Friday 20 May 2022

Still Quarrying: Incurable.


I recently heard of an eminent cancer specialist who did not like to use the word ‘terminal’ in relation to a patient’s condition.
  He preferred to say she might not survive.  It’s a lesson in the power of words and how they impact on people lives.  Some have resonances which can have a negative psychological effect.  That was something the specialist wanted to avoid.  An important factor in how a cancer sufferer copes is positivity.  Some words carry a weight that can be oppressive and undermine hope.  


So what about this word ‘incurable’?   It’s actually not as bad as it sounds.  People can live with incurable conditions to a great age.  It’s when you couple ‘incurable’ with cancer that it opens up a less than promising prospect.   Multiple myeloma is at present an incurable cancer which means that every day that remains to me I will be carrying this disease.   Even if this regimen of treatment I am presently following is deemed successful I will probably need to continue with some form of treatment that will keep the cancer at bay.  


It must be said that many people who are in this position can live a good quality of life.  I have previously blogged about Todd Billings book Rejoicing In Lament: living with incurable cancer.   He is  a multiple myeloma sufferer who despite challenges and set-backs continues to write and teach in a Seminary in the USA.  I know others closer to home who continue to work and maintain a positive attitude to the future.    It is something you can live with.  And, who knows, there may be a cure some day.  It was in 2009 that an abnormality was discovered in my blood and since then there have been great advances in the treatment of multiple myeloma.   But, still, for the moment it remains ‘incurable’.  


In a sense we all live with an incurable condition.  Our spiritual DNA holds a powerful tendency to live against God and His ways.  The Psalmist lays out the reality of this in a way that many might feel shocking: 


‘Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.’  (Psalm 51: 5)


Paul knew the truth of this as he reflects on the civil war going on inside himself.  He writes of being conflicted in desiring to do good but in reality continuing to do what he knows is evil.  His tendency to go against God takes over and there is nothing he can do about it on his own.   He is a man who needs a Saviour who can forgive, renew and establish him more fully in the ways of God.  We feel his joy when he praises God that all of this is possible in his relationship with Jesus Christ.  (Romans 7: 14-25)


I have heard people say that living with the need of a Saviour is psychologically debilitating.  We should not be looking beyond ourselves for help but looking within ourselves for the resources to overcome our challenges.  That is the way to personal growth.   It’s an appealing argument but we also need to listen to those who found a way out of self-destructive patterns of behaviour - some of them who would not profess faith in God - and were able to do so because help was at hand.  What friends, family, and therapists were able to do was a gift that far from diminishing their lives enhanced it.   They live with the realisation that they were valued in the eyes of others and were counted worthy of what it was possible for them to give.  Daren McGarvey, author of Poverty Safari,  writes this of his emergence from a life of addiction: ‘I couldn’t have done it without help.’   He lives with the realisation that the gifts of friends and counsellors, and the resources of various institutions brought him through to a healthier lifestyle.  


Take this to the deeper level where Paul struggled.  We all have this incurable condition which is sin, the tendency to shut out God and live apart from His ways.  There is no way out of this apart from the intervention of Jesus.  His death has paid the price for our sin,  and has opened up the way for forgiveness and renewal to take place.  We still feel the power of our broken human nature, overwhelming our thoughts and our actions.  But though we fall He raises us up to begin again.  


When the breakthrough comes and we realise the need a Saviour, this is surely life-enhancing not life-diminishing.  We have been embraced in the love of God reaching out to the incurable to show that the ‘disease’ does not have the final word.  In Christ it can never be said we are terminal.  

Tuesday 10 May 2022

Still Quarrying: The Sharp End.


We have seen another side to television journalists since the beginning of the Ukraine war.  Normally in well-appointed studios and stylishly dressed we have seen them trail through rubble often in military style kit.  In the past there have been journalists wounded or killed as they have tried in the midst of conflict to keep us informed and perhaps to bring greater understanding.


I was concerned, though, when I saw that Fergal Keane was in Ukraine in the beginning of the troubles.  The last I had heard he had taken time off as he struggled to cope with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the result of his exposure to war in various parts of the world.   His book All Of These People tells of the horrific conditions he experienced in Rwanda which have played on his mind as powerful flash-backs.  So what was he doing in Ukraine?  


Fergal Keane: Living with PTSD, a documentary screened last night (9 May 2022) on BBC 2 gave us some insight.  He described his ‘addiction’ to the tragic areas of the world, his compulsion to be there, and the irresistible impulse to make them known to the rest of the world.  It’s not an enticing prospect for those of us who appreciate their comfort zone thank you very much and are happiest making pronouncements from the comfort of our armchairs.  But Fergal was brave enough to open himself up and show us some of the darkness within.  


Sadly it is this darkness that led to an alcohol problem which seems now to behind him.  But the flash-backs remain which can come in disturbing dreams or even in the course of every-day tasks.  Most of us know the effect of past events weighing heavily on our inner being but PTSD is serious mental disturbance which can often have physical consequences.  


The documentary ended on a note of hope.  Fergal quotes a Van Morrison song: ‘Baby, ain't it all worthwhile when the healing has begun?’   A voice off camera asks: ‘Do you believe the healing has begun?’   With a genuine smile Fergal says ‘Yes.’   Specialised counselling has helped but more than anything else has been the encouragement received  from contact with other PTSD sufferers.  His final words are to others like him who need to know that there are others out there who understand and keeping company with them healing can begin.  


Faith is never mentioned.  I’m not sure where Fergal stands in relation to Christianity these days.  But I would be interested to know how he responds to a Suffering Saviour, particularly with regard to the inner turmoil that Jesus experienced.   This was stirred by the sight of the suffering around Him.  He had an extreme reaction as He stood at the tomb of Lazarus.  In Gethsemene His whole inner life threatened to come apart completely.   The Cross brought not only physical torture but spiritual dereliction.   


Jesus knew traumatic stress and with the Ascension we are soon to observe in the Christian Year we can say that this is now part of the Godhead.  Jesus has taken this into the very being of God.  This assures us of God’s presence in the worst of inner turmoil and assures us of a way through.  This may not be fully realised in the brokenness of this world but having a Divine Companion who empathises has made a difference to many bruised and battered souls.  And this is leading to the transformed existence that is promised in Christ.  The traumatised Jesus of Good Friday was presented to the world on Easter morning renewed and resurrected as God’s will for the whole humankind.   


The night before he was crucified Jesus shared this promise with His friends:


‘And if I go to prepare a place for you I will come back and take you to be with me so that you also may be where I am.’  (John 14: 3)


This is when the healing begun on the Cross will be complete in resurrection power.  

Tuesday 3 May 2022

Still Quarrying: Work Done!

When you are in a treatment programme you have to learn what it is to be passive, to be content to have things done to you. 
Someone puts in a cannula, connects you to the infusion, you settle in until it empties itself, and then someone disconnects you.  Really, you have done nothing through the whole process except receive.  And it goes against the grain.  You would be far more comfortable making a more obvious contribution.  


Certainly, you follow all the supplementary advise to keep eating sensibly, exercise if you are up to it, and try as far as possible to follow your usual routine of work, rest and recreation.   But in the end that doesn’t seem to amount to very much.  The real work is what is done to you, what you receive.


That is always a major break-through on a spiritual level.  We find it so difficult to believe that, as Paul teaches, ‘God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’  (Romans 5: 8).   We do nothing to deserve God’s love and what he has done for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  Nothing we can do raises our moral profile in the eye of God.  We can never have sufficient moral heft to barge through the door to the Kingdom.  The Gospel tells us that we are loved despite our brokenness and not because of our ‘achievements’ in our own or the world’s eyes.  


In the end, Good wants us to grasp that each of us is worth the death of His Son and to respond to this by making Him the focus and the aspiration of our lives.  


Sometimes the old ones are the best.  Writing in the eighteenth century Augustus Montague Toplady wrote a hymn that would be sung through the centuries with these words:


‘Nothing in my ands I bring

 Simply to thy cross I cling;

 Naked, come to thee for dress;

 Helpless, look to thee for grace;

 Foul, I too the fountain fly;

 Wash me Saviour or I die.’


It’s the work done that counts!