Kemo

My two youngest grandchildren enclosed personal notes in their birthday card to me two months ago. Both of them referred to praying for my chemo and spelled it "kemo." I'm sure they heard the word all the time but had never seen it written. I was thinking about those notes yesterday, and I decided I prefer their spelling. It's cute and fun, and it ignores the toxic fact that a bunch of chemicals are about to be pumped into my veins in a couple of hours. So, dear friends, thanks for all your prayers through all these months of kemo treatments, and thanks for praying today as well.

Last evening the glorious sounds of the Calvary Church organ, played by John Cleaveland, delighted our minds and hearts. The concert was sponsored by the American Guild of Organists, with whom I was affiliated at an early stage of my life. A lovely variety of compositions from early Baroque to contemporary showed off the exquisite capabilities of that organ, which contains more than 11,000 pipes and is the largest organ ever built all at once. The organist mentioned that many have been praying for him lately, and a friend whispered to me that he has cataracts on both eyes (he's only in his 40s!) and a torn retina. To think of the handicap under which he prepared that magnificent program! Someone had sent him a greeting card inscribed with the words "Be Thou my Vision." So although it wasn't on the printed program, he played a stanza of that ancient and compelling Irish hymn. Since it expresses my prayer for today, I'll quote it as I close:

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart.
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Heading out for kemo,
Carol