Why Can't I Die?

People ask, with a dreadful diagnosis, and awful symptoms (I can see tumours in the mirror, for Pete's sake!)...why are you still here?

And I don't know. I'd ask my doctor, but I outlived him.

Maybe it's to help Barb with her life and with the dogs, maybe it's to write a few more sonnets... I just don't know, and sometimes I do wonder as to the point of it all.

It's gone on for far too long,

and I feel so alone,

and so far from being strong,

Lord, why can't I come home?

I have done that which You ask,

have tried to write and live in hope,

but I cannot fulfill this task,

and can no longer cope

with the blood and with the pain,

with what makes me weep at night;

why, oh, why must I remain

in this hopeless fight?

And God's answer never fails,

"Accept your Cross, and take the nails."

The real reason I'm staying, of course, is that I never went to a trade school that had surrender in the curriculum, and I see no point in learning it now.

Maybe you can decide to die, but I know that you can decide to live.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is TRUST.

Trust the Lord with all your might,

trust when it's all you can do.

Trust Him in the final fight,

and trust that He will carry you

across the blazing coals of hell,

across the raging storm-tossed seas,

'cross ruined lands you knew so well

where golden years were spent at ease.

Trust that there's a better place

that soon you'll see from His strong arms,

trust that there's a solid grace,

a wall between yourself and harms

that would leave you sore bereft;

trust with all the strength that's left!

Four minutes thirty. OK.

Music from Parsons Ghost, with Go Down Swinging.

Parsons Ghost's debut album is self-produced, and has real country roots; if you like them, support them through iTunes.

Sylvia suggests a simple reason for staying alive...ice cream!

Skydiving For Catholics

Just for a change of pace, here's an old Catholic joke, set to rhyme. (I'm Catholic, so I guess it's OK for me to tell?)

The canopy, it didn't open 

(and thus the rigger showed his worth),

and the jumper would be broken

upon that hard unyielding Earth.

"St. Francis, save me!" was his cry,

his face turned to onrushing land,

and in a twinkling he did lie

in a great and tender hand.

"Son, I must know you called on me

in truth; you see, I must be sure.

Did you call Frank of Assisi,

or Francis Xavier?"

And thus the moral here for you,

you'd best know who you're talking to.

Music from the Foo Fighters, with Learn To Fly.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is AWARE. I don't know...

I really thought I was aware

of life, and what I need,

and then I had an awful scare

when cows ate all my weed.

I'd put it out there in the sun

to get that crispy creme,

but then it all just came undone

and they came on the scene

and dipped their faces in the bowl,

and chewed, then showed pure bliss,

and in my heart it took a toll

that things came down to this,

that I knew not that the herd was nigh,

and now, alas, the steaks were high.

Four minutes, and hey, you were expecting Tennyson? And for the record, I don't use the stuff.

Sylvia knows who to talk to for ice cream, but while she's eating it, you can talk to the paw.

Hold On Tight

The author Steven Coonts once said that a young person should never whittle down dreams to fit into his or her hometown.

True for cancer, as well.

Dreams carry your heart into the future, and having given up on mine, I can now understand that its being a future you'll never see in this life is irrelevant.

The point is that when you keep the dream alive, you're already there.

When you let it die, the best part of you dies with it, and God weeps, for the killing of even an impossible hope is the biggest betrayal of His love.

Where, now, do I go from here,

when all's been left too late,

and circumstances make it clear

that my job's just to wait

for that fell knock on the door,

a cold hand on my shoulder;

I always thought there would be more.

I thought I might grow older.

I've fallen now to little things,

in hope of self-respect,

while shadows cover spreading wings

in dust of sad neglect,

and sometimes I wonder why

I have lost the will to try.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is GUESS. I guess I can do this.

Dude, I did not think I'd guess

so long ago, in glory days

that life would become a mess

and dreams would vanish in a haze

of pain and puke and things far worse

(humiliation in the dunny),

and that I must not choose to curse

the Lord my God, though it be funny

that I am felled from higher places

in which the learned looked up to me,

but in falling I've found graces

and a kind of victory

in smiling when most would blaspheme,

and, in smiling, live the dream.

Three minutes, and I'll stand by it 

Music from ELO, with Hold On Tight.

Sylvia is delighted to share her Ice Cream Dream.

 

Smartest Dumb, Or Dumbest Smart?

The whole cancer thing's gotten so laughably awful (stand up, get lightheaded, and fall over... REALLY?) that I thought I would throw a question out there.

Would you rather be a dumb smart person, or a smart dumb person?

 Some folks learn by being told,

some from books upon a shelf,

but I will say that I ain't sold

'till I try it for myself.

Now I won't claim to have a lock

on smarts or wit or common sense,

and that is why I got a shock

by peeing on electric fence.

The spark, it moved from wire to me

with bright flash and almighty CRACK!,

and I was felled just like a tree

to rest a bit upon my back,

and wafting up into the air

was smoke from, yeah, you do know where.

Music from Smash Mouth, with All Star.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is stir. Challenging.

Did the angels stir the waters,

or was perhaps the boiling pool

lure for simple sons and daughters

who in hope would play the fool,

pushing to the sad line's head,

giving elbow to a chin

from a heart that went quite dead

in the hope that it might win

a path from the black despair,

from the generation-curse,

breathing foul miasmic air

with no shekel in the purse

of the soul condemned to rue

faith in magic shown untrue?

Three minutes, and that's probably obvious. Less Shakespeare than Oh, Dear.

Sylvia always knew dogs were smarter than people. She didn't need more evidence.

 

Hijacked By A Fish

This post was originally supposed to be about the importance of a sense of purpose in one's life, but along the way it was waylaid by a punny fish.

The pain of cancer's really hard,

and time is like a tortoise,

so there's a pool in my backyard

for a senseless porpoise.

This is not what you might wish,

still less what you would ask,

but know, please, that this dotty fish

is well up for the task

of puncturing pomposity,

of soaking down the grave and grim

to banish faux-solemnity

with deluge from flapping fin

that leads into a back-flip path

which splash makes even Zealots laugh.

If you're interested in how these things get written, I came up with the first three quatrains in my head while taking care of the dogs. I figured that it would be easy to remember it, and so didn't write it down immediately.

Yeah, well...at that point I could only recall the first quatrain.

So I wrote the version shown below...and then recalled the original!

The pain of cancer's really hard,

and time is like a tortoise,

so there's a pool in my backyard

for a senseless porpoise.

He will soak the pompous

with joyful fins a-flapping,

infuriate the serious

(if they are caught napping)

with water from his blow-hole,

aimed with gleeful care

to wash the grim unsmiling soul

and let it breathe free air,

because there's not much we can do

but laugh, until this life is through.

Funny thing, though, this does kind of describe the Christian life, in which self-important solemnity is punctured (with, I think, a Holy glee) by rebirth in Christ, which restores the true and pure innocence of the soul, in which fun can take its deepest and most stable root. And the symbol early Christians used was...a fish!

Yeah, I know. A porpoise isn't a fish. Barb told me.

No accident, I think, that C. S. Lewis' autobiography is called 'Surprised By Joy'.

If you're with me so far, the Five Minute Friday prompt this week is DANGER. Oh, wow.

There's a danger upon waking,

there is danger when I sleep.

Jesus, do not be a stranger,

and please hold my soul to keep

if the ending comes in dream-time,

or it ends in sand outside;

either way I go in full prime

for the cancer just can't hide

a heart that jollies up the fear,

and guffaws at wracking pain,

letting loose of what's held dear

so that humour can remain,

and I'm gonna hit it big

in my Heaven stand-up gig.

Three minutes thirty. OK.

Music from Coldplay, with Life In Techicolour II.

Sylvia will investigate fishy happenings... after the ice cream. 

Uvalde's Mirror

And so the finger-pointing goes on.

Too many guns!

Not enough armed teachers!

Red flags ignored!

Slow response!

I won't debate any of the above, here, rhetorically, or in comments.

First, I'm not qualified, and second, like Melville's Bartleby, I would prefer not to.

I will say this, that no-one is talking about the root cause of the problem... alienation, and a carefully nurtured cult of individualism, and non-belonging, watered with angst and fertilized with anger.

Was it Benjamin Franklin who said that we've got to hang together, or we'll surely hang separately?

I think he would have found wry irony in our fashioning our own noose.

For further reading, I'd like to suggest Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone , which looks at the deterioration of the American social fabric through the lens of decreasing participation in bowling leagues. First published in book form in 2000, before the almost complete fracturing of community by the Internet, it's all the more relevant today.

Barb added her thoughts, that there is really very little disciplining of children in these years; a spanking is considered by the government to be tantamount to child abuse, and I have heard tell of kids going unpunished after physically assaulting teachers.

We've got troubles; it's up to us, and not our elected officials, to solve them.

Oh, right. The sonnet.

Our nation's fabric has been rent

way past social distance,

for we've gone where we always went,

the path of least resistance.

Once we had bowling and bridge,

a BBQ for all the block,

but now it's Netflix and the fridge;

front door's got a double lock.

We might wave to our neighbours,

but have we heard their heart's?

We claim to have a Saviour,

but still we keep apart

from His edict; we resist,

"Two or more, I'm in your midst."

The only music I can think of for this is Ed Ames' Who Will Answer?

Please give it a listen. It's really a song for our time, and he's got a lovely voice.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is HEAL.

You can't heal by making rules,

you can't heal in public speeches.

Better to be rum-soaked fools

lolling on Caribbean beaches.

You can't heal by written word,

or by heartfelt YouTube talk.

You can't heal with sharpened sword,

but only if you walk the walk

and use your life as an instruction

of danger we won't face, but see

of convenience as destruction

of what should be community,

so put aside the screen and start

a healing with in-person heart.

Sylvia approves this, and...she sez: "Be doggy, be part of a pack, but I'm NOT sharing my ice cream!"

 

Lord Of The Dance

Chose dancing clothes and party hat

with care, and wear them well,

for this might be the outfit that

you soiree in, in hell.

It's no sin to hold dismay

at this state of affairs,

but better far to be quite gay,

not putting on false airs,

but meeting monsters with a smile

and wave and friendly "Hi!",

while you're knowing all the while

that you will never die,

but rise from this, the worst of graves,

dancing with the One who saves.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is KNOW. Yeah.

This week has SUCKED. So please forgive the attitude, but I will go down fighting, red in teeth and claw.

Know this clearly, all who hear,

know this, and avert your eyes,

know that there's a time for fear,

and know ye that somebody dies.

Know that there is nothing gentle,

know that there are guns and knives,

know this is the fundamental

way we're fighting for our lives.

Know there will be no surrender,

know so long as I have breath

that I shall be pleased to render

hate unto a cancer'd death,

and when on Heaven's streets I tread,

even God will bow His head.

And here are The Dubliners, with Lord Of The Dance.

Can you dance while eating ice cream?