I learned that pain concentrates your mind and attention completely. At a certain level, you keep moving, because to stop moving is to experience pain so intense...I learned to understand how people in extreme agony want to die to be released from their ordeal. I never understood it before, but now I do.

The sermon last Sunday included the notion that thankfulness is a basic kind of prayer. I am thankful that the pain has subsided to a level where it can be ignored. I am thankful to be alive in a beautiful world. I am thankful for my community, my friends, both on two legs and on four. I am thankful I am well enough to go back work, to be able to walk from the car to the house, from the kitchen to the garage. Amen.