Reality Check | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “Reality Check”

05 Feb 2013

Mortality is Not A Choice

The Cancer Letters #2

I grew up in a northern town in the Midwest US. It was near Lake Michigan ( the largest fresh water lake in the US). During my childhood the US was growing up from the post-World War age. Moving into the modern age. But not quite there. The city had its share of blue-collar foundry’s and factories. There were churches in every neighborhood, small grocery stores,old-fashioned movie theaters, and pre-war buildings that had already begun to show their wear.

We had large sandy beaches on the lake that we would go to every Sunday after church, and sit in the sun and listen to the transistor radios as they bellowed out the new rock-and-roll pop songs. There were pockets of ethnic ares in town, with their restaurants and tight-knit neighborhoods. There was the Lions Clubs and the YMCA. Town square and 4th of July parades. It was the time of the transition to the “space age” and also to the stark reality of a Vietnam War and all its injustice.

But those years were genuine, they were times to remember. Like so many others, growing up had many tremendous feelings of the taste of being young, but also yearning to get older. Older so that we could have a “life of our own” and be able to do what adults get to do- with all the freedom. My self and many of my friends always seemed to be in a hurry. And OH what we thought we knew. We saw ourselves as wise beyond our years. Is that a feeling you have experienced?

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As life has it, you can only look back to see what you thought you knew, but really didn’t. Perhaps the confidence of the young, perhaps just the blissful ignorance of youth. Either way. Facing mortality head on is a difficult thing. Even that reality is somewhat distorted, because after all we do it every day in our lives. Just stepping off the curb can be the last thing you do on Earth.

So now, in my life facing the reality of a cancer diagnosis and the clock that begins to tick toward an ultimate end, those days gone by seem so much more precious. And the time ahead does also. So many days in the past where I could have cherished them in such better ways, so many days where I could have looked at the positive things that God had provided me. But you cannot relive the past, or should not spend each day ahead full of regret. So there is a choice to make. It is the same choice you have if you didn’t have a cancer diagnosis but it is a choice.

Choose Grace. Choose compassion. Choose to make a small difference every day in someone elses life.

Posted in The Cancer Letters and tagged Acceptance, Cancer, Change, cherish, Faith, Grace, life is precious, Reality Check, Sprituality, Who Are You

03 Feb 2013

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Introducing The Cancer Letters

Sharing my story with my kids (and anyone who will read it) I will be writing:

The Cancer Letters

Cancer Letter #1

When I was much younger I remember that feeling of being so invincible. I mean I had my share of childhood illnesses, some afflictions that made its way through grade school years. But overall the thought of succumbing to more treacherous illness or terminal disease was reserved for older people, adults that had “complications” because of their age or the way they lived put them in harm’s way.

Then in middle school I was friends with a girl named “Patty” who our teacher announced one day had Leukemia She was out of school for a while and then actually came back to class. She even went on the class trip to Washington DC. I got to know her and spent hours on the bus ride on our school trip talking with her about many things and about nothing at all. She was a very insightful person. Weeks after we got back from our trip she stopped coming to class. It wasn’t too many weeks later after that she died.

I spent months not clear on what it was that God would do to take someone like her so young and leave the rest of us to feel empty about her not being in our lives anymore. I think I played Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell music for hours on end and created angry artwork (I guess it might have seemed very Bohemian at the time).

So as I grew older and got married, my wife and I had children. And of course as parents we have spent our time worrying about them as they head out the door every day for school. Now as they are out of school and growing into adulthood, we still worry about them. Admittedly we still watch for those things that could indicate more serious issues, we still take a moment when we see them to tell them that we love them.

It was over 20 years ago when my parents passed from this earth to a better place (more about that later). Both of them were in their 70’s and had me when they were much older. But they still would care immensely about my health and safety. In fact when I got older and married, I used to cringe some when I would see them and my mom would dote over me. After all I was a parent myself. I miss that now.

Years went by- living with all of the ups and downs, and then came the day when the Doctor decided that “further tests” were needed. That was the beginning of a life changing event that shook my world, my wife’s world and my family’s world.

To share my story with my kids (and anyone who will read it, I will be writing more of The Cancer Letters.

Posted in The Cancer Letters and tagged Anger, being remembered, Cancer, choices, Grace, Memories, moments, Prostate Cancer, Reality Check, Sprituality

29 Jan 2013

Finding the Smaller World Around Us

There are days where it seems like the world is small. Yet, other days it seems so distant. It is easy to feel so solitary.

Sure, there are so many ways to prove our world is large.

You can measure the circumference; you can look at a map and compare the continents; you can even compare the amazing number of different cultures and their religions and beliefs

You can look to latitude and longitude and measure in degrees, or measure the ocean between us or the length of the road to get there.

There are a number of TV channels that are dedicated 24 hours to showing you the most detailed things about the world around us, the people, the places, the animals and climates, the wonders of the deepest oceans or the farthest away galaxies. You would think that would make us all feel small by comparison, and you are probably right. We are living in the “world-wide” web we have built.

But the exposure to all of these things also bring us the chance to consider a point of view on things we never knew existed. Still, we isolate ourselves. We are allowed to ponder the life of a small girl in a country that has little in common with ours and make judgement on her actions ; we are able view real-time the Earth’s polar regions deteriorating at such a rapid pace w (and deny its impact in the same moment we watch).

So in this age of information and technology, we common folk have a dilemma. We can care about everything and then in fact not be able to consider anything precious. We can make light of the differences and criticize their existence as futile because it doesn’t fit our expectation of what the world should be.

We are subjected to so many choices here in the US, an “over abundance” of input. For some it tends to make life even more anxious. Just walking down the cereal aisle at the supermarket can be daunting. It can make you stop to ponder the size, shape, taste and sugar content of dozens of choices and experience the frustration of conflict. Will we pick the right one? the one that tastes best – or is most healthy? Or is the best value ? Just how are we spending our time and worry?

Now like the cereal aisle before us, we have nearly unlimited input via the Internet. We can hit the search button and make most anything appear. I keep imagining that if the “World of the Future” exhibit at the 1964 Worlds Fair had talked about the Internet, some people would have been more willing to accept flying cars rather than the idea of access to so much of the world.

So it may be wise to be sure, to consider the small world around us. Pay closer attention to the people, places and things that immediately surround us. Understand that there are certainly a lot of similarities for the human race all over the globe. Acceptance, the need for love, basic human understanding and the simple needs of food and shelter. Those and more are in demand in the human condition but it starts at home with our family, our children our relatives and friends.

Go find the smaller world around you. Try it.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Acceptance, Advice, Compassion, Faith, Grace, life is precious, Reality Check, Small World, Sprituality

29 Jan 2013

1 Comment

Finding the Smaller World Around Us

There are days where it seems like the world is small. Yet, other days it seems so distant. It is easy to feel so solitary.

Sure, there are so many ways to prove our world is large. You can measure the circumference; you can look at a map and compare the continents; you can even compare the amazing number of different cultures and their religions and beliefs You can look to latitude and longitude and measure in degrees, or measure the ocean between us or the length of the road to get there.

The world still seems small these days. The Internet can often make it appear large, yet in this “the information age”- we are subjected to more information about people in the most far away places that “discovery” seems so much less adventurous these days. There are a number of TV channels that are dedicated 24 hours to showing you the most detailed things about the world around us, the people, the places, the animals and climates, the wonders of the deepest oceans or the farthest away galaxies. You would think that would make us all feel small by comparison, and you are probably right. We are living in the “world-wide” web we have built.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Acceptance, Advice, Compassion, Faith, Grace, life is precious, Reality Check, Small World, Sprituality

23 Jan 2013

3 Comments

Beware of Darkness

Beware of Darkness.

There is so much darkness in our lives isn’t there?

There is darkness of night- allowing some to use the cloak of the evening to “go out” and prowl, to move among the darkness unnoticed and secretly meet with others. To be able to move along the shadows, away from the light.

You could find yourself slipping into darkness- like some sadness that comes over you. Slowly like the change from day to-night, or quickly like the wind blowing at the head of a storm. It’s the darkness of the stormy weather ahead in your life, you choose to hide in it.

There is the darkness of evil, like Satan the king of darkness. It catapults you into the most darkness places on Earth. It drives people who are unable to distinguish dark from light to plunge toward it. To take up the evil and combat the innocent or unknowing. It leads to machine guns in schools, murder and lies that will make others do things that are never forgivable by humankind.

So darkness is described as the absence of light; but without it light cannot exist. One small light in the darkness can shine brighter than a 1000 points of light on a bright day. Light provides the ability to reveal the reality of what darkness hides, it allows for progress to carry-on. Light needs darkness.

Darkness can be comfort like the warmth of a dark room, of like a deprivation tank floating like a dream. Staying under a blanket in a safe place that keeps the outside out and the inside in. Like a womb of darkness that will create a safe-place in your mind, a place to reset and rest before coming back to the light. Like the world turning the darkness gives way to the light. For some they never return.

Darkness can be the scariest place where secrets untold. It seems like that can bring a whole new level of darkness that can trap you in a pattern that has little light to offer. Like George Harrison sings, “Beware of Darkness”

Darkness is a combination of all colors- but somehow it when opening your eyes, it can seem like the absence of all color. The light is there. It is out there if you reach for it. If you find a way to let it in.

At the end of our lives, faith tells us that it can be the arrival of the light of the eternal flame… of a Spirit higher than anyone of us. The light that never brings darkness. That is the light of the world and the hope for tomorrow.