On Track Again

After consulting with my oncologist on Monday evening, I spoke with a few family members and friends about what the options were for my cancer treatment.  We all agreed the best path open to me at the moment was to begin standard chemotherapy.  So on Monday, July 6, I will enter a local cancer center to begin that treatment program.  I will undergo four rounds of treatment, each of which involves three weeks.

There was the option to do nothing, but Americans aren’t much for that option.  No one I spoke with liked the nothing option.  The word “nothing”, by the way, occurs 362 in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible that has the books of the Septuagint as part of the Old Testament.

“It’s better than nothing,”  one cliche says advocating that something is always better than nothing.  But one of my old seminary professors used to say in response to that cliche – “But that is the only thing it is better than.”

There is of course reason to try something.   The medical folk think it offers reasonable hope for an improved outcome.  Nothing, of course, is guaranteed in life.

So, the track is laid down and it is the one I will follow.

I was asked what my attitude was in approaching chemotherapy.

I think it is the same one with which I approach Communion –

In the fear of God,

with faith and

with love.

The Church is in the business of healing sinners, not condemning them.  The roots of the medical industry are in that same goal – healing the sick, not judging them.  So it seems to me.

God is the healer of souls and bodies.  His power and love can come to us through medicine – whether for the soul or the body.  Those who are well have no need of a physician, but I am not well, so need both healing and the Healer.   I need Christ to be present at Communion and at chemotherapy.