Friday March 20, 2009
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. Psalm 84:5.
An apt text for this time in my life, although the pilgrimage I am about to take is not the one suggested on today's text. My current pilgrimage is certainly one that raises apprehensions. The healthy body I currently have (relatively speaking!) is going to be cut up and I’ll be convalescencing for . . . ? Only yesterday an article on Canada.com suggested that the PSA test for prostate cancer was not sufficiently reliable and many men are now impotent and incontinent because of it. At Least one person I know suffers this three years after prostate surgery—but at least he is cancer free.
Of course, it’s not the PSA test itself that causes these infirmities; it is the surgery to remove the prostate that follows a positive test for cancer. In my case the PSA test was also positive, but in addition a rectal exam found a lump and a biopsy confirmed cancer. However good I feel, this invader has to be removed but the future beyond that is not certain. The urologist claims I will eventually retain all functions, but projections and reality do not always coincide so I am prepared for a more unsatisfactory outcome. So this really is a pilgrimage.
However, my future as a whole is a lot more certain than many entering surgery for a variety of other problems, and I have little to complain about. But I can identify to some degree with the anxiety that surgery provokes in less certain cases. All the more reason to continue on the ultimate pilgrimage with God, where, as our text declares, we find our strength.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tuesday March 17, 2009
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Ps 139:14.
If my prostate surgery has been on the back burner for a couple of months or so, yesterday’s pre-op placed it squarely front and centre: an ECG, several phials of my blood secreted away, and a battery of questions about my health from illnesses and allergies to prescribed medication—all “no”s I’m glad to say. A new innovation for me is the armband I’ve been given and told not to remove until surgery—almost on pain of death. It contains a bar code which when scanned will, I assume, post all my statistics on a monitor for all to see. Shades of “666”?
The nurse remarked on how healthy I was. Thanks. But not for long. Shortly someone will be scouring out debris from my body like cleaning up a burnt saucepan, and stapling me up like a pair of old torn trousers. My dignity in tatters, I will have tubes going in to my arms and hanging out of the most personal parts, not to mention sponge baths and being helped around like an old crock. And that isn’t the end. Convalescence with some bodily functions sharply impaired for a few weeks, return visits to inspect the incision and have catheter and staples removed, and the concern for possible complications will follow surgery.
Perhaps the most amazing thing is that after so many people cutting up and generally messing about with my body, is that it will eventually heal itself. The psalmist was right: God has made our bodies a marvel of engineering with this ability to nurse itself back to health. Not only that, this same God is active today in our lives, in this case to oversee the whole performance. I am encouraged that almost every conversation and email ends with the promise to intercede for me. Thanks to so many of you who have supported us in this and other ways. God bless you all.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Ps 139:14.
If my prostate surgery has been on the back burner for a couple of months or so, yesterday’s pre-op placed it squarely front and centre: an ECG, several phials of my blood secreted away, and a battery of questions about my health from illnesses and allergies to prescribed medication—all “no”s I’m glad to say. A new innovation for me is the armband I’ve been given and told not to remove until surgery—almost on pain of death. It contains a bar code which when scanned will, I assume, post all my statistics on a monitor for all to see. Shades of “666”?
The nurse remarked on how healthy I was. Thanks. But not for long. Shortly someone will be scouring out debris from my body like cleaning up a burnt saucepan, and stapling me up like a pair of old torn trousers. My dignity in tatters, I will have tubes going in to my arms and hanging out of the most personal parts, not to mention sponge baths and being helped around like an old crock. And that isn’t the end. Convalescence with some bodily functions sharply impaired for a few weeks, return visits to inspect the incision and have catheter and staples removed, and the concern for possible complications will follow surgery.
Perhaps the most amazing thing is that after so many people cutting up and generally messing about with my body, is that it will eventually heal itself. The psalmist was right: God has made our bodies a marvel of engineering with this ability to nurse itself back to health. Not only that, this same God is active today in our lives, in this case to oversee the whole performance. I am encouraged that almost every conversation and email ends with the promise to intercede for me. Thanks to so many of you who have supported us in this and other ways. God bless you all.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Monday March 16, 2009
For by him [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17.
The claims of this text are ultimate and necessary for faith. That the world as we know it was self-created by accident does not make common sense to the common man. That’s why nearly half of Americans continue to believe “Charles Darwin was wrong where it mattered most.” (National Geographic, Nov. 2004, p. 6.) Whatever the merits or demerits of evolution, this text maintains that Jesus, the incarnate Son of God was before all of it. And in the final analysis, if life is an accident, then life has no real meaning beyond daily mechanical animal survival.
The problems of life conceived by accident are many. Where did ethics come from? An innate knowledge of right and wrong is common only to humans; animals, beyond training, do not have it. Of greater mystery is why humans even conceptualize the idea of God; animals don’t. The search for God in some form is what most of history is about and the desire for spirituality of some sort is still alive and well in the new millennium—even in the “secular” west. Paul’s claims of the eternal nature of God, and his handiwork in creating and sustaining the universe, make the most sense to most people, even if they consider it irrelevant to life.
But what we believe has consequences. The knowledge of right and wrong and a God who in the ultimate sense created us implies accountability for the life he gave us and freedom to live as we please. That is what makes God and death so frightening. The idea that there is no existence beyond the grave is a hope concocted to allay our fears, for our fear is that there might be!
But there is a further consequence. If, as I believe, Paul’s claims are true, then there is relief for our fears when we put our faith in that same God as our only and final hope. The God who might condemn is also the one who has the power and right to forgive. And Paul’s claim that Jesus Christ is the one who holds ultimate power means that no-one can gainsay or interfere with his desire to reconcile us to himself through his death: the sacrifice of God himself for us.
This belief in turn has a consequence for the way we live. Christ’s power to create and sustain means that his power to sustain individuals like us is also ultimate. Once we accept his claims and place ourselves in God’s mercy, nothing in life can harm us. As I face surgery in two week’s time, I can rest secure in the knowledge that he has ultimate control over my life—whatever the outcome. That gives my life ultimate meaning. I am not simply subject to the whims of an accidental universe.
For by him [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17.
The claims of this text are ultimate and necessary for faith. That the world as we know it was self-created by accident does not make common sense to the common man. That’s why nearly half of Americans continue to believe “Charles Darwin was wrong where it mattered most.” (National Geographic, Nov. 2004, p. 6.) Whatever the merits or demerits of evolution, this text maintains that Jesus, the incarnate Son of God was before all of it. And in the final analysis, if life is an accident, then life has no real meaning beyond daily mechanical animal survival.
The problems of life conceived by accident are many. Where did ethics come from? An innate knowledge of right and wrong is common only to humans; animals, beyond training, do not have it. Of greater mystery is why humans even conceptualize the idea of God; animals don’t. The search for God in some form is what most of history is about and the desire for spirituality of some sort is still alive and well in the new millennium—even in the “secular” west. Paul’s claims of the eternal nature of God, and his handiwork in creating and sustaining the universe, make the most sense to most people, even if they consider it irrelevant to life.
But what we believe has consequences. The knowledge of right and wrong and a God who in the ultimate sense created us implies accountability for the life he gave us and freedom to live as we please. That is what makes God and death so frightening. The idea that there is no existence beyond the grave is a hope concocted to allay our fears, for our fear is that there might be!
But there is a further consequence. If, as I believe, Paul’s claims are true, then there is relief for our fears when we put our faith in that same God as our only and final hope. The God who might condemn is also the one who has the power and right to forgive. And Paul’s claim that Jesus Christ is the one who holds ultimate power means that no-one can gainsay or interfere with his desire to reconcile us to himself through his death: the sacrifice of God himself for us.
This belief in turn has a consequence for the way we live. Christ’s power to create and sustain means that his power to sustain individuals like us is also ultimate. Once we accept his claims and place ourselves in God’s mercy, nothing in life can harm us. As I face surgery in two week’s time, I can rest secure in the knowledge that he has ultimate control over my life—whatever the outcome. That gives my life ultimate meaning. I am not simply subject to the whims of an accidental universe.
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