from the name of a President to one reflective of the heritage of the place. To strip that through executive order is just vindictive. It serves no purpose other than to signal who is in and who is out. That's all.  Combine that with massive changes to immigration. Including a clampdown on legal immigration. And an atte...

Last month I averaged the most steps per day that I've had since I was in the Army. 10,933. About halfway through the month I stepped on the gas and thought I could get to 11,000, almost got there. For reference I was averaging 7,500 for the past year. Over the last two months I got up to 8,000, then 8,500. Now I got over 10,000.  So why am I talking about steps. Because its a large amount of growth for me.  I've spent two years struggling with various aspects of my health. What I expect out of my day to day life has changed. And I don't know if I will ever get totally back.  I want to maximize my current potential instead of aspiring for what could have been my potential. My life has taken some crazy turns over the past few years. And over the last decade I'm on an entirely different path than I would have ever thought.  I want to be ok with that.  I haven't always been.  I've spent a lot of time focused on where I wanted to be based on something other tha...