Ministers see so many people who are ill. We are dangerous on health issues, because we see so much illness, and we start to think we know something about it. Other than being on medicine for high blood pressure and cholesterol, my health has been pretty good: no hospital stays, no surgeries. Yesterday, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

First, gentlemen, please keep up your blood work. My manual prostate exams have always been good. (Not the process, the result). My PSA number is well below the threshold of concern. The number has been rising and my doctor had me promise to do more blood work before I moved to Alton. So, after going through the delightful biopsy procedure, akin to being violated by an alien probe, the results came back: 4 of the 12 samples have cancer cells.

Second, I am struck by how we often take news in character. I think I take after my mother who took big things well but made mountains out of molehills. Our older daughter marries next spring. She knew I would put off her requisite dance lessons for the father-daughter dance. She ordered me to take them this summer, with the kind phrase,: “Dad, you’ll do the least damage to the waltz.” I had much more anxiety over my fourth dance lesson than I did getting the results of the biopsies. (Of course, that could also be that the dance instructor is stunningly attractive).

I would like to think that I took the news with relative calm, so far, because it is part of God’s healing touch. I see God’s hand in daily life. I see God working together with the doctors, nurses, technicians, and pathologists, who have brought me to this point. Healing is a shared endeavor in god’s world. I do not see how a god who punishes with illness fits the God of Jesus Christ. Instead, I see that the same wisdom, same incarnate :logic” of God in Jesus Christ (John 1:14) also spills out into and for all of us, body, mind, heart and soul. In other words, the truth of science reveals truths about God’s creation, including its “fallen” aspects such as cancer.

I am grateful that I am somewhat serene about the news, as it allows my mind to gain a better sense of options and outcomes. The more upset we get, the harder it is for us to weigh options and make decisions, when we are working through a storm of emotions. I consider it nothing less than a gift from above, so that my energies can focus on healing and making good decisions toward that end.

Already, I see a change in perspective starting to percolate. Faced with the reality of vulnerability to illness, I may well tend to wish some issues that could seem to warrant some anxiety fade off into the distance. I’m going to need to be careful in not snapping at people who are being deliberately obstinate, cruel, or constantly aggrieved, as my patience will be tested more personally than usual. I’m going have to be careful that this walk in the outskirts of the valley of the shadow won't foreshorten my perspective on the future and how difficult it is to shape it with others. It reinforces my long-tome devotion to our daughters, even as they need distance as they are in the midst of forming their own lives and identities.

All in all, it intensifies my sense that if we accept and cherish life as a gift, then our expectations and desires fall into place more easily. Yes, it is a fragile gift, but a gift nonetheless.The prospect of heaven does not change my desire to hold on to this precious gift for as long as possible.