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I’ve been meaning to post for several weeks now, but every time I begin to scripturiate (gosh, I am liking that new term!), the U.S. government does something that knocks the words out of me. It reminds me of the moment in childhood when I fell from the monkey bars at Queeny Park playground and had the wind knocked out of me. I was unable to breathe for a minute, which is a terrifying experience when you are six and don’t even know such a thing is possible. Turns out watching the news at fifty-six can have a similar effect.
I hope that the silence, however, did not worry you that something was wrong with me. The world may be in an even worse place than the last time I wrote, but I am not. I am doing just fine. The new anti-nausea medication I tested out after I last wrote was very helpful. It, too, kind of takes the wind from you in that it leaves you feeling extraordinarily tired, but tired is not necessarily a bad feeling nor a terrifying one. And now that I am two weeks out from finishing my February chemo round, my energy is coming back and I expect will continue to do so until I start this month’s chemo round on March 9th.
For me (and I realize this is not the case for everyone) the hardest part of moving through this season of life continues to be less about the physical and more about the emotional/spiritual dimensions of it. Which means I was deeply moved this past week to be given a poem written by the young British poet Harry Baker. In the video version, Baker speaks of his mother going through cancer treatment and how touched she was that her medical chart mentioned she was a distance runner as it was such a core part of her identity. Indeed, once her energy was back after each chemo round, but before it was snatched away again by the next one, she would run to her upcoming appointment. Here is the poem he wrote in her honor:
- “There is a mother in the middle of chemotherapy
- Sitting at the end of reason is a son
- But there is a treat at the beginning of each treatment
- In amongst the brunt of everything—a run.”
Now I am sure I don’t need to tell you this is a work of poetic genius. Geez, the mastery of the English language. Whoever saw “mother” in the middle of “chemotherapy” before? And then repeat that degree of perceptivity three more times in quick succession, but in such a way to describe the very heart of a long and complicated journey. How in the brunt of everything do I, do you still run? It is, of course, about life with cancer, but equally true of the myriad other ways we are suffering and still can choose to live right now.
Mind you, I’m not really a runner. More of a walker… maybe even a waddler. But at least in spirit, at least internally, how does one “run”?
This coming Wednesday, March 4, I was asked to offer a reflection on the Gospel of the day—Matthew 20:17-28—for both Give Us This Day and The WORD. This passage on Zebedee’s wife advocating for her sons to sit on Jesus’ right and left in the Kingdom of God is one that I’ve thought about a lot over the years. It has everything to do with some of my favorite topics to scripturiate about: the hunger for power; real leadership; the commitment to keep running rather than sitting—either at his right or his left. I know many of you also subscribe to GUTD and are praying it daily with me, so here I’ll just link my spoken reflections from thirteen years ago and then this week. Both continue to mean a lot to me.
Let us pray for our government leaders. That they will figure out what real leadership looks like and stop knocking the wind out of us each day. And let us pray that meanwhile we will be to the best of our ability the leaders the world longs for, and even in the midst of challenge, continue to run.
Photo Credit: Unsplash - Marcos Paulo Prado