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This Is Going to Hurt

Leave a Comment / Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

One of my all-time favorite movies is Hook, starring Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts and Maggie Smith. There’s this great scene where Captain Hook (Hoffman) is stealing the affections of the kidnapped children of grown up Peter Pan (Williams). Hook is making more progress with the already alienated son Jack than the younger daughter Maggie. Soon we see Jack dressed up as a miniature Captain Hook, but one thing more is needed to complete the costume: a pierced ear to accommodate a big gold ear ring. As Hook holds up his arm hook, the tool of choice for ear-piercing, […]

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The Supportive Community

Leave a Comment / ECO (Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians), Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Peace Unity & Purity, Personal, The Missional Church / By /

The days getting ready for my cancer treatments have been amazingly busy. Because I will be undergoing both radiation and chemotherapy, I am engaged in two tracks of testing and preparation. Today, for instance, I will go in for a dress rehearsal of my custom-designed radiation treatment. During this procedure the technicians, the physicist, and the doctor all sign off on the mapping of high-energy x-rays that will converge on the Beast. Yesterday it was a bone-marrow biopsy to set a baseline for measuring side effects of chemotherapy. Another kind of preparation is happening at home. Because the disease itself

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The Down-side of Playing It by the Numbers

Leave a Comment / 2012th General Assembly (Pittsburgh), Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal, The Property Clause, Theological Reflection / By /

I have had my diagnosis of lung cancer for just one week now, though I was strongly suspicious for a week or two prior to that: enough time to start getting my head and heart around the possibilities. In those weeks, my cough and an antibiotic were making it hard for me to sleep, so there were so many hours and such a big world-wide-web to awaken my curiosity. Bad idea. I saw just one number (the average 5-year survival rate for lung cancer) and made a decision right then and there: I’m not going to do this by the

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Paring Down to Nothing

Leave a Comment / Lung Cancer, Personal, Romans 8, Sermon Illustrations, Theological Reflection / By /

You might appreciate the bond between a woman and her purse. If not, it’s like this: Don’t mess with me, baby. My Bandolini bag has provisions for body, mind, and spirit in the form of water bottle, Zone Bar, mini New Testament, wallet, sunglasses, inhaler, lipstick, last week’s church bulletin, iPhone, pencils and pens, cough drops, car keys, iPad, and lip balm. And that’s just the beginning. I am prepared at any given time to be away from home most of the day with everything I need. But the current lung adventure has required a new ritual. Almost daily this

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On Assignment: A New Perspective on “Call”

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Presbyterians use the term “discerning one’s call” to refer to the process of figuring out one’s vocation. In the Presbyterian/Reformed Tradition, that call is sensed not only by the ministerial candidate personally but by the Presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry and ultimately by a congregation that desires to call a candidate into pastoral service. It was a Christian community’s process over years’ time that solidified my sense of call to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. That call, exercised as a pastor-teacher, has shaped my identity and brought structure to my life since 1987. The last seven years “without

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My Life Under Scrutiny

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Today every inch of my body will be scanned; a PET scan first (neck downward), then a brain MRI (head only)…checking to see if the beast has gotten out of its cage. I welcome the scrutiny, because my cure is heavily invested in finding what ails me. Without that specific diagnosis and knowledge of the stage of the disease, it cannot be slain. Gone are any pretenses of privacy or the sovereignty of my own opinion. I mean, really, what good would it do for me to say, “Y’all, my insides are none of your business. There’s nothing wrong with

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Awaiting the Redemption of Our Bodies

Leave a Comment / Lung Cancer, Personal, Romans 8, Theological Reflection / By /

Ever since I arrived home from Africa on August 18, I have been coughing. You might have noticed that my blogging was sporadic this fall; it was because I have not been feeling well. Ten days ago I found out that a 6cm mass had formed in my left lung, and a surgical biopsy was conducted last Thursday to determine its makeup. Yesterday afternoon, the thoracic surgeon strode into the examining room with the pathology report in her hand. Andy and I wondered how this conversation was going to start, but she who has delivered this news many times before

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Still Waiting? Me, too.

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My heart, mind, soul, and strength have been focused on waiting for some news I think will come today. You know what it feels like to be on tippy-toes in anticipation—thoughts of Christmas Eve come to mind. Anyway, in light of that distraction, I do not have a new blog post today . . . but I am writing to alert you to the rather impressive thread of comments and dialogue generated by my last two blogs. Very helpful information is offered to shed light on the thinking of those desiring to leave the PC(USA). We also gain terrific insight

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Still Waiting? Try “Waiting on the Lord”

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Yesterday I suggested that “waiting for” sets the church up for spiritual temptation, either to divert from The Main Thing or to give up altogether. I suppose congregations that are in an interim period between pastors face these temptations, and that is why it is a good thing to be led by a skilled interim pastor during such a phase. But churches waiting for the wheels of Presbytery Process to grind are also challenged to keep going in the meantime, but how? We often ask the question, “What are we waiting for?” but perhaps the better query would be “What

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Assigned to the Waiting Room

Leave a Comment / ECO (Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians), PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, The Missional Church, Theological Reflection / By /

A Personal Note: Today is All Saints’ Day, and the 26th anniversary of my ordination to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA). Woo-hoo!! At its September meeting, San Francisco Presbytery authorized the congregation of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church to meet this Sunday, November 3, to discern its readiness for dismissal. However, last week, the Presbytery Engagement Team (PET) called off the congregational meeting while issues related to the terms of dismissal are re-opened and resolved. The congregation must wait for something else to develop before they can move on in their process of dismissal to ECO. I

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