Life in Us
And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
Luke 22:20
I thank you all for your continued prayers for my recovery. I am feeling stronger, and I feel that the first surgery (for a hernia) was very successful. I will have my second surgery on April 17, but that procedure, a lumpectomy, is considered much less invasive, so I’ve been told that the recovery for that will be easier. (You have to wonder how my life has been, that having my house burn down and being diagnosed with early stage breast cancer were the least of my worries.)
After I scheduled the lumpectomy, someone pointed out that April 17 is Maundy Thursday. I simply scheduled it because it was four weeks after the hernia surgery, and I wanted those weeks for my body to rest between surgeries. But then I thought, that’s OK if all these events that remind me of my mortality are contained in Lent, and by Easter, I will experience renewed life again!
Because Maundy Thursday is the day when Jesus instituted the sacrament of communion, I am also reminded of Ann Merrell, who was a great inspiration when I was in seminary. Ann was an elder at the church where I was a member in the Bay Area. She was a musician, a quilter, and an engineering project manager at a Silicon Valley company. But her spiritual life and leadership broke open when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, at a late enough stage that she had to undertake radiation and chemotherapy. Once, when taking communion, she looked into the little cup of juice and noticed how it was the same color as the chemo she was taking, and how ingesting that seriously powerful liquid— powerful enough to kill the cancer but hopefully not the patient—could be healing, as Jesus’ blood would be healing for all of us.
For me, I am reminded that during my time in the hospital, I received twelve units of blood, and so once in a while I think about having this life essence from a dozen different strangers coursing through my veins, giving me life. Like with taking the elements of communion, how much closer can I get to receiving the power of life in my very body?
In spite of this, I cannot say that I am recovered yet. Last week, I was feeling strong, physically almost normal, for the first time in months. But then, a couple of days later, my little dog Spike, who has been at my side through all my recent trials (except when I—or he—was in the hospital), finally lost his will to power through his kidney disease, with which he was diagnosed six months ago. I had always known that his time would run out eventually, but the timing of his decline felt like he was holding out until I could handle this latest loss. Actually, it seemed that the loss was harder on my nephew, who had been staying with me to take care of me (and, when I have been away, to take care of Spike). So, with me feeling stronger and Spike no longer with us, David chose to go back to where he is now staying. And so now, for the first time since I graduated from college over 40 years ago, I am living without any other living being, human or pet.
I tend to shy away from dramatizing the pet-human relationship, but I’m now feeling the lack of another life spirit in my presence. Of course there have been times when I have experienced spareness of life—for instance, during a bout of depression in college or traveling on the very sparsely populated island of Moloka`i—and I could feel God’s presence even more palpably in that wilderness. But I confess that right now, I’m wanting for a more tangible sign of life—I’ve even taken to tending to some young potted plants, putting them on my bed during the day to get good light!
I guess some people might wonder about my faith life if I am not consciously experiencing God’s healing presence all around me. But it happens. God’s presence is not diminished—certainly no less righteous or powerful—because I am not able to consciously feel God. I do not give up on God, and I know that this time of spiritual dryness is temporary—though I learn to have compassion for those who strive to feel faith though they are not able to enjoy the emotion of faith.
But I do look for moments of connection. Through much of my life, that comes most readily at the communion table. Lately, I’ve been tearing up at the end of Interwoven’s worship service, as they sing a benediction to each other with the song “The Blessing.” What strikes me is the repeated assertion in the song that “He is for you.” For most of my life, I have found a message like that to be wrongly self- serving—until I heard it after my house burned down, and now after my body has broken down.
Sometimes we just have to hear someone telling us, repeatedly until we start to believe it, that God truly loves us, whether or not we can feel that love, or think we deserve that love. Of course, that’s the lesson of Lent—that Jesus would sacrifice himself out of such great love for us.
On Tuesday we will meet as a Presbytery, by Zoom. In God’s grace, we know that we can feel God’s love shared and God’s will be done, even if we are only connected through electronic means. For all of us who are feeling our own mortality this Lent, may this meeting, and all the ways we connect with the family of God, be a reminder that we are not alone, and that Christ’s presence does live in us— through Christ’s body and blood in us, through the Holy Spirit filling and guiding us, through God who created and saves us.
Thanks be to God!
Wendy