Bringing the Word to Life

The “Come to Jesus” Moment

6 Comments / It All Started in the Garden, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, The Pastoral Call / By /

I wonder sometimes if the slow-motion Christian discipleship I am undergoing as a cancer patient is giving me the opportunity to revisit issues, temptations, and misdirections of my past life as a pastor. Today the theme is fatigue, felt persistently now for weeks. It seems the effects of chemo and radiation sneak up on a person well after the treatment period is over. For me, what I had imagined would be almost six weeks of steady strengthening has turned out instead to be a disappointing holding pattern. Last week I had a short-term set back in the form of “the […]

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Hanging on to Hope

5 Comments / Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

I haven’t written the last few days because I came down with a bug, starting with a scratchy throat and ending with laryngitis, a cough, and a low-grade fever. It was probably something I picked up at church last weekend, so I stayed home this weekend to avoid the germs. It’s hard to believe that seven days ago, I was hiking 2+ miles per day and feeling wonderful and optimistic. Since Wednesday, the dominant feelings have been lethargy, discomfort, and concern as my symptoms accumulated. Having lung cancer makes one a bit skittish about what would otherwise be normal winter

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Fading Glory

9 Comments / It All Started in the Garden, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

Two weeks ago today I had my last chemotherapy infusion for Round 3. By all accounts, my recovery from its negative effects has been unusually quick and thorough, much more so than Round 2. I am hiking at least two miles a day now to build up my strength and to regain cardio-pulmonary endurance for surgery March 3. God has been very good to squash any queasiness or sleepiness I had in previous rounds, and it is nice to say life is getting back to normal. The drugs continue to create an extremely inhospitable environment for the Beast in my

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People Need Some Good News

5 Comments / Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, The Missional Church, Uncategorized / By /

Yesterday I got to meet with my “Peet’s Ladies,” fellow gym enthusiasts who gather daily for coffee at Peet’s next door after their workouts. They saw me through the window coming into the coffee shop, and it was a joyful reunion. We sat down for a cuppa and caught up with each other. My prayer list for each one was renewed, and they were encouraged to see me with their own eyes and know that I was doing well. During all this treatment for my lung cancer since November, I have had a steady parade of home visits from friends,

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The Lost Keys

3 Comments / Lung Cancer, Personal, Sermon Illustrations / By /

Somewhere and some time last fall, I lost my car keys and accompanying house key. Thank heaven my church keys were on a separate ring at the time. It happened just about the time I was finding out about my cancer, still in the hub-bub of unpacking from a long vacation, switching purses, re-organizing for “normal” life.  Because I wasn’t driving once treatment started, the car key was not needed; but the house key had sentimental value because it was covered with Stanford logos. A small thing, I know, but I was ticked to have lost it. For a long

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The Acceptance of Tragedy

4 Comments / Current Events, Death & Dying / By /

Our newspaper has been covering two tragic situations in the last month, that warrant some reflection in light of my previous series on dying and death. The first involves a fourteen-year-old girl Jahi McMath, who died after sudden complications from surgery to remove her tonsils and repair sinuses. I—and the state of California—say she died, because in the course of this medical emergency, her brain ceased all function to the point of “brain-death.” This is not a permanent vegetative state but the complete stoppage of all neurological activity in all areas of the brain. The complicating factor was that she

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Waiting to Die, or Living to Death?

9 Comments / Death & Dying, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, Personal, Sermon Illustrations, Uncategorized / By /

Several years ago, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, a parishioner intimated that she was the longest living member of her family at that age. Her vision of her life had not extended past that point, as every single one of her forebears had died early and suddenly or, in one case after a long illness at age 72. Since she did not know what to do with life after 80, and had no inclination to reinvent herself, it appeared to me that she was simply marking time and waiting to die. At the time, she was in perfect

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Prepare to Die—Part III

Leave a Comment / Death & Dying, It All Started in the Garden, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

For the last several days, we have been considering the process of dying and death itself, trying to push through our denial of our mortality. I have been enriched by your comments and candid reflections on the topic, realizing January is a busy month and death is probably not your first-choice topic! Yesterday was an amazing day for me, with death absolutely not on my radar screen. After a lousy weekend, I was feeling so good by yesterday, I spent virtually the entire day on the phone, doing “work”! I even had energy left to go to our small group

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Prepare to Die—Part II

3 Comments / Death & Dying, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, The Pastoral Call / By /

Can’t help but start today’s post with the most famous quotation from Princess Bride (with heavy Spanish accent): “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” He gives that warning several times in the classic movie, enough for the viewer to know that nobody is actually going to die any time soon. But the line cracks my funny bone. I am serious today, however, when I say, “Prepare to die.” I am going to die. You are going to die. It may not be anytime soon . . . [Just for the record, my progress

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Prepare to Die—Part I

2 Comments / Death & Dying, Lung Cancer, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

An interesting article appeared in Sunday’s Contra Costa Times in the “Your Life” section of the paper, entitled “Coffee, cake & grave conversation.” It described a Death Café, a hosted conversation about death and grief in Santa Cruz, California (one among many in California). The group’s purpose is to formalize discussions “to help ease the anxiety around death and dying.” As I read the article, it appears that the intended benefit is spiritual and practical, as people share and learn about various burial options, celebratory rituals, and advanced directives. It reminds me of a series of adult classes we used

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