Pink Glove Dance

For Pat and Karen and Everyone else who deserves this awareness

Go, Silent Friend

At long last, my friend with cancer, who I have blogged about over the last year, has breathed her last. However, through Christ she and not death will have the last word. My fiercely determined friend, with whom there has been intense and personal sharing, more than our fair share of laughs, and more than a couple glasses of wine. Who lived life writ large- big smile, big laugh, big heart. With piercing eyes that could sparkle with great Irish wit, or slay you with the glacial glare if you have hurt her clan. Never afraid to be real and honest and loving- NOW. She has been a friend, a confidant, a client, a supporter, and the person that would tell you that you just did, or were about to do, a really stupid thing. If she had your back, there was little to fear.
In this week I, like many of my peers will be meeting on Friday ( Reformation Day) with my candidacy panel. I hope and pray that I will be recommended for endorsement to continue my studies and discernment. On Sunday, our younger daughter, our spare teen and six other youth will participate in their affirmation of baptism. Juxtaposed between these two days will be the service for my friend. In many ways a microcosm of ministry and life in the community of faith. And it has become time to honor the promise she asked me to make, that week she learned she had cancer. When she swore she would beat it, but just in case, " will you sing at my service?" Our eyes both welled up as I assured her that day was farther off than it might seem.

Gracious God, we give you thanks for the life and witness of one who we so deeply loved and who so deeply loved us. We give you thanks for that ways in which you used her devotion, and her example of faith in good times and in struggle, that helped us to be faithful too. We give you thanks for the saving act of the life, death and resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ, and the promise that nothing can separate us from your love. May this bring comfort in the times ahead as we mourn our loss, and may we also be sustained by the memories of the gift of time with which we were blessed. In the name of Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

A year and a half. The gift of time we shared as friends after that day, the day when I promised and acted as a friend, when it seemed so distant. Any thought I had that this had been forgotten was dispelled when today I learned that the service had been planned. From my friend's notes throughout her illness. Notes now scooped up lovingly and brought to the church, by her devoted hubby. And among the wishes and thoughts, that I would sing a solo, the words she wanted to leave with those who mourned. So after I have assisted with communing the gathered, the post-communion canticle will be this song, sung to the tune of "Londonderry Air," more popularly known as the tune of "Danny Boy."

"Go Silent Friend"
The Iona Community

Go, silent friend,
your life has found its ending:
To dust returns your weary mortal frame.
God, who before birth called you into being,
Now calls you hence, his ascent still the same.

Go, silent friend,
your life in Christ is buried;
For you He lived and died and rose again.
Close by His side your promised place is waiting
Where, fully known, you shall with God remain.

Go, silent friend,
forgive us if we grieved you;
Safe now in heaven, kindly say our name.
Your life has touched us, that is why we mourn you;
Our lives without you cannot be the same.

Go, silent friend,
we do not grudge your glory;
Sing, sing with joy deep praises to your Lord.
You, who believed that Christ would come back for you,
Now celebrate that Jesus keeps his word.


Til we meet again, my dear friend. You have won- Thanks be to God. +

Will I Love Him Still?

I have blogged here before about my friend with the breast cancer diagnosis. It turns out that things are much more monumental than that. A year ago she had not a trace of anything on her mammogram. This year, the breast cancer. But “Radical” “Aggressive” and “Malignant” has spread to her lung, lymph nodes and liver. Now treating the breast cancer is third in line. Liver is first.

The timetable is racing now. Our Happy Hour get together was one glass of wine, the day after her first chemo. And she needs someone to whom she can say the things she does not want to burden her terrified husband with. Her children, who are grown, have taken matters in very different ways. The daughter in the military is braced for anything. The son is angry at God for letting someone who has led a healthy productive life get cancer. As if there were a pecking order by which we value lives. But a natural grief response.

So we meet to talk about her treatment. Her service of Resurrection victory and her desire for a solo/congregation version of “Lift High the Cross” that she wants me to promise to sing. A plan to go wig shopping. And she talks about how blessed her life has been and how thankful she has been every day for what God has given to her and to her family. A loving husband. Grown children who still want to come home and visit. Financial security. Good food, good friends. Grandchildren.

Then she says, “ But how thankful would I be if it was just a crust of bread, just another day of chronic bad health?” It has been easy to be thankful. She wonders if she can love God and thank Him as easily as she heads down a long dark tunnel of treatment? Indeed.

I have been reading The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, a collection of a Jesuit priest’s letters to a group of nuns in the 1700’s. He speaks of a relationship with God where the more we seem to lose, the more we gain.

"The more He takes materially, the more he gives spiritually. We love him partly for his gifts. If they are no longer visible, we come to love him for himself alone. It is by seeming to deprive us of those gifts that he paves the way for the most precious one of all, because it embraces everything. "

DeCaussade speaks of abandoning ourselves, surrendering to the will of God. When I first read this earlier this summer, I read it in the context of surrendering what I had been doing to answer a call to ministry. But now it seems like a shallow thought in comparison to true surrender. When we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “Thy will be done,” it does include the possibility that God’s will is to call us home even at a time when we were not ready. It is entirely possible to know that heaven is there for you, but still desire to take another turn on the earthly ride with your spouse, children and grandchildren. It is a refining process to see cancer treatment as a way to closer walk with God when so much fear lies ahead. No regrets, just a sadness that this might be it. And yet there is eternal life promised through His grace.

I know that over the weeks to come, my friend and will have many talks and emails. There will be the range of emotions and my role is to listen, support and minister, with a little humor along the way- I suggested a hot pink Mohawk wig was a look she could explore. In the end, I suspect that regardless of the outcome, I will be the one who is taught as much if not more by the Holy Spirit and we will learn in new ways.

Surely It Is God Who Saves Me

As those who have visited this blog know, I have talked about being thankful for receiving news that I do not have cancer. For the second time in three years, I have had tests and the feeling of looking over the edge of the cliff. The first time, it was the week that a friend's wife died after her 13 year battle with breast cancer. This time, a friend and I both were told we needed to go for tests for abnormal breast screening in the same week. I am lucky. She got the news I dread. And words like "radical", "aggressive" and "malignant" came into conversation. But luckily also "treatable." I even knew before our pastor. But even now, beyond the pastor and family, only I know. She will tell others what she is ready to on her timetable. Armed with this knowledge, I went to the Hallmark store, during the phase of waiting for my own testing date, and bought lots of supportive, but funny cards. Did a lot of laughing in the aisle and was concerned they would begin to doubt my sanity. We have begun a card game. I send one. She sends one back to top it. Etc. This week's question on the card I sent depicting two little old ladies on the park bench, " Is it butt-naked or buck-naked?" "These are the questions I come to you for." And lots of email. I have promised to go wig shopping if needed. And this Friday before she starts treatment we are going out for Friday Happy Hour. Lots to ponder, and pray about. If anyone has a resource that will help me minister to my friend, please give me a shout here. Today, my friend told me, "Doing well, good.. a very positive step OUT LOUD today. I really looked myself in the eye and said "I'M GOING TO BEAT THIS THING!" Cried when I read that email. She also talked about knowing she will be with God in eternity. And so I responded with one of my favorite verses, which also was a choir anthem, that I think was the soundtrack for the month in my brain and now every time I pray for her. "Surely it is God who saves me. I will trust in Him and not be afraid. For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense and He will be my Savior." Amen.

Thanks be to God!

I know this is two posts in one day, but this was important to me. After weeks of waiting for diagnostic testing to follow up my bad mammogram, today was the day. Long time coming to be sure. And I was there for almost an hour and multiple views but the end result is that the all clear has sounded-Thanks Be to God! What happened while I was there was also very moving. After the check-in, and put the robe on, and have a seat in the waiting area, it is clear that I have now taken the last chair and there are 8 women all there for diagnostic work. Just as in the elevator, no one wants to be too close to strangers and yet, there we all are. I pick up the People magazine and sit down. The woman across from me smiles. So I comment on how I would never actually be seen buying the magazine but I can catch up on the beautiful people. Laughter. The woman next to me asks if there is anything good in there. We joke about Suri Cruise having her own stationery. Then the woman next to me says she is tired of the testing because this is a callback appointment. I offer that she must feel frustrated. She shares her story. Which prompts another woman to chime in and soon we are having our own little sharing session as we each of us in the room takes turns going in for tests, coming out and waiting, more tests and waiting. All with the "I know exactly how you feel" about healthcare, what we are here for, a little fear, and a little joking. A woman next to me also has other tests down the hall after this. But she emerges with the news she is free to go, as, fortunately, most of us do. One woman does not, and we all kind of sag under the weight of what is next for her. Our appointments ran slow and took longer than we wanted, but there in that place, God brought us all together to get us through that hour. This little impromptu group that just happened.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

So, I have been hard at work reading how to "Ace Grammar" to be ready for Greek, and learning my new notebook computer, and having lots of pastors tell me about a book or two, or more that I just HAVE to read. And in the midst of this, something totally unexpected. A suspicious mammogram. Totally not prepared for this. Now on the eve of the family vacation I find myself getting the referral forms from my doctor for diagnostic testing to determine the status of calcification on not one, but both sides. I come to learn that calcification will not usually be detected but through a mammogram. A year ago, there was nothing. Getting on my soapbox for a moment, this is ABSOLUTELY why women must have a mammogram every year- not everything can be detected by you! But, coming back to my tale, I need this testing soon, which has been defined as 18 days from now. As Tom Petty sings, "The Waiting is the Hardest Part." So I know nothing about calcification but while I wait for my doctor to get back from vacation, I learn that there are two kinds, macrocalcification ( which is rarely a concern) and microcalcification which is of concern because it is little spots of calcium that if they get into a cluster can be cancer. I have microcalcification. Hence new diagnostic testing, imaging, and possibly needle biopsy. And more waiting. But I am supposed to be starting seminary, this is God's plan, I say. If we are honest, even what we feel called to do, becomes "my plan" at some level. How dare something like breast cancer potentially wreck "my plan." And what about our kids, and what about what you would miss if the worst came to pass? I tell myself that this experience, even if it turns out to be nothing more than a test that turns out fine, will help me know what someone else is experiencing, and will allow me to be more pastoral someday, God willing. So, today, one day after getting the news that something could be something or it could be nothing, I assisted at a funeral. Resurrection victory notwithstanding, there was a moment where I caught my breath looking at the casket. But I am trying not to get ahead of myself. Be not afraid. Most of the time I can stick with that. In the meantime, I need to live life and enjoy that family vacation, and pray that God's hand is upon us.