John 1:1-13. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What came into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. NRSV
Sharon is here looking at whom ever is speaking from the pulpit. She was orchestrating this before she left for her sabbatical. She put my name on the list. She had mentioned something about preaching while she was gone to me somewhere along the line but I was a bit surprised when I got a phone call to do it. Sharon kept telling me about complements that she had heard from parishioners who would express wonder at my ability to deal with CANCER. I am flattered and hope I am worthy of her flattery.
Today’s sermon is on my understanding of how I found the strength to be here after finding a lump under my arm a couple of days after New Year’s Day 2007.I thought I had taken good care of myself with mammograms every year for the last 19 years, and during the last couple of years I had ultrasounds as well. Those two tests didn’t work for me. I had gone through the scare of a cyst about fifteen years ago but it was easy to see and a second opinion said it was nothing to worry about. As many of you know, one of the most agonizing events is finding a lump in a location that could be related to cancer. I woke up in the middle of the night with soreness under my right arm. I thought it was a spider bite but when I looked in the mirror there wasn’t a bite mark. Luckily I had an appointment in less than a week with my orthopedic surgeon. (It was a follow up appointment from knee surgery.) He identified the lump as a two cm. lymph node and told me to go see my GP which I did. And then you start playing the waiting game. It took two weeks of waiting to see my GP. She said I had had a virus so I should wait a couple of weeks and if it was still there go get some blood work done and make an appointment for an ultrasound. It was mid February before I had the ultrasound. In mid March I had a biopsy of the lymph node at four cm., another mammogram and an MRI all in one week’s time. After the second test my stress level was up a bit and I went shopping! That’s definitely not the best choice for dealing with stress! It is very convenient that the church is on the way home from Loma Linda. I stopped and debriefed a bit after shopping. The MRI was scheduled for Monday at 6:30 a.m. but I got a message on the answering machine that they were having trouble getting authorization. I woke up at 5:00 a.m., made the phone call to the east coast to get authorization, and then went for that appointment. I arrived twenty minutes early and they started the MRI. Then they stopped because I needed blood work done before they could inject the dye since I was over 60 years old. I continued to work until I was identified with cancer on March 20, 2007, the day after my MRI but my ability to focus on the job became more difficult as my mind was playing a negative version of the waiting game called “the what if game.” I had been through that before and knew I didn’t want to sit at home and dwell on possibilities, while making appointments for various tests so that Loma Linda could give me a definitive answer eventually. I was keeping Sharon aware of what was happening and the women’s silent retreat was the week after I was identified with cancer. The silent retreat gave me time to journal and get introspective, before Easter. Why me? Why not me? I accepted that I had cancer.
If you remember Easter 2007 I had asked Sharon, who she wanted for Worship Leader on Easter Sunday. Usually she gets an officer of the Leadership team of the church for such an important day. But she asked me. I responded with, Why me? She said I think by the time Easter comes you will know a lot about hope, and Easter is about hope. Well on March 20 my GP said I am sorry to say that you have cancer. and I said Thank you because it is better to know than not know when you are going through many tests. I had a couple of weeks to process the words metastatic cancer which I saw as a diagnosis. The medical field is not my specialty, and having been fairly healthy, so cancer became “a learn as you go process” for me. When diagnosed with something new, it is time to learn a bit more. Only in this case the learning curve goes from a gentle learning curve to a graduate school level of learning over night. Well I goofed up big time on my assumption that I was at stage 4 cancer. I didn’t know that it is the surgeon who tells you what stage you are.
This experience certainly helped me look at hope in some new ways. Old skills from previous traumatic experiences kicked in to help me cope. I decided I would not keep it a secret. When I shared it with my supervisor at my school, (I knew he would understand.) I told him he could put it out on a memo to all the staff. By not keeping it a secret, a teacher in my department called to let me know that she had already called the Philippines and had seven monasteries praying for me 24/7. I was overwhelmed and appreciative of all the prayers. I was glad for prayers from any religion. Another teacher was part of a prayer chain with over 6000 members from the U.S.A. to Eastern Europe. She let me know she had put me on their prayer list. Humbly I said thank-you. But when you fear the unknown with the issue of how far has cancer spread, prayers made a huge difference to help me and comfort me. I don’t know how to measure prayer support but with several churches praying for me plus my own petitions I felt a definite presence of agape love and support. The cards and phone calls kept coming. Thank you for your love and support.
During April I had more tests to identify places where the cancer had not spread. As a former United Methodist minister’s wife I had seen people who had survived cancer and people who had died from it. I used to baby sit a couple of preacher’s kids and as always happens in the Methodist system they had moved on, I would see them at Annual Conference here in Redlands. I stayed in touch and I knew the wife was a cancer survivor. I sent her a letter and she called me back. She said I have a Bible verse for you. I said O.K. What is it? She replied, Joshua 1:9. I responded, “That’s Old Testament, refresh my memory.” “I command you, ‘Be strong!’” She is still walking and talking and working as a senior advocate. That was enough to tell me it is definitely possible to survive cancer even though I knew a couple of women in this church who have died with it. They didn’t give up easily.
That inner strength comes from living in the present, one day at a time. I always have a choice, no guarantee that they are all good choices, and some strength comes from my family. My Dad grew up on a ranch in central Montana where the weather can be brutal. He would say you can always get run over by an ice wagon. We never know when our time is up. In the mean time, keep on living, and helping each other.
A retired minister, and friend of my sister, when she heard I had cancer, emailed my sister to go and buy Dr. Rachel Remen’s book Kitchen Table Wisdom and read page 66 and 67 which has an article about “Naming and Awe.”
Dr. Remen says,” A label is a mask life wears…. A diagnosis is an opinion and not a prediction. Like a diagnosis, a label is an attempt to assert control and manage uncertainty. It may allow us the security and comfort of a mental closure and encourage us not to think about things again. But life never comes to a closure, life is process, even mystery. Life is known only by those who have found a way to be comfortable with change and the unknown. Given the nature of life, there may be no security, but only adventure.”
That quote helped me reframe how I was going to deal with cancer.
I did have an advantage that many people don’t have. I had enough sick leave accumulated that I was able to take time off to reduce the stress level after I was identified with cancer on March 20, 2007 until April 14th of this year.
How do you approach chemo when you have nothing to compare it to? One day at a time! Keep on going. We are on an adventure. Are we having fun yet? Norman Cousins survived cancer a lot longer than was expected and he did it by watching comedies. Laughter does wondrous things for the body by giving you deep breaths and relaxation. It reduces your stress and lowers blood pressure. In my favorite quote from Norman Cousins, he says “It seems that there is a direct connection between creative thought and involvement in life and the production of epinephrine by the adrenal gland. When the challenge stops, the supply is turned off; the will to live atrophies.” So I worked on keeping myself connected with creative activities. There were frequent naps, and quilting, and gardening, and menu planning, and Sudoku, and crossword puzzles, and reading, and telephone calls.
Some people have heard me talking about some of the details of cancer and some of the outcomes are laughable. If you can’t laugh about some of the nitty gritty details, it might be enough to drive you crazy or send you into a depression. Some of the best stories come from morticians, who are always dealing with life changing situations, but cancer survivors develop a sense of self deprecating humor to live with the choice we make for life and not giving up to the unknown or negative image of the future.
Values change as survivors reevaluate what is important in life. A special blessing happened with chemo. I did not get sick to my stomach. Apparently according to the oncology nurses there is a direct correlation between morning sickness when you are pregnant and getting sick with chemo. While I knew I might be more susceptible to infections during chemo, I came to church and sat in the gathering area most of the time to recharge my spirituality and sing as much as I could. Then I would leave early. There were days of high energy during chemo and then down days, as my body fought to get strength back. The surgeon gave me a gift of hope with his comment that Loma Linda has a high success rate with my kind of cancer.
Sharon and I both pulled the word “faith” out of the bowl as the word to work on this year. When I look back to my past; faith, belief, trust, are all related. I know the Holy Spirit is with me all the time. I have not always known that I had that connection with the Holy Spirit. When I was a little child, my parents did not go to church. We went camping every summer and traveled all over the western states. Our favorite place was Devil’s Post Pile National Monument. We drove up and over the ridge from Mammoth Lakes the first time in 1949. The road was an awful, rutty, single lane dirt road. We would stay for two or more weeks. Over the years it became like an outdoor cathedral to us. It was a place to appreciate the rising and setting of the sun, to drink the fresh water of the headwaters of the San Joaquin River, to learn some of the constellations of the night sky, to hike down to Rainbow falls from Red’s Meadows, and to go to campfires and learn about all the natural sciences that the Rangers would talk about. My mother wanted a nap every afternoon and she would find a big rock near where my Dad was fishing for a trout dinner. We would see deer in the meadow, as well as Golden Mantle Ground Squirrels. There was plenty of time for contemplation, relaxation and singing. I don’t recall ever being scared up there. I felt connected and secure. It sounds a lot like a place for Celtic theology. I sense my parents’ presence in my life even more now than when they were alive. I also am aware of the Holy Spirit working within me, that still small voice of calm.
When I was in fourth grade we had moved to a new house and mother wanted to help me get acquainted with other kids so she took me to the Methodist Church because they had a children’s choir. There is an old choir poster that speaks to my Christian Education. One who sings prays twice. I began to learn about church because of choir. That curiosity continued with a compound major in college of philosophy, religion and religious education. I learned more in seminary at Iliff School of Theology. I went part time while working to put my husband through his three years of seminary. As “growth experiences” happen they cause the faith journey to grow as well as counseling. Growth experiences are all the traumatic life changing events that happen as we go through life. Growth experiences, if you get through them without caving, will make you stronger. Another growth process for clergy and clergy mates is continuing education workshops, seminars, plus volumes of books from Cokesbury. I found I was fascinated with spirituality, and psychology, I would read just about anything related to those subject areas. I have learned to be assertive and strong when I need to be to get authorizations from SHPS for my insurance company.
The side effects that show up go from mountains to mole hills when you start talking about them and find out what others do to deal with them. Dry mouth showed up just before surgery. It is a side effect of chemo. Look for the bright side. It helped me lose weight because a lot of food tasted like paste. At first the only thing I had heard about to help it was a special mouth wash. I had visions of needing to spit it out in the classroom. Sharon said she would buy me a spittoon. We laughed through that one before surgery. I sang songs in pre-op. How else do you keep your stress level down, stay positive, and keep the Spirit with you?
My family and my church family have been very supportive in many ways when major appointments or surgery happened and they have been praying for my recovery as well. My daughter, who lives with me, has been ordering netflix so we can laugh together frequently. That is also why I have seen Mamma Mia twice.
I was well enough to drive myself to radiation. Even in radiation, where the wait is frequently long, I felt the Spirit’s presence even in the cold basement where some of us worked on jigsaw puzzles to keep our minds focused on staying positive even when we are burned. I considered every holiday and weekend in November, December, and January as a healing day. People in the cancer support group recommended AloeVera Gel with Lidocaine, Cetaphil skin cleanser, as well as Aquaphor. These helped heal the burn along with healing prayers, so I didn’t have a raw oozing burn. I am so grateful. We got to know the other patients and sometimes we were saying prayers for the emergency patients that came in on a gurney. Some people were a lot worse off than I was.
At the Celebration of Life at Loma Linda this year the speaker was Joe Caruso, a cancer survivor and business motivational speaker. He talks a lot about how we choose to react or respond. He has written a book called the Power of Losing Control. The only thing we can really control is ourselves where we do have a choice. Do we fly off the handle with an angry reaction or do we respond by choosing to think of a creative solution. God is definitely working with us when we respond by accepting what happens that we cannot control. Then adjusting to the situation and finally advance toward a positive direction. I believe that is what Jesus did when he was able to come up with creative solutions to a wide variety of situations. Such creative solutions are healing, emotionally, physically, and mentally, while they fill us with faith, hope and love.
Benediction:
May the Light of the Holy Spirit enliven us, cheer us and abide with us as we learn to accept, adjust and advance with faith in our hearts, hope in our dreams and love in our service of responding. May such magnificent Light fill our community, and our World. May we go in Peace.
