THROUGH THICK AND THINNING

This post, and those that follow it, can be found here.

HEADS IN CLOUDS

I have now made it 2/3's of the way through this 12-week chemotherapy regimen that I call Thing #3. It's going very well, it seems, as did Thing #1 and Thing #2. That is, the many possible side-effects I have been warned about have for the most part failed to materialize, and I continue to feel and (weirdly look) quite healthy. When asked, I say that, by the the kindness of the Lord, everything seems to be going very well. The key word is "seems."

Yesterday, I had another CT-scan. It was scheduled exactly one week before I meet with my friendly neighbourhood oncologist to hear what the scan has revealed, specifically what it reveals about the eleven cancerous lesions living for a time in my liver. For exactly seven days then, seven including this one, I live and move and have my being in a cloud: a cloud of not knowing what exactly is going on inside me. Having by now become a Wily Veteran of London's various CT-scan facilities, I've walked in this exact cloud before, and I don't like it at all. What I don't like exactly is not knowing what a number of people here in London DO know about me and my liver, despite the fact that everyone of them is less attached to my liver than I am.

On a related note, The Cloude of Unknowyng is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in the second half of the 14th century (hence the strange spelling.) Evidently, it's a spiritual guide to contemplative prayer which proposes that the only way to truly know God is to abandon all preconceived notions and beliefs or knowledge about him and to be courageous enough to surrender mind and ego to the realm of unknowingness, at which point, the unknown author assures us, we begin to glimpse the true nature of God. So says Wikipedia. And that's all I know about that particular classic piece of Christian literature other than what is stated in the brief excerpt included in the Wikipedia article:

"For He can well be loved, but he cannot be thought. By love he can be grasped and held, but by thought, neither grasped nor held. And therefore, though it may be good at times to think specifically of the kindness and excellence of God, and though this may be a light and a part of contemplation, all the same, in the work of contemplation itself, it must be cast down and covered with a cloud of forgetting."

This brief description and short quotation may be too little to judge by and it might be quite unfair of me to do so anyway, but nevertheless I AM putting myself down as Not Interested in further spiritual direction from this unknown spiritual guide. It's specifically what I DO know about God that keeps the peace of Christ ruling in my heart. And it is specifically thinking about God that strengthens my heart and mind regarding what I am unable to see and know while my head is in this cloud.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies endure forever. According to the riches of his grace, God works all things according to the counsel of his will. His people have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and have been granted an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven by God's power as we are guarded through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed at the last time.

The truth is, we all walk through life, one week at a time, with our heads in a cloud of unknowing. No one knows very much at all about what's really going on. We all live in some state of fog about what adventures are still awaiting us and about how long it will be until we stand before our Creator and Judge to give him an account of ourselves. But it's what we CAN know about the nature of God that can keep our hearts and minds at peace, with that peace that surpasses all understanding. And it is as we keep thinking about God -- about what he has done for us and what he is doing for us and what he has promised us that we are loving him with heart and soul and strength and mind, just as our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded us.

NEVER SURE

In a post on April 28, 2010 ["Walking through graveyards"], I wrote: "It's been two weeks since, in the launch of a short sermon series, I talked for a bit about walking in 'my' graveyard." That was 3 1/2 years ago, and since then, not to put too fine a point on it, Death has twice come "knock, knock, knocking on my door" and I am more convinced now than I was then that "being clear on the fact of my own mortality increases my sense of the value of a day." Christmas Day, for example: now less than three weeks away.

This Christmas Day will be the 40th that Deb and I have experienced together. A big round biblical number. As we've been working our way through our preparations for this particular edition of the Big Day, the unspoken (but not always unspoken!) awareness we share is that this Christmas Day actually might be our last. The reality is: if this cancer of mine IS going to win this war, it's likely do so in 2014.

And how does this startling possibility affect this year's Christmas? What I am finding is that, to varying degrees, the possibility makes every piece of Christmas preparation and celebration taste sweeter. At least, it's the sweetness of each Christmas thing that I'm noticing. As usual, we bought a Christmas tree. As usual, we arranged with our next-door neighbour to help us carry it into the house and stand it up in the usual place. (We always buy a tall and therefore heavy tree.) With the usual decorations, we decorated the tree and the room in which the tree always stands. And every December day, I pour the tree a large jug of water. And this Christmas, what I am noticing is that every celebrational step we take has a sweetness to it. Not a new sort of sweetness. Not even a new amount of sweetness. I'm just noticing the sweetness more.

My 3 1/2 year old "graveyard" post included the famous words of the 17th century preacher Richard Baxter. "I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men." I first came across this sentence 3 1/2 decades ago, long before any life-and-death health problems began to knock, but it has ever since been a good guide to me, strongly encouraging me to see any and every opportunity to preach as a not-to-be-wasted-because-quite-possibly-my-last-such-opportunity, and also quite-possibly-the-last-sermon-that-someone-in-the-audience-will-listen-to. I have found that being again and again reminded of my mortality, the mortality common to us all, has always been worthwhile, and has never soured but always sweetened the experience of standing before a group of people as the preacher. This Christmas, the same thinking is having the same sweetening effect on every traditional and celebrational move I make.

We human beings are fragile creatures. People are struck down unexpectedly every day of the year, sometimes in the most unlikely and least predictable way. The same 2010 blog post also included a reference to one of the "resolutions" of Jonathan Edwards, written in 1722 at the age of 19! "RESOLVED: To live with all my might while I do live."

The sobering fact is, this Christmas might be anyone's last. So let us all prepare for this year's Christmas with all our might, being careful to notice and to taste and to treasure the sweetness of every detail. And let us once again celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Ruler of the kings of the earth, as never sure to celebrate it again.

A CERTAIN MAN

For better or for worse, I have been this church's pastor for years and years and years. One of the great advantages of staying so long is that I hardly ever have to say, "Hm. We've never experienced THIS before." As it happens, I did say those very words this past Sunday when for the first time in 29 years, the Worship Services were called because of snow.

Driving home at the strange Sunday morning hour of 10:00 a.m., I was thinking about the Morning Services that were evidently not meant to be. As my thoughts then shifted to the week ahead, with a Tuesday morning appointment with the oncologist and my Friday morning reservation in the Chemotherapy Suite, it occurred to me that this Sunday morning was a parable: a parable about me...

"A certain man pastored a very kindly and respectful congregation for many years. And it came to pass that one particular week, he prepared a Sunday sermon to preach to the congregation, as for those many years he usually did. And he did so diligently for over the years two related truths had been made very clear to him: that a good sermon can do some people some good, and that not all sermons are created equal, some of them turning out to be not very good at all. When Saturday evening came to pass, as for many years it always had, he beheld that every necessary Sunday morning thing was prepared (his notes and the congregation's Outline and the slide show and the projectionist's notes and the Order of Service), the pastor said his Saturday evening prayers, as he usually always did. And so he committed the entire endeavour to the Lord, asking God to make use of his efforts of the week and his efforts of the morning to come to do the people at least some good.

And it came to pass on the morrow that it was decided that the sermon must not be preached because, as the saying goes, the snow must go on. And so the pastor drove home, for the evil Bureaucratic Empire had once again suspended its suspension of his Driver's License [but that's a parable for another time.] And verily, as he drove, the pastor reflected on the truth that although he did not after all receive the privilege of offering the sermon to the church family, even though it might have done some of them some good, he HAD in fact offered the entire endeavour to the Lord. And that, he concluded, must be good enough."

Meanwhile back in Real Life, I meet again this week with my faithful and attentive oncologist, who always looks at me (and talks to me) as if I were a man more likely to die of cancer than to survive cancer, as in his professional opinion he thinks I am. And as I do, I will reflect on the truth that in fact I may not actually receive the privilege of pastoring this church for the next ten years, as I am more than willing to live long enough to do. And I will remember to say to myself, as we have been told we ought to say: "If the Lord wills, I shall live and do this or that." [James 4:15]

But I CAN offer the entire endeavour to the Lord. And that, I conclude, must be good enough.

WAR OR PEACE

My first chemotherapy experience (This past June and July) began exactly 69 years after D-Day.

Without really planning to, I approached the start of this second set of chemo treatments as I was re-reading Stephen Ambrose's fascinating book "D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II." And so it comes to pass. I am again loaded up with tendencies to compare my personal medical adventures to the Second World War. I apologize to my friends and acquaintances with Mennonite backgrounds, but here I go again. Except that it now occurs to me that a better military comparison would be to America's "War Between the States" (1861-1865) for the battles taking place inside me are much more of a civil than an international war.

Cancer turns a person's body parts into deadly enemies. My gut-wrenching September surgery (Non-technically known on this blog as "Thing #2") was prompted by the medical opinion that, in my case, the Battle of the Rectum was basically over, and that cancer had won, and that desperate measures were now called for to stop my cancer from winning this war. Now the "theatre of war" has shifted because my enemy has established a beachhead in my liver. Subsequently, my new chemotherapy (The "Folfox Regimen," if you care to know) is designed to destroy those traitorous and deadly "hepatic" rebels before they get themselves organized enough to destroy me.

In what I would say is his best and most important book ("The Everlasting Man"), G.K. Chesterton writes that “a good war is better than a bad peace.” Being convinced that he is right on this point was a big help to me and Deb in resisting last week's irrational temptation to phone the good guys at the London Regional Cancer Program and inform them that, in view of how strong and healthy I am feeling, we decided to decline their kind offer of more chemotherapy. In the words of GKC, that would be choosing a "bad peace" over a "good war." It would have been a really bad idea to do so since you can't really count on cancer cells to do the honourable thing and slip away peaceably when they begin to feel unwelcome.

Now here's the thing. Cancer is not the only cause of such an up-close-and-personal civil war. And cancer patients are not the only people who need to be careful about choosing a bad peace. In fact, there are many variations on this theme, and many internal wars that it would be good to declare and bad to avoid. Here's Paul the apostle on the subject. "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." (Galatians 5:16,17 ESV)

Thickening the plot, let's agree that ignoring our own rebellious "desires of the flesh" can quite naturally lead to the same Chestertonian choice (Some sort of war or some sort of peace) in our marriages, in our relationships with our children and our parents, in our church life, in our friendships and in our work experience. Yikes!

In the hope of being helpful, I turn back to my post of June 26, in which I quoted a 17th-century preacher and theologian named John Owen on the topic of waging war, that is, a good civil war, on our indwelling sins. Let's notice that Owen just assumes that we will choose war rather than peace. “Let no man think to kill sin with a few easy or gentle strokes. He who has once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so is he who undertakes to deal with sin but pursues it not constantly to the death … Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

This is plainly an important truth -- and not to be ignored. The only cancer you can be sure of not being killed by is a cancer that, by God's grace, you (and your medical friends) have managed to kill first. And so I declare, five days into my new twelve weeks of "Folfox" chemotherapy: "Bring it on!"

Likewise, the only sins of the mind and heart we are at all safe from are those sins (and inclinations to sin) that, by God's grace, we have successfully killed -- or at least have captured as prisoners-of-war and are diligently keeping very carefully guarded. "Be always at it whilst you live!"

GOOD NEWS FOR THE REALLY, REALLY LUCKY

We met with the surgeon this week. He was quite encouraged and so quite encouraging. On the basis of the good results of Thing #1 (the Summer Radiation) and Thing #2 (my September Surgery), he calls me "an excellent candidate" for a Liver Resection (which will be Thing #4, in March 2014, with the likelihood of a second Liver Surgery, which would be Thing #5, later that year). Thing #4 is set for four weeks or so after Thing #3, which will be six biweekly courses of Intensive Chemotherapy beginning on November 15th. On a related note, this very skilful surgeon, who Deb and I admire and appreciate very much, raised my odds of survival to 30%, explaining that, of course, it all depends upon me being "very very lucky."

So here I sit, three weeks prior to the beginning of Thing #3, with an estimated one-in-three chance of making it alive through this whole experience. One in three. I am now only twice as likely to die of this cancer than to survive it. (Well, ALMOST one in three. I now dream of being declared "33 1/3," which would both be a further improvement of my chances AND would make me feel like an old, long-playing record.)

And what do I do with these new odds? There are two things I DON'T do. I don't trust in them, which I have explained already. And I also don't ignore them. What I DO is attempt to grasp them, in order to avoid moving into the Land of Denial.

I have two principal reasons for this. Firstly, I am striving to grasp this estimation of my odds so that if, at any time in the months ahead, things begin to go bad for me -- and continue to do so -- and I really do begin to die of cancer, I won't be at all surprised.

Secondly, if Things #3 and 4 (and possibly #5) also all go well, and I emerge from all of this as a Cancer Survivor, I would like to be clear about what a great thing God has done for me. And if it happens, it will come as the answer to many hundreds and maybe even thousands of prayers from many wonderfully caring people located all over the world, and I do intend to be appropriately appreciative to them as well.

Meanwhile, the excellent and caring surgeon waits to have another surgical go at me next March, and hopes that I do turn out to be "really, really lucky." In his professional skills and his devotion to his patients, this man really is a prince among men, which brings me to the psalm I read this morning.

Psalm 146:3-5 ESV
Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation… Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God...

HARD PRESSED

Some good news this week. Yesterday we learned that the Pathology People have concluded that my gut-wrenching surgery (now four weeks ago) did manage to remove all the cancer from my nether parts. Meanwhile, the next set of chemotherapy treatments (declaring war on the cancer in my liver) begins in four weeks. So here, at the half-way point between my Previous Big Thing (Thing #2) and my Next Big Thing (Thing #3), I am mulling over something that the Apostle Paul wrote about himself.

Put me down as a big fan of the Apostle Paul. In my personal "Parade of the Giants" (The procession through history of my favourite great examples of faith in Christ), Paul is the man walking at the front of the parade. It's right that I should admire him, for deliberately imitating Paul is a repeated New Testament instruction (e.g. 1 Corinthians 4:16 and 11:1; Philippians 3:17 and 4:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:9.) These days, I have been thinking a lot about the exemplary statements he wrote to the church at Philippi. He wrote these words from a prison cell, probably in Rome, as he waited to learn if the Next Big Thing he was about to receive was going to be a Roman execution or a "Get Out of Jail" card. While he waited, he wrote on the topic of maybe and maybe not dying very soon. Remarkably, he described himself as "hard-pressed between the two."

Philippians 1:20-26 ESV
... it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

So there was this remarkable man, thinking through the two likely outcomes of his imprisonment and declaring himself to be "hard pressed between the two." From Paul's point of view, "to depart and be with Christ" was the "far better" option, but "to remain in the flesh" was "more necessary" -- for the Philippians and for many similar groups of first-century Christians dependent upon him.

For me, the art of using the apostle Paul as an example requires never losing sight of the important fact that he was a 1st century apostle and I am something very much else. This being the case, there is an important contrast between his expectation of his immediate future and my expectation of mine. I believe that it is exactly THIS difference that brought Paul to a certainty about not dying any time soon, a certainty that I am very sure I have no corresponding right to assume. Paul's conviction that he would "remain and continue" with the Philippians for the sake of their "progress and joy in the faith" does NOT entitle me to any sort of similar certainty about what happens to me next, for Paul was almost unique, one of a small number of foundational 1st century church leaders: chosen servants of Christ with a very specific, historic calling.

Still, Paul's "teaching" and "conduct" and "aim in life" and "faith" and "patience" and "love" and "steadfastness" and "persecutions" and "sufferings" are set out in the New Testament as examples for us to imitate (2 Timothy 3:10,11). And he considered that the "gain" that comes from dying was "far better" than the "fruitful labor" that would come from living on. So here's what is occurring to me. As I keep busy doing "two things at the same time" (From the post of May 31: "wholeheartedly fighting for my life and trusting God and praying with all my heart for strength and health and healing and a long life, while at the same time, quietly and peacefully accepting the reality that this might in fact be the beginning of the end of my life..."), I am being called BOTH to prepare myself for the upcoming chemotherapy-based battle for continued life on earth AND sincerely to prefer "to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better."

Although Paul's personal certainty does not entitle me to assume that I am NOT going to die any time soon, even for the sake of additional "fruitful labor," his example directs me to try on both dying and not dying very soon AND to live in a genuine state of being "hard-pressed between the two" -- and it is Paul's example that shows me how.

Paul's "hard-pressedness" was pretty plainly the result of believing that, as he puts it, "to live is Christ." Plainly, he was a man so thoroughly dazzled by Jesus Christ that there was nothing in this world as attractive to him and as appealing to him as Christ himself. Paul was "hard-pressed between the two" because he loved Jesus so much that there was nothing in this world that appealed to him more than seeing, and being with, Christ. Not even serving Christ. As such, he accepted the fact of his own death with composure and peace. But he didn't just accept it. He embraced it as his personal preference. Such was his love for his glorious Lord Jesus.

And so should I. With no real certainty on the question of "maybe and maybe not dying very soon," I am being called to cultivate such a love for Christ that my personal preference really is "to depart and be with Christ," believing that "that is FAR better." And so I'm working on it. In my Bible reading and my praying, in my Bible study and my meditation, I'm seeking to see Christ so clearly and to love him so intensely that I really am "hard pressed between the two," as the Apostle Paul is my example.

REAL HAPPY. FOR NOW

I've been home from the hospital for ten days, my gut-wrenching surgery now almost three weeks old. And how am I feeling? I'm happy to report that I am actually very happy. Really. I am really very happy, which surprises some people, I think, considering my circumstances, I mean my ongoing nasty case of terminal cancer.

Now the thing is, I am not by any means a naturally gloomy fellow. I am happy to admit that I have inherited a good genetic dose of what C.S. Lewis refers to (on page 1 of "Surprised by Joy") as the "talent for happiness." But nevertheless I am quite prepared to defend the Institution of Happiness from all nay-sayers, especially those well-meaning detractors who fear that by succumbing to the charms of the thoroughly flighty and unreliable Blue Bird of Happiness, people like me are setting ourselves up for disappointment. Here is my defense.

Without a doubt, my current state of happiness is circumstantial. I freely admit that I am happy these days because the immediate effect of my surgery has been the definite taming of my nine-month long state of Gastrointestinal Chaos. Because of the surgery, I am no longer the slave of a really lousy bowel system and no longer frequently and pathetically held prisoner in any one of the Small Rooms in the house. Along with all of that, I am no longer bound to a restricted diet and so have recently rejoined the World-Wide League of Enthusiastically Committed Coffee Consumers. In all of that, the fact that my current happiness is circumstantial dampens my mood not a bit.

By definition, "happiness" is always circumstantial. The word is derived from the Old English word "hap," which means "chance" or "fortune." In fact, all "happiness" is a positively emotional response to the way things have "happened," that is, to what is sometimes referred to as being "lucky" or "fortunate." And here my defence makes a humble admission.

The word "happiness" is, in its origin, not so happy a term for the happy state of heart in question. Being people who believe in "God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy" (1 Timothy 6:17 ESV), it is more accurate for us to describe ourselves as "blessed." It's just that doing so fails to explain to people how happy we sometimes are So, back to my defense.

I take in stride the temporal nature of my happiness, knowing that no earthly circumstances are permanent. But still, "everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:4,5 ESV).

Meanwhile, as I consider where my cancer is leading me: to several months of intense chemotherapy (beginning late in November, I think) and at least one more big surgery (this time to "resect" a substantial chunk of my cancerous liver), I accept the coming days of difficulty in the same spirit as I am just now accepting these happy days of strong black coffee. And, all the while, as it is set out in Psalm 16, "… my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices … You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." (Vss. 9-11 ESV)

Please don't worry about me and my current state of temporary, circumstantial happiness. I am very clear on the fact that FULLNESS of joy and PERMANENT pleasures are only found in the presence of God and at his right hand.

LOUSY ODDS AND AN EVEN HEARTBEAT

That charming stereotype we call "the Optimist" has sometimes been differentiated from his gloomy counterpart "the Pessimist" by his (or her) description of a glass of water that is, in fact, both half-full and half-empty. At last week's meeting with my oncologist, the good doctor told me that whereas, back in May, my chances of surviving this cancer were in his opinion very bleak, he now upgrades my odds of survival to a solid 20%. Committed as I am to the Optimist's cheerful outlook, I can now say that my particular glass of water is apparently one-fifth full.

John Piper says "you will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God." He wrote this, just before his surgery for prostate cancer, in an excellent little article he entitled "Don't Waste Your Cancer" (which you can easily find by searching here) The fine print explains, "The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians … The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him."

For this powerful piece of writing, I thank John Piper. And I think that his references to "the design of God" and "the aim of God" and "a thousand other good things" add up to a very important truth. As the Bible makes clear, the life of a human being is not, in fact, a thing of uncertain duration. That long-suffering, non-optimistic Old Testament man named Job was clear on this. He says to God, "Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble … his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass…" (Job 14:1-5 ESV) And King David was on the same page. He writes "… in your book were written the days that were formed for me, every one of them, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139:16 ESV [except that I rearranged the phrases for the sake of clarity] )

The point here is plain, I think. Every human life is long enough to accommodate every one of the good and pleasant things AND every one of the good but "full of trouble" things that God means THAT particular human being to experience. Life is always long enough for the purposes of God. Every human life, including mine.

So while some medically-knowledgeable people are giving me a 20% chance of being alive in a year or two, it will always remain a 100% certainty that I will live on in this world, in some state of sickness or of health, until every one of "the days that were formed for me" and my entire "number of months" have been lived, and until all of the designs and aims of God have been accomplished, and until "a thousand other good things" have been realized.

So there it is. I am a man with lousy odds, and they are against me. In fact, my odds are not even "even." But by God's great grace, against all odds, I am maintaining an even keel. And clothed with the righteousness of Christ, I am at peace, being assured by the Word of God that I will one day stand before my Judge and Maker with a 100% approval rating.

And the Word of God teaches me what to say: "Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments … He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid until he looks in triumph on his adversaries." (Psalm 112:1,6-8 ESV)

READINESS

Two weeks from today, I will once again be the Special Guest at a meeting to be held in my honour in one of University Hospital's Operating Rooms. This will be my third surgery (Lifetime), with the great likelihood of two more surgeries to follow in the months to come.

This one being fourteen days from today, the words of England's 18th-century "Man of Letters" Samuel Johnson come to mind. "Depend upon it, Sir," he once said, "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Although I've never been threatened with hanging, I AM finding that the same principle applies to gut-wrenching-surgery-deemed-necessary-because-of-a-serious-case-of-cancer. These days, I'm finding that my mind is being wonderfully concentrated, and that the advantage has everything to do with becoming ready for the inevitable.

It's just what Hamlet said, as he was trying to decide whether to be or not to be: "If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all." (Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2.) While I don't suppose that Shakespeare's Hamlet should be anyone's final authority on these matters of life and death, even if "the readiness" is NOT all, nevertheless attaining (and maintaining) such a genuine state of readiness IS a goal with a lot going for it.

The thing is, cancer patients aren't the only ones who are mortal. Dying may never be something a person looks forward to, but there is a perfectly good reason for every one of us to look ahead to it. "It is appointed for man to die once…"

These days, I'm working on staying clear on the sobering fact that if I DO manage, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, to beat the odds, so that, in September 2018 (that is, five years from now), I am declared "Cancer-Free," I'll still be a guy who is going to die someday. "If it be not now, yet it will come." And of course, sometime, anytime, before my cancer gets around to doing to me what it is all set up to do, I could get run over by a cement truck or struck by lightning.

The writer of the Old Testament's Book of Ecclesiastes stated it plainly. "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die… " (3:1,2 ESV). Day to day, one of the distinct advantages of this sort of readiness is the capacity to see every day, every hour, in fact every moment of every day, as a specific gift of God: one gift in a finite set of such gifts -- and so one not to be wasted. It seems to me that it really does help to be very clear about the fact that one day, one such moment will be the last one I get. And having no real clue about the exact date and time is no good excuse for putting the whole matter out of our minds.

So let us take a tip from Samuel Johnson, and concentrate. Wonderfully.

IN GOD WE TRUST. WITH ALL OUR GUTS

Mark 12:28-31 ESV
And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ [Deuteronomy 6:4,5] The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ [Leviticus 19:18] There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Here in the Gospel of Mark (and also in Matthew 22 and Luke 10), Jesus identifies a whole-hearted, whole-souled, whole-minded, full-strength love for God as "the most important commandment." It's easy, I think, to see how it is, for in one simply-stated law, our ongoing obligation to the God who has made us, sustains us and offers to save us is thoroughly addressed. In the same breath, Jesus identifies as "the second" most important commandment our obligation to love our neighbour, that is, all the people in any kind of proximty to us.

This past Monday, having met for a second time with the surgeon who in June had turned me over for the summer to the care of two oncologists, Deb and I heard some not very good news about how much, that is to say, how little my six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation had actually accomplished. Contrary to what the early-August CT-scan seemed to indicate, the rectal tumour isn't really much smaller than it was in June and is almost certainly still inoperable. Surprisingly, the punch line of this bad news is not that I don't have an upcoming surgery after all. Instead, I have been scheduled for a four-hour surgery on Friday, September 20th: a procedure intended to prevent the prospect of a complete bowel obstruction. What this means in the long run is that my two oncologists now need to weigh in on the question of what other chemotherapy might be successful in shrinking, and so making operable, what presently remains unshrunk and inoperable. (Yikes.)

In the hours, and now the days, following the appointment, there has come to my mind what might be labelled "the third most important commandment." I am definitely free-styling here -- a questionable Bible study practice, to be sure -- but what I am thinking is this: since "the most important commandment" addresses our relationship with God and "the second most important" addresses our relationship with all of the people in our lives, a commandment that addresses our relationship to the details of our own lives, to our own challenges, to all our own stuff -- might possibly be the third most important commandment. So here, trying to be helpful, at least to my own disappointed self, is my shot at naming #3, extracted from the Old Testament as are the two commandments cited by the Lord as the first and second most important. What I'm suggesting is that the third most important commandment is this: "Trust God." Just trust God.

The Old Testament reference, of course, is Proverbs 3:5,6 ESV
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.

This is a very good and helpful instruction to me just now -- except that it's not my heart that I am concerned and uncertain about. Neither this upcoming surgery, or the surgery that may or may not follow the upcoming chemotherapy, is a matter of the heart. It's not my heart. It's my bowels. In just over three weeks, this surgeon, who is reputed to be very good at what he does, and certainly seems to be a very caring and knowledgeable man, is going to cut me wide open and temporarily, for the sake of the cause, disembowel me. To put it plainly, for a few hours this September, this man who I have only just met will hold in his hands my intestines, all of them, both the large and the small. And I've never even seen his resume. I don't even know if he wears gloves. And all the while, I'll be fast asleep and so unable to make suggestions or offer feed-back.

What I have here is a great demand for trust. And I have twenty-three days to get clear and okay on this, because, to use a technical medical term, these surgeries are going to be gut-wrenching.

Psalm 20:7 ESV
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

So wrote King David in the days of ancient Israel. His point, I think, is that even in regard to our best assets and most high-tech advantages, it is God we should be trusting with all that concerns us. Even when the chariots are shiny and new and fully-loaded and the horses are fit and chomping at the bit, it is God we should acknowledge as the giver of all good gifts and the director of our paths and the healer of all our diseases.

What was true for King David in ancient Israel is true for me in modern south-western Ontario. Some trust in surgeons and some trust in oncologists, but, according to the third most important commandment, I will endeavour to trust in the Lord my God. With all my guts.

"GOD AND MY RIGHT"

One of my favourite scenes from The Chronicles of Narnia features Shasta (the boy in "The Horse and his Boy"), riding an awkwardly uncooperative horse (NOT the horse referred to in the title of the book, but another horse, which "had a very low opinion of Shasta"). That boy and that horse were riding through the mountain pass between Archenland and Narnia. The point in the scene is Shasta's alarming discovery "that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch dark and he could see nothing. And the Thing (or Person) was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls. What he could hear was the breathing. His invisible companion seemed to breathe on a very large scale, and Shasta got the impression that it was a very large creature."

In this, Shasta was right. His unintroduced walking companion, who waited to be spoken to before speaking himself, was none other than "Aslan, the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-over-the-sea, the King above all High Kings in Narnia." And with that great Lion at his side, this young boy (and that disappointed horse) walked through the mountain pass into Narnia without stumbling or falling or losing their way.

Last week's post featured Psalm 84:5-7, which says (ESV), "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion... They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion." And I wrote, "These are powerful words and I feel their effect. And I notice them raising a personal, practical question. How am I doing at `more-or-less travelling successfully' in the direction of Zion"?

While being the first to say that I "see through a glass darkly," it does seem to me that I am these days managing to walk the path that has been set before me "without stumbling or falling or losing my way." What I DO see clearly is that, for this, I have the Lord to thank. I feel like Shasta, managing to stay on "the highway to Zion" and managing to keep moving forward because Someone ("on a very large scale") is walking beside me.

This mental image is so helpful and encouraging, I've been working on picturing it as clearly as possible, and the picture that's developing is a surprise to me. The surprise has to do with the frequent emphasis in the Book of Psalms on "the right hand," both the Lord's right hand and "my own."

As I have mentioned a time or two previously, Psalm 16 has been on my mind this summer. Verse 8 says, "I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken." Here, the Lord is at MY right hand. (Curiously, Aslan was on Shasta's left. Hm.)

I've also been thinking a lot of Psalm 63, and there, verse 8 reads, "My soul clings to you; YOUR right hand upholds me." This is not a rarely mentioned idea. For example, Psalm 139:9,10 declares: "If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and YOUR right hand shall hold me."

But Psalm 73:23 says "… I am continually with you; you hold MY right hand."

So here's the picture. Here's how the Book of Psalms is teaching me to picture my journey. I'm travelling along "the highway to Zion," sometimes in the dark, sometimes unable to see even the ground beneath my feet. And the Lord is holding MY right hand in HIS right hand.

So this is not quite like the Lion and Shasta (and that horse) walking side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, both with eyes looking ahead although only the Lion sees the road clearly. Rather, "the boy" is walking this path with the Lord at his right hand. But the Lord is not facing the same direction as "the boy" but rather facing "the boy"; in fact, walking backwards along the path, not needing to be looking ahead but choosing to keep his eyes constantly fixed on my sometimes uncertain, sometimes confused face.

And here I must say that I am way too influenced by the Book of Revelation to picture Jesus, my walking companion, still dressed as a 1st-century Nazarene carpenter, but rather as we see him walking "in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters." (Revelation 1:13-15 ESV) AND as he is pictured on the white cloud in Revelation 14 AND riding the white horse in Revelation 19 AND seated on the great white throne in Revelation 20.

This is our Lord Jesus, now glorified. And he walks with me, step by step, day by day, on my right, holding my right hand securely in his right hand and so never unaware of how I am really doing. For this Jesus, my constant walking companion, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who does everything "on a very large scale." And he is watching me take every step and he is helping me to face every unknown and he is strengthening me to step forward into every new challenge that is mine on the highway to Zion.

A HEART WITH HIGHWAYS

Today is Day 14 of the Six-Week "Chilling Period" that follows my Six-Week Chemo/Rads Experience and the two Infamous Bonus Weeks which came complete with a complimentary Three-Day All-Expense Paid Stay on the Luxurious 7th Floor of London's Victoria Hospital. As weeks of chilling go, I think I am feeling better, and so more chill, day by day.

But where exactly am I in the grand scheme of things? Today, I'll say it this way: I am walking along a highway, and that is my life. I wasn't listening to commercial radio in 1991 when Tom Cochrane's "Life Is a Highway" became his greatest hit single, and I didn't have any very young children asking me to take them to a movie in 2006 when the Pixar movie "Cars" featured the same song (covered by Rascal Flatts), but I have recently read Psalm 84 again, and so recently read again these great words of the Sons of Korah.

Psalm 84:5-7 ESV
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion... They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.

"In whose heart are the highways to Zion." I love those words. They tell me that each of us, living day by day, are travelling, more-or-less successfully, in the direction that our hearts are longing to go, towards the place that our hearts are longing to get. And they tell us that there is such a thing as a man whose heart longs to get to "Zion," that is, to the New Jerusalem, that is, to the City of God, that is, into the actual presence of the Lord.

With these words, the Sons of Korah raise a question in my mind, for me a very good question to be asking myself four weeks before the beginning of the Next Big Thing (which is, ahem, Rectal Surgery. Eeesh.) The question is "Where am I really hoping this series of Big Cancer-Related Things will get me?" In other words, what in fact IS my desired destination? Is my whole hope simply to return to good health and to the life that I was very happily living before I was accepted into the Cancer Club (One of those clubs that no one ever volunteers to join)? Or is there in my heart at least some real desire for a greater destination, a destination of more lasting value than the life I was not-so-long-ago living?

I don't know much about these Sons of Korah, but plainly in writing Psalm 84, they have a greater destination in mind. And they have in mind a man who trusts so deeply in the Lord that his heart is on fire with a desire to actually see God, that is, to actually arrive in the presence of God. This is made plain by the psalm's opening words.

Psalm 84:1-4 ESV
How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God… Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise!

I don't mean any of this to be understood as a death wish (as last week's post [August 7, 2013] definitely sort of was!) This is not a death-wish. It's a God-wish, which isn't the same thing at all. To desire to be in "Zion", to be in "God's dwelling place", in the "courts", in the "house" of God, is to desire God himself, and by the glorious fact of his omnipresence, that can mean spatially being anywhere. I am happily clear on the truth that I can experience the presence of God through the miracle of a complete healing from cancer and the living out of another few decades on earth. Fighting this good fight and praying for that very miracle IS one of the two things I am thoroughly committed to (If that's confusing, please see my May 31st post "Two Things At The Same Time".)

The big question is why? Why am I fighting to get back my physical health and my prospect of living to old age? The Sons of Korah provide me with the best answer, which would be that as much as I am fighting and praying for my physical life, I am fighting and praying to experience more of the real presence of God as a living, breathing, cancer-free person, living for perhaps many more years a worthwhile and faithful life in this world and in the family and in the church that God has brought me to.

But whether I live more years of this earthly life of mine in the daily presence of God or whether instead I find myself flying away to Zion is not my decision to make. It is God's to make and mine to discover. Either way, if my heart is right with God, my real desire will be to experience his presence, how and where he chooses. And if my heart is right in this way, it's because in my heart are the highways to Zion. So say the Sons of Korah, to whom I give the last words.

Psalm 84:11,12 ESV
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!