Meditation part 3

I had a mildly broken night — my blood sugar dropped low shortly after midnight, so I had to get up and have some juice and eat something.  After that it took a while before I slept, and I had to take a pill to help me fall asleep, but it was ok.  I’m not in pain today, which is even better!  (I’ll skip the happy dances as I might wind up with nasty stabby pains) The tiny dictator was carrying around his toy gorilla and I had a good laugh at him deciding if he should jump into bed with me or not.  Don is feeling pretty decent again today, and slept for several hours so that’s another good thing.  The boys are curled up on a corner of the sofa now, watching TV, and it’s a hot day, with a hot, humid weekend ahead, so I hope that we don’t wilt before the heat breaks.

Continuing on from yesterday, I’ll finish up on the things that spoke to me from that sermon.  I’m sorry to drag this on so long, but I just felt that I should share my thoughts on this.  It came to me at a time when I was processing a number of things — I’d just heard about the passing of a former schoolmate from an aggressive cancer, and my next scan (which will guide our decision making for treatment after May’s chemo) is coming up soon and… — I just felt that this particular sermon spoke to me.

We talked about the first two stages of coping with this telescoping of life when you’re told that you have cancer and it’s reached a challenging stage.  The third phase, according to the Archbishop, the most difficult in my view, is when you look at your life through the eyes of grace and gratitude and you realize that God has been with you every step of the way.  No matter how grim, dark or horrible, we do not go through the darkness unaccompanied.  At that point we realize that we are not victims; we always have a choice to dream, and we can believe.  This means that whatever I’m experiencing does not define me.  I am always a child of God, and that is what defines me.  “But,” I hear you say, “if God really loves you, why would he let you suffer?  Why doesn’t he take that away from you?  Pfft.  You’re taking too many of your drugs!”

Those aren’t unreasonable questions.  But I think that we have a few misunderstandings about suffering and our relationship with it.  First, if we start thinking that way, it leads into the dark places where we sink into despair, and that is not a good place to be.  Surrendering hope like that makes us victims and we become vulnerable to other illnesses and problems.  Second, we seem to think that God should cocoon us from all discomfort — but God also went through pain and suffering to death, and in the middle of his worst suffering, asked forgiveness for his tormentors!  The word “suffer” also means “to allow” and when we allow ourselves to enter fully into the suffering, instead of resisting and complaining every step of the way, there comes a moment when we realize that we are not victims, and that we can choose how to react.  There’s the conundrum or paradox of suffering.  It is in how we approach unavoidable suffering that shows us how we find the meaning in our life.  We may be subject to certain conditions, but we can always choose our attitude.  Nowhere in this is any hint of seeking out suffering, but if it comes and we can’t avoid it (like having a life-altering disease) then we should face it directly and “accept the things we cannot change.”  I don’t have an answer to the question of why suffering exists, but I will say that in the midst of suffering is also great kindness and mercy — that’s where we can meet the people who help us through bad spots, and we can encounter great love.

So to answer the questions, my body is invaded by this disease which challenges my ability to do many things.  But I am not surrendering and waiting for my body to fail on me.  I choose to spend time with people I love, doing as many of the things that I enjoy as I can.  I will find reasons to be happy and I’ll do what I can to share my happiness and love with others.  While I wouldn’t exactly call cancer a “gift”, I do think that it’s made me learn some lessons that otherwise I might have missed, or not learned until very much later in life, and they are worth learning.  I believe that in our lives there is some particular work that we have to accomplish, and as long as we’re alive, we still have something to do.  I hope that this has been useful for you to read, and that you can understand why it spoke to me — perhaps at more length than intended!  (The sermon itself was 10 minutes)  Thank you to all of you who sent me comments saying those very kind things.  You help me stay on course to be as positive as possible. 

Good night!