This is rather lengthy, but SO WORTH the read! Be blessed by this beautifully profound word by the late Tony Snow
"Blessings arrive in unexpected packages,
- in my case, cancer.
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases
- and there are millions in America today -
find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality
while trying to fathom God's will.
Although it would be the height of presumption
to declare with confidence 'What It All Means,'
Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.
The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time
trying to answer the 'why' questions:
Why me?
Why must people suffer?
Why can't someone else get sick?
We can't answer such things,
and the questions themselves
often are designed more to express our anguish
than to solicit an answer.
I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care.
It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact.
Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly,
great and stunning truths began to take shape.
Our maladies define a central feature of our existence:
We are fallen.
We are imperfect.
Our bodies give out.
But, despite this, - or because of it, -
God offers the possibility of salvation and grace.
We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end,
but we get to choose how to use the interval
between now
and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.
Second, we need to get past the anxiety.
The mere thought of dying
can send adrenaline flooding through your system.
A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you.
Your heart thumps; your head swims.
You think of nothingness and swoon.
You fear partings;
you worry about the impact on family and friends.
You fidget and get nowhere.
To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death,
but into life - and that the journey continues
after we have finished our days on this earth.
We accept this on faith,
but that faith is nourished by a conviction
that stirs even within many non-believing hearts
- an institution that the gift of life, once given,
cannot be taken away.
Those who have been stricken
enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight
with their might, main, and faith
to live fully, richly, exuberantly
- no matter how their days may be numbered.
Third, we can open our eyes and hearts.
God relishes surprise.
We want lives of simple, predictable ease,
- smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, -
but God likes to go off-road.
He provokes us with twists and turns.
He places us in predicaments
that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension
- and yet don't.
By His love and grace, we persevere.
The challenges that make our hearts leap
and stomachs churn
invariably strengthen our faith
and grant measures of wisdom and joy
we would not experience otherwise.
'You Have Been Called'.
Picture yourself in a hospital bed.
The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away.
A doctor stands at your feet,
a loved one holds your hand at the side.
'It's cancer,' the healer announces.
The natural reaction is to turn to God
and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa.
'Dear God, make it all go away.
Make everything simpler.'
But another voice whispers: 'You have been called.'
Your quandary has drawn you closer to God,
closer to those you love,
closer to the issues that matter,
- and has dragged into insignificance
the banal concerns
that occupy our 'normal time.'
There's another kind of response,
although usually short-lived,
an inexplicable shudder of excitement
as if a clarifying moment of calamity
has swept away everything trivial and tiny,
and placed before us
the challenge of important questions.
The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
things change.
You discover that Christianity
is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft.
Faith may be the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.
But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution.
The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks,
reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies.
Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world
and comtemplating trips
to what must have seemed the antipodes ( Spain ),
shaking the dust from his sandals,
worrying not about the morrow,
but only about the moment.
There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue,
- for it is through selflessness and service
that God wrings from our bodies and spirits
the most we ever could give,
the most we ever could offer,
and the most we ever could do.
Finally, we can let love change everything.
When Jesus was faced with the prospect of cruicifixion,
he grieved not for himself,
but for us.
He cried for Jerusalem before entering the Holy City ..
From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness,
and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.
We get repeated chances
to learn that life is not about us,
that we acquired purpose and satisfaction
by sharing in God's love for others.
Sickness gets us part way there.
It reminds us of our limitations and dependence.
But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy.
A minister friend of mine observes
that people suffering grave afflictions
often acquire the faith of two people,
while loved ones accept the burden
of two peoples' worries and fears.
'Learning How to Live'.
Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms,
not with resignation, but with peace and hope.
In so doing, they have taught us not how to die,
but how to live.
They have emulated Christ
by transmitting the power and authority of life.
I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago
as a wasting cancer took him away.
He kept at his table a worn Bible
and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.
A shattering grief disabled his family,
many of his old friends, and at least one priest.
Here was an humble and very good guy,
someone who apologized when he winced with pain
because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable.
He restrained his equanimity and good humor
literally until his last conscious moment.
'I'm going to try to beat [this cancer],'
he told me several months before he died.
'But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side.'
His gift was to remind everyone around him
that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow,
he does promise us eternity
- filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, -
and that one can, in the throes of sickness,
point the rest of us toward timeless truths
that will help us weather future storms.
Through such trials, God bids us to choose:
Do we believe, or do we not?
Will we be bold enough to love,
daring enough to serve,
humble enough to submit,
and strong enough
to acknowledge our limitations?
Can we surrender our concern
in things that don't matter
so that we might devote our remaining days
to things that do?
When our faith flags, He throws reminders in our way.
Think of the prayer warriors in our midst.
They change things,
and those of us
who have been on the receiving end
of their petitions and intercessions
know it.
It is hard to describe,
but there are times
when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up,
and you feel a surge of the Spirit.
Somehow you just know:
Others have chosen,
when talking to the Author of all creation,
to lift us up,
- to speak of us!
This is love of a very special order.
But so is the ability to sit back
and appreciate the wonder of every created thing.
The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid,
every happiness more luminious and intense.
We may not know how our contest with sickness will end,
but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.
What is man that Thou are mindful of him?
We don't know much, but we know this:
No matter where we are,
no matter what we do,
no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects,
each and every one of us who believe each and every day,
lies in the same safe and impregnable place,
in the hollow of God's hand.'
- T. Snow
Ninth District debate: Candidates deal with race issue right away
By Jody Callahan (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Monday, July 14, 2008
In a televised debate on WREG-TV Channel 3, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen and challengers Nikki Tinker and Joe Towns Jr. began by telling viewers why each should be elected to represent Tennessee's Ninth Congressional District.
But minutes into the debate, the conversation turned to race, a theme that has been a near-constant in this campaign.
Some believe the incumbent Cohen isn't qualified to represent the majority black district because he's white; Tinker and Towns are black. For others, what matters is merit, not pigment.
"I have never said that this is about race or religion," said Tinker, an attorney with Pinnacle Airlines.
She added that her supporters wanted at least one of Tennessee's congressional seats to have minority representation.
Cohen, repeating a theme he stressed throughout the debate, asked people to look at what he's done.
"I would like people to judge me on my record and my character, not on the color of my skin," Cohen said.
Towns, a state representative, took the middle ground: "If you're black and you're no good, you're no good. If you're white and you're no good, you're no good."
At first, the candidates answered questions from a three-member panel and the audience.
WREG Commentator Norm Brewer asked Tinker and Towns if either of them could cite a Cohen vote with which they disagreed. Tinker did not, but Towns did cite Cohen's advocacy of FedEx at what he said was the expense of labor.
But it was when the candidates faced each other that the debate turned spicy.
Tinker, with her "gotcha" question, asked Cohen if he was profiting from the surge in gas prices because his portfolio included oil stocks.
Cohen said he'd had such stocks for decades, and that it's all public knowledge. He then asked Tinker if her Pinnacle pension fund included similar stocks. When she retorted that she's on leave during the campaign, Cohen pointed out that she would still receive the pension.
Cohen's "gotcha" moment came when he tried to paint Tinker as a corporate lawyer and lobbyist instead of a civil-rights attorney, saying she only spent "one year out of law school when you might have done some civil-rights work."
Tinker responded that she's worked for numerous labor groups, which continue to support her. Cohen, unsatisfied with her response, said, "I think we've seen the answer to that question."
At that point, the debate turned testy and a palpable dislike between Tinker and Cohen seemed obvious.
Other highlights:
Cohen, who pointed out several times that he helped found the state lottery, suggested that the government use some oil reserves to offset high gas prices. Tinker suggested higher taxes on oil companies.
Tinker, responding to a Cohen question about how she would combat rising crime, made the statement that, "I stood on a corner watching my friends die waiting for an ambulance to come." She didn't elaborate.
Tinker accused Cohen of flip-flopping his position on the war in Iraq, but Cohen said he only voted to fund the war if the bills included a timetable for withdrawal.
I have been seeking for some time in my quest to be prepared for the August 8th election to find concrete, specific information that would help me to cement my vote for the 9th Congressional District seat. So I was thrilled to discover that there would be a televised debate featuring the top candidates on Sunday night. I looked forward to hearing the them clearly articulate their specific (and perhaps differing) viewpoints and specific (and perhaps differing) proposals to bring measurable change to the consituents of their district. I instructed my family not to talk, and ordered my dog not to bark as I settled in for my long-awaited period of enlightenment.
As the candidates continued to talk, rambling on and on and exceeding their time limit as they voiced the complaints with which we were already familiar, I found myself losing patience. I told the family that they could begin to speak quietly among themselves, and the dog that she was allowed to whine if she needed to go out. Clearly, this hour would not be as riveting as I had once hoped. Didn't WREG tell them that this was a DEBATE, and not an hour-long campaign speech? Moderators Norm Brewer and Otis Sanford repeatedly asked the challengers for SPECIFIC initiatives that they would introduce to address the issues of the 9th District, and each time I slid to the edge of the couch, thinking, "Okay, here it comes!" But alas, more campaign speeches. Nikki Tinker has talked to everybody in Orange Mound, and is concerned about their plight, but says nothing about what she will do once in office. Joe Towns, Jr. maintains that Ms. Tinker and Mr. Cohen will cater to special interest groups, not to the "Average Joe;" but the "Joe" on the podium failed to articulate any strategy to make things better for them.
I changed the channel at 9PM feeling as if I had been the victim of a cruel joke. But then, as I thought about it, I decided that I was glad I sat through every belaboring minute of it, so that perhaps the cruelest joke would not be looking back a year after the election,when campaign speeches are long over, and thinking, "What in the world have I done?"
