love Archives - Enlightenment At Gunpoint

Love in the time of COVID

Photo by James Emery, creative commons licensing

I am grateful for my cancer. Cancer has taught me to focus on the moment. No matter what happens to me, nothing can take away the moments I’ve lived in. It is impossible to fully take in a moment without love. Without love there is no inner peace, there is no stillness. Can you imagine fully appreciating a hot shower, a quiet walk, or looking out at the stars without love?

I’ve read that 99.9% of our universe is composed of empty space. But I don’t think so. I think it’s composed of love. It’s hidden in plain sight, right in front of us, waiting to be taken in.

Yes, there is also great suffering. But suffering can show us how love unfolds. It can show us the infinite dimensions of love.I don’t know why we need suffering to really see it, but we do. Suffering forces us to focus of the moment with sharp resolve.

There was once a man who was running in through the jungle, chased by a hungry tiger. After breaking through a clearing, he came to the edge of a cliff. The long fall into the river below would be fatal. The tiger forced the man to stumble and fall but he grabbed onto the edge of the cliff with his hands. The tiger was relentless and started for the man’s hands. The man saw a branch growing from the face of the cliff just below him and he managed to grab onto the branch with his hands. Dangling from the branch, the man saw a plump strawberry had sprouted out of some greenery on the branch. Hanging on to the branch, he reached out and grabbed the strawberry and popped it into his mouth. “This strawberry tastes delicious,” he said.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You

I’m excited to share that my PET scan came back with phenomenal results. The melanoma has not spread anywhere new. Of the existing 6 tumors that lit up previously, only 1 tumor showed up on this PET scan, registering at 5mm (down from 1.2cm in May). 5mm is also the smallest measurement a PET scan can pick up. This is the nodule in my right lung. I don’t have pictures of the scans to share with you, but I will tell you that the May PET scan of this nodule and the August PET scan are night-and-day. My oncologist even remarked that they wouldn’t even notice if they weren’t looking for it. The term “remission” was used (more on that in a bit).

What to do or say when your friend is dealing with cancer; or, What NOT to do or say when your friend is dealing with cancer

https://katebowler.com/books/everything-happens-for-a-reason/

So this one’s a bit of the blog post and leaning towards a bit of the “My Journey”, right? Well, we all know both of those distinct sections are going to merge together sooner or later, that’s where we’re headed, right?

For my birthday, Paige got me a quick-read book entitled Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler. I hadn’t heard of it but after reading a blurb about Kate (35 years old, married with an 18 month-old son when diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer) I raced through the book in two days.

Kate Bowler also has a very active website, articles, podcast, and book club. She is a divinity professor at Duke Divinity School who has specialized in the prosperity gospel. [An aside for my a-religious friends. Prosperity gospel focuses on receiving rewards such as money, health, or success in exchange for being a faithful Christian, or in some crude cases, in exchange for money given to a church. Thinking televangelists. It’s the worst example of a very conditional arrangement.] I feel very drawn to Kate’s work and her perspective throughout her diagnosis, surgery, and treatment. Not that she would take me up on it, but I wished I would’ve been familiar with her work when Paige and I went up to Duke Cancer Center for our 2nd opinion consult so I could’ve asked to meet for coffee or lunch. Stage IV besties probably isn’t a thing but it would be fantastic to have a conversation with her.