May 12, 2009
To be “neutropenic” can be compared to the person dressed in sheer clothing in the midst of everyone properly covered in armor as all enter a field of battle. One doesn’t have a prayer against the onslaught of possible illnesses, and though I have been wearing a mask as I have gone out and about, I have not been able to avoid getting sick. This time I have had sort of an endless “24 hour flu” which began last Thursday, and is only now beginning to recede. Sadly, once the body no longer responds to the medicines that force the stem cells to make more white blood cells, there is not a lot that can be done. White cells only last 24 hours or so, so it isn’t useful to have transfusions as it is for red blood. It appears that the chemotherapy did nothing at all to improve the blood condition, so once more we are looking at a more severe landscape than we have had before. Again, I am “sick and tired” of being sick and tired.
Always, there is the “meanwhile” part of the story, and this story’s “meanwhile” usually moves to my setting of Sanctuary, where everything within view teems with life. I identified another bird this week, (black and white warbler) and the oriole and the catbird both came on Mother’s Day. Now the list of summer regulars is complete, and the daily drama plays out in front of our windows. Alphie has discovered that there are land crabs under the earth on the path and near the wetland streams. This means that he is suddenly digging holes with chunks of soil flying everywhere, and causing the walking path to be full of potholes waiting to trip up the unwary. This is the first time that he has noticed the life under the surface of the earth in this way, and that began when I would rest at several places on the path. As I sat there viewing the treetops and the scenery in general, at first Alphie would sit quietly next to me, just as a good and faithful dog should. But shortly he began to wander, sniff, and then, dig, dig, dig. It was much better when he would take off in futile pursuit of deer and rabbits. And of course, whatever is living down there is long gone no matter how deep he digs.
“What a Friend” [click to listen]
As life goes forward, I hear in my mind Charles playing his composition, “What A Friend We Have in Jesus” and I replay the words that I loved to sing loudly (complete with the sliding tone between “Je” and “sus”) when I was about eight years old. I hear his exuberant and energetic presentation of that old well-worn hymn and I think, “Oh yes. . . .”
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer.
Oh, what peace we often forfeit; Oh, what needless pain we bear –
All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer!