Zen and the Short Pencil, Chapter Two

 

Chapter One: Welcome to Retirement (“This is Not What I Had in Mind”)

Chapter Two: The Difference Between Hope and Denial (“The Gift of Ambiguity”)

Chapter Three: Faith Seeking Understanding (“Zen and the Short Pencil”)

Chapter Four: The Practices That Keep Me Going (“A New Rule of Life”)

Chapter Five: From Team to Tribe (“The Necessity of Companionship”)

CHAPTER TWO: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOPE AND DENIAL

“The Gift of Ambiguity”

 The second month of my journey was what I might call road-mapping. It meant trying to figure out where I was, where I might be going, and what resources were available and needed for the trip.

 On September 9, I sent the following update to my team:

 Wednesday September 9

First of all, thanks again for being one of the folks who know of my respiratory condition and have agreed to be on my team. Your support and prayers mean a lot to me and I pray for each of you daily. (Again, mercifully, this is not sent to you as a “group text”

 

It’s been a month since I first wrote to all of you in August so here is a little update on my current condition:

 

I’m still on track to go for another pulmonary function test and CT scan on September 20 and a visit with the pulmonologist on September 23 to hear a final diagnosis. After that I will reach out and let you know the result.

 

In the meantime, I have continued with my physical exercises, breathing exercises, and spiritual exercises and my overall well-being is good. I am mentally and spiritually strong and am becoming physically stronger.

 

Pulmonary function has improved but has plateaued and is not near 100%.  Sitting still I am fine, but any kind of exertion requires the supplemental 02.

 

I’m learning how to get around with the little tank which is good for 3 or 4 hrs of activity. I’m getting out for walks with the dog, shooting my bows, and have even done some fishing from the bank. I’m meeting regularly with a covenant community for prayer (online) and I’m engaged in a ministry of spiritual direction via Zoom and FaceTime.

 

I am eating well and have started gaining weight and my overall functionality has greatly improved. However, I still have many of the “signs” and there is no known cure for ipf, so we are still praying for a miracle.

Little did I know that the pulmonary function test would be so inconclusive that the doctor would not believe the results and would order the test to be REPEATED a month later. This happened twice in the first six months. This made for a lot of long waiting for an answer.

I came to see the ambiguity of my diagnosis as a blessing. As long as there was some doubt that it might not be what the “signs” pointed to, I kept hope alive for a better possibility. I found out that I had a lot to learn about hope. I also learned that I had to consider the difference between hope and denial.

First of all, as a trained and experienced pastoral counselor and spiritual director, I have read Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (On Death and Dying, Macmillan Pub. Co.) and am familiar with the five “stages” that we all go through when we encounter really bad news: Denial – Anger – Bargaining – Depression – Acceptance. I have walked with many of God’s beloved through all of these, have experienced them myself, and I know what they look like. In September and October, they came to me like a kaleidoscope of emotions erupting from the depths of the subterranean landscape of my soul.

As a matter of honest self-awareness/self-examination: How did I really feel at first?

CHEATED. That’s how I felt. Cheated. It’s the way we feel when life throws something at us that strikes us as bitterly unfair. After spending my entire adult life living in a fishbowl, moving from place to place and trying to be faithful to my calling, this is what I get in retirement?

I also felt JEALOUS. Yes, jealous, watching all those folks on TV and in the store and in their everyday walk of life just walking and running and jumping without a care in the world while I’m literally tied to a rubber tube in my nose all day and night, and I can’t walk to the mailbox without gasping for breath. Do they not realize how blessed they are?

But wait. In a moment of self-awareness, I felt differently. I listened to what I just told you and then I felt ASHAMED. And GUILTY. Who was I to feel “cheated” or “jealous?”

ASHAMED. GUILTY. I know, the Universe does not “owe” me anything, nor does God, the creator of the universe. I had no right to feel “cheated” or “jealous” when I thought of my two clergy colleagues who passed away this past year, one with cancer and the other with Covid; or my two friends and former church members who died suddenly from heart attacks, younger than me and with no warning; or the seminary professor who retired in May and died from a heart attack in October.  Short retirement for him, was it not? Or how about the dear spouse of my young friend who died last year with stomach cancer, less than a year after his diagnosis, barely 40 years old, leaving behind his wife and two precious little ones? I really deserved to beat myself up, which I felt was the ONLY thing I deserved. Let the self-flagellation begin!

After the self-flagellation, the shame and the tears, there comes the time to ask: what have you learned, or can you learn, from what you just saw?

I began to recall that feelings of being cheated or not getting what we feel we have earned or deserve comes from the transactional nature of so many of our experiences and relationships. “Study hard and make good grades so you will get a good job.” “Put this cream on your face and it will cure your acne/make you beautiful.” “Give money to charity or the church and God will bless you.” “Make your sales quota and we will give you a bonus and/or a raise.”

Quid Pro Quo. Transactional.

How about this one? “Trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and you will go to heaven after you die.” True, and thanks be to God, but also TRANSACTIONAL. I believe God wants more for our experience with God than this. God wants our experience to be not just transactional but also, and primarily, RELATIONAL. I want to love God not for what I will “get out of it” but because God is God after all and is worthy of my greatest love, in a relationship that is based on love and not on any kind of transactional offer or arrangement.

Come to think of it, all healthy relationships should be this way.

Upon reflection on my relationship with God in this light, I began to make a list of things that I’m thankful for. I’m thankful that I have lived a good life, have been blessed with meaningful work and with good friends all over Arkansas and way beyond, and that I am now here in my house, safe and quiet with good neighbors in a friendly neighborhood and town and by God’s grace I made it here. I’m thankful for my dog Dixie, my constant and loving companion who is helping me heal. I’m thankful for my peace lily which was a retirement gift from the West Memphis church. I’m thankful for all the beautiful cards and well wishes from so many friends in all my churches and other places who have wished me a happy and fulfilling retirement. I’m thankful for my medical care, my medications and the oxygen therapy that keeps me breathing. I’m thankful for the spiritual practices which I have learned and taught over the years, and which are now sustaining me. I’m thankful for my son Matt and daughter Liz who both have godly spouses and are serving their churches and communities. Matt is a better man than I ever was, and Liz is like her mom – compassionate, freckled, fearless. Their mom would be so proud of BOTH of them, as am I. I’m thankful that I got to baptize all seven of my grandchildren. I am, in this present moment, a most deeply blessed man.

So my team update that month ended with two spiritual practices that have been strong for me, mindfulness and gratitude:

It may sound ironic, but a central feature of my life right now is gratitude.

 

Each morning I am thankful for THIS day, and for all that God has blessed me with. I’m thankful to be in my house with my canine companion and good neighbors; for friends and family who have prayed for me, shopped for me, checked on me, and took me to the hospital; for the medical care I have received and for the supplemental oxygen that helps me to breathe; for safe and healthy delivery of newest grandson Elijah on August 26; for the gifts of hope, joy and peace that reside in my relationship with God and friends of God; and for the power of Christian mindfulness to appreciate the here-and-now, as Jean-Pierre de Caussade described as “the sacrament of the present moment.”

 

I could go on and on with my gratitude list, but I just want to add that I’m thankful for your prayers and support especially in the next two weeks. Blessings to all!

 So I walk the line between the already and the not-yet, which is how Jesus referred to the Kingdom of God. I found with greater attention to the here-and-now, the colors of nature are brighter; the veil shimmers and sparkles with an intensity that I would not have noticed before.

 Kubler-Ross noted that through and beyond all of the “five stages,” hope continues to endure.

 “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” – Romans 8:25

 Next week: Faith Seeking Understanding