Beyond the Paper Trail

Friday morning,
in the recliner with a needle in my arm,
near the IV pole festooned bags of pre-meds and Rituxan,
sitting across from my daughter, Julie,
who is spending her 30^th birthday
with me in the chemo clinic.

My chemo buddy for my first 26 of these visits is gone. I miss Susie. It doesn’t help that there’s so much to do in the wake of her passing. I’ve often used the illustration of pieces going back into the box at the end of a game as a metaphor for what happens at death. In Monopoly, the markers, deeds, hotels and money are tossed into the appropriate slots and the lid closed. Clean up takes less than two minutes.

It’s much more complicated and time-consuming in the real game. There are claims to complete, forms to file, government entities to notify on the federal, state and county levels. Names have to be changed or removed from mortgage deeds, bank accounts, insurance policies, car titles, retirement plans and various databases.

Once vital documents are stored for sentimental reasons or put into the shredder: passport, driver’s license, credit cards, birth certificate, medical records, marriage certificate, social security card, to name a few. Our sojourn in the world is minutely documented from birth to death. The scope of our lives isn’t told by the size of the paper trail we leave behind but by the people we impact. In this regard, Susan made quite an impression.

 

13 Things Your Pastor Won’t Tell You

Reader’s Digest runs an ongoing series revealing a baker’s dozen of insider secrets from people who touch our everyday lives. These “Won’t Tell You” exposés include:

13 Things Your Tax Accountant Won’t Tell You

13 Things Your Pilot Won’t Tell You

13 Things Your Plumber Won’t Tell You

(Here’s one of my favorites from What Your Pilot Won’t Tell You: #4. There’s no such thing as a water landing. It’s called crashing into the ocean.)

For many years I served as a pastor in a handful of churches. I’ve pranced in front of the masses and hunkered down with the elders; I’ve officiated at everything from baptisms to weddings and seen the best and worst sides of organized religion.

Many of my friends are still in pastoral ministry. A few of us have conspired to tell you some things your pastor might not:

1. Most of us had to earn a seminary degree to get into ministry but we don’t use much from the classroom. We learn by trial and error on the job.

2. We’re not in it for the money. Few of us earn enough to keep the Debt Monster at bay. We do get a break from the IRS on housing allowance, though. And we seldom have to pick up the check at restaurants.

3. More pastors are “called” to churches in California, Florida and Hawaii than to Nebraska, Minnesota and North Dakota. The conferences we most often attend are also in warmer climes.

4. It’s not funny when you joke about us only having to work one day a week. We’re lucky if we get one day off.

5. Pastors should be held to a higher standard of behavior but don’t expect perfection. Unrealistic expectations will cause us to hide who we really are from you.

6. We don’t like to preach on tithing, although the average parishioner gives just 2% of his or her income. (This is the same percentage the average church gives to international missions.)

7. The greatest gift you can give us is friendship; 80% of pastors say they have no one they trust completely.

8. We are frustrated by people who arrive ten minutes late for the service and then complain if the sermon runs five minutes over.

9. We make our wives pick up the R-rated movies at Red Box.

10. Church growth is often a key factor in our job evaluation. We know most of it comes from people switching churches and not from new converts.

11. We might not be here long; 78% of new pastors leave the vocation within five years.

12. Caring for people can be draining. We need time to rest and recharge. We wish you would respect our time off and evenings with the family.

13. We don’t have all the answers.

 

Shooting Pigeons

Hundreds of people have prayed for me over the last four years, for which I am extremely grateful. In stark contrast, I find myself praying for very few people on a regular basis—even myself.

This disability stems from my frustration with prayer. I realize no one understands how it works, but my questions dissipate any confidence that my words and groanings will make a difference, and the Bible is clear that faith is a prerequisite to effective prayer. I suffer from the James Paradox.

While prayer is good for the “pray-er,” I suspect it seldom changes the immediate circumstances of the “pray-ee” or moves God to do something he wasn’t already planning. Hence my problem with supplication.

Prayer should be an intimate conversation with God about what he’s doing in the world. But when I pray it’s more like a monologue with me stating the obvious and hearing nothing but an echo in return. I realize the problem is with my equipment. It’s like a deep space antenna with so much pigeon poop on the dish it can’t receive a clear signal.

I purpose to spend more time shooting pigeons this year; hopefully it will improve my ability to detect the movement of a Dove.

 

The Hamel Diet

In an effort to improve my health I’ve hit on the novel idea of creating my own diet. While doctors and other so called experts cheat by using actual medical research to develop their programs, I’ve taken a more natural approach; relying solely on 60 years of eating experience and my pharmaceutically-enhanced intuition.

I have settled on these ingredients so far:

• free-range poultry from any “red” state, since it’s an election year,
• oil from olives whose virginity has been confirmed by a doctor,
• freshly ground Ethiopian coffee beans brewed in a French Press,
• almond milk from hormone-free, grass-fed almonds,
• whole wheat bread baked by monks and blessed by a bishop,
• red wine with legs good enough to star in a Vegas show,
• any cheese that doesn’t smell like it comes from between toes.

Things strictly forbidden on the Hamel Diet:

• coffee enemas: That’s not where coffee goes (unless it’s de-caf). Enemas of any form should be rejected in the end.
• any supplements sold on TV by a guy wearing a white coat,
• fish and all marine life that swim in their own pee and poop. Think about it, people.
• anything fermented that you can’t drink, e.g. sauerkraut, canned beets, sour cream,
• herbal teas that taste like grass clippings from a yard with dogs,
• tofu and any other food with the texture of congealed mucus,
• any cheese that smells like it comes from between toes.

Feel free to try the Hamel Diet for yourself. If it doesn’t produce spiritual enlightenment and physical immortality I will gladly refund your money.

 

Curtains and Closets

I have nine windows in my home with lovely floor-length curtains. Every morning I draw them open to let in the new day. And every night I shut them against the cold and dark. The grommets in the drapes zing across the metal rods like beads moving another day to the “spent” side of the abacus.

Open … close … open … close … marking the relentless rush of time as it sweeps everything forward. (“Forward” is a Judeo-Christian concept; Eastern religions and older philosophies believe history is eternally cyclical, devoid of progress and telos.)

What is washed away leaves gaping holes and empty spaces—like closets. I boxed up Susan’s clothes this morning and donated them to a store that provides business attire to low-income women entering the workplace. She would like that.

open … close … full … empty … open …

The thing about curtains and closets is to keep them open.

 

Homo Infirmitus

Science divides humanity into various hominid species including:

Homo Habilis – “handy man,” user of tools
Homo Erectus – “to put up, set upright”
Homo Sapien – “knowing man”

Let me suggest another:

Homo Infirmitus – “weakness, ailment”

From minor aches to terminal diseases, infirmities are part of being finite. Is there an intrinsic reason why this has to be so? We are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made,” but were we created with all these design flaws?

Every religion and philosophy has an explanation for suffering. Judeo-Christianity ascribes it to sin. A moral choice is said to have triggered physical decay; doing to the body what fermentation does to the grape—set it to rotting.

Humans have an innate sense that something’s wrong; this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Hence the almost universal belief in an afterlife where we will be fixed. Pain will be eliminated and pleasure will be maximized (or the locus of both—the body—jettisoned altogether).

In the mean time our theology helps us cope by giving meaning to the madness. The Incarnation sends the message that God loves us and has undertaken our rescue. But even he can’t avoid the price of admission into the game of life—suffering and death.

As if enduring our own pain weren’t enough, we can experience the pain of others. The emotional connection to those we love is a nerve bundle through which we enjoy the most exquisite ecstasies and agonies.

Pain and suffering take up far too much of life if you ask me.

But then, nobody asked me.

 

Sneak Attack

I came to Phoenix last week with a cough, which incubated into pneumonia. I spent six hours in the Chandler Regional Medical Center ER on Wednesday and was called back on Thursday when a culture revealed the infection had spread to the blood.

Turns out I have streptococcus pneumoniae, or “strep-pneumonia.” I didn’t know there was such a hybrid, but trust me to get the weird version of a typical disease. (And trust me to get it in a place where my insurance company doesn’t operate.)

There are more than 50 types of pneumonia, which is basically fluid and/or swelling in the lungs. It can be caused by fungus, bacteria or a virus. If it’s on both sides, it’s double pneumonia. Mine is double—of course.

Strep-pneumonia is dangerous and I’m very thankful for the thoroughness of the ER staff to have caught it. I’m getting a bag-o-biotics as I type and hope to be released with pills later today to enjoy the rest of my Phoenix stay. Always the optimist!

The love and support of family and friends has been fantastic. My hosts, Dave and Debbie Briggs, have been amazing in going above and beyond the call of hospitality.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson from this sneak attack in my warfare with germs. Next time I’m traveling under an assumed name so I can’t be so easily tracked!.

 

The Crux of Cancer

For more than three years now I have sumo wrestled with the Emperor of all Maladies, each of us trying to throw the other out of the ring. (At 145 pounds I may be in the wrong sport but, hey, I’m feisty.) Our next honbasho starts on Jan. 12.

Here are five things I’ve learned about my foe:

Cancer is an accumulation of accidental cellular events that conspire to take down the whole system, slowly building momentum over the years until it reaches a tipping point and then cascades out of control toward the grave.

Cancer can take decades to mature, during which the initial mutation is augmented by other random genetic changes, fueled by carcinogens in our food and environment and super-charged by stress.

Cancer is born in, and borne along by, the genes, as Dr. Mukherjee points out: “Abnormal genes governed all aspects of cancer’s behavior. Cascades of aberrant signals, originating in mutated genes, fanned out within the cancer cell, promoting survival, accelerating growth, enabling mobility, recruiting blood vessels, enhancing nourishment, drawing oxygen—sustaining cancer’s life.”

Cancer hijacks the body’s normal processes to its own narcissistic ends. There’s nothing extraneous about cancer. It doesn’t invent new proteins or pathways but exploits existing ones, like mitosis and motility, while overriding built-in safeguards like apoptosis and tumor-suppressor genes.

Cancer has vulnerabilities; it can be beaten—or at least beaten back for several years—by a combination of healthy habits and medical treatments. My seven-fold strategy includes: a positive attitude, a sense of humor, a plant-based diet, targeted intervention (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy), submissive prayer, a focus on others, and the loving support of family and friends.