A blog on meaning would be incomplete if it ignores the topic of God.  God and/or spiritual pursuits bring meaning to many, many people’s lives.  You might as well know up front that I am not a firm believer.  I go in and out of believing in God.  Despite being an interfaith minister, studying ancient religions, practicing yoga, being a student over the years of a Course in Miracles and being known as woo-woo to many, I fluctuate.  At least I fluctuate by most people’s definition of God.  Sometimes I feel there is a BEING, some greater power in the form of one entity, but most of the time, I subscribe to a self-made acronym for GOD.  G-O-D—Goodness Out Dhere (Brooklyn accent).  All that is good and all that can be made good is God. 

I’ll contradict myself when I tell you that I go to bed virtually every night saying thank you to God for the day that just passed and that all those I love are with me and intact.  I wake up everyday and ask to know God in the sense of me walking through the world as someone who can see everyone as God sees them—–divine creations.  But most days are like today—-challenged to believe and yet somehow hopeful.

Today, my son Wyatt and I traveled by train to Baltimore to visit his doctors at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.  We are due to begin a treatment there on July 7th that consists of an intense dietary therapy for epilepsy.  It’s called the Ketogenic Diet. 

Most of the day I was grateful to the powers that be that my son has a decent quality of life despite his epilepsy and grateful that we have these doctors that have supported us for a year as we led up to this visit .  I was grateful that I have insurance that will cover most of the process.  I felt blessed to have this opportunity and to have hope that we may be able to help my son after three and a half years of failed medications and strategies. 

Then, the doctors began a debate as to whether it was really worthwhile to attempt this therapy.  They grilled me with questions about my son’s seizures and when they happened and under what circumstances.  I could feel myself trying to answer the ‘right’ way so they’d allow us into the program.  Out of fear, I was desperately trying to show them that I knew what they were talking about and what they were looking for.  I lost any grip on gratitude and hope and felt my throat tighten as they mentioned surgery and an electronic device they could implant to try to control seizures.  I felt the four sets of eyes on me and the room seemed to draw in closer and become smaller.  There was no G. O. D.

I did not want us to be turned down. I did not want my hope to be taken away.  Then suddenly, the doctors’ attention switched to Wyatt who was eating a keto-friendly snack (high in fat/low in carbs) I packed in my cooler for the trip and they broke out into a round of teasing me.  “If you are looking for an anal mother to make the program a success, you’ve found one.”  “You want OCD (which I am not! —I’m just organized about some things!)  you can have her.”

Goodness came out of it.  My G.O.D. snack brought me a G. O. D. result.  We get to try the Ketogenic diet and see if it will take away my baby’s seizures. Clearly, this was not an example of me surrendering and letting God’s will be done.  There was a heck of a lot of my will in that vignette.  However, as I intensely focus on willing a cure for my son, I hear myself praying:  “God, please help us.”  “God please take his seizures away.”  “God please let us learn what we are supposed to learn from this so we can move on.” 

And there it is…..just when I think I don’t believe, I fall back on the only source of strength I know besides myself.  “Are you out there, God?  It’s me, Laura.”

A blog on meaning would be incomplete if it ignores the topic of God.  God and/or spiritual pursuits bring meaning to many, many people’s lives.  You might as well know up front that I am not a firm believer.  I go in and out of believing in God.  Despite being an interfaith minister, studying ancient religions, practicing yoga, being a student over the years of a Course in Miracles and being known as woo-woo to many, I fluctuate.  At least I fluctuate by most people’s definition of God.  Sometimes I feel there is a BEING, some greater power in the form of one entity, but most of the time, I subscribe to a self-made acronym for GOD.  G-O-D—Goodness Out Dhere (Brooklyn accent).  All that is good and all that can be made good is God. 

I’ll contradict myself when I tell you that I go to bed virtually every night saying thank you to God for the day that just passed and that all those I love are with me and intact.  I wake up everyday and ask to know God in the sense of me walking through the world as someone who can see everyone as God sees them—–divine creations.  But most days are like today—-challenged to believe and yet somehow hopeful.

Today, my son Wyatt and I traveled by train to Baltimore to visit his doctors at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.  We are due to begin a treatment there on July 7th that consists of an intense dietary therapy for epilepsy.  It’s called the Ketogenic Diet. 

Most of the day I was grateful to the powers that be that my son has a decent quality of life despite his epilepsy and grateful that we have these doctors that have supported us for a year as we led up to this visit .  I was grateful that I have insurance that will cover most of the process.  I felt blessed to have this opportunity and to have hope that we may be able to help my son after three and a half years of failed medications and strategies. 

Then, the doctors began a debate as to whether it was really worthwhile to attempt this therapy.  They grilled me with questions about my son’s seizures and when they happened and under what circumstances.  I could feel myself trying to answer the ‘right’ way so they’d allow us into the program.  Out of fear, I was desperately trying to show them that I knew what they were talking about and what they were looking for.  I lost any grip on gratitude and hope and felt my throat tighten as they mentioned surgery and an electronic device they could implant to try to control seizures.  I felt the four sets of eyes on me and the room seemed to draw in closer and become smaller.  There was no G. O. D.

I did not want us to be turned down. I did not want my hope to be taken away.  Then suddenly, the doctors’ attention switched to Wyatt who was eating a keto-friendly snack (high in fat/low in carbs) I packed in my cooler for the trip and they broke out into a round of teasing me.  “If you are looking for an anal mother to make the program a success, you’ve found one.”  “You want OCD (which I am not! —I’m just organized about some things!)  you can have her.”

Goodness came out of it.  My G.O.D. snack brought me a G. O. D. result.  We get to try the Ketogenic diet and see if it will take away my baby’s seizures. Clearly, this was not an example of me surrendering and letting God’s will be done.  There was a heck of a lot of my will in that vignette.  However, as I intensely focus on willing a cure for my son, I hear myself praying:  “God, please help us.”  “God please take his seizures away.”  “God please let us learn what we are supposed to learn from this so we can move on.” 

And there it is…..just when I think I don’t believe, I fall back on the only source of strength I know besides myself.  “Are you out there, God?  It’s me, Laura.”

Clearly, if I am going to be a blogger, I better get to it more than once
every three weeks, huh?  Anyway, I have something I’m burning to write about. 

As we get closer to knowing who is in the race for President and we watch the weather patterns
across the globe become stranger as we approach the summer months, I am faced with a question
that a lot of us probably think about especially if we live at a level of consciousness that includes
wanting a meaningful life.  That question is “How much can I do?”. 

I sometimes daydream of working as a campaign volunteer or lobbying congress for safer vehicles to ride my children in (why don’t buses and trains have seat belts?!) and then don’t take any action since I have a life to run that would be upset by my absence if I fought for a greater cause. 

In the last twenty four hours, I have been back in my fantasy of tackling a huge issue and this time it’s food labeling.  You see, I have a son with a seizure disorder.  Wyatt is seven and has epilepsy.  He has dozens of seizures a day and by some miracle, he is a perfectly ‘normal’ little boy with a good quality of life.  Many kids with epilepsy are but shells of the child they once were.  Even with that said, I work, like any parent would, to find a way to stop his seizures.  We have tried and failed with several medications and for the last nine months we have been on the Modified Atkins Diet for seizures that has given us marginal results.  Atkins is based on a high-fat and very low carb intake.  Wyatt is allowed ten carbs a day. (That’s ten grapes to you and me!) Needless, to say this is a very tough regimen to keep but he is amazingly compliant.  As you might imagine, I use a lot of sugar free products to create things for him and especially to find treats he can have that make him feel like a normal kid with a normal craving for sweets.

In the last two days, I came up with a maple flavored ‘ice cream’ (there is no such thing as low-carb ice cream, really but I made a cream-based ice pop for him).  I used Walden Farms Sugar Free Pancake Syrup to give it the flavor and sweetening.  I shared my yummy treat with an online group of parents I connect with about the diet and somehow we got into an online conversation about additives in the syrup and other brands that may contain ingredients that are seizure triggers and yet not included on the label.  The next thing I know I am on the phone to Walden Farms to find that yes, indeed, one of the dreaded substances that trigger seizures for Wyatt, Sodium Benzoate, is in the product but not listed on the label.
I was livid and deeply saddened at the same time.  Wyatt has had this syrup everyday with breakfast for almost a year and I just made him a new treat he LOVES with it.  I have been feeding my kid a seizure trigger unknowingly this whole time.  How am I supposed to help him if careful label-reading is just a farce?!

So, how much can I do?  I’ll blog about it, I’ll let the company know in writing that they are being irresponsible and then what pull do I have?  The FDA made these rules—so see?  I am ready to lobby congress or the FDA or someone to tell us the TRUTH about what is in the foods we give our kids. I say that, but will I really do it?  Can I afford the time away from my kids to fight for all kids?  It’s a tough call.  The pull from both sides is big.  There is no reason I can’t start small so that’s what I’ll do.  Thanks for being part of the first step.

A meaningful life isn’t necessarily measured by how far-reaching our impact is.