THINGS THAT MATTER THE MOST
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been sorting out the things that really do matter, and separating them from the things that don’t matter quite so much. I put all that in a sermon I preached at Vivian, Louisiana today. I won’t give the sermon, but here’s my list of things that matter most. I’ve divided them into two categories – human relationships and divine relationships. In the human category I came up with the following (not necessarily in the order of importance): friends, family, church, Ann children, grandchildren. In the divine category I put these things. – God, Christ and him crucified, Grace. You may wonder why I left out love. It seems to me that all of them are expressions love. So love is the thing that matters most to me
The Tumor Tumult (7)
I haven’t had any more contact with doctors about my surgery in September. Waiting is the hardest part. It’s funny how things work on my mind now that I know I’ve got a tumor near the spinal cord. I start thinking that every ache, every pain, every sore muscle and joint, every tingle, every itch is related to this pecan sized lump at the base of my brain. Of course I’ve had all these same symptoms for years and never paid any attention to them. It’s enough to make one paranoid. We did have one bit of encouraging news. We were concerned about our supplementary insurance, since LSU is an “out of network” hospital. This week they informed me that they’ve reviewed my case, and agreed to cover the surgery. That helps the pocketbook quite a bit.
I also got a bit of encouraging news from the
Shreveport Times. Dr. Anil Nanda, the man who will do my surgery, was recently invited to lecture to a group of neurosurgeons in New York. Guess what his subject was? He talked about performing surgery at the base of the brain. I wonder if he used pictures of my brain. If he did, it's the only way my brain will ever make it into a meeting of doctors.
When New Information Makes You Uncomfortable
Sometimes we become threatened when we come to awareness of the fact that our previous understanding of things is either flawed or incomplete. It’s like putting on a new pair of shoes. It feels uncomfortable at first. I ran across an analogy which I find helpful when I deal with that discomfort. “It is easy to think you have mastered Shakespeare’s plays if all you have on the shelf is the comedies. When someone brings you all the other plays as well – the tragedies and the history plays – plus a volume or two of the great man’s poetry for good measure – you will complain that things are now getting confused and highly complex. But you are actually closer to understanding Shakespeare, not further away.” N. T. Wright.
Simply Christian. p. 63.
