A Rant

First it was random lists of colours.  Blue.  Black.  White.  Polka-dots.  Purple.  Nude.

Then it was cryptic comments that verged on lewdness.  In the kitchen on the floor.  Right by the front door.  On the backseat of my car.

Now it's the makeup-free selfie, which I post and then nominate someone else to do the same within 24 hours.

Somehow, taking a picture of myself without makeup and putting it up on Facebook is going to raise awareness of breast cancer.  Just like posting the colour of my underwear was going to raise awareness (and make all the men look like fools, which, of course, makes it so much more fun), and posting the place where my purse is currently resting was going to raise awareness (and make all the men look like fools, etc . . . ).

Oh, I know, the original point of the makeup-free selfie was supposed to be accompanied by a donation to a cancer society, and some people are still doing that, but let's be honest: most of the selfies I've seen posted have dropped the annoying donation bit and are just selfies "to raise awareness of breast cancer".

Seriously?

So I post a picture of myself without makeup, and I get dozens of comments about how wonderfully naturally radiantly beautiful I am.  How did that help anyone except me?  How did that bring awareness about anything except my own face?  How did that make one bit of difference in anyone's life who is actually struggling with cancer?  How do I think that taking and posting a picture of myself without makeup is somehow worthy of the struggle of cancer?  That it helps anyone know what it's like to hang over a toilet throwing up from the chemo treatments, to watch my hair come out in handsful, to watch my face swell up from the steroid treatments, or my lips and tongue become covered with sores, or be wracked with hiccups so deep and painful they strain every rib in my body?  How does it help to bring awareness to the fact that every step outside my house is a danger because the chemo has destroyed my immune system, and you insist on not being vaccinated for preventable diseases and won't stay home when you're sick?  How does it bring awareness to the anxious moments of waiting to see if the latest round of drugs has continued to fight this ravaging disease, or if the disease is overwhelming the drugs?  How does my collecting positive comments about my makeup-free face bring any kind of awareness to the pain of watching someone you love wither away and age a hundred years in one right before your eyes, and there is nothing you can do to stop it?

It doesn't.

All it does is make me feel good about myself. And how on earth did I become so vain and concerned about my appearance that I think that showing the world my bare face is somehow a brave and noble thing to do?

What about instead of perpetuating slactivism (the illusion of making a difference when you've really done nothing) we actually got out there and made a difference? 

What if we sat by the bedside of the cancer patient and held his hand while the drugs dripped into his veins?
What if we brought meals to the families of those whose days are eaten up in cancer clinics?
What if we donated money for parking, so the families of those patients could actually afford to park at the hospital?
What if we gave money, and gave generously to organizations like the Canadian Cancer Society or the Terry Fox Foundation?
What if we got off our backsides and tied on our running shoes and did the Terry Fox Run in September, or the Run for the Cure in October, or the Relay for Life in June?
What if, when we saw on Facebook that people are involved in these events and collecting funds, we pledged -- as quickly as we took a makeup-free selfie and posted that?
What if each one of us did just one of those things?

Those things are costly.  They involve sacrifice.  They take my money, my time, my effort.  They break my heart, because I come face-to-face with cancer, and I see the pain it involves.


Surely it's not too much to ask.  Is it?

I don't care if people want to take and post makeup-free selfies.  There are plenty of photos "out there' of myself without makeup.  It's really not that startling, or that big a deal.  Go for it.  I might even tell you you look great, as, I'm sure, you would tell me.  The mutual admiration society operates well.  But please don't think that doing so, in and of itself, makes any difference for those who are fighting cancer.

I've seen the face of cancer.
It looks nothing like a makeup-free selfie.

Conversation With the Birds

We stood huddled this morning, my dog and I, in the wind and snow.  I had my shoulders hunched and my collar turned up.  She had her ears pinned and her head lowered.  Her dixie-cup ears tend to catch the wind and the rain and snow, so she clamps them shut against her head when it's inclement weather.

It is the first day of spring.

The first day of spring and we woke up to snow.  Again.  I waited in the wind for my dog to find the perfect spot, and I sighed.  I'm pretty sure the sigh rose from my toes.  Nothing around me looked like spring.  It was cold.  Windy.  Snowy.  It looked like another verse of the Song that Never Ends.  It just goes on and on, my friend.  Never changing.  Enough to drive one mad.

It is supposed to be the first day of spring and it's just another day of Endless Winter.

But something broke into my gloomy thoughts.

Birdsong.

Lots of it.

I heard the cardinals first.  Full-throated notes, the male serenading his mate in a spring love-song.  Then the hearty chuckle of . . . robins?  It took me a moment to place the sound.  I haven't heard it in so long.  But it was!  It was robins!  I searched through the trees and found them -- my first robin-sitings of 2014.  And then came the liquid song of a red-wing blackbird, gurgling through the air like a creek over rocks.  I found him, too, hanging onto the thinnest of branches, buffeted by the wind and snow, head thrown back in triumphant song.

"Birdbrains," I mumbled into my collar.  "You silly birds!  Fly!  Fly for your lives!  Fly back to where it is warm and safe and there is food to eat!  Can't you see it's not spring yet?  Leave now, while you can, before you freeze to death or starve to death!"

But they didn't listen.  They stayed right where they were, defiantly throwing their songs to the wind and the snow.  The words formed words, and the words spoke to my heart.

"But it IS spring!  Just because it doesn't look like it doesn't change the fact.  It IS spring!  You are looking at circumstances, and doubting.  We are looking to the One who has promised that while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.  You silly human!  What are you going to believe?  The things that you see, or the unfailing promises of the Covenant Keeper?  Where is your faith?"

I winced.  Who was the birdbrain?  Then I smiled.
And laughed.
Just a little, but the sound rolled past my lips and joined the chorus of birdsong, human harmony with the melody of the birds.

It is spring.  It really is.

Trust

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to face a trial in life with an unshakeable trust in God.

I wonder, because that is not my reality.

I do trust God, I really do, but it is a trust that is won through enormous effort every time again.  I keep figuring it should get easier, but it doesn't.  The speed to which I set the treadmill has begun to feel easier.  The weights I lift have begun to feel lighter.  But every time again, my trust comes with struggle.

I want to trust easily.  I think, Ok, I'm going to really trust God, and even as I say it, my heart quakes, because it feels like a challenge, like I'm drawing a line in the sand, or maybe he is, and that trust is going to be pushed.

And it is.  The phone call at night.

I think, Ok, I kinda knew something was going to happen.  I told God I was trusting him, and sure enough, he's testing me.  But that's ok, because I know that he's good and I know that he is who he says he is, and he can do what he says he can do.

But the news we get is worse than we first thought.

Ok, really, God?  Wasn't the first thing enough?  

Parking fees and gas costs begin to add up and push and strain on an already strained bank account.  The bills I had hoped to pay off just might not get paid off after all now.  I'll cut here and scrimp there and make it work.

But then my car starts acting up.  It starts acting up in exactly the way it acted up last time it cost me $500 to repair.  Seriously?  Seriously??

I want to trust God, I really do.  I am trying to honour him in this, do the right thing, and one thing after another after another is going wrong.  I feel like he's beating me up, that no matter how hard I try, it's never good enough. That thought drifts through my mind like a tendril of smoke, grey and caustic, but barely there, just out of grasp, floating on the edges of my mind.

I wave my hand and try to disperse the smoke.  He's not beating me up.  The Lord is not like that.  He's good, and he loves me.

Yeah, it's easy enough to talk about love, isn't it.  Not much to it when he doesn't show it.  The smoke thickens a little, and it must be getting into my eyes, because they're smarting and I can't stop the tears that gather.

But he has shown it.  He's shown it here, and there, and there, and there.

Oh, wow, yeah,that's good, especially when he could easily have prevented the whole thing from happening in the first place.  He's emptying your bank account and then throwing you chump change, and you say that shows he's good.  The pallor of the smoke is cutting off my vision, and my eyes are streaming.

No, I'm trusting him.  I know he hears my prayers.

Like he heard them before, when you so desperately needed him and he wasn't there?  Before I know it, I am surrounded by hell-smoke.  I am choking and gagging on a lungful of fumes, and my trust hangs like a tattered rag.

Why?  Why??  Why do I so easily and so quickly believe those lies that reek with the breath of death?  I know they're not true.

But I fear they might be.   It is the fear of a hundred years ago, another lifetime ago, the fear of a much younger me, begging God, pleading with God, crying out for God to act . . . but he didn't seem to hear, and she thought she wasn't allowed to cry.  Even when it hurt.  Even when she knew in a blinding millisecond of truth that half-dead isn't the same at all as all-the-way dead, that the dead bodies on TV don't look one bit like dead bodies; they look like living people pretending to be dead.  And bodies lying in a coffin don't look alive and don't look "good".  They look like dead people pretending to be alive.

But there is no pretending.  There is no halfway.  There is life.  And death.  And death, if not grieved, has a way of creating a wound of the heart which robs us of courage, of love, hope, and trust, of all that makes life good and glad and glorious.  Without realising, it confirmed what I feared to be true while I was still too young in the faith to know better.  You see?  God doesn't hear.  God doesn't care.  Submitting something to God means losing it forever.  And you just need to take it, without crying, without question,without grief.  Just take it.  Swallow it without a word.  The lies rained like blows, and I cowered, silent, swallowing it without a word, arms raised over my head to protect myself from the bruises, and I stayed silent.

But, oh, how it hurt.  Oh, how it hurt.

And because I never questioned, the lies never surfaced.
Because I never cried, there were no tears to cleanse the wound.
The hurt was hidden, but not healed.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to face a trial in life with an unshakeable trust in God.  It is not my reality at this moment, but I want it to be.  I want to trust easily.  When trials come, I want to be quick to fall into the arms of a Father I truly do know loves me, rather than hiding my hurt in fear.

The questions might be 20 years old, but I am asking them now.  The tears might be 20 years too late, but they are surprisingly quick to surface.  They will still do their work.  I know my Father will welcome them, and will heal the hurt.

I know.
He is my Father.
He hears.
He cares.
And I trust him.