Keep The Faith

I have written three pieces since my last post on this blog. I have posted zero of them. It's not that the writing is any worse than usual. Nor is it that I have been too busy to do the final revisions. The reason is a classic Good-News/Bad-News story.  I'll start with the good news. I am well! Though we are considerably past the expected efficacy of the current treatment protocol (we are at 21 months versus an expected 11.3 months), I am still in remission and feeling good. We have been blessed with many laughter-filled family times this summer despite the fact that we expected the summer of '25 to be different. Since I am a person who processes this journey in part through writing, less blogging generally means things are good for me. #Thankful. That's the good news. Now for the bad news: the list of people I know or have worked with who have recently begun their cancer journey or who have lost their battle with cancer is getting longer. These are people whose diagnos...

Thomas Merton once said, "You can tell more about a monk from the way he uses a broom than by anything he says." I think Merton was likely commenting on the human propensity to divide life into sacred and secular. Our default position is to hallow some things and to see others as ordinary, secular, even mundane parts of life. I have had a few weeks here of not feeling very well. My body has protested lately and my mind seems to easily migrate to darker places. In that context Thomas Merton caught my attention by reminding me (again!) that words are the easy part. It is easy to be 'sacred" with words. This blog over the years has accumulated a lot of words. They are often brave, keep-the-faith-words. But I don't always feel like I live up to those words.  Merton calls me once again to be honest about how the floor sweeping is going.   So I stand here with this damn broom in my hand. What do I do with it?  Daily life-- treatments, side effects, needing to nap, wear...

There is no sign that my cancer has yet found a way to defeat my current drug. The March 7 PET Scan results were excellent. No “glowing bones” this time! We are, in equal amounts, surprised and #thankful! I wonder what I would have felt if instead I had been told that my bones had lit up like a child’s toy? Keeping the faith is not as hard when the news is good; what kinds of challenges and questions will I have when, once again, the news is bad?   Someone in a recent text thread reminded me I need to think about that again.  This person, who has been in a spiritual wilderness for some time, had been thinking about someone close who had gone through a family tragedy. He said he just wanted to say to the grieving one, “Where is ur [sic] God now…it just ain’t right…. Good people and kids don’t deserve that shit, and ya, how do u explain that?"  He went on and said that he felt the same thing for our cancer journey. " Why?" h e lamented. The idea of a good God in a worl...

I have always had people around me who set the bar pretty high. After all, I belonged to what I consider to be an above average family, thanks to my hard working immigrant parents and my capable siblings. My childhood experiences were way above average, especially when one sees the images coming out of Gaza, South Sudan and other places. I’ve been surrounded by people who excel in their life vocations, whether they be my siblings or my own children.  Listen, this is not a lament: Personally, I’ve lived most of my life solidly in the middle of the pack. Average. The mean.  I was an average student with an average intellect and, to be honest, below-average study habits. Though I won a couple of athletic awards in high school, I was an average athlete. I became an average coach even though I loved what I did. As an educator, a profession I cherish, I was average, with the occasional bright moment. I was/am able to be an average spouse thanks to Kathy who has an above avera...

The word miracle gets thrown around a lot.  “I got the last parking spot in the whole mall parking lot. It was a miracle!”  No, I don’t think so. “The Oilers tied it up with 22 seconds left. A miraculous goal!” Wrong! When we speak of a miracle aren’t we extolling an extraordinary event which is a sign of the supernatural power of God ? As much as some hockey fans would like to believe that God cheers for THEIR team, and some Christmas shoppers might speak of a divine parking attendant, I would beg to differ. Perhaps what I have just written is a rather dubious intro for what comes next. Maybe I too should be lumped in with the happy shoppers and hockey fanatics; I’ll leave the lumping to you. You can decide. A little more than a year ago, as we welcomed 2024, my heart was noisier than the New Year’s Eve fireworks. I was experiencing an aggressive relapse and both my Red Deer doctor and a team at the Cross Cancer Institute were unable to provide a viable treatment moving forw...

  I bought a new coffee mug recently. I know, I know...that's not a very newsworthy event, but stay with me for a few moments.  Printed on the mug is: "It's a good day to have a good day." Normally we would avoid mugs with writing on them, but I was attracted to this mug because the message is just a slightly different version of a weathered sign that hangs along one of my favourite bike rides.  That sign says, "Today is a good day for a good day." And it truly is a good day for a good day. We e-biked to Red Deer to see our oncologist last week and he said something we haven't heard since I relapsed in the winter of 2021, "All clinical indications show that you are in a complete remission." For those of you who know about cancer treatments, you know it IS a fact that remissions become harder to achieve with each treatment protocol. At least it WAS a fact! I have been blessed, in this fourth treatment protocol which I began in January, with co...