Skating Through It

One of the hardest things about keeping one's chin up on the cancer road is the need to be not just active, but proactive about morale. It's so easy to fall into despair.

Especially now. My 'good hours' in the day are measured in minutes, and the rest of the time is spent trying to skate through the pain. I can't focus on a movie, and it's getting hard to read... just getting to the next moment, until fatigue overwhelms, is everything.

I'm not saying this to garner sympathy. It's simply true, and I have to work at planning ahead to use the hours I have in a productive manner.

It's no longer working upon aeroplanes, or even writing (there are novels that are finished, but I lack the energy to bring them to the light of day, and writing sonnets, always a challenge, is now very much an uphill climb).

So now it's custom gunstocks, made with hand tools, care, and, yes, love. Red oak (cheap!), laminated, and stained to taste with wine, then treated and polished with tung oil.

There is something almost mystical in listening to the wood, learning how it wants to be shaped. Grain is a language, and texture is poetry, far deeper than I can hope to write.

Or maybe it's all hokum, make-work for my End Of Days, but I don't think so.

Care about wood, you care about trees, and you care about Creation. And yes, I do see the irony of showing a love for Creation by working on weapons.

Works for me, and it had better. I'm running on empty.

 It can be tough when chips are down

to find a middle path ahead

between the moper and the clown,

the vivid and the dead.

You can fix eyes on the Hereafter,

but only for so long,

and then must find your love and laughter

in this life's ongoing song,

so take each given hour

and drink down every drop,

for when you're in the Looming Tower

time won't slow, nor stop

for you to find new ways of feeling

about the fate with which you're dealing.

The Looming Tower is a Qu'ranic reference (4:78); "Death will find you, even in the looming (or lofty) tower."

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is PRAYER. So...

I may still be living,

longing for the air up there,

taking what God's giving,

living on a prayer.

I am daily praying,

for strength and hope and healing,

but, well, this might be saying,

or even more, revealing

the things that give me animation,

that sparkle in my soul,

and though I offer protestation

I know it makes me whole,

this life to which I yearn and cling,

to see grace that the morning brings.

There, five minutes (and it shows), but I also worked in last week's prompt, MORNING, so there!

Music from Kool And The Gang, with 'Celebration', through this link.

Let's celebrate with Sylvia, and ice cream.

 

 

Victory By Night

Nights can be hard, but Satan can't win if we call for help. 

In this dark and blood-dimmed night

the devil comes to call,

and with ember'd finger writes

these words upon my wall,

"You are failure, you are fraud,

a loser fit to beat the band;

where, now, is your precious God,

to stop the running sand?

You write of faith but not of truth

that's in my sight fulfilled,

and your dying's living proof

that those who hope are killed..."

These words his last, for in the East

rises the Son, to slay the beast.

Appropriately, the Five Minute Friday prompt for this week is MORNING. Here goeth nothin...

Although I know it's evening

that I am moving toward,

I still can't help believing

that it's the Morning of the World.

Metastasis is in my leg,

makes me shuffle feet,

but for healing I won't beg

because my life's so sweet.

Breath comes hard, I won't deny,

but air is cool and clean,

and if it's what it means to die,

then death's not cold and mean,

but a warm breeze from an open door

scented by what was loved before.

Five minutes! SnOoPyDaNcE!

And..

Barb's reply to the first poem and inclusive of the Five minute word.

Devil you may speak of flesh

As much as you desire

But in the end eternity

Is in the Savior's realm

For He is more

Then the Morning Star

you once were

and Hell is built 

For the likes of your

Prideful Lust 

and followers thus.

Ladron the Chief Service Dog has developed a liking for classic Westerns, especially Tales Of The Wells Fargo, so here's a link to 'Wells Fargo Wagon' from The Music Man.

Dogs are smart; they always know when they need a hand, even if it's just to hold the ice cream.

 

Dying Day

Do you ever think about the day you'll die?

I tend not to, but with tumours growing hideously now, and the metastasis in my leg making me unsteady on my feet (and causing bad falls), I guess I have to think about it.

In my own way.

A day of scarlet thunder

tearing through the sky.

A day of awe and wonder,

the day I am to die.

Should I treat this with respect,

or take it as a joke?

I don't know what I might expect

so I'll pour a rum-and-coke

and then light up a big cigar,

dropping ashes on the floor,

and sit where the wild things are,

my eyes upon the door,

with my Tommy 'cross my knees

to ensure the Reaper does say 'please'.

I'm so grateful to all of you who visit and comment. You make this life worthwhile.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is STILL. Kind of appropriate.

Perhaps it may not be a crime

against God's Holy Will,

that with all my heart I wish my time

would just stop, and stand still.

Sometimes I hate the run of days

that hurt worse than before,

and while I know that I must praise

I see that open door

behind which I believe and know

that paradise awaits,

but I do not yet want to go

through those Pearly Gates,

for even now, with this much pain,

I love this life, and would remain.

OK, five minutes thirty seconds...on my phone. I'll take it!

Music via link from the Marshall Tucker Band, with 'Heard It In A Love Song'. Why not?

From Sylvia's point of view, love songs should be written about ice cream.

 

Scrambled Eggs

And so, two falls this week and two concussions. Please forgive me, I am not at my best, though Barbie says I am more softly spoken and co-operative. I will try to visit as many of your postings as I am able. Words are with difficulty coming, and so I again ask your pardon.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,

not a smart thing to do,

and Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,

and that good egg was through.

Myself, I had a fall last week,

then concussed a second time

which makes it painful now to seek

the words to build this rhyme,

but pain, I guess, is part of life

and part of ministry,

and though it cuts just like a knife,

the only tragedy

would be to serve that pain's dark ends

and turn away from you, my friends.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is TREASURE. I will need more than five minutes, but here goes.

Cancer's hard and hurts a lot,

and I can't call this pleasure,

but what God gave and what I've got

is a priceless kind of treasure,

the kind that makes you come awake

to see the sun rise every day

because you know tumours can take

you in death, so far away.

I know full value now, at last

of the small joys brought by life

and these will make my heart stand fast

through the dismal aching strife

because I know each blessing laid

on my heart's how Heaven's made.

 Sylvia's still enjoying that ice cream, and listening to The Killers, with 'Human'.

Are we human, or are we Dancer?

Don't know about you, but I know about ME.

 

Little Things Mean A Lot

 The world is kind of closing in. Can't get down to the workshop now; it hurts my leg too much to walk there.

And how can I have a metastasis in my femur, if I have to look up how to spell the word? That just seems WRONG, somehow, yeah?

But I'm short on breath, too. There are a couple of new chest tumours, visible through the ribs... I'm giving them names, now. These are Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo.

But I am doing what I can, some custom woodwork for Barbie. It's not a lot.

But I have to believe it's worthwhile, for the alternative is abject despair.

I think I've learned to be content

in the Dying Biz;

nothing is important,

or every small thing is.

If we're bound for endless void

what does it matter how we go?

But this thought leaves me quite annoyed,

for in my heart and soul I know

that we are placed here for a reason,

then destined for a better place,

and in this, our earthly season

should be a channel of God's grace

in every little thing we do,

for thus are world and we made new.

The Five Minute Friday prompt for this week is 'complete'. Here goes.

Complete does not describe my days

for there's so much I can't do,

but if I look ahead a ways,

I find complete is really true

in that I have done all I could,

and for the rest there is tomorrow,

or perhaps my word-choice should

be that I'll manage if I borrow

a bit of energy and strength

from the God that pulls the strings,

and I know that at this length

my hope is tied to lesser things

like walking and taking next breath

to put in off, again, my death.

And that's five minutes for a sonnet. On a smartphone. SnOoPyDaNnCe!

You might be expecting a link to the old standard, 'Little Things Mean A Lot' here, but I REALLY don't like that song, so here are the Stones, with 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' instead.

Does look like Sylvia got what she wanted, eh?

 

A Song For The Morning

Now, Barb is not a morning person. At. All.

So, recently I woke her with this song...and she smiled.

Wakey, wakey, Jesus Time,
Doo dah, Doo dah,

He will tell you, "You are mine!",

that's what He's gonna say.

He'll guard you all the night,

and walk with you all day.

  is your bestest friend

in each and every way.

One of the most miraculous things I have learned from cancer is this:

If you can't be happy with multiple malignancies, you just can't be happy, period.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is NEED, so here goes...

People say I need a healing,

that I don't deserve to die,

but I have a funny feeling

that no one's asking Why,

because it's an important question,

goes right back to Calvary,

and if I give Ol' God suggestion,

He might turn it back to me,

and say, "You want to be reborn?

A simulacrum of My Son?

If you're sincere, you will be torn,

and in this you'll have just begun

to know the price My dear Lamb paid

when on the rough Cross He was laid."

And that sonnet did take five minutes...on a phone.

 

The Rainbow At The End Of Time

You realize, ere the end, that good and bad in life are merely acts in a play, and that they have no weight, not measured against God's love.

We are truly His children, and the role you play in a game of Cops And Robbers gives Him naught but amusement.

 

In facing down the worst of days,

I know now that the honour’s mine

to greet the good and bad with praise,

the rainbow at the end of time.

Dreadful things? They did betide,

side by side with beauty bare,

and now I find no need to hide

from truth’s clean and bracing air

that sweeps around my hilltop place

to clear emotion’s clouds away

and show, at last, with smiling grace

that we’ve been actors in a play

that ends now as the curtain falls,

leaving only foot-light calls.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is 'care', so...

Oh, dear God, please have a care;

I'm asking this because

I feel as though I'm made of air,

and not the man I was

when you set me to this task

(time passed has been so long!).

All you had to do was ask,

and I thought I was strong.

But cancer's road to Calvary,

is rocky, and uphill,

and, dear Lord, it frightens me

that even with the firmest will

exhaustion now cannot be stayed,

and on my knees, I ask your aid.

OK, six minutes, but on a phone...give me a pass?

Still on the phone and can't directly post a video, but I can give you the YouTube link to the Alan Parsons Project's lovely 'Closer To Heaven'. I hope you'll listen, and enjoy.

And,  as always, a couple of pictures of Sylvia, my blog's public face, on an ice-cream run.