Vulnerability...

I made myself vulnerable again. Vulnerable to pain and possible loss. And I asked myself, is that wise?
I invited a mother and her two young boys over for an afternoon visit. We had met on Facebook on the Ewings Sarcoma Survivor page. When I discovered they lived close by, I invited them over. Slim, beautiful and young, her mother's heart was equally as lovely. And the boys were playful, liked Legos and dogs and snacked on Goldfish. She shared her story. I listened and shared a little too. We talked of our faiths, how hers strengthened through sarcoma and how mine wavered a little finally settling down to nice solidness.

And when they left, I thought I was fine, but I wasn't. And through tears I asked myself, is it wise to allow someone in? Someone whose little life and his mothers and brothers and fathers life bring the recognition of a shared pain and the possibility of death? Am I meeting another Lesly or another Gage?

And then the sermon this morning on Acts 11 confirmed it. "Invest yourself in the lives of others." The others being those put in your world and my world includes childhood cancer. I have no choice here. It's reality. Jesus calls me to love. It's my mission.

And it came to me, Jesus became vulnerable. Jesus had a mission.

And with my vulnerability comes my mission and it's called: And Jesus Wept.

John 11:35.

So I went further into my vulnerability and had this young family over along with a family visiting from Arizona. Another Ewings Sarcoma survivor family. Both boys have lost parts of their bodies. Both boys are full of strength, energy and life. Both boys have endured so much.

We painted together at C.H.A..P. They jumped on our trampoline. Slid down the Tree House slide. We ate and drank and laughed and got teary eyed. We marveled at our survivors.

The vulnerability was there, but so was something else...

 

Vulnerability...gratefulness...strength...an inseparable bond like no other...

Another sighting...

It has happened twice now and I've blogged about it before. Each time it's happened I've been stunned, almost to the point of holding my breath. Then emotion overwhelms me. But this time, after the moment passed, I felt joy and comfort.

The first time I saw Lesly Foster. (I wrote about it from my posting titled "Out of the clear blue..." dated August 2010.)

 This time I saw Danny Keagbine. We were in a Seattle hotel. Standing in the lobby, I looked up as an elevator door opened. And there he was, Danny with his bald head and glasses. He was built like Danny. He had pale skin like Danny and he had freckles like Danny. I stared. Josh and his dad stared. And then he smiled at us, that Danny smile. We were frozen, the three of us, until the elevator doors closed. As if the spell were broken, we looked at each other and said, "Danny."

I shared this story with Danny's mother. She felt comforted by the "vision" of her son. Then she told me the night before she got my message, she'd dreamed about me and my children. We were in the Day Treatment Unit of the hospital.

Interesting.

This sighting wasn't as painful as the first.

This time I realized it was like a gift.

The gift of a sighting...

Maggie May...

 I hadn't thought of her in a long time.  A dear little girl who died of a rare leukemia early on in Josh's treatment. Too young for Make-a-Wish, CCA planned a visit for the family to Rod Stewart's private home. You see, Maggie May was named after his famous song.

And on a regular day, I ran to TaeKwonDo with my grandson to pick up Josh. As we were leaving, a grandmother and mother approached me.

"We know Josh!" they exclaimed.

"You do?" I questioned back not recognizing their faces.

"I'm Maggie May's grandmother" the older woman stated.

"Oh" I sighed, "Maggie May."

Emotion engulfed me.

Immediately I was back in the hospital hallway standing with a family who were visiting. They chatted away, but I didn't hear a word. Transfixed and frozen, I watched Maggie May's mom push her stroller all around the pediatric floor. Maggie's bald head and round face smiling up at all the nurses. I knew she was saying good-bye. I knew her treatment had been stopped, because it hadn't worked. Maggie May was dying. The family visiting us were oblivious to the tears and powerful drama playing out just a few feet away at the nurses station.

"How are Maggie's parents now?" I asked the grandma and aunt.

"They are divorced. They both remarried and have started new families" answered the grandma.

"They are happy, though" the aunt added. "And doing well."

"It sure is good to see Josh" continued the grandma and they both smiled.  

"It's good to see the ones who have made it" the grandma said next, but her voice caught a little.

Maggie May...



Falling down a mountain...

On a sun drenched Saturday I climbed up a snow covered mountain to 8900 feet with my Summit Sisters. We studied the climbing route, ant-like dots of people striving for the pinnacle. I absorbed the view encircling me, which mere words cannot begin to describe, allowing its beauty to fill my soul.

Later our summit guide had us practice "falling" down the mountain with our ice axes. Sometimes called "self rescue" the ice axe is a mountain climbers tool to save themselves from sliding down a steep mountain face. We first practiced "falling" sitting down.

Slide, self arrest, stop. Easy.

Next we tried it on our stomachs head first. No problem.

Finally on our backs headfirst. Fail.

I attempted it four times and finally one of my Summit Sisters assisted by flipping my legs up, over and around. Embarrassing.

It just didn't feel intuitive to me, as if there was a gap between my right and left brain. I couldn't even seem to visualize how to bend and flip my legs around to the right position. It felt awkward. I couldn't do it without help. Once she helped me, I was able to get the feel of it.

There are parts of mountain climbing I love and there are parts of it I fear. That's why I climb. The love part is easy. The fear part is complicated. I don't like heights and steep mountain faces bring that out. I know the feeling of severe vertical exposure. Shaky legs, dizziness, and nausea usually show up. And the terror can take over my mind, if I let it. I pull inside myself. I focus on each step. I think of all the children I know fighting cancer and those who are gone. I think of what they've suffered. This helps, but doesn't extinguish it completely. Sometimes I enjoy the summit more after I'm safely down the mountain. Fear is a powerful emotion.

Through counseling I've come to the understanding I've been fearful all my life. It was an "ah ha" moment for me. Everything seemed to come together like puzzle pieces. And in that flash I understood myself in a way I never had before. Fear and anxiety were how I learned to survive. It became my coping technique and as my counselor pointed out, it worked... until now.

Much of the fear I learned concerned God and the spiritual world. Fear of not having enough faith. Fear of "opening the door to Satan " whether by accident or willingly. Fear of not reading my Bible enough. Fear of not praying enough. Fear of trusting or not trusting. Fear of letting my guard down. Fear of not repenting enough. Fear that I might be crazy. And in that "ah ha" instant I found out, I am not crazy. There is nothing wrong with me.


God gave me coping skills to keep me strong when I needed to be strong. But now I can let go. I need to learn to trust Him. Acceptance is huge. And when that fear overwhelms me, I allow myself to feel it. I acknowledge it by giving it a nod, but I don't fear the fear. Then I smile, because I know deep inside I'm ok. I am loved by my Creator. He wants me. He's with me...always.

Mountain climbing has a way of connecting us to our spiritual lives. I might not feel the intuitiveness of "self arrest" as I slide head first on my back down a mountain, but I can "fall" down a mountain with Him...

Let's get dirty...

Recently, I went to the Faith & Culture Writing Conference. Art was the focus, and specifically writing as an art form in our culture and faith. Have you ever listened to someone share only to feel as if he/she was putting words to your own heart? At one point, my excitement got so real, I bit my lip fearing I'd shout "Amen!" from the back of the room where I sat nodding my head up and down in agreement like a bobble-head doll. I also blinked back tears as my spirit resonated with the speaker's words.

Dr. Brad Harper, a confessed art lover, and professor at Multnomah University, talked about art in our time. He shared a little American history explaining how the 20th Century saw the start of doubt pertaining to the Bible, its validity and Christianity. America began moving towards rationalism which began to be reflected in our art, which in turn reflected our culture. And the conservative Christian's response was to separate from the mainstream and create its own sub-culture. We felt art was "worldly" and therefore; if we were good Christians, we must have nothing to do with film, music, theater, and other forms of art.


In the 50's, my mom and my parents-in-law experienced this as they grew up in the Evangelical church where rock music, dancing, and movies were all forbidden. Ungodly activities, don't ya know! Later our sub-culture created its own music and art. We ended up with Christian music, Christian art, Christian movies further extricating us from the secular culture. Sadly, this created an "us and them" mentality. And in so doing "we lost the awareness of the image of God in ALL people whether or not they follow Jesus", said Harper. We then took ideas and sounds that were popular in the secular culture and tweaked them a little, so they could be called "Christian". Dr Harper called this "baptizing the secular". From there we created cliché's and tongue in cheek bumper stickers, Christian trinkets and memorabilia, all of which trivialize Jesus, in Harper's opinion. Christian merchandise sold for profit in which Jesus is marketed. Is the world interested in a marketed trivial Jesus?


And out of this disconnect came idealistic Christian art void of suffering. And escapist theology grew strong. We American Christians don't believe in suffering, at least not here in America. This "Christian nation" where we have been blessed by God, this land of plenty, where we have special rights especially as American Christians could not and should not suffer. God will allow us to escape if we follow His plan. If we have enough faith. If we just follow the godly Biblical formula. And this was mirrored in our Christian art, music and film. Then Harper talked about the nostalgia we see in our sub-culture today for the past. The desire to go back to that wonderful time when prayer and the Bible were in the public school system. Back to the 50's or earlier. His point: yes, that time might have been better, but only if you were a white American!


I once walked in step with this idealist, escapist belief system and in fact, raised my children for years with this God in a box agenda. I homeschooled my children keeping them from the world teaching them from "godly" textbooks. We watched only moral movies. We listened exclusively to Christian music by Christian artists. If we looked at pictures of the great works of art like Michelangelo's David, it was after I had strategically placed a sticky note over indecent body parts. We separated ourselves from the non-Christian world which meant our neighbors, not realizing God was there too. Somehow, as I read to my children from the Bible each morning, I didn't grasp how Jesus surrounded himself in the culture of his day. He hung out with the marginalized, he ministered to the lowly and he grew angry with the religious. You could say, Jesus got dirty. And why did I follow after this system? I think it was out of fear, out of a desire to protect, and wanting to keep my babies safe, making sure they never got dirty.


Please do not get the idea that I am bashing homeschooling or suggesting we not monitor what our children read and view. Homeschooling is a good form of educating a child, however be careful not to insulate them from their own culture. Certainly the age of the child is a factor, but most importantly, there is balance. One of my daughters commented on this when she expressed a real disconnect from her peers after entering college. As the topic moved to TV shows and commercials, she was left out of the discussions. It wasn't about not "fitting in", it was about her not being able to engage. Yes, TV shows and commercials on the outset seem non-important, but they reflect our culture and thus she was unable to connect in that culture. And when I speak of balance, I recall a conversation with a young Christian woman who shared with me, as we discussed great literature, how she wouldn't read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne because it was about adultery and an illegitimate child. When I reminded her adultery and illegitimate children are a reality of our world, she said she knew, but didn't want to read about it because it wasn't good. I almost warned her not to read the Bible either, but I bit my tongue. In my opinion, she is trying to avoid the suffering reality of our world, not to mention missing out on a great piece of literature. Jesus on the other hand, was immersed in his suffering culture thus allowing him to speak into his society. He broke the rules. He got dirty.


I first started struggling with this Christian sub-culture and my faith when I was told my son had cancer. Getting through treatment was extremely difficult and survivorship continues to be challenging. I noticed my escapist theology just didn't fit my life anymore. As childhood cancer impacted all my children and even my marriage the "godly formulas" no longer worked. And as the years evolved and my emotions began gradually healing and my spirituality grew, I discovered Jesus, the real non-trivialized, non-marketed Jesus. He was there all along deep in the depths of my suffering. He wept with me. He gave no trite comments. He got dirty as he walked along side me. He understood, above all others; what suffering means. Dr. Harper's speech seemed to connect all the dots for me. He painted the picture of my journey. And that is why his words brought tears to my eyes.


My challenge to myself and encouragement to you: Let's engage the world. Let's live in it and create art that reflects the pain and suffering we see around us, if only we dare open our eyes. As the saying goes, "Let's be real!"

My second daughter has battled depression. Another impact of childhood cancer born out of watching her little brother suffer and other children with cancer die. She's an art major and has just completed her senior art project which was an art performance titled: "Partial Effects of a Lowercase c" . We were privileged to watch her perform it. It portrayed depression as she has experienced it. An art performance for a senior art project had never before been done in the history of her Christian liberal arts school's art program. Depression can be a taboo subject in the conservative Christian sub-culture. After all, it's implied, Christians should never feel depressed. I am proud of my daughter bravely exposing hidden pain and engaging the world through her art. She's getting dirty.

Do not be afraid to suffer for you will suffer. And when you do you will find Jesus but only if you unwrap the bonds of fear of the world entangled around your heart. As Dr. Harper so beautifully said, "Jesus has called us to engage the world not escape it."

So let's get dirty!