Following in His Footsteps

Living in a Body

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Following in His Footsteps

Episode 25 -- Hal's (very) brief calling to the ministry

Hal Walker

Jul 30, 2022

Hi. I’m Hal. I’m living with moderately severe ME/CFS. Fifteen minutes at a time, I wrote this post over the course of a week. I’m so grateful for this outlet to express myself and I’m so grateful for your caring attention. Please feel free to share.

Following in His Footsteps

My Dad was a giant — a very humble giant, but a giant nonetheless. His name was Rev. Harold Walker Jr. I’m Harold lll. They call me Hal.

After last week’s post about God, it occurred to me that maybe I missed my calling. Maybe I should’ve become a minister like my dad. If I hadn’t been so self-absorbed, pleasure-seeking and dishonest, it might’ve been a really good career for me. Maybe on the other side of this illness, when I’m all healed and transformed, I’ll start a church. I’m not sure what denomination it’ll be, but there are a few things I know for sure.

It’ll be a church that fills the fellowship hall with ping pong tables and Go boards. There will be a harmonica ensemble, a khaen choir and a songwriting team. Every week, we’ll have banakula making sessions after school and the campus will feature a frisbee golf course and an ultimate field. Like my Instagram demographics, most of the congregants will be young men between the age of 14 and 24. They’ll call me Preacher Hal.

On the weekends, the adults’ll show up. There’ll be Friday night concerts and Sunday night sing alongs. Early Saturday morning, there’ll be silent meditation and then on Saturday nights, there’ll be contra dances with live contra dance bands.

Sunday mornings will be mostly silence, singing and story telling. I’ll give a short message for all ages and then we’ll do whatever it takes to connect with each other and to connect with that which is most sacred. There will be chairs available, but there’ll be lots of space on the floor for lying down, stretching and rolling around. Every Sunday after church, we’ll share a healthy meal.

For today though, it’s probably best if I stay in reality. Prone to grand visions, fear of the future and regret of the past, I’ve got to take seriously the practice of staying in the day - in fact, staying in the next 15 minutes. My main job today is to breathe, to stay calm and to get comfortable with discomfort. Truly, there is no escape from this moment… may as well smile in it.

Having said all this, I think I’ve changed my mind. When I get healthy again, I will not be starting a church… or a community center for that matter. I’ll be too busy walking in the woods, floating down the river and savoring every moment. I’ll be more than happy to provide an occasional reflection at any church that’ll have me, but I think I’ll leave the weekly preaching to my father.

In many ways, I did follow in the footsteps of my dad. I inherited his great joy of gathering with folks around the piano to sing. I inherited his voice and his gentle nature. As the music director of the UU Church of Kent for almost 25 years, I inherited an aspect of his ministry. Mine was in the form of music. For many years after he retired, my Presbyterian dad (and mom) regularly attended the UU church to support me and my music ministry. Oh, how I took for granted their presence in the pews. (Thank you, Mom)

Rev. Harold Walker Jr. was patient, honest and kind and he had a strong interest in others. He was also off-the-charts smart. I’m often amazed at how much he lacked self-centeredness. Harold was a man of faith and a man of service. Every Saturday morning, he took my mom’s to-do list and he got down on his hands and knees to get that list done. I don’t think I ever once heard my dad complain.

Every Sunday after church and all through the week, he would visit the sick and the poor. I vividly remember one Sunday on our way home from church when my dad needed to make a visit to someone who was housebound with illness. We stayed out in the car while he went in for the visit. When he returned, Dad told us about the person inside. I think he used he words like “chronic” and “pain.” I distinctly remember thinking… “Ooo. that sounds rough. I’m glad that’s not me.” Well, today I’m grateful to sat that I’m not in pain, but I am living with severe illness and severe discomfort. Because this is “Living in a Body,” I’d like to take a few paragraphs to let you in on what it’s like living in this particular body. Just to warn you… It’s brutal — beautiful, but brutal.

I’ll start with the perpetual fuzzy buzzing in my ears. The intensity of the ringing correlates with the intensity of my overall symptoms. There are times at night when it’s maddeningly loud. Those are one of the times when I most question my ability to survive this illness — when the ringing gets so bad. Every once in a while though, I have a joyful moment in the float tank when I do a double take and I ask myself, “are my ears still ringing?” It’s rare though.

My eyes are usually burning and dry. I always keep a bottle of soothing eye wash nearby.

In my posts, I occasionally mention “writhing” in bed. It’s a flu-like burning in my gut and a burning weakness in my lungs. As the illness has progressed, talking and eating have become more labor-some. There’s a heat in my head and chest while my feet are ice cold. When I’m writhing, I move and shake and stretch and twist and rub my boney limbs together in hopes of getting some relief. I often wrap my arms over my chest as they tremble and I rub my elbows with a jittery weakness. My legs and arms have pretty much lost all muscle.

The neurological symptoms are difficult to describe. It’s like a numb aching in my brain that connects in a weird way to a numbness throughout my whole body. I’m very sensitive to sound. Sounds cause a strange physical discomfort in my brain as if the sound is touching my brain. Falling asleep is very difficult so I spend much of the day resting with my eyes closed. I often experience weird waking dreams —- non-sensical dreams connecting things that have no connection. I find my self thinking “Where the heck did that come from?!” I can’t remember a single one of them, but they happen a lot.

Just as I’m getting ready to go to sleep, the restless legs get going and I never know what body I’m gonna wake up into the next morning. At about 5 am, the wakening is usually quite rude. Mornings are particularly rough. Thank God I’m not in pain though and thank God that my bowel system seems to be working quite well.

It’s a brutal illness and it’s a marathon. Any kind of exertion seems to make the symptoms worse. From the paragraphs above, I hope you can see that “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” is a terribly lacking descriptor. Living in this body in the last year, I’ve experienced more than my share of terror and trauma and I’m well aware that the fear doesn’t help anything. So for today, I’ll just float right on down the river and calmly savor every moment — with all it’s discomfort. I hope you’ll join me.

Here’s one last story about my dad to close the episode. Once, when the family was driving down to Birmingham, I had the opportunity to ask my dad this question. I said, “Dad… Of all the seven deadly sins, which is the one of which you are most guilty?” I don’t think Harold would mind me telling you that after a brief pause, his answer was “lust.” I’m sorry to say that’s all we got. My dad died in 2017 and we won’t ever get to know any more details about that one. Damn. What a fun conversation it would have been. I love you so much, Dad. But we always thought you were perfect.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for reading. Don’t forget to enjoy living in that body of yours today. By the way, I really hope you’ll leave a comment. Introduce yourself and tell me about yourself. I love it when people comment. See you next time. Hal