COMMUNITY & COMMUNION [Sat, 2-10-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter— COMMUNITY & COMMUNION [Sat, 2-10-24]

 

From early on, the following was part of my cancer talk: “I read somewhere that people who went to support group had a 50% better chance of getting well. I read somewhere else that patients who kept a journal of their feelings had a 50% better chance of getting well. I’m no dummy. That’s 100%! So I kept a journal of my feelings, and I went to support group.”

The journal became Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole. The support group--at Carle Cancer Center in Urbana, IL--became the source of so many inspiring friends. I’m sure that group was one of the main reasons I defied the pale oncologist’s prediction of “a year or two.”

When I started going to group, it had been running for twenty years, started by Everett and Rae Endsley, when Everett was a lung cancer patient. With only a few necessary absences, they had come to every meeting for all those years, even though Everett had been declared cured long before. They were personable and friendly and funny, but they didn’t say much at the meetings. They knew there were others, newer in the cancer journey, who needed to do the talking. They always came, they said, just in case a new patient had come and no one else was there that night. They wanted to be sure every bewildered survivor had someone who would listen to their fears and hopes.

There weren’t any meetings during the four years I was a part of the Carle group—before I helped form a group closer to where I lived—when the Endsleys were the only old survivors there, but sometimes it was close.

Later, when I began slowly to ease out of the cancer community, I realized what a significant commitment Rae & Everett had made. There comes a time when you need a different identity beyond being a cancer survivor, being a part of the cancer community. Rae and Everett had moved on. They had other interests. But they also had that commitment, that no new cancer patient should be without a support group.

The problem is: community does not last. Rae and Everett could not go on forever. No group, however supportive, goes on forever.

I have trouble giving up on community, both individual friendships and supportive groups. I hang onto them as long as possible. But I’m getting closer to being “the last apple on the tree.”

I think old age is helping me to be more aware of communion in place of community. Heaven, or its alternative, is coming close. One of the great appeals of heaven is that community will be restored. “I’ll get to see Mom and Dad and my dog, Sparky, again, and…”

I don’t have any knowledge of heaven, whether we’ll have that sort of community again, but I do feel sure that the same God who has always been available for communion in this life with continue to be present with us.

Community doesn’t last… but communion does.

John Robert McFarland

BONUS THOUGHT--ONE TRUE SENTENCE: “God’s forgiveness is more than a blessing. It’s a challenge.” Wm. Sloane Coffin