Grace, Gratitude, and Healing

Dear Friends,

Donna and I are in Southern California at the Mission Inn in Riverside speaking at California State University, San Bernardino, and then at The University of Redlands. This will be my 35th speaking year at Redlands. It was my first University event and they have really stuck with me! I spoke to Mark Hartley who is bringing me to CSUSB when he was a freshman in 1989. Watching him grow from a complete first year into a seasoned professional, husband, and father has been one of the great joys of my life! Special thanks as well to Vice President Char Burgess, Dean Robles, and Val Sponheim for bringing me back to Redlands again and again. I will always think of Char as 'The Dean' because along with Dean Bruce Pittman of Idaho, they defined the role for me in my mind as a then young professional.

Donna and I had dinner last night with Ilaria Pesco, formally of Redlands and most recently of Semester at Sea,  and breakfast with Dr. Michael Finley of Western Health Sciences University here at the Inn. As Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton sing in their most recent song together, "You just can't make old friends." They are either there or they are not! Ilaria, incidentally, is looking for employment in higher education and she carries my "A+" rating. A wonderful professional at Redlands for 17 years under Dean Burgess' tutelage and as a colleague of Neal Pahia, she now brings the wealth and depth of A Semester at Sea with her in her skill set. Dr. Micheal Finley is an SAE who was instrumental in bringing the first medical school to Oregon in over 100 years with the new school in Lebanon, Oregon. We have been brothers for 20 years and he made a special trip out to the Inland Empire before work today to say hello and check on me.  After the discovery of my dis-ease, I have been overwhelmed with calls, cards, and social media contacts from old friends and new. Educators do not get rich except in memories and experiences. I was contacted this week by Kelly (Brown) Doucet who sat in the front row of Church during Campus Ministry at OSU every Sunday. She was dropping her daughter off for college orientation in Corvallis and wanted to say hello. I will see her when she comes back for the first of the year. If she is old enough to have a college daughter, then I must be older too!

Do you remember in an earlier blog when I said that I did not get cancer on July 16th? I just found out about it then? I had been living with it for some time. I was thinking about that one day last week when I was feeling pretty close to my old self. Energy returning, looking forward to the future, engaged with students in my lectures. Then it hit me...healing is a process like cancer. When I pray to God to heal me through the physicians and the medicine and through the Spirit, it is not like that is off in some far away time. If I believe in what I am saying to God, in God, and in the power of the Spirit to do the impossible, then it begins to happen when I say it. "Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you." A central teaching and parable of Jesus who backed it up with sight for the blind, mobility for the lame, and even life for Lazarus. For as C.S. Lewis said in "Mere Christianity", either Jesus is who he said he was or he is the greatest maniac in the history of the world. I respect every person's right to believe what they want. I think that is the American way at its best. It also fits well under some other important teachings of Jesus like, "Don't judge others or you will receive the same judgement." "Love God, and love your neighbor as you love yourself." These are inclusive teachings that build community between different people with different values.

Cancer is a process and healing is a process that involves a dis-ease,  my attitudinal response to it, my Doctor's expertise, the medicines they use, and for me as a believer, a source of power and healing that transcends statistical tables, survival rates, and what we know here on Earth. No one knows the mind or plan of God so this isn't a "everything is going to be great" statement. Simply put, it is a "isn't it amazing, an act of Grace, that I have been able to have surgery, take a chemo infusion, and then visit 10 states to lecture?" Isn't that a miracle? How about my daughter Christa taking 8 of the last 10 days she is off this Summer to go with me to make sure I am alright? Gratitude? Right there. Donna has a ton to do at home, and still, she is with me on this trip. Has any person the right to such a great partner? Sami and Steve will be moving home, taking over the basement, and Hannah and JJ are moving home because they know there are financial strains on our family because of the dis-ease. I also think they all know in their hearts that their presence lifts me, empowers me, comforts me, and heals me. A parent's greatest joy is their children when things go like God intended them in a family. Who is more blessed?

The day I was diagnosed, a friend, who I have a ton of love and respect for, showed up at my house and asked me if he could talk to me privately outside. He said, "I use to dream about girls and sporting events. Last night I dreamed about you. God told me to tell you that even though you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, you are not walking alone. God wants you to know that He is with you and will be with you." The dream happened the night before my friend received the news on his phone message the next morning. Chance? Last week a young freshman woman came up to me at Elmhurst College and said, "My doctor gave me 6 weeks three years ago. Don't let them tell you when to stop." Christa, the young woman, and I teared up. It was so powerful. All of you who have kept up and cared are Grace personified for me. It is no longer a philosophical concept but can be seen in your actions. I do not deserve it but I am so grateful for it. I would only ask that each of you look around today and take a look at even the smallest thing in your life that you might be grateful for. It's there...sometimes it is just hard to see. In my mind, and in my soul, I am in the process of healing, guided by my desire to love my family more, teach and engage more students, and live to watch my blessed Grandchildren, born and the yet to be born, live and play and love. I am encased by your warm friendship, cared for by my Doctors, and standing in the healing light of my Lord and Savior. I hope this doesn't put you off, but it is where I am at. We can still have a Jamison's or a glass of wine, still tell jokes on the border of appropriate, and at times be just who we are, but beneath it all, there is Grace, Gratitude, and Healing. And in my world, as the hymn says, "Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow."

With love,

Will