A Doxology in Darkness

A Revealing

2010-12-31T08:59:00.000-08:00

The Orion Nebula
Photographed by the Hubbel Telescope
iPhone App, Star Walk

Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,

to whom belong wisdom and might...

he reveals deep and hidden things;

he knows what is in the darkness

and the light dwells with him.

Daniel 2:20-22

Another rush to ER, another middle of the night dash for help. Desperately ill, vulnerable and exceedingly afraid.

The things I think of with my head in a bucket. "Through his griefs, Job came to his heritage." I couldn't remember where I read it - probably a favorite devotional. Unable to remember the writer's point, it struck me that recent December morning that it's one thing to think about Job's heritage sitting in the comfort of one's favorite chair wrapped in a cozy blanket and quite another at 2:00 a.m. sitting in the middle of ER on a cold plastic chair with kind husband gently answering Admitting Nurse's questions while also seeing to it that I had another clean bucket to hurl into. Too ill to even care that my public wretching was harshing everyone's mello, I was afraid. And fear can make me amazingly stupid.

"I am so done with this," I thought. While I'm not sure what it was that I had in mind, it did have something to do with exiting the building and leaving behind like strips of discarded snake skin all the years of cancer fight, chemo nonsense and traumatized body parts. Yep. Be a Real Man or, in my case, a Real Wo-man. "Just stand up and walk away," I thought. As I said, the things I think of with my head in a bucket.

But it was the appearance of Nurse Cratchett with her instrument of torture, the dreaded NG tube, that snapped me back to reality and herded me to another brink of despair. "I can't bear this again. Really, I can't." And for just a moment I was sure that was the truest truth I had ever spoken. But smiling and confident (after all it wasn't HER nasal passage and throat that were about to be brutalized!) Nurse C said, "Now you will want to push me away, but remember to just keep swallowing. It will be over before you know it." She was right and she was wrong. It was over quickly but I didn't want to push her away; I wanted to shove her off a very high cliff.

It is in the dark hours - no longer night but not yet morning - when I'm most inclined to give way to despair. Bad possibilities can sound reasonable while hope is diminished to wishful thinking. It was the dark hours of my second day when I began to replay my medical team's latest findings. Set on Replay, I heard over and over "A new lesion in a new area;" "We suspect a new malignancy but can't see the area well enough to be sure;" "More tests are needed;" "Given your history, Mrs. Guerino, we have concerns." Given your history...given your history...given your history. Oh to be a Real Wo-man and just get up and walk away. Constricted by uncomfortable tubes down my throat, crying was not an option. Nevertheless, hot tears began to chase each other down both sides of my face pooling near the back of my head. Never have I felt so alone. How, I cried to God, does authentic faith survive to the morning?

Perhaps that answer depends upon what it is one has faith in. One's self? One's medical team? One's medicines? Or perhaps faith in a perceived right: A right to not suffer, to not be alone, to continually enjoy comfort and health.

One of my favorite apps on my iPhone lets me point to the sky (or ground) and view the constellations and stars in real time. The photo above came from "The Picture of the Day" found there. Taking my phone from under the covers, I aimed it at the ceiling of that lonely hospital room and for the next little while I held magic in my hands. The Heavens were mine. Those cold, dark and frightening hours became a place of wonder. It was as though God was revealing it all just for me. Even Nurse Cratchett's heinous device could not steal my joy. What I was looking at brought to mind the glory of God, His grace and mercy poured out on all of us—at His own unimaginable expense. I began to recall years of countless answers to prayer, very real help in troubles past. I remembered how He taught me

that the way down is the way up,

that to be low is to be high,

that the broken heart is the healed heart,

that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,

that to have nothing is to possess all,

that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,

that to give is to receive,

that the valley is the place of vision.

I remembered that in times past I have found

His light in my darkness,...

His joy in my sorrow,

His grace in my sin,

His riches in my poverty,

His glory in my valley.

The Valley of Vision, A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions

As light dwells with Him, He knows what is in the darkness. A small thing then to know what dwells within the dark recesses of a body and out of the sight of the most advanced CT scanning equipment. How does my faith survive until morning? By looking away from the oh-so-smallness of me, myself and I and onto Him who created everything out of nothing with His spoken word and very breath. Humbled, I can say with Job, "Thy will be done" and am enlarged—indeed I have room to breathe. Perhaps that was, at least in part, Job's heritage. How does faith survive until morning? By holding tight to courage and remembering that all generations are but a vapour and then gone yet in Him is life as it is meant to be lived: confidentally, fully and forever.

Someone has said, "Thankfulness takes the sting out of adversity." It does. It has. And it will.

A Matter of Memory

2010-10-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps.

Proverbs 14:15

I have been in need of laughter. With the recent loss of one friend to breast cancer and a diagnosis of breast cancer in another very dear to me, my perspective had become somewhat skewed and slightly darkened. While opening my heart to renewed faith and gratitude has been a restorative, so too has been memory. In the spirit of Hebrews 12:12-13, I want to tell you a funny story. I think my family and friends would agree that my best laughs are usually those that I tell on myself.

Santa Barbara Coastline

It’s disappointing when someone or something doesn’t live up to promised expectations. But it's a double dip doozey when the let down is one's own fault. Like when you know a sales pitch is too good to be true but you buy it anyway. Or, in my case, believing the hype about a vacation destination because I wanted to believe it and didn’t take the time to do some reasonable double checking.

That being said, some of our best laughs occurred that particular week. My photos could remind me of things that might have made us angry and probably would any sane person. Instead, they serve to make us laugh all over again. I suppose it’s how we remember. Or what we remember.

It began one evening as I was reading a website about an “idyllic tiny seaside community” not far from Santa Barbara that boasted vacation homes where one could "sit and gaze out at the blue Pacific Ocean right from their own front porch." I was a goner.

"Just what we need," I told my husband.

"Sounds great," he replied.

My mistake compounded by his. (Hey, you didn't think I was going to take the blame for this alone, did you?)

The article continued, "This little bit of paradise is fast becoming popular as a place to own a second home." Of course what I was reading was the website belonging to said tiny-bit-of-paradise, but never mind. I found a perfect house to rent for a few days and had two or three chats with the owner who sounded first-rate.

"You'll love the house and the community," he said. "The house sits right across the street from the beach. It’s a very short walk."

We mailed the payment and before one could coo "The Pigeons Cometh" we packed our bags and were off.

(I've decided to not name said "little bit of paradise" because my goal isn't to do a hit piece on the place. After all, some people do call it home. Rather, the joke, so to speak, was on us and our willingness to believe what I had read without verifying.)

Having passed through some of the loveliest coastline scenery imaginable, we couldn't wait to pull into our "tiny idyllic seaside community." As we took our exit from The 101, we were somewhat confused and greatly surprised by the sign greeting our arrival:

Yes, we discovered that our rental was in the "hazard area" and yes, we drove on in, entering at our "own risk." Why, one might ask, did we not make an immediate U turn and head back to nearby Santa Barbara or any one of the truly idyllic seaside towns nearby? I can't answer that except to say that pigeons sometimes work really hard at their pigeonness and it remains a mystery to this day why they abide double dip doozers.

We unpacked and decided to explore. That's when we felt the next jolt in our geologic hazard idyll. What had been referred to as the “street” separating our community and house from the ocean was actually the freeway. What had looked to us like empty beach in the photos that we saw of the house had cars and trucks zooming by at 65+ miles per hour!

"How is one to cross The 101 to get to the beach?” I inquired of the long-distance owner. Using my best cranky-but-want-to-remain-reasonable-pigeon voice, "Do you expect us to head north on the freeway to the next town and just suddenly turn south?!”

“Oh, no problem,” he said. “Keep walking on down the lane from the house and you will see a little tunnel that will take you underneath it.” His voice was crackling over my cell phone. Surely I didn't hear him right.

“A ‘little tunnel’?" I croaked. "A ‘little tunnel’ UNDERNEATH the freeway? Is it safe?!”

“Oh yes, quite safe.” I swear I could hear him grin. “You might have to stoop over a little bit but it will be worth it.”

Somehow, it didn’t seem worth it.

We came back from our walk thinking we might fix dinner and eat on the deck hoping to enjoy what little bit of nice beach view that we did have:

But traffic had a way of blocking the waves:

Union Pacific shared our street

The writer of the website claimed that “for privacy and peace and quiet, nothing beats (the unnamed tiny seaside community) as a vacation retreat.” He must not have known that Amtrak's trains run right through.

Amtrak shared our view

I just loved all the waving from the Observation Car as it clickety-clacked by. We could have handed up turkey sandwiches.

But never mind. The house did not shift under our feet, it was clean and furnished with a very comfortable bed; we enjoyed wonderful visits with great friends; the sunsets were truly magnificent and we consumed way too much delicious food in other truly idyllic seaside towns.

Pigeons or not, a double dip doozey doesn’t have to be the end of the world—and we are still laughing. It’s a matter of memory.

Typical sunset from our idyllic tiny seaside community

On Being a Knucklehead

2010-09-15T21:45:00.000-07:00

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12

I read once that human nature needs suffering to make it useful. “Clever,” I thought right before I sent the book sailing across the room. I’ve done that a few times—thrown a book while in a pique. It’s becoming a bad habit; plays havoc with the pages.

But today I’m inclined to agree with that unremembered author whom I sent sailing across my living room a year or so ago. I remain astounded at the heartlessness of those of us who claim to care about the suffering of others but are not the least embarrassed or uncomfortable in offering an unsolicited opinion that will tell one friend exactly why her child was born with Down’s Syndrome, another exactly why he has Cancer, and yet another exactly why their spouse was unfaithful.

I meet regularly with others who, like myself, have stage 4 cancer. We have all seen the books, TV programs and magazine articles that declare

Eat this

Don’t eat this

Do this

Don’t do this

and troubles will wonderfully disappear or, worse, would never have occurred in the first place. Most everyone seems to have an opinion on the how and why and what of disease and afflictions and heartache, particularly that which happens to someone else.

If I listened to all who would advise me regarding my cancer, I would be a chicken and fish eating vegetarian crushing apricot seeds in a dry climate for my seaweed-animal protein drink, cross-training in a moist climate for hours in order to power nap because of mercury poisoning and sad beyond measure because it’s all my fault in the first place.

But all of that is just confusing media overload and I can work through it. The deeper frustration and the hurt comes when it gets personal—when an opinionated knucklehead, sometimes dressed in friendship garb, will lay an impossible guilt at one’s feet with an arrogance that demonstrates their belief that whatever-it-is that has happened to you wouldn’t happen to them in a billion trillion years.

“Spare no mercy,” I say. Hire all neighborhood kids to doorbell-ditch said knucklehead’s house, lure all dogs and cats to visit said knucklehead’s gardens, contact all politicians hinting that said knucklehead might donate to their campaign if asked - by phone and at dinner time.

“The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it.” C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

And there, at least in part, might be an explanation for our arrogant behaviors. Our self-will, our grand ego, particularly in those of us who have not yet suffered, assumes that we somehow or other have high ground which compels the right to speak uninvited into the pain of another. Read Job.

So I must agree with that formerly irritating reminder, “human nature needs suffering to make it useful.” Perhaps we have all been knuckleheads at one time or another - probably me more than anyone. But I will confess, I will bear witness to the truth that my own suffering has been useful as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, blessed Trinity of my soul, crosses hairs with Me, Myself and I, the preferred trinity of my will. Mercifully, suffering has humbled me.

While there will always be much work to do in the ongoing course of humility learning, I have no delusions regarding my place under the sun as Lewis’ “all not being right with my spirit” has taught me to not think higher of myself than others. Suffering has served to help me want more of God and less of myself while thinking less of myself and more of others.

For the remaining time that I still have most of my marbles and my proverbial elevator still goes all the way to the top, may it be deeply embedded in my heart to never approach another in pain without invitation and humility. May I remember James’ excellent admonition that we be quick to listen and slow to speak. (James 1:19)

And now that I’m thinking of the rest of that verse “...and slow to anger,” I best take a short walk and make long confessions of my own.

My Neighbor's Gate

2010-08-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

A neighbor several blocks from my home has been posting poetry on her gate for sometime now. Snug in a nifty weather tight box secured to her fence, these one page offerings range from Shakespeare to Garrison Keillor. At least once a week I walk past her house just to see what she’s posted.

I’m not sure why she does it. Some of the offerings she posts are inspiring, others are charming or even funny. Whatever the intent, she asks nothing. The words are simply there for the passerby to embrace or ignore.

At the opposite end of the same block is a quiet house that sits back off the street, partly shaded by an immense and ancient Magnolia tree. My friend, Sandra, lives there. She is also dying there. Her family has been gathering to comfort both her and each other as cancer has taken a new and ferocious hold on her small and failing body.

Sandra doesn’t have poetry posted to her gate; her front yard does not include a fence. But Sandra’s heart has been actively posting for years: that God loves the world he has created and cares about our journey—hers, yours and mine. Perhaps it was these words of her favorite song that were posted in large print on her heart years ago which my friend and I saw reflected in Sandra’s lovely face when we were together for the last time:

"Let not your heart be troubled,"

His tender word I hear,

And resting on His goodness,

I lose my doubts and fears;

Though by the path He leadeth

But one step I may see:

His eye is on the sparrow,

And I know He watches me.

I have wondered if I had a gate with a nifty weather tight box secured to it, what words I would post for others to read. There are countless worthy of a good trumpeting.

But as I think of Sandra this week, her week of slipping away, I’m reminded that hers will be my fate—probably sooner than I would choose—and it occurs to me that all the inspiring and charming words written since man made his first jot will not matter very much then. What will matter is not what words I know but Whose words I know.

His whose eye is on the sparrow

His who loved the world so much that He gave his one and only Son, and

His, the Son, who loved the world so much that he said “yes” so that anyone who believes in him will not perish but have a meaningful and never-ending life.

That would be the offering of my post. And as with the words read on my neighbor’s gate, one is free to embrace or ignore the offering. But unlike my neighbor who appropriately asks nothing of her passersby, I cannot. I must stand at my gate and implore: think, consider carefully for His words are life.

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14

A Gift for Barbara Rose

2010-08-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

Photo Attribution

I know that you have felt it too from time to time - a nudge, a peculiar feeling in the stomach that this is different; this is not a should - this is a must. It might have been

that note that needed sending

that idea that needed exploring

that woman standing in front of Rite Aid with broken front teeth and asking for money.

But the human doing* that I am will argue with the human being that I wish I was

telling me that I’m much too busy today

tomorrow will be different

I’ll be better organized, better prepared.

It’s usually a lie. There is precious little difference between the manic of my todays and the unbalanced pace of my tomorrows. Yet I have been learning. Perhaps that’s a gift of my cancer. I’m learning that to assume I—and anyone I care about—owns a tomorrow is, at best, to misapprehend reality. I’m also learning that to assume those occasional nudges can be shifted to tomorrow is to risk an opportunity that might not be regained. (I have never seen the woman with the broken front teeth again.) And I risk losing a blessing that can be far beyond my imagining. I want to tell you a story. It’s a story that belongs to our granddaughter, Elizabeth, and her mother, Amy.

It was about five years ago. Little Elizabeth Claire was in her early jewelry making phase. She had been given a box of glass beads, all quite beautiful to her seven year old eyes. With the use of a spool of special black thread she created what she knew were wonders.

The house next door to Elizabeth was a rental. It had suffered a continual turnover of new occupants, none of which had been particularly good neighbors. The Fall of that year, however, ushered in a new family that had potential. I’ll call them the Baxters. Now, not only did these new neighbors have two small cats, but Elizabeth’s mother, having just delivered a welcome basket of her famous homemade scones and jam, made the happy announcement that the Baxters also had a daughter, Barbara Rose. Elizabeth was delighted.

Alas, how quickly delight can turn to dismay: Barbara Rose was 12 years old! How could a 7 year old girl connect with a woman of 12? Elizabeth’s eyes fell on her bead box and she had a plan. “I’ll make her a necklace!” And with that she measured and cut her special black thread and began to string glass beads together into what she thought was a necklace so beautiful that any woman would be proud to wear it. Finished, she lovingly wrapped her creation in brown construction paper using as much scotch tape as she could to seal it well, which is to say that she used a lot, a whole lot. But her gift was finally ready for a royal presentation.

Unknown to Elizabeth, her mother had been watching her activity and measuring her excitement with a growing concern. Here was a tender and generous heart eager to connect in this kind way but, Amy’s mother-heart worried, what if this new neighbor didn’t see the same beauty that Elizabeth did? Pre-teens aren’t always known for their generosity and sensitivity. Feeling protective, Amy wondered if she was being wise in allowing her daughter to go through with this gift idea. But either way, she finally decided, this would prove to be a valuable life lesson. She could not have known then the full meaning of that thought.

As they knocked on the Baxter’s door, excitement grew. Barbara Rose was called and after introductions were made, the construction paper packet was carefully placed in her hand. It was a total triumph: the woman of 12 loved the creation of the 7 year old. Putting it on with glee, Barbara Rose wore Elizabeth’s necklace the rest of the afternoon and even to school the following day.

It was 2 mornings later that the Baxters stood at Elizabeth’s front door. Mrs. Baxter, clearly upset with eyes swollen and red, was trying to thank Elizabeth again for the beautiful necklace she had made and the memory that the Baxters would always cherish because of it. “Barbara Rose,” Mrs. Baxter began, “had your necklace on yesterday when... She was just trying to catch her bus so she was looking the wrong way. She didn’t see them coming...she was hit by 2 cars. She is, she’s...gone.”

So a mother’s wisdom was nudged to take a risk and a child’s spontaneous gift of glass beads strung together into a little necklace offered and received in welcome and friendship was the last gift received by Barbara Rose Baxter while she was on this earth. Who could have known.

*Conformed to His Image, Kenneth Boa, pg. 22

The Game, Part 3

2010-08-01T22:08:00.000-07:00

“...in his beloved children, our Father works a most kind good through our most grievous losses...In the testing ground of evils, your faith becomes deep and real, and your love becomes purposeful and wise.” David Powlison

The Game, Part 3

Part 3 of 3

“For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.” Plato

What does one say to a stranger on the telephone who may or may not know you and, if they do, may or may not want to talk to you? I wrote out a possible script, sent up an arrow prayer and dialed the number for Judge Gene Thomas. I hoped I would remember to breathe.

Hearing a soft and genteel, “Hello?” I very nearly hung up.

“Mrs. Thomas? Mrs. Gene Thomas?

“Why, yes,”she said.

Quickly moving my tablet closer, I read: “I apologize for intruding. You don’t know me but my name is Judith. I’m trying to locate my father, Evan Thomas, who may have been the brother of Gene Thomas, your husband.”

Silence. I think I counted five heart beats.

“Mrs. Thomas? Would you mind talking with me for a minute?”

It took her a moment longer to finally wrap her mind around who I was. “Judith? You mean...Is this little Judy? Evan’s girl?”

“I...Yes, I think I am.”

Surprised but not unhappy, the widow of Judge Gene Thomas welcomed my call. Pleasantries were exchanged, confirmations were made. This was indeed the family of my roots.

“Call me Althea,” she said after a bit.

Learning from me that mother had died, Althea spoke kindly of her then added, “We all loved her, Judy. Your mother was quality. Real quality.”

After an uncomfortable pause she then asked,“So, have you talked to Evan?”

“No. He is alive then?”

“Oh yes. He’s alive. His wife passed away just a few weeks ago and I think he’s staying with his son for a few months.”

I couldn’t decide if the timing was perfect or horrid but this I knew: calling an absent father at the home of an unknown half brother sounded as pleasant an undertaking as my last root canal. Unwilling to be convinced by Althea’s assurances that they would all be delighted to hear from me, I asked if she or someone else would be willing to act as a go-between, to give him a little time to prepare and also to protest if that was how he might feel. I could not afford to talk to Evan Thomas if he did not want to talk to me.

Calls were made; Evan did indeed want to connect and right away. But I decided to wait until the weekend when my husband could be with me. A date and time for the phone call was set.

If one doesn’t know what to say on the telephone to a stranger who is an aunt, what does one say on the telephone to a stranger who is one’s progenitor? I have no idea and I have no memory of what I did say. What I do remember is my husband sitting across our breakfast table watching me dial the phone at the agreed upon time then reaching across to hold my hand while I waited for Evan Thomas to answer.

He picked up after one ring. With his quiet and low “Hello” I began the long hoped for journey to unravel the Mystery of the Absent Father.

We love these reuniting stories. Or at least we think we do. Surely it’s embedded in our DNA - this hope, this expectation of wrongs being made right, of brokenness being restored. I remember watching a story on television once of a reunited mother and daughter. Everyone was bawling and laughing. The audience was ecstatic. But seldom are cameras invited back 6 months later. I think my husband was probably right when he said that the reasons for a parent being absent are hardly ever good.

During the first few months of our getting acquainted, Evan and I enjoyed daily long distance telephone conversations and weekly letters. He was charming and he was funny. His letters were interesting and he answered hundreds of my questions with patience. We were at the “audience was ecstatic” stage.

People began to respond to my personal ad shortly after it had been published in the newspaper. Ironically, no one was able to tell me anything about Evan Thomas' current whereabouts (which I had already learned), but several people who had been childhood neighbors wrote or phoned to share their memories with me of his family and what it was like growing up in a small town before the war. These were generous, kind people and I treasure those letters.

But the bogeyman was lurking around the corner. Having taken several months to get acquainted, I agreed it was time to meet. My husband and I spent some time there, Evan spent some time with us. Sadly, the man I had come to know through his letters was quite different from the one I came to know in person. The whispers regarding his character and misdeeds began to appear to be true. Increasingly inappropriate behavior quite suddenly required clear boundaries to be drawn. My alarms were met at first with apology and then with sarcasm and disdain. He was a conflicted man who said he wanted to do right but he couldn’t - or wouldn’t. Angered by the boundaries that my husband insisted on and that I was grateful for, he died four years later having never spoken with me again.

So I had met my begetter and learned more of my tribe. My questions had been put to rest and there was nothing left to yearn. But it came with a cost - progress usually does. Hard work with an excellent counselor and a judicious use of an antidepressant proved helpful for a season and, by God’s grace, I regained my center, as they say.

Sometime later I was asked by a friend if I had regretted my decision to risk so much for the answers that I found. Given what I had learned, she wondered if I would be willing to do it again. I think she was surprised to hear me say that I absolutely would. The Mystery of the Absent Father was solved. An ending was written and while it wasn’t the ending I would choose, I at least knew how things really were. I gained far more than I lost: in learning the truth, I was set free.

Allowing God’s word the time to penetrate my mind, my heart and my hurt has healed my spirit so deeply that while there was profound disappointment, there has been no bitterness. This was my decision and my risk and God allowed me this grace to know that no one, except Jesus Christ, can love anyone perfectly.

Evan told me once that when I was very small I used to run to him squealing “Daddy!” throwing my arms around his leg. He said I ran so hard to him one time I cut my lip on his knee. “Funny the things you remember,” he said. I thought of the fig tree and the picket fence and a little girl’s quiet waiting.

“Yes,” I said, knowing he could never understand. “Funny.”

Photo Attribution

The Game, Part 2

2010-07-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

“...in his beloved children, our Father works a most kind good through our most grievous losses...In the testing ground of evils, your faith becomes deep and real, and your love becomes purposeful and wise.” David Powlison

The Game

Part 2 of 3

You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel

Psalm 73:23-24

I was fourteen years old when mother told me that she had been adopted. Rumor always had it, she said, that her father was an attorney in the small midwest town where she grew up. Many years later and shortly after she died, I petitioned the court to have her adoption file unsealed. It was empty. Or that’s what I was told. The Mystery of the Emptied Case File.

I lost my father when I was three; my parents were divorced and he was gone. Raised by a loving mother but cared for by an unloving aunt, there was never a day in my young life that I didn’t long for “daddy” to find us. I would spend hours hiding under my aunt’s fig tree hopeful that wishes would work magic and he would come back. But he didn’t. The Mystery of the Absent Father.

Knowing one’s begetter and tribe can be profoundly compelling so after I turned 49 I finished with mystery, or at least the acceptance of it. Mother had died; my kind stepfather had remarried. It was time to find what answers I could to the secrets of my own history. Above all I wanted to find him, the “daddy” I still wanted to know. I wanted to discover for myself if ugly family whispers and hints were true. But here is what I learned along the way:

Caution One: Finding “daddy” can be a dangerous business and one I do not necessarily recommend. Before setting out, it is important to have grown beyond a child’s vulnerability - an emotional neediness of an absent parent.

Caution Two: Growing beyond an emotional neediness of an absent parent can be difficult. As long as I carried in my adult being a hurting child’s heart, I was more vulnerable that I wanted to admit. No matter what I told myself that I wanted to know, no matter how I intellectualized my pursuit with thoughts about wanting health history and truth, what I really wanted to discover was that “daddy” would have come back if he could and, in spite of what anyone said or thought, he had loved his child more than himself.

Caution Three: It was important that I did not do this alone. “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” (Proverbs 11:14) I was profoundly helped by the prayers, counsel and protection of my husband and another very wise friend.

Rather than continuing to call him “daddy,” I will pitch the annoying quotation marks and call him Evan. Evan Thomas. It’s a name I have made up, pulled clean out of the air. If it is the name of someone you know, it’s a coincidence. Courtesy, if nothing else, requires that names be changed.

Finding Evan Thomas was surprisingly easy. Living with what I found proved more difficult. Several times that Monday morning I called upon the power and wisdom of God to direct my steps. Sometimes we pray that way while fully intending to run headlong into whatever it is we want and inviting God, like a cosmic Father Christmas, to come along for the ride and bless our determinations. But while I do not doubt that a large part of my motive grew out of a life-long yearning to know the absent Evan, I also believe that God was leading me that day.

I had been putting freshly laundered towels away in our linen closet, reviewing the few facts that I did have and wondering how I was going to get this done. I had made other small forays into hopeful discovery years before with no success. Other than a formal picture of a handsome young sailor in his uniform, all I knew about Evan Thomas was what mother felt she could tell me:

they had been high school sweethearts;

they graduated and were married just before America’s entry into WW II;

he had a gentle mother with a flower name.

Later I would remember that he also had an older brother, Gene. I did not know how important that information would prove to be.

As I put the last towel away in its place, I suddenly had a plan. So simple. After checking that their high school still existed, I called the school office and asked for help. “Try contacting our city newspaper,” the school secretary said. “There are lots of readers from that generation who have moved all over the country and still have our hometown paper delivered to them. If you run a personal ad, someone might recognize him.” A long shot. But long shots are not closed doors. I called the paper.

A beat reporter answered the phone and after hearing what I was looking for began to piece together what he called “A Personal.” Reviewing what he had written he said,“It would be better if you had more information - like the name of some other relative, anything - you know, to help readers remember.”

I had almost forgotten. “Oh, hey, I do remember someone else. I think he had a brother named Gene who may have played a trumpet and taught school."

“OK. That might help. We’ll get this going and...wait a minute, did you say ‘Gene?’ Would that be Gene Thomas? Judge Gene Thomas?” his voice rising with new interest. The upbeat change in his tone travelled through the telephone receiver, up my arm, into my brain pan and deep into my soul.

“No, it couldn’t be,” I said hoping I was wrong. “This Gene Thomas was a school teacher. He may have taught orchestra or something.”

“So did Judge Thomas! Many years ago. Oh yeah, if it’s the same Gene Thomas, you’ll like knowing he was a great guy. Everyone loved him.”

“He was a great guy? As in past tense?” How could I even speak with my heart in my throat.

“Yeah, well, if this isn’t a coincidence. You’re lucky I answered the phone today - I’m usually not here at lunch time. I wrote the Judge’s obituary. They buried him just a few months ago. ” My stunned silence followed by the tiniest “oh” caught his attention.

“Sorry,” he said. “But his widow still lives in their home in the next county over. I can’t give you their phone number, but I’m pretty sure you could get it through information. If not, call me back - I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, shall I run the ad anyway?”

“Yes. And thanks.” I gave him my billing information and quickly hung up.

My hands had suddenly developed a mind of their own and were unwilling to obey my “stop shaking” directive. I had to dial long distance information twice.

“Yes, hello,” I managed to say. “ I need the number of a Judge Gene Thomas, please.” I half expected the operator to scold and ask me just what I thought I would be wanting with that number but she didn’t. She simply read it to me. I repeated it back and hung up. I sat staring at my tablet. Ten digits. Ten numbers which together formed a connection that after nearly 50 years was the only thing between me and someone who might know Evan Thomas and if he was alive or where he lived. It had all taken less than an hour.

Photo attribution

To be continued...

The Game, Part 1

2010-07-23T12:49:00.001-07:00

The Game

Part 1 of 3

The late morning Bakersfield sun is so hot you can smell it. Air, heavy with its heat, is impossible to breathe and feels like something one has to bite, chew and swallow to make passage through.

She hangs on the picket fence in her usual place under the fig tree. The five year old loves this spot for she can see before being seen while she is looking and waiting. Some days she has to wait a long time and so tires of her game and goes away. Other days, like today, it happens quickly but only, it seems, if she is very, very quiet. A man is coming. As he follows the dirt path hugging the canal, he doesn’t know that he is moving closer to her secret hiding place. Then, just at that spot where the path turns the man in her direction, the five year old stops looking and begins watching.

It‘s the face that she watches. It mustn’t look sad or angry and so few qualify. But this one does. Excited, she crouches low for safety and with palms sweaty, squeezes the pickets extra tight. “Hi!” she calls out.

Without fail the man jumps for she is so hard to see under that fig tree. Most of them become angry or act like they didn’t hear her so she knows they weren’t nice after all and she has been tricked again. But not all of them. Not all. This one looks in her direction and raising his hand to shade his eyes, smiles and says “Hi!” back. Heart racing with dreams and possibilities, she climbs onto the bottom slat of the picket fence, stretches as tall as her five year old legs will allow and asks, “Are you my daddy?”

My Guest Post at Peace for the Journey

2010-07-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Elaine Olsen has generously invited me to write a guest post for her blog, Peace for the Journey. Please find my story, "The Goody Bag," there under her 2010 Archives.

Rich in Biblical teaching and helpful applications, Elaine's love of God's Word along with her creative writing style have made her blogsite a favorite of many.

I am working on my next post for this site and sure do hope to have it up by this weekend! Thank you for reading along with me when you can. I'm deeply grateful.

Keep Shining

2010-07-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

It was a gift from the heart and the hand of Elizabeth Claire, my granddaughter. She was eight years old when she made it. Intended to bring me pleasure, it also evokes joy. A fragile treasure made of child-dreamed pearls, it’s iridescence is beginning to wear. So I’m selective when I wear it and careful how I store it.

“Keep Shining.” I would have thought a little girl would have wanted to leave a more familiar message like “keep smiling.” But she wanted more. She wanted shine. And how I love that. I love it because it prompts me to think that while I can always paint a smile on my face when needed, shine comes from within.

Shine comes from enduring. It comes from refining. It comes at great cost but always with promise. It whispers of glory traded for pain that will one day be known as light and fleeting when understood through the mind and the heart of God.

So I wear my little bracelet when receiving chemotherapy or visiting Oncology. It’s the only piece of jewelry I own that can go with me through the myriad scanning machines that search for cruel and errant cells. I continually read it’s message and take comfort in the knowledge that what is seen doesn’t last while what is not seen is eternal and I remember the words of C.S. Lewis

“This is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into glory.”

The Pacman

2008-06-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

"Honey, honey, hush. Hush! Nothing is there," my mother said. "Trust me, I'll show you, monsters don't live under your bed."

Most of the women were strangers to me and, as is the way of polite company, were not what they first appeared to be. It was a writing seminar so we wrote. The quiet room was the color of french vanilla. Outside a lilac covered patio served as a foyer to the gardens. While I couldn't see the waterfall from where I was sitting, its splashing sweet song hinted of peace, of cool water on sun burned skin. But it was peace hinted, not embraced for I was not what I appeared to be. I listened, I smiled, I wrote. But moving stealthily within the deepest recesses of my body were malignant Pacman cells ferociously gobbling up good and happy ones. Cells making war on cells. Biological fratricide.

"We need to talk about pathology," said my surgeon weeks before the seminar. Whatever else was said in his exam room that afternoon disappeared into an emotional black hole. Everything, that is, except that he was certain. Cancer. Stage 4. Terror perforated my life and Heaven seemed silent.

So I came to the seminar to learn something about writing, hoping to rescript my life or at least to come to terms with it and the God I love. But over the course of the next two days other stories began to penetrate the below zero bone-aching cold of my own. Stories written and spoken by lovely and decent people that gave evidence of other gobbling Pacmen more hideous to me than mine. Beth wrote of her two sisters, one a twin, who were killed by their alcoholic father driving in a drunken rage. She survived only to suffocate on the guilt of surviving. Tina wrote of being raped by daddy and then by brother and then by brother's friends. Hate. Pernicious and venal. Savage mortal Pacman cells gobbling up good and happy ones. Someone should pay, they said, and Heaven seemed silent.

I do not know what became of Beth and Tina and the other lovely and decent women that I met that weekend a few years ago. But when I was told Monday that my remission has failed, that Pacman is back gobbling his way through my bones, I thought of them. And I thought of The Cross.

"Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, 'You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!'

In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him.

'He saved others,' they said, 'but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.

'He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.' "

Matthew 27:39-43

Mortal Pacmen raised their fists at the foot of the cross that Friday while spiritual Pacmen screamed and screeched their apparent Hellish victory. Hate. Pernicious and venal. It cost God His very best but the curse of Pacman's hate and drunkenness and rape and despair was broken.

"The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.' "

Matthew 28:5-6

And speaking into the ravaged places of every heart that will choose to accept that His sacrifice was for them, is the song of the waterfalls peace and the redemption of Pacman's destruction. Not an answer to Beth's and Tina's and my question. Rather, a solution to our problem.

"And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.' "

Matthew 28:17-20

My beloved mother was wrong. Monsters can hide under the bed. Sometimes they are disease and sometimes they are car wrecks and sometimes they are dad. But Heaven's silence is never Heaven's absence.

The prophet cries out

Death will be swallowed up in victory.

Mary's Choice

2008-05-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

First there's confusion: "Hey, where's my car?"

Then there's unease. "I left it right here. I know I did."

Then there's panic. "Yes, I'm positive I did. Help! Call Security! Someone has stolen my car!"

And finally, humiliation. "We'll help you find it, Mam. Most cars are not stolen."

"Young man, do I look like an idiot? I know where I parked my car. I parked it here close to the front of the store where I usually go in."

"Yes, Mam, and you're sure you entered through Nordstrom's?"

"Of course I didn't enter through Nordstrom's. I entered through Macy's as I always do."

"Yes, Mam. Um, Mam? You're in the Nordstrom's lot. Macy's is around the corner."

Deafening silence, three wide-eyed blinks and then, "Please assure me, young man, that I didn't tell you my name."

If only I had listened to my friend who has learned the secret to not getting lost in parking lots: pay attention. "Notice your surroundings," she said. "Look for easily remembered landmarks."

Landmarks, markers, monuments - things that help us mark where we are so we can safely navigate to where we want to go. But I rush, too full of the mandatory to pay attention to the important. Too full of the should to be deepened by the could. I don't pay attention and I get lost.

This is the gift to me from metastatic cancer. I am learning to prefer Mary's choice.

As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a village where a woman named Martha welcomed them into her home. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what he taught.

But Martha was worrying over the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, "Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me."

But the Lord said to her, "My dear Martha, you are so upset over all these details! There is really only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it - and I won't take it away from her." Luke 10:38-42, New Living Translation

There are all kinds of lostness. Sara Groves sings winsomely of losing our baby teeth, our common sense, our innocence. Sometimes, she says, we lose our appetite, our guiding sense of wrong and right, and, on occasion, a will to fight. But her ideas are balanced with another which becomes her song title, for no matter what we lose, "We Cannot Lose God's Love." It is not just a clever song sweetly sung. Scripture is interwoven with powerful no-compromise promises* purposed to guide and to anchor the soul. I may feel lost this hour, but God knows exactly where I am. He also knows who I am and what I am and yet there is not one thing I can do to cause Him to love me more or love me less.

I quake when my prognosis sounds scary and my courage fails, I am despondent when my hair falls out and I feel embarrassed, I weep over the profoundly painful things in my life and the lives of my family and close friends. But when the quaking and the desponding and the weeping stop I find myself just where I need to be, right there with Mary, prostrate before my Ground of Being, needy and listening and receiving all I require. And for that moment that I allow it, there is no confusion, there is no unease, there is no panic and there is never humiliation. I see my Landmark and know that I'm not lost. At least, not for that moment that I allow.

*Two of my favorite Biblical promises:

"Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me,

Isaiah 49:16

"...for he has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'" Hebrews 13:5

A Complex Good

2008-05-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

Evil is never good even if good

may come from it...

Evil is always evil...

God exploits evil for His

redemptive purpose

and thereby produces

A complex good...

C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Adapted by Lynne Farrow*, Ventura, CA for her art journal exploring this theme.

Wednesday. Someone has been harshing my mellow. The enemy is at the gate and I blush at what continues to make me weep. It's my fingernails. Chemo nails, I call them. I have wigs to cover my hairless and now slightly fuzzy head but there is no covering for this indignity of creepy fingernails that have lifted off their nail bed. Fear begins to spiral me down into an old despair which I have learned can take me further than I am willing to go. Trust has flown the coop, taken a hike, left me in the dust and I can't seem to will it back. I want to rejoice that I am in remission. Instead the MP3 player in my head is set on repeat and I hear my oncologist's words, "The expectation is that the cancer will return... The expectation is that the cancer will return... The expectation is..." The battle is getting long. The skirmishes keep repeating and I'm losing ground in baby steps. I hate this disease and today I'm terrified of it's cure.

Thursday. The librarian notices my nails. "Ohhh," she says. "That looks familiar." I try to shove my hands into non-existent pockets. "I want to tell you," she felt compelled to share, "I wouldn't trade my cancer experience for the world." "Really," I say, hoping my smile doesn't look like the grimace that it is. "Oh, yes," says friend librarian. "I have learned so much through it." She rejoices that she is cured and, truly, I am happy for her. But as I drive away it feels like a psalm of ashes. With Stage 4 we don't usually get cure; the blessed ones get chemical vacations. Pity party alert! Couldn't I learn what I need by just breaking a leg? I groan and look at my nails again. "Oh God, if I have to go back on those chemicals..."

Friday. "A complex good..." I long to revisit such a trust - to forever pen "no fear" across this page of my journey, never visiting it again. But, like biblical manna, there is only enough trust for one day and my insufficiency may have more to do with a faulty perspective than a feeling. I remember the recent difficulty I had in taking a photograph of the ocean. Focusing on the distant water, I blurred the foliage. Focusing on the foliage, I blurred the cresting wave. I had to decide where to focus the shot. So too with my heart. Will I focus or trust or believe all that I fear and can see or will I focus or trust or believe God who knows the end from the beginning, who sees what lives in the dark, and who has promised he will work all things, good or ill, to the benefit of any and all his children? Acceptance of evil in the expectation of a greater good has long life in scripture: Jesus Christ in Gethsemane (Matthew 26), Joseph in Egypt (Genesis 45:7) and Paul in arduous journeys or prison (Romans 8:28. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18). Focusing on fear, I become wholly fearful. Focusing on trust I may still feel fear, but it does not prevent trust-filled behaviors.

Sunday. There is great power in reflective remembering. Pastor teaches on Romans 5:1-5 reminding us of the purpose of repeated affliction in building character and strength. He retells the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego (Daniel 3) who are bound and thrown into a furnace of fire. How, I wonder, did I miss this point before? They came out of that furnace with nothing burned away except the ropes that bound them when they were first thrown in. God puts us through the furnace of affliction not to harm but to set us free of the things that bind and control and imprison bringing good out of evil. As I reflect again today on Jesus Christ, I am surprised and humbled by the number of my own memories of escape and rescue and peace in the face of past evils. Fear, finally, is on the run...or at least on a fairly fast jog.

Most likely this will not be the last time fear scores a near win off me in our game of darts. But I trust it is going to find it harder to hit that bulls eye that it keeps trying to paint on my back side. The Bible says that when I was most vulnerable, when I did not love God, Jesus Christ gave his life for me. (Romans 5:8) As my pastor has said, if he loves us that much when we didn't love him, does it make any sense that he will not see each of us through to the end of whatever he brings into our lives when we are "one of his kids?" I have power to overcome because he gives me grace to do it. And the grace to do it is going to come from remembering and from practice. As in over and over and over again.

It is a complex good. My mellow is unharshing.

*The above photograph is the first page of an art journal which was created by Lynne Farrow to record her daughter's fight with cancer which included a double mastectomy and a partial hysterectomy. Anyone interested in exploring how to create their own art journal to document a significant life issue is invited to email Lynne at lynnefarrow@sbcglobal.net

Pie In the Sky

2008-04-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

Like most people who feel compelled to create, I have a disturbing self-editor who seldom does me much good. Mine perches uninvited on my left shoulder and takes great umbrage at not only what I write about but how I say it. Looking like the old rooster that loved to terrorize little-girl toes when it was my turn to feed the chickens, it makes loud and obnoxious noises which sound like that song from the Music Man "pick-a-little, talk-a-little, pick-a-little, talk-a-little, pick-pick-pick, talk-a-lot, pick-a-little more."

It's particularly discouraging today because I have been meditating on recent comments to this blog dealing with biblical hope and new beginnings as well as an eternal perspective regarding the realities of living with and through pain and profound despair. "What a lot of pie in the sky," says obnoxious rooster from the uninvited perch on my shoulder. Where had I heard that before?

It was an interview recently on NPR. A noted scientist and author had made a comment about people who believe in life after death as exhibiting a "psychological weakness." There was a time and a place for that sort of belief, he argues, but it no longer exists as there is no longer a Darwinian advantage for it. We have evolved beyond it. I wonder if noted scientist and author has access to the same newspapers that I do.

"The Universe doesn't owe us meaning," he goes on to say. "If there isn't any meaning, there isn't any meaning and that's just tough." There is no pie in the sky. "However, " noted scientist and author quickly adds, "you can make your own meaning..." That, he goes on to explain, is in the work and art we produce, our love for nature and our families. But what, I wonder, about those people who cannot produce art and work, whose minds are either so undeveloped or savaged by vices of their own making or events they could not control that they cannot love or reason? The second way that noted scientist and author claims we can bring meaning to our life is by how we understand, how we interpret the existence of life and natural selection. So, there is meaning, just not the meaning said scientist and author doesn't approve. It's a meaning that begins with man, not God. The pie is only edible if it is man made and not God made.

Jesus said, "I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly."John 10:10

"...that you, being rooted and established in love may have power...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God." Ephesians 3:17-19

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves." Philippians 2:3

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

If that is pie in the sky, make mine a large slice of lemon meringue.

No Country For Old Women Either

2008-04-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

My friend, Mini, has this theory that there's just so much fat in the world so when she loses 5 pounds someone else gains it. She says it works the same with depression. One gets out from under it then someone else finds it landing slap down on their head. She and I laugh as we conclude that the best way, then, to show love to our neighbor is to stay depressed and keep eating desert.

Life sometimes seems just that absurd. But absurdities can take a dark turn and we laugh not as we read our own bloody newspaper headlines. While the end credits were running for No Country For Old Men the thought struck me that this is no country for old women either. At the end of his dark story exploring evil and good, Cormac McCarthy hits a raw nerve as evil wheels safely off into the sunset to terrify and torment another day. This while depicting the good sheriff as undone by the soullessness he has watched grow in the malevolence he and his progenitors have fought so long. There is no mortal victory in this fight, evil seems to win.

I wish Mini's idea was true, that there's just a certain amount of fat and depression in the world and we pass it around and sorta share the burden. Instead, the earth and all mankind groan under the travail of things gone wrong and even the hardest among us can see that something is not right and hasn't been for a long time. Pain and brokenness, cruelty, sickness, dishonesty and degeneration dog us. As I look in the mirror I know that McCarthy is on to something. There is no amount of perversity the human heart is incapable of. But there is an answer, a foil to the darkness of his story which, ironically, was the result of another brutal killing that took place on the back side of a Roman colony 2000 years ago. The savage crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the preface for his shocking resurrection and it was that resurrection that turned evil on its ear. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, lover of the soul of man and this world which was made for and by his love, paid a price more costly than I can understand this side of my grave. Unwilling to let the whole mess go and begin again, he set about the business of redemption, reconciliation and restoration.

"One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders." C. S. Lewis, Miracles

Lewis' idea matters for in that whole swaying mass are those we love as well as those we should. There are sweet grannies, murderers and everyone in between who has humbled their heart before the greatest of all burden bearers. Mini and I can rejoice after all.

Those wishing to further explore this theme might enjoy Heaven by Randy Alcorn,

and II Corinthians Chapter 5.

The Magic Fix

2008-04-08T16:40:00.000-07:00

I met Karen about a year after she died. Fortunately or not, this isn't going to be a ghost story. The only time I've been in peril of that experience was after consuming a small plate of chorizo enchiladas. ("There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" said Scrooge to Jacob Marley's ghost.)

It was a few of her emails which she had left behind that introduced her to me. A mutual friend had sent hard copies and told me that Karen was dying when she wrote them. Tragically, she had found a lump months before but was too afraid to see a doctor in time to save her life. The emails were about genuine fear but also about finding a place of genuine peace referenced in Psalm 18:19.

"He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me."

I blush to say it now but I did not receive those emails as I would have liked. I was immediately suspicious and even angry. Suspicious: as in "How can this wretched woman, so driven earlier by fear as to bury her head in the sand regarding her own body, suddenly talk about finding genuine peace in the middle of dying?" Angry: still staggering from my own then-recent cancer diagnosis, I did not feel peace. I thought bitterly how easy it can be to cover up, to look and sound the way we think Christians are supposed to look and sound. I allowed Karen's peace to make me feel shame for my own lack of it and wanted to justify myself. When wounds are fresh and pain is raw the brain can freeze and everything we have known and believed might find a black hole. I wanted a Magic Fix. I wanted to not only look and sound OK, I wanted to be OK. I wanted to cry out and have a voice answer back. I wanted confusion met with light and understanding. Karen said she felt peace; I felt trapped. So I threw her emails away. Admittedly, not my finest hour.

There is a story told of a caged starling who in despair kept throwing itself against its prison bars exclaiming "I can't get out. I can't get out!" The story continues with someone unsuccessfully attempting to break open the cage to release its tiny prisoner. "The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the bars, press'd his breast against it as if impatient. 'I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at liberty.' 'No!' it cried. 'I can't get out - I can't get out.' " (The Starling, Laurence Sterne)

I understand Sterne's Starling, its pitiful crying out and great fear. That was me. Yet, try as I might, I could not forget Karen's messages nor her verse nor her peace. At last, sick and tired of feeling so very sick and tired, I simply stopped fighting and began to meditate on what I sometimes now like to call Karen's Psalm. And Karen's Psalm became mine with verses 16 and 17 and 18.

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support.

So what is this spacious place that Karen spoke of, this place he has drawn us to? I believe it is the place where we are not trapped by the lie that this is all there is. It is the place of eternal perspective. All that cancer, falling airplanes, crashing cars, war, viruses and worn out arteries can do is kill me. There is a primordial biological promise that what is alive IS going to die - somewhere, somehow, sometime. But the Christian knows that death is the passageway to life anew.

My deep water, my powerful enemy is not cancer but fear; fear of separation from those I love, fear of pain, fear of physical indignities. It can't kill me but it can rob me of living life fully, the life we are intended to live. The life of the large place begins with God's perspective and the biblical pattern that suffering and trouble, while often an outrage and usually unwelcome, can achieve something useful and productive for us, something worthwhile, something excellent and it gives us genuine hope which is not a wish but an expectation. Perhaps Madame Guyon said it best when she asked "And what is this 'large place'? What more can it be than God Himself..." Karen knew this and I have come to know it: There is a Fix but it isn't Magic. It is Authentic and it has a name, Jesus Christ.

(For those interested in the biblical pattern regarding good coming from difficulty see

2 Corinthians 4:7-18, James 1:2-4, James 1:12, I Peter 1:6-9, I Peter 5:8-11)

Granny, God and a Wishing Star

2008-03-22T11:59:00.000-07:00

Granny, mother of my mother, could seem harsh. As in "Judith Marjeanne" (jeanne was usually pitched somewhere around high C) "you march your sorry parts in here and clean up this mess!" As in "Judith Marjeanne, mark my words, trouble is going to land slap down on your head." What usually landed "slap down" was a hard thwack from her thimbled index finger. But you had to know Granny. Or maybe you had to want to know her. She also rubbed my back on demand, taught me how to wish on a star and sometimes surprised me with what I wished for. Best of all, she took my side when Muddy said it was my turn to feed the chickens and I said it was not. Granny wore a corset and smelled of talcum. I adored her.

There are times when God too has seemed harsh. My own story, hard and painful as it has been for me and mine, is not the stuff of tragedy. In my case cancer had the civility to wait until my children were grown with families of their own. But Wayne just buried his young wife, Cheri, and will raise their two small boys without her. Six year old Alisa has flat lined three times this week, her tiny body riddled with cruel looking tubes while doctors consider a heart transplant. Young Christopher took a stray bullet while sitting at his piano lesson - a piano lesson - and may be paralyzed for life. Too many nightmare stories and no star on which to wish them away.

What are we to think of God and his love in the face of such tragedies? How does a Christian remain intellectually and emotionally honest without succumbing to cop-out religious sounding niceties and pat answers that can choke the life out of our already broken and fear-filled hearts? I'm incapable of answering that question for friends in pain and wouldn't even try. ("Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day...is one who sings songs to a heavy heart." Proverbs 25:20) No, those are times to come alongside, to "weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15). But in the long and dark and cold hours of my own confusion and fear an answer begins to take form. As with Granny who had to be known to be understood, so too with God and the clearest way to my understanding God is through his incarnate Christ.

"If the night is bad and our nerves are shattered and darkness comes and pain is all around and the Holy One is conspicuous by his absence and we want to know the true feelings of the inscrutable God toward us, we must turn and look at Jesus." Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

It is not phony God talk when Ann Graham Lotz said "the times when you and I can't trust his hand of purpose, we must trust his heart of love." Trust. It's a big word that gets bigger with each additional chemo treatment. And it never seemed bigger than when our daughter lay in a hospital bed from a brain aneurism. Perhaps the reason I could bear Granny's thimble raps was because I knew her and in knowing her I had learned to trust her love for me. But it can sometimes be easier to trust our grannies than our God. I have found it helpful to remember that Jesus didn't give workshops on the whys of pain and suffering. What he gave instead was himself and I don't think that can be more eloquently described than by C.S. Lewis from Miracles.

"In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him...one may think of a diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in midair, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay; then up again, back to color and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing that he went down to recover. He and it are both colored now that they have come up into the light: down below, where it lay colorless in the dark, he lost his color too."

When I was little I wished on a star. Now when fear and confusion and pain can suck all color from my hope and confidence, I cry out into the dark night and to the degree that I have learned it is safe to trust who he is, I can mostly trust what he does...mostly.

The Big Why

2008-03-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

Affliction. A disease, disorder, complaint, sorrow, torment, scourge, trouble

And you thought it was going to be just another day. The alarm went off, coffee was perfect, the shower did what it was supposed to do and you're out the door. It's not until later that you can mark that very day as the one in which life as you knew it screamed to a stop. Affliction picked the lock and moved right in. Up became down. Down became inside out. And inside out has remained just that.

For me it's breast cancer. Stage 4. "But why you?" my friend exclaimed with tears. I hadn't thought to ask. And now that the question was raised, I didn't much care why. Try as I might, I couldn't think of one thing so special about what my Granny might refer to as my "sorry parts" that I should be spared what is happening all around me. Is there anyone who does not know someone with cancer? "Maybe the better question," I said, "is why not me?"

But I was grateful for my friend's tears and her Big Why argument on my behalf. It felt like love which I sorely needed. Maybe the Whys, big and small, are ways of trying to get our hearts around what our brains cannot comprehend. Perhaps at best, as Tony Snow wrote, they "are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer." And who of us is not affirmed by someone's anguish on our behalf, someone's prayer offered in those cold and lonely hours belonging neither to midnight nor morning? It was not said for nothing that we are to weep with those who weep.