Please Pray

Please pray. My cancer buddy did not get good news from the biopsy of his lymph node. It contains cancer cells. He and his wife will see the oncologist on Thursday. They need peace and comfort right now, and they all need wisdom to know what to do next. Thanks for praying.

I want to maintain a thankful spirit, because there is so much to thank God for (and besides, self-pity is toxic). So I’ll just tell you, without comment, that I had to come home early again yesterday and go to bed. Another prayer item: I’m getting an itchy rash on my elbows and upper arms and my knees. Could be an effect of the Doxil. I plan to let the doctor know about it. If the Doxil is destroying the cancer, I certainly don’t want to quit merely because the effects are getting uncomfortable. We need wisdom too.

Now, a poem that’s sobering:

CHRISTMAS
You still walk the streets,
our streets,
looking for a place to put your head,
still poorer than a bird in its nest.

You still knock on the double-latched bolted-shut door
with Christians inside.

Christ, you are still discarded
and dropped in the wastebasket
of sometime or never.

Christ, your chance is still slim
in our land of goodness and keep-smiling,
where we live by your ethics
without knowing you.
Proclaimed: teacher among teachers,
king among kings,
God among gods,
one of the many ways to salvation,
take it or leave it.

Jesus, don’t let me live outside of you,
outside of the heart of the world.
Smash down my locked door, rest in my house
and sit at my table.
let me be on your side,
drown me in your love.
Neglect the name and number that I am,
the address and place in or out of society
and break through to me
to release the weights
clinging to my hands and feet.

And love me into your love,
into your Christmas.

By Ulrich Schaffer, in Greater than our Hearts: Prayers and Reflections, Harper & Row Publishers, 1981.

Love,
Carol