The Organ Recital
Ready for an organ recital?
This time it’s my personal solo.
Early in my career as a minister, I’d heard and learned about “organ recitals.” This phrase doesn’t have anything to do with outdated church music, or attendance in a concert hall, or the beginnings of a riff on the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Let’s say it’s one-third of a sarcastic commentary on what the elderly frequently do. It’s one-third an amusing insider’s homage to one of a pastor’s more important roles. It has also become at least one-third of an apt description of me and what I’ve become.
In my clergy circles, the “organ recital” describes what an elderly member of a congregation does when they relate all of the bodily aches and ailments they are currently experiencing.
She’s anticipating surgery and doesn’t want to talk about it. But does . . .
He’s recovering from surgery and talks about it all the time.
He’s facing an outpatient “procedure,” but it scares him.
She’s facing a major operation and it scares her.
X pill is used to relieve pain. Y pill is added to counter X’s side effects. Z pill is prescribed because of what X & Y cause when taken together.
Once there was one pill from one bottle for each day’s single dose. Now there are multiple containers of daily and weekly pills and it’s hard to remember when they’re taken and what they’re for.
Elderly church members share their “organ recitals.” I, the young, eager pastor listen. I listen because having someone truly hear you really matters. I listen, and maybe I’ll venture a cautious suggestion of optimistic ways to view the surgery or the recovery or the array of medications. An “organ recital” can be as shallow as someone seeking momentary attention. It can be a painful admission of fear and vulnerability. I sought to be a sympathetic listener to everyone. Though as a young—and even as an older—pastor I likely failed often in my listening.
Months away from being three-quarters of a century old, I have become the composer of my recitals.
This year, the month of August really cranked up the volume.
There’s a mystery pain in my right ankle which led to my family doctor’s office and to an X-ray and to an MRI and—still upcoming in August—my orthopedist’s analysis of my enigmatic ache. Don’t ask me to walk a mile in your shoes. I can barely manage a half-mile.
As a footnote to my ankle mystery, I first told my doctor it felt like it was sprained, but I’d done nothing to cause it. No stumbling. No falling. She said injuries can occur without a specific incident. (Yeah, right.) I told the orthopedic specialist what my doctor said, expecting him to gently disagree. Nope. He said she was correct.
Great, now I know even nothing can bring me down.
Let’s not forget my trip to the dentist. Why did I detect a smidgen of happiness when my dentist announced that I had several potential cavities? “We’ll have to watch those,” he said too enthusiastically.
Another August adventure involved bloodwork. It confirmed I’m pre-diabetic. Should I be pre-worried?
My heart is ticking away, according to an EKG and a chemical stress test with just a dollop of radioactive ingredients. No worries about the radiation the technician said as he leaned away from me. Based on the August results, I apparently do have quote-unquote “minor” concerns with a part of the heart I can’t pronounce. Nonetheless, the physician’s assistant who emphasized the “minor” issue emphasized even more—in the best way possible—that I was a “boring” patient compared to others. “Nothing to lose sleep about,” he said. Which, as a retired pastor who has visited a LOT of people in the hospital, his smiling admonition did not eliminate my “minor” concerns about one of the most important organs in my aging, arthritic body.
On the recital continues. We jokingly declare the “aging is not for sissies” cliché.
We overuse that cliché because, well, it’s too often true.
Thanks for “listening” to my recital.
I’m happy to listen to yours. (No, really, I mean that!)
Thanks for reading. More next week . . .
in Peace,
Larry Patten