Our Love

It's not cancer.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know if I'm more relieved or disappointed. On the one hand, I do feel like I haven't accomplished my purpose here yet. On the other, it felt a lot like early parole.

The book of life is brief
and once a page is read
all but love is dead
that is my belief

The Four Loves ('Eros' or 'The Love Between the Sexes') by C.S. Lewis

Come, Lord,
whom my soul has longed for
and longs for still.
Come, Solitary One, to this solitary,
for as you see, I am all alone. . . .
Come, for you have alienated me from all things
and made me be alone in this world.
Come, you who have become my desire
and have made me desire you, the Inaccessible One.
Come, my breath, my life.
Come consolation of my poor soul.
Come, my joy, my glory, my endless delight.
For I must give you all my thanks
for making yourself one with me in spirit.

-- Symeon the New Theologian

"Nevertheless, not my will, but Thy will, be done." -- Jesus

"Pain is the fuel of passion--it energizes us with an intensity to change that we don't normally possess." -- Rick Warren

Well that about sums up the last decade or so of my life.

"I pour out my complaint before him, and show him all my troubles. When my spirit is overwhelmed within me, You alone know my path." -- Psalm 142: 2-3

I'm still waiting and following up on the cancer thing. It's complicated, because it's the VA, and I'm traveling and away from my usual network.

The first doctor was sure it was cancer. The second one was confident it wasn't. The third one thinks probably not, but we're doing further tests to find out for certain. It'll be a couple of weeks, or maybe a month or two, before I really know.

My prayer is actually only that God's will be done. If he has an important purpose still for me to fulfill here, then okay. If not, I'm ready to go home. In fact, I'm fairly certain that if it is, I'm not going to seek treatment except for palliative care--pain management, that is. It will depend on the exact nature and stage, and some other factors. But I don't want to stay here badly enough to go through chemo and all that. They say that cancer survival is most likely in those with a strong will to fight to live, and I no longer have that.

If it is time for me to go, it's been a pretty good final year of my life. Traveling around the country with an unbelievably loving and sweet, stunningly beautiful young Italian girl, seeing wonderful and beautiful things, experiencing what it is to be loved, is really not a bad way to end one's life. Of course, a pall was cast over our time together by Adina's death. My grief and sadness, although mostly remaining beneath the surface, kept me from being as active and joyful in it all as I otherwise would have been--I didn't even realize how much (although she tried to tell me) until I was able to reflect on it in hindsight. But that's just another reason to be okay with going myself; outliving one's child means one will never truly be happy again.

Once a soul has been consumed

in the depths of God's love

and has tasted the sweet delight

of God's intellective graces,

it can no longer bear to stay frozen

in its own former condition

but is impelled to rise ever higher to the heavens.

The higher it ascends through the Spirit,

and the deeper it sinks into the abyss of God,

the more it is consumed by the fire of longing

and searches out the immensity

of the even deeper mysteries of God,

strenuously trying to come into that blessed light,

where every intellect is caught up into ecstasy,

where the heart knows it can finally rest

from all its strivings

and find its rest in joy.

-- Niketas Stethatos

I Shall Be Released

"When you become aware of the increasing fire

of your love for God and inner faith in him,

then you should realize

that you are bringing Christ to birth

within your soul.

It is He who is lifting your soul

high above its earthly and visible limitations

and preparing a dwelling place for it in the heavens.

When you experience your heart filled with joy

and consumed with yearning for God's ineffable blessings,

then know that the divine Spirit

is working within you.

When you feel your intellect filled with ineffable light

and spiritual understandings of transcendent wisdom,

then recognize that the Paraclete

is actively present in your soul,

uncovering the treasures of the Kingdom of Heaven

that lie hidden within it."

-- Niketas Stethatos