An obscene and profane title: cancer, poverty and some honest thoughts about hope

I’ve wrestled with the title of this blog. A figurative sort of wrestling, of course. Any writer knows how words, and stories, can take a life of their own. And, in times like these, writing tends to be more for the writer, than for the reader.

A few weeks ago I heard a sermon on the Kingdom of God. There were two columns. On the left, all of the qualities of the Kingdom of God. On the right, all of the qualities of the kingdom of darkness.

Simple, right?

Maybe if we know what it’s like on the left.

But, if you’ve don’t consider yourself to be on the left, it’s pretty difficult to grasp.

Bethany and I sat next to each other, a little uneasy. The reality that we work in is people that are on the left. Following Jesus, in their own ways.

And yet, there’s an awful lot of qualities from the right in their lives. Things that can namely be categorized into suffering.

In the lives of people very dear to me, there is an awful lot of it right now.

In theory, it’s tempting for me to romanticize poverty. A simple life, broken and bare. Free from worldly possessions, and able to simply rely on God. Right?

But reading back through my journals from the past year I don’t reach that conclusion. Fire, rape, cruelty, sickness and death characterize the depravity that is fostered in this environment.

But, we’re stuck in it.

Living on the left, but stuck in the world on the right.

Or, maybe those are not the right words.

But sometimes it feels like it. Particularly when we are confronted with death.

I was quite tempted to label this blog, “Holy Sh*t.” But, having respectfully worked through my initial frustration, I settled with a much less controversial phrase.

Tempted, because it’s in these sorts of things in my life that I have encountered Jesus the most clearly.

“I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog…”

pause.

The muck and the mire: I normally don't post pictures of sewage, but it seems fitting to connect an image to a thought.

enter Jesus.

Miry bog.

I am not a biblical scholar. But sometimes this is where I feel stuck. Almost as if we still in the lifting.

But does this somehow make the suffering itself, holy?

When death comes and takes the breath from the people that we love. We fumble around for words to make it better. Sentimental titles flow freely, lodging an even deeper sense of confusion, because some of the comforting phrases just don’t seem to fit. They are band-aids. Neutral colors to mask the wounds. But what about the wound itself?

Resume.

Jesus is here.

Waist-deep in the mire.

It sure doesn’t seem holy to me.

Today, Bethany and I had a conversation with a colleague. She spoke of grief, and shared something interesting with us.

You see, when someone is sick in Kenya, it’s very common to hear apologies. “Pole Sana.” (I’m so sorry.)

However, don’t ever expect to get away without the next phrase… “She will be well.”

Call it admirable faith, or call it positive thinking – it can be a wonderful and healthy thing. But then the person you love is very clearly fading. And it’s time to begin to process what is happening. And then, it becomes frustrating.

She is not getting well. She didn’t get well. She is gone.

In the past week, four people that I love have lost people close to them. Another is slipping away. Different ages, different situations, all linked together by cancer.

They are all followers of Jesus, and live on the left. But the things they have walked through are on the right. Not just in the passing, but in the weeks and days before hand.

And not all of them are near-by. Which makes it very difficult to go into the mire. To sit in the muck. To offer silence instead of words that fall insufficiently short.

Back to the conversation.

“Some people think that MoHi does great work because of it’s excellent workers,” she shared.

“But I tell you it’s not because of it’s excellent workers. It’s because they are wounded workers. Wounded workers who are willing to be healers.”

Eerily similar to the words of Henri Nouwen, who shares an ancient story of Jesus as the Wounded Healer, who can be found outside the city gates, unwrapping his wounds to care for them one at a time, to be ready for the time when he will be called to attend to another.

So maybe it’s not about explaining away the suffering, or reaching logical conclusions about why those on the left must live in the right. Maybe, as Rob Bell puts it, we have been asking the wrong questions.

Maybe I don’t have to try so hard to justify all of the powerful stories of redemption that are happening through Missions of Hope, with the reality of the suffering in the lives of it’s workers. Of my friends.

Maybe these attempts at logic will only lead to despair.

Despair which has no place in Hope.

The hope on the left is far from sentimental.

It’s a real hope. A physical hope. A tangible hope.

A hope that what causes our wounds will be destroyed.

A hope that in our woundedness we are not alone.

A hope that Jesus was first.

Wounded first.

Suffered first.

Died.

And came back from the dead first.

He was raised first, but will not be the last.

So we look at the wound. It’s pretty ugly. And it’s pretty dark.

Fear and anxiety come with a crushing weight, like we are alone in a pitch-dark room.

But we aren’t alone.

And we aren’t in a pitch-black room.

And this blog will not have answers that can leave you satisfied that I’ve worked through all of the ramifications of these thoughts. These experiences.

Just a little bit more light on the wound. A few more words trying to see what’s really under all the scabbing. A little bit more vulnerable, and a little bit nearer to seeing Jesus.

So please, bear with my brief usage of profanity.

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Tags: cancer, Jesus, poverty, suffering