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Dearest, dearest friends, you have been so kind and good to me this past week. Well, really the whole of my life, but especially so in this past week. Thank you for the comments posted here and then also the kind emails and cards, flowers, excellent chicken soup, and even the Bobble Head Pope Leo XIV. I tell you that every moment this week have I felt like I was surrounded by the most loving people in the world.
At this point I do have some additional information that I’ve decided I would like to share with you. It turns out that there a couple different kinds of cancer that do occur in brain tumors and the one that is present in my tumor is not curable, and not even particularly treatable. The average person who is diagnosed with what I have lives for about 12-15 more months, and there is a chance my prognosis is not likely that good. Mind you, there is a chance that something unusual could happen and I would keep trucking along for longer than that. Just know, it would be unusual. If you would like to learn more about the actual kind of tumor I have and the kinds of things they try to do to elongate life, again let me share the Caring Bridge link my sibs have set up, but please do not at all feel like that is necessary unless you would like more specific information.
The plan at this point for me is to at least test out doing six weeks of daily radiation and chemo starting next Monday, Oct 27 and then, if that goes okay, stopping the radiation and just following up with six months of further chemo. I get to do almost all of this in the comfort of my very peaceful house in GA. I only have to (or depending on your perspective, get to) leave the house to get my blood drawn a couple times a week and visit the doctor’s office. The main reason here is that my immune system will pretty much be shot and I’ll be vulnerable to every germ under the sun, at least until the chemo is done.
I do not want to come off Pollyannish here. There is nothing about this situation that floats my boat. At the same time, I want you to know that I am not lying when I say that I do have a very strong sense that everything in my life has prepared me for this moment and that there are some very specific things that God is asking of me right now.
I have been a Catholic Christian for the whole of my life. I’ve received an excellent theological education (Go Aquinas Institute of Theology!) and rich spiritual formation (Go Jesuit parish life!) Most of all I’ve been a catechist in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd movement for 30 years, which I can say more about in weeks to come, but which I promise has given me nothing but consolation, joy, and a sense of purpose…. for decades, but most especially so right now. All of the above have readied me to focus in the season ahead on a few particular things I think God would like me to offer my own self for.
This coming week while I’m still feeling pretty much myself (I mean possibly a little weirder, but I’ve always been weird, I’m just losing the capacity to hide it!) there are a couple pragmatic things I need to give some serious time with others to in order to make sure some really cool projects going on right now don’t depend on me to keep thriving and expanding. After that, once I start treatment, I plan on writing and preaching some more on things that I think God is asking me to speak about for the sake of our country and church right now. I’ll start saying a little more about that in a week or so.
In the meantime, I want you to know that even if you don’t hear individually from me in the weeks and months ahead, I can totally feel your love. Mike and Micah and I had a good conversation yesterday about what might be helpful to us as a family. We want you to know that we really don’t need anything physical right now because we are okay. Truly. If you did want to send something, probably the most helpful is an Amazon gift card or Door Dash. We have to have a lot delivered to our house right now in terms of specific cleaning supplies just to keep things super sanitary and then I am going to be trying different dietary stuff based on how I respond to chemo. Already strong smells are a little tough on me with things like flowers or candles, even as much as I have loved the flowers and candles.
Prayer probably really is the most helpful right now and I want you to know I have the greatest of respect for your own spiritual tradition, even if it not the same as my family’s. Please pray for us in whatever way means a lot to you.
If you would like to join in with my own prayer practice, however, know that would really help me feel a sense of connection to you. My own practice is to embrace the short morning and evening prayer of the church found in Give Us This Day, and then I also try as able to reflect on the lectionary readings of the day that can be found in this devotional. Give Us This Day is a resource I've had the joy of writing for (as well as a lot of people I think of as better theologians than me.) If you were able to all pray just morning or evening prayer each day from this devotional, it would help me know we were all praying for God’s vision for our planet to be realized together and I’d find that so meaningful. If I were to be physically healed from brain cancer in this moment, that would be pretty dazzling, but truly what is most important to me is that God’s dream for human history comes about. I can be part of that on this side of life or the other. What I desperately need prayer for right now is that I am faithful to what God is asking of me in this moment in history, and what would bring me the greatest joy would be knowing that we are all praying for that history together. That’s really all.
Know simply that right now I am filled with gratitude for you.