Praise to you
Christ Jesus,
In our inner combats
to be found faithful,
we are intimately associated
with you.
And by that,
without knowing how,
we can help you to bring it about that,
at the table of
the Kingdom of God,
there may be no empty places.
But, that
all human beings
may see
your love.
- Amen
Since we are in the midst of the Memorial Day Weekend we all need reminders that this is not “national grill in the back yard day,” but has other, deeper, national meaning. A day of commemoration of those how are and have served in the United States Military, all branches, both at home and abroad.
This is a day to remember that some did not make it back from wherever they were stationed.
This is a day to remember those who served valiantly in the many armed conflicts of this country, and for whose sacrifice of time, and stress, and wellness, and distance from those they loved, helped defend and protect our national life.
This is not a day of arguing endlessly about the plus or minus values of war.
Not a day for speaking angrily of “cannon fodder,” and the economic inequities of those who serve our country.
This is a day we remember,
and especially those who have died on our behalf.
We offer the endless thanks of a gentle and peace-loving nation.
(For the prayer below I have used the singular male pronoun, shown in italics. These words may be adjusted as necessary.)
A Prayer of Committal of the Dead
Into your hands, O merciful Savior,
We commend your servant.Acknowledge,
we humbly beseech you,
a sheep of your own fold,
a lamb of your own flock,
a sinner of your own redeeming.Receive him
into the arms of your mercy,
into the blessed rest of
everlasting peace,and
into the glorious company of
the saints in the light.- Amen
To them I say, Rest easy.
To you: Keep the faith.
There is one thing I ask
of my God:
To dwell
in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life.
(Alleluia)
(adapted from Psalm 27)
It’s been a tough week in Cancerville with some of my peeps. Some relapse. Some remit. Some stay the same. I spoke with my mom on the phone last night as she told me about visiting a friend of ours who is having a rough way of it. We see in our friend a “process” building up that my Mom and I have seen – and fought – before. She told me with a small tremble in her voice of how she had to say to her friend, “I don’t mean to make you feel worse that you already do, but this condition is going to get worse – a lot worse – before it gets better.” My mother is a woman of great action: work now, fight now, and weep later.
The consolation after that talk with our friend was that once-upon-a-time, my mother and I had done an entire year of “throwing a dart at a dartboard” of treatment trial and error for the same condition, and now We Are Armed! We are prepared to jump in and share what we know to alleviate months of testing this-and-that, to diminish months of pain. To stop as many screams as we can when the pain is so very great.
-+-
We have another friend who has come to the point of doctors saying “there is nothing else we can do,” and our friend Rachel is so at peace with that! She isn’t waiting around to die. Oh the HELL no! She is living in the moment and every time I see her she has a smile and a hug and asks me how I am doing. Am I feeling better?
Each second I spend with these two women I feel the strength of being with folks who know what happens next according to a belief that resonates from the center of their souls.
No tacked-on last-minute religiosity here. These are the people who taught me from when I was knee-high to a grasshopper about how a singular belief, how a resonating faith works not only when we stand in full sunlight at the top of the hill, but also, when we are in the deep, cool misty shade of the glen.
One friend fights, and we fight with her. She’s not ready to hang up her wig-hat no matter then pain, or the tired, or the suffering.
One friend waits, happy in this day and this time, and being surrounded by the people whom she loves and who love her right back even more.
That’s all we need when it comes down to the last: a total enrobement of love.
Eternal God:
It is you who have placed in our being
- a thirst for love,
- the desire for an absolute.Help us to understand that
this longing opens usto you and to others.
Today, we entrust to you
those who we have loved,
and those who have gone before usto be close to you.
We believe in your promise:
One day,
you will reunite us
at the table of your kingdom.- Amen
Keep the faith!
In one of my last meetings with Dr. Clark Wang, we were talking about his preparations to venture off to the other side of the country to have a double bone marrow transplant for his rapidly advancing Lymphoma. It was a long trip for someone not in pristine health, and the chances of returning to the South were not high.
Many months before, he had begun a courageous and most-public pre-planning for his funeral, investigating Green funeral processes that do not add chemicals to the environment, physically, and represents the most direct interpretation of “From dust you are and to dust you shall return,” spiritually. He spoke and wrote with amazing candor on the topic and taught me much about how our physical death can be an easy moment of transition for our bodies to return to the earth, and not do any harm to the earth while doing so.
We first met through a Blood Cancers survivors (and care givers) support group at Duke University Hospital where we were both oncology patients. We spent December of 2009 in a special class offered by the Medical Hypnosis Society of North Carolina, on self-hypnosis for Cancer Patients. The goal of that class is to use simple-to-learn self-hypnosis techniques for many side effects of the cancer treatment process: chronic pain management, skin issues (at the time I had uncontrollable itching on my arms due to one of my post-treatment drugs), and a lot of general survival stress. With a cancer diagnosis, and subsequent treatment, Life changes. We use every tool at hand to fight the good fight.
Even alternative treatments like Hypnosis.
December of 2009 wasn’t a great month for either of us. He was in the midst of increasing problems with his latest remitting of the cancer. I was only able to locomote by way of a wheelchair. It didn’t really slow either of us down.
As he moved deeper into the spiritual depth of his Life (a difficult and tumultuous time for one who is trained to be a person of numbers, a scientist), we talked about what it would be like to take that final launch. I mentioned Tolkein’s poem Bilbo’s Song at the Gray Havens, and even though he was familiar with The Hobbit and the Return of the King trilogy, he hadn’t read this poem.
In the story, as Bilbo has finished all that he was to accomplish in Middle Earth, he boards the boat in which he sails off quite literally in the sunset, in a beautiful setting that gleams with familiar Nordic mythology. And this, as he sailed away from all that had burdened him, and aged him, and laid heavy on his heart – this song is what he composed.
I am glad to have had the time to share it with my friend Clark. I’m glad for our times together, even as they tested the deepest parts of my soul with hard-hitting dialogue that pulls no punches. A dialogue that only two friends – and two comrades at arms – can have.
Bilbo’s Last Song At the Gray Havens
by J.R.R. TolkeinDay is ended, dim my eyes,
but journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship’s beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that I shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I’ll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast!