Purification Rites and the Pandemic

People have been observing and writing about how some things have really changed for the better in the middle of the CoVid–19 crisis. Strange how it takes a difficult set of circumstances to bring about those changes. And if we look closely we will see that it is not just being in the circumstance, it is going through it with awareness that counts.

The word 'purification' came to mind as I was reflecting on all this, and right after that, a sentence in Luke’s gospel: "When the days were completed for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord." The Rite of Purification Mary submitted to was an ancient one, prescribed in the Book of Leviticus. It is a ritual cleansing that took place following childbirth. There was also a sin connotation in the ritual involving cleansing of inherited effects of sin.

The Jewish people had purification or cleansing rituals for a whole lot of things – preparation of food, offering sacrifice, etc., etc. The really interesting thing is that they took simple ordinary tasks and added a religious significance to them by the prescribed patterns and intentionality they added. Everything they did was elevated to inclusion in their relationship with God. Again, it is doing it that is important. We humans do well with significance and meaning when we enact it.

We have a ritual cleansing in the Catholic celebration of the Mass. Just before the preparation of the bread and wine for Eucharist, the priest washes his fingers. Again, a perfectly sensible thing to do before handling food, but in this case with symbolic meaning in the 'cleansing from our sin' as we prepare for Eucharist.

We humans appreciate that it is not enough to say it or wish it or intend it. Doing it, even ritually and symbolically, brings it home, makes it real.

I think why this is all playing in my head is that we are going through major upheavals in our world right now. With the pandemic of CoVid-19. Those upheavals have led to major changes in our behaviour. Everywhere. Changes involving cleanliness and sanitation. Respecting space while at the same time being supportive and caring. Being needy while at the same time being appreciative of front-line workers whose job it is to take care of our needs. Wanting to be active while at the same time restricting travel and thereby cutting back on use of fossil fuels. We can refer to all this as cleansing activities because the people of Wuhan have seen sky for the first time in years. The people of Venice have seen clear water in the canals for the first time in years. Politicians have stopped yelling at each other maybe for the first time ever!

A former colleague of mine re-posted a commentary on all of this (thanks Kathy C). Here is some of what it said: I don't know if you agree, but something invisible came and put everything in its place. Suddenly the gasoline went down, pollution went down, people started to have more time – so much time that they do not know what to do with it – parents are spending time with their kids as a family, work is no longer a priority, or travelling or social life either. Suddenly we silently see within ourselves and understand the value of the words "solidarity", "love", "strength", "empathy" and "faith". In an instant we realized that we are all in the same boat, rich and poor. That the supermarket shelves are empty and the hospitals are full. New cars and old cars also stand in the garages, simply because nobody can get out. Empty streets, less pollution, clean-air, the land also breathes.

This is truly amazing! But these are all things we would have said – indeed often did say – we wish we could have more of.

Now we do.

Okay let's link that thought to what we know about the value of ritual, the value of enacting. Biblical history and every day common sense have taught us that we must take everyday ordinary things that we are hit and miss about, and turn them into deliberate, intentional patterns. Rituals. Purification rituals. We will get our clean air, our clean water if we simplify, stop more often, and let go the fear of missing out – the fear that drives hyper-consumerism. We will get our relationships in right order, right priority, joyfully experienced, when we make time to be together. When that time is protected at all costs from intrusions by work, by electronics, by anything that isolates us.

The week beginning Sunday April 5 is the beginning of Holy Week. It will take us through a lot of ritual. The Palm Sunday procession, the Holy Thursday Passover Supper and washing of feet, the Good Friday death of Jesus the Lamb. The Resurrection of Jesus, Easter. Taken all together we understand this to be a massive purification ritual by the Son of God. The amazing thing is that he enacted the ritual and we benefited from it. During Holy Week and Easter we re-enact the components of this amazing salvation ritual in order to help us truly experience what Jesus did for us. In order to truly help us recommit to the changes that are needed in our lives in order to say yes to the great gift we have received in the form of our redemption.

It all seems to come together in a most remarkable way. Wouldn't it be terrible if we went through the purification rituals of Holy Week, and then walked away from it all when it was done. And wouldn't it be terrible if we went through the purification rituals that are going on at the hands of the coronavirus, only to later walk away from the experience as if it meant nothing.

So I extend best wishes, warm thoughts, and prayers to you who are reading this. To your family. And to all who are involved in caring for us through this challenging time. Think about it and maybe you and I can commit to new patterns that heal the earth, that heal relationships, that heal our souls.

Believing what we cannot see

When hostilities began in World War ll, people living in London England had their lives changed in major ways. They had to learn how to keep themselves safe when the bombs were falling. They rationed food. They conserved fuel and everything else. They helped each other.

The behaviour changes were the result of being told about the immense danger they were facing. They had no trouble believing this when the sirens sounded and the explosions occurred shortly after.

Today in Ontario - for that matter throughout the entire world - we are facing an immense danger to our lives from an enemy we cannot see. We can only know its effects. And based on what we are hearing about those effects, we are in the process of making significant changes in our daily living patterns. At time of writing, public venues are closing and a state of emergency has been declared in the Province. People have become ill, people have died. People are very anxious. People are stocking up on supplies in panic buying.

We still haven’t seen the enemy. But we know it is there. Because we have been told it is.

Humans are capable of mobilizing tremendous energy, making huge changes, in circumstances like this. And so we should.

It hit me as I was reflecting on the dynamics of all this, that I am not old enough for the WW ll experience. But something felt familiar about the change process resulting from an occurrence whose elements I did not see. In which I was left to believe without seeing what was making it happen.

And it came to me. Chemotherapy, December 2015 through July 2016. I knew that element. I could see it. I will never forget the bags of high octane cocktail going into my arm through the PICC line, or the kindness and professionalism of the nurses, doctors and technicians. But when it was over, I knew there was an element I could not see but that I believed was also responsible not only for the ultimate news of remission, but for what else happened inside of me. That element was the constant message of ‘we are praying for you’, ‘I am praying for you,’ that came from the parish community of St. Paul’s where I have been Deacon for 23 years. The message came both from groups and from individuals. Over and over and over. Continuing to this day, and I always plead, please don’t stop!

I have always prayed. For myself and for other people. I have always believed in the power of prayer. But that belief used to wax and wane by times. Not now.

Believing in what I cannot see. Isn’t it interesting? We humans are demonstrably so capable of that. And yet.... and yet.

I did not know how my treatment was going to turn out. But from very early on, that became less of the point than the ability to trust that it was in good hands, that it was in God’s hands - most importantly that I was in God’s hands. Because that is where those wonderful, marvelous parishioners and friends put me. In a way I could not put myself.

I guess the point of all this is that Covid-19 has put us a little bit in the position of those brave people in WWll London. And a little bit in the position of a person hearing a serious diagnosis. But it has also put us in the position of responding to something else we cannot see, and that is the power of prayer. This is an interesting power. Because it does not cause us to go panic buying. It may not lead to Covid-19 disappearing tomorrow or the next day. Rather, even in the midst of our taking all necessary precautions, it acts on us the way we need it to when that PICC line is in there doing what it does with an outcome we do not know. It settles us. It lets us know that there is something - some One - that is bigger than all of this and who holds us in his hands no matter how this turns out. We know this as the Good News. Our world has desperately needed this News and we know that too. But it waxes and wanes, our ability to mobilize around it, doesn’t it? Well now is the time to reaffirm. We will be ok. If you are reading this, know that I am praying for you. Believe what we don’t see.

I’m in, hope you are too.

Lent, Sin and Hypocrisy

I think that this Blog should maybe be re-titled From the Treadmill. I am enjoying how dots connect in my head when I am under the headphones at the gym listening to audiobooks or talks of one kind or another. But no, we will stick with the Orchard image which captures what this is supposed to be: Reflective thoughts in an environment of growth. The orchard referred to, by the way, is the (former) apple orchard at Ignatius Spirituality Centre in Guelph, that reflected my many retreat experiences.

The world we live in in 2020 seems to be quite a bit different than it was in the early retreat days in 1992. Politics worldwide has been characterized by increasingly deep angry divisions. And sadly, if we turn to our faith/church environment for direction or reassurance, we find ourselves knee-deep in disappointment and cynicism, with abuse scandals and, in the Catholic context, pockets of resistance to Pope Francis, all the way up to bishops and cardinals.

Psychologist Gordon Neufeld has a great term for the emotional response in children when they run into a deeply disappointing, hurtful relationship experience that they cannot control. The term is 'defensive detachment.' You will hear a child say, 'I don't even care.' Or, 'I didn't like that person anyway.' The person in question might be a parent who has left the home, or failed again to show up for a scheduled event. The child is desperately trying to protect themselves from the deep pain caused by someone who is so important to them. In the adult world, in the context I am referring to, defensive detachment may involve wiping one's hands of the whole thing. 'Who cares anyway?' It hurts too much to keep investing in this. The church is bleeding membership, and this figures prominently in the phenomenon.

Which brings us to the topic: Lent, sin, and hypocrisy. The question has been playing around in my head for a while as to whether sin and hypocrisy are the same thing. Some of the messiness of our present era makes that an urgent question. Here is the problem: we are a broken people, we simply do not get it right all the time, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we wish we could. We hurt each other, we hurt the world around us, and we do damage to ourselves. We have been created with an invitation to come to the home our God has prepared for us. We were also created with the freedom to turn down that invitation, and we do just that every day. We call it sin.. Fortunately our Creator God gave us a second chance in the person of his Son, who stood in for us on the Cross, with all our turn downs. His Resurrection then sealed the victory over what would otherwise be our permanent alienation. We get to reset the relationship. The season of Lent is designed to put us in the emotional and spiritual space where we freely and fully embrace doing just that.

Anyone who is a sinner (all of us) and seeks the forgiveness and reconciliation won on the Cross, far from being a hypocrite, has actually embraced the relationship with Jesus and all he is for us.

That includes those who preach the word of God. No-one escapes the title ‘sinner.’ But it does not include, I think, those who preach the word of God with no investment in how that word should impact their own lives. Who talk one way and live entirely another. That's a hypocrite. I shudder at times with that one and haven’t liked what I see in the mirror.

It also does not include, I think, those of us who say we believe all Jesus stands for. But only in theory. And so have no problem with turning down the invitation. And more importantly, have no investment in Lent.

For those who live in a defensive detachment relationship with our God, with Jesus, with the church, I am certain Jesus has a special place for them/ us in his heart. And all of us need to pray for the healing that is crying out to happen there. Above all we need to be instruments of encouragement by witnessing what Jesus taught - a life of love, forgiveness, welcoming, support, and compassion.      

We will still need Lent because we will never get even that right all the time.

And we need to acknowledge off the top that we cannot do it on our own power. Therese of Lisieux had the answer that most resonates with me: her 'little way.' She went so far as to say that her imperfections had the great benefit of reminding her of her dependence on the Lord (‘littleness’), and of her need to be grateful for all she had been given. The 'little way' was all about opening up to the great power of God's love.

I suppose that too is what Lent is about. A 40 day period in which we can just enter into the great love that will always encourage us to keep going even when we fall on our head, even when we turn down the great invitation. Sin is in there, but not hypocrisy.

Our own Bishop Mulhall recently sent out a very thoughtful Lenten message. In it he quoted St. Paul and said the following: “”See, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of our salvation.” These words… (lead) us into the interior truth of ourselves, our weak and sinful condition. The silence of personal prayer is the place where we encounter Christ. In his merciful care, he will carry us to the deep meaning of his death and resurrection at our Easter celebration."

“....interior truth of ourselves....” I like that. It is where we will find the difference between sinner and hypocrite; and where we will be shown the way to Easter.

Have a wonderful Lenten experience.

Dots in the Gym:Remedy for Discouragement

I wrote previously that the first thing I noticed after officially retiring from active diaconal ministry was how I was able to attend to the prayers and the music of the Mass. No need to double track about what was coming next in the liturgy and what I needed to get ready for. I think I understand why our former pastor used to say back in the days when we had 11 Masses of Christmas, that HIS Mass was the 10 pm Christmas Eve Mass. Things had quieted down and he did not have as many agenda items to keep track of as when the big crowds were present.

Another retirement phenomenon - somewhat related - seems to be the ability to be still with time. And this in turn causes dots to connect readily. I always enjoyed when that happened during homily preparation, but there is an easier flow now, it seems.

Which brings me to the gym.

We have been going to the gym for years. Treadmill is our thing (supplemented by stretching exercises at home.)  When I started chemotherapy in 2015 my doctor told me that my otherwise good health was going to mean everything for how I tolerated the chemo. That was our first confirmation that all that walking had paid some dividends. You may know the rest of the story. The full heavy treatment resulted in full remission. Then I read in The Lymphoma Survivors Newsletter that walking is vitally important for survivors and really for anyone, because unlike the blood system which has a pump - the heart - the lymph system which carries off impurities in your body, does not have its own pump. It relies on muscle activity. Thirty minutes minimum walking each day apparently does the trick, according to the cited research.

Which brings me back to the gym.

The development of technology, or at least my arrival at it, has meant that I can listen not only to music on my phone, but also books, podcasts, sermons, lectures, etc etc. I have been devouring texts by or about Jean Vanier, John Chrysostom, Cardinal - now Saint - John Henry Newman, Ignatius Loyola, Therese of Lisieux, (the Little Flower), and her parents (also recently canonized as a couple) Zelie and Louis.

It turns out that not only can you get the materials from a variety of sources, but there is a great website called Discerning Hearts. I do not know a whole lot about them, and I will explore further in due course. But for the moment there is a priest I am listening to a great deal, named Fr. Tim Gallagher. He is the easiest guy to listen to, ever! And guess what, he is a Spiritual Director in the Ignatian tradition (my background) and he is a very big fan of Therese of Lisieux, as am I. His series on the letters by Therese is simply wonderful for its clarity in unfolding the spirituality of Therese. He also makes frequent reference to a book by Guy Gaucher called The Passion of Therese of Lisieux. I prided myself in being aware of a lot that has been written by and about Therese, but this was new to me. On Fr. Gallagher’s recommendation I got it through Amazon and am now well into it. It pulls together her beautiful letters, her final conversations and her autobiography in a way that puts you in the room with her during her agonizing death (suffocation due to tuberculosis) over 30 months leading to Sept 30, 1897.

Another dot. Fr. Gallagher also has a series on Discernment in the spirituality of Ignatius Loyola. I would never sit for an hour or 45 minutes listening to a podcast at home, but on the treadmill with noise cancelling headphones, time flies. Hence the devouring.

And the dots.

Discouragement. It hits me: how does one get out of bed each day with the news cycles we are going to be exposed to over and over and over. In a post-truth world where grown adults sell their souls every single day in favour of profit, electibility, illusions of legacy, power and influence, or whatever. Name your poison. And in the middle of all this when we try to turn to our faith, we find bad news even there, in the behaviour of our leadership, including the severe push back against our Pope by some members of that leadership.

And then we look in the mirror, and we notice our own struggles. I do, for sure. Interpersonal, moral, financial. They are the same as yesterday. And the day before. The thought of solving the issues with others, or of conquering our own struggles, is daunting, some days overwhelming. We try not to think about them, and we carry on. Doing pretty well for the most part.

The thing is, it is sometimes too big to think about all at once. And that is why the dots are important here. Because what they give us is a return to our roots, our foundation.

Here are the dots I have rediscovered.

Foundation is the word Ignatius used in the opening of his Spiritual Exercises: Introducing everything that was to follow, he said: “The purpose for which were created is to praise, reverence and serve the Lord, and by this means to save our souls.’ We were loved into existence, and our gifts, our desires, and deepest yearnings are included in there. Our job is to trust that, and to trust the God who has known us from all eternity (Ps. 139) At the end of the Spiritual Exercises, after going through all the implications of the introduction, Ignatius concludes with his famous prayer: Take Lord, receive, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me, now I return it. Dispose of it according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me..

That is an awfully big mouthful of surrendering. It basically means, Lord I know you love me. I place all I am in your hands and trust you to lead me even when things are going really badly. During my cancer treatment, I surely did not know where things were going. I leaned heavily on that prayer. It was very freeing and would have remained so with any outcome.

Therese of Lisieux comes at the same thing, but differently. She stated many times, I am not one of the great thinkers or theologians. My relationship with God is that of a little child to its parent. In the face of complicated teachings, she said she simply turned to the Gospels, everything was there, Yes indeed. In the face of lofty prayers, she looked into the face of God as a child would their parent. She cut through a lot of what we might call over-thinking. She said this: " ..... I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections. But I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short and totally new."

Straight, short, and new. Her ‘Little Way’ was her contribution.

Between Ignatius’ grounding us in our relationship with God who loved us into existence and continues to hold us in his love; and Therese’s childlike (not childish) trust in this same loving God, we hold the answer to discouragement. Step back and get re-anchored. On the worst of days - of our own making or the making of others - we belong to God who will never forget us, will never stop loving us, will never stop supporting us. We are safe. Remember to keep the dots connected, is all.

Retirement

January 1, 2020  

I write this as a new beginning. First day of a new year, a new decade. First day of liturgical function that I did not participate in as Deacon. Retirement was effective December 29, 2019, Feast of the Holy Family, last day of preaching on the schedule. Two days later, on New Year’s, I watched others carry out the liturgy at Mass.

I confess it felt strange sitting in the pew rather than in the sanctuary. But I am determined to be true to my word in explaining why I chose the Holy Family day as my last official day. The reason was to create an optic of diaconate as being grounded in family not in clericalism. Being clerical is not the same as being a practitioner of clericalism. The latter is an opiate and it has given rise to complete failures of judgement, of morals, of just plain decency, all around the world. The news of the last decade attests to that with stories of abuse of power, sexual abuse, financial abuse. As I sat in the pew I felt the pull, the tug. I can see how easily it all can go off the rails and I ask forgiveness for any semblance of that shown by me.

Last Blog entry was March 6, 2017, After the big rounds of treatment, and before the end of maintenance chemo. Getting back to this is also, then, part of the new beginning.

Trying to monitor without overthinking. What’s going through my head? What am I feeling? What do I notice? With every leaving there is a sense of loss. In this case it is identity which has been part of the role for 26 years. I always counseled people to be present to the emotion that goes with loss. So I am doing that. At the same time I am noticing a freedom. It began at the New Year’s Mass. I was able to listen to every prayer, every song, participate in every gesture, every movement – and not have to be double-tracking about what I have to do next. Missing part of the richness of what was actually going on. I would not have anticipated such a difference.

The freedom includes thoughts of Peggy and me being able to be away on weekends to take in events with kids and grandkids. It includes thoughts of being able to support projects, initiatives, good ideas, without having to be front and centre public about it (nothing wrong with being front and centre public. In fact that is very much needed in good causes!). That thought occurred to me as I read a great New Year poem by Greg Kennedy S.J., who directed me on one of my retreats in Guelph. Check it out: http://ignation.ca/2019/12/31/new-years-eve-anthropocene/

People who know me know that my go to saint is Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower. She is here with me at this new beginning – her birthday is January 2, She died an agonizing death of tuberculosis in 1898 at age 24. For years I could not get into her writings. I rediscovered her during my cancer treatments, and she inspired me to trust the Lord and love the Lord at a whole new level. I am always asking her help, and in the last few weeks I have sensed her hand repeatedly in things coming my way, I will write more about that, I am sure. In the meantime, I have promised many people that I would pray for them during their own cancer or other treatment. I ask Therese to look after them and to pray for them in a way that is far more powerful than my feeble prayers. Mostly I pray that people with serious illness be granted peace, relief from fear, and trust that the Lord holds them in his hands.

The gift of freedom is a good one. To all my friends and family, may you be granted that one as well in 2020. To follow the impulse to do good and to take the leap into relationship with God, without overthinking it. Just go. More later.  

Power of Prayer, Power of Love

Thanks so much to Hank Noonan for taking the photo of Peggy and me at the KofC Women's Appreciation Dinner in February. First of all, I am blown away by how beautiful Peggy looks. Second, the picture sent me scurrying for one about the same time last year in the latter half of the chemo rounds. A parishioner was joking this past weekend about how I looked stronger, and how the power of prayers from the parish were of course responsible for that! I said, you're not kidding. And I repeated what I have said before, that I had started praying that the Lord give these wonderful people some kind of visible sign that their prayers meant something. Oh my goodness. We are both so grateful. We are both so aware of God's great love, shown through the love of parishioners, and shown through his goodness to us in the treatment process. Whatever days are ahead of us, we will never forget this.

The Year After

Many times over the years I have had clients who have been caregivers. For a child, a spouse, a parent, a friend, even a colleague. For people who have been ill with a chronic disease, been depressed, been in a conflictual marriage. The caregiving role becomes preoccupying, sometimes consuming all waking thoughts. But the caregiver remains committed and, it turns out, comes to identify themselves in this role in this relationship. They get to realize all of that sometimes only in hindsight because when the situation has resolved (through healing, death, separation, etc), they are a little bit lost. There is an emptiness where the activity and emotional involvement used to be. Sometimes it takes on the form of depression. Over the years I suggested the image of standing on the curb after the parade has gone by, and the papers and streamers are blowing around and no one is there. It is empty.

I have noticed something a bit similar in being a cancer survivor the year after all the heavy treatments. Very preoccupying, they were. Giving rise to a self identity of ‘patient.’ News of remission came on July 22 2016. But now in January 2017 the memories of ‘this time a year ago I was in the second round of chemo,’ etc. Those memories evoke a range of feelings, from relief to the anxiousness of what now…. They also evoke thoughts of ok what does God want from this? More than one person had told me during treatment that ‘you aren’t going anywhere, God isn’t done with you, you are still needed here.’  Other thoughts include the memory of how intensely spiritual the journey was, how beautiful and freeing that was, and yet how riveting it was when my life was really on the line and I had no idea what the outcome of the treatment might be. But now with the big treatment done and with the good news that resulted from it, there is an easing in the intensity. Will I be just a hard times prayer person? Will I let all that recede into the rear-view mirror now that we are free of the in-your-face nature of the illness and the treatment? Is this what will happen as opposed to keeping the intense relationship with God alive and front and centre in everything I do? Are the papers blowing around in the street?

Three things have occurred that help answer the emotions and the thoughts.

First, I have discovered that so much of this is natural, a shared experience, if you will. Check out this article if you or someone you care about is in this situation: http://www.dana-farber.org/For-Adult-Cancer-Survivors/Caring-For-Yourself-After-Cancer/Your-Emotions-After-Treatment.aspx . You sort of already knew this, but nice to have it articulated again.

Second, I recall that from the very beginning, I had a mindset of uniting my will with God’s. If God was permitting me (not causing me) to have this experience, then I accepted that. Moreover, I took my lead from St. Therese of Lisieux who died of tuberculosis over a period of a year and a half with a lot of pain. Clarence Enzler picked up on that attitude of hers and explicitly united his own cancer experience to the Passion Jesus experienced on the way to his execution. So all of that was a tremendous help to me and there were many graces given to me that enabled me to stay with that. I am so grateful for what God gave me both directly and indirectly through my ever-constant-companion-reminder-person Peggy. And now I notice something very interesting as I contemplate the papers blowing around in the street; I still have a few reminders of the experience. The parade and the excitement have gone by, total remission is the news. But what about that little neuropathy in the feet? What about the little tingling in the tips of the fingers? What about the inability to turn a key in a sticky lock? Or to do up a tight button because the finger strength isn’t there? I was impatient with all this for a while, but now these experiences bring smiles. Through these natural side effects of the chemo, the Lord is keeping me in the experience, he is helping me because he knows full well I cannot hold that level of awareness on my own. My my. I just marvel at this.

And finally, the whole thing about what is the Lord asking of me now? I have come this far, and a whole lot of people have not. What is that about? And those people at St. Paul’s saying to me that the Lord has other plans for me, things he still wants from me, so I am not going anywhere just yet. They were very clear and confident about that, take it for what you will. But as time goes on, I am getting no answers. Until one day recently, this passage comes in a daily reflection email I get: “Jesus entered the house of Peter, and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, the fever left her, and she rose and waited on him.^”  Matt 8: 14-15

More prayerful discernment is needed around this, but the first message is, I think, don’t be staring out the window straining your brain. Don’t over think it. The Lord is asking you at the very least to recommit to your relationship with Christ. That relationship is the same one every one of us has who is a bapitized follower of Christ. For a Deacon that relationship is characterized as permanent, public and committed. For sure, Peter’s mother-in-law didn’t disappear out to the garden while she thought through what had just happened. Nor was she overwhelmed at the thought that she had just been given a new role in life. No, she got up and did what she would have done in any case. But you can be sure she did it at a new level of awareness, with a heightened sense of intentionality.

The passage hit me that day, and I took notice. Being a cancer survivor gives you that experience. I am even willing to guess that being a cancer patient – or a heart patient, or a diabetes patient – and having awareness of the gifts God is giving you throughout your illness, will bring this awareness. Renewal.

God is good.