Congratulations are in Order!

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And it turns out that today, July 30th 2009, is the 54th anniversary of my parents wedding! In as much as I will be celebrating my 53rd birthday at the end of October, clearly they weren't wasting any time...although the charming legend that I am actually a contraception malfunction during final exams of my mother's Senior year is clearly unfounded -- my mother had already graduated from college and had entered the workforce as a schoolteacher by then. My dad was still in school though, attending the University of Washington on the GI bill in what would have been his sophomore year. But finals at the U-Dub would have been well over by then; if anything (and assuming I'm counting backward correctly on my fingers) I was simply a mundane "back to school" diversion. Which makes a lot of sense in terms of how I turned out, when you stop to think about it.

[l to r: Beth (Gildow) Horton, Shirley (Jensen) Ennis, Laura (Paulson) Pressy, Mary Lou Krause, Gerald Frederick Jensen, Betty Jo (Krause) Jensen, Harry Jensen, Irene (Ward) Jensen, Nathan Krause, Susan (Steele) Krause. July 30th, 1955]

Meanwhile, my parents didn't order a very elaborate wedding album - only about 20 prints all told, and pretty traditional poses to boot. I suspect finances and the use of a professional photographer had something to do with it. How different from today, where the guests have cameras in their telephones, and EVERYTHING gets photographed!

The happy (but nervous?) Bride and Groom.

View of the ceremony from the balcony. My dad's best friend, Chuck Hazen (my "Uncle Charlie") is the best man; my Aunt Mary Lou was the maid of honor. I believe the wedding took place in the Methodist church where my mother grew up, and the officiant was the Rev. George Poor (a renowned Seattle Social Activist in his day).

"I now pronounce you man and wife." Nowadays we would say "husband and wife." Because let's face it. I can pronouce a man a husband and I can pronounce a woman his wife. But I can't make a man into a man, no matter how often I say it. And then there's the whole same-sex marriage issue.... "Partners in Life?"

A traditional cake-cutting shot. Call me silly, but I sometimes used to fantasize about cutting the cake with an honest-to-God sword, before recessing out of the church in full dress uniform beneath an arch of drawn sabers. But you know, I just don't see that happening for me any time soon....

Admiring the Rings. The older woman holding my mother's hand is Chuck's mother, my "grandma Hazen."

Escape to the Honeymoon!

With the car all decorated too, Chuck's last duty as the best man.

Transition Tension

And I can't remember where I first saw this image, but obviously it made an impression on me; so I copied it on to my own desktop, and now I'm sharing it with all of you. Just one of the things from "out there" in the in the larger culture that is bothering me, even though I would just as soon not have to be bothered about it at all. But that's scary too -- feeling the way that my life just seems to be compacting down more and more into a size that I can handle from day to day, and how often even that seems to be way too much. It's frightening. Even terrifying Makes me feel so [f-Word] helpless. Sometimes I feel like I just can't stand it any more. But then I realize that I have to, because the alternative is not to have a life at all.

Two of my past three mornings have been taken up with medical appointments; tomorrow I get a day off, but then Friday I've got a double-header. And then another long weekend waiting for results. The days pass so quickly, and yet so slowly. So much to do, but does any of it really matter? My mortality feels very close this evening. And I don't like it one little bit.

;Happy Birthday Daudre!!!

Old Habits Die Hard

And I caught myself at a discount book rack today, purchasing a title that caught my eye but which I have no intention of reading any time soon, simply because the price was right, I knew it would be hard to find later, and I knew that It would "preach" -- that is to say, that if I ever found myself caught late in the week without a good idea for Sunday morning, I could spend a few hours with this book and come up with SOMETHING to say for twenty minutes that would not be either a waste of my time or the time of those good people who had come to church that week in the hopes of feeling inspired by something I had to say.

A lot of preachers I know jump on books like this when we find them; but the point that I am trying to make is that I don't HAVE TO any more. Those days are over for me...at least for now, and as far into the foreseeable future as anyone can look. And while it makes me feel a little sad, it also gives me a great deal of relief knowing that the stress of meeting those deadlines is now behind me as well, and that the only person whose time I need to worry about wasting really is my own. And it feels pretty good, actually. So good I'm a little ashamed to admit how good it feels. Amen, and Blessed Be.

Living for the Weekend

And you wouldn't think, that for someone in my situation, the difference between "weekend" and "weekday" would make that much difference. But it does. There are a lot of factors that figure in, but mostly it's because nobody can really schedule any medical appointments for me on the weekend, which means that I'm much less likely to have my day broken up by that sort of thing. And on the other hand, there is also always church...which so far I've pretty much been playing hooky from for the month of July. The church in Sacramento is scheduled to have a forum on Health Care facilitated by a member of the UU Legislative ministry: that sounds terribly inspiring, doesn't it, even if it does hit a little close to home. Can't find the topic for the church in Davis, but I do know the service is a half-hour earlier and a 45 minute drive. So maybe I will just plan on sleeping late. Especially since I'm going to have to talk by dad into giving me a ride anyway.

Next week the medical appointments come on fast and furious: MRI first thing Tuesday morning, a visit to the Coumadin clinic first thing Wednesday, and then Friday at noon a double-header, with a PET scan scheduled for noon, with a CT scan immediately to follow. I know my new docs also want to take another look at the tissue samples from my first biopsy over a year ago now, and... and I just need to remind myself that none of this is intended to "cure" my cancer. It's all about comfort, quality of life, extending my life, and essentially creating a new lifestyle for myself that will allow me to live with cancer like a chronic disease, until it (or something more interesting) eventually manages to take it all away.

And that's the hardest part right now. The cancer itself seems to be fairly stable (so far as I can tell at least), I have reasonably good pain control, people keep telling me how GOOD I look, which I'm convinced now is clearly a sign of how much stress I was under before, trying to struggle with this disease and still serve as an effective minister at First Parish. But at the same time, my shortness of breath continues to grow more and more acute, at times even causing terrible panic attacks after I overexert myself and feel as though I am suffocating right there in broad daylight! So more talk now of evacuation more fluid from my right chest cavity, and even of putting in a permanent shunt so that it can be routinely drained at will.

Assuming that's the problem, right? I mean, the presenting problem which is leaving me feeling so weak, helpless, and breathless....

The Law of Averages

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"I'm beginnin' to feel like a fugitive from th' law of averages."

I've been thinking a lot about the Law of Averages lately, and also about this whole metaphor of cancer as a "war" -- something we battle courageously and to which we never surrender, even when the odds are long against us and we seem to have little to live for. The cancer survivor as heroic warrior -- and if for some reason they do not survive, their courage must have somehow failed them, or they just didn't battle hard enough.

But modern warfare isn't really like that at all. You wait, you patrol, you wait some more; you clean your weapons and look forward to hot chow, and when the battle comes (and it can come at any moment) it is loud, and confusing, and you follow orders and act as you've been trained, and just hope that today is NOT the day that your number comes up. The violence of the modern battlefield is anonymous and unpredictable, and often times who lives and who dies really does seem like merely a matter of luck and random chance. And courage consists of being there despite your fear, and doing your duty, following your orders, accomplishing your mission, even when you would rather be just about anywhere else in the world.

Cancer courage is a little like that, I think. I didn't choose to get cancer, but now that I do have it there is nothing really that I can do to get rid of it besides just hanging in there day by day and following my doctor's orders. It doesn't matter how brave I am, and I can't really change anything by being afraid either. Just don't give up and don't give in...knowing like the combat soldier that your number might come up at any time. The one that has your name on it. The one you never hear....

As for the law of averages, I know that when I managed to survive my first year after diagnosis, my odds of being alive five years from now improved from one-in-twenty to approximately one-in-three. But I also know, like the combat soldier, that so long as I remain in "harm's way" my odds of eventually being killed in combat increase to 100%. But also like the combat soldier, I don't really have the option of simply remaining in my warm bed with the clean sheets pulled up over my head. (Ok, maybe I do - but only every once in awhile). I need to get up and live with my disease every day.

In any event, stumbled over a copy of Bill Mauldin's book that Debra had found in some sale somewhere, and left here in my new bedroom, and it has been a real joy to read -- an almost divine Godsend of inspiration and perspective. And a feeling akin to finding a lucky penny this morning in the parking lot outside the pharmacy, and actually being able to lean over and pick it up! I like my new oncologist, who in many ways is much more down-to-business than my very capable oncology team at the Maine Center for Cancer Medicine. Bothers me a little how casually he talks about the possibility of brain metastasis, for instance, or how one of the potential side effects of some of the drugs I am taking is a form of medically-induced diabetes.

But I'm going to let all that play out at its own pace; right now apparently the agenda is to "re-stage" me, running an entirely new set of diagnostic tests over a year after my original diagnosis, simply to get a sense of how far my disease HAS progressed, and what new might be available for me now in the way of therapy. Meanwhile, I still need to pull together the rest of my treatment team as well -- meet my new Primary Care Physician, and track down as well a new psychotherapist, a new Physical Therapist, and perhaps even a new Massage Therapist as well. I'm getting a new nutritionist this time around as well, which should be pretty interesting. And I still haven't really given much thought about what I'm going to do in the way of church.

Meanwhile, here's Bill Mauldin:

Religious services in battle zones offer weird contrast to bursting shells and the twisted wreckage of war. I is strange to seee reverence helmeted and armored. I saw a Catholic chaplain at Salerno gather up is white robes and beat a Focke-Wulf's tracers into a muddy ditch by a split second, tghen return and carry on the service as if nothing had happened. I have a lot of respect for those those chaplains who keep up the spirits of the combat guys. They often give the troops a pretty firm anchor to hang onto.

[Bill Mauldin, Up Front, (New York: Henry Holt, 1945) p. 103]

"That's one small step..."

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and then another, and another after that, and another and another and pretty soon don't you know it but you're walking. I've always loved this "Earthrise" photo -- I've used it as a meditation mandala, and as a central focal point for a meditation altar, and have always found lurking near it both a strong source of inspiration, and also a sense of cautionary humility. For millennia humanity has been gazing up at the night sky to contemplate the vast infinity of which we are such a small and unintrusive portion. And then, for a brief moment in history some four decades ago, a handful of lucky individuals had the opportunity like Prometheus to ride the stolen fire once more into the heavens for a God's eye view of our tiny island in the vast darkness. And the outcome, if anything, is even MORE humbling than the view from around our solitary, stone age campfires.



Mount Rainier finally had the good manners to peek its nose out on my last full day at Camano. I've already mentioned how invigorating and rejuvenating those two weeks were, and I just wish there could have been a few more of them...maybe toward the end of the summer, after I've had a little more opportunity to settle in here in Sacto and get myself unpacked. Had my first visit with my new Doctors today (more on that later), and there's certainly much awaiting me there. And the unpacking, of course, always goes more slowly that anticipated. If I'm LUCKY I'll be fully unpacked and moved in by the end of October, just in time for my 53rd birthday.

Drove down to Portland Friday with my son Jacob's fiancee Shelly, who had already driven to Seattle earlier that morning to obtain an expedited passport so that they can elope to Italy the week after next. But of course in the process of developing this wonderful plan, they discovered that it's a lot harder to get married in Italy than they thought, so now the plan is simply to go to Italy, and then get married at some later date back here in the States. I don't know what it is about my family. Margie and I essentially eloped to Atlanta back in 1985, while Steph and Craig have actually been married for months (for insurance purposes involving the baby), but put off having an actual public ceremony and reception until now. We all seem to enjoy the party part (when it finally happens), and the chance to get together with friends we otherwise might not see so often, but we are also all basically of the opinion that a big, fancy wedding is a huge waste of money that might well better have been spent on something else.

"Steph-n-Jen" -- my joined-at-the-hip daughters by mutual discernment. Looks like they may have picked up a new admirer.

In any event, as someone who at one point in his life earned a significant portion of his livelihood by officiating at weddings, I knew better than to offer any advice or make any critiques of the Judge who actually officiated at both the ceremony last Saturday and the earlier one down at the courthouse some months ago. And as a professional, I LOVE large weddings, think I do a pretty amazing job when it comes to "solemnizing" them, and always used to consider the big party afterwards as part of my compensation (although even just 5% of that in cash would have generally been more than satisfactory). Weddings, Child Dedications, and Memorial Services -- those sacerdotal milestones by which clergy share the lives of their people, regardless of their specific faith tradition.



Meanwhile, we were confronted with a little mystery Sunday morning: "the decapitation of Saint Frank." One of Margie's garden statues had its head go missing at some point during the weekend, while we were all off celebrating the union of Steph-n-Craig. The head was eventually recovered, but the culprit is still at large; meanwhile, this reminds me of one of Steph's favorite cartoons growing up, of a monk walking out of a devestated barroom, beaten-up bodies littering every broken chair and table, while the caption reads "After that, no one dared call Francis a Sissy again."



Flew down to Sacramento Sunday night, and was picked up by my Dad at the airport here right on time. As I mentioned earlier, still plenty of details to be worked out about unpacking and the like -- Debra and Jerry are in the process of moving into a new house they purchased about a year and a half ago only a few miles from here, while most of my things are still in storage waiting to space to open up here. And I truly am guessing it could easily be another month or more before I'm really unpacked and up to speed.



In the meantime though, I have new doctors and I have a new view, plus clean clothes, a comfortable bed, a functional desk (and internet connection!), and even a new dog! Well, not exactly, but the next best thing -- a calico cat named "Lou Lou" who belongs to my father, who dotes on her shamelessly, and provides us all with hours of fascinating entertainment.



When she's not sleeping, that is....

[cross-posted from The Eclectic Cleric]
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Be it ever so humble...

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[l to r: Beth (Gildow) Horton, Shirley (Jensen) Ennis, Laura (Paulson) Pressy, Mary Lou Krause, Gerald Frederick Jensen, Betty Jo (Krause) Jensen, Harry Jensen, Irene (Ward) Jensen, Nathan Krause, Susan (Steele) Krause. July 30th, 1955]

And these past three weekends in the Pacific Northwest, with two full weeks in between just hanging out at Juniper Beach, have revitalized and rejuvenated me in ways that are difficult to describe and even more difficult to understand. Part of it is just the plain old fashioned simplification of my life -- minimal stress, minimal responsibility, familiar friends in familiar surroundings, not to mention the healing power of all that love. Lot's of sleepy-time too, which never really hurts.

First weekend was devoted to immediate family and the Fourth of July. Not too many people missing from those pictures: only two of my Spokane cousins (Earl and Jeff), and Earl's son Johnny. Middle weekend it was mostly friends from High School, or from church...but the latter proved hard to meet up with face to face in the summer, when we all seem dispersed to the four winds "on leave." And now this final weekend in Portland OR, with my daughter and former wife, plus son Jacob and his fiancee/girlfriend (they were planning to be married two weeks from now in Italy, but the bureaucracy was just too overwhelming. I told them Friday that if they were willing to go down to the county clerk's and ask for an expedited license, I could take care of their problem in 20 minutes). Looks like this part of the family really likes to elope anyway. That's basically how Margie and I handled it: married in Atlanta in June at the General Assembly, with a nice party back in Seattle for all our friends when it was over.

And not a lot of time to write or reflect about ANY of this now. Hope to get caught up a little once I arrive and am settled in a little in Sacramento. In the meantime though, here are a couple of images that have caught my imagination this past month. The first is from Mom and Dad's wedding in 1955. What interests me about this photo is that all the bridesmaids standing to my Dad's right are still living, and relatively close at hand. Laura lives on the other side of Camano near Utsalady Beach, and Beth just across the bay at Warm Beach on the mainland, while Mary Lou lives in Seattle and Shirley in Spokane, and both were at the beach as recently as the 4th of July. The second photo is from last night's dinner: my daughter at 8 months (and due Aug 26 +/-), and really feeling the heat. Anyway, I'm guessing the baby will be a little early, in order to join the other two Leos who are his mom and uncle. Not that I really believe in any of that....