Happy New Year

Jim is dying.

He probably only has a few days left since he stopped eating about a week ago. He has been in hospice for a couple weeks now.

The victim of a glioblastoma, a very aggressive type of brain tumor, Jim had most of it surgically removed at first diagnosis. Then he attempted drinking hydrogen peroxide as a therapy recommended as a cancer cureall by its proponents.

Jim opted out of chemotherapy and radiation treatments as they would only add a few months to his life. The peroxide seemed a viable alternative to him that would leave him far less debilitated.

It didn't work.

The blastoma returned with a vengeance.

From Thanksgiving on until Christmas, Jim was given steroids to help reduce swelling in his brain and give him an extra month or so of quality life. But the tumor has now overtaken that treatment.

When the inevitability of death is near, people become philosophical.

They say that Jim has lived a good, long active life. It has been full and rich.

They are right, of course. Jim was a missionary in Eritrea, in the horn of Africa, for many years. He has built buildings, been a craftsman and spent his life as an independent jack-of-all-trades. But I suspect if you asked him if he was ready to leave it all, he'd say no. Prior to the tumor, Jim was healthy and strong, even in his 70s.

It is this one wild growth that is taking it all away from him.

When a person enters hospice, it is not with the intent of medical care. It's not like going into a hospital for treatment. The goal of hospice is to make the patient as comfortable as possible as he or she approaches the end.

It is difficult to accept this notion. Jim hadn't taken any liquids and family members inquired as to an intravenous drip to forestall dehydration.

The hospice nurse had to spend some time explaining that Jim's lack of eating or drinking was all part of the dying process. Even now, it's still hard to envision a medical facility that doesn't fight to extend life, but rather enables it along in the opposite direction. But that's what hospice is meant to be.

Jim, I have been blessed to know you. You have always been a pleasant person to be around, and you have helped us out with some projects that required a craftsman's touch. Your willingness to give of your skill and time was appreciated more than you know. Your faith and service to the Lord has been inspirational.

When you finally step through the door we all must face one day, it will be with the welcoming words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I shall set you over much; enter the joy of your Lord.”

God bless.

Merry Christmas

It's been a while since I last visited my thoughts upon this page. This time of year is usually less geared toward creative pursuits, and it's not just because of the imminence of Christmas. The truncated days, the cold air, the entrapment of snow and ice all seem to conspire to make me want to just sit on the couch and watch Seinfeld reruns while munching on granola cereal.

Call it the winter blues. Call it SAD. Call it whatever you want.

It all leads to the same thing.

It would appear that we are an angry people growing angrier every year.

The recent shootings in Connecticut would bear witness to that. To call the young man who perpetrated that heinous act disturbed would be to damn him with faint praise. He was totally self-absorbed; he committed a crime of absolute selfishness and depravity.

He was evil because that's what evil is.

People are blaming it on guns, video games, mental illness, bad parenting. The arguments have gotten shrill in some corners.

I suspect there are people in this country who view the evil one (I refuse to mention his name) as some sort of conquering warrior who broke with convention and marched to his own dark, glorious drumbeat. Can there really be any disagreement with my suspicion?

Four elements comprise humans; the physical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual.

The intertwining of these four elements is complex and varied. Each one requires stimulation, exercise, growth, and the lack of proper stewardship of any of the elements leads to problems.

Atheists will deny this vehemently, but because we are spiritual beings, our inmost self cries out for a god. If that need is not fulfilled by God, then any other god will do. It may be money, power or celebrity.

It may be self.

But we all have something we worship because we are spiritual beings.

That was the whole point of what the serpent in the garden of Eden was trying to do to the human race through Adam and Eve - get them to take their focus off God and place it on themselves through temptation.

It's really amazing that the human race has lasted as long as it has given that its utter focus on self leads to utter chaos. How can it be otherwise?

When all that matters is ourselves, then it changes our view of the world and all our fellow travelers.

You can call it sin; I do.

And what we witness on a regular basis, not just with massacres of innocent children, but through the daily headlines of war, crime, debauchery, greed and self-absorption is the result of the entropy of sin.

Mankind, on its own without the power of God, will always settle down to its lowest common denominator. The laws of thermodynamics, though originally conceived to describe the physical world, work well within the spiritual realm also.

We are on a direct course to our own destruction.

Maybe with a bang. Maybe with a whimper. But unveering, nonetheless.

God help us.