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...