Lost Music

Nothing to which it can be compared,

No adequate words to portray,

With reckless abandon I jump into the stream,

Let the current sweep me away.

While the vibrations penetrate my body,

My heart syncing with the beat,

I drift on a tide of melody.

And thrill to the harmony’s heat.

But robbed by tremor and age,

Expression is trapped inside.

Instead of bursting from heart into song,

It leaks in drops from my eyes.

A Cure for Cancer?

Over recent months, I have seen more than one meme that sends the message that cancer would be cured, rather than treated, if only medical personnel and pharmaceutical firms weren’t so greedy.  Supposedly, they make more money by treating it than by curing it.

I am not directing this post at anyone in particular, because I have seen this message multiple times from multiple Facebook friends.  But, I have reached the point of not being able to tolerate this any longer.

If you think cancer is going to be cured by a magical one-size-fits-all treatment, you are very probably mistaken.  Cancer isn’t just one disease.  It is a large complex of diseases which do have some common factors, but which are also greatly varied as to causes and manifestations.  Probably the factor most in common is that they all involve a mistake being made during cell division.  The cells in our bodies are constantly dividing as we grow when we are young, and to replace worn or injured cells thereafter.  Considering all the millions and billions of times cell division occurs, it is quite miraculous that it happens correctly so much of the time.  I am not a cancer researcher, so I don’t know if the error always occurs at the same step in cell division or if that varies, but it seems to me that identifying a common point of error and finding a treatment that attacks just that point without doing harm to other cells that are dividing properly would be very, very tricky.

Non-medical people tend to think of the body as a machine where everything is understood, and a medication can be given to solve any problem.  We just need to look in the manual under troubleshooting.   Anyone in the field knows that there is an awful lot we don’t know.  Medications work differently in different people.  There are things the body has to do for itself.   Doctors do what they can and then stand back and watch what the body does.  Some doctors project a god-like demeanor, as if they can solve all problems, but that is just an act.  No one has all the answers.

More than 10 years ago, I was invited to attend a state-wide meeting convened by a man who had political connections, but no medical background as far as I could tell.  The purpose of gathering hundreds of people concerned with cancer prevention, detection and treatment was to come up with a plan to “cure cancer” in the next 5 years.  On the way there as I traveled with a group from our area, we discussed the purpose of the meeting.  I made the comment, “Who is going to tell this guy that he can’t cure cancer in the next 5 years!”  The driver said, “Oh, Ruth…that is why we brought you!”  Everyone in the car laughed.

Cancer is, of course, no laughing matter.  I am quite certain it is no laughing matter to the doctors and pharmaceutical executives who have had to watch their own parents, spouses or children die of cancer.  I am sure there are greedy individuals among them.  But, I am just as sure that there are those who would give everything they possess and their own lives to see a cure for those they love.  You do them an injustice when you flippantly accuse them of promoting a treatment rather than a cure.

The notion that there is a cure out there and it is being suppressed is also dangerous.  It allows charlatans to say they have the cure and are being silenced.  I have seen claims like that on the internet, including on Facebook.  People then buy into this and seek treatment through alternative means.  Later, when it is too late for conventional treatments to work, they get around to traditional medicine.  It is the con-artists promoting these types of treatments who are actually the ones interested in making big bucks.

Responsibility for the prevalence of cancer must also be borne by the individuals who end up with a cancer diagnosis.  In many cases, we would not need a “cure” if people were willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary to prevent it.  I am NOT saying that all cancer could be avoided with behavioral changes, but many cancers are influenced by cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, poor diet, and having multiple sexual partners.  You can hardly live the way you want without restraint, and then present yourself to a doctor and say, “Cure me!”  Childhood cancers are, however, a terrible tragedy for which the child bears no fault.

If this were just a matter of money, we should also consider that there are and have been people with huge fortunes who have died of cancer, and who would have gladly paid for a cure if there was one.  Steve Jobs and Patrick Swayze both died of pancreatic cancer.  I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have been willing to pay dearly for a cure.  Alex Trebek is currently fighting pancreatic cancer.  He has accepted that his life is nearing its end, and says he is not afraid of death, but he has also said, he would like more time with his wife.  What would he pay for that?

If some researcher had the cure, do you think he would remain quiet?  Would the university or pharmaceutical firm at which he works not be broadcasting the achievement?

A cure would be worth a king’s ransom…and probably a Nobel prize!

It would also heal many broken hearts.

Until there is a cure, let us encourage those who are being treated, and let us be grateful for those who treat them.

Does God Owe Us an Explanation?

While riding on the autotrain between Virginia and Florida, I picked up a magazine called “The National” which was in our compartment.  In it there was an interview with Robert DeNiro.  When the interviewer asked him if he believed in an afterlife, his response was, “If there is a god, he’s got a lot of explaining to do.”

Wow!  How arrogant and ignorant!

I suppose if there was such a thing as a “god” who was contrived by man’s imagination, and who had powers and an intellect somewhat superior to man, but not infinitely greater, one could expect an explanation for the imponderables of our lives and the universe.

But

If there is an Almighty God (upper case G), who is the creator and sustainer of the universe and everything in it, if He sees every sparrow fall, and numbers the hairs on our heads, He does not owe any human being an explanation.  If He chooses to give us one, He must have to dumb it down greatly.  Both His knowledge and His wisdom are vastly superior to that of the most intelligent person on earth.  The created cannot be greater than the Creator.

My son works in a highly technical field.  Once in a phone conversation, he talked excitedly about a project on which he was working.  I struggled to keep up.  I thought to myself, “I wish I understood this well enough to even ask an intelligent question.”  But my grasp of the topic wasn’t adequate for even that. 

After several minutes, he paused and said, “I’m probably boring you.”

I replied, “You are my son, and I love you, and I am so happy that you enjoy your work, but I wish I understood it better.”

His response?  “Oh, Mom…don’t feel bad.  There are only 3 or 4 other people in the world who understand what I have been talking about.”

Now, I am sure there are more than 3 or 4 who have the necessary intellect to understand it, but apparently only that number who have been sufficiently exposed to the topic to immediately connect and be able to discuss intelligently.  I was definitely not one of them.

God has a mind so vastly superior to ours and exposure to such an infinite variety of information, that even if He were to try to give us answers to our burning questions, we might find ourselves struggling as I did to even get a toe hold on the topic.

Certainly, there are horrible events occurring in the world, and we want to shout, “Why?  How can you let this happen, God?”  But the world is full of people who don’t want to follow God’s plan.  We don’t understand why He allows them to harm innocents.  But, we do not see the big picture.  We do not see into eternity past or future.  I rest in His infinitely superior knowledge and wisdom.  He is the potter.  We are the clay.  The clay doesn’t get to choose what the potter does with it.

When I see God face to face, I will not be shaking my fist at Him and demanding an explanation.  I will be on my knees thanking Him for being merciful and providing a means for my salvation.  Who among us would have thought of sacrificing our only Son to redeem humankind?  That is the unbelievably superior mind and tender heart of God.

Adam's Rib

From the dust of the earth

I could have formed her,

As you yourself were made.

But as you slept, I pulled her from your side.

I could have made her

Just like you in texture and form,

But I made her unique,

Unlike you, and yet of you.

You were made of the dirt,

She was artistically fashioned

From living flesh, from sturdy bone,

To be your perfect companion.

If you disrespect or mistreat her,

You dishonor yourself.

You must cherish her, care for her.

 She is my thoughtful gift to you.

When I say, “Cleave and become one flesh,”

I am urging you to be

What you already have been

Since the beginning of time.

Your rib protects your heart,

And so will she formed from a rib.

The union of man and woman,

Is a thing beyond human understanding.

Witness to History

It seems that as a white evangelical, I am being encouraged to blindly support President Trump, which I cannot.  On the other hand, because I have in the past encouraged that the left back off from criticizing absolutely everything he does, I have been accused of being a Trump supporter.

If one were to bother to look at a blog I wrote during the lead-up to the 2016 election, it would be clear that I did not want Trump as president, but that I feared we might get what we “deserved” as a nation rather than what we “needed.”  That is what happened.  The choice between Trump and Hillary was an impossible one to make.  They have both shown themselves to have a problem with truth, although Trump certainly has less finesse in twisting the facts and does it with alarming egotism.

I understand why white evangelicals have supported Trump.  He has dangled conservative values in front of us.  He has not, however, lived conservative values himself.  He is playing a game and may abruptly betray those values.  How do you trust someone who distorts the truth, tosses wives aside, and is incessantly boastful?

I have, however, also been disturbed by the left picking at every little thing he has done.  Some of the criticisms are just plain illogical.  I am perfectly fine with a valid criticism, but everything he has done has not been wrong, and everyone he has appointed is not an incompetent idiot.  When you criticize everything, you lose the ability to level a valid criticism.  You have cried “wolf” so many times, that no one can tell when it’s for real.  So, to impeach or not?  Whose version of the events are we to believe?  Is this just another in the list of ways that liberals and progressives have tried to find an excuse to oust Trump, or can someone actually document his misdeeds?  Which media outlet are we to believe? 

Now he is abruptly pulling out of Mideast conflicts.  Whether he approves of Turkey’s invasion of Syria or is simply looking the other way, I don’t know.  Abandonment of the Kurds is nauseating.  BUT…it does seem to be a step in the fulfillment of prophecy regarding what will happen as the world’s clock ticks down to midnight, and the rightful KING returns.  An alliance between Turkey and Russia will happen.  Invasion of Israel will happen. 

Trump thinks he is a “stable genius” with “great and unmatched wisdom.”  He is actually a pawn in the hand of God to bring about God’s plan to draw the world to its predicted close.  The majority of people won’t believe this.  Trump certainly doesn’t.  But, God is sovereign in the affairs of men even when that is not obvious to us.  It won’t be the first time God has used someone who is amoral, maybe even mentally unbalanced, to bring about His purposes.

We are witnesses to an amazing time in human history, but instead of standing in awe, most of us are more concerned with who will win the current Survivor, and whether Ziva and Tony will reunite.

Come, Lord Jesus!

The Decimal Point

In the present era in the medical field, it is rare for a nurse to have to actually calculate how much medication to give to a patient, but that was not the case 50 years ago.  Medications now come from the pharmacy packaged individually in correct dosages.  Sometimes syringes are even prepared with the correct amount of a medication solution to be injected.

In the mid-60s, I was a recently graduated registered nurse and was working my way through college with a part-time job on weekends.  I worked nights at the hospital from which I had graduated, and I “floated” which meant I got sent wherever they were short-staffed, and often where the action was.  One night I was assigned to a medical floor, and one of my patients had an out of control blood pressure.  I was to give her an injection of a medication to lower her blood pressure.  The amount the doctor had prescribed did not match easily with the strength of the solution sent from the pharmacy, and I had to calculate the volume to be injected.  I did this in the medication room, took it to the patient’s room and gave the injection.

The elderly woman was mostly unresponsive as it was, but a few minutes later, she died.  This resulted in a flurry of activity, including the fact that her two sisters, also elderly, were informed and arrived.  They began wailing as soon as they got off the elevator and cried out loudly all the way down the hall to her room.  We ran around hastily closing doors to minimize upset to the other patients.  The sisters threw themselves over her body sobbing, “She’s still warm.”

At some point during this chaos, I had the thought, “What if I miscalculated, and I caused her death?  What if I gave 10 times too much?”  As soon as I was able to do so, I hurried back to the medication room and checked my calculations.  I satisfied myself that I had given the correct amount and put it out of my mind.  I doubt I would remember it now, except for something that happened a couple of weeks later.

I majored in chemistry in college, and a few weeks later a homework assignment was returned to me.  One of my answers was incorrect, because I had misplaced a decimal point.  The professor, knowing I was an RN, had written on the paper, “A mistake like this could kill someone, nurse.”  A wave of nausea and self-doubt washed over me.  “What if when I had recalculated, I had made the same mistake again?”  By that time, there was no way to go back and check a third time.

So more than 50 years later, it still plagues me now and then.  In the past year, I had a conversation with another RN from my era.  She knows that she made a medication error that did result in someone’s death.  She said, “You do thousands of things right, but the thing you can’t forget is that one mistake.”  I will never know for sure if I made a mistake, but I still can’t shake it.

I guess that’s what happens when you care.

Worthy of Her Notice

For weeks I have been walking by her, frequently greeting her.  She has shown no signs of even acknowledging my presence.  Today she became a pest!

When we sold our house and moved into an apartment near downtown, I established the habit of swimming in the Family Y lap pool three or four times a week.  Walking to the Y avoids the problem of finding a parking space.  It is only about a block away, if I cut through the city parking lot which is behind our complex and then through the historical society property.  A very pleasant walkway lies along the north side of the historical society building with an adjacent garden, interesting trees, and park benches.  In addition to the main museum, there are a number of out buildings.  One of these is marked “Private Residence.”  I am sure one or more humans live there, but it clearly belongs to a gray and white cat.  Perhaps the whole historical museum property belongs to her and even the nearby bank parking lot.

Often when I pass, kitty is lounging on the porch.  Whether or not she is asleep, she never acknowledges me, even if I say “Hello.”  Sometimes she is sleeping in the middle of the black-topped walkway having found a warm sunny spot.   She never moves, so she forces me to walk around her.

This morning as I passed, she was off the porch sharpening her claws on a rock.  I did not take that as a good omen.  But, she trotted after me, and then began weaving back and forth in front of me.  I altered my course repeatedly to avoid tripping over her.  I finally spoke to her and scratched her behind the ears.  Only then did she stroll off and stop entangling herself in my feet.

The queen has deigned to recognize me walking through her kingdom.