Through the grey tinted glass at the end of the hospital hallway, I could see the last of the peak fall color. Bright yellow, red and orange leaves in the distance. Probably maple. There is nothing like Fall in New England.

I was recovering from treatment for “massive pulmonary embolisms,” (blood clots in the blood vessels affecting my lungs) at Bay State Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. (Bay State is a major regional teaching hospital.)  I had had a procedure (via a catheter up through a vein in my leg) to remove some of them, dissolve others, and to install a filter in my vena cava to collect any others that might turn up before they could kill, or leave me permanently impaired.  A retired doc said, snapping his fingers, I could’ve “gone, like that.”

I was fortunate.

That was more than a month ago.

After a week in the hospital, I was discharged, only to be readmitted the next day with fresh symptoms, notably a rapid heartbeat. It took another week in the hospital, but I am pleased (and relieved) to report that I am rebounding, recovering well at home, and getting back to work.

Again, I am fortunate — and not only to be on the road back to health.

I was able during my first hospital stay, to gain access to a bootleg computer long enough to send an email to my love who was worried and far away, and to check out Meteor Blades’ diary at Daily Kos about my hospitalization. I had heard about it while in the intensive care unit, thanks to my good friend Jonathan Hutson. It was a warm surprise in the middle of a strange and harrowing adventure.

I was and am profoundly grateful for the prayers, good thoughts and wishes, and kind offers to help in some way — not to mention the simple act of recommending this diary such that it stayed on the rec list for a day. I certainly did not expect any of this.  I was and am, honored. Thanks too, to kossacks, street prophets, and others for the cards, calls, emails, flowers, visits — and a cake! And a special thanks to Rain from Street Prophets who specializes in making get well quilts, and made a beautiful one as a “big, comfy get-well card” from the community. The quilt features messages from friends (on the white squares). It was very nice to know from Rain’s comments on Meteor Blades’ diary  that that she was making one. It was even better to hear from Rain that it is done and on its way.

Any of us can feel scared and alone, even when we are not really alone. It meant more than I can say that so many helped to make sure that did not happen. I have seen this community come through for many people in remarkable ways over the years, and I am grateful for your having been there for me through this. Thank you. Thank you all so very much.

I hope I don’t bore anyone with the medical details, but I just wanted to update my condition, and offfer a few vignettes from my recent adventures.

                                       —————

I felt pretty good when I was first discharged from the hospital. But it didn’t last long. Shortly after arriving for my follow-up appointment, I was packed in an ambulance, sent strait to the overflowing emergency room at Bay State, a major urban hospital where although no one said so, it was obvious I was a high priority in the triage. (They were afraid that another clot had cut loose from my leg and was, damn the filter, looking for a way to wreak havoc.)

Even with that, what still amazes me most about this episode, was when my two EMTs rushed me through the ER doors on a gurney — we immediately found ourselves in a line of other gurneys, each with two EMTs, waiting to talk to someone.  I asked my EMTs if this was unusual. They said it wasn’t.

                                                 —————

I had never had a major medical problem in my 56 years, and so everything about my hospital experience was new, and often strange.  What’s more, I knew little about clots, and so I tried to learn as much as I could, even as I was being treated and recovering.

It was more than a little humbling not to know what people were talking about, even as — especially as — they were talking about me.

First there was the medical short hand thrown around. I had, for example, DVTs (deep vein thrombosis) PEs (pulmonary embolisms) and afib (atrial fibrillation).  I would be asked if I had ever taken various medications. I hadn’t even heard of most of them, (but no, I had not taken them either.) At one point, a nurse asked me if I understood about clotting. I didn’t, and so she launched into a remarkably clear and concise 15 minute lecture on the circulatory system. (I wish I had a video.)

My case confounded the medical team and the specialists because I had, as far as they could tell, none of the risk factors for clots. And so I became a subject of Grand Rounds. Every morning, three white coated doctors and two or three medical students would stop by and discuss my case, among themselves, and with me. (Did I have any questions?) I liked my doctors and am grateful for my care and treatment, but it was very odd being a subject as well as a participant, in the intimate study of me.

But of course, being more than a little curious about my situation, and visited by a parade of doctors and nurses over two weeks, I managed to get up to speed enough to meaningfully participate (and even successfully challenge some aspects of my treatment.)

I was in a teaching hospital, and I was learning.

                                            —————

Since my release, I have learned more.

One  comprehensive discussion of pulmonary embolisms, based on a survey of the medical and clinical literature found some amazing things.

The average annual incidence of venous thromboembolism [blood clots in the veins] in the United States is 1 per 1000, with about 250,000 incident cases occurring annually. The challenge in understanding the real disease is that autopsy studies show that an additional equal number of patients are diagnosed with pulmonary embolism at autopsy, as were initially diagnosed by clinicians. This is led to estimates of between 650,000 to 900,000 fatal and nonfatal VTE events occurring in the US annually. The incidence of venous thromboembolism has not changed significantly over the last 25 years.”

Only 4-5% of these cases are “massive pulmonary embolisms” like mine, but depending on the study — the death rate runs between 30% and 60%, and the majority of these deaths occur in the first 1-2 hours of care.

I was and am, very fortunate.
                             
I have been home for more than two weeks now, much recovered. And getting back to work. Unfortunately, I am at least month behind, and as a freelancer, that is not good. Anyone who has any writing, editing, or speaking they need done, please write me. I’m available.

Ah, the ups and downs of blogging on my own site.  

I’m baaaack! 

Yesterday I published an article at Religion Dispatches, about the role of religious groups in battling predatory gambling in MA, and around the country.  In it, Laura Everett of the Massachusetts Council of Churches has a message for Governor Deval Patrick who doesn’t seem to get it that casinos are not free money.

“I think it’s cowardly,” said Laura Everett. ”We are going to sacrifice our citizens. We know that there are people in Massachusetts who will become addicted. What Patrick is saying is ‘you are expendable.’”

This is important because the Governor says he wants to go another round. He also does not seem to remember that his casino proposal was beaten by better than 2-1 in the legislature last year. 

How much punishment can one pol stand?

There is already an abbreviation for a term fast making its way into our political lexicon: RIC (great for headlines) is, of course, short for religious industrial complex. Blogger Dan at Faith in Public Life, a member agency of the RIC and roundly criticized lately for it, embraced the term today in response to the blogospheric discussion that has broken out about the RIC. However, in the manner of industrial PR writers everywhere, he responded to exactly none of the points raised, declared that “the discussion seems to have run its course,” and thanked everyone for their participation.

Blogger Scott Isebrand, meanwhile, shows that far from being over, the discussion has just begun:

The RIC, he writes, is

“cultivating the public personae of a new generation of religious leaders,” a public personae of a “values voter” who is “no longer shackled to a ‘narrow agenda’ of abortion and gay marriage, and [is] voting on a ‘broader agenda,’ including poverty, the environment, and global HIV/AIDS.” The constellation is also claiming that Democrats need New Evangelicals in order to win elections.

But the New “moderate” Evangelicals are ultimately…conservative. They still oppose reproductive choice. They still oppose full civil rights for gay Americans. Consider, alongside Joel Hunter, two other leaders of the “broader agenda,” New Evangelical, conservative Christianity. Rick Warren of Seattle’s Saddleback church denies the simple scientific fact of evolution, and Jim Wallis of Sojourners, as Schultz points out, has actively combated the idea of an organized religious left.

The only thing new about New Evangelicalism is how it’s a conservative Christian movement that’s made inroads into the Democratic Party.

Religion scholar Mark Silk, writing in response to Sarah Posner’s article at Religion Dispatches,  mischaracterizes Dispatches from the Religious Left:

A new book, Dispatches from the Religious Left, rounds up a bunch of outside-the-Beltway lefties to make the case for themselves. I don’t have a problem with their case, and I understand their annoyance, but that doesn’t seem to me sufficient grounds for scorning those toiling in the spiritual vineyards of Democratic Party politics.

The mischaracterization is that I rounded-up a bunch of Outside the Beltway lefties.  (Not that there would be anything wrong with that.)  As a matter of fact, contributors Carlton Veazey and Barry Lynn operate inside the beltway, and stay true to their values and fight the good fight.  

That said, unlike many other contemporary books on religion and politics, Dispatches is neither by nor about Democratic Party consultants and other Beltway Insiders kissing-up to moderate and conservative evangelicals and calling that the foundation of a new religious left.  There is more to progressive religion and politics than this.  And part of the role of this book, is to show how that is so. 

That’s the title of an important article by Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches.  The article critiques the activities of various Beltway Insiders and contrasts their approach with that of several contributors to Dispatches from the Religious Left. 

The religious left is still struggling to find an organizing and base-building model, while the center-right continues to dominate the conversation and capture the attention of politicians. A new book, Dispatches from the Religious Left, edited by the journalist Frederick Clarkson, attempts to start the conversation—though by its own admission it’s merely a start, not a blueprint.

Part of that start, of course, is debunking the notion that the centrist evangelicals represent a religious left

This just in from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice:

The Obama administration offers hope for a broader understanding of reproductive health and choice. President-elect Barack Obama is both pro-choice and a person of strong religious conviction, and RCRC will be in the forefront of advocacy for positive programs to support healthy and wanted pregnancies, expand healthcare, and strengthen families.

Let’s start by connecting the dots. Reproductive issues such as unintended pregnancy underlie and are connected to our other concerns as people of faith: providing universal health care, eradicating hunger and homelessness, eliminating violence, reducing income disparities, increasing equality and empowering women, and improving environmental quality, among them.

Regressive groups – those that keep the culture wars roiling – will continue to single out and demonize abortion and the women who have abortions, which makes our mission of connecting the dots all the more urgent. The fact is, health, economic stability, education, and other matters of daily life all relate to our private decisions.

 

It is time for  reproductive health and choice to be accepted as part of a comprehensive social justice ethic.  Please take a few moments to read about this vision and help make it a reality by making a generous donation to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

The interview I taped with Welton Gaddy the other day will air on his Air America radio program State of Belief on dozens of stations and the XM satalite radio network this weekend.   Day and times vary. Information on how to listen, including times for web casts, can be found here. The occasion was to talk about Dispatches from the Religious Left – but naturally, as people who have been deeply involved in these subjects for many years do — we dived into all of the inter-related subjects with gusto.

Today I taped an interview with Barry Lynn, who is best known as the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  Less well known is that he also hosts a syndicated radio show,  Culture Shocks.   I am told that it will be possible to listen to the podcast at the AU web site.  We discussed the State of the Religious Right and the prospective Religious Left arising from his, and others’ contributions to Dispatches from the Religious Left.

Pastordan nails it (or at least one of many very important its) over at Street Prophets today. In discusing how the immoderate Rick Warren has endorsed Proposition 8 that would repeal marriage equality in California, pastordan succinctly describes the elephant on the table that is one of the obstacles to clear thinking, informed conversation and good strategy in response to the Religious Right.

There is much more to say on this, but before we go there, let’s also note that today is Write to Marry Day in support of marriage equality in California and in oppositon to the Religious Right’s infamous Prop 8. Here is the original  press release calling on bloggers to highlight this important battle on their blogs today. (What we used to call a “blog swarm.”) With less than a week to go, the No on 8 campaign needs financial help to compete with the enormous financial advantage of the coalition of theocrats seeking to impose their particiular religious view of marriage on everyone else. You can contribute via Act Blue.

Of course, no need to bother with all this if you are part of the Alfred E. Neuman School of Beltway Insiderism. When it comes to such things, all you have to say is “What Me Worry?” Afer all the Religious Right is dead or severly diminished, and therefore The End of the Culture Wars is at Hand! So when it comes to initiatives sponsored by the dead or dying Religious Right that feature leading wedge issues of the so-called culture wars of the last generation, nothing to worry about… right?

Dan writes:

The real problem here is the endless parade of Religious-Industrial Complex consultants and activists who tell us that Rick Warren is the epitome of the “moderate Evangelical” that Democrats should be working to attract. The only problem is, it doesn’t work. Cameron Strang – who was supposed to pray at the Democratic Convention in Denver – is now on the board of Oral Roberts University. Randy Brinson worked for Mike Huckabee this spring and runs what’s left of Alabama’s chapter of the Christian Coalition. Joel Hunter endorsed Huckabee in the primaries, and has pledged himself to “maintaining a socially conservative platform”. Even the venerable Jim Wallis won’t describe himself as part of a “religious left.” Moving away from strictly Evangelicals, Doug Kmiec is still an authoritarian Catholic.

Ever since 2004, we’ve been treated to a parade of icons like this with the pledge that while they may be socially conservative, they’re good on poverty or the environment or whatever, and Dems should do whatever they can to bring them into the fold. Meanwhile, they go on being social conservatives at best happy to jettison a progressive social agenda in favor of poverty reduction, if not actually undermine it.

This is so very well put. And because it is, I want to repeat what I told Bill Berkowitz in an interview with Religion Dispatches last summer. We need to be very clear about what is at stake:

Bill Berkowitz:  Rick Warren, the much celebrated and talked about pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, interviewed Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain on Saturday, August 16. Before and after the event, Warren’s Civic Forum received a lot of media attention. Many in the media have anointed Warren as representing the new face of Christian evangelicals; creating a new movement that not only distances itself from the old timers of the Religious Right, but one that is setting a new agenda for evangelicals. How do you view Warren’s work and where does he fit within the broad constellation of religious leaders?

Frederick Clarkson: Four years ago, Rick Warren wrote an inflammatory letter about the presidential contest to thousands of evangelical pastors. This letter revealed him to be a fierce partisan, who epitomized the worst aspects of the Religious Right. He declared five issues to be “non-negotiable” and those “are not even debatable because God’s word is clear on these issues.’” These included abortion, same sex marriage, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and euthanasia. He later said he regretted the letter but that he had not changed his views.

While he is a skilled showman, he is unable to sustain moderation in style or in substance even before a national television audience. His real self leaks out. At the Civic Forum, Warren highlighted the top two litmus tests of the Religious Right–abortion and same sex marriage, and described abortion as a “holocaust.”

Following this he called on his audience not to “demonize” people with whom they may disagree–having just compared people who have a different view on abortion to the Nazis. In my view, Warren is an emerging leader of the Religious Right in transition, not of evangelical moderation.

I added: …I think this is also about marginalizing the role and voice of religious progressives, which is to say those who in past decades played decisive roles in stopping the war in Vietnam, pushing for African American and women’s rights, and much more. The Beltway Insiders would prefer not to have a resurgent Religious Left complicating things by making conservative evangelicals uncomfortable and perhaps more importantly, compelling significant changes in the way the politics and public policy industry does business. So I think a faux Religious Left is being manufactured as an official counterweight to the Religious Right in the media and as a sop to the actual stirrings among religious progressives.

Religious progressives are indeed a counterweight to the Religious Right and are far better gounded in important matters such as poverty, AIDS and climate change than the me too squad of conservative Catholics and evangelicals currently being promoted by Beltway Insiders in the service of short term political advantage. Religious progressives are pro-marriage quality, pro-choice and pro-separation of church and state. The immoderate conservative evagelicals being recruited to the party by people who really ought to know better, mostly are not.