Becoming "mighty in prayer": Update

Now that we have completed the first quarter of the year, it seemed reasonable to track progress; that's something people do for resolutions, right?

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/01/mighty-in-prayer.html

I am not being that scientific about my goal. I have no specific benchmarks and tracking set up. Frankly, I think it could be hard to quantify. There has still been progress.

For the issue of being less tired and more organized... I am still working on that. It is a hard area for me, which made it both more likely as an immediate awareness and harder to overcome.

However, as I have been working on it, there were two other things that came to mind, and there has been more progress there.

One was that I need to bring my sisters along more. This is not exclusive to prayer, but when I am making plans and trying to improve things sometimes I keep those to myself. If it is something that would be good for them too, and something where working together makes it easier for me, then we should work together.

Having started in that direction made the second part easier.

Many years ago we started praying together for various people. 

It started with the hopes that various members of the singles ward would get married. I had the idea that maybe if we cleared out some other people we would have our own chance. 

It did not hurt to revisit that now, when it seems so naive. Granted, we did pray for people who did get married and are still married, but we have also seen a lot of bad marriages, even with meeting in church and being married in the temple. (Again, not any of the people we prayed for, but we know them.)

I am just saying that we have seen a lot and understand a lot more fifteen years later. We were still praying for various people for many issues not related to marriage, and it was starting to feel like too many people, and not well-thought out enough.

For example, there was one person that we had been praying for when he was job-hunting. We did submit him for different jobs, but there hasn't been anything for quite a while now. He is still in his old job. That is probably okay, and probably not something we can affect.

Other people may still always need blessings -- that's just life -- but the issues that first got them added in have subsided.

Clearly the issue was that things had gotten too habitual. That was hard to change; stopping praying for someone feels kind of mean. Plus, so many times we would just be in the prayer without talking about it that much, and then there is this long list that feels rote, even if the caring is sincere.

So we talked about it.

Some people are still in there. One remained for a long time while we were hearing nothing from her, but it felt important. When communication was re-established it was confirmed that friendship and sense of being cared for mattered. 

There are some we know we shouldn't let go, and we won't. 

Otherwise, now it feels lighter, and like there is more room for other people to come in. The amount of people we are praying for doesn't overwhelm the things that we are thankful for. 

I believe that will make it easier to feel influences.

That will be part of these prayers being more powerful because of what we "hear" and act on.

It will take work, but I expect that to continue to improve.

Happy Easter

Yesterday I was in the temple, and I kept thinking about my mother. That was something we used to do together, and can't do together now.

Referencing the travel blog, I also had a lot of thoughts of her in Disneyland. We only went there together twice in adulthood, but they were significant trips and not something we will do again in this life.

I suppose the next time I will have those thoughts will be the next time I go to Italy and see my cousins,

Grief is real, and it can come with any losses. I will spend some time with my mother. She will probably be cheerful and friendly, and she will quite likely talk about her young children. She may say she is waiting for her father. 

That won't devastate me, but there are times when I feel how much I miss her and the relationship we had when she knew me. It's not really that her personality has changed -- she is very much still her -- but she has lost her connections to those who are still here.

I am very grateful for my faith in the eternal nature of our lives, and resurrection and restoration. 

It does not remove the pangs that strike me now.

There is a dual nature to our lives here. There are things before that we don't remember, and faith in things to come, but there is also in very bold letters "NOW", with all of its accompanying pains and pleasures.

It can work this way.

Somehow, we need to feel the pain and the fear and doubts, and still remember the faith and the trust, and not let it lessen our love.

 

The versatility of soup

This comes from a recent cooking experience, but it probably hit me more because of a thread I'd read about some people finding eating stew in fantasy novels unrealistic, because it is so labor-intensive.

(It may have come from something that was written humorously being taken literally by people who don't cook.)

There are certainly circumstances where stew would not be practical, but once ingredients are assembled -- which can be very quick -- soups and stews don't require a lot of effort and do give you a lot of versatility.

(This versatility is also true of casseroles, but there are more things that can go wrong.)

The recent cooking experience reminded me of that, and if I'd thought of it sooner, I could have taken photos.

We are starting to have turkey less often, and there are fewer fans of the turkey soup, but when we do have it I can't bear to waste the bones, because I know they make such a good broth base.

After Thanksgiving I had put the bones and some skin in a freezer bag and put them in the freezer. They had stayed there until recently. Any separate leftover meat had been used up already, but there was still meat on the bones for the neck and wings.

I pulled out that bag on a Friday, put some salt and water over it, and set it on low heat.

I understand that it is common to also add some vinegar to help with the breaking down. I have only ever worked with poultry for that. If I were starting with thicker bones, I might add an acid.

I let that simmer all day. When I got off work, I strained the broth into another pot. With the bones in the strainer, I pulled off that meat and added it back to the broth, along with some carrots. Then I whipped up my home made noodles (one egg, a half egg shell's worth of milk, some salt, and then flour to make a dough).

That, and then stirring as I brought everything to a boil, was the most labor-intensive part of the experience, and it was not that bad.

It was a good soup, but there was a lot more broth than items in the broth. Ladling that into a bowl made those bowls fine, but then there was still all of this good broth that I still couldn't bear to waste.

I had recently made mushroom tetrazzini. Because we had been at Costco instead of Fred Meyer, I had quite a few leftover mushrooms. I sliced these up and added them as a noodle substitute. Mushrooms are low-carb, but texture-wise they fill a similar role. I also sliced up a couple of chicken tenders to fill out the meat. I heated up this new mix, which still had carrots, and stray bits of turkey and noodle. It was once again a good soup.

I still had a lot of leftover broth.

It occurred to me that when I was putting in my homemade noodles, that the texture was kind of similar to the dough for crescent rolls. We had a pack (because I had needed one for another recipe, and I bought multiple to take advantage of a sale). I pulled those out, sliced them up, and threw them in.

That was a failure; the dough disintegrated in the broth. All this did was make the broth thicker. Oddly, back when I was using some of that original turkey meat to make turkey and dumplings, I had put in too much dough, resulting in an unfortunate thickness that I had to try baking and frying. Edible, but not ideal.

It was still an okay soup, and there was still some broth left.

The final version had the rest of the mushrooms, some carrots from something else, and some ramen noodles.

There are a few points in here, but the reason I address it at all is that being able to prepare your own food has value. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but being able to put something together that will nourish and satisfy has a great value.

When you can combine that with getting more out of what you do buy, and taking advantage of sales and discounts, it all works together to help.

There are recipes, but there is also an experience that builds up, where you can imagine different combinations that will work together, including odds and ends and leftovers. Soups and stews can be very forgiving, even when you make mistakes.

And mistakes are part of the process. Don't get discouraged when things don't come out as you hoped. 

You learn from that too.

A bit more on COVID

If you recall, I started this series as a way of detailing how things that could have always contributed to the need for emergency preparedness were getting worse. They were...

• more extreme weather due to climate change
• more attacks on government and infrastructure due to white supremacy
• more work force loss due to COVID deaths and disability
  

Working on your emergency preparedness is an obvious thing to do. There are things that have changed and I can write about that, but the main thing keeps feeling like our hearts. Maybe that is more obvious with COVID.

I can tell you to wear your masks; I believe I have. We can talk about things like improving ventilation and practicing social distancing. Doing things outside is going to get easier as we get into warmer weather, but do we even care?

You can argue that it's not about caring. Right now I know a family with multiple COVID cases because with people visiting Grandma, one of the visitors had been exposed. He knew, but he didn't say anything. Is that because he didn't care, or because he just didn't believe that COVID was real or that it was anything worse than a cold?

My first thought there -- besides hoping that everyone recovers -- is remembering an awful cold I had several years ago. Even a regular cold can be pretty miserable, but that one that lasted a month, and brought on a secondary pneumonia infection. Even when the antibiotics cleared up the pneumonia and I could lie down without suffocating again, I still had a miserable cold for the rest of the month. 

I would not wish that on anyone, and it could potentially kill an elderly person.

But of course, at the start of COVID there were people deciding that losing seniors was worth it.

I remember at the start I was frustrated how so many things were pulling us in the wrong direction. For example, locally we had just passed rules to limit use of plastic bags. Suddenly there was the concern of the reusable bags spreading the virus, so that went out the window. Also, there were really good reasons for avoiding each other, but it felt awful.

But then, we did things that were better. More people were working remotely and it allowed more people with disabilities to participate in the work force. More restaurants created take-out options. New flexibility was permitted. The government gave people money and children were doing better.

Now we're doing away with all that.

Yes, I still wear a KN95 mask. I do it to protect others and to set a good example and to stand for what I believe is important.

It feels alienating to see so many who don't. It feels more alienating because I know how closely that was tied in with Trump support.

It feels alienating at church.

Did we decide that, since masks are more effective at protecting others from us than protecting us from others, that it's not worth it?

I do not want to cause any harm.

I could have it much worse. I still can go out, and I feel reasonably safe, although the immunity issues that come with diabetes could make for complications if I do get infected.

There are many others, including cancer patients and people with autoimmune disorders and children too young for vaccines and elderly, who are at much worse risk. Their social and travel options are limited. Now the old job limitations are coming back, because on a societal level we are more interested in controlling than helping. 

The general message being sent is that we don't care.

Let them die now and decrease the surplus population! But what if they just get disabled?

In one of the other posts I had referenced it being right to do something even if it is too late.

We do not always know how much good we can accomplish. If we can help some other people, though, if we save one starfish, or even if we only keep our own heart soft and humble, that is worth doing.

Yes, wear your mask, but it is so much more than that.

This is probably going to be a very serious year, but I will post about something easy next week.

Things to watch out for: COVID

It has been three years and six million, eight hundred seventy-three thousand, four hundred seventy-seven deaths.

https://covid19.who.int/

I wrote that out because it is easy to just glance over the numbers, and perhaps ignore them.

That's not the whole story either, though. If all of that had happened back in 2020, and now it was over, that would be different. Also, any global data can feel vast enough to not quite register. 

If it helps, last week the United States lost 1706 people to Covid. Oregon lost 54. In Washington County, 4.1% of those in hospital beds are confirmed Covid cases.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home

That is a lot better than it has been, but that is also a number that has fluctuated. Covid comes in different waves as different variants develop with different properties.

It is still real, it does still kill people, and as the declared emergency ends there will be fewer resources, even as we see that most precautions were rolled back some time ago. There are even some at work trying to stop voluntary precautionary measures, like New York City mayor Eric Adams asking that people remove masks in stores to prevent shoplifting. 

And yet, this is mostly stuff that I have written about before; why is it a new thing to watch out for?

The first one is a growing awareness of the long-term neurological effects.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brain/a-third-of-covid-survivors-suffer-neurological-or-mental-disorders-study-idUSKBN2BT2ZI

Yes, expect to see more people with anxiety and depression. Some of that could be the stress of the world in itself, but some of it could also be the toll having the disease takes. 

That by itself would be bad enough, but there is also an increased risk of death for 18 months since the time of infection:

https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press-Office/Press-releases/covid-19-patients-retain-elevated-risk-of-death-for-at-least-18-months-after-inf 

The tendency toward clotting can explain stroke deaths and that had been known. This article focuses on cardiovascular disease and all of the ways that can lead to sudden death. Apparently atrial fibrillation (and strokes) had an elevated risk for a shorter period of time. The risk of myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease, heart failure, and deep vein thrombosis lasts longer.

There is some frightening anecdotal evidence of multiple Covid infections leading to early-onset dementia.

But actually, when I was starting working on this, I was mainly thinking about long Covid symptoms including Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

https://www.improvediagnosis.org/publications/improvedx-january-2022/understanding-me-cfs-and-long-covid-as-post-viral-conditions/

Because while the percentage lost from the work force through death is significant, the percentage lost through disability will be higher.

That does affect many individuals and families on a personal level, but on a broader level that is going to affect the workforce, and that is going to affect supply chains.

We have seen that before, early in the pandemic, but the direction we are heading in can only see that get worse.

These are the sort of problems that compound.

Early in the pandemic when hospital beds were full, it worsened health for others as it caused delays in treatment, and increased risk of picking up another infection while being treated.

Last year, as monkey pox started making headlines, there was a feeling of "What else now?"

How about leprosy?

https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/sri-lanka-was-winning-its-battle-leprosy-until-covid-19

Part of treating leprosy early is that it can prevent contagion as well as later disability. The time lost in Sri Lanka is going to have rippling effects.

It won't be leprosy here, but can we believe that a cavalier disregard for the health and welfare of others, fueled by capitalistic greed and deeply ignorant and hateful political bias...

Is there any reason to believe that would not cause significant harm?

Again, in my early conception of this series, it was going to be more of a reminder of getting in your food storage and looking ahead to buy other items and fill prescriptions early, so that supply chain issues cannot hurt you so much.

That is personal and family preparedness, and I believe in it, but as more comes into view we really need to all be helping each other.

A bit more on white supremacist violence

If paramilitary groups working toward a white nationalist state take out power stations, a lot of the things that you need to do will be similar to the post two weeks ago:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-bit-more-on-weather.html

You may not have to worry as much about cold or impassable roads, but a lot of the elements are the same.

There are still some things worth noting.

First of all, will they always identify as white supremacists?

No. They may be focusing on misogyny, like the Proud Boys, or building their own Christian-fascist state, like Dominionists. Accelerationists just want to hasten the end of everything.

I focus on the white supremacy not only because I really hate racism, but because even when the racism is not their stated focus, it always seems to be lurking in the background. That is not a coincidence.

I read somewhere that once you start getting into conspiracy theories they all lead to anti-Semitism. That is largely because so many of the prevailing theories go back to blood libel and the Rothschilds and the other lies that have been told for decades. I think, though, that once you start going down that path, turning your back on truth and caring, it starts going downhill fast.  

In terms of protecting yourself from this type of violence, yes, being more informed could help. I could write posts about how to do that, or how to evaluate news coverage and pay attention to the prevailing currents around you. 

A more useful post might be how to avoid getting drawn into conspiracy theories and isolationist sectarianism and white supremacy. I could end up writing about all of those things.

What is more important to me now -- and it is heading in the direction of protecting you from giving into the conspiracy-driven hate -- is building community.

Last week I referenced Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America by Kathleen Belew, and currently I am reading Sisters In Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism by Seyward Darby. I am reading it largely because of things I read in Belew's book about the role that women played in building community.

Granted, that's a racist community, where there are tips about Nazi appropriate home school materials and creating disguises for the men to commit crimes, but it is also organizing potlucks and helping to fix up white men and white women so they can create more white babies and prevent the replacement of the white race.  

Yes, potlucks can be used for evil.

If you have seen Higher Learning (1995), you may recall the character of Remy, an awkward freshman in college. Without the other students being really cruel to him, the first people that made him feel really accepted and valuable were the Skinheads. That started him down the path to his own death, as well as Deja's.

Of course, that is just a movie, but it is not uncommon to hear from people leaving these hate groups that they were disconnected and lonely and found acceptance there. Part of that acceptance becomes saying terrible things, because that will get you approval. Then it leads to doing terrible things.

We should do what we can to stop climate change, whether it's hopeless or not.

We should also be doing what we can to combat hate. We should be looking out for those who may have difficult family situations, and be patient with those who are socially awkward.

And we should not be repeating things that are racist or sexist, or smiling awkwardly when other people say them, or laughing at bigoted humor. 

Will there be people who turn out to be horrible and you can't have much influence? Doubtless, but I believe that if we will keep our eyes and hearts out for those whom we can help, we will find them. The Spirit can help with that.

An excellent starting point may be working with others trying to do good. Who is looking out for the unhoused, or the elderly, or the students who are struggling in school.

We meet people outside of our regular circles, and we unite in a good cause.

Doesn't that sound like something we should be doing?

Things to watch out for: White supremacist violence

Allow me to re-emphasize that part of why I am focusing on these three areas: they are easy to ignore. 

There have been years of people disputing the science of climate change, even though that often involved outright lies. It has been similar to what happened with the tobacco industry burying their studies that showed smoking was hazardous to health. They had a vested interest in hiding that information, because it would have affected profits.

Profit is not the only motivation. When there is something else causing damage, it is often racism.

The news media being less responsible does not help, so that is something we are going to have to remember as well.

Now, you might have seen the title and imagined things like a someone shooting up an Asian-American owned massage parlor or someone yelling at women wearing hijab on public transportation, but also being ready to kill. 

Those are real things, with real fatalities, but it could still be easy to hear about it and feel terrible but still feel that it is unlikely to affect you.

Regardless, I am referring to something different.

For example, did you know that on Christmas Day 2020 there was an explosion in downtown Nashville that damaged several blocks of businesses?

Did you know that Christmas Day 2022 there was an attack on the Washington State power grid?

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2020/12/25/downtown-nashville-explosion-christmas/4044635001/

https://www.kptv.com/2023/01/04/feds-reveal-motive-behind-washington-power-grid-attacks-christmas-day/

And, did you know that the Washington attack was one of at least nine attacks on electrical substations over a three month period?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/us/electrical-substation-attacks-nc-wa.html

The Nashville explosion was not an attack at an electrical substation. However, it was a bomb planted near an AT&T location that seemed designed to take out infrastructure.

The reporting has been downplayed; a motor home explosion with no fatalities. It is easy to imagine someone was cooking meth and something went wrong, even if you did hear of it, and your power stayed on, and your phones kept working. 

It was a motor home, set to explode with recorded warnings (and some possible human traces found later).

It goes back to it getting worse. Nine or more attacks in three months is a lot.

So far there has been no mention of white supremacy. In fact, the KPTV article says that the motivation was robbery. Well, that could be true; when the white separatist movement really started taking off post-Vietnam, they did a lot of robberies, but they were doing them to fund the movement.

The other thing they started doing really well is that while they were connected to each other and helping and teaching each other, technically when they did something it was generally "acting alone", at least to outward appearances.

Timothy McVeigh claimed to be acting alone, or to have only coerced some help, but there are other elements there that indicate that was a lie.

That pattern, as well as attacks on infrastructure, have a guidebook out there in a 1978 novel called The Turner Diaries. I am not recommending that you read it, but I am recommending knowing that there are people who do want to burn it all down. It's nice that they often look incompetent, like on January 6th, but they can still manage to do quite a bit of damage, and it is getting worse.

I can recommend reading Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America by Katherine Belew. While it focuses on the 80s and 90s, there will be patterns that you notice as you start seeing other things.

And you should start paying attention to those other things.