DOTS CONNECTED

Having made it through a third biweekly session of my second chemotherapy experience, I am nicely approaching the First Day of Winter and the Centre Ice Line of my twelve-week-long skate in the Arena of Oncology. Happily, and with thanks to the Lord, I am able to report that I seem to be escaping the majority of side-effects.

In related news, my general commitment to focus on the liquid part of every half-filled glass of water deters me from focussing on my list of actual cancer-related losses, but in fact I do find a certain value in sometimes taking a look at the non-sunny side of things. When I do, what I see is a suggestive connection between what I have lost and what I know to be a prominent detail in the general plan of God for the life of any one who like me has "bowed the knee" and now believes that Jesus Christ is Lord.

The fact is, this suggestive connectivity predates the medical adventure I am having. If I think back to being the man I was when I moved to London, now that I am (chronologically) twice the man I used to be, I admit to my embarrassment that I was as a Thirty-year-old Man actually quite proud of a number of things, including my very blue eyes, my very thick blonde hair and my pretty-darn-fast marathon times. These were a few of my favorite things, and three of the things I have loved and lost, or for a time, thought I was losing.

And what happened to them? After running four marathons in the years of 1979 to 1982, I took the next fourteen years off and then in 1997 returned to the sport to discover that I wasn't up to running that distance with any sort of quickness any more. "Hm." Disappointing. By then, my blonde hair was thinning and my hairline was receding. Double "Hm." I was a man in my mid-40's, beginning to run out of things (secretly) to brag about. And the blue eyes? I spent the first ten months of 2011 growing an (undetected) pituitary tumour and wondering about going blind (which I was told I might be) -- and thinking about wearing permanently a pair of Stevie Wonder sunglasses, thus effectively removing my blue eyes from the equation and from my (secret) Bragging List. (Not insignificantly, my Pituitary Surgery of December 2011 was a rip-roaring success, my eyesight was saved and my Stevie Wonder-Sunglasses Strategy happily became a thing of my past. By the kindness of God, not all bad dreams come true.)

And then it was April 2013. Enter Cancer -- and I was served up a list of Six Things, six cancer treatments "all of which have to go very well." With 2 1/2 down and 3 1/2 to go, I (privately) observe that each one so far has brought to the Party a new Limitation or Impediment or Loss -- and so further shortened my personal (private) list of Bragging Rights, following the pattern by which, for example, for the eleven years (1997 to 2007) in which I returned to running marathons (increasingly unquickly), I (secretly) prided myself on my noticeably flat stomach, my decently muscular legs and my race-ready leanness, and by which, for the seven months since Cancer walked on stage, that Summer Radiation and these Winter chemo treatments, that September surgery and those two-week-long hospital stays have rendered my stomach less flat, my legs less muscular, my running barely existent and me twenty pounds heavier. Again I say, "Hm."

And now I connect the Dots on the timeline of my life, especially the Dot that was the "Secretly-Braggy-Young-Me-at-Thirty" to the Dot that is the Now-Limited-Now-Impeded-Now-Middle-Aged-Me-at-Fifty-Nine. What I see is that the Limitations and Impediments and Losses I have experienced these years -- and this year -- have conspired -- or I could say -- have all been used by the Great and Gracious Conspirator Himself to "work all things together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son." (Romans 8:28,29)

Less to brag about CAN mean and should mean less braggy. And less braggy CAN mean and should mean more Christlike, having "this mind … which is ours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God … emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:5-8) With the details of my life as evidence, I can say that evidently, God's commitment to conform his people to the image of Christ and to make us more Christlike in charactar is what has connected the Dots between what I used to be, for better and for worse to what I am now and to what God intends me to become when I (at some time, soon or not-so-soon) arrive at the Day of my Death and the Day in which I stand before God.

This I find is the certain value in sometimes taking a walk down the non-sunny side of the street. By God's generally gentle, always kindly and never random handling of my sicknesses and my health, my personal losses are gains and, it seems, the gains are usually pretty plainly purposeful.

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!"

CONTRAST AND COMPARE

Last week, Deb and I vacationed in Florida. And there were dolphins! About a dozen of them, all told. At two different magnificent beaches we visited. At one point last week, as if to entertain us, one of them, swimming in the company of two others, jumped clear out of the water and then, in what seemed like an encore, leapt up even higher to perform a totally impressive front flip. It was one of the vacation's great moments!

This week, this Friday morning in fact, I begin Thing #3: the first of six biweekly, four-hour (or so) sessions in the "Chemo Suite", where I will receive intravenously the first of six large loads of deadly chemicals. Deadly as in "cancer-killing." Deadly as in "destructive of more than cancer cells." Deb and I have received a detailed list of the many possible side-effects I need to be ready for. And what an exciting list it is.

What I have here is a contrast. Last week: glorious Florida sunshine, spectacular beaches, sand like icing sugar, beautiful clear Gulf of Mexico water and a dozen dazzling dolphins, at least one of them impressively acrobatic. This week -- this cold, grey, first drizzly, then snowy week: the start of three months of chemical warfare and the unsettling prospect of feeling like and looking like a man with a serious case of cancer.

As we used to say in English literature classes: "Contrast and compare." The contrast brings to mind a short piece of a real-life conversation between a well-known Old Testament couple.

WIFE: “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”
HUSBAND: “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”

The husband, of course, is Job (Job 2:9,10 ESV). And here are three things to notice.

1. In defence of Job's wife: the poor thing had exactly as much to complain about as did Job. So let's give the lady a break. "Please, no comments from the peanut gallery."

2. Job's strong response to his wife was grounded on his belief that both good AND evil are received from God. ("The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21 ESV)

3. Job may have been wrong to curse the day of his birth, and maybe wrong about some of the other things he said in his suffering, but he was right in his theology. ("In all this Job did not sin with his lips." Job 2:10 ESV)

So with Job as my example, I contrast last week's days in Florida and this week's hours in the Chemo Suite and acknowledge that both are God's gifts to me. And I note that, in the long run, in view of what is really important, some pleasant experiences do me only a little bit of actual good while some really nasty stuff accomplishes great and lasting good of every sort.

And as for the side-effects? I note that God never does answer Job's questions. Not in the pages of the Book of Job, and not (apparently) during Job's life on earth. So I'm not expecting answers to the questions that might come to mind about digestive difficulties and alterations of appetite and frustrating degrees of fatigue. But I know to "cast my cares on the Lord" because, with ineffable love and wisdom, the Lord cares for me (1 Peter 5:7), which is more than can be said of the dolphins.

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.