Confessional

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. 

Your sins will be absolved, son. 

It has been two weeks since my last blog post...

That isn't true, my son. You posted about the college football playoffs just last night.

I mean about ministry type material, Father. Act II posts. 

Ah. I see. And why would that be?

(sigh) It's a complicated combination of reasons, Father. I mean, yes, I have posted about college football since the last post I did, the ones about how I hated my job. So that's one excuse. Another excuse is the ramification of those posts: since my last post, I made a call to the state retirement people and had them send me the information about retiring from disability. The major issue will be that I'm not yet 55 years old, which is where their "scale" starts, so I don't have any real idea if retiring this year is financially feasible or not. The other problem, which is where I'm working right now, is that I'm going to have to stop teaching in order for them to evaluate whether I should stop teaching or not. Which seems patently absurd to me - don't you have to see me trying to teach to determine if that's still possible or not? - but I don't make the rules. It's not unlike being a Christian: we may not like all the rules He makes, but we're bound by our faith to follow His rules regardless. 

That is true. Alright, please continue, my son.

So, that's occupied a great deal of my mental energy and some of my actual time. To finish the thought, in order to prove my frailty, the gentlemen from the state suggested I go back to Social Security and apply for disability through them again first. (I tried that a few years ago, but I was much healthier then.) If they approved my disability, that would go a long way towards convincing the state's evaluation proctor (a company called "MMRO", which sounds like "tomorrow" to me, which seems prophetic) that my disability was genuine enough to verify on their end as well.

But I don't understand why you're concerned about proving this. From what you've said before, you're barely doing anything in the classroom now - your assistant does all the legwork and most of the teaching - and you still can't make it through most of the days. 

That's true. But my condition is so rare that most doctors haven't even heard of it - the fellow with the state sure hadn't; he wanted as many details as I could share, out of sheer curiosity! - so I'm worried that combined with the lack of a physical "display" of damage (a still photo of me looks normal, not "disabled"), an evaluative doctor examining me for the first time wouldn't see me as "disabled" in any way. 

Are you serious? All he or she would have to do is take a look at your list of medications. Didn't you say once that your late wife died in part because the morphine was too much for her system to handle?

Yes. 

How much did she have in total before you two saw what it was doing to her and cut it off?

Um, two 30 mg pills. There was still 26 mg in here system at the autopsy, six days later. 

And you take how much yourself?

Um... two hundred mg per day. Plus 60 mg oxycodone, plus 2400 mg of gabapentin. The venlafexine's supposed to help with pain a little bit, too.

Don't you think that's sufficient evidence in and of itself?

No, because I've taken most of that for several years, and I wasn't applying for disability retirement then. If the condition's being held in check, I don't need to retire! It's only now that the fatigue is overwhelming me during the school day that I feel the need to stop cheating the school system and give in to what my health is actually telling me. 

(Pause)

That's not all of it, is it?

(Pause)

No. No, like I wrote the other day - well, the other week - the job itself is making me not want to fight the pain and fatigue any more, too. I was much more willing to fight those when I felt like I was doing something useful, teaching students in the alternative school who wanted to learn something, perhaps needing some kind of different instruction than they were getting in the mainstream classroom. But now... now we're just a glorified probation office. Have I told you that out of the 22 students we had last month, 15 of them had parole officers? That means I had at least 2/3 of my class on probation of some sort, plus another one or two who were waiting for sentencing. There were and are only a handful of actual "alternative" education students there, and I do almost NO teaching any more because these kids don't generally WANT to learn. They're only here because the court says they HAVE to be. 

Ah. 

That's not what I want to do with the remaining strength in my life. I've been reduced to being an administrator - the thing I hate doing more than anything else in the school system. Throughout my career, I've thanked every good admin I've ever had because I appreciated that there were people who were willing to take on those thankless jobs that included all the worst parts of teaching (paperwork, discipline, long hours) and excluded all the best (working with students!). And that's what I'm stuck with now - most of my day is spent suspending students and filling out the requisite paperwork that goes with those suspensions, for example. I mean, it needs to be done, but when it's using up my very limited reserve of strength? I can't believe that's how God wants me to use these last years. 

That makes sense.

And in fact once I started mentally down this road, He's been encouraging me to walk this path, reminding me that we're in the last year or so of Christians on the earth. The Rapture is coming very soon, and there are FAR better ways for me to spend my limited time and strength. 

Like what, would you say?

(Pause)

That's the problem, of course. God never lays the entire plan out for us ahead of time, does He? 

No, He only provides us with Step One. The rest of the plan is oft-times too frightening to absorb all at once. Plus, He wants to make sure you'll obey before He casts you off into the deep. So, what do you believe "Step One" is?

Step One is to retire from my job teaching in the schools. Perhaps the retirement money plus SSI is sufficient to make it through the next year - and I have to remember, that's all I have to survive! - or perhaps I can pick up some extra income from teaching on line, like with the IDLA (Idaho Digital Learning Academy). God has always provided for me whenever a shortfall arose, so I'm really not worried about the money part of this.

Really? I don't believe you, my son. Lying is a sin, you know. 

I know, Father, but it's the truth. I may not be completely trusting in the Lord, but I've seen too much evidence to doubt what He says in Matthew 6, about dressing the sparrows and the flowers, so how much more will he care for us. I've gotten too many random checks in the mail on a month where I didn't know how I'd make ends meet not to believe.

No, what I'm fearful of is not understanding what the rest of "Step One" is. I don't know what He wants me to do once I've retired! How am I supposed to serve Him? 

How? Well, what are your most prominent spiritual gifts, my son?

The obvious one would be writing, like I've been doing through this blog. The other gift I have, of course, is teaching, and I've been doing that in the school systems for 34 years now.

Most of your writing is also teaching, you realize...

 I know. And that's my assumption, that I'll continue to do that. But if He's going to such drastic measures now, is He arranging this solely so that I can simply do what I've been doing otherwise? That seems...

You don't need to know the rest yet, my son. Just get through Step One first. Keep doing the rest of what you're doing until He opens the door for you to move forward in the direction He wants you to go.

And trust Him, son. Trust God to guide you where you need to go for His sake. Listen, quietly, as much as you can. So far, you've done what has been asked of you - keep that up. Move forward with this retirement, allow your schedule to be freed up so that whatever He has planned for you in the year to come, you will be available to do it to the best of your remaining strength and ability.

May God bless you and protect you, and guide you moving forward, my son.

Thank you, Father.