by John Creasey
To the French today, whose ancestors many decades ago were the first to befriend America’s dream of being “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all,” we add our friendship, hopes and prayers to those of others being offered up in your behalf around the world.
When rights are not always right.
Truth be told, I am not Charlie Hebdo and I do not endorse what his editorial colleagues were selling or how they were selling it. There are times when the media acts like the neighborhood bully, arbitrarily exercising the right to push others around and beat up on them just because he can; because he is bigger or has a weapon, or because they are simply incapable of defending themselves for whatever reason.
In social media cartooning, there is a fine line between free speech and aggressive provocative mockery of politics, religion or race. When it comes to religious satire, be it Christian, Judaism, or Islam, I personally believe Charlie crossed the line too many times, far too often abusing the right to free speech and freedom of press for shock value. Actually, it isn’t just Charlie; it happens to Christians every day in the conversations we hear, the books we read and the movies we see. When have you ever watched a movie and heard Mohammed’s name spoken as a curse word?
Is it possible to abuse one’s right to be right? The answer is yes. Perhaps at one time or another, we’ve all been guilty. Parents have the right to expect their child to obey, but not the right to beat them until they do. Having said this, no sane human being can ever justify the retaliatory Islamic act of murder in the name of Allah that the world witnessed this week in Paris, killing seventeen innocents in addition to the three terrorists taken out by the police.
In rhetoric and ethics there is the phrase, “two wrongs don’t make a right.” It’s a proverb used to rebuke wrongful conduct in response to another’s transgression. So let me trample on this old phrase by saying, “Three wrongs do not make a right either.” It is wrong for us to sit back in judgment and say, “Charlie asked for it.” It is wrong to heave a sigh in relief, “Glad it wasn’t me.” And it is wrong to waste the lessons evil teaches by simply hoping the odds are in favor of it never happening to us.
What should we do?
It is hard, if not impossible, to give a single sentence, complete, all-encompassing answer to this question. Perhaps we could start by praying for forgiveness for our own lack of charity and our thoughtlessness. Honestly, has it been a while since you have loved your enemies?
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. ~ Jesus in Matthew 5:43–48
We can pray the wounds felt by our French brothers and sisters in the human family (as well as our faith family) will send us all back to the God who “so loved the world, that he gave his only son . . . ” (John 3:16).
And we can pray for wisdom to manifest itself among our nation’s leaders, many of whom profess to be men and women of faith (in the 114th Congress—Christian 91.8%; Jewish 5.2%; Other 1.4%, None 1.7% ).
Dixie and I live day by day through this trying season in our lives. We are glad we can do it together. If there were a magic potion or a single pill that healed and restored one to health, Dixie would take it. If there were a prayer that guaranteed Dixie’s return to perfect health, we would utter it a thousand times. The same is true of this world in which we remain very much a part.
The fact is, there are no winner-take-all, easy answers here. Not in the world’s problems. Not in France’s pain. Not in mistreating a defenseless child. Not in Dixie’s suffering with cancer. Healing, whether the wounds of the world or the suffering of the human body, begins with minds that are open to God’s Word and hearts that will trust in him. It’s that simple, really. This is my personal view. I do not speak for my neighbors, my church or for anyone else. I speak freely and openly, just for me. It’s what I get to do in America. Exercising my right to free speech and hopefully make my point without denigrating others.
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. ~ Isaiah 26:3
May our Lord keep us all in his peace.
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It’s Not Over ‘til It’s Over
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ~ James 1:2,3
Life for Seattle football’s 12th-MAN crowd doesn’t get any more exciting than this last weekend. It goes like this: fifty-seven minutes of complete frustration while the Seahawks drive body parts up against a great Green Bay’s Packers football team, plus an eternity of sheer pandemonium packed into a half dozen game closing minutes. The result? A trip for the Seahawks to Arizona and the Super Bowl!
Some ticket holders leave the game early, having given up on their team’s chances. Outside in the parking lots, they hear the roar of the crowd and rush back. But the rule is, once you leave through the gates, you cannot return. There is no coming back for them. So they can only watch television screens through the barred gates or listen on the radio. And miss seeing firsthand the finale of quite possibly the most exciting game in Seahawk history.
The way GB plays these 57 game minutes, it appears the game is theirs. The pro analysts who figure these things say, given points behind, plus time left to play, equals a one in one hundred chance that Seattle can rally to win! I am being texted throughout the game by various Seahawk and Cheesehead friends scattered around the country (one whose son is a GB coach) and, let me just say, it isn’t pretty. But at the end of regulation play (for those few of you who live on another planet) the game is tied, 22–22. A coin toss will decide which team gets the ball first. The visiting team gets to call heads or tails. Seattle wins the toss. All I can say is that moment (and really the entire game), while the coin is in the air, gives new meaning to “finishing well.”
Forty-eight hours later, I am sitting in the quiet of SCCA’s F5 34 treatment bay. We’ve been in the building since 9 o’clock. It is nearly noon. We should be home by 5 o’clock. Amy is our nurse today. Her voice is raspy, her throat sore. She’s not sick, she says reassuringly. She and her husband have season tickets. They were at the game on Sunday. Yelling insanely. Part of the NFL’s noisiest crowd.
Dixie is sleeping to the gentle beep-beep of the chemotherapy infusion equipment on the other side of her bed; unmindful of the murmur of voices in the hall beyond the curtained entrance. Her Kindle book lies open on her lap. She needs the rest. It will have been a long day for her before we are done. Tomorrow should be a feel good day, but by evening the chemo side effects will likely have kicked in.
Fluorouracil (F-5) plus Oxaliplatin to kill the Cancerous cells. Leucovorin to rescue normal (non-cancerous) cells and increase the anti-cancer effects of the Fluorouracil. These are still the players. When the infusion is complete, Dixie will reattach her port to an ambulatory infusion pump and continue the chemotherapy infusion process at home or wherever she goes for the next forty-six hours. On Thursday, we will return to SCCA where the pump will be disconnected. By now it seems routine to us. A routine we would not wish on anyone.
The winners? The verdict is still out. Prayers are in the air. We know our Coach and Mighty Healer is watching. This game has gone on for a long time. The score is . . . well, we just don’t know yet. It’s close, but we are in overtime. We are hopeful. Those in the stands who have been praying, encouraging, putting their all into their support for us are amazing! Don’t leave us too early. These heartfelt pray
ers are more than 12th-MAN noise. So much more.
The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. ~ Revelation 8:4.
There’s that incense again; but, you know, the more it mingles with the prayers of God’s people, the more I’m beginning to like it.
I know you can’t read the scoreboard from where you are standing (no one is left sitting in a game this close). Nor can we. But this much we know. There is One who has the ball right now and holds our times in his hands. That can only mean one thing. It’s okay to offer up a shout out for Jesus. Regardless of the final score . . . WE WIN!
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The Thing Between
God and Us
When pain and suffering come upon us, we finally see not only that we are not in control of our lives, but that we never were.
~ Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering
Super Bowl XLIX is over. Dixie and I enjoyed our own quiet and comfortable Super Bowl party . . . except for the final 20 seconds of the game. Ah, life can be cruel, can it not? Seattle grieves the improbable loss of sports history within its grasp. But not for long. Because, you see, it’s only a game. Please, don’t pelt me with rotten tomatoes. So it’s on to baseball and those few days in Springtime when the sun peeks through Seattle’s clouds, flowers bloom, and where for 37 seasons Northwest sports fans have wistfully said to one another, “This could be the year. Go Mariners!” For those few of you who don’t eat, sleep and breathe baseball, the Mariners are our team. And they’ve never sniffed World Series air. Play ball!
21 Dixie stays warm while waiting for treatment to get underway.
Monday 2 February. We are caught up in heavy traffic and arrive twenty minutes late for the 8 o’clock blood draw. No matter. Dr. Chiorean will be behind schedule as well since she lives on the Eastside, too. At 9:40 we are together again in the same small room, listening to the results of Friday’s CT scans.
“Your post-Whipple operation shows no evidence of local recurrence,” says Dr. Chiorean, “and in the lungs most of the previously seen pulmonary nodules seem to be stable for now. But there is a continuing increase in the size of the hepatic metastasis. In other words, the mass we see on the liver continues to resist chemotherapy.”
This is not a game. This is not a winning or losing play in the 4th Quarter. This is not a long fly ball in the ninth inning. This is life and death. It is disheartening news. Dixie asks for a break in treatment. Dr. Chiorean agrees. Dixie has been receiving chemo doses in a strength that patients half her age find difficult. Dr. Chiorean will confer with Drs. Park and Kim to plan for next steps. And so instead of chemotherapy, Dixie undergoes a 2-hour hydration infusion and by 2 o’clock we are home again.
For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. ~ Hebrews 2:18
Tuesday. Weariness in the battle is inescapable. It is a hard day. The past two months of FOLFOX chemotherapy have been exhausting. With each infusion it is harder to recover from the side effects of nausea and extreme fatigue. Outside our apartment this morning it is cold, the sky is gray and close over the city, with a light mist falling. One of those Northwest days in which you can walk in the rain forever without an umbrella and never get wet.
A few more days and one year will have passed since we sat together in a doctor’s office and were given the news. Pancreatic cancer.
“How should I feel about this?”
“Nervous?”
An understatement, looking back on a year of surgery, biopsies, chemotherapy, radiation, scans, sickness, pain, suffering. And depression. Light at the end of the tunnel this morning seems farther away than ever. She looks up from a breakfast barely touched, her countenance lined with tears and weariness and says simply, “I don’t think I can do this,” followed moments later with, “Sorry, I don’t want to be a complainer.”
In the year past, I do not recall ever hearing her utter the “c” word. Until now. After breakfast she sits on the floor near the fireplace and reads. Later in the day she goes to the kitchen, a favorite place to create, to be busy, and prepares the evening meal. Enchiladas. Green beans. Salad. A favorite and it is tasty terrific, though she can eat very little.
Thursday, Michele and I have our regular 5 o’clock “First Thursday” coffee at Starbucks. She tells me how she wishes she could do more, be more involved, more caring. There are tears. From both of us. I can feel how this is eating away at her in so many ways. I tell her, “You are doing it right now, just being here with me. This is caring.”
By itself suffering does no good. But when we see it as the thing between God and us, it has meaning. Wedged in the crux—the cross—suffering becomes a transaction. The cross is a place of transaction. It is the place where power happens between God and us.9 ~ Joni Eareckson Tada and Steven Estes
At 8:15, Dixie and I arrive at a place new to us in north Seattle, the SCCA/UW Proton Therapy Center, to meet a team that is also new to us, including Kenyan-born clinical nurse, Zippy Mwicigi, and gastrointestinal specialist, Dr. Apisarnthanarax (“Just call me Dr. A.”), a Thai from Texas. We are here today to be introduced to a next-generation radiation treatment that more precisely targets tumors, minimizing radiation to healthy tissue, than is possible with any other instrument. It is the very latest thing.
Seattle’s Proton Therapy Center is the newest of ten such facilities in the US, and is built around a giant cyclotron, with four different radiology treatment bays designed for patients with differing types of cancers. We learn that Proton therapy is ionizing, high-energy radiation in which larger doses can be delivered to the targeted area, with fewer side effects and faster patient recovery due to its precise application. The Proton therapy story and the facility is both state-of-the-art and a bit overwhelming.
During a lengthy discussion with Dr. A, we are informed that Dixie is a candidate for such treatment. However, she could also deal with this bad-boy liver tumor surgically with Dr. Park at UWMC. Outcomes are predicted to be 80–90% successful, and pretty much the same whichever way she chooses. Dixie wants Dr. A to discuss the options again with Dr. Park. He agrees to do so and to arrange for us to meet with Dr. Park, before a final decision is made.
This evening is “First Thursday” for Mom and Michele. They go to a nearby restaurant, find a quiet corner and do their favorite thing, sit and talk. It’s the first time Dixie has been out like this for some time and it is therapeutic.
The next morning, she tells me that, while reading prayers of Benedictine monks in The Glenstal Book of Prayer, she became aware of just how these prayers all seem to focus, not on petition, but rather on praising God in every circumstance. And with that awareness, no matter what the ongoing treatment outcomes might be, she feels her own spirit begin to lift. After days in the Valley of Shadows, her eyes are alight with gratefulness and praise to God.
In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it (suffering)? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time, after a while I have had to look away. And in imagination I have turned instead to the lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside His immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of His. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering.10 ~ John R.W. Stott
Outside our apartment this morning it is still cold, the sky is still gray and close over the city, with a light mist still falling. Another one of th
ose Northwest days in which you can walk forever without an umbrella and never really get wet. But inside, there is a Light in the Valley of Shadows.
We are not alone.
45
Happy Valentine’s Day
So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. ~ Ephesians 3:13
One year. Our first “anniversary.” 365 days. 8760 hours.
When the actual cancer battle was first joined only God knows. When the first bad boy cell met up with another rogue cell, then another and another, until a gang of miscreant cells formed an army of millions, all with the same deadly intent; truly, only God knows. And with this realization, my “Why?” questions, the ones I so often have shaped in words unspoken, almost accusatory, over this last year of impossible days, surface again.
Why, if he knew, did he not do something about it then? As with Job of old, I query God. Why have you not answered? Why do you allow my beloved to suffer? I’m the one who should be suffering, not her. Followed moments later with, “I’m sorry, Lord, I don’t want to be a complainer.”
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
