BASKETTCASE

This is my seventh day of this new course of chemo.  It has not been at all bad.  The weather has been not just good, but hot, like 28c.  This has meant I have hardly been troubled by the cold sensitivity at all.  I have been back on cold drinks for several days, able to hang out washing, fetch stuff from the fridge, wash fruit and veg under the tap.  I have done both my school walks, and expect to complete my week's duties tomorrow.  I did my Grandma day yesterday, and although we didn't risk going into town we made cookies, finished a scrapbook page for James's album and played ball outside.

I simply haven't had the Day 5 drop.  I feel very calm, and happy that I am doing what is right for me at this time of my life.  I am not achieving great things, making a difference in the world, improving my mind or leaving behind a great legacy of wisdom and provision, but just being, and feeling a great sense of thankfulness that it is OK just to be me.  I may never know in this life what this is all about, how I fit into the great scheme of things, and why things are the way they are.  In that I am no different to anyone else on the planet, although I am certainly having it easier than most of the world.

It was our cell-group meeting last night.  We have a lovely lady octogenarian who exudes calm trust in God and takes a keen interest in everyone and their doings.  She never misses the Sunday service, but when questioned about her reaction to the sermon she freely admits that she loses it as soon as she leaves the building.  I wish I were that honest, because I do too.  I am not sure if my mind is going, or my priorities for concentration have changed.  I was thinking about that today hanging out the washing: about the relationship between mind and spirit, and how the spirit functions without mind.  Does it?  Does a relationship with God require full function of the whole being?  That can't be right.  Instinct tells me that often those with the deepest spiritual awareness are those with the least mental capacity.  Sometimes I think so-called intelligence works in opposition to the spirit, looking for explanations, patterns, rules, power.  I have tried hard all my life - striven, worried, measured myself, gritted my teeth and gone on trying.  It has been part of who I am, it has driven what I have done, but it hasn't made me any more worthy.  And has God looked down on me with a smile and a shrug, thinking to himself: there's always one who has to do it the hard way? 

Maybe I'm just hanging out too much washing.