So this is my very first blog post. And... I really intended, when I finally joined the blogwagon, to write something incredibly witty charming and powerful...which would never have happened, but at least I intended that way. I have followed the blogs of some of my friends and favorite people and have been encouraged to follow suit by friends and family, but it never happened...until now...Thomas (http://www.thomasbickle.blogspot.com/) has inspired me...Thomas is an active adorable, rambunctious nearly two year old with amazing parents, Scott and Sarah Bickle, who this past week got the gut wrenching news that Thomas's cancer had returned. Yeah, I know... when you are two, the words "cancer showed up" should never have to be spoken, but " the cancer returned" is completely unacceptable. The tumor (ependymoma) was discovered when he was 6 months old, was removed, chemo and then radiation were administered over the next year. Things have been going well lately, until the news this week that a new small tumor had been discovered. There will be surgery early next week and then more chemo for the brave Mr. T. A couple of things come to mind...but mostly I'm just angry...This is not even remotely fair...and if I even hear one of you begin to breath those words "but life's not fair!", I'm gonna clock you with my harp...OK, I don't really have a harp and my Martin is too pretty and of sentimental value to waste even on sensible violence. Still remains...this is not fair...I'm not really mad at God...I am old so, eventually you learn that all of these things you have witnessed and experienced don't match up with a God of mercy and compassion and justice. Which means there is another explanation or God doesn't exist. Because I am old I have a whole lot of stuff in column A that won't let me blow off the notion of God. It just has convinced me that God is not consulting me on every disappointing thing that happens in my life, and we... as really irresponsible tenants in this amazing creation of his really don't deserve our deposits back. We, if fact, have set some scary shit in motion with our "we are rockstars and we can trash the Holiday Inn Express room if we want" attitudes about living in community and being responsible stewards of the planet we call home. And Thomas had absolutely nothing to do with that.
But Thomas still has cancer and I'm still crying tonight for him and Scott and Sarah...and I'm still praying because I still believe that they belong in column A.
Pling, Pling...(that's harp strings signing off...)
dg
Friday, July 27, 2007
Cancer bites...Thomas rules...
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4 comments:
Oh, Mr. David Gentiles. You and your heart. This blog is going to make me cry on a regular basis, I think. Here are some quotes from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I hope they help. If you haven't read Gilead, you desperately need to. The main character is a preacher like yourself.
"You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension." (p 7)
"There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?" (p 238)
"There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient." (p 243)
That last one is the most comforting to me. I just remind myself in the face of things like death that I'm not seeing the big picture, that mess of connections and effects like a huge invisible spiderweb.
We don't really know what life is, or what it's worth. Nobody knows that but God. But God KNOWS, you know? And He loves Thomas more than anyone could understand.
And God bless Thomas. I will keep him in my prayers.
daddy's got a blog! keep writing. (see, this is me throwing your advice back at ya...)
Davy
I love that you are putting your heart into words. I'd lost rack of Thomas and am deeply saddened to hear the news. I will pray for Mr. T.
Peace,
Milton
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