The Beckhams in Bethlehem

Note that this post is religious in tone. Do pass it by if you aren't interested.

There's been a lot of media attention directed toward Madame Tussaud's Nativity scene with the effigies of various famous figures making up the tableau. Of course, as one would expect, some major and many minor ecclesiastical spokespersons have been spluttering about how disrespectful the scene is to Christianity. A patron yesterday punched the effigies of the Beckhams so hard that the scene has had to be closed. I don't know whether they'll repair them and reopen it or withdraw it, covered and dripping with the adoration of PR flacks everywhere. It was definitely tasteless, but that's to be assumed for anything from Madame T's.

Yesterday I preached at St. John the Evangelist, Larcom Street, the neighbouring parish to mine. They are relatively high up the candle as far as churchmanship is concerned, but the vicar is a good priest and the parish flourishes under his leadership. He occasionally invites me to preach (invariably in Advent or Lent) and then he invites WL and me to lunch at the Vicarage. While writing the sermon, the Nativity story surfaced and I thought of an angle I wanted to cover in the sermon. So, here is the first half of the sermon for your delectation.

"I'd first like to say a few words on Nativity scenes. We have, I'm sure, all seen the news reports and the pictures of the curious Nativity waxwork scene in Madame Tussaud's this week. Church figures (mostly unnamed except for Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, and no C of E bishops or archbishops among them) have condemned the museum for using the waxen bodies of some famous (or infamous) people to portray those whom the Scripture says were present at or around the birth of Christ. I'm sure you know who they all are-the Beckhams as Joseph and Mary, the three Wise Men as two politicians and an aristocrat, the shepherds as show business figures, all watched over by a singer as an angel.

"The publicist for the museum certainly earned a bonus with this stunt. Newspapers and webpages all over the world showed David and Victoria Beckham together watching over the manger. I don't know whether you noticed, but David Beckham depicting Joseph was wearing two crosses around his neck-certainly putting Joseph in a bit of a time warp.

"While it may have been somewhat premature to put up a Nativity scene in Advent, society nowadays tolerates Christmas food and gifts on the shelves of supermarkets in October so what's a little Nativity scene among friends?

"Why are some Church authorities denouncing all this as wrong? They seem to believe that depicting saints and Our Lord using famous characters from our own times, some of whom have had apparent morality lapses, somehow tarnishes the love and affection we have for those saints, and the worship that we owe and deliver to Our Saviour.

"I'd like to suggest to you that, far from diminishing our love and respect for those saints, Our Lady, and Jesus, it should actually give us hope. Goodness within all of us shines forth in our worship and in our lives, however much we may fall short of God's expectations for us. This scene reminds us of that, and gives me hope that in my own small way, I too might be worthy to creep into this Nativity scene to adore the Christ child-not as a Wise Man and certainly not as Joseph, but maybe one of the shepherds. Not only did the museum's public relations person earn a bonus that day-but people have been reminded of God's call to holiness, repentance, and the hope of glory. That's the kind of message that God and the Church have a hard time bringing to our sinful world today on their own, so it is very lucky that the wax museum has done it for them."

I went on to talk about John the Baptist, but I'll spare you that. The vicar said that the sermon was the best he'd heard in a long time. But, so that it didn't go to my head, WL told me that he thought it was too long (at about 8 minutes? Some preachers are only finishing their introductory remarks at 8 minutes.) But of course WL is a free-thinker so just comes on these occasions to support me. I'm grateful for that.

Back from the doctor's

Depressed again after a visit to the doctor for diabetic blood test results. My blood sugar was elevated enough so that we've decided that the medication I've been on (metformin) is not totally up to the job. I've started on a new drug (not glybenclamide, but rosiglitazone) today that will hopefully bring my blood sugar down to a reasonable level.

Diabetes (type II) is a progressive disease--as you get older, your pancreas produces less insulin and as this happens your blood sugar level goes up and your system needs more help in getting the insulin you are producing to be effective. Ultimately it's likely that I'll have to inject insulin morning and evening. This would be a timed-release variety according to the doctor and thus I wouldn't have to inject before every meal (which is a good thing). (Type I is juvenile diabetes and stems from an immune reaction to pancreatic cells that leaves the diabetic with no insulin to speaik of.)

This is of course quite depressing. On the one hand, I should be glad that medicine has advanced as much as it has in the treatment of diabetes. It is still a serious chronic disease that only gets worse over the course of your life. However, the days when you automatically went blind and lost your feet and legs, one toe and limb at a time, are mostly gone nowadays. There are now three families of pills to take for Type II that are only slightly liver-toxic, and I've tolerated the metformin (which my doctor surprised me about today by telling me that there are lots of stomach side effects that people report with it--I've had none of these) very well. But, time is creeping up behind me now.

I've also never been a really good patient. The pediatrician I was taken to when young was a beast, really. He was of the "treat the boys rough" school and didn't tolerate his patients' reacting to pain or anticipating it. He was also one of those people who, when something slight was wrong with you, but you were also fat, said, "Right, you've got an ingrown toenail. Lose some weight." As a child you don't have a lot of choice in what you eat (or didn't in the 1950's) and my mother did, I think overfeed me when I was a young child. Finally, inoculations back then were done with reusable needles. These were quite thick and caused a lot of pain. The needles used today are mere pipettes compared to those sewer pipes they used to use. He was very severe with children who didn't care to be inoculated with those huge needles.

This all adds up to a huge case of white coat syndrome. When I lived in the Bronx, I only visited the doctor when I had an infection (my cat bit and scratched my arm once and I got quite a nasty one) or when my bronchitis got too difficult to live with. I then went to a doctor in Manhattan later on who misdiagnosed my erection problem as low testosterone and said that I could have a testosterone level blood test if I wanted. I said no and thus both he and I ignored what I believe was the first troublesome symptom of the diabetes. Now of course Viagra is my friend. I have had diabetic retinopathy which was treated in one eye by laser surgery and this necessitates an annual visit to the retinal clinic at St. Thomas's Hospital. The feeling in my feet isn't so good and I must be careful how I walk and examine them for cuts and blisters. When the doctor tries to take my blood pressure now we have to chat for a while before she puts the cuff on me as the blood pressure is always high when I visit until I've started to chat and become comfortable.

When my diabetes was finally diagnosed, in 1992 in Chicago, it came from the optometrist noticing that I had the diabetic retinopathy). When I went to the GP, he put me on glybenclamide for the diabetes and hydrochlorothiazide for high blood pressure. When I moved to San Francisco in 1993, the GP there took one look at the list of pills I was taking and said, "You shouldn't be taking the hydrochlorothiazide--that's very bad for diabetics!" and I had to switch to various medications and patches, none of which helped the blood pressure.

Finally, losing weight helped me to get my blood pressure down. But I was put on another diuretic (Lasix) and had been taking ACE-inhibitors since 1993. These continue. So I now take:

• metformin (x 2)


• rosiglitazone (sounds like a drag name, doesn't it? Preeeeesenting: Miss Rosie Glitterzone!)


• Ramipril


• frusemide (Lasix)


• simvastatin


• and, occasionally, sildenafil citrate (a.k.a. Viagra)

For those of you who are young, do yourselves a favour. Make sure that your diets are appropriate--low in fat, low in simple carbohydrates like sugar--and that you exercise regularly. While I still might have become diabetic eventually, such a diet would have helped me stave it off for longer. I believe I've had it for at least 16 years (judging from the impotence onset). I'd be joyful if I could last until 70 or 75. But had I exercised and been careful with what I was eating, I might not now have it at all.

But for me all that's past now. I am determined to enjoy the time left to be and be as careful and cautious with my weight as possible. But, ultimately, we'll all die and I know I'm not immortal. So all I can do is try to ensure that I take as good care of myself as I can.

Oh, and the packaging of all these pills is very wasteful, too. The new pills come in lots of 28 tablets, but the box is quite chunky. I managed to get 5 out of the 6 blister packs that came in the three boxes into one box. I realise they're a bit safer than pillbottles, where the pharmacist has to count them out, but how wasteful is it when you have three boses and throw away two.