CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
I wrote the following in 1990, after my first oncologist told me I’d be dead “in a year or two.” It appears on page 108 of the second edition of NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel, 2007]
My friend Bill came to see me, a week after I got out of the hospital. He drove a hundred miles each way to spend an hour with me. We’ve been friends for almost thirty years. Between us we’ve had three wives and seven children. We don’t see each other often, but we don’t need to; our friendship is always still there. Bill’s first wife left him ten years ago. Just told him one day she was leaving. No previous symptoms, even in retrospect. Just like my cancer. We share that kind of surprised grieving—he in his marriage, me in my body.
When he was ready to leave, he sat on the sofa beside me and put his arm around me. I held onto his leg, the way a little boy might wrap his arm around a father’s knee. We prayed together. He told me he loved me. I tried to tell him I loved him, too, but I couldn’t get it out. I believe he understood, though. Other than shaking hands, I think that’s the first time we’ve touched, in thirty years.
Now that I have cancer, there seems to be an unspoken word of permission for people to touch me, for me to touch them. It’s funny, that a broken body should somehow be more touchable than one that’s whole. Or am I more touchable because my spirit is broken? “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” [Psalm 51:17.]
It is interesting that in all the stories of Jesus, there is only one instance of anyone touching him while he was alive in the body. He, of course, touched many. A leper, a hand to raise Simon’s mother-in-law or Jairus’ daughter up from beds of illness and death, deaf ears, blind eyes, the feet of the disciples, children. The woman with the hemorrhage reached only as far as the hem of his robe. The woman who broke the alabaster jar of ointment on his feet wiped it off with her hair—no touch. The only time anyone reached out to touch Jesus was to betray him, Judas with a kiss, the authorities of his own faith and people with a slap.
Maybe that’s why “doubting” Thomas insisted on his famous touch-and-feel session after the crucifixion. Maybe he was really “knowing” Thomas. Because no one had touched Jesus while he was alive, Thomas knew the real proof of the resurrection was that he could be touched, his body was broken. It’s only after the breaking of crucifixion that resurrection, the touching time, comes.
Somehow we seem able to touch one another in our brokenness in ways we never can in wholeness. God likes to use broken things: broken bread, broken ointment jars, broken bodies, even relationships broken with a kiss.
My body and my spirit have been broken by cancer. That means I can touch and be touched. I’m thankful for the cancer.
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
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{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
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