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The Dynamic of Reassigned Duty

2 Comments / Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal, The Pastoral Call / By /

In lieu of baseball this winter, my TV pastime while navigating the cancer waters has been Netflix episodes of The West Wing. This exploration of life in the White House’s administrative center is, most of the time, nothing short of riveting for me. I am in the middle of Season 6, which is well into the second term for President Bartlet. His Chief of Staff Leo McGarry has had a massive heart-attack and is out for the count. White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg has replaced him as Chief. The current plot line has CJ making the transition from one […]

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Retrospective on Normal vs. Transformed Life

Leave a Comment / Kenya & Uganda, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, People, Personal, Theological Reflection, Uncategorized / By /

Alene was my senior year roommate at Stanford, and our friendship has been renewed by visits in the last few years, most recently last summer in Bomet, Kenya, where she and Steve are missionaries. Thankful for the blessing of Internet contact, Facebook, and my Caring Bridge site chronicling medical adventures since my diagnosis, Alene and Steve have been keeping up with Naegeli news from afar. Yesterday I received in the mail a hand-made card from Alene. It touched me very deeply and suggested the entry point for my next series of blogs. On the cover is a rather fanciful elephant—known,

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My Mother, Myself: A Final Word

6 Comments / Death & Dying, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

The Skagit County Tulip Festival in Mt. Vernon, Washington, draws crowds to view acres and acres of colorful bulbs each April. In the intervening days between my mother’s death and her memorial mass, my husband and daughter ventured forth to explore the tulip fields. The pair brought back two bouquets, knowing they were my favorite flower, so I brought them to Mom’s church the next day. The reason I love the tulip is that it is the only flower I know that continues to grow after it is cut. A very tight, short arrangement of blooms grows gangly over time,

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My Mother, Myself, in an Anxious Climate

4 Comments / Death & Dying, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle / By /

My mother writes in her autobiography that during her college years she began to experience anxiety, fear, and what is known as scrupulosity, a sort of spiritual Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Coming out of a home where the expression of love for her was thin and unconvincing, she was afraid that even God could not love her without serious performance of perfection. At the same time, she was suffering from clinical anxiety and developing phobias. (One notable fear was of going to the dentist, after a disastrous 2.5 hour tooth extraction when she was 20. To her credit, she made sure we

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Knowing Mother, Knowing Myself

3 Comments / Death & Dying, Personal / By /

How does one get to know one’s mother?  The question becomes very important as one tries to get to know oneself. The process of bonding and understanding begins even before birth and is nurtured early by the intimacy of feeding, bathing, soothing to sleep. The personality types of both mother and daughter are expressed in this dynamic, and mom’s emotional health is a key factor in raising an emotionally stable and secure adult. When one does not have that security, a wounding occurs and a lifetime of compensation ensues. My mother was the third and last child in her family,

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To Know Christ and the Power of His Resurrection

1 Comment / Death & Dying, Lent, Lung Cancer, Personal, Theological Reflection, Uncategorized / By /

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.” (Philippians 3:10) I decided to wait until after Easter to reflect on my mother’s sudden death, because it just seemed proper to walk through the week of the Passion and Crucifixion of our Lord first. The convincing realization of that remembrance is that Jesus understands our sorrow, our pain, and has fully experienced death itself. What sweet comfort that reality is, and what stupendous hope we have because of his Resurrection that followed! With the knowledge

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Feelings and the Christian Experience

3 Comments / Lent, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle / By /

The Church has just been through the lows and highs and the Christian calendar, walking with Jesus through his passion and death, experiencing the emptiness of Holy Saturday, and the exultation of Easter. People’s reaction to this emotional ride vary from indifference to obsession, but the intensity of the calendar’s events is intended to draw us in to Christ’s experience in order to appreciate all the more what he did for us. My post on Good Friday was an expression of that gratitude. But then there are people who felt almost nothing, though they would have liked to, and it is

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Good Friday Reflection

Leave a Comment / Death & Dying, Lent, Lung Cancer, Personal / By /

As I was sitting in the choir tonight contemplating the Scriptures, the songs, and the choral pieces offered during our Good Friday service, something struck me rather forcefully. All four gospel accounts make note that Jesus remained conscious throughout his crucifixion ordeal. The evidence that he remained alert is that, in each case, he said something right before he died and then “he gave up his spirit” (Matthew 27:50, John 19:30; “breathed his last,” Mark 15:37 and Luke 23:46). Jesus was in agony. He was slowly dying of asphyxiation, caused by the unnatural position of his body hanging by the

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Personal Update as “Life Happens”

4 Comments / Personal / By /

I fully intended to continue on a course toward Easter with reflections on Passion Week . . . but on Saturday afternoon I was notified that my mother (in another state) had had a stroke and to come right away. So I sat by her bedside in ICU until we switched to “comfort care.” She slipped from this life to the next early yesterday morning . . . Thank God that I was able to fly to be with her; thank God that she was relieved of her suffering quickly; thank God that my siblings are functioning well together, camping

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The Seventh Mansion: Union with the Trinity

5 Comments / It All Started in the Garden, Lent, Lung Cancer, Personal, Romans 8, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle, Uncategorized / By /

When I first read Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle as a seminary student, I got about half-way through it. She was writing about experiences I had never had and using terms I could not comprehend. Her ardor was unimaginable to me, so I put it aside and wrote an honest book report (Help! I have no idea what this woman is talking about!). I have not picked it up since, but am very grateful for Thomas Ashbrook’s unpacking in Mansions of the Heart, upon which this blog series has been based. His accessible tour of the castle and its mansions

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