Awakening

Dear family and friends,

Staying awake is hard work.

In looking back at my last blog posting (nearly two months ago!) I am reminded of what I said: "I am so glad that I am finally starting to wake up. Even though I'm still kind of sleepy and not so sure of this new way of being [mindful], I have a good feeling about this. There is such abundance in the present. I don't want to miss any of it."

True, there is abundance in the present and I don't want to miss any of it. Yet, in the pursuit of having it all, I find myself falling back into my old habits of frenzied busy-ness, a kind of fretful waking dream way of living that is neither fully awake or fully asleep. Just because I can do a lot doesn't mean that I should. Like a pot getting ready to boil, my life is gathering momentum. Most of it is with good things like time spent with family and friends, trip planning, language learning, hiking, cooking, gardening, art projects, service projects, and LOTS of stuff with El Camino de Emmaus. Even though I am supposedly sick right now, my life is getting so busy that it feels like it could easily boil over again. Sometimes I get flashbacks from the bad, old brain tumor days when I was careening around out of control. Makes me nervous.

Being sick last winter laid me low. Yet in that lowliness, there was a peculiar calm, precious and rare for a die-hard do-er like me. Where is the balance between the dormancy of winter and an uncontrolled bursting forth of spring? I want life to bubble up in me like a spring of living water, but I want it to be a contained pouring forth, not a reckless gush like before. That way of living is both dangerous and ineffectual. I'd best keep my wits about me if I want to mindful of the balance between doing and being.

Staying awake is hard work.

I see the struggle to stay awake, aware, alive and mindfully engaged as both a personal and a global struggle. We live in a beautiful, dying world right now. With our burgeoning world population and rapacious greed, we humans are causing the desertification of the earth and the acidification of our oceans. Believe it or not, like it or not, ready or not; here it comes. Global climate change is upon us. What will this mean for future generations, even within our own life times? The struggle to stay awake and engaged in things that matter, yet not becoming overwhelmed by the needs around and within is the path toward resilient hope. I don't really know how to strike this balance yet, but at least I know that is what I need if I am to find wholness and freedom.

I wake up most mornings in the pre-dawn light and often creep out of bed to sit by a darkened window, watching for the sun rise, coffee cup in hand. This is my time to watch and wait, pray and meditate. I call this "feeling in the dark for the face of God." Sometimes I can feel the familiar contours of faith. Sometimes I can't. As a daily discipline, I find ways to affirm my deepest belief, that is that in the end, life and love will win...come what may. It’s not easy to stay awake  wondering if our beautiful broken world is experiencing death throes or birth pangs—or both. In any case, I know that real transformation begins with truth. In the facing and the feeling of what is true of me and of our world these days, I find the courage to live into this new day.

On a good day, the sun shines through my window, warming my face and the new layer of soft brown hair now covering my once bald head.

I wrote a poem about this a few days ago. It is based upon our text for this week from John 20 where Jesus finds the grieving disciples locked in an upper room after his horrible death. He bid them peace and breaths a warm wind of hope into their heavy hearts frozen with fear. It is my own story too.

Still Life

Closed Tomb

Locked Room

Waiting for the Big Boom

......God Forgive Us.

Lingering Night

Fingering Fright

We wish we may, we wish we might

.....God Find Us.

Promises Given

Rumors you've Risen

Still in this prison

....Christ Help us.

Hope against Hoping

in Darkness still Groping

Is the Door Really Open?

....Spirit Free us.

Sun, Rain

Joy, Pain

Life, Death

Stillness....Breath!

It’s hard to stay awake, but it’s worth it. May God, the author of life, awaken us to true abundance. Amen.

PS: The “fun facts” of cancer and chemo for me are this: I am done with the worst of it.  I took 9 out of the 12 prescribed treatments of the most recent chemo cocktail of Taxol/Herceptin. Taxol is a killing kind of chemo that attacks fast growing cells. It was beginning to cause my fingernails to hurt and turn dark, plus it was giving me skin rashes, nose bleeds and the dreaded “peripheral neuropathy.” My Dr. was quite OK with me quitting that nasty business as long as I stayed on Herceptin which is a “starving” kind of chemo that blocks receptor sites in cancer cells, cutting them off from their growth factor.  This is a targeted therapy for “HER2 positive” breast cancer. Thankfully, there are few side effects to this. I think that I will continue to be on this kinder, gentler chemo for quite a while.

PPSS: I am going to Costa Rica for 3 weeks in June/July for language study and also to celebrate being alive. I will also meet up with some dear friends from Luther seminary to relax and play at the beach. Cristo resusito! Christ is risen! Me too.