Happy New Year - may you dwell in possibility

I am past the maudlin sentimentality of nostalgia that I must traverse each New Year's eve season, and ready to look forward to 2011. Listen, it is a good thing to think like this......the New Year is full of possibility. It's like a new page to turn in an interesting book that is your life. And this book is FULL of rich ideas, adventures, poems and vistas. I have but one New Year's resolution, but it is a challenge. I desire to write a "Rule of Life"... (actually, it is a requirement if I am to get through the "novitiate" stage to become a Benedictine Oblate). And, what, you might ask, is a "rule of life?" Well, St. Benedict wrote The Rule of St. Benedict in the 6th century, which was essentially a "how to" manual regarding the business of being a Monk. So, the Blum Rule of Life will be written as a personal guideline for how I desire to live out my day(s). It shall provide a personal framework for stability, intentionality and purpose. I hope to include poems (of others), wisdom (of others) and my own ideas put together in some orderly manner. It will be meaningful to me to get this done. I spend entirely too much of my days drifting with the prevailing current... I am very much drawn to Benedictine spirituality, and I formally complete my "novitiate" status this year and take my "final oblation" in November, God willing.

Anyway, back to dwelling in possibility... I mentioned a few entries back that I have a ritual every Christmas Eve...it is a late night silent time outdoors alone under whatever weather conditions we are receiving. I sit and wait... and listen for the still small voice of God. I have never failed to sense His presence and a hearing from Him. Usually around the time my hands and feet are becoming numb. So here is how I generally hear from God: (you are free to think me delusional). If you saw the movie "A beautiful mind" there were scenes where numbers and messages "lit-up" in the brain of John Nash. It was nicely portrayed with visual screen effects. Well, something similar happens to me when I am sitting out there freezing, (and, occasionally, at other times). Except what lights up in my head is a verse of scripture and/or a "message" of sorts. And, it is not a verse that I necessarily know from memorization, but I suspect we file away far more than we realize, and somehow, in the process, a file is activated in my head and "lights up". For real.

Here is the verse that "lit up" this year in my head.

"Forgetting that which lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on to claim the prize for which I was called heavenward in Christ Jesus." Those are the words...I believe they are fairly close to the wording of a verse in Phillipians. Hence, I fully believe there is a profound message for me to be found in these words which I have been meditating on this past week.

OK...so here is a poem by Emily Dickenson... she just about nails it.



I dwell in Possibility

I dwell in Possibilty -
A fairer House than Prose -
More numerous of Windows -
Superior - for Doors -

Of Chambers as the Cedars -
Impregnable of Eye -
And for an Everlasting Roof -
The Gambrels of the Sky -

Of Visitors - the fairest -
For Occupation - This -
The spreading wide of narrow Hands -
To gather Paradise -

New Year's makes us nostalgic

Why is that...is it the whole Auld Lang Syne business? Why not look forward? Well, it's an inescapable fact that we must get through that sticky nostalgia and move on. I am quite looking forward to another better year...2010 certainly beat 2009 for me, but I have yet a ways to go to get all that pre-cancer vim and vigor back... I plan on achieving some of that before age catches up with me and slows me down yet again...hey...I did 20 minutes on the elliptical this morning and lifted weights yesterday. That's more exercise than I consciously and intentionally did in all of 1969!

So if we must be nostalgic...speaking of 1969...the kid playing the drum solo about three minutes into this video is 20 years old...and of course, Carlos and the whole band...amazing! I was 18 years old at the time Santana played this in '69...and feeling every note of this song in wondrous awe. (When the movie and album appeared shortly after the concert...it felt like we were all there, even though we missed it live...everyone was either playing air guitar along with Carlos or banging on the table or desk! Everyone!) Imagine... 40 years have gone by. Impossible...but then...when I listen in the right frame of mind...I am right back there still feeling it all!

So, let's drink a cup of kindness...and be thankful for everything that was, is, and is yet to come!

yea, Lord we greet thee...

... born this happy morning
Jesus, to thee be glory given;
Word of the Father,
now in flesh appearing!

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness - on them light has shined.
Isaiah 9:2

Oh, Lord, how mysterious that all sorrow, longing, sadness, regret, doubt, fear and darkness... suddenly swallowed up by your great Light! And somehow...In your great Light we have light... and life!

emmanuel

Christmas eve...there are some feelings of longing that are hard to capture or explain, but Christmas eve brings them out. Every year...I go outside at the very end of whatever the evening holds; the night is usually bitterly cold and quiet...and I sit alone with God for awhile. It does something for my soul. I am not sure what, but it is something quiet and special. If there is one song that captures the mood of it, it is this song. (I can't find anyone who sings it better than Enya) We rejoice, yet we also wait awhile in lonely exile... how many of us celebrate this holiday with a sense of joy, wonder and awe, yet intermingled with it there is a faint (or not so faint) sad longing for something...something we are not entirely sure we have ever experienced...we long for a home the likes of which are beyond our grasp ...if we are quiet enough, just for a little while, we can sit with longing and share it with Jesus, who also knew that longing while he was here with us... I think He did...a whisper of an emotion... or is it just me?

Nonetheless...I wish you warm Christmas blessings of the deepest sort...and may your soul know the kindling heat of God's awesome presence!

advent

Ahhh...the waiting...today (Tuesday) I had my check with the ENT after having some throat pain for several weeks.

There was an incredible lesson for me to learn this morning. As I was driving to Omaha, the sun was coming up (my appointment was at 8AM). As I drove on the interstate, I looked to the left and I saw a beautiful large full moon...I looked to my right and I saw a beautiful sunrise. SIMULTANEOULSLY! It was truly breathtaking. It was one of those...wow...kinds of experiences. But here's the lesson...and I knew exactly what was happening as it was happening. I missed the WOW of the moment I was living because I was ruminating about the exam results and what would happen if the news was bad. Sure, that's understandable. But, for crying out loud, how many times do we get to enjoy the sunrise and a beautiful full moon simultaneously on a wide open plain. OK...I know the end of the story... I'll die...and I'll dwell with God forever. I suppose the least I could do is appreciate, enjoy and be grateful about this breath of time between now and then (the waiting?) to it's fullest.

LESSON FOR STEVEN: Everything. is. as. it. should. be.... all. shall. be. well. and. all. shall. be. well. and. all. manner. of. things. shall. be. well. DO I GET IT, YET? I think it's sinking in!

Everything checked out OK and the pain was likely due to swelling in a salivary gland that doesn't function as it should anymore after being decimated by radiation. Not anything to worry about...and they see no need for me to return for four months. I thank God.

Advent is taking on new significance to me... we are all waiting, sometimes we wait well, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we trust God, sometimes we take matters into our own hands. But no one escapes. Now, for the next few days, I can be in the moment... resting in this Advent season of anticipation. The silent still moment that unfolds before an extraordinary event. It is where we live our lives... and here is a beautiful quote...


“In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. . . You are aware of the beating of your heart…

The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.”

Frederick Buechner

brief interlude - a poem

Here is a wonderful poem I stumbled on today. I had to read it a few times. It is airy and optimistic, yet acknowledges the hard edges. Hah! What am I even talking about? I'm no critic, thank goodness! I just like the feel of it.

And when you thought

it was long gone, here it is,
up your sleeve, in your pocket,
tucked under a sleeping cat.
You pull it out, let it fall,
drape it over both arms,
admire it's improbability
a thin-air hammock, woven in light,
to be flung up
between
a cold house and a home,
harsh words and a smile.
Lie in it. It will hold you.


Marilyn Ricci

open your eyes and move (part 1)

This is true: I went through a phase while I was in college where I would "wake up" from sleep in my mind, but I was unable to open my eyes or move. I felt completely paralyzed... it was quite frightening. It probably happened about 20 times. It would last from 5-20 seconds and it would end with me violently shaking myself awake. At the time, coincidently, I was reading a book about some strange Eastern meditation practices in which yogis were able to go to sleep while staying conscious and alert mentally... When I would go to bed at night, I was trying to replicate their experience, but I was unsuccessful...I would either stay awake, or fall asleep, but I couln't do both simultaneously. But occasionally in the morning, it would happen... the only problem was, the feeling of paralysis scared the hell out of me. Oddly, I didn't tell anyone, not even my roommate, what was happening to me. I attributed the cause to one of two possibilities:

1. The meditation technique was in some frightening way operating in reverse in my brain.

2. My use of hallucinogenic drugs was messing my brain up.

Regardless...the experience of being awake (and I was fully awake, not just dreaming I wss awake) and yet feeling my body still "asleep" was quite disconcerting...I couldn't move a muscle or "wake-up" physically.

So I stopped the meditation stuff...of course... but wasn't so motivated to stop #2 possible cause on the list... Anyway, the experiences kept happening for awhile, and then, mercifully, it stopped happening.

A few years ago, I read about a mild disorder that sometimes occurs in young adulthood which produces this symptom. It is one of those things that people outgrow and is not particularly harmful... There is no treatment and no real harm done.

I had almost forgotten about the experience completely until I read that article and realized I was totally wrong in attributing the cause of this weird occurence.

Here is why I am writing this now.

In many ways, and through numerous experiences, I feel I have "woke up" in my life. I have gained insights and wisdom. I have studied and read. I have prayed and meditated and contemplated. I believe I've connected with God.

Yet, in many ways, I am still...asleep. In my mind, I am alert, but I still act as though I'm asleep. Here is a meaningful saying...

The important thing is that when you come to understand something, you act on it, no matter how small the act is. Eventually, it will take you where you need to go.

Helen Prejean


I've just wasted the better part of my lunch break, and I have a client in three minutes, so this entry is going to have to be a two part entry... but for now...I ask myself...isn't that a meaningful quote and relevent to the thought I am having today?

...to be continued

welcome advent into our deepest void

The title of this post is the title of a blog post I read today...and I think I'll copy and paste the post here, because I was moved by it. I read things that I really like and I lose them...but if I put them here (on this blog) they will be easy for me to find. Read it if you care to, skip it if you'd rather; even the title of the post alone is rather profound to me, and worthy of some contemplation!

WELCOME ADVENT INTO OUR DEEPEST VOID.


Thursday, December 2, 2010, 4:16 AM
Elizabeth Scalia


I shed tears of gratitude and joy that you have come round again, O Advent, to shake us from our torpor as early night comes, and the match is struck, and the message is brought home once more; that we are forever in the absence of light; it is beyond us and exterior until we make it welcome and bring it, like a lover, within.
Welcome into our deepest void; welcome into the parts of us touched by human frost, and stunted.
Welcome, O Light, beaming glorious, into remotest apertures of our souls, rays aglow, warmth permeating where we have left old fires unattended and embers to wane, and our abysses to grow chill, and uninhabitable. Welcome light; dispelling illusion, and chasing old ghosts to rest.
Now, the promise is renewed; the story begins again. The beginning; quiescence, empty and void. Then movement; an annunciation; a Word – one boundless, vibrant “yes” that shakes creation; “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior!” Soon their will be dreams, and silent wondering, and a gathering, and a starry night rent with song. The Word Present penetrates lonely, lost humanity, and enters into the pain and fear, the tumult and whirlwind; He and sets His tent with us not merely dwelling among, but literally with us; with hunger, with the capacity for injury and doubt -with enough vulnerability to be broken- and within this espousal, everything is illuminated!
I pray with an earnest heart that I might keep Advent at the fore, and the World of Illusions and Easy Forgettings somewhere at bay, where I can not so easily reference it, or be so quickly distracted.
Will I be newsless? No. But I will be news, less, Advent/Liturgy, more.
Each day you and I will be in Advent -the time of coming, that which anticipates all the rest- so that (and this is my heartfelt prayer) when December 25 comes, we will not be sick of it, and the Darkness will not feel glee at our diluted light; instead we will have only just begun to hear strains of ancient song, coming closer in ever-stronger waves. Like a quickening pulse grown stable, and signaling life where it was thought lost. Our longing will only just have become satisfied, and our journey only just begun.
I have a friend whose mother, after a stroke, had very limited speech. If she wanted to wish you well, or express happiness for you, she would say “Merry Christmas!” It meant everything good, everything full of love.
This first week in Advent, let us move forward in humble adventuring, seeking out the divine “Yes” spoken from heaven and the faith-filled “yes” whispered on earth. Let us strike a match and cover our faces in prayer, that the lifting up of our hands be as an evening sacrifice, acceptable. Let us eat figs and drink wine, and work faithfully at our labor, and sweep and sing and slumber, until we gather with shepherds and kings, to meet, and to worship, and to tell what we have found.
Then, if we have only “Merry Christmas” to say for the rest of our lives, all around will understand how packed with meaning is the phrase.

the art of disappearing

I am relishing this four day weekend as if I've never had one. I ate Thanksgiving dinner with the goal of eating so much that I would feel sick, and by golly, I met my goal. I raked leaves today and raked and raked and it was good for my soul. I am in tight with the trees in my yard; they watched as I cleaned up their mess. They did their job, I did mine. It is very important to be near trees. They ground us, they provide stability when life is swirling; they are nourishing just by being there. I sat outside while the sun went down. I did NOT go into any stores. I watched football, and it was most satisfying to see Nebraska beat Colorado for the last time before joining the Big 10 next year.

Here is a poem about being intentional about what we do with our time and who we spend it with. I like Naomi Shihab Nye; I really mean it. Here she is reading. You can see kindness in her eyes and hear it in her voice (yes, she wrote the poem, Kindness, that I am so fond of.)

I am not completely healthy, and I am not completely free of anxiety about the future, but today I am doing a relatively good job about living in the moment. Sometimes it's just all good enough!

Thanksgiving

Though our mouths were full of song as the sea,
and our tongues of exultation as the multitude of its waves,
and our lips of praise as the wide-extended firmament;
though our eyes shone with light like the sun and the moon,
and our hands were spread forth like the eagles of heaven,
and our feet were swift as hinds,
we should still be unable to thank thee and bless thy name,
O Lord our God and God of our fathers,
for one thousandth or one ten thousandth part of the bounties which thou has bestowed upon our fathers and upon us.

----the Hebrew Prayer Book


Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus

----1 Thessalonians 5:22

Listen, there aren't words to express how thankful I am...I will eat a real Thanksgiving meal, I will feel well, I will rejoice in God my Saviour ... I remember where I was a year ago and I am overwhelmed with gratitude and joy. Thanksgiving day...every moment...I overflow with thanksgiving. Can you imagine?

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

November 24

Turkeys
resting in refrigerators
thawing toward Thursday.
---Steve

let the holidays begin- random act of culture

On Saturday, October 30, 2010, the Opera Company of Philadelphia brought together over 650 choristers from 28 participating organizations to perform one of the Knight Foundation's "Random Acts of Culture" at Macy's in Center City Philadelphia. Accompanied by the Wanamaker Organ - the world's largest pipe organ - the OCP Chorus and throngs of singers from the community infiltrated the store as shoppers, and burst into a pop-up rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's "Messiah" at 12 noon, to the delight of surprised shoppers. This event is one of 1,000 "Random Acts of Culture" to be funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation over the next three years.

courage

Throughout the past year and a half, few concepts have provoked more thought in me than the concept of courage. My mother-in-law, who is showing some good improvement (she has regained her speech and use of both arms and legs after a small stroke like event, and some seizures), is on the oncology ward at a local hospital. I was nervous about setting foot on the oncology ward...too many reminders there for me. On my first visit, the gentleman in the next room was noisily vomitting again and again for about an hour. It was quite distressing...not just feeling badly for him, but re-living my experience with simultaneously undergoing chemo, radiation, and stomach infection from the implanted feeding tube last August. Oh, but I felt awful. I was thinking about courage back then, and lamenting my absence of that noble trait. Then, over time, I reconsidered. Courage was not, I concluded, an absence of fear...rather, courage was more perservering through one's trials in the face of fear. Perhaps I gained a little courage along the way this past year. But being on the oncology ward this past week frightened me. Just seeing the sign "oncology center" while waiting for the elevator up to the fifth floor frightened me. Seeing elderly patients, hooked up to IV's, barely conscious, frail and fragie...I couldn't detach like I have in the past. The thought that I "know" what could await me...more cancer, aging, alzheimers... (my father's demise)...perhaps all three simultaneously... is different from the abstract concepts these things once where. Perhaps alzheimers is still abstract, but I had some pretty strong glimpses of disorientation and confusion when I was liberally self-medicating with narcotics, sleeping pills, anti-nausea meds, and a handful of other assorted pills, along with sleep deprivation and dehydration during the worst of my days last year. I was dazed and confused!

Anyway, back to the idea of courage... visiting my mother-in-law on the oncology ward made me feel envious of those who perish due to a sudden coronary event, fatal gunshot, plane crash,etc. It takes such courage to die well while dying slowly. To endure with acceptance and patience the slow decline. Amazing courage. When the time comes, I want to go quickly, and I see in this, again, the absence of courage. When the time comes for me to take that final ride, I pray it will be on a super-speed bullet train. Yet, truth be told, I also have learned a little to trust God to get me home even if it must be on the local commuter train that stops to let passengers on and off every mile or two. To die slowly in discomfort, then, must make the final arrival ever so overwhelmingly joyful.

Another thing. I saw nurses and nurses aids last week who were so comforting and careful with patients...gentle smiles and soft voices while helping clean up messes with reassurance and compassion. How much do they pay these nurses aids? Not enough, not enough. I felt so much appreciation for what I saw them do. They have courage and compassion in doing their job so well. Day after day, month after month. I tell you, I fought back tears. It brings to mind the hug I got from Ethel, the woman who opened the door at Methodist hospital and arranged valet parking for those too ill to walk from the parking lot. Every day, as I got sicker and sicker during my treatment, Ethel greeted me with warmth and compassion. Now, when I return for three month check-ups to the oncology center in Omaha, Ethel still greets me like I was her only son returning from the battlefield! She practically suffocates me with her hug.

so...here is a poem by Marianne Moore...I posted it last year, but it is worthy of another post. It's a little more complicated than the usual poems I post, but I like it. The idea of a captive bird, steeling itself up and singing with all its might, in the face of its captivity... that's what I want to think about doing in the face of a slow dying. Courage.

What Are Years?

What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt, -
dumbly calling, deafly listening-that
in misfortune, even death,
encourage others
and in it's defeat, stirs

the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
in its surrendering
finds its continuing.

So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.


Marianne Moore

On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate Psalm 145

I am having one of those overwhelming moments of gratitude. This morning, since there was snow on the ground (just an inch), I decided to forego the ol' morning walk, and head down to the basement where a hardly used, but fancy, elliptical exercise machine keeps watch like a guard at Buckingham Palace (i.e. motionless) in a hardly used exercise room. BC (before cancer) I could get on that machine for 20 minutes at a good brisk pace without much difficulty. I tried it once a few weeks post treatment last November, and after 5 minutes in very slow motion, I was wiped out and ill for the rest of the day. So...after a year of walking, I decided to get back on. And...to my delight, I did 20 minutes, got my heart beat up, worked up a sweat, AND FELT GREAT. Not only that, but I think I am at a weight I wouldn't mind staying at for the next few decades, God willing. Twenty pounds lighter than my BC weight, but perhaps, a perfect weight for my height. Room to put on 5 or so pounds at Holidays, and room to not worry about calories. I am quite pleased, and feel so dang healthy again. It's that feeling of timelessness...that youthful vitality that makes chronological age seem so irrelevent...yes I know I am not 25, but I feel 25 after working out, which, come to think of it, was something I rarely did when I was really 25. So now I'm thinking I want to get that up to 30-40 minutes on the elliptical by spring, and dust off the weight bench and pump a little iron as well. I have fully accepted that I am not going to play 2nd base for the NY Mets; in fact, I don't even think I'll try out for the Cubs... you know, even a reasonably successful Minor League career does not appear to be in the cards. Further, it is highly unlikely that I will learn to play guitar and be the opening act for the Bob Dylan tour. But, having seen Bob Dylan a few years ago...I'm not sure I want to open for him at this point...he's not the Dylan I used to love. So...I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing...and practicing gratitude for the good strong days as they come.

Yes I am feeling strong and healthy, yet, there has been given to me a lifetime constant reminder, in the form of a continuously dry throat, a voice that wears down as the day goes on, and some altered taste buds, and the haunting echo still ringing in my ear of the ENT's voice as he pronounced "Stage four cancer"...these shall serve me well...to keep me humble, and appreciative of how far the Lord has brought me in a year...and how every day left is a gift that I have been mercifully given.


Tomorrow, I formally go through a ceremony to begin my year as a Benedictine Oblate Novitiate. And one other thing I must mention. Please pray for my mother-in-law, Barb, who is hospitalized with cancer that has spread to her bone marrow and has had something like a stroke this week, and is unable to speak...and please pray for my wife Kathy, who has attended to enough sick and, yes, dying family members this past year to last a lifetime. In the midst of my gratitude, there is also the real presence of painful sorrow and grief to attend to.

Here's a segment from a great poem by Mary Oliver (they're all great!).

On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate (Psalm 145)
Mary Oliver

Every morning I want to kneel down on the golden
cloth of the sand and say
some kind of musical thanks for
the world that is happening again—another day—
from the shawl of wind coming out of the
west to the firm green

flesh of the melon lately sliced open and
eaten, its chill and ample body
flavored with mercy. I want
to be worthy of—what? Glory? Yes, unimaginable glory.
O Lord of melons, of mercy, though I am
not ready, nor worthy, I am climbing toward you.

"retelling" of our pain

I am pondering a few things here. What happens to all the pain we endure in the course of a life? Who can carry such heartache and sorrow. Not I. Recently I've been thinking back on where I was last fall. The "thinking back" is nowhere near as powerful as the experience I lived. I know, because I chronicled it via the "Deeper than Cancer" blog, and I have recently been re-reading day by day my October and November of a year ago. When I re-read those posts from last fall I am stunned. Though it refreshes my memory, it also seems as if that journey was another person's in another life. I can read it, and remember it; at the same time, I can no longer hold the emotional component of it. I distance myself... It was simply too much. Even the intensity of my connection/disconection wrestling match with God...too much for me right now to grasp. If you had a painful childhood, maybe you know what I mean. On one level you remember, but on another level...it is a bad dream and not a reality you lived.

Ah, but there was also healing in that blog, for me, and there was love and gratitude. So, yes, I guess we don't have to carry all that pain. There is healing of our physical and emotional wounds. Yet, isn't there always something that lingers... something that triggers those old feelings when we see the house we grew up in... when we clean out the closet and find that old reminder of our past? And when I read those posts, which for some reason I feel compelled to do, it is akin to seeing a house I grew up in... it is still very unsettling to me. I was writing out my experience in such an unedited and raw way, that it is an almost hyper-real reminder of pain and despair that remains... available online and continuously "present" and looking squarely at me...possibly for the rest of my days...(what happens to inactive blogs...do they stay online forever and ever?). And I think I will never be free of the need to go back and re-read it and remember... do we all need to re-live and re-examine our pain so much or is it just me? I suppose it is the curse of introspection.

So, here is an interesting poem...at least the first part of the poem speaks to me about what I am experiencing.

Naming the stars
Joyce Sutphen

This present tragedy will eventually
turn into myth, and in the mist
of that later telling the bell tolling
now will be a symbol, or, at least,
a sign of something long since lost.

This will be another one of those
loose changes, the rearrangement of
hearts, just parts of old lives
patched together, gathered into
a dim constellation, small consolation.

Look, we will say, you can almost see
the outline there: her fingertips
touching his, the faint fusion
of two bodies breaking into light.

the gift of an hour

Being grateful for small things...how about getting an extra hour to spend or save. I was blog-surfing (is there such a phrase?) just now. When you look at most blogs...you see a link on the bar at the top that says "next blog." It seems that about 50% of the time when I click on that tab I get a blog with some collection of photos, about 30% of the time I get a blog that is not written in English, and about 30% of the time I get a blog that appears to be a family chronicle with pictures of happy kids and family outings...invariably the blog is written by the Mom. (Where are all those families on picnics?). OK...some of you readers are now saying...ha! that adds up to 110%, this guy can't even pick 3 numbers to add up to 100. Why am I wasting my time here...I'll just hit "next blog" and move on. Well, big deal, big deal... I did it on purpose; life and time are never so precise... Anyway, every once in awhile you get a treasure...an interesting blog or a wacky blog or a blog about visits to cemeteries all over eastern Europe, etc. (and now, you are thinking...this guy can't even spell "cemetaries"... well, again, if it's that big an issue, move on...

While we are talking about other blogs...I also notice that many blogs, with nothing more than family trivia, i.e. writing about going to the post office or grocery store or burning the lasagna and having to eat hamburger helper instead... have 286 followers...not that I am complaining nor comparing...but, come on... I have six followers, and I think one or two of them are "spam" that hack on to every blog ...I am going to submit this blog for the title of "least followed blog" and see if I can win something. I am trying to get my cat to sign up as a follower, but he's off in the corner pawing "next blog" on his laptop. (Truthfully, though, I am always touched by the "comments" that appear, and I know that you, too, are reading this, even as I lament about it...so...heck...I am even grateful for the two spam followers).

So, while blog surfing, I found this poem...I think the person writing the blog wrote the poem, and I like it. I like the poem, and I like the idea of it, and I'll think about it this Sunday morning at 2AM (in my dreams).

Fall Back

It’s returned, that hour lost last April,
slipped in at 2am while a half-moon gleamed
in the pine. Hovered while I slept,
unclaimed angel, tick-tock.
But I don’t desire to use it yet —
I want to be selfish, I want to hoard.
I want to tear it into ten-minute bits,
fold one into my wallet for the late appointment,
one in the vegetable bin when lolla rosa
need last until supper. Under my pillow
to extend the dream, in the oven to slow
Quick Yellow Cake. I’ll give one to my son
to get out of jail free. And one
I’ll bury in the garden in eternal plastic,
mark an X with apples. Maybe
I’ll forget it’s there. And just maybe,
in the next century someone will unearth
a ten-minute treasure, spend it lavishly.

copyright 2010 T. Clear

Be kind

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."  Plato

 I've been thinking about how powerful human kindness can be.


Being kind, seeing the frailty and need in another human being and responding from the heart... is always such a beautiful transaction.

Just be kind.  

It is a most noble pursuit... Can you imagine how blessed I am to be able to make a living sharing kindness and encouragement in the face of the struggles and pain of others; I am given so many opportunities to respond with kindness. I sit in my office and they come... and I am always richer (I don't mean financially, don't be such a skeptic!)... richer for my meager efforts to meet my clients with kindness.

No big profound thoughts; I was just thinking about this on my morning walk...

He has told you, O man, what is good:
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
  
Kindness.

sometimes when the night is dying

wow...that sounds heavy...but it doesn't have to be that way...

One of the many joys of this time of year is being able to go for a morning walk while it is still dark out without having to get up too early.  Walking while the sun comes up on a brisk autumn day....ahh.... Soon, turning the clocks back makes that more difficult, as does the colder weather.  But, I have enjoyed a few good autumn morning walks...I try these days to revel in these little joys.

There is something of beauty and mystery to capture all the time... sometimes when the night is dying...the morning is being born.   Yes?   The leaves, the leaves.   How many memories I can associate with falling leaves...burning them on the street ( a bygone era), diving into huge piles of them, watching my dog run through them, raking for hours and hours, usung tarps, leaf catchers, armloads, fighting losing battles with gusts of wind.

OK, music lovers... what song does this line come from?  Don't cheat...

"Sometimes when the night is dying, I take me out and I wander around..."

one year check... closer to fine!

Yesterday, another milestone. My one year post-cancer treatment exam with my ENT and oncologist.  In both cases, I got a thumbs-up!  No sign of cancer.   They did a chest X-Ray...the assistant said that cancer can often pop up in the lungs (metasticize is the better word) after disappearing from the primary site....well, I am glad I didn't have that awareness going into yesterday as it would have been one more thing to stress about.     Sometimes, knowledge=anxiety.   I know that formula...unfortunately, I have googled Michael Douglas and have found some doctors that are quoted as saying that "his type of cancer" (i.e. my type of cancer!)   has a much lower survival rate than the percentages quoted in the media. (Crap, I hate those guys! I'd rather leave this in God's hands.)  Anyway...Chest X-Ray...thumbs up! 

The blood test came back good as well... well, OK...not perfect...my thyroid is a bit "underperforming"  not an unusual side effect of chemo and radiation. After all this education and psychology expertise,  I still discover I have some performance issues.  So, today I start on a little pill to help in that regard.  It's not necessarily forever, just rather for the rest of my life. Big deal, big deal.   Good insurance.  Maybe I'll get an energy boost as well!  

One more stat...my weight...I've put back about 10 pounds of the 30 I lost a year ago going through treatment.   I am happy to stay right there...I weigh what I weighed when I was 29, and I am about to turn 59.  I'll stay there happily, or, if I gain another 10 pounds, I'll weigh 150 and be happy there as well.  I no longer feel or look "guant."  I can walk miles and miles, and I often do.  All things considered, I am so healthy relative to where I was a year ago, that I can almost forget how close to death I actually was.  Stage four throat cancer is no place to be.

So...my mood is lifted by the good reports.  But there are still the occasional visits to the desert...to the place of incredible and total aloneness that became so vast during my treatment that I had times I thought I was literally drowning in my physical and emotional pain.    And, paradoxically, I am drawn back there.  Not to the darkness, but to the light that is present in that solitude. I have this awareness that the answer for me waits there...and I am closer to finding it. I know, I know the "answer"...I am just seeking a deeper union with Him, I guess. And for me, it is in that place of solitude that I encounter God.  That is the place where all the distractions melt away.  That may be the place He calls me to.  

So...I am not giddy, but I am "closer to fine."
Hey, I just can't help loving this song.  I can listen to it 100 times and not get tired of it.  Sure, I don't exactly agree with all the conclusions, but oh, how I love this song...a gem!       How is this possible?  It is just too good.  (How bout these lines... "I wrapped my fear around me like a blanket; I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it."  I know, I know, it's so good! )

birthday adventure #3 - a walk around the lake

"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake."
 ----------Wallace Stevens

Note to self: ...Stop  giving yourself such pressure over these birthdays...  Just because I am not jumping out of airplanes or hopping freight trains doesn't mean it's not an adventure.  It's supposed to be fun, not pressure!

Yesterday, I had a small adventure...to celebrate (monthly) birthday #3 of 12 for me. (next month is my "real"  birthday).

First, and most important...I took the day off.   Second, I spent the better part of the morning reading something for enjoyment.  Third, I took a friend to lunch.  Fourth, I took a leisurely hour stroll by myself around a lake on a nearly perfect afternoon.  AND...I had a great insight while on my walk... I mean,  a hugely important insight. It had to do with a very powerful dream I had one night in 2005 and still remember vividly.   And then, in the evening, I met with my meditation group for a pleasant hour of meditation and conversation.

The weather is glorious...enough to quote Joni Mitchell...   "...the sun poured in like butterscotch, and stuck to all my senses."   Nice.

happiness done right

There are two striking ideas in this poem which stand out to me. First...   "Loss is the great lesson." Perhaps... it would make more sense to say... "loss is a great teacher."  OK...so that is true, and  I have learned so much this past year about that and have so much more yet to learn. But I have also written so much about that...I don't feel like belaboring the point right now.

There is another teacher... the One who fills us with Light. I tell you, there are lessons everywhere when we humble ourselves and pay attention.

The thing I love about this poem is the verse  "Light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness..."  Yes, what a concept.  I try to remember that the fruit of the Spirit includes "joy" and that when our hearts are at peace there is such joy to be found in the daily experiences of life.  The really small minutia that is all over the place...allowing myself to be touched by the way a friend got so animated when talking to me the other day that a finger was being pointed in my face...I loved it...the way my cat, when really enjoying being pet, puts his face against mine and pushes against me... the incredible way it feels to be out for an early morning walk this time of year, the taste of pie and coffee, the urge and the act of generosity and kindness, the satisfaction of completing a task, the moment of tender compassion.  It is a type of holiness...  far different from the selfish and self-centered pleasure seeking that puts me at the center of the universe...it involve being awake and aware and thankful for all the many blessings that flow down and through our lives. Like this poem and like the poet, Mary Oliver... Incredible.  The harsh teacher named "loss" can't compete with the Teacher who loves.  I've learned from both.  Anyway, you get the idea...  Here's the poem...


Poppies

Mary Oliver

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation


of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't


sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage


shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,


black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.


But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,


when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,


touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—


and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

consistency, persistence and devotion

I have been feeling a desire to move toward the development of a variety of disciplines in the next seasons of my life. I have lived for the most part in an  undisciplined manner, with brief interludes of disciplined effort.  Those interludes, as I look back, were the periods where my greatest growth, creativity and forward movement were accomplished. I know that is not true for everyone, and some are stifled by disciplined living.  I don't know why I move away so quickly from such reward.  Whether it be the discipline of early rising, the discipline of study, the discipline of practice, the discipline of a devotional time,  the discipline of writing, the discipline of play...I do not stay with it.  I visit for a brief season and then move away. Fortunately and amazingly, for me...I have achieved enough in those brief spurts that I have been able to get by, well..... even thrive... as a result of what happens in these seasons of growth.  

I think I want more. 

So...OK...this is quite a step...feeling a call to a more disciplined life, and a call to a more contemplative and devoted life, and a call to more of a sense of community and, finally, a call to a more surrendered  life...I have enrolled in a program to become a Benedictine Oblate.   Oddly, I am not Catholic, and the monastery which is sponsoring this Oblate program most certainly is.  But, I am under no pressure to become Catholic, in fact, I am encouraged to live and worship in a manner consistent with my own  denominational calling.  Truthfully, I have very little sense of any denominational identity. I have one primary sense of calling, and that is to the God of the Bible.   I'm just not really at home anywhere else, and every time I think I have found a place to call home, I can't seem to attach in a very deep or meaningful way. I'm sure the deficit lies within me.  So, I am not  in any way seeing this as any type of denominational shift or conversion... Catholicism is about the only denomination I have never considered... (nor could I see myself ever considering it...it's just too great a theological stretch...but then again, I have learned enough to never say never).   Yet, the monastic life ... ah...I am drawn... the reverence for God...yes, indeed.    I have never been comfortable being asked "what denomination are you?"  The most honest answer would be "none." On the other hand, I think of myself as a Jewish Buddhist Protestant Christian, with the emphasis on Christian... my heart belongs to Jesus...and it seems wherever I am in my journey, and however far my wandering may go, at the end of the day...beat up, beat down, lonely or misunderstood.. He is there to welcome me back into His loving and merciful embrace. Without condemnation!  I am so much better at not judging people for where they are in their spiritual journey...and for not letting myself take on the judgment of others. So, I have the Judaism of my ancestry and upbringing, and a crazy illicit attraction to  buddhism going on and on and on.  Always, though, my heart still belongs to Jesus.   I  feel a kinship with Benedictine spirituality, the contemplative lifestyle of Benedictine Monks and Nuns, and the concept of making one's life an offering to God. I need to study more of the Rule of Benedict before I see whether it shall become a part of the Rule of Steven... You know, I'm sure if the opportunity arose, I'd think I was called to be a Franciscan monk as well...just cause I love what I know of St. Francis.    Be that as it may, I am taking this step to see where it shall lead...
I wouldn't mind being a Nun in whatever order that Mother Theresa was part of... now that I think of it....now, now Steven...let's be real. 

So... there you are.  Though I often find myself seeking kindred spirits, as John Lennon said... "No one, I think, is in my tree."   Oh, well, I guess we are each and all on our own unique journey... may God find us all and bring us safely home!   (extra credit question...what Beatle song did I just quote?)

Say...I would do well to be "famous" for being nothing more than a gentle and loving soul and one who communed with God.... I have so far yet to travel!  Oy vez, it can be such a long journey! Full of tsuris!  I'll be writing more of my Oblate experience, I am sure...

onward!


  ~~~FAMOUS~~~ 

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

---Naomi Shihab Nye

come, autumn, I'm here!

If you google poems about Autumn, you will find a theme that runs through most every poem...the slow decline of life as it slinks toward dying.      It is very difficult to write about autumn without writing about dying.  Along with dying, autumn poems typically lament the loss of summer, the loss of youth, the moonlight (not the sunlight), and the coming of winter.

Well,  I love those poems, and I could post a dozen or so (maybe I will), but I don't share those sentiments this year. A year ago, my autumn was filled with pain and a good heaping dose of despair...I laid in bed and watched the leaves fall, and watched the acorns add up on my windowsill to coincide with the number of radiation treatments I had completed, and the sad nights got longer and longer. 

NOT THIS AUTUMN. I AM ALL ABOUT THIS AUTUMN.   Last autumn was the beginning of an autumn of despair and winter was a winter of desolation. But spring began a spring of healing and summer warmed my bones with a new hope.   I am embracing the brisk September days with relish.  And I say to winter...BRING IT ON...I'll be ready for you.  I absolutely love Autumn. I absolutely (almost completely) love being in this stage of life with all it's transitions.  And I'll respond to what I wrote in my last post about the best days being behind me ..."what a bunch of BS, steven, as is your sappy, self-pitying moody wimpiness...get over yourself"    I'll take what I have today and stack it up against my coming to life in my freshman year of college 1969, and it's easy to see that today will win hands down.   

Autumn...here I am, and I embrace the thought of walking with you for awhile.   It's good to be alive.  All this pain, these sad emotions, this lonely time or that, this unfulfilled dream, this ticking clock...it's all part of the drama...but listen, there is also a whisper which calls me to undeniable beauty and love and through the autumn wind I hear like never before the gentle call of the One who loves me.   And He fills my heart and the compassion and love I feel toward every broken and fragile being just overflows.   It runs so deep.    

Emily Dickenson... you were kind enough to at least mention the loveliness of Autumn, and even if it is true that for many it is  youth that we desperately try to cling to ( I guess, I must confess, at times I find myself amongst that camp)...well, phooey,  life's "declivity"(good word!)  is just this flesh... at least for today...my spirit is in ascension!!!!!!!!!  And cling to Him, and not my youth, shall I!!!

  Rock on!

As Summer into Autumn slips 
  Emily Dickinson

As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest
We turn the sun away,

And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved --

So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life's Declivity.

itchycoo park, flashbacks, panic

Here is one minute in my miserable mind at 11:23PM last night as I was trying to go to sleep:

The line... "it's all too beautiful"  pops into my head...  it's a line from a song, Itchykoo Park, a song recorded circa 1968...oh my, 40 some years ago.  (For those of you old enough to remember or care, the group who recorded the song, the Small Faces had an interesting pedigree...  the lead singer of the group left the Small Faces to form "Humble Pie" with Peter Frampton; he was replaced by none other than Rod Stewart, who, I believe, recorded with the group as "the Faces;" of course, then Rod Stewart went off to have his career. Their drummer went on to replace Keith Moon in the Who after Keith Moon's death.)

But I digress...  the line "it's all too beautiful" plays in my head from out of nowhere after 40 years... then comes the memory...  It's 1972 and I've ingested a tab of LSD and IT IS VERY,  VERY POTENT.  As I am prone to do, I wander off by myself around one in the morning, and I find myself sitting on the ground and looking down at a field somewhere on my college campus at the State University of New York at Albany.  I hear the song Itchycoo Park in my head; I'm hallucinating...and I have this instant "moment" where everything in the universe seems incredibly beautiful and perfect.  INCREDIBLY beautiful and perfect.   Did I mention INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL  and perfect.  Yes, totally INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECT. And then my 20 year old brain had this thought..."If I could stop time, I would live in this moment forever.  Nothing will ever be this perfect again."  Everything was just as it should be.  Every molecule of my being has this experience of the complete and total perfection of every thing in that one moment.  (By the way...I am NOT endorsing LSD...I had plenty more yucky, scary moments than I had moments like this; perhaps I'll write sometime about a horrific moment or two whilst under the influence of hallucinogens).   But that moment was undeniably one of those moments that made the whole LSD culture seem like a good idea...a Timothy Leary kind of moment.

But I digress....I am lying in my bed last night at 11:23PM, trying to get to sleep...the line "it's all too beautiful" plays in my head, and I remember the experience from 1972 sitting on that hill, LSD coursing through my brain, just as if it happened a few hours ago, and then.... I feel a wave of panic.....   you know, the sick feeling when your body dumps adrenaline in response to hearing a "crash" coming in the middle of the night because your cat knocked over a vase, or you are watching a creepy movie and it gets really quiet and a hand suddenly lurches out from the ground and grabs the innocent female, or you didn't hear the door open and someone walks up behind you and startles you... you know the feeling...

But I digress...I am lying in bed, hear the line from the song, have the "flashback" and then comes the wave of panic...and simultaneously comes this thought...  "the best days are all behind you... "
And that was the end of the minute.   But it took me a good hour and a half to regroup and get some sleep. I tell ya, if I forget that I am a child of God, I can really torment myself!

then there's this

When you've been through a trauma...there is a part of you inside that wants no reminders of what happened, and a part of you inside that keys on every slight reminder.  You can't seem to help it, and it suddenly seems like reminders are everywhere.   I swear, during cancer treatment, 50% of the commercials I saw on TV were about cancer... I could recite the cyberknife at St. Elizabeth's hospital commercial in my sleep  (... I have cancer, cancer doesn't have me...)  OK, maybe that thought worked for some people...   Patrick Swayze was dying, and it seemed there were more embedded messages about dying of cancer than there were clues on Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers that Paul McCartney was dead.

So...now I've changed blogs, I want to forget it, I promised myself I would...

and here I am still. I'm not apologizing for it, but it amazes me that I can't get through a day almost a year after treatment has been completed that I don't think about cancer.   So I guess that means I need to keep talking (writing) about it.

Here's a clip of Michael Douglas on Letterman this past week talking about being diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer. I remember so well, the first week of treatment for my stage 4 throat cancer. I thought..."this isn't so bad, I can't believe I am going to need that feeding tube they put in my stomach..."  Getting the feeding tube wasn't fun, and I got an infection in my stomach, but my throat and the radiation and initial chemo...not so bad...   My heart goes out to him...  it sounds like he has a sense of what's going to come next... my oncologist and ENT warned me that I'll feel pretty "beat up."   I guess I had never been beat up before, so I didn't really  have a clue about what would follow in the next few months.  

I am now praying for Michael Douglas...may God be with him, and may he recover and  get through this and thrive.    I want to see living proof all around me that people make it...I've met several, and interacted with a few survivors, including Ted Kooser (11 years and counting), but it can never be enough...there's that 20%...30%...40% depending on what research one is reading that don't make it.    There's the permanent damage to salivary glands and perhaps taste buds that are permanent reminders, the miscellaneous sore throats and minor neck pain that sends a shiver of fear up my spine... 

I live with gratitude and great appreciation of little delights and joys.  But there is this black dog barking in the distant background...sometimes I forget he's there, and sometimes, that's all I seem to hear... I guess he's always been there, I just never noticed him before...

Be well, Michael Douglas.  Thank you for asking Dave for a hug...

my thank yous

I had my birthday adventure #2 - I fell far short of my expectations in two ways.  First, I made a list of "thank you" recipients who had reached out to me while going through my cancer hell, and the number was closer to 50 than 100. The flood of cards, e-mails, calls, visits,  and blog comments I received in the past year was so powerful, it felt like 100 or so people, but alas, I am not as popular as I thought.  Unfortunately, none of the anonymous encouragers on my last blog responded with e-mails, so I couldn't thank any. It appears to me that very few followed me here to this blog.  I don't know if that's good or bad, but I have to be careful or else I'll start feeling this is some sort of performance issue that I am failing.  Anyway, with my list of 50, it took me most all day to write 30 thank you's.   So I am not yet done.  

What did I learn from my birthday adventure?   To properly appreciate the blessings received from others is a time consuming task.  Worthwhile, but time consuming.  A passing "thank you" is important, brief, and easy, but  a passing "thank you" doesn't reflect the weight of my gratitude.   People often respond with an awkward dismissal of a thank you ("you don't have to thank me...that's not necessary...it was nothing, etc.") but honestly, being more appreciative and grateful is something I need to do...it's something I want to change in myself. It's about living more consistently with my values...to live with a heart full of thanksgiving...and to openly express it.   

I have a ways to go in this, but my birthday adventure was meaningful and worth my time. 
And if anyone is reading this (expecially the one or two of you who have posted anonymous comments on this blog,  thank you for taking the time to follow, read, and post.  As was true with the "Deeper than Cancer" blog, the anonymous posts have been remarkable, encouraging and thought provoking. Just terrific...and much appreciated.  And thanks to others who read and do not post.  Thanks for taking time to read these ramblings. God bless you!

birthday adventure #2 - saying thanks

For those who haven't followed or read prior postings...I have decided to celebrate 12 birthdays over the course of a year, to "compensate" for the miserable birthday I had last year when the full brunt of radiation/chemotherapy was kicking my butt. I want to do 12 things out of the ordinary; an adventureon the fifth of each month as an extended "celebration."



To recap...


Birthday adventure #1 - A day of silence - I went to a Benedictine Monastery in Schuyler Nebraska, and spent 24 hours in silent reflection and meditation. A had a great (and meaningful) day...I so enjoyed it!


Birthday adventure #2 - Here is my plan for September 5. My goal...to say thanks to (at least) 100 people who supported and encouraged me through my cancer treatment. Where I have an address, I will send a card, where I just have an e-mail, I will send an e-mail...I am afraid there were so many anonymous posts of encouragement and thoughtfulness on my prior blog (deeper than cancer) that I will only be able to offer an anonymous virtual "thank you" to those readers who fall into that category. (hey...if you are one of those anonymous posters...you can e-mail me at steveblum77@gmail.com to "claim" your personal thank you...it would really make my day! please write me...you can even send me a blank e-mail with "poster" in the subject line so I can respond).  
 
How long will it take to send 100 thank you's...I have no idea, but I will try to get it done in a day...I will undoubtedly fall far short of expressing the fullness of my true appreciation.  I'm anxious to get started, but I will wait until Saturday.

the bagel

Having inconsistent taste buds and salivary function, I take food very seriously these days.  I am always testing myself.  Will this salad dressing burn my tongue? Will this cracker get stuck in my throat? Will this pie taste funny?   Is the discomfort this food will create worth the pleasure (or nutrients, hah!) it will provide?  Will this banana finally taste like a banana again, or continue to taste like tasteless mush?   I ate many slices of Pizza on our recent NY trip...I was a little disappointed that both taste and swallow-ability were a bit compromised, but I still found the experience to be a joyful one.

Tonight, I had a large tomato from our garden and a Colorado peach for dinner. I ate them between clients, and I am sure I will eat something more when I get home around 7:30, as I have this voice that tells me I can't just eat a tomato and peach for a meal and be happy.   But they both tasted  really good and went down easily.   A victory.   The tomato did not burn...  and the taste was pretty close to how tomatoes and peaches are meant to taste. 

I want to lighten up about eating.  I want to accept the awkwardness of it with some humor.  I am simply where I am with it, and it is nice to not have any cares about calories and weight. And to be eating again, oh, how wonderful compared to the months I lived through a feeding tube or then, by drinking Ensure.  So when I ran across this whimsical poem, I liked it. By the way, I have a bagel every Saturday morning.  There is a definite cost, both in swallowing difficulty (degree of difficulty...8.5) and if it's overly toasted it can even scrape my tongue (isn't that odd?), but there is a fairly high pleasure factor, both in sentimental value and restored taste.

Truth be told, even compromised, eating is again an activity that ranks fairly high in things that are fun to do in my life.


The Bagel


David Ignatow


I stopped to pick up the bagel
rolling away in the wind,
annoyed with myself
for having dropped it
as if it were a portent.
Faster and faster it rolled,
with me running after it
bent low, gritting my teeth,
and I found myself doubled over
and rolling down the street
head over heels, one complete somersault
after another like a bagel
and strangely happy with myself.

my true silence belongs to God alone

that last post was too maudlin...I was triggered by a scrap of paper into a painful memory; why did I think I had to write it all out in public?  Forget it....

this is more important...

There is a silence that is a silence in the presence of God that is like no other silence. In this silence is a lifting. In this silence the heart becomes pure and light and full of love. Yeow...how can I thank God enough? 

Be still, my heart, and know.

carrying an hour

I've changed my mind about writing about cancer.  When I started this blog, I vowed to keep it "cancer-free" because my previous blog was "cancer-full."  But I must face it;  one doesn't spend the better part of a year dealing with throat cancer, treatment and recovery, and then just forget about it.  There are memories/thoughts/emotions  that run deep into the inner rooms that just keep crying to come out.  

So...I was cleaning out the shelf in my closet where I stack junk, mail, papers to put away, etc. and I came across a scrap of paper. I surmise from the writing that it was something I wrote during the middle of one of those very painful sleepless nights when I was taking narcotics, sleeping pills, anti-nausea meds., etc. and not sleeping at all, but rather spending my nights in a half awake zone of despair. It's my handwriting, but I have no memory of writing it.   I have very fuzzy memories of those nights.

How far I have come;  it's now 10 months post treatment, and reading what I wrote was like remembering a really bad dream one feels relieved to wake up from.

Here's what I wrote:

every night another new notebook another new notebook another new notebook another blank page. I wait. I wait. I toss out the old notebooks they don't matter anymore "got tired, read awhile, fell asleep, woke a time or two then heard the alarm ring, a little too soon."    toss them all out they are old they are someone else's life useless to me now. I wait.    Now I carry the hours of the night. I carry their weight each hour heavier than the last. I carry them all. I wait. I know the silence of 2AM and carry it to the silence of 3AM and on and on through the night I wait.   I hurt.  I wait.    I carry the hours.  While others sleep.  I wait. 

  

a lifetime has so many dangerous events... and some graceful moments

A life consists of an infinite number of small events.   Some are dangerous. Some filled with grace. I am nine, maybe ten years old in the car with my attorney father and he is taking me along with him to the city (New York) to watch him do some court-work. Perhaps he was saddled with babysitting for the day and took me to work with him.  My folks had already been separated for five years by then, and spending a weekday alone with my father was rather unusual.  It was just the two of us. I don't remember where my sisters were that day. We are sitting in traffic, stopped at a red light, and each of us is eating an apple. He finishes first and throws his apple core out the window, looping it back over the roof of his Cadillac and landing it in the gutter drain. A perfect shot. He smiled.  Perhaps it was luck, but I remember feeling very impressed.  At that moment, he could have turned around, taken me home and dropped me off and the day would have ended well.  But, of course,  the day continued...we arrived at the court house; he took me in and told me to sit on a wood bench in a deserted courtroom, while he consulted with his client.  I am a bit spooked to be sitting by myself in this large cold room.  Eventually, the judge enters and the proceedings begin. Nothing actually made any sense to me,  but I watched my father and tried to appear as if I were interested in every word spoken.  After it was over and his client left along with the few other random people that had entered  the courtroom he motioned me up to introduce me to the judge.  These were his words..."your Honor...this is a bad boy and he should be put in jail."   The judge, apparently playing along, said something to the effect of..."OK, Mr. Blum, we will lock him up and keep him in jail until he learns his lesson."    My father tells me to stay put, and walks out of the courtroom.   I am not sure what to think, but I believe there is a chance I am going to jail. I do not know what I did wrong. For a moment,  I am very scared.  I am unable to speak. I do not know what to do. I feel a crushing sensation. I can not bear to look up at the judge.  Seconds later (it seemed like a long time) he comes back in and asks if I am ready to go home.  I follow him out of the court room, speechless.

A thirty second event in a lifetime.   A single small teasing.  Forgotten by everyone involved with the exception of one 9 year old boy.   

A tiny bit of fear lodging itself in a psyche,
to be carried along for a lifetime.

but there was also that beautiful toss of the apple core...

I'm trying to remember the gentle way he flicked his wrist, the finesse of the toss
and the slight hint of a smile as it rolled into the drain.

good shot, Dad.

birthday adventure #1 - my silent retreat

I promised myself that I would celebrate 12 birthdays this year, after being too sick to celebrate my birthday last year, and missing out on Thanksgiving dinner (my Thanksgiving...pouring an extra can of Ensure through the  feeding tube in my stomach.)  That's all the rationalization I needed to justify my decision to celebrate 12 birthday adventures this year.

So I had my first adventure August 5.   I got up early, hit the road around 7AM, had an egg McMuffin and coffee on the way out of town, passed a small town farmer's market where I bought a loaf of Zuchini bread, (which I nibbled on for the next 24 hours), and arrived at the Monastery around 9:00.  A beautiful place, with a pond, a path, a chapel, meeting rooms for meditation, a dining room with wonderful fresh food, and small but adequate sleeping rooms. No TV's, no radio's, no cell phone coverage, no sounds but the crickets, birds and breeze.  

my day at the monastery...

I spent most of the day in silent reflection and meditation, and spent one hour in conversation with one of the monks...Father Thomas.  Thursday evening I went to night prayers with the eight or so monks there, and I was the only guest.  The whole day was refreshing to me, and I felt very much the presence of God in my silence.  It was very peaceful... I had a few moments of overwhelming gratitude for it all...my life, my cancer, my healing, my Lord.  I needed it.   A wonderful way to start my year of birthday adventures.  Not only that, but during the morning there was a brief conference of priests being held in one of the meeting rooms.  At lunch, one of the priests was celebrating a birthday and the cook prepared a birthday cake for the group of priests.  I sat as far as possible from the table of priests so as to maintain my silence and quiet as much as possible...one of the priests brought a piece of birthday cake over to me.  (my idea for having 12 birthday adventures included having a piece of "birthday" cake on every adventure...so...well...let's just say...thank you, God for seeing to such a small, but pleasant detail). The priests left early afternoon, and it seemed I had the place to myself the rest of the day.  After afternoon meditation and the night prayer service (not being Catholic, I was a bit out of place with the logistics and liturgy, but the monks were very gracious to show me the way through the prayer book and hymnal... it was a meaningful prayer service). Later I spent nearly two hours in the small library reading the Bible and reading some from a volume of writings of the desert fathers...  I was completely alone in the library with a comfortable chair and lots of interesting books.  Nice.

I got up around 6:00AM on Friday, and gave myself enough time to stop for a "proper" breakfast on my way back to Lincoln...there is something celebratory about having a big breakfast on the road...it feels so...indulgent.  I like Egg McMuffins...but a full plate of eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast and coffee just after the sun comes up is so delightful!  On my way back to Lincoln on Friday morning I stopped at a truck stop for such a  breakfast.  The truck stop was a full 60 miles from home. I have stopped there about 15 times over the past decade when traveling.  It's been over a year since my last visit... the same farmers were at the same table talking about the same subjects that they talked about every other time I have been there.  And I tell the truth...when I sat down, the waitress knew me by name, and asked if I wanted my usual order.      IT"S BEEN OVER A  YEAR since my last visit.  She told me she'd worked there 38 years, and she's only got 10 more years before she can retire.   And...as always...the hash browns and eggs were piping hot, tasted great, and I drank enough coffee to float home.  Mmmmm.   

Back to my day at the monastery...

Of course, I didn't need to go to a monastery to meet with God... but it does something special for the experience to be in a place built and dedicated solely to prayer and retreat. Think about listening to a symphony orchestra playing Beethoven in a gym vs. a regal symphony hall.   You may hear the music in either place, but there's a difference that goes beyond just the acoustics...  There is.  

  

be careful with this - it's not for everyone

Lisa Gerrard.  If you have never heard her sing, be careful. This video is not for everyone.  It packs too big an emotional wallop for the faint of heart. I can barely listen to it myself, and if I am not careful, I wind up disconnecting from life as I know it.  Don't worry about the language, she is not singing in a language that can be understood. There is a technical name for this... idioglossia...rumor has it that she developed her own language at age 12...and this is the language used in this song. The quality of the video is poor, but her amazing voice shines through it.  Oh, her voice really is quite amazing.

So...I warned you...be careful. If you are not ready for this...sit down , take a few deep breaths,  crank it up and give yourself a  minute to recover after it's over.

an easy grace

go sailing, today... sail through the day with an easy grace. What a challenge!

Listen to Ted Kooser read one of his poems. Hearing him read a poem of his is like a sweet tasty dessert after a satisfying meal. What a wonderful way he has of expressing simple, yet profound bite size moments of our experiences and observations.  One idea expressed in this poem is the poet's desire to move through his life with "...an easy grace."

He's got it! He visited the same hell of throat cancer and subsequent treatment eleven years ago that I did this past year, and had the kindness to encourage me through my painful journey with e-mails in which he suggested some ways for me to endure and get through it. Without fail, as I read his periodic communications of encouragement and concern, I was uplifted. He's got an easy grace about him, that shows through his poetry and his presence, doesn't he?  A grace that is born in gentleness and thoughtfulness. An attitude of grace.


You know, today I had the thought that I've been given the life I've been meant for... and this realization felt like an invitation to a banquet which was laid out right in front of me. I think I'll sail awhile on that thought...being present to all it's beauty with an easy grace.