Alcestis by Euripides

At the rate I am going there is no way I will get through all of the Great Book Series before I expire.  I am seriously considering skipping over the rest of the works of Euripides.  I don’t like his attitude toward women.  In two of his prior works, he has expressed that it would be great if men could procreate without involving women.  In Alcestis, he apparently concedes the necessity of women to bring about off-spring, but I’m not so sure that he isn’t pleased with the notion of them dying shortly after they accomplish this function.

Admetus has been doomed to die unless he can get someone to take his place and go to Hades for him.  No one steps forward to do this.  He is miffed at his parents.  They are old anyway….shouldn’t they be willing to die for him?  He says this in so many words to his elderly father.

His dear precious wife, mother of his children, is the only one who loves him enough to die for him.  A considerable part of the play is taken up with her taking leave of her husband and children and bemoaning her fate.  She extracts a promise from Admetus that he will not remarry, because she is concerned about how a stepmother would treat her children.  He promises to remain true to her even after she is gone.  He will have an image of her made and hold that in his arms.

Shortly after she actually dies, Hercules arrives on the scene.  He is on his way to accomplish one of his Herculean tasks, and he is looking for lodging from his friend Admetus.  Admetus doesn’t want to be inhospitable, so he doesn’t let on to Hercules that his wife his just died.  Hercules eventually figures out that everyone is in mourning, and that he is being a bit too jovial for the occasion.

Hercules manages to ambush Death and return Alcestis to her home.  However, she is not allowed to speak for three days, and he presents her to Admetus veiled and without explaining who she really is.  Admetus repeatedly refuses to take this woman into his home lest he be disloyal to his recently deceased wife.  Eventually he figures out that it is his wife, and he is overjoyed.

Observations:

What a wimp!  I thought men were supposed to protect their wives.  He seems to think it is just fine if she dies for him.

Euripides apparently likes women either dead or unable to speak.

His real point apparently is stated in the closing paragraph:  Many are the shapes that fortune takes, and oft the gods bring things to pass beyond our expectation.  That which we deemed so sure is not fulfilled, while for that we never thought should be, God finds out a way.

Music Fell on My Head

When my son was about two years old, he made a startling unsolicited statement.  "You know Mommy, when I was in your tummy, I could not hear your voice, but music fell on my head."

I often sat down at the piano to play and sing during my pregnancy.  I continued to sing in a choir and to sing solos during those months. But, this revelation left me speechless and full of questions.

Could he possibly be remembering something that happened before his birth?
Do all children have pre-birth memories, but most forget them before they are articulate enough to express them?
Was it possible that the vibrations he now knew were associated with music were familiar to him from the womb?

Twenty-six years later, I am still pondering these questions and others.

What happens if what falls on an unborn child's head is loud, angry and profane?
If a child does not have the vocabulary to express the negative vibrations he has experienced, does it come out in behavior?

How I wish that every unborn child felt soothing music fall on his or her head.  Shouldn't every child emerge from the womb having already experienced a lullaby? 

Peanut Butter Sandwiches and Other Weapons

Periodically the peanut butter sandwich controversy rears its head.  I saw some online discussion again today about a child whose PBJ was confiscated at a school which has a “no PBJ” policy.  One side complains that this is an infringement on the right of a mother to lovingly make the sandwich of her child’s choice.  The other side says that the sandwich is potentially life threatening to allergic children who have a right to be safe at school.

As the mother of a son who grew up with life-threatening allergies to milk, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts (e.g. walnuts, pecans), I see both sides of this issue.  It seems totally unfair to declare that no child can have a peanut butter sandwich at school.  It is a favorite that provides protein along with the carbohydrate and fat, so it is a reasonable nutritious option.  It is easy….a child can even make the sandwich himself. 

BUT 

Some allergic children cannot even tolerate the odor of peanut butter or the slightest accidental contact with it.  Suppose the tables aren’t adequately wiped after lunch and an allergic child eats in that spot at the next lunch hour?   Suppose some mean kid decides it would be funny to sneak a fragment between the bread slices of an allergic child’s sandwich?

Some schools have a special table that is peanut free.  That only works if the situation is adequately supervised, and it doesn’t help the child who is allergic to foods other than peanuts.  I was concerned about someone clowning around and shooting milk out of their straw in the direction of my son.  A splash on the arm would have only caused a few hives, but had he gotten milk in his eyes it would have been a different matter entirely.  As a teen he attended a graduation party where pizza was served.  He did not eat any, but after the meal the kids all went out and played basketball.  Most had not washed their hands.  The cheese residue from their hands was transferred to the ball and from there to my unsuspecting son’s hands.  As he played ball, he wiped perspiration out of his eyes with his hands, and WHAM…he was in a lot of trouble fast.  On another occasion, he was at an event where kids were building their own ice cream sundaes.  Two of the attendees picked up aerosol cans of cream and started running around trying to shoot each other with the cream.  My son jumped up and ran for the nearest exit lest he get caught in the crossfire.  Adult supervision quickly stopped this unauthorized warfare, but suppose my son hadn’t noticed what was going on and had been an unintended casualty?

So what to do?  I solved a lot of the problem by homeschooling my son.  It was not the primary reason I chose to home school him, but it was a contributing factor.  However, everyone cannot make this choice.  Not all mothers possess the ability to home school, or it may be financially necessary for both parents to work.

Certainly having a child who is educated about his/her own allergy is helpful, but what if the child is too young to understand or not mentally agile enough to comprehend the risk?

From the school’s perspective, if they allow PBJs, are they committing to supervise the situation closely?  Are they going to adequately train the cafeteria monitors?

I am not in favor of banning peanut butter sandwiches.

I am in favor of education of teachers, cafeteria workers, lunch monitors, and children….both the allergic and the non-allergic.  Education about other disabilities is included in the curriculum.  Food allergies are a significant disability.

I am in favor of careful attention by those supervising the lunch room, so that out of control situations potentially dangerous to the allergic child do not happen.  Lunch monitors should know that maintaining order is essential to safety.

I am in favor of Benadryl and auto-injecting epinephrine syringes being on site and available for use…even without a prescription specific to a given child.  If there is no on site nurse, someone in the school must be trained to recognize the signs of an allergic reaction and respond appropriately.  When a child goes into anaphylaxis, there is no time to stand around trying to decide what to do.

No child should suffer death by peanut butter sandwich.  No child should have to live with the notion that his favorite sandwich killed his favorite friend.

No Remedy

The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place.  But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.  II Chronicles 36:15-16

….and there was no remedy…the words came screaming off the page at me when I read them recently.

No remedy for a terminal illness.  As a nurse, I have cared for a child in continuous convulsions, dying of lead poisoning.

No remedy for destroyed relationships.  I have seen gossip shred what had seemingly been multiple loving friendships.

No remedy for broken china.  There are items that I just haven’t been able to super-glue back together.

What does it mean when God Himself says there is no remedy?

It isn’t for lack of trying on His part.  He has repeatedly sent messengers, who weren’t just passively ignored.  They were aggressively mocked.  God is loving and infinitely patient.  He stands ready to forgive.  He is also righteous and just.  The time can come when His holiness demands that He is angry at persistent defiant evil.   And then….there is no remedy.  The tipping point has been reached and judgment falls like a cauldron of scalding oil.

However, historically God always spares a remnant.  No matter how pervasive the evil in a society, a few who bow the knee only to the one true God remain.  When judgment comes some of the righteous may be caught up in it along with the unrighteous….the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  But God always has a plan.  During the era these verses in II Chronicles reference, Daniel was carried off to Babylon, made a eunuch, and forced to serve the foreign monarch.  But, what man intended for evil, God meant for good.  One of the things I find fascinating is that even what is obviously the result of sin on the part of human beings can be redeemed by God and fashioned into a key piece of His master plan.  There may be no remedy, but there is always redemption available to anyone who wants it.

It may be too late for a remedy, but it is never too late for redemption.

Random Thoughts on My Trip to California

Some of the women on southern California beaches incorrectly think they are still “California Girls” and squeeze their no longer lithe bodies into scraps of fabric much too tiny.

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View is so information dense that a couple of hours there are mentally exhausting.  Those in charge of the exhibits should consider that interactivity isn’t just for kids.

The guy next to me on one leg of the trip kept his tray table down the entire flight with his hands under it although he had his eyes closed and was possibly faking sleep.  His hands kept twitching under the tray in the vicinity of his crotch, and I am not certain what he was doing under there.  Can someone join the Mile High Club all by himself?

The consignment store in Mountain View is filled with the cast-offs of the well-off….some really excellent items.

My hair dries noticeably faster in Yorba Linda than it does in upstate New York…..major difference in the humidity.

The salesman where I shopped with my son and daughter-in-law for a sofa was the ideal salesman.  He was not pushy; he was informative; and he had a sense of humor.  This was helpful since my son and daughter-in-law must have tried out 70 sofas before reaching a decision.  It was not yet noon when he informed us that the store closed at 10 PM.

It is possible for two skinny men to lay in the shade of a palm tree trunk….amusing, but possible.

My son does not live on a block…he lives on the edge of a maze.  I discovered this while trying to walk around the block.

When I am severely tired and jet-lagged, my brain does strange things.  When we finally collapsed into bed after a very long day, I began to drift off to sleep but was awakened by the notion that I could not feel my right hand.  My left hand was lying on top of it, but I couldn’t feel it.  As my foggy brain tried to sort out the possibilities, I eventually figured out that my sleeping husband’s hand was positioned across my abdomen, and it was his right hand, not mine, that my left hand was touching.  I was relieved that I hadn’t lost feeling in my right hand, but a bit concerned about the function of my brain.