November 12, 2001: Better Every Moment

Friends:

First, let me say thanks for your continued notes, calls, and emails wishing me well and reminding me of your seemingly endless prayers and kindness. I can't begin to say how much that means.

Since going off antibiotics 10 days ago I'm a different man. The nausea stopped almost immediately, and within just a day or two of Vol. 14.3 I had started to eat again, first a bit of soup and fruit (it had been nearly 5 weeks since I'd taken anything solid), then slowly moving to solids, then, by about mid-week, essentially 3 smallish meals a day. This allowed the doctor to take me off the TPN (Total Parental Nutrition delivered via the IV into my mediport) on Thursday night, another step toward normalcy--in fact, the delivery guy just came for the pump, which means I'm officially self-dependent for nutrition again). Then, this weekend I actually left the apartment not once but twice to run short errands with Sheri--nothing strenuous or even mildly interesting, just out of the house. I immediately returned to my now semi-personal dint on the couch, but being strong enough to just do that felt like a victory. Obviously, I'm still pretty tired (the doc says I should expect that for another month or so), but I can sense the changes in energy nearly daily, and that's a big encouragement, especially after the last 4 weeks. My parents were here to see the changes for the weekend (they stopped in on their way home from Florida), so we have independent corroboration--despite the fact that we sent them out for dinner on Saturday night to celebrate my dad's 71st birthday.

Today I did something I promised I wouldn't do again--I turned on CNN and left it on all day. It's a crazy world we live in--both on the broadest and in the most personal senses--and today's tragedy just adds to that reality. It's overwhelming sometimes, to be honest, but still we go on.

I've been thinking about two words we here a lot these days: horrific & resiliency. Words that point to both that which is incomprehensible about a world supposedly ruled by mercy and grace, and words that suggest that only those things matter. That this is a horrific place--or that horrific things happen all the time for seemingly no reason and to people, who at the very least, deserve it no less than anyone else--seems painfully obvious. And I don't claim to understand. Whether you're talking about a plane crash by accident, a plane crash on purpose, an envelope full of a shadowy powder or cells that work all wrong and make your life do an about face--all of it is just too much for the mind and heart sometimes. "There are no words" I heard an anchor say as the buildings fell. Uh-huh. Just make like the end of the Book of Job and shut up in the face of it all. Who can understand? Not me.

And yet, in the face of it, we go on, most days in spite of ourselves. Most days, even, we go on even spritely, full of vigor and joy and anticipation. There's something deep within us that says this place is better than it seems, that the worst of the evidence piled on the scale can't outweigh the possibilities for greatness and beauty and kindness and mercy. There's something rooted in us that believes that in the end what is good and graceful will prevail--that forever unseen God's finger remains on the scales tilting the balance our way.

All that to say this: yeah, life has sucked pretty bad lately, but there hasn't been a day that has gone by that hasn't been full of hope. Sure, there are times--almost daily--when I am overwhelmed by that which is horrible (how can we not be?); days hope is hard to see. During those moments I make like the Psalmist and sing a little blues toward Heaven (I told someone recently that I was confident after reading the Psalms again during my sickness that "God can take a lot of crap--so let him have it"). But I've become convinced that even those songs of lament can be an act of hope--a cry to remind God that he's the one who put that longing for that which is right and good and just and true and gracious in our breasts. David said it, but I hear U2's music: "How long, O Lord, to sing this song?" I don't know, but as long as I have breath I will sing it, full of ache and joy at once.

But sometimes that hope is specific and less ambivilent, untouched by the blues. Somedays I'm so sure that this will pass it's tangible (I can see Dwight being pronounced well in January and starting to look for a new job and write that book he keeps promising and going on with a genuinely brand new life); and sometimes that hope is more general, a kind of quiet assurance that regardless of how things unfold with me, I can be confident that even in the midst of this nonsense, it can become a tool of that which is good and kind and even beautiful. I said that early on, remember, (again quoting U2): "Grace makes beauty out of ugly things."

I'm confident of that this afternoon, even with CNN on in the other room, and I hope you are too.

So, thanks again for praying, for hoping, and for joining me in the call and response of the blues (you always repeat the first line in the blues). His grace will make us resilient.

Remember the voiceless.

love,

Dwight

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