Wake up Calls

 

Every once in a while, I get a piece of information that gives me reason to pause. 

I hear about someone I know who is seriously ill, died, or has had some serious life event occur.  It makes me re-examine my own life and values.  It jars me out of any ruts I find myself in, and offers me a way to view everything in my life, and the world in general, from an altered perspective.

The thing is, up to now, my reaction has always been to the events that occur in the lives of others.

This time it’s me.

Several months ago, I walked into my doctor’s office, and he told me I have cancer.

This was not what I wanted to hear.

Then he said, “If you’re going to have cancer, then this is the one you want.”

Hmm.  Ok.  Not quite sure how to deal with that, but in dealing with friends who have had more aggressive forms of cancer I have to say this is a better statement than the alternatives.  It turns out that this is the slowest growing of cancers you can come up with, but the treatment for it is to remove my thyroid gland and be done with it.  I guess I should be ok with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy it’s not worse.  I truly feel that God was in on how they found it by “accident” on another scan.  This is not a death sentence by any means.

As I have told people about it, I’ve made a point of quickly letting them know that I’m going to be ok, and there’s nothing to worry about.  Keep in mind that I can say this because I’ve already processed all the initial fear, shock, and bottom-dropping-out-from-under-me feelings, and found that I understand the truth of my situation.  I know this is not like what family and friends of mine have dealt with.

But. 

It makes me pause.

Cancer is not as much of a threat as it was, even 20 years ago, however, the affect it had on so many of those I have loved in my lifetime has shaped my initial reaction to hearing about it.  This is not to minimize the seriousness of being diagnosed with it, by any means.  I’m merely pointing out that in many cases we have reached a point where a cure is possible in more cases than previously, and it took me a while to get to that point in my own case because of how it was defined in my life.

My first reaction was, “How am I going to tell my wife and kids?  They’ll start crying because of something I said!”  I really can’t stand the thought of something I do or say causing someone pain (unless it’s someone who hurts someone I love – I have no problem causing them pain).

As I began to delve deeper into this, I started to think about all the people I have known who have been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.  I thought about how they reacted to their diagnosis, and the difference in how I reacted to it.  The difference in perspective between us was profound, but now I am beginning to see the “how” and “why” of the difference.  Now I see the staggering need to bring the two perspectives together as one.

Upon discovering that a family member or friend was dying, my initial reaction has been a form of denial based on my overconfidence in medical science. 

“Ok, but there’s a treatment for it right?  Sure, you’ll have some problems, but then you’ll get through it and everything will be back to some kind of normal right?  There’s something I can do to fix this isn’t there?”

I also attribute this reaction to basic human selfishness that wonders, “How will this affect me?  What will I do without you?  How do I fill the hole you leave?”  It’s sadly difficult to miss all the “I” and “me” statements there. 

Eventually I would reach a point where I shifted my focus off of myself and listened to them.  They would start to talk about the things that are “really” important, and all these “really” important things are not the things I “really” care about.  They would talk about loving others, forgiving others, and resolving conflicts.  All the things I didn’t have time for and would get to “someday”, when I wouldn’t have to live with the idea of giving up my own desire for “one upping” the other in order to forgive.    

But they were at peace, and I was not.  It was always easier to follow the crowd, and have the same need to hold on to things.  It was always easier to put my faith in tangibles, or worldly concepts like “rights” or “fairness” or “justice”, while ignoring their opposites of “mercy”, “forgiveness” and “grace”.  So, when I got my own diagnostic “gift”, I began to examine the reason I could hear them all talk about what was really important, and agree with them in the moment, yet go back to living my life the mediocre way I always had. 

There are consequences to forgiveness, and they are usually peaceful.  Why was I so set to avoid that?  Why was I always so desperate to hold on to my own ambition?

I remember an incident many years ago, when there was a division in the church I was attending.  It was having a profound effect on the congregation, and I was in the midst of it.  At the same time there was a young woman there who had died of cancer, leaving behind a loving husband and a couple of children.  I remember her as being one of the kindest people I knew, and her husband was the same.  At her memorial service her husband shared some thoughts that she had wanted him to convey to everyone, and at one point he said words to this effect, “Sandy knew there is a big conflict going on in the church right now, and she wanted to say that we need to forgive each other, and that it’s really not the important thing.”

I remember that moment thinking, “It’s not that simple.  There is more at stake here.”  I was so caught up in my own pride and anger that I refused to see the deeper meaning that God kept trying to point out to me in my life.  I was so caught up in the “mundanity” and societal anger of the moment that I actually refused to consider any viewpoint other than my own.  I assumed that God agreed with me, and did not need to consult Him about it. 

As time went on, we left the church, the division ran its course, and the pastor involved left.  We eventually came back to that church under a different pastor.  The division had been healed, but I never shook the feeling that I was wrong in my participation in the problem.  I eventually came to understand where I had gone wrong, and years later I contacted the pastor.  I submitted myself to him and asked his forgiveness, and he was incredibly gracious to me in granting it.  We restored our fellowship and became friends again.  It wasn’t until I had been forgiven – which, by the way, he had granted to me long before I had asked – that I thought back to Sandy’s plea to see what was really important.  Finally, I caught a glimpse of what she saw.  All of my anger at the time of the division had accomplished nothing.  All of the blinders I wore at the time kept me from living a peaceful life 

Sandy saw what was needed.  It was love.

I believe there is beauty to be seen in everyone.  God created our very eyes to be cognizant of the beauty He placed all around us, in the people and things of His creation.  I had largely chosen to ignore His view, and opted for the myopic sight of my own. 

I believe that hate is not the opposite of love.  I would posit to you that hate is more accurately defined as the desire to contain, consume and damage the beauty found in another, due to my failure to admit that God created each of us with inherent beauty which in turn inspires His love for me. 

I believe that love is a product of the recognition of God’s beauty in each other.

Beauty is found in every life, and in how I choose to spend mine. 

It is found in the joy of a child.

In the compassion of an adult.

In the grace of an athlete or artist.

In the life, and sometimes death, of a soldier, or anyone else, who lays down their life to save another.

In forgiving others who don’t want my forgiveness.

I have cancer, but it is not going to kill me.  However, it did shift the axis on which my world spins.  For most of us I think it is fairly reasonable to say that when we hear “cancer”, we first think of it as a death sentence.  I have known others who have been diagnosed with drastically worse forms of cancer.  I have watched many of them die.  Almost without fail they have each discovered something in the process that I now realize I only gave lip service to.  I never, until now, began to understand the depth of the knowledge they gained. 

The lesson they all seemed to point to was this:  Nothing I ever wanted, or thought I needed, or that the world told me I need to believe, or anything (or anyone) I sought to control or possess, was ever worth more than being able to see the beauty in the life of another.  This sight gives me the opportunity to find something to love in everyone.  Each of them said they wished they would have lived their lives as though that were the greatest truth.

Someone told me I had cancer, and I started to let go of my own needs, wants, desires, and conceptions.  I went back and started looking with my new eyes at what God was really saying, and I found it was very different from what the politicians and many church leaders were telling me. 

The difference now is that since I’m not dying, but truly choosing to look at my life as though I am, I have a greater awareness of, and a more effective idea of how, I should spend that one life I’ve been given.

I was asleep, and now… I’m awake.

©Dan Bode 2021