Second Breath

Yesterday, I woke up feeling the inside of my lip with my tongue. I had bitten the area while eating steak with my parents on Sunday, but yesterday, I realized that I actually have a cold sore there. I examined it in the mirror, determined there was nothing more I could do about it, and was about to turn away to get ready for work when I paused.

I looked myself right in the eye and realized that I was looking at a fragile woman. Cold sores usually mean stress for my body; the last couple of weeks were certainly taking a greater toll than I had realized. I felt tears swell up in my eyes and felt deeply sorry for myself.

"I don't want to go through this," my reflection and I recited together. "I don't want to."

We looked at each other a few seconds more, tears starting to run. This is how others see me, I thought. This is why people look at me with sad eyes and say things they don't realize. They don't want me to go through this either.

"Pull it together," I said out loud, to the lady there crying in the mirror. She mouthed the words, too. If we were going to make it to work, if we were going to keep living and growing and enjoying life, we couldn't stand there looking all weepy at each other. We had to move.

::

Seeing myself as others see me was eye opening in those dark, lonely moments of yesterday morning. I didn't really know what to say to myself; I understood that speaking to me at all is surely difficult for people. When I tell them I'm sad, they want me to feel better. When I tell them I am not that worried, they don't want to downplay my illness.

Most days, people say things to me that lift me up and feed my hope. Some days, no matter what people say, I feel scared and lonely. Occasionally, people have said things to me that make me cry, like salt to wounds.

I know what they really mean is "I don't want you to have to go through this." But instead, they say, "My cousin died of the exact same cancer." Or, "It could be worse." Or, "If you don't stay strong spiritually, you will never be healed physically."

It's hard knowing what to say when people are struggling. I understood this looking at the crying woman in the mirror, myself. I felt compassion for all those people looking in trying to bring comfort with their words. I understood, again, how important it is to use my own words carefully when I am encouraging others.

::

Getting the news of my cancer recurrence left me sobbing last Tuesday. I cried from a deep place of pain most of the day, and even for the next two days. My mind went to those places where I saw myself suffering through great pain and weakness, then laid out in a coffin. I imagined my family sorting through my things, and overheard my sisters talking years from now about their sister who passed away in her 40s. 

I know that the word Cancer takes us those places. My cancer has taken you to some of those places for me.

But then I met with my doctor, and heard him tell me that I'm actually doing pretty well, that it's good that it took three years for the cancer to come back, and even better that it's just in the one spot. I listened hard when my nurse said to think of this as a chronic illness and then told me stories of other patients who are still living 12 and 15 years after their diagnosis, having treatment now and then, but still living. 

And on Saturday, I finally swore off for good all of those websites and Google searches and research findings that quote statistics and five-year-survival rates but have absolutely nothing to do with me.

When Jesus says that I can bring my anxieties to Him and he'll swap them out for peace, He means it. But he doesn't want me to go sabotaging His work in my heart by reading worst case scenarios or taking every awkward comment the wrong way. He means for me to believe what is true about my situation.

::

I hate cancer. I hate what is does to us physically. I hate what it does to us mentally. 

But I am not my cancer. I am more than that. And right now, I need to keep hearing stories of hope, survival, creativity. I need for you to tell me about your mom who is still living after cancer; I need to know that it's good and right to have hope; I need to know that the healing is in God's hands.

Friends, thank you for breathing life into me with your words.

Photo "Second Breath" by heykelley, via Flickr, user with permission under the Creative Commons License.

There and Back Again: Home Grown

They've been writing sestinas all month over at Tweetspeak Poetry. Maybe you remember them from literature class. Sestinas are those 39-line poems with all the structure and form of a contract, but with the rhythm and soul of a conversation.

That's why I wrote one today, to be part of the conversation. Tweekspeak Poetry and theHighCalling.org are teaming up for a community writing and photography project to write sestinas and take photos of conversations. I'm not much of a photographer, but I do fancy myself a writer. So, I decided to write a sestina.

Easy peasy, right? Well, no. I have tried on more than one occasion in the past to write sestinas, all rather unsuccessfully. The difficulty is in the form. The poem is six stanzas of six lines each with repeating end words. Then, the end words are combined in the last three lines. So, you choose six words and repeat them as end words over and over in preset patterns. If the first six lines end in A, B, C, D, E, and F, then the second six lines end with F, A, E, B, D, C. Then, the next six end in C, F, D, A, B, E, and so on. Read this great post by David Wheeler to see more on the structure.

A few weeks ago, I confided in LL Barkat, High Calling editor and purveyor of all things Tweetspeak, that I was stumbling over the sestina, and she had a little advice. Write about a place, she said. Choose words that can be used as both noun and verb. And definitely, absolutely, positively use a pen and paper.

"You can't write a sestina on a keyboard," she said - or something to that effect.

So, I decided to write about the place I know best: my home and garden. I chose six words that seemed versatile yet meaningful: bank, stone, home, garden, wait, friend. And I opened up my journal, pen in hand. After a little writing and rewriting, here's what I came up with.

Home Grown

At last, after a long day, I am home.

Sitting at a desk all day, the wait

knotted up in my neck, I think of my garden.

Growing food is like money in the bank,

And the hoeing, digging, laying stone –

Like caring for an old friend.

I like to invite my friends

to come share a meal in my home,

a meal from the garden: stone

soup. 1. A little of this. 2. A little of that. 3. Wait.

My friends have come to bank

on that kind of meal if I am cooking from the garden.

We eat while swapping stories of the garden.

I’m not the only clodhopper. One friend

is growing eggplant. “Bank

on some ratatouille, and home-

made bread at my place next week.” “Wait,”

I say, “That’s my specialty.” We laugh. Glass tones

echo as we toast. “To the hearthstone!”

The comfort of home, the abundance of the garden,

What more could we want? Oh wait.

The cucumbers. She grew them herself, another friend.

Gathered them up and brought them from her home.

She grows them in the back, along the bank

of the storm drain. The bank,

there in the back, tapering down into grass and stone,

keeping the water away from her home.

But also away from the garden.

“It’s been so dry,” says my friend.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve had to outwait

Nature. Just last Winter, in the dead weight

of stark cold, we dreamed of Spring. We banked

on it. In the wet, wet Spring, we longed for our friend,

Summer. Now, with Fall just a stone’s

throw, and us, still enjoying the garden,

we try just to be content, feel at home.

Each season we wait, our chins to the grindstone,

Forgetting to bank the blessings of now, storing food from the garden,

sharing meals with friends, finding a way to be at peace at home.

Go THERE or THERE, (TS Poetry or theHighCalling.org) and then come back HERE again!

Join me for regular jaunts around The High Calling network, randomly visiting fellow bloggers, soaking up their words and ideas, and then coming back here to write about them from my perspective.

Each Thursday, consider going "There and Back Again" yourself. It's simple.

Drenched in a Metaphor

I found a metaphor growing in my garden over the weekend.

It's been hot and dry here. Really hot and dry. And though I've tried, I haven't been able to keep up with the watering. About Thursday last week, I noticed my potted pansies were just webs of tangled tan stems, so I basically gave up.

I was telling Ann about it on the phone and she said something wise about not trying to fight the inevitable, about yielding to the unrelenting weather. Hearing her words, I felt a little better about the wilting and the dying going on outside. But still. I had worked hard to plant my vegetables and flowers. I hated to see it end this way.

On Saturday, I decided to survey the damage, clean out the dead stuff. But to my surprise, not everything was ruined. In fact, the tomato and banana pepper plants looked better than they had all summer. The carrot tops were still green and perky. And though some of the leaves were yellowing, I found my pole beans loaded with pods.

I did have to toss the pansies, along with the pea plants and the zucchini vines. Though it wasn't the heat that got the zucchini. The dreaded squash root bore was to blame for their demise.

And there are a few plants that I watered good and pruned hard that I think might pull out of it if we get a little relief from the heat. And a little rain. In fact, the basil perked up quite nicely after a good soaking and a couple of cloudy afternoons.

With each sprinkler can full of water and each handful of dead leaves I hauled to the compost pile, this metaphor of dryness and death and watering and life became fuller and richer until I couldn't slosh the soil without feeling my own heart soaking it all in.

::

"I prayed for water for you," Claire wrote to me last week, after quoting Job 14:7-8.

For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground, Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.

And since that time, I have been overwhelmed with water. Friday, I watched a movie about a boy in Ireland who was nearly drowned by the water. Saturday, I started watering the garden and ended up washing the back porch and the back of the house and filling Tilly's pool with water and letting her play and play and play in the cool refreshing stuff.

Sunday, I was preparing lunch with my mom and step dad and we heard thunder and looked out to see the skies open. It rained and rained, and we commented about how green everything looked. We laughed when we remembered the Spring when there was too much water and had wondered if it would ever stop raining. Nearly half an inch, we concluded, when the rain had stopped and the rain gauge sighed with relief to be useful again.

::

Luci Shaw writes a whole chapter on metaphors in her book, Breath for the Bones - Art, Imagination, and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith. First, she defines them.

A metaphor, because of its implicit reality and force in one arena of life, can transfer or carry over its meaning into another arena. The image acts to bring sense and immediacy and relevance to the real-life situation it parallels.

How many times have we understood truth not by its definition, but by its illustration. Life is a tree, a river, a highway, a box of chocolates. Love is a battlefield, a flower, a poem, a song.

Although some truth can be laid out bare in its essence, to be properly propositioned in a statement or two, the rest of truth, the "azeotropic" truth, as Luci Shaw calls it, is caught up in pictures and symbols and images of things that seem to have no relevance, except in this case, they explain everything.

Where proposition truth twirls the table model of the globe, imagination focuses on the single blade of grass, on the grain of wood in a floorboard, on the helical unfolding of a shell, or on the spears of frost across a window. This is where the artist, the writer, finds a way through to understanding - in the pictures, the details.

And particularly the Christian artist and writer can follow the pattern of God's word and his world and His Son to use pictures to explain even the most essential truths.

This bread is My body,

You are salt and light,

I Am the Living Water.

::

I don't water my lawn when it gets hot and dry like this because, for one thing, I have more weeds than grass, and it's the last thing I want to do, water weeds.

But my dad has told me that it's often just better to let the grass go dormant, let it hunker down and focus on its roots rather than trying to stay green and vibrant when the sun is baking the ground hard.

But even in dormancy, the lawn needs a little water. It won't make it beautiful, but it will keep it alive.

That's all the water I need right now. Just enough water to live on.

I am writing in community today with other members of theHighCalling.org, considering together over the next few weeks Breath for the Bones - Art, Imagination, and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith, by Luci Shaw. Visit theHighCalling.org today to see what others are saying about chapters 3 and 4 of the book. Then, pick up a copy for yourself and read/write along with us. Next week we will cover chapters 5 and 6.

If you would like an update on my current cancer status, please visit the "Recent Updates" page I have created. You can link to there any time from the bottom of my blog below my "Profile."

Photo by mcconnell.franklin, via Flickr, used with permission under the Creative Commons License.

The Next Thing

Yesterday, after my PET scan, I did a little sigh of relief, telling my friend Kathy who took me, "Well, now I can do the next thing."

Because in the days following a cancer diagnosis, trying to do much more than the next thing can really undo a person.

So, I went to work. Then I went shopping for a new swimming suit. Then I came home. Then, though I was already starting to jump out of my skin in anticipation of the PET scan results, I called the veterinarian's office. Tilly needs a couple of vaccinations and a check up on the rash on her belly. 

But even as I was dialing the number, a thought from earlier kept running through my mind, How can you just work or shop when you have cancer? How can you just schedule a vet appointment when you have cancer? How can you just go on like nothing's wrong when you have cancer?

As I drove to a friend's house later in the evening and ate dinner and held her baby and talked about television shows and recipes and weekend plans, I continued to shake my head. My world is falling apart, and I'm acting like it's not.

But I went to bed wondering what's the alternative? If I don't continue to live my life just because I have cancer, what's the point? Three years ago, when I was faced with a small recurrence only three months after finishing treatment for a terrible diagnosis, I didn't imagine I would still be around in a year. But because I wasn't sure what to do in the meantime, I just kept doing the next thing. Before I knew it, the Lord had given me three years.

And as I sat at work today and received the call that this cancer is even smaller and just as treatable as that recurrence three years ago, I realized that if I don't do what's next, if I don't keep making plans and making beds and loving God and loving people, if I just give up, then the next three years until the next recurrence, or the next 40 years until I die, are going to be a big waste of time.

I'm talking a big, hopeful talk here, and I really believe it -- most of the time. I haven't cried at all today, which is a good sign. But I will. There is a surgery in my very near future, and either chemotherapy or radiation. That's not going to be easy. Nor is undergoing cancer tests every three months for the rest of my life. And wondering about the next time cancer is going to ruin everything.

But I don't have to worry about all of that right now. The next thing I have to do? Make dinner. Then the next thing? Try on my new bathing suit. After that there is eating brownies with friends and paying bills and watching TV. Over the weekend I'll see my family and enjoy time with friends and worship the Lord on Sunday.

Cancer treatment is way down on the list of next things right now. 

And that's a good thing.

::

For those of you who like the facts laid out a little more straightforwardly (and I appreciate you, I do!), here's what's next, medically speaking:

1.) My PET scan revealed that the cancer is isolated to the one 2 cm tumor in one of my left exterior iliac lymph nodes - just southeast of my belly button. This is great news because it means that the cancer is most likely not moving and has been there dormant since the initial disease. Also, it will be easy to go in and remove it which makes the outcome much better.

2.) I will meet with the gynecologic oncologist Monday to discuss the type of surgery and when it will be scheduled, as well as the options for follow up care. Hopefully, I will be able to have radiation again, as long as this tumor area is far enough away from the previous radiation field. If not, then I will likely have chemotherapy. This regimen should be less lethal than last time, however, for which I am so grateful.

3.) I am praying that this can all be done in conjunction with several training sessions I am supposed to lead at work in my new position, as well as two trips in September - one to present at a national conference for work and the other to visit friends and attend a writing retreat with my fellow High Calling Editors. I am really looking forward to both of these trips, but of course will be looking to my health care team for wisdom.

4.) I am so thankful for YOU - your continued interest in my life and your deep care and concern for me. I appreciate you all.

Photo by Carissa GoodNCrazy, via Flickr, used with permission under the Creative Commons License.

A Flood of Encouragement

I may have cried a river of tears, but you have flooded me with encouragement, prayer, and compassion. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I feel loved, supported, and carried by you, and I feel protected by Jesus.

“Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy,
Now I will arise,” says the LORD; “I will set him in the safety for which he longs.” - Psalm 12:5

At many times during the day, I felt completely at rest. What a gift.

A River of Tears

As far as days go, this has not been a good one.

Around 10:30 this morning, I received word that my cancer has returned.

From every indication, the cancer is just in one 2-cm lymph node somewhere between my belly button and pelvic bone. If that is the case, if the cancer is limited to just this one area, then likely I will have surgery and then radiation. This is the exact course I received three years ago during my first recurrence. If the cancer has spread into other areas, then I will most likely not have surgery and will instead receive chemotheraphy.

A PET scan tomorrow will be the determining factor.

I have cried a river of tears over this news today. Even though my doctors told me years ago that this cancer would most likely come back, I have been cancer-free for so long that we were all starting to breath a sigh of relief. Thankfully, even though I am sure I AM crazy, when it came to tracking down this round of suspicious symptoms, my persistence paid off. Early detection is always a good thing.

I don't want to have cancer, even cancer that might be manageable. I don't want to be "the lady with cancer." I don't want surgery or radiation, and I certainly don't want chemotherapy. I don't want people to have to make meals for me or take care of my dog; I want to do those things myself. I don't want to be the name on the prayer list at church that makes everyone sad. I want to be the one praying for others.

But since I didn't get to choose whether or not I have cancer, I WLL choose to accept it. I choose life even in pain. I choose others' help over isolation. I choose awkward moments over having no one speak to me at all. I choose getting out of bed rather than sinking into depression.

I choose a wobbly faith in a Sovereign God who loves me over cursing God and dying.

I may cry a river a tears, but I pray they will gather in a pool and bring life in a dry season.

Art: The Language of the Soul

It was a tough weekend.

After a few weeks of not feeling quite right and finally convincing myself to call the doctor, the results of an initial test were not quite conclusive. So, they scheduled additional tests on Monday. In the meantime, an ongoing infection landed me in the ER Friday night, and now I am on my fourth antibiotic in six weeks. The two issues may be connected; that would be the best case scenario.

I spent the weekend trying not to think of the worst case scenario.

I had hoped to spend the weekend shopping at the Farmer's Market and writing poetry. I had wanted to read and bake and garden; instead I rested and started a new medicine and tried not to worry.

Instead of immersing myself in beauty, I felt like I was confronting the ugly realities of life.

But was that true? Are only easy things beautiful? Is there nothing exquisite in pain?

::

In her book Breath for the Bones - Art, Imagination, and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith, Luci Shaw says there is no event, no relationship, no emotion that can't be expressed through art.

Art is also the result of our human impulse to find expression for that something within us that responds to the stimuli surrounding us, crying out to be expressed, to find meaning in beauty, or terror, or sex, or something as mundane as food, and to reflect this in a form, a medium that produces a response - awe, excitement, disgust, wonder, even shock or anger - in those around us.

Artists respond to the light and dark around them by discovering what is true in the moment and allowing it to inspire and move them toward creating. In this way, they are like God, made just a little lower than the angels.

But art is not a cosmic redundancy, simply mimicking what science or philosophy or theology has already revealed of the world. Art - writing and dancing and painting and strumming: art in all its forms - fills in the gaps, speaks a language of its very own.

Art says something in a way that nothing else can, and the something that art says is so qualitatively different that it demands a radically different expression. Where linear, logical thinking may produce prose with a specific function - information or historical record or critical analysis or instruction - art selects and reflects on a small slice of human experience and lays it out there, a gift to anyone who is willing to savor it and enter into the artist's experience even in a minimal way. The artist, ideally, communicates experience in images and forms so precisely tailored, so personal, so multileveled that its insights go far beyond bare facts or mere usefulness.

 Art is the language of the soul.

::

Sunday morning, I got up in a fog just minutes before church was to start. It had been a bad night, and I thought about staying home. Then I remembered the state my soul was in and knew I needed to go.

There was no mistaking that morning, on the weekend I needed beauty to rise from the ashes, that the sermon text would be from the Psalms not Philippians. I would gladly have listened to my Pastor preach,  

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:6-7

I would have listened and understood with my head.

But when, instead, I heard the poetry of David, my heart heard and my soul was comforted.

"Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy, Now I will arise," says the Lord; "I will set him in the safety for which he longs. Psalm 12:6

I will arise. I will set him in safety. For which he longs.

Amen.

::

I am writing in community today with other members of theHighCalling.org, considering together over the next few weeks Breath for the Bones - Art, Imagination, and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith, by Luci Shaw. Visit theHighCalling.org today to see what others are saying about chapters 1 and 2 of the book. Then, pick up a copy for yourself and read/write along with us. Next week we will cover chapters 3 and 4.

Photo by Glenn R Carter , via Flickr, used with permission under the Creative Commons License.

It's Like a Heat Wave

With a heat wave leveling the Midwest, I couldn't resist getting Tilly her own swimming pool. And of course, she LOVES it!

Being Heard

Sometimes, when I have an idea or a complaint, all I want is to be heard.

Recently, I wrote a letter to the Mayor's office asking that they consider adding sidewalks to the street I live on in conjunction with a city-wide push to make the community more pedestrian friendly.

I poured my heart into the letter. Did some research, quoted statistics, offered an evaluation of the local demographics.

But for the past two and a half weeks, I heard nothing.

I was tempted to say, "Well at least I spoke up." But somehow, speaking up didn't seem like enough. I wanted to be heard, too.

Yesterday, I received an email back. It might be a form letter; it sounds rather polite and legal. But at least I feel heard.

::

Here's my letter:

I live on 79th Street between Michigan Road and Township Line Road on the far Northwest side of Indianapolis. On a regular basis, I look out my window to see men walking to work, groups of teenagers passing by in groups, young moms pushing strollers, elderly women running, even groups of children riding bicycles. Rather than giving me pleasure at living in such a vibrant community, I am filled with fear that a vehicle will strike one of these people. Because in each case, these people are walking along the side of the road or near the storm sewer because there is no sidewalk along this portion of 79th Street.

Each morning, I go out to my garage and get into my car to drive to work. If I want to ride my bicycle or take my dog for a walk, I load them in the back of the car and head to the park. For many people in this area, however, owning a vehicle is not a reality. They rely on walking or possible riding a bicycle to get to work or at least to the bus stop. In the meantime, they risk their lives walking along the side of a busy street with a 40 mph speed limit.

Especially now that Michigan Road is being improved with a pedestrian/bicycle path (what a great project choice, by the way!), more and more people are going to be walking along 79th Street to get to that corridor. Thousands of people living in the numerous apartment complexes along Harcourt Street and Township Line Road between 86th Street and 79th Street, and even just south of there on both streets need access to get to Michigan Road or up to 86th Street by foot or bike to take advantage of jobs, shopping, healthcare, and entertainment.

Will you consider adding sidewalks to the section of 79th Street between Harcourt Street and Michigan Road as part of the Rebuild Indy program?

According to a recent interview with WTHR, Sarah Holsapple from the Department of Public Works said that it costs about $68 per foot to build sidewalks in Indianapolis. This section of 79th Street covers approximately 6,000 feet, which would put the project at more than $400,000. I realize that this would be large investment. However, thousands of residents would benefit through increased safety and access to services from this addition to the overall Rebuild Indy.

Thank you for your consideration.

::

Here's the response from the department of public works:

Thank you so much for your infrastructure improvement suggestion.

We realize that there are great infrastructure needs throughout Marion County. Under Mayor Ballard’s initiative, the RebuildIndy program is working diligently to address those needs in order to not only enhance our city, but to improve the quality of life of our residents.

Your input is essential to this program and we’d like to thank you again for helping us to determine the outstanding infrastructure needs throughout the city. Our engineers are looking into this issue and we’ll be in touch with more information as soon as possible. 

::

And for those of you reading this who have your own blogs, ever wonder why you do it? Why do you keep writing your heart out without really know who is out there reading and listening? If you've ever asked yourself, "Would my life be better if I just stopped blogging," read this BRILLIANT post by fellow theHighCalling.org editor, Bradley J Moore, called "Blogging is Stupid."

And if you don't blog, let me know if you you hear me.

It helps some days.

Photo by jphilipg, via Flickr, used with permission under the Creative Commons License.

There and Back Again: Stuck

Last night, I got stuck.

There were no mud puddles or snow drifts involved; I wasn't knee deep in quick sand or trapped between a rock and a hard place. I was just walking through the grocery store when my thoughts jammed tight and wouldn't let me go.

"I'm doomed," I thought from somewhere deep within me.

This is the irony of being a cancer survivor for me. I beat the odds and overcame what should have killed me, and yet half of my life now is spent worrying that the cancer is back. It's been three years now; my doctor has all but told me I'm cured. I'm doing really well.

Yet, every once in a while, I feel this pain in my abdomen or the burning sensation in my back. At first I don't think anything of it, but after a while, I begin to panic. I know the cancer is back; I imagine myself bald and shriveled again. I feel the nausea as if it's real.

And if that's not enough, there's this darkness that begins to cloud over my soul. Fear, doubt, dread. I believe God is near, but I wonder if my faith will endure through more suffering. And the knot grabs tighter at my throat and the tears pool shallow just beneath my lids. And an inch below that smile and laugh is a woman who thinks she might go crazy with the uncertainty.

Right there, just as the darkness and the fear and the tears fell heavy, I found myself stuck.

O Lord, take this away.

No, don't take it away this time unless you promise to take it away every time.

Jesus, please just stay here with me.

::

There's a blood test my doctor can order that will tell me whether the cancer is back. I've gotten these almost every three months since my diagnosis nearly four years ago. It's simple, inexpensive, and a great indicator. Because I'm doing so well, my doctor only asks that I have it done every six months. I've never gone more than three months though because I get stuck and I need reassurance. My doctor has told me a dozen times that he would rather just order the test than have me worry.

Somehow, though, I got it in my head that ordering the test is a sign of weak faith. So instead, I worry for three or four weeks every time before finally just calling the doctor.

Today, over lunch, I called again.

When I hung up the phone, I burst into tears.

"I want to believe you, Lord. I do. I don't want to be crazy," I told Him.

But as the afternoon wore on, I started asking myself what I am believing the Lord for. Has God promised me that I will not get cancer? Do I know that these physical symptoms are not signs of a recurrence? Slowly, as my thoughts began to come unstuck, I realized that I had connected two different issues in a way they were never mean to be connected.

One issue is that I may or may not have cancer again. Medically speaking, I probably do not. But since I am not a doctor and have only my experience with cancer to measure against, I do not think I am qualified to make that determination on my own.

The other issue is that I may or may not trust the Lord. I may or may not believe that He walks with me, that He paid a great price to set me free, that He goes before me to prepare a place with Him.

I can fall on either side of either issue. I can have cancer and not trust the Lord. I can not have cancer and not trust the Lord. I can have cancer and trust the Lord. I can not have cancer and trust the Lord.

What I cannot do is connect whether I have cancer or not to whether I trust the Lord or not. That's not how it works.

That's not how He works.

::

The haze of my craziness still hangs thick around me this evening as I write. Though I haven't written from within the haze before, it happens often.

I've been hiding it from you.

But even as I think about what will be involved in the next couple of days of getting stuck by needles and waiting by the phone for results, I drew courage from these words that I read by Jessica Mueller. Courage that made me think you might have your own seasons of being stuck when you feel like you are alone. And these words might bring comfort to you too.

Abiding in Jesus isn’t easy. It’s not a surefire way to have all you’ve ever wanted. But if you abide in Jesus, if you take this challenge to see life as beautiful–even the messed up, broken moments–you will have all you need.

You will fight your will. It will happen every single day. Without fail.

You will struggle to serve.

You will look to see the beauty in dense fog and be meet with thick, hazy nothingness.

Sometimes when we are stuck, we break free before we have any answers. Most likely I am being overly cautious and the blood work will come back fine. I'll probably be feeling better in a few days - in the past, these pains have been caused by scar tissue and adhesions from previous surgeries.

The point it, I don't know whether I have cancer or not.

But I do know that I still trust Jesus.

And tonight, that's enough to set me free.

Don't forget to join one of many online writing projects:

*Beginning Monday, July 18, theHighCalling.org will begin a new book club around Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination and Spirit: A Reflection on Creativity and Faith. Buy the book or pick it up at the library, read the first couple of chapters, and prepare to blog about your response.

*TS Poetry is working on writing sestinas in July. Sestinas are a type of form poetry with six stanzas of six lines and repeating end words. I started a sestina about vacations, but it was too much work! I think I will try again on a less relaxing topic. Sestinas are challenging, but worth the effort.

*Michelle Derusha's popular "Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday" weekly community writing project resumes Monday, July 18. Visit her site today to see how you can participate.

Go THERE, (Jessica's "A Beautiful Life Doesn't Mean an Easy Life") and then come back HERE again!

Join me for regular jaunts around The High Calling network, randomly visiting fellow bloggers, soaking up their words and ideas, and then coming back here to write about them from my perspective.

Each Thursday, consider going "There and Back Again" yourself. It's simple.

Photo by tgm86, via Flickr, used with permission under the Creative Commons License.

Empty {an antonym}: What Fills Me

I looked around my house one day, just last week, and thought, why don't I have any pictures of my family sitting out? Where is that small postcard of the ships I framed from my trip to Washington last summer? What did I do with my Precious' ashes? I know I haven't buried them yet. Because . . . well, I haven't.

If someone walked into my house and had to guess who lived here, they'd be hardpressed. It looks like an empty life.

But I did it on purpose, a few months back. When I put my house up for sale, I had just read an article about decluttering, about removing personal items so that potential buyers could imagine their own photos and memorabilia lying around on my counter tops and end tables. So I went for it. I grabbed a crate in one hand and pulled down every picture, every vacation trinket, and especially all the books and journals and ink pens and emptied this house right out.

My sister told me at the time, "Decluttering is actually for people who are cluttery to begin with."

She thought I had gone too far, but I was convinced that it would help me sell my house.

Except no one has even looked at my house, and some days, now that I have help with my lawn and the new countertops look so good, I don't even want to sell this place. 

But still, it's so empty.

::

I've been sitting in front of a computer for most of the day. In my day job, I look at spreadsheets and queries and databases most of the day. When I get home, I answer emails and scan blog posts and make comments and tweets about the beautiful work my friends are doing online. I connect with family members and contact authors and look at my Klout score to see if anyone notices.

I also write most days.

I emptied out my life so I could do that. I stopped teaching Bible study and dropped out of small group and say "no" more than seems healthy so I can have time to sit longer in front of this laptop. Some nights I forget to eat; weeks go by and I forget to call a friend. I let laundry collect in the utility room and dog hair collect in the corners of the dining room, and I think I have emptied my life.

But here I am staring at the same screen again and forgetting to water my garden.

::

Last week, I opened the closet to find the crate filled with evidence of this life I lead. I pulled out the framed pictures of people who have my same freckles and nose and people who are connected to me even though we don't share those traits. I found the ashes, and the painting. And there was the bowl from Hawaii a friend brought back, just about the time I was listing my house.

I pulled a few things out and laid them around in the usual places. I saw the faces of the people I love fill my house again, and I felt full. If my realtor needs to show the house, I might put these things away again, or maybe I'll just add a note, "Imagine your family here," to the edge of the frame.

No one wants to live in an empty place. No one wants the burden of having to fill a place left void.

::

Tonight, I am writing in the kitchen, typing words between stirs, and stopping here and there to check the sweet potato, flip the veggie burger. I am getting ready to make muffins. Blueberry. Not from the berries I picked - those are already in the freezer. But berries from the other side of town.

My time was running out and I hadn't finished writing. But I also hadn't eaten again. I need to do both.

I need to write. But I also need to eat. I need time alone, time to think and read and plan. But I need people in my life, too. I needed to declutter, but I also need flowers on my counter, books next to the bed, and art in process.

Jesus asked me to empty my life, to empty it of idols and broken dreams and selfish ambition. I'm still working on that. But He asked me to empty my life so He could fill it. And I need to let him fill it with what he will.

Otherwise, emptiness is just another idol, another broken dream, another selfish ambition.

::

Supper's nearly ready. The muffins are in the oven. The sweet potato has carmelized along the edges.

I've made this meal a hundred times, or a least a hundred meals almost like it. 

But I don't mind. It will still taste good.

And it will definitely fill me up.

Food on Fridays: Mostly Local

This evening I had just a few minutes to make and eat dinner. Since my eating habits have left something to be desired lately, I decided to go as healthy as possible. I grabbed some leftover chicken from the fridge, mixed it with apples, walnuts, onion, and a little mayo, and made a delicious chicken salad. 

But what to eat it on?

Just outside my backdoor, lettuce and peapods are growing in an area that used to be home to vinca and geraniums. The peas are not quite ready to harvest, but the lettuce is on its third cutting. A few snips, and I had a bed for my chicken salad. I added to that a tomato from a local farmer that came in my CSA box, and I had a delicious, mostly local supper.

It's the "mostly" that gets me. 

As much as I believe in supporting local farmers and even growing my own food, the mayonnaise I used was not from around here. And those walnuts - also a stranger in these parts. Even with my best effort, I score only about 75% on eating locally.

But I am learning to be ok with that. I'm learning that "mostly" works well in the kitchen. "Mostly" works just as well in a lot of other areas of life, though that's a lesson that is a little harder to learn.

I am mostly organized, except for that one area in my closet.

I am mostly disciplined except I have a hard time getting out of bed in the mornings. And a hard time convincing myself to exercise.

I am mostly on a budget, though that dress and those books were a splurge.

You get the picture.

Sometimes "mostly" is good enough, or at least better than rarely.

But sometimes, "mostly" is a cop-out.

Jesus, help me discern my "mostly's."

::

I am writing in community with Ann Kroeker today, going for a ride on her Food on Friday carnival. Follow the button below to more food stories and recipes.

There and Back Again: Collaboration

Lately, I've been wondering what it might look like to collaborate with other artists and writers, to live out a creative life in community

When I lived in Merrillville several years ago, I joined a writer's group. Each week, a group of 10-15 of us would bring essays or short stories and read them aloud to each other. I was new to the group, and actually, they were new to each other. Occasionally, someone would offer a valid critique, but usually we sat around and looked at each other, saying things like, "Nice characters," or "I liked the introduction."

The leader of the group was a published writer who sometimes offered helpful tidbits. She once told me that I needed more description of my characters. "I don't know what they look like," she said.

"I don't either," I probably told her. I'm not really a fiction writer. I just shared short stories with the group because I was too self-conscious to read out loud the real writing I was doing. The one week I did work up the nerve to read an essay about my moral dilemma to help homeless people while living in Chicago, one of the older men told me I was naive.

That was the last time I read any of my real writing in the group.

Working creatively in community probably does mean I need to let people read what I write. Developing this blog over the past few years has brought me a long way in my reticence to share my work. But what else?

My friend Amber and I met over dinner last week and bounced ideas off each other. She asked me to solve her narrating problems, and I asked her to show me how I could write full time. But we also asked each other real questions: what are you working on? What are your goals? What are you reading to help you grow as a writer? We're going to participate in theHighCalling.org book discussion of Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination and Spirit: A Reflection on Creativity and Faith together, and we plan to talk about what we are reading.

Ann and I also trying to figure out what a creative life together might look like. She's married and home schools her four children; I am single and work full-time. But we each have a desire to write and do it in the context of community. So last week, we spent the afternoon together.

The first three hours we had lunch. It was a long, lingering lunch in which we discussed a hundred things besides writing. But almost without fail, the topic would come back there again and again. So by the time we hauled our laptops to a nearby coffee bar and set up shop over hot tea and a white chocolate mocha, writing was only natural. We worked a couple of hours: I wrote a blog post, Ann did some research. We talked along the way; we shared what we were working on.

When it was time to go and we were packing up, we wondered about the productivity of the day. Did we write well together? Would we want to do it again?

It wasn't exactly like JoDee's writing retreat, which she wrote about and depicted so beautifully last week. We didn't have a whole week in a mountain home in Colorado. We didn't see deer grazing out the window. But we did spend our afternoon writing, brainstorming ideas, sharing stories, eating, and exploring, just like JoDee and her friend. And we did get the same taste of what it means to do our creating together with the same goals in mind:

The most precious take-away I left this mountain retreat with was a renewed appreciation for the generous nature of God. I don’t need to have all of the answers concerning my future direction as a writer and artist. Today my heart fills with the wonder of creation and gratefulness for the blessings I received, JoDee wrote.

Ann and I might have gotten a lot more writing done if we had not spent three hours on lunch and did not keep interrupting each other over the laptop screens. We might have gotten more writing done, but we would not be better writers.

For that, we need each other. 

What about you? Who are you collaborating with? What does it look like for you to create with people?

Interested in writing in community? Here are some ways to join others in online writing projects:

*Beginning Monday, July 18, theHighCalling.org will begin a new book club around Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination and Spirit: A Reflection on Creativity and Faith. Buy the book or pick it up at the library, read the first couple of chapters, and prepare to blog about your response.

*TS Poetry is working on writing sestinas in July. Sestinas are a type of form poetry with six stanzas of six lines and repeating end words. I started a sestina about vacations, but it was too much work! I think I will try again on a less relaxing topic. Sestinas are challenging, but worth the effort.

*Join Bonnie Gray for her Thursday JAMS as she throws out a topic and invites her readers to write in community, with link ups and every thing!

::

Go THERE, (JoDee's "A Writing Retreat") and then come back HERE again!

Join me for regular jaunts around The High Calling network, randomly visiting fellow bloggers, soaking up their words and ideas, and then coming back here to write about them from my perspective.

Each Thursday, consider going "There and Back Again" yourself. It's simple.

Photo by by rocknroll_guitar, via Flickr, used with permission under the Creative Commons License.