the kingdom comes knocking: a reflection
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
Deuteronomy 8:7-10
The Problem Of Comfort
I have never known horror. To be sure, one can hardly be a pastor and remain free from terrible, grief-laden experience (sometimes that of others, sometimes your own). The kind of naked horror that is commonplace for many all over the world, however, is a stranger to me. My wife bore our last child in the near Hilton-like comforts of Swedish hospital, not in an IDP tent in the Sudan. And if I’ve never known horror, I’ve only ever had a passing acquaintance with physical need. I sometimes wonder if this impedes my understanding of heaven.
During the past few months, I have undergone a series of treatments designed to free my body of cancer cells. The treatments were accompanied by some unpleasant side-effects. These increased in intensity for the duration of the treatment, but didn’t peak and then start to abate until several weeks after my last radiation dose. During the worst of it, my doctor, who was surprised by their intensity and confused by their form, ordered me off of work and into bed.
Since that time I have been slowly recovering, and have returned to work. Aside from a mildly irritated throat and a Nevada-shaped patch of brown on the side of my face, the side-effects have wholly vanished. Every so often I hit a patch of fatigue that reminds me that my body is still trying to un-microwave itself, but these are rare.
What is most striking to me about the whole ordeal is how little real suffering was involved. Each day, on the way to my treatment, I would pass a window revealing several gaunt women who were obviously in pain. I could only assume from their robes that they were waiting for full body treatments, and that radiation therapy was, at this point, the least of their worries. Their faces said that they were there to refill the windshield wiper fluid in a car in need of an engine replacement.
Still, if Physical Need hasn’t moved into a spare bedroom in the Youngren home in the past months, at the very least he’s been over for coffee.
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The Table of Plenty
There are times when my hopes seem woefully inadequate: shallow desires for more sleep, more exercise, more time to study. Need (physical or otherwise) exposes these as reflections on hot desert sand. They are as real as the desert is dry, but at the same time illusory. A generous retirement is a laughable longing compared to the renewal of all things.
And so, rather than a dry fact-filled update (the essentials are above), I would rather talk about the latest glimpse of heaven that Need brought to my home during my treatment. Ironically, it came knocking at my door.
There were various kinds of soups: some potato, some chicken, some broccoli. They expelled the storm-clouds of Vick’s Vapo-Spray from our home and replaced them with rich, creamy sunshine. I was struck at the care taken to make sure all of their contents were able to be eaten by someone with a somewhat mutilated throat. I can only guess at how long it must have taken to puree some of these dishes. They were a balm.
Some brought wonderful pastas and Italian dishes. Thoughtfully, these were made in the mildest fashion possible to ensure again, that my already inflamed throat would be able to handle them. There were cheesy pastas and hot Lasagnas. One dish even had baked bread crumbs scattered all over the top. Delicious!
Night after night this phenomenon would occur: a knock at the door, a greeting, a smile, a careful inquiry (I want to know how you are doing but I don’t want to interrupt your rest), and then, a full-course meal for my entire family. Many times, these were brought by women with whom I had only a few interactions previously.
The main dishes themselves were offset by all kinds of sides, deserts, and drinks. Sometimes it seemed like the ladies who brought us these meals were using the occasion to simply fill our refrigerator with groceries. They would bring in box after box of goods while I watched helplessly in a percoset-induced stupor.
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The Kingdom Revealed
It is often in times of great need that the Kingdom of Heaven is most visible. Like an enchanted fortress, it sometimes reveals itself most clearly in the most desperate hours of night. And how much more beautiful are its thick walls, its soaring battlements, its hearth-fires to the one who finds himself wrapped in the strength of its embrace in his hour of need.
It was with great joy that I found myself in that Kingdom again and again, as I was attended to by its agents night after night. At the end of it all there was no bill to pay, no thank-you cards required, just simple smiles on the faces of those who know no greater pleasure than to serve their King.
And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.
Matthew 25:40
I won’t be posting regularly for the next 3-4 weeks, other than to send the occasional update on my cancer treatment.
We have now 100% confirmed type 1A lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. This is fantastic news: normal cancer can travel through your body through all kinds of pesky cancer transporter beams, but lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin’s Lymphoma has to progress sequentially down the Oregon Trail of your Lymph Node system. That makes it containable and predictable. Which is good.