So here's the thing...the universe is 13.8 billion years old and we live to be 90, if we're lucky. But you would never know that by the attitudes that we humans have. You'd think we'd have all the time in the world. But, alas, we don't. We only have the time it takes to blink an eye. It seems shameful to me, to waste time. Now, I like leisure as much as the next person, perhaps more, but I look around and see everyone I know involved in the aging process. 90 years is not long when taken in comparison to 13.8 billion years.

I was forced to retire from my biomedical engineering job several years ago. This proved to be a time of great artisitic fulfillment for me. I travelled, recorded music and nature sounds, read books and watched movies. While on vacation in the Outer Banks in North Carolina with my family, I received a phone call from a mother looking for help to care for her disabled son. Chris was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and remains a spastic quadriplegic to this day. I was with him for 5 or 6 years and we are still friends to this day. This job led me to the Center for Disability Services where I and my wife are Service Facilitators, helping disabled people navigate the Medicaid system. Then I met Craig. Craig is a former award winning body builder where he was only 1 of 4 teenagers to win this award in high school in the state of Illinois. He became a Christian and joined a "Prosperity Gospel" church and went on a mission trip to Jamaica to win souls for Christ. On his day off, he was playing in a relay race in shallow water, and tripped and broke his neck. While unconscious, several fellow Christians tried to heal him with "laying on of hands" and probably caused more damage. Did you know that 75% of the damage of spinal cord injuries happens after the initial impact? The Jamaicans, however knew enough to unload his spine and he is alive because of that. So, he goes on a mission trip for Jesus to Jamaica and comes back a quadriplegic. Believe it or not, he is not bitter, although he has lost his initial Christian fire. I asked him several times if he thought that his injury was random or for a "higher purpose". He has avoided answering me. We joke around everyday while I'm helping him with his daily routine. "Do you think Jesus became the Son of God, because his Jewish mother kept telling him that he was?" He really likes that one. (To be honest, I mean no disrespect with that joke. I'm sure the Virgin Mary often told her growing son he was the fruit of an immaculate conception. And being a good son, he listened to his mother...and believed her). As an aside, Craig does an awesome impression of a Jewish mother from Brooklyn. And he is a great writer. I would like to include a short essay taken from his collection of short stories entitled "Out of My Mind."

It is called "Pain" and is copied here for your edification.

If I asked you, "what is pain?" what would you say? I'd expect to hear something about how there's emotional pain and physical pain, then about their differences, then about how they both suck. Next, in an effort to be less depressing most of us try to say something a shade lighter than cheesy like, "But some pain is good...right? Hoping to elicit an amiable smile before we get accused of not taking our Prosac. But what really is pain?

Allow me to render my version: my life was perfect till I was 15. Perfect. Great mom and dad. Under such nuturing, I was "all star" this and "high honor" that. Then my father, Ronald P. Yunker, gets cancer. I see him, the healthiest, most wonderful, and least-deserving man I know get eaten alive: I watched him puke up his bodily fluids, then breathe his last. As men go, he was an archetypal father, but nowhere is his name emblazoned in lights as a memorial, and that's just wrong. Then I got to stand in front of a casket all day and hear bullshit from people that I would never see again. "If there's anything I can do..." What could they? I was an incredibly sensitive kid who needed his father's love. I needed it. It wasn't there....but I still needed it. Ever seen the t-shirt, "Looking for love, will settle for sex!"? A bunch of really macho, 'cool' guys showed me how to apply that saying to my situation. Then I have this incredible religious experience, clean up my life, and try to fill this void in me by reaching out to troubled teens. Next, I open up a gym at my church designed as an outreach. Doing so revives my spirit; "Finally," I say to myself, "My pain is over!"

In reality it had just begun. On a missions trip I break my neck, and lose myself (by that I mean my body), just a few months after I was sure I had found myself. The worst part there was looking into 'my kids' eyes and needing to explain why this had to happen to me, knowing there was no answer. I loved unconditionally and yet lost everything just the same. Soon after the accident I became too weak to breathe on my own and was put on a ventilator. For two weeks I fought with that machine for every breath; when I would try to exhale, it insisted that I inhale. The machine was relentless and much too powerful; I usually passed out when I lost those battles for my breath, but I think I won the war...by surviving. Such a glorious victory! Remind me again, where are my spoils? The guy in the bed next to me was in the same predicament, but not as fortunate. He died. I got to hear the med students comment curiously at the colors he was turning after they turned off his ventilator, one said, "This is so weird! I feel cold!" I felt cold too...colder...and scared.

Being totally paralyzed, rehab was a nightmare. I remember sitting in my wheelchair and noticing that my arm was about to fall off the pillow. I tried desperately to find someone to put it back on...too late! It would fall down by my side and the weight of it would pull my shoulder out of socket. My screams of agony would scare people so much they'd run out of the room instead of helping me. My floor at rehab was also a burn unit; I heard a man with no face and no lips, a previously dedicated father of 3, scream "Kill me!" 23 hours a day. I'm not sure which will haunt me longer: the sound of those screams or the smell of his flesh. I think the worst was when my friends and family would come to visit me. I'd see them look at me, and the pain I saw in their eyes haunts me to this day. It was an eerie reflection of the pain I saw in theirs. Crazy as it might seem, I was glad I was going through this, as opposed to having to see them suffer. But how can you offer them words of encouragement and comfort (something I feel I'm called to do) when you can't even speak or move?

So what then, is pain for me? All this might seem like the very definition of pain to you, but as such it is incomplete. In my view these are more like worldly aches; granted they may be 'painful', but they are not pain. They make my spirit weary, but they do not make it weep. True pain is the fear of pain without purpose; it is the horrific thought that I have endured all this for nothing....that none other shall gain from my loss.

So, here's the thing...As Craig will tell you, life has no guarantees. We live the best we know how with the abilities we have. Having known Craig and many others like him, I can tell you that it has opened my eyes to what I am capable of. Often, I feel waves of ecstasy roll over me when I do the simplest of tasks...slicing a tomato with a sharp knife, washing the dishes, making a fried egg...feeling the sun on my face on a cool autumn afternoon...Like the Psalmist said, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." It is a gift to be alive. Perhaps the greatest of gifts.

Track 1 - Babbling Brook with Nonna - When my mom was alive, I had the good fortune to spend everyday with her the last few years of her life (compliments of my forced retirement) We generally spent the day together and ate lunch together. One fine day, I wanted to record some sounds so we drove to Goose Lake and I got some nice sounds of a babbling brook. Miss you, mom!!

Track 2 - Backyard Bliss - I like to spend time in my backyard, to feel the sun on my face, feed the birds and squirrels. They reward me with their birdsongs and company.

Track 3 - Love in a Major Key - Pretty song with water, birds and nature. And in a major key, of course.

Track 4 - Salt and Light - Inspired by the bible verse which calls us to be salt and light to the world. (Salt was used as an ancient preservative and light, of course, illuminates.)

Track 5 - Southern Dream - I love the south....I love the slower pace...the people...the endless summers...

Track 6 - The Inheritance - Based on the bible verse which says "The meek will inherit the earth." The older I get, the more I realize this will be true in the end.

Track 7 - Variations - A type of melody I like to fool around with. The old composers would title it "Variations on a Theme."

Track 8 - Winter Nightfall - Seems appropriate since winter is around the corner. Brrrrrrrr....

My most sincere thanks to my friend, Patricia Shaw for the use of her painting entitled "Birdsong." What a gift from God, she is!