Who Are You Falling in Love With...

...and what do you hate?

Dear Friend,

Let's start with Natalie, but it's not just her. The truth? It’s every single person who radiates me. Natalie is the one who gave me permission to blow off the doctor the first day of treatment because it didn't make any sense to wait around for an hour for a well-being check-in after one dose of radiation. I love Natalie because of her name (obviously), but also because she is young and fearless and works in a radiation therapy center.  I also love the guy with long hair and a Shaggy beard who plays Fake Plastic Trees for me while he radiates my brain, and the other tech who tells me I look like Ben Gibbard from DCFC and plays  I Will Follow You into the Dark whenever she is there for my treatment. Which is weird, I know, but I love it. These are my people. 

Kathryn says:

“It’s easy to be consistent when you love everyone.”

I love that.

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I love how thin the air is on the second floor of Massey Cancer Center, and how if you hold your head just so and look past the door at the end of the hall before it swings shut, you can see beyond this world into the next where money is the punchline to every joke and status is measured in compassion and nobody is afraid of anything - especially, not afraid of not knowing. I love how everyone asks you if you want a glass of water while you are waiting to be called back. I love the few minutes I have each day in the waiting room with the people who so lovingly agreed to drive me, even though they have jobs and families and it's the holidays, after all, and there are only twenty-eight shopping days until Christmas. But they show up; we talk about fighting cancer with tires (more on that next time).

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And I despise all of it. I despise the vocation of managing cancer. I love the people I talk to, but I die a little death every time I have to answer the same insurance questions and how those same questions leave no time to ask Christian - the scheduler at JHU - what his favorite color is and how he takes his coffee and who makes it for him on cold December Sunday mornings in Baltimore. I hate that the date of my last scan gets more air time than his who was at this Thanksgiving dinner. I hate not being able to remind him that he is fully human and fully loved and way, way, way more than just a scheduler by simply calling him by his name and asking him his favorite color and how he takes his coffee.

I love the people at the Social Security Administration. I love how Heschel reminds us that we are not just pack mules, but that we are invited to build palaces in time. I wish that the people at the SSA call center knew what he knew and that they had someone to go to lunch with every single day to buy them lemon cake for dessert and to remind them about palaces in time until they never, ever doubted it, and maybe even found the courage to start building one of their own. Why not?

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I love knowing that I have absolutely nothing to be afraid of. I love Compline. Compline is one of those few precious places where my friend, Behold and I sit together and wonder silently together at the glory of God. It's Behold that directs my gaze away from my endless to-do list and my well-crafted plans and invites me to turn toward God, our God. And God never disappoints. 

I love how Behold never explains anything. Never cuts wonder down to size. Doesn't waste any effort analyzing or sorting things into boxes. She just notices everything.... mesmerized. Think pollen grains in a lily bloom and the way they spill onto the petals. Behold can sit with a single lily bloom for hours.

I love that. Don’t you?

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I love daytime duraflame fires every day of the week. I love sitting on the porch wrapped in a blue blanket that a friend from church knitted, watching finches and red-bellied woodpeckers and mourning doves with my step-daughter who came in for the weekend from Champaign, and I love watercolor painting with her late Saturday night even though she hasn't even packed for her return flight that is taking off early, early Sunday morning. I love southern pecan decaffeinated coffee that Kathryn brought home from Rostov’s on a whim. I love lingering.

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I despise myself for not knowing how to surrender another's pain. I am so grateful that Gibson gave me the words for that, but I hate that she didn't offer a solution. I hate realizing that loving someone completely doesn't always mean knowing how to love someone well. I hate how that surprised me. I hate remembering that loving someone well -  like really, really well - cannot protect them from pain. I hate that I somehow forgot that one, too.

Maybe you could remind me going forward?

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I hate that my timeline shifted so suddenly from Kathryn's and that no Hallmark movie or Rumi poem or math trick on the nature of eternity can bring our timelines back into alignment. I love being a section hiker who can explore every blue blaze and can double up on ramen bombs around the campfire every single night. And I am angry that my partner has to get to Katahdin before the snow closes the trail so she has to skip the blue blazes and she has to conserve her electrolyte tablets and she has to plan ahead for where and when her next food drop will be.  

I love that there is a trail metaphor for everything. 

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I love that Mary Oliver slipped into my mega-church auditorium at the 8 o'clock service yesterday, walked right down the aisle, straight to the altar, and reminded everyone:

 Attention is the beginning of devotion,

then turned and left as quietly as she had arrived, and was nowhere to be found on the concourse between services. I love Mary Oliver. 

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I love that the nausea angels worked right through Thanksgiving. Never even took a smoke break. 

I love that you reminded me that what we are thankful for and what we are joyful for are often not the same things. I love/hate the rabbit trail your little epiphany is taking me down, and I hope I have the courage to follow it all the way to the end, but I might not.

I love Advent. I love waiting and hoping and believing and giving my heart to someone who defies explanation. I love being reminded that All Creation Waits, I love being reminded to behold, and I love beholding.

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What about you? What are you noticing, and what are you falling in love with? And what do you want to let go of? What’s stopping you, and why is it fear?

Oremus,

Chris