I Love Pastor Andy

I love the head pastor at my church. For those of you who don't go to my church or don't know, Pastor Andy was diagnosed with colon cancer earlier this year. He had part of his colon removed only to find out that he still had the cancer, and he's now going through chemo. Years prior to being diagnosed with cancer, he started sending out regular emails to people who signed up to receive them. They usually span a wide variety of random topics - sometimes current events, sometimes just whatever was on his mind. As you can imagine, most of them now at least reference or relate to his battle with cancer. I always loved his emails before and I think they're getting even better. Below is one that went out today.

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My Dear Friends,

Greetings from the Valley of the Shadow! Your intrepid Travel Writer has a report on an interesting point of language use by the locals here and those of you on the outside in the larger English-speaking world which we’ve previously nicknamed “Myopia”. The phrase I have in mind is the very common and well-meaning interrogative often used as a greeting in both cultures, “How’re you doing?”

It’s such a simple question. And it’s a kind question too, motivated by the desire of the questioner for the well-being of the questioned. Yet those in the Valley tend to hear and answer that question in a very different way than those on the outside. I thought I’d use this installment of my Travel Writer missives to give you all a bit of personal insight into how folks on this side think about the “how are you?” query, hereafter designated “TQ” for “The Question”.

First, you must realize that to the Valley dweller, TQ is generally a far more complex question than you might imagine. To them, TQ includes several distinct sub-questions that may be fuzzily latent in the mind of the asker but which are crystal clear to the mind of those in the Valley. I will break these down by headings and explain them as follows:

1. The “do you realize that I care about you and that’s why I’m asking TQ?” sub-question, here labeled “I CARE”. This obviously is really more of a statement than a question, and is always much appreciated. Both cultures, Valley and Myopia, use TQ this way. It’s almost like saying, “hey buddy, whassup?” We’re glad to see each other, we care about each other, and that’s how we express our fondness. Of course, the proper answer to “I CARE” is, “I CARE RIGHT BACK!” So we say, “I’m good, how YOU doin’?!” We slap each other on the back and say goodbye, another friendly interaction!

2. The “are you winning the cancer battle. . . or not?” sub-question, here labeled “R U DYING?”. To a person who is in a fight for their life, this is the sub-question of the TQ they sometimes hear. Right after I’d had a cancerous tumor along with 12 inches of my colon removed and a PET scan showed that I still had cancer spreading in my lymph system, I encountered two IBC staffers at a meeting who asked me TQ. Concerned that I had cancer cells pulsing unopposed through my veins (I had not yet begun chemo), in my mind I heard them asking the R U DYING sub-question and, before I could stop myself, answered it honestly: “At this moment, I think I might be dying of cancer. . .” Their shocked expressions immediately let me know that I’d pulled a cultural faux paus. Realizing my error, I laughed and lied, “Just kidding!” Funny thing, word must have got around staff because no one working at IBC has asked me TQ for the last three months. My bad!

3. The “right now are you physically OK or are you about to hurl?” sub-question, here labeled “DO U FEEL TERRIBLE?” People in the Valley are usually dealing with some sort of pain or handicap or discomfort that constantly reminds them of their statas there in the shadow. So you can understand that the TQ might sound like a query about their physical symptoms at that very moment. I had a friend who works at a drugstore who made an after hours delivery to my home of some much needed anti-nausea medicine—a prince of a guy! As he gave me the med’s he asked TQ, but in my mind I heard the “DO U FEEL TERRIBLE?” sub-question and answered honestly: “I’m nauseated, constipated, fatigued, and sleepless most nights. . . yes my friend, I feel terrible.” The look of horror on his face immediately told me I’d made another cultural faux paus. “Well,” he stuttered, “thanks for being honest!” “You bet!” I said, secretly vowing not to be honest like that ever again.

4. The “are you an emotional wreck or are you holding steady” sub-question, here labeled “ARE YOU ABOUT TO GIVE UP?” Many people in the Valley soon realize that their sojourn in the shadow isn’t a sprint, but a marathon. They have to come to grips with the reality that they may never again live in Myopia, but that neither might they be passing quickly through the Valley to the golden gates on the other side. Their pain or disability or suffering may go on and on and on for quite a while, and that gets more than tiring, it get discouraging. So when well-meaning friends ask them TQ, they sometimes hear the “ARE YOU READY TO GIVE UP?” sub-question.

I think this is best answered with actions and not words from Valley dwellers. For me, it comes out in certain (possibly perverse?) ways according to my sense of humor. For instance, I determined from the beginning that the way for me to show I have not given up on the fight is to name the fight and refuse to let it become the elephant in the room. For example, I recently played in a golf tournament with a bunch of my buddies and could tell they were all tiptoeing around my cancer. So I started in on the first hole begging for gimme’s with the line, “After all guys, I’ve got cancer.” At first, they caved because they didn’t get it. But after the third time I played the cancer card they got it and said, “Forget it dude, make the putt.” At that moment I knew that they knew I was dealing with the disease and had not given up. Otherwise why would I still be trying to kick their heinie’s (in love, mind you) on the golf course? I love it. It’s kind of like the note I received recently from a friend:

“I hope all is well. I wanted to let you know about a really fun opportunity that is coming up. It is called the Undy5000, and it is a walk/run to raise money for the colon cancer alliance. It is Oct. 31st at Winfrey point at White Rock Lake in Dallas. I did it last year, and it was really fun. This year, our clinic is doing it in costume. Our team is called: Heinie Herd, so several of us are going as farm animals.”

Am I ready to give up? Not as long as the Heinie Herd dress up like cows and sheep and are run-walking to help save my life! Now I’m not only “Semicolon” and “Travel Writer” and “Clipboard King”, I am also a “Heinie Herder”. Wonderful.

5. The “overall do you sense that God is still with you and that hope is alive or are you sinking spiritually” sub-question, here labeled “DO YOU STILL HAVE PEACE?” I think this is the really big part of TQ, both to the askers and the askee’s. This sub-question, while being the most profound of the five, is actually the simplest to answer. Because if the Valley Dweller confronted with TQ hears #5, an accurate and appropriate answer to “How are you?” can quite truly be, “I’m fine, thanks.” That is, having a friend express love and concern in TQ and realizing that yes, I am fighting the battle and even though I feel terrible I haven’t given up because God’s grace is all over the journey does lead me to respond to #5 in all honesty with “I’m just fine. Really I am!” Maybe even, “Never better.”

I had a young friend who asked me TQ after church one day and was clearly disappointed when I gave that simple answer, exhorting me, “C’mon Andy, tell me truthfully, how are you, REALLY?!” He was operating under the reasonable assumption that nobody fighting cancer can actually be “fine”, and that any indication otherwise was at best sugary and naïve optimism and at worse cynically expressed pessimism. As Barbara Ehrenreich recently wrote in her new book, “But I can report that breast cancer did not make me stronger or more spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a ‘gift’, was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before—one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate” (Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America).

I’m sorry that Ms. Ehrenreich considers the only honest answer to TQ to be one of despair and defeat. What Valley Dwellers want those in the land of Myopia to understand is that yes, it’s actually possible for people of faith to stand in shadows and still be fine, just fine, and maybe even better than fine. Answering TQ with “Fine thanks” is not a dismissive or dishonest or superficial answer but a true, genuine, and even miraculous one. That it is possible to be physically depleted and emotionally exhausted and yet walking steadily forward with faith, hope, and love. One can indeed be living in the Valley and simultaneously be “doing just fine”.

How can this be so? In his latest book If God is Good, Randy Alcorn tells the story of the late Pastor James Montgomery Boice who, in May 2000, stood before his Philadelphia church and explained that he’d been diagnosed with liver cancer:

“Should you pray for a miracle? Well, you’re free to do that, of course. My general impression is that the God who is able to do miracles–and He certainly can–is also able to keep you from getting the problem in the first place. So although miracles do happen, they’re rare by definition.…Above all, I would say pray for the glory of God. If you think of God glorifying Himself in history and you say, where in all of history has God most glorified Himself? He did it at the cross of Jesus Christ, and it wasn’t by delivering Jesus from the cross, though He could have.…God is in charge. When things like this come into our lives, they are not accidental. It’s not as if God somehow forgot what was going on, and something bad slipped by.… God is not only the one who is in charge; God is also good. Everything He does is good.… If God does something in your life, would you change it? If you’d change it, you’d make it worse. It wouldn’t be as good” (p.14).

I’m reasonably certain that, if you’d asked TQ of Dr. Boice right after he said those words, he would have replied, “Fine thanks”, and it would have been a true and honest answer. He was a man of faith, you see, and was resting in God’s promises like the following: "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble." Psalm 46:1. "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you." Isaiah 43:1b-2a. Or how about the promise of eternal life in an eternal kingdom to those redeemed by God’s grace, “They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:3—4).” Would Dr. Boice have preferred not to have cancer? Unless he’d become light in his loafers in old age and I don’t think he had, of course he would have preferred health over sickness. But did his sickness mean that he wasn’t fine? No. He was just fine, because he knew what the anonymous author of this famous poem about cancer knew. . . and he to embraced it--“What Cancer Cannot Do”:

“Cancer is so limited...

It cannot cripple love.

It cannot shatter hope.

It cannot corrode faith.

It cannot eat away peace.

It cannot destroy confidence.

It cannot kill friendship.

It cannot shut out memories.

It cannot silence courage.

It cannot reduce eternal life.

It cannot quench the Spirit.”

Eight weeks after announcing his illness to the church, and having taught his people first how to live and then how to die, Pastor Boice departed this world to “be with Christ, which is better by far” (Philippians 1:23). He was fine when fighting cancer, and he was fine when he went home. That’s a continuous “fine” line. Get it?

Now please understand, neither I nor most of those I know here in the Valley have any plans and we certainly have no desire for an early exit from life on this planet. What we want you all to know is that if death is the worst case scenario and we can be ok facing that, then surely we can be fine with facing whatever lesser challenges life in the Valley might bring. Got it? And get this too: cancer is not the only difficult condition under which people of faith can be “fine”. God’s promises and presence and grace are available for us all no matter what hard things are cascading our way. You may not have cancer, but I suspect you’ve got your share of worries and heartaches, and I want you to know that “just fine” living through faith in Our Lord is for you as well as for me!

So, to bring our linguistic/cultural discussion to a conclusion, I’d like to review and make a suggestion. We’ve noted that big problems can ensue when a Valley dweller fails to discern which combination of the five TQ sub-questions is actually being asked. For a Valley person to honestly answer a sub-question that was not intended by the askee is to create an awkward moment indeed.

Perhaps a good practical suggestion to Myopians for avoiding these awkward moments is this: please specify your sub-question under TQ. Instead of just asking the Valley dweller “how’re you doing?”, go right for the jugular. Want to know if I feel terrible? Then ask, “Hey Andy, do you just feel terrible?” It’s hard to misunderstand such a refreshingly pointed interrogative and I’ll have no compunction in giving you an honest answer. You may also want to go with a more positive form of the direct question, “Are you feeling good today?”, but don’t be shocked if the honest answer comes back the same, “No, actually I feel terrible. . . but you wanted to know, right?” Smile, right here.

Or, if such brutal directness rocks your comfort zone, another suggestion would be to go ahead and ask TQ but resolve in advance not to be aggravated with whatever honest answer your Valley Dweller friend might give. We’ve already talked about the awkwardness of his answering a sub-question that you didn’t really want to know the answer to. But you must also resolve not to be offended with what may seem to you a flippant or even superficial answer to TQ, such as, “Fine, thanks”, because it can actually be (and probably is) the truest response you could receive.

Doing Fine, Really,

Pastor Andy