A Taste of the Faithful Life

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Anna Spencer Anna Spencer

Spinning Wheel

I had a profoundly unsettling experience this week.

On Tuesday morning I was pulling weeds in our south garden, which is sloping and has rock terracing. After about 20 minutes, I started to feel dizzy. I worked a little longer, then decided I needed to quit. By this time, I was so dizzy that I didn’t feel confident standing. I crawled up the rock terracing to level ground and was able to walk the rest of the way inside.

I figured that I was dehydrated, so I spent the rest of the day indoors, guzzling water.

Wednesday was rainy, so I stayed indoors most of the time. Early that evening, as I was sitting in the living room, the world started spinning. I’d had vertigo before, so I wasn’t alarmed – but then things escalated.

I felt hot and clammy, then was overwhelmed by nausea. I couldn’t make myself stand up, so I fell forward onto the floor, then crawled to the bathroom. I made it just in time and felt a little better afterward. In the middle of the night, powerful nausea awakened me, followed by more sickness.

I had another attack Thursday morning, so it was time to see the doctor. Happily, Linda had bailed on a commitment and stayed home to care for me. The doctor (actually, he was a physician’s assistant) told me that the vertigo was caused by an infection in both ears. The infection probably was caused by allergies. If I take my medicine, I should be better in a week or so.

Wednesday night (or was it Thursday morning?), I kept wondering, “How can my head be spinning and I feel like I’m falling, when I’m lying flat with my eyes closed?” And, “I don’t remember ever feeling this awful before.” And, “What’s wrong with me?”

Can you imagine how comforting it was to hear that it was caused by an ear infection?

Praise God, it was nothing worse. It feels great to walk without fear of falling. It feels great to read without the words bouncing around. If feels great to be alive, and healthy. Praise God, indeed!

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It’s already been rejected by Abingdon Press, the United Methodist publishing house. It says it has other similar works already in process. I’ve always given Abingdon the right of first refusal on all my book proposals, and I’ve always been rejected. I think it’s time to put some other publisher at the top of my query list.

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Three KU profs are under fire for allegedly faking their Native American ancestry. Kansas City Star columnist Yvette Walker confesses that her family also had unconfirmed stories about a Blackfoot ancestor.

“For as long as I can remember, I believed I had Native ethnicity,” she writes. “I even thought I knew which tribe I supposedly belonged to because it was a part of my family’s oral history.” To test the family memory, she took a Family DNA test. Turns out family oral history was wrong.

My family also has an oral tradition that a woman several generations back was Native American. Not exactly the classic “Cherokee princess” story, but close enough.

I’m about all who’s left to carry on family oral tradition, and my searches on Ancestry.com have found nothing to corroborate this story. I once assumed that it was because racists in my family conveniently “forgot” about the Indian ancestor until it became more socially acceptable to claim her, but by then all details were lost in time. Maybe it was a myth all along.

I did have an uncle who was Native. He married into the family. Sadly, he died relatively young as an alcoholic.

Whether I have any “Indian blood” in me matters less than how I view and treat Native Americans. Since childhood I have been fascinated by various Indian cultures. The more I learn about the genocide campaign against Native tribes, the more I am appalled by the tragedy of racism.

If you’re interested in learning more, I suggest reading The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk. Actually, I wasn’t capable of reading all of it. I had to skim parts. It’s well written, but many parts will simply break your heart.

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Back to school time nears already. Where did the summer go? Weren’t summers longer back in the “good old days”? Granted, summer child care can be a chore for busy parents. Maybe advancing age fools me on the passage of time, but I wonder if today’s kids suspect they’re being cheated of days in the sun.

Linda and I just bought school supplies for a Spring Hill 9th grader. We deliberately did not keep track of how much it cost. I can’t imagine the expense of having two kids in high school right now, let alone one. Tell me: Why does any high schooler need five two-inch three-ring binders?