Real Love

 

For almost two weeks now, I haven't cooked a single meal, cleaned a single toilet, or changed a single sheet. Yet I remain well fed, my house remains clean, and I'm sleeping in fresh bedding, despite it all.

Since the day of my surgery, I have felt so taken care of, so loved. There's been little else for me to do but just get better.

And slowly, that's what I'm doing.

With an eight-inch incision in my abdomen, it's hard to actually forget about my surgery. Ever. But every day I find that I can walk a little straighter, sit at my desk a little longer, and even laugh without holding my belly. (Though what fun is laughing if you can't grab your belly and really lean into it?)

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my struggle to believe God truly loves me through all of the difficulties I have endured with cancer. It was an honest self-assessment, and the prayers I have prayed since then have been raw and heart-felt.

At some point along the way, though, maybe it was while Janice was here reading to me or while Bess was cleaning my toilets or while Mandy was bravely riding with me in my driving test a week and a half after my surgery, I realized that this care I am receiving and my cries to the Lord to show me his love have collided. The one is the answer to the other.

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ - Matthew 25:40

I'm not sure I'm part of "the least of these," but I do know Jesus often shows his love to others through me, and He often shows his love to me through others.

And right now, I'm having no trouble feeling loved. 

Thank you, Jesus. And thank YOU. Your love is real.

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

Becoming a Member

Ever thought about joining theHighCalling.org network?

You might have noticed that I'm a member. I post links here to the HighCalling, on Thursdays I feature work by other members and link to them in There and Back Again, I participate in the HighCalling community writing projects and PhotoPlay. Some network members have linked to me, and some of the editors have even tagged my posts on the HighCalling site. You might see me "like" High Calling posts on Facebook, or Tweet posts by other members. Some of the editors even asked me to write feature articles for the site.

And all that happened BEFORE I became a part of the High Calling editorial staff.

But those are just some of the "official" benefits of being part of such an amazing community of Christian writers and artists.

While I was having surgery last week, High Calling friends from Texas, West Virginia, North Carolina, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Florida, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa were praying for me. I received a basket of flowers from one High Calling editor, and another fellow editor is watching my dog! A fellow High Calling member brought dinner to me on Monday; others sent me encouraging notes and packages in the mail.

Now, another possible benefit is that you could win a free trip to Laity Lodge, transportation included, to participate in a writer's retreat along with the editorial team. Really. This offer applies to all members, even new ones. 

But all of this is what you get from the High Calling. What do you give? Only as much as you want to.

The HighCalling is a collection of people who care about the work they do everyday and want to honor God with how they live their lives and care for others. Becoming a member is as simple as filling out an online form and identifying yourself with the network.

The rest is up to you. Here's some ways to get you started, though.

1. You can read new content daily on the site. And maybe even leave a comment. (That's easy, right?)
2. If you are a blogger, you can add our badge to your blog to let others know your affiliation and add your RSS feed to your member profile so that your latest blogs will be available to other network members. You can also join our community writing projects by writing along with us and linking up your posts. 
3. If you are on Facebook, like our Facebook page or like specific articles by choosing the like button at the top of each post. You can also participate in community writing projects through Facebook notes.
4. If you are on Twitter, you can follow theHighCalling on Twitter or Tweet individual posts. Also, look for information on Twitter parties hosted by theHighCalling.org or sister group TweetSpeak Poetry.
5. If you are a photographer, you can participate in regular PhotoPlay prompts at theHighCalling.org,  visit sister group HighCallingFocus.org, or join and contribute to the High Calling Focus Flickr community.

I realized I hadn't asked you lately to join the High Calling. And if you were just waiting for an invitation, then consider yourself invited! We'd love to have you in our community, and maybe, just maybe, you'll win a free trip to Texas!

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

There and Back Again: Work

I'm not at work today.

I wasn't at work the day before that, or the day before that, either. In fact, the last time I showed my face at the office was last Wednesday, the day before my surgery. I've been gone for more than a week now. And the way it's looking, it may be at least a week before I'm really back. Come Monday, I'd like to be there. But we'll see.

It's no secret, though. My boss knows, even approved the time off, in fact. 

I'm taking a few days to recover from my surgery.

The last few weeks of work were a bit stressful. Just a month back, I was promoted to a new position, and since then, we've been trying to sort out who will be doing my old job, much of it being reassigned internally. As a result, I have been working extra hours each day. At night, I was dreaming about reports and training manuals and PowerPoint presentations. 

With my surgery on the horizon, I was racing the clock, trying to get a few projects finished, a few other projects to a stopping point, knowing that I would be out for a while. During those days, I remember pushing myself, thinking to myself, you can rest next week. And though it was tempting to complain about work, really, it was God's way of saving me during those restless days of waiting for my treatment plan to begin.

I was at work when I got the news that my cancer had returned. Coworkers gathered tight right there around my desk and held my hand and let me cry. A friend in the office next door took me out for a milkshake, right in the middle of the day, to help me gather myself. Another friend in a next-door office sat with me at the hospital the next morning while I had a PET scan.

Word got out about my cancer in the next couple of days and everyone expressed their concern. But then, I just went in every day and worked. I prepared training materials and developed client reports. I wrote batch file code and organized automated systems. Sometimes, I thought about my cancer, about the surgery coming up and the radiation I would endure, but then I'd just get back to work.

Work saved me during those weeks of waiting.

Work saves me now.

Everyone says I'm a little crazy wanting to go back to work on Monday. It's probably a little too soon. But at work, I'm just expected to get things done, to sit in my office and write emails and analyze numbers. Even now, as I sit cozy in my recliner during the day and lay out long in my bed at night, I know this is just part of my recovery period. Because in order for me to really get better, I've got to go back to work.

Sheila Lagrand said it just right in her post, "Seeking Refuge in My Office." After leaving work one Friday, she and her husband had been called away abruptly when her mother-in-law was in a car accident. They found her lying in ICU, cuts and bruises covering her face. On Sunday, they left her there, knowing her care was best left in God's hands, and the care of the medical staff. Monday morning, Sheila was back at work.

Monday morning I drove to work. Amazingly, my office was just as I'd left it on Friday. Our world had shifted when those cars collided, yet this place remained the same. My stapler stood at the ready; pens lined up, primed for service. A vacation request lay in my in-basket, awaiting my approval.

I opened my file cabinet and admired the folders, neatly labeled, each one containing what it should.

I punched a few buttons and my computer screen glowed. I turned to my email. My boss needed a budget analysis. A coworker wanted clarification on a policy. The latest revisions to our marketing materials were ready for review.

I ordered the tasks set before me for efficient completion. I would line up the numbers in a spreadsheet, explain the policy, critique the booklet copy, approve the vacation request.

For the next eight hours, I knew what to do.

I took a deep breath, overcome by the sheer orderliness of it all.

On this Monday, after a weekend filled with anxiety, I saw my work in a new way. I could seek refuge here . The familiar rhythm of my job felt as comforting as liturgy; the shelter of my office was as soothing as a sanctuary.

Even if it's only for a couple of hours, I'm going to try to go to work on Monday. I've been telling people it's because my work needs me, that they can't get by without me.

But the truth is, I need work. And me? Nope, I can't get by without it.

Go THERE 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 A. Strakey, via Flickr, used with permission under the Creative Commons License.

Of Pride and Pall-bearers

Last Thursday, I was in the surgery preparation area of St Vincent Hospital, in the middle of chapter three in the story of my cancer.

Mark, a medical assistant, had come to get me from the waiting room, and after stopping to get my weight and height, I was now sitting on the exam room table. He reviewed the details of my medical history, asking me to sign a couple more papers indicating that I wanted to receive blood if necessary and would be willing to share medical information with my parents if they asked. Then, he handed me a gown to put on.

"Remove all of your clothes and put this gown on," he instructed, taking the paper gown out of the plastic wrapping.

"Oh, I've never had a gown like this before," I told him.

"Yeah, it's one of our pall-bearer gowns," he explained. I stopped breathing for a minute.

"Pall-bearer?" I asked, my mind immediately going to the macabre. Was the hospital now trying to save money by preparing surgery patients for burial, just in case?

"Yeah, they are special gowns that can hook up to a hose for warming," he said, pointing to a device near the head of the bed. At the same time, I noticed the logo on the gown. Relief flooding over me.

"Ohhh, Bair Paws," I said.

"Yeah, Paw Bairs, Bair Paws. I get them confused," he admitted.

If he only knew.

::

After I was dressed in my Bair Paw, prayed over by my pastor, and hugged tenderly by my friends and family, Mark carted me down to the surgery staging area. Here, I would have an IV started by the anesthesiologist, since my bad veins had once again alluded the nursing staff, and I would be set up with a post operative pain injection in my spine.

At least that's what I thought would happen.

Once the IV was started and the anesthesiologist was explaining the procedure, instead of the one-time injection I was expecting, she began to explain that she would be placing an epidural in my spine that would be in place providing continuous pain control for the next two-four days.

"Two to four days?" I asked. "Will I be going home with that?" As far as I knew, I was to be discharged the day after my surgery.

"No, you can't leave the hospital with an epidural," she explained, slowly.

"So, I am going to be in the hospital two to four days?" I asked.

"Well, that looks like the plan from your doctor," she said. "Is that not what you were expecting?"

"No, I was planning to go home tomorrow," I told them.

The anesthesiologist and the nurse both reviewed my chart and the orders sent over by the surgeon that morning. I laid on the exam table growing more worried as the seconds ticked by.

Had something changed? Had the doctor decided the case was more serious than initially conceived? What about all the plans I had made?

Recognizing my growing distress, the nurse said she would page the surgeon and have him talk to me before the surgery and promised that she herself would go tell my family. And after talking briefly with the doctor, I learned that nothing had changed. I just had assumed the wrong information. I went under relieved.

::

But I woke up agitated again. My plan! What would become of my plan? I was supposed to be in the hospital overnight. I would then go to my mom's for the weekend; I would attend my sister's wedding shower on Sunday. Sunday evening I would come back to my place for a week's recuperation and then back to work the following Monday. If I couldn't go home the next day, the rest of the plan would be off.

That's all I could think about as they brought me out of the anesthetic in the recovery room. All I could think about as the nurses poked and prodded, bringing me a cup of water for wetting my lips and a plastic breathing device for filling my lungs. All I could think about when my family and friends gathered around my bed when I was assigned to a room.

I started crying as everyone stood around, making arrangements for bringing my clothes back from my mom's car and keeping my dog longer and organizing visits so that not everyone was there at once over the next few days.

"But I had a plan," I said through my tears, as though staying in the hospital three days longer was the first time my plans have been interrupted.

::

This morning, I listened to the sermon my pastor preached this past Sunday, while I was still in the hospital two days longer than I had planned. The sermon was on boasting.

Boasting is not just talking arrogantly, he explained, not just exaggerating my strengths or underemphasizing my weaknesses.

No, there is prideful talking that goes beyond just talking about me. It's the talk that completely forgets God. This boasting is "simply talking as if God is not part of the plan at all, as though he is not essential to everything we do," Pastor Mark said. Or to put it simply, boasting is the "absence of God in our talk."

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure I even asked God what he thought about my plan for leaving the hospital last Friday.

::

That night after my surgery, after my Bair Paw gown had been replaced with a more traditional cloth hospital gown, after my friends and family had hugged and kissed me goodbye, and as my epidural slowly released Fentanyl into my nervous system, I realized no one had actually told me how my surgery went. I had been so upset by my plans being thwarted that I hadn't asked if the cancer had been removed, if the surgeon had found anything else.

I called my mom's house, and my step-dad answered. I was glad to talk to him; he was happy to pass along the news he had heard third-hand that the surgeon had been pleased with the results. I hung up relieved. Again.

The arrangements I had made might not work out in the end, but I was safe and sound in God's plan. There was no better place for me to be.

 

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

Unfailing Love

Over the weekend as I was busy cleaning and organizing and arranging things in preparation for my surgery, I paused a minute in prayer to reflect on what it was I was really doing.

"Lord, why do I feel like I need to do all of this?" I asked, since He would know even better than me.

"It looks like I am trying to control things, but I know I'm not in control," I continued. I thought more about that, believing it. Not once in the past four years have I ever imagined that I could control my life with cancer; I also never once doubted that God was in control.

No, control is not the issue. 

Love is.

"You do love me, don't you?" I asked God, sweeping the floor in silence.

"It's true that You love me, but that's what I have the most trouble believing," I prayed, tears filling my eyes.

The realization of my faith struggle for the past four years suddenly became very clear. The doubts, the anxiety, the fear. None of those were born out of questions that God was sovereignly accomplishing His will. I knew he was. I told hundreds of people, "God knows my first day from my last," with great confidence.

But His love for me, that He would bring such trouble to my life time after time out of love? That's where I fell short. That's where I continue to struggle at times.

"I don't always feel your love," I told God that day in my bedroom as I scooped up piles of dog hair and hung laundered clothes in the closet.

And I don't. Some days, I dread the hand of God, as I question His heart. Just a few days before I learned my cancer was back, I was telling a friend what I felt God was teaching me, and I remember saying that I hoped I learned it quickly so that he wouldn't bring more sorrow into my life. As if that's the way God deals with us.

But as I continued moving throughout the house Saturday, washing dishes, sorting mail, I asked God if He would remind me of his love. If in the next few days He would show me His heart and how he sings over me.

And that's my biggest prayer. As I face surgery tomorrow, then a week or two of recovery, and radiation a few weeks after that, I need strength and hope and wisdom and mercy. But more than anything, I need to learn anew what it means to be loved by God with an unfailing love.

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.”

The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,

to the one who seeks him;

it is good to wait quietly

for the salvation of the LORD.

It is good for a man to bear the yoke

while he is young.

Let him sit alone in silence,

for the LORD has laid it on him.

Let him bury his face in the dust—

there may yet be hope.

Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,

and let him be filled with disgrace.

For no one is cast off

by the Lord forever.

Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,

so great is his unfailing love.

For he does not willingly bring affliction

or grief to anyone.

--Lamentations 3:22-33

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

Unexpected

The x-ray technician was wheeling me from the examination room to the radiology department for my surgery prescreening x-ray. Just as we turned the corner into the hallway, we passed a potted plant that had a little stuffed squirrel nestled among its branches.

"Look a squirrel," I told him, expecting that he also had noticed the whimsical, unexpected animal.

"Oh that's funny," he said. "I've walked by here a hundred times, and I've never seen it before."

"Well, you're up there, and I'm down here," I explained. "Maybe it's easier to see down here."

"Yeah, and I'm also trying to make sure I don't run into any walls or knock off someone's feet in the process," he said.

We laughed.

All week I have been thinking about that squirrel, and thinking about all the other things I can see only when I am no longer in control, when I am being pushed around in a wheelchair by others and can see what they can't because they are looking out for me.

"This is the essence of the sacramental," Luci Shaw writes, in her book Breath for the Bones, "paying attention, noticing, discovering that material things remind us of - and point us to - the things we cannot see but that have ultimate and eternal reality and value."

The past few weeks, I have been seeing life from a different perspective. I have been at the bottom, low and looking up, and I have been surprised at the things I have seen, all the ways God has shown himself to me, like the little squirrel peeking out of the potted plant. And I'm going to keep looking.

"God has a habit of surprising us with a vision of himself when we least expect it," Luci said.

Only next time, I'm not going to be surprised.

Today, I am writing in community with others from theHighCalling.org. We are reading and writing together from 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 9 and 10.

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

There and Back Again: A Nurse's Heart

 

Wednesday, I showed up at the hospital for my 6:30 a.m. appointment praying they would be on time. I was coming for my pre-surgery screening, and the scheduler had warned me that the appointment would take about two hours. But everyone knows that a two-hour appointment in the medical world could easily end up being three or four hours. And I had work to do back at the office.

I arrived a few minutes early as they had asked, and immediately I set out to complete the clipboard of forms they handed me. More medical histories, more allergy lists, more sections to fill out emergency contact information and my current employer.

Shortly after I turned in my paperwork, I was called back to a small room filled with the usual medical decor: desk, small cot, rolling chair, countertop with containers of cotton pads and hand sanitizer. There was a framed picture hanging precariously low on the wall. My nurse, Jan, began asking me questions, then quickly moved into taking my blood pressure, drawing blood, prepping me for an EKG.

Throughout the morning, Jan was in charge of when I went to get my chest xray, when I would see the nurse practitioner. If I had a question, she checked my notebook and always found the answer. When I asked about where I should report to next Thursday for my surgery, she said, "Don't worry, I'll show you on our tour at the end of your visit."

A tour? They had scheduled a tour?

Somewhere during the visit, Jan asked me more personally about my cancer. She wasn't taking notes, didn't need to know for the record. She was just asking. What were my symptoms? How did I know? How was I doing now? I told her what my doctors were saying, how they were hopeful, how they were trying to help me think of this as a chronic illness rather than a death sentence.

Jan was looking at me straight in the eye now. She was saying, "Oh that's good." And then, "That's right,that's how you have to think about it." Somehow, it was like she knew how important it was for me to be thinking right about this.

"I'm a cancer survivor," she told me, closing up my chart and preparing to move me toward the next part of my visit.

"Really?" I asked, thinking how healthy she looked.

"Yes," she said. "And that's really how you have to think about this."

At the end of my visit, after Jan had instructed me on the special soap I was to use the night before my surgery and reminded me about the beeping noise I would probably hear in the recovery room when I woke up, she walked me right down to the very room I would come to next Thursday. 

Then, as we turned to head back to the lobby, she handed me a piece of paper and said, "I want you to have this."

I looked down at a color photo copy of a picture of an operating room that she had tacked on her wall in the exam room.

"Thank you," I said. "I saw this in your office."

"Yes, this is what I believe surgery is like," she said, and then we parted.

As I looked more closely at the picture, I realized it wasn't just a picture of an operating room. It was a picture of a surgeon operating with Jesus directing his every move.

She knows you, I thought as a prayer to Jesus. Jan knows you and she wants all of her patients to know you.

When I left the hospital exactly two hours after my appointment started, I felt thoroughly prepared for my surgery. I passed my EKG and chest xray with flying colors, and my blood work all came back healthy and hearty. But I also left there feeling spiritually ready, thanks to Jan. The reminder that Jesus would oversee all that happened in that operating room built courage in my heart.

Jesus doesn't just direct doctors' hands. That day, he was also leading a nurse's heart.

::

My friend Megan wrote about a DJ who, as a Christian, was wondering if his work really mattered since he was "just" a DJ at a country music station.

Then, at a recent funeral, a woman came up to him and said, “My father was sick for nine months. He couldn’t get out of bed. But he looked forward to the four hours a day of your radio show. That’s what he lived for, right up until the end.”

Megan concluded, "The high calling of your daily work doesn’t have to be spiritual. This country music DJ is good at his job. He impacts lives." And I couldn't help thinking of Jan when I read that.

I also couldn't help thinking about my work, and the high calling we all have to do our work well.

Go THERE 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.

Learn

This, this is a little of how I want the story of my life to go.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Growth

I've been feeling sorry for myself the past couple of days.

Yesterday at church I saw my name in the bulletin for prayer, and though I love that people care about me and pray for me, it made me sad that it's my name there. It was selfish and self serving. I certainly don't want someone else's name there instead. But it made me cry, made me cry out to God about how desperately I hate cancer.

When I got home and made lunch and ate it by myself, I began to feel that this life that I am clinging so hard to isn't really worth it. I've spent most of my life planning for the future, and if I don't know whether or not I have a future to plan for, what's the point? Sitting there by myself, I again felt the sting of no husband, no children, multiplied by cancer.

I felt alone and felt sorry for myself, eating ratatouille by myself on a Sunday afternoon.

This morning, I was sitting in another doctor's office, starting to feel sorry for myself again as the waiting room filled up around me with aging, shrinking people, hobbling in with walkers, leaning on the arm of a daughter or sister to help them into the chair. I'm living my old age too early, I thought to myself. And I didn't feel any better when a young couple came in later. At least they have each other, I thought, self pity creating a stench around me.

As it happened, I had just finished filling out the last of the office medical forms when I remembered I had brought along Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones. Having a few minutes to wait, I cracked open the book to begin forming some thoughts for my book club post. Chapter 8, Learning to Risk.

The words about Luci's sailing trip across Lake Michigan were only just registering in my mind when I realized that they were for me. Today.

The following is a story of my struggle with risk, tides, reefs, and islands, which I think speaks to faith and to challenges, and also speaks to the life of the artist, to those who wish to live in creative challenge, charting a course and not knowing how it might all play out.

Can I really look at my life and imagine that this cancer, this disease that keeps haunting and taunting me, might actually be an adventure of a lifetime?

::

Yesterday, I jotted down a simple question in my journal; it was directed to Jesus. "Is there any hope that I will be alive at age 50?" Having managed one milestone last year - alive at 40 - for some reason I am already looking to the next one.

But where does this question come from? Is my life only worthwhile if it is given in 10 year increments? What of 41? or 42? Or 47, even? How well will this theory hold up when I am 70 or 80, when 10 years would be more of a miracle than an expectation? Am I really willing to risk every subsequent year for the thrill of the milestone? If I make it to 50, chances are I'll just want to make it to 60.

Reading back on my journal from yesterday, I realize I need a better plan. Adding up years is a fool's way to make a life count. Rather than checking off days as if this life is just a prison sentence I need to be released from, I'd rather think of life as a classroom, filled with endless opportunities to learn. Or even better, I'd rather be standing next to the wall with a pen in hand, marking off the ways I've grown.

When I stop growing, I'll be with Jesus. I'm praying that I'm 10 feet tall before that day comes.

Growth. Creativity. By definition they are never static. All growth implies and requires change. And change suggests risk, a move into unknown territory, a step into the dark. This sounds dangerous, and it may certainly bring its perils with it, but it is also inevitable. - Luci Shaw

::

I told the doctor today, a urologist, that I had been trying to avoid him for years. 

"Nothing personal," I said, apologetically. 

"Understandable," he said, as he jotted a note in my chart.

As I left the office later, my blood pressure having recovered from white-coat syndrome, I had this thought -- I really did -- what if I just abandoned myself to this. The whole thing. To the doctor's visits and the surgeries and the radiation therapy. What if I just accepted the blood draws and the urine samples. What if these medical professionals became like teachers, and what if I learned more from them than just medical jargon.

In other words, what if I quit resisting and instead grew up into the kind of person that sees hard times as the only way I will ever truly become like Jesus?

::

If I were to read a book about a 40-year-old woman who, despite health problems, managed to live a meaningful, creative, God honoring life, how would that story go? What would the author include in that narrative that would make me think she was living well, that would keep me from feeling sorry for her and just make me feel thankful?

This is the story I want Jesus to write for me. This is the story I want others to read of my life.

Today, I am writing about journaling and risk taking, along with others from theHighCalling.org. We are reading and writing together from 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 7 and 8 of the book. Then, pick up a copy for yourself and read/write along with us. Next week we will cover chapters 9 and 10.

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

There and Back Again: Swimming

I've been swimming three times in the past week.

Big deal, you might be saying. It IS summer after all.

But it's just Thursday, I've been working 10 hour days, and I don't actually belong to a neighborhood pool. And did I mention that I sunburn easily?

For me to go swimming three times in an entire summer is the norm. But not this year.

If anyone invites me to go swimming, I've got my suit on and am lathered up with sunscreen before they can blow up their arm floaties.

This summer, I'm swimming.

I think it all started when I bought Tilly her swimming pool. She has had so much fun in that thing, and in fact, practically begs me to go swimming far more often than I let her. We have had a bit of a drought around here, and if the city is limiting lawn-watering, then surely they would frown on me filling a dog pool with fresh water every day.

But when I do fill it, Tilly is just like a kid. She splashes, she jumps in and out, she's happiest when I am nearby and she can get me all wet.

The weekend before I learned of my cancer recurrence, I had decided to get a new swimming suit. For various reasons, the weekend ended, and I had no suit. The next couple of days were filled with tests and bad news. But when I realized a coupon I was planning to use was going to expire the next day, I decided that even though my world felt like it was crumbling, I was going shopping.

I came home that evening with a sporty new two-piece suit - more modest than my previous one-piece - and the next evening, when a friend asked if I wanted to join her and her family at their neighborhood pool, I said yes.

I don't know what life will be like in a year. But given the choice between worrying what might happen down the road and going swimming right now, I'm going swimming. And chances are, next year this time, I'll still be swimming. At least that's the way it's looking like right now.

::

This worrying what might happen -- it's the same kind of worrying Andrea Levendusky was trying to avoid, looking over a table full of cotton towels and wooden crates at a flea market with a friend. They were picking up old vases and looking through a box of crumbling photos, wondering about those people's lives all those years ago. Those unnamed people in the photographs.

And then she and her friend started wondering about their own lives 150 years from now. She wrote . . .

If we will be forgotten in 150 years,
I would rather just be in the here now.
I would rather hear your story amidst these old cheese graters and depression glass.

Life is the living, and not the planning. We are living our lives as we talk about what we wish we were. But in 150 years, when someone could pull a photo of us from the box,

they will see the life we lived,
not the one we wished we did.

And that's the life I want, too. A life lived, not wished for.

::

Two weeks from now, I will be waking up from surgery, another six-inch incision carefully stitched together on my abdomen. During the weeks after that, there will be no more swimming, as the skin heals and the wound turns to scar. No more swimming in the weeks after that, even, as radiation beams pass through that same scarred skin, burning it til it's pink and shiny.

In a couple of weeks, I'll put my new two-piece away for the season, or at least for a couple of months.

Until then, though, I'm gonna keep on swimming.

Go THERE 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 from the Bain News Service, on file with the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print, via Flickr's Commons.

Like Sisters Do

I brought the bouquet home, amazed at how beautiful the pink lilies looked next to the tulips and the white baby bells. Even the carnations looked elegant nestled among the greenery and the tight blooms of blush snapdragons. It was Valentine’s Day, and the bouquet was a gift.

For my sister. 

::continued::

  

Today I am writing over at theHighCalling.org. Join me there for the rest of the story - "The Bouquet."

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

Just My Imagination

Sunday night as I was gathering with friends, their two-year-old son was arranging and rearranging coasters on the coffee table.

"Mickey Mouse," he said.

Were I talking to him on the phone, I would never have understood. But when I looked down, sure enough, the coasters looked like Walt's favorite rodent, plain as day.

"Good job, buddy," I told him. "Way to use your imagination."

And I marveled. Imagination at age two! Huh?

The greater miracle, though, is when at age 40, I still use my imagination. Kids have no problem seeing a box and thinking car or the arm of the couch and thinking horse.

Me? I see a box and think recycle bin. The arm of the couch - don't sit on that or it will break.

::

When I was a child, there was nothing I couldn't do with a little imagination. I played school with imaginary students; I set up an imaginary news set on my parents' balcony and played weather girl for days. Cubby holes became caves or houses or stores or whatever I needed to fulfill the lusts of my innocent imagination.

Though I can't prove it, I suspect my imagination became more, not less, active when I learned to read. Words added texture and depth to an imagination that was limited only by what I could invent. And dreams - they were the practice field where my mind could try on shapes and colors. Without even thinking, I could draw pictures or write stories of places I had never been, people I had never met.

But somewhere along the way, my imagination stopped working so well. I dreamed of being a journalist instead of a novelist, and I exchanged sketch pencils for a camera.

I'm sure there is evidence that my shrinking imagination was due in part to my growing older. But I have no doubt that it was also a result of my growing faith. The Bible, after all, is not a book of fairy stories, I was taught. The Bible is a book of truth.

As if the two couldn't possibly be connected.

::

Funny thing about imaginations: if you don't use them for good, they are surrendered to the dark side.

At work, when faced with a problem, I can't come up with one creative solution. But my imagination works overtime thinking up every possible way the problem can only get worse. When worry sets in, worst possible scenarios play like horror movies in my mind with little effort. Conflict in relationships is played out in exaggerated arguments and brawls in my nightmares. Scenes from movies I had no business watching are recast and expanded upon in day dreams, leaving me victimized or terrorized.

Am I sinning, there in my mind, letting my imagination get the best of me? Or is the real sin a failure of imagination? Letting darkness inform my creativity rather than light, being carried away by my thoughts rather than letting the Spirit carry me away?

To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. Titus 1:15

::

In my very best moments, I am lying in bed, it's morning, and I have been praying. I'm not speaking in sentences to the Lord anymore; I'm praying in pictures and poetry and possibilities. My mind is telling Jesus what my heart feels through a redeemed imagination.

That's me in my very best moments - creative, spiritual, whole.

Today, I am writing about creativity and imagination along with others from theHighCalling.org. We are reading and writing together from 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 5 and 6 of the book. Then, pick up a copy for yourself and read/write along with us. Next week we will cover chapters 7 and 8.

::

Below are song lyrics I wrote several years ago, wrestling with this idea of imagination and faith - where one ends and the other begins. The accompanying music is even more simplistic than the poetry, but maybe that's part of the mystery of spiritual creativity.

Childlike Faith

I read a story ‘bout a girl down a hole

And a bedknob full of magic and a grouchy old troll

I knew it wasn’t real, but I didn’t know what was

So when I made up stories they were full of that stuff.

The colors, the sounds, and the wonderful smells

That were all a part of my childhood

Were not from the world that my parents could see

They were my own creative reality.

When we’re five there’s no doubt there’s a realm of this life

That’s beyond what we see but we still want to try

A man dressed in red bringing gifts to our house

Was easier to believe than that milk came from cows.

Angels and fairies and dragons and wizards

Were as real in my life at the ’78 blizzard

But as I kept progressing and maturing in thought

I gave up pretending as a big girl ought.

You tell me ‘bout a God in a spiritual realm

You ask me to believe and come out on your limb

But how can I trust in the things I can’t see

That’s not the way a big girl succeeds.

CHORUS

Childlike faith, a childlike faith

You must believe with a childlike faith

To enter the kingdom you must be like these

Awaken that childlike faith

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