My very good friend is now ill. We don’t know yet how serious it is but brain cancer is brain cancer. Not un-serious. He’s 73 and has basically never been ill. Sure, he’s had the typical stuff but until a bout of pneumonia last summer, he’s largely escaped the big leagues. He, hospitals, and specialists have managed to avoid one another. That’s over now.

I, on the other hand, have battled illness all of my life. My medical record is inches thick and my various maladies have had specialists on their toes, scratching their heads for as long as I can remember. As I’m battling my latest asthma flare-up, Diane and I discussed last night how grateful we are for medical staff and prescription drugs. I’d have been a goner as a child and several times as an adult.

But, I’m not here to write about my friend or myself. In fact, I’m stopped in my tracks over all of the illness that surrounds my little world. And, this is just my little world. I know a lot of people, certainly. Not Facebook “friend” level with hundreds or even thousands, but certainly at least a few dozen, some extremely well and some not quite as well but all of whom I would say we care very much for one another.

Is your world like this?

A partial list of the illnesses in my relatively small circle.

Stage 4 brain cancer. Stage unknown as yet, brain cancer. Late stage multiple sclerosis. Debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. Not quite debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. Left side paralysis in a thirty something old from a twenty something benign brain tumor operation. Lung transplant survivor. Breast cancer survivor. Stage 4 breast cancer struggling. Prostate cancer survivor. Three family members alcoholics in long time recovery. One family member an alcoholic but not in recovery. A grand nephew who just entered rehab for addiction. A gifted collegiate athlete, the younger son of my oldest friend, suffering from two rare conditions that have him sidelined and in great pain, unable to compete. My niece, another gifted collegiate athlete, who has lived with intense pain every day since a small girl. A sister whose ex-husband was abusive and who died from alcoholism at a relatively young age. Her son, my nephew, bipolar with a history of serious behavior issues. My cousin, a debilitated schizophrenic. Multiple people suffering from depression, some serious. Our son, who inherited some of the same unfortunate predilections as I. Two amazingly accomplished, caring and loving men, one of whom is now completely disabled, suffering the ravages of Alzheimers. The mentally deranged son of a very sweet woman we know who is involved as a leader in one of our long-standing ministry projects, stabbed her in the back on Thursday, puncturing her lungs. While extremely serious, she will live, although deeply scarred, both physically and emotionally. Horrible. The only child of our very good friends who is a mentally ill drug addict, in and out of jail and recovery programs constantly. She’s only 25. This list does not include some really good friends who have died in the last two or three years from insidious diseases.

I know I’m missing some things.

I started this blog two years ago because of a bizarre anomaly at the base of my brain. For awhile, we lived with the knowledge that this could be it. As I mentioned before, I’m not unused to illness, a number of them very serious. When I struggle to get oxygen into my poor lungs at times, it’s frustrating but I know that there are therapies and options that will normally get things up and running soon. In the cases above, some of them are not so fortunate.

It would be a mistake to read this message and come away depressed. While natural, that’s not my hope.

I guess I have two points to make.

One is that this stuff is life. I cannot be a rarity in that I am just peculiarly surrounded by sick people. Sure, I’m now getting into my mid-60s and of an age where more and more people get sick and even die. So, in my age cohort, you’d expect to see an uptick. But, a number of these people are younger than I, by ten, twenty, thirty and more years.

Still on that point, I think part of the reason I’m close to these people is that I’m close to these people. I don’t live in a bubble. I live a life where people are open about the challenges they face and where sharing those challenges is a key element to maintaining certain kinds of health, beyond the physical. I wonder about people who don’t come into contact with the people I described in that list above. Emotionally closed in. Focused on self and feeding the needs of the self. Captives, in a sense, to the temple of their own making.

I know of people who serve the most ill, the most disenfranchised, the poorest of the poor. They are surrounded by disease and/or violence and death. I know of other people who use the word “party” as a verb and it defines their lives. Grown people. We are a fascinating species.

As I was contemplating some of these things last evening and night (the latter of which was elongated by my latest bout), it was not with an overly heavy heart. As I just said, this is the stuff of life.

Which brings me to my second point.

What’s the flip side? Or, as I referred to in the title, what’s the antidote?

How do we who are ill and those of us who love and care for those who are so ill, go about leading lives that flourish, despite what sometimes seems as overwhelming conditions?

Is flourishing even possible?

And, the answer is yes. It is. I am, right now, picturing the faces of three different women I know whose suffering is acute. Deep down into the bones and sinews acute. Their physical challenges, including pain, disability and even threat of death are the fabric of potentially every waking moment. But, I have seen those faces filled with great joy. I have heard their beautiful laughter. I have witnessed how they each reach out in love to help others. Their lives are lived in that world unknown by so many people, including both the suffering and those who have remained relatively healthy. Others who know these women, marvel at them. They are like walking miracles of resiliency and a living testimony to how we should prioritize our lives.

I could say the same about many others on that list. Not all but many. The default when these kinds of things rear their ugly head is to retreat. Retreat into anger, self-pity and the inevitable question, “Why me?” I am grateful that I don’t really suffer from those thoughts but I completely understand them. Perhaps it’s because of my history and the knowledge that life is truly fragile. Security and safety are fictions. Until they’re not but that’s a different kind of security that is definitely not safe.

What is the antidote? Is it available? To answer the second question is, yes. The answer to the first question is more difficult but anyone who has read these pages, knows what I think.

I’ve given the answer many times before but here I’ll give it again and maybe in a little bit of a different way. The answer is to Repent. No, I don’t mean that grungy guy on the street corner crying out “Repent!” I mean to do what the word says. Re-pent means to re-think. Re-structure the way we look at ourselves, our predicaments and the things we truly value. When meaning is arrived at in a place that transcends the cells of our body and the things that attack those cells, a re-orientation can occur. Put in the right place, the amazing qualities of Trust and Hope blossom in the midst of mud and darkness. In fact, I can testify that this is where Trust and Hope flourish the most. They flourish where Disease and Despair seek to claim our attention and allegiance. And, where Trust and Hope reign, Love is the antidote. A love that is unconditional. Love that is a promise and a cure for all that ails.

I have seen and experienced love of many kinds, for which I am grateful beyond words. I have also known the lack of love. I have seen how we can be ravaged by the forces of illness and violence and what it does to the human spirit. I have also seen and experienced Grace that intervenes and twists those forces upside down. I have seen how these things I’m mentioning: Trust, Hope, Love and Grace have transformed lives in the most profound ways. And, finally, as one of the women I mentioned above shares, there is Peace.

Yes, these circumstances I’ve mentioned have torn lives asunder. They have forced these people to live with pain and defeat. Each one of them is sometimes desperate for relief or a cure. But, for some of my friends who are on my heart and in my mind’s eye right now, whose cases are noted above … I know not a one would ask for healing at the expense of losing the Trust, Hope, Love, Grace, and Peace that are at the very center of their lives. Not in a heartbeat.

And, that’s the antidote.

God bless.