What if?

Long ago, a little boy said to me, "your words hurt my ears".

It wasn't because he had been naughty and was being disciplined.  It wasn't because he was being told he was watching too much tv again.  It wasn't because he wasn't allowed to play outside until midnight.

It was more because of the harsh realities of life.  When those hard things in life, whether emotional, spiritual or physical cannot be made to look better, feel better - when they are put into words - they hurt.

Words like, "I don't know why people change sometimes".  Words like, "yeah, there are a lot of hurt people in this world who like to hurt others".  Words like, "it hurts really bad now, but maybe, just a little less tomorrow".

I think now, he and his sisters would say "your words hurt my eyes".

So, sometimes, I write about things that are not so sensory painful.

***

But not today.

These chemo combinations they give you, can cause you to reflect on a lot of things.

One being, well, mostly living.

But this past week, thinking a little on the last six months, I wondered: what would happen if we treated evil and sin in this world like we treat cancer?

***
Someone asked me the other day if I had it to do over again, would I have done the study and put myself out there with the three days a week Ro chemo regimen, on top of the usual weekly IV Taxal, and the "for good-misery-measure" every three weeks Carbo thrown on top of all of that.  Would I have done the study drug again?

Would I do it all again for six months?  Would I succumb to the "chemo-blast" and lose those first three months to nothing but medications and pain and trying to recover and hurt and basically living  in a fog that is in a lot of ways mostly memorable, but wholly not easy to recall??

Would I spend these last months with a bone marrow that was a bit fussy and mostly refused to recover; depleted blood cells that isolated me from any germ, and most human interaction; deep channels of weariness and some despair - would I do it again?


I would like to say "yes - in a heartbeat".  But, in all honesty, I would probably take three minutes for consideration this time.

If it meant that I was given a chance at beating this, I'm pretty sure I would say the same thing again - "how do I sign up?"

I would get back on that boat to Haedes.

Really, there wasn't all that much of a choice in the whole thing.

It's hit me pretty hard this week, reading a little more on my disease and realizing that if not for my aggressive treatment my life would be a completely different story right now.

You might put it under the column "hopeless".

But because I fell into the hands of some that treat aggression with like aggression, I'm here typing.

I did not get on that boat with the intention of coming off feeling better, feeling like my life had been enlarged, feeling like I had done the right thing.

I got on that boat for only one reason and that reason was that I had caught a glimpse of my enemy.  I was alarmed and rightfully fearful.  I had enough knowledge and enough people telling me what this could do to my body.  My life.  

And it had a whomping head start.   

My enemy is predatory in nature, and wants to consume me.  It is fast and deep and cunning, to the point that you have to take drastic measures to overcome it.  This enemy is evil to it's core and wants nothing but my suffering and hurt and ultimately, it wants me.  All of me.

I couldn't just hand that over to it.

And God of all things was standing at the door saying "you can't quit this".

I have quit other things when I didn't like the looks of the battle lining up.  I have shrunk from the battle line not wanting to confront or try to conquer or keep in the battle - I have walked away from such things before.

But with this, this foe, you cannot quit.  I wake up in the night feeling as if I had wrestled a strong alligator and was losing.  I wake up at night in pain and want out of the prison.  I wake up at night with a start and wonder about time, my body felt so depleted of any life giving help at times.  And, so short of breath.

But knowing this enemy, I could not walk away, I could not step back, I could not stand down.  It had to be faced and fought and even though we have won some battles, the war is long from over.

I really had to look this evil in the eye, and do what had to be done to overcome it.  To fight it to the end.  To stay in the battle even when I was too weary to move.

It's a fearsome foe, and is one that I cannot sadly pretend away.  And in some ways, the cure is harder to withstand than the disease.

But, there is no choice.  It has to be purged.

***

What if we treated evil the same way?

What if your local child predator was sent to "cancer" treatment for six months - and that was only the beginning?   Because we thought a child's soul more important than cancer cells?  Because we really believe that evil spreads like leaven?  Because we really know that we can change lives by confronting hard things?

What if the biggest bully you know - the one that makes everyone feel ugly and worthless and despair for wanting to live - what if they were sent to a center to remove that blackness from their lives?

What if - what if - the sin I find in my own life, hiding out in a corner of my soul, the sin of pride or prejudice or arrogance - what if I woke up one morning and wanted to have that sin taken care of seriously, and could go for treatments that would eradicate it?  What if you could have it sought out and destroyed before it destroyed you?  

Cancer is the closest thing I have encountered that I can equate to pure evil.

This was the one time in my life that I could not show up, clumsily fight it, then walk away when the heat started to scorch me.  I could not pretend like it was a lesser battle, I could not pretend that I could throw up just anything in it's path and that would be enough, I could not pretend I could win with flimsy battle gear.

I am in this for the whole war.  And I know I cannot afford to fight it with substandard measures.

Yet, when it's life altering, life crumbling evil, we react differently.  

***

The medical community winces every time they hear this evil one's name.  It's that bad.  But they don't back down, they meet it on the field with everything and every ounce of energy they can muster.  They study it and know it and want it fought and they want to win, even when presented with overwhelming odds.

One of my oncologists told me once - knee to knee, face to face, eye to eye  -  that he has been in school for twenty-seven years for this one moment in time - to help me fight this vile, evil enemy.

Twenty seven years.  Hard studying.  Hard memorizing.  A life dedicated to knowing everything you can possibly know to beat an evil enemy trying to overtake one of your patients.

What if we treated evil and sin the same way?  What if we send it to a specialist to do everything we can to make sure that evil is removed?

I am finding my little forays into studying evil something of a joke.  I find it hard to spend twenty-seven minutes in prayer and study on any given day to meet my mortal enemy.  Let alone, twenty-seven years.

Seemingly, I don't take it all that seriously.

So we use the big guns on cancer, all of the technology, all of the brains, the most extreme methods made known to man to fight and hopefully win - we do all that for cancer, and spend less than twenty-seven minutes on evil.

Which mostly doesn't take lives, more likely "just" the souls.  

I have given up a lot of my life and spent lots of money to fight this one evil.  I have allotted my time to nothing else.

These battles are so similar - the evil cancer and the evil that hurts our souls are maybe twins separated at birth. Yet, I have treated them with immeasurable irregularities on the one hand, and concise strategic plans on the other.

So if I had to say would I do it over again, I would not want to, but knowing my enemy would realize I have no choice.  And I know my enemy on more than one front now needs a lot of work and study and preparation and pain and suffering and hurt and toil.

There's no pretending with cancer - you better know.  And there should be no pretending with our ancient foe - evil.  Whether societal evil, personal evil or any of the long list you could place there - any of it should be taken seriously and fought on an even more difficult level than cancer.  

With this enemy - this fight - there's no playing around with it, there's no choice.