Friday, April 30, 2010

Malevolent Crickets and Heaven

Three out of five mornings this week I’ve been attacked by giant killer demon crickets. No joke, THREE times. Two times it was when I was focused on trying to get something done and the damned (I think they have become severely demented since the Fall) things jumped out and ON to me, resulting in a high speed chases with flailing broomstick handles, water buckets flying, and unnecessary adrenaline rushes.

Most insects don’t really bother me. And there are many that I enjoy. Seriously, it makes me feel bad to see moths inside houses and I get a thrill from catching them and putting them back outside where they won’t die. The house spiders with the long legs fall in the shower sometimes and I always try to put them up on a high shelf or molding so they can dry out and keep catching mosquitoes or whatever else they catch in their innocuous little corner webs. (No, I don't have piles of dried out dead spiders on shelves or molding in my house, don't worry...) I once even saved a spectacular praying mantis from the middle of a street and certain death...

But these crickets are another story. Did I mention the time I went to sweep a dead one into a dustpan and it jumped straight at me? Yes, they play dead. And the time I tried to flush a dead one down the toilet and it started swimming? And that was after I found it “drowned” in my water glass.

I know this whole post probably doesn’t seem related to cancer or death and dying or God’s faithfulness, but it is because there won’t be giant killer demon crickets in Heaven or on the New earth. There won’t be any sudden terror. There won’t be any need to kill or exterminate anything. He will restore all things to their rightful place with their rightful function and their rightful behavior.... If those crickets are supposed to function in some rightful way they will do it without traumatizing any other creatures.

That is something to look forward to.

I decided it might be cathartic to draw my mental image of the killer cricket from this morning. I generally feel like drawing and/or writing about things externalizes them and begins the process of taking power away from them. It was also very helpful to have a kind soul around to retrieve it from the sink drain and dispose of it for me...

If you have some desire to see it bigger, you can click on it.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Meaning, Purpose, Suffering...

I was re-reading one of my top five most loved books today and it was very helpful. It was a reality check, a purpose check, and an attitude check. The book is Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. HERE is a link to more on him. HERE is a link to his book. Bottom line—he was a German psychologist who survived several Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz.

The first part of the book is very difficult to read, and is very deeply disturbing. As one of my brothers says, we need to be disturbed. I agree. We need to be disturbed to take action and bring change. We need to be disturbed to start caring. We need to be disturbed to become more grateful. We need to be disturbed for many reasons....

The following quotes are in the order they are found in the book. Part of the book is about the psychological effect of concentration camps on the prisoner. Part of the book is about finding meaning in suffering, and in life in general. It has been intensely helpful to me in a multitude of ways, pre-cancer and with terminal cancer, and I can’t recommend it more highly.

“When the last layers of subcutaneous fat had vanished, and we looked like skeletons disguised with skin and rags, we could watch our bodies beginning to devour themselves. The organism digested its own protein, and the muscles disappeared.... One after another the members of the little community in our hut died. Each of us could calculate with fair accuracy whose turn would be next, and when his own would come.” (p.49-50)

“No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.” (p. 69)

“Our friends who had thought they were traveling to freedom that night had been taken in trucks to this camp, and there they were locked in the huts and burned to death. Their partially charred bodies were still recognizable on the photograph.” (p. 83)

“....in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually.... It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.” (p. 87)

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death....” (p. 89)

“ But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist.... Such people forget that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.... One could make a victory of those experiences turning life into an inner triumph, or one could vegetate, as did a majority of prisoners.” (p. 93)

“We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and right conduct.” (p.98)

“When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear is all its magnitude.” (p. 101)

“The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear any more—except his God.” (p. 115)

“What a man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” (p.126)

“To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.” (p. 136)

“Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.” (p. 145).

“....every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.” (p. 154)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Bonhoeffer

Lord Jesus, come yourself, and dwell with us, be human as we are, and overcome what overwhelms us. Come into the midst of my evil, come close to my unfaithfulness. Share my sin, which I hate and which I cannot leave. Be my brother, Thou Holy God. Be my brother in the kingdom of evil and suffering and death. Come with me in my death, come with me in my suffering, come with me as I struggle with evil. And make me holy and pure, despite my sin and death.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 
This prayer has been an encouragement to me for years. If you haven't read about Bonhoeffer's life, you should.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Fog

standing
standing still
standing in
fog
dense
thick
fog

holding
holding
holding His hand

holding
holding
holding His promises

in
in a
in a holding pattern

in
in a
in a place of
never ending
never ending
ambiguity

standing
standing in
fog

holding
holding His hand
holding His promises

waiting
waiting
waiting
for
the next

the next
step
the next
symptom
the next
change

standing
standing in
fog
dense
thick
fog

holding
holding
holding
holding His hand
holding His promises

martha depp 4.21.10

Monday, April 19, 2010

Surgery Date

My surgery date has changed... AGAIN. It's now going to be on Friday, May 7.

Please pray for peace while I wait an extra two weeks. I was REALLY looking forward to being rid of this thing on Friday.

And not to be dramatic, but it has grown since I saw the surgeon for my initial appointment, not exponentially or anything, it's just definitely a little bit larger...

I'm trying to get through my head the fact that God is in control of this stuff and there's probably some reason for the many delays and changes.

Like.... maybe teaching me to be more flexible and patient or something like that. I was pretty good about it for a while but I've become worse again since I stopped treatment and my schedule has been more normal... Or maybe something else... Maybe it's for my protection somehow. Maybe something crazy is going to happen that I won't experience because I'll be out of the way. Maybe something profound is supposed to happen that couldn't happen if I were having surgery. Or, maybe a herd of purple elephants is going to invade Charlotte and paint murals all over the buildings and I'm supposed to be here instead so I don't try to paint with them and get smooshed in the fray... Okay, probably not.

Anyway, please pray for me.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Life



You can click on it to see it bigger...

Saturday, April 17, 2010

More Metalwork....

You can click on the pictures to see them bigger...

T's Ring, Cuttlefish cast silver scraps (see mold example below), fabricated, forged

Used cuttlefish mold

Stone Ring, Silver with ? Stone
This is my first stone setting.... I made the stone too. The stone is a copper/silver alloy made by accidently melting copper and silver scraps into a blob instead of sweat soldering them together... I like it.


A's Cross (if he likes it), Silver and Copper

Flower and Stone, The flower petals spin... Silver and Copper

And I said HEY, what's going on?



I woke up this morning, after the last two weeks of crud flying from spinning fan blades and trying to stay centered and calm and to keep going... And the chorus of this song came to mind... It resonated with me, so I looked up the video and thought it was pretty interesting. I like the way it captures the frustrations of life while trying to keep a sense of humor.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Stuff Hitting the Fan

Ever since Easter when I shared at church, stuff has been hitting the fan—and lots of it. It’s been piles of one thing after the other for a week and a half straight. Everything from a flood that ruined a bunch of my students’ clay projects, to hornets and tons of freaky crickets (the kind that play dead, jump eight feet, and can swim while being flushed down a toilet) in my house, to piles of very hard heavy plastic cafeteria trays falling on my kneecap, to random physical pains that I haven't had for a long time, to.... etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

So please pray for the ability to stay flexible and resilient and gracious and all of those nice things.... I thought it would calm down after a while but it hasn’t yet.

Also, I have an appointment on Friday, April 23 to get this piece of junk under my right arm snipped out, so please pray for that too. I’m not worried about the surgery itself but the medical process will be protracted and time consuming and tiring.... I guess I'll need to heal afterward too.

Thank you....

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Easter Sunday



My awesome pastor invited me to share at church on Easter. LOTS of people were praying for me....

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Easter-He Is Risen


You can click on it to see it bigger...

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Good Friday


You can click on it to see it bigger.

???

So, if there are things here now that are this beautiful, what will the New Heavens and the New Earth be like? Took these pictures today at a botanic garden.
You can click on them to see them bigger....