It's getting just a bit easier to blog using the phone. Either I'm getting smarter or the phone's decided to stoop to my level.
Life, however, is not easier...these tumours hurt, and there's a new one of the chest-wall variety. So much for the summer beach bod.
And that doesn't include the tennis-ball sized lump in my navel. Loose shirts, now.
And yet...
Some, looking at me, say it's time
to lean into a morphine haze,
embrace a gentle and sublime
way to pass these pain-wracked days.
I might partake of smooth-jazz tunes,
doze through a DVD,
but suggesting this assumes
that I'm no longer me.
For good or ill, I'm bred to fight
and in my life stand taller
when on the other side of night,
for me, there lies Valhalla,
where, as holder of the secret knows,
the fight goes on, and strong mead flows.
In the absence of music (Blogger won't let me link a video on my phone), here are a couple of things pictures of Sylvia, my blog's public face, on an ice-cream run.
OK, how could God be lonely? He's got everything, right?
Except...us.
He doesn't have us...we have to give ourselves to Him freely. Otherwise we're puppets.
And it's not OK when we don't give ourselves. He's hurt.
Witness the Garden of Gethsemane...Jesus asked His three closest friends to watch with Him while He prayed...and they fell asleep.
They say that God has got it all,
but as Christ neared His mortal end,
He felt the desperate need to call
upon the love of His best friends.
He went with Peter, John and James,
that while He prayed, watch they might keep;
when he returned, He called their names,
and found they'd fallen fast asleep.
He woke them, and then asked again,
that they might help Him through His trial,
but they couldn't understand His pain,
His sweat of blood, and all the while
He took the cup that would not pass,
they dozed upon the dewy grass.
So there you go. You have a power God doesn't have...the choice to give yourself to Him...
...or not.
What will you do?
This became important to me lately, because while I received a healing from a lethal and sudden illness, the healing didn't apply to cancer...on that front, things are worse.
And God said, "Cancer is your Calvary. The healing...it was Me, being your Simon of Cyrene."
There was a wistfulness in His tone, a hesitancy.
As if He thought that I might respond in anger, and cast Him aside, in anger and disappointment.
I had the power, in that moment, to break His heart, and there was nothing He could do about it.
I didn't, but that's a story for another time.
Music from Joan Osborne, with One Of Us. (Please click here if your device doesn't display the video.)
Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.
Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
Yes, since the sustained 107 fever thing, I talk with God. Didn't used to, but now He just walks in, makes Himself at home, and we have these conversations.
And they don't always go the way I think they'll go.
Recently, I was thinking how grateful I am for this second chance, to not be the 'old me'.
And God said, "I like the old you."
Huh?
The day before yesterday, the cancer pain's back, especially the metastasis in my right femur, and I'm saying - out loud - "Pain is just weakness being forced from the body."
God blew a Bronx cheer, and then said, "Pain can be a warning, and it's always a byproduct. it's just pain, and being proud of how much you can tolerate is infantile...something like being proud of the smelliest bowel movement."
Oh-kay.
I don't think God likes pain. Recently I was watching the Hillsong Channel, and a preacher said that "Great things are birthed in pain." Behind me I heard a Bronx cheer (God does seem to like those).
I guess maybe He's seen more than enough hurt, and so I don't use my old favourite expressions, like "Blood makes the grass grow green."
Offending the Almighty's a bad idea.
The point of this is that in the past, I really didn't believe people talked to God. I thought they were having conversations in their own heads, perhaps informed by the Almighty, but that's as far as it went.
To be honest, I didn't really pay attention to what they said, tuning them out after "God said to me..."
No more.
Aside from the reality of His Voice (He's got a distinct Chicago accent, in case you were wondering), the deciding 'reality check' for me is that He flat out contradicts things that I say, and for a long time held dear ("Pain is merely weakness being forced from the body.")
A God who backed up my prejudices would be fun, be would also be a little-'g' god.
This dude is willing to fight me (like it's a contest, right?)...He's my Big G God.
Some folks said they talk to
God,
and I thought, well, maybe
true,
but it sounds to me, like,
really odd;
hope I don't cross paths
with you.
And then I faced my quiet
death,
and I saw the Other Side;
my lungs were filled with
Holy Breath,
and I learned how to abide
with a God who talked a lot,
'bout life and death and
love and pain,
some things He said, well, I
forgot,
but it seems enough remain
that the God I knew and formally respected,
has become Lord of the
Unexpected.
The only song I could think of that was about talking is Toby Keith's I Wanna Talk About Me, so here goes. I rather doubt the video could be made in today's cultural climate, which makes it either more worth watching or a good reason to turn my metaphorical picture to the wall. (If your device doesn't play the video, please click here.)
Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.
Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
