"This is Life!" Αυτη εστιν η αιωνιος ζωη: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Delane, Wilbur, Joe

I wasn't going to post anything on Delane just yet because right now his situation is in somewhat in limbo. But confronted with this awful suffering, I cannot remain silent.

Among the options: a thirty-some-odd hour surgery in which a handful of teams (yes, teams) of doctors will go inside his abdominal cavity and work around and through the massive scar tissue brought on by a once-hemhorraging pancreas and an exploded gall bladder (scarring which has fused internal organs together) to repair a number of problems: a hole in his bile duct; a blocked artery on his spleen which is failing to get blood to his internal organs with the result that they are, essentially, dying; some kidney work; some work on his stomach; and I forget what else. Then there's the five-organ transplant, itself a waiting game as to when all five will be ready. The transplant doctor wants the other doctor to do the surgery since the transplant odds are so long. The other doctor wants the transplant doctor to do a five-organ transplant since the odds of Delane surviving the surgery are so long.

In his present condition, the doctors don't expect him to live a year. He is down to one hundred ten pounds from a once-healthy one-sixty-five. He is receiving blood transfusions more and more, and wrestling with infections. Due to his condition, the only nutrition he can get is from a stomach tube, but he has for some months been having severe pain associated with this feedings, so they've discontinued those and put him on TPN (which is what transplant patients are put on temporarily prior to either getting a transplant, or, frankly, dying). TPN, however, used over an extended period can lead to liver failure because of its toxicity.

In short, there is little to no human hope for Delane. In human terms, he has been slowly and painfully dying for two and a half years. Given what he's experienced over these thirty months, it's little wonder he's pushing the doctors to do the search-and-repair surgery. He would rather die, even on the operating table, doing something, than slowly wasting away.

There there are Wilbur and Joe. Men who have seen their three-score-and-ten. But no less suffering. No less clinging to life and hope. Yet, too, weakened now and in pain. Looking at a life now measurable and an end that is comprehensible, foreseeable. Knowing the cause; understanding what to expect. But bewildered, tempted toward fatalism, to be embiterred by it nonetheless.

Confronted with this suffering, I am struck dumb and palsied. I have prayed for Delane, fasting at times, for all these many months. Now also Wilbur and Joe. Each day I send my intercessions wafting heavenward. But I feel like those whom St. Peter talks about, those who say, "Where is the promise of his coming? All things continue as they have from the beginning." I am the father after the Transfiguration calling out, "If you can." So long discouraged, confronted with the pain and suffering of my brother-in-law, my wife, and all her family, do I even have that within me to say "I believe, help my unbelief"? Or is it all faithlessness?

The prayer formulas I know--essentially pagan all of them--encourage holiness of life or a myriad of intercessors all in an effort to persuade a seemingly reluctant God. Others tell me prayer transforms the person praying. But is it blasphemy to assert that if there's any transformation that needs to go on, it's the state of my brother-in-law's health?

I happened to pull some notes from a talk of a former mentor of mine. One thought I'd written down: "God is seldom early, never late." But he has been late. Ask Lazarus. And anyway, isn't it easier to heal the sick rather than to raise the dead?

Another: "You are God's minister where you're at." Right. No, I'm a buffoon, the philosophy geek who won't grow up and get a real job. The self-glorified "spiritual pilgrim" too rootless to stay put, always looking for the one true Church. I'm a pretentious twit always so anxious to parse verbs and decline cases. What do I know of prayer? Of faith? Of the way of Christ? Who am I to play ministry?

I can't even pray consistently.

I feel like this is such a crapshoot right now. Does my prayer having the winning number? Should I show up to work tomorrow? More pagan-ness.

What we need, what our tear-filled hearts desire, is a miracle. A flat-out dumbfounded-medical-doctor-news-conference "We have no idea how he got well" kind of miracle.

What sort of awful grace is this, to wonder if our deepest longings for life and healing for Delane, Wilbur and Joe will be fulfilled? God blesses me with Sofie, and I weep for my unworthiness. God confronts me with these sufferings, and I weep for my inability to help. What is this grace?

I went out with my brothers and sisters to the desert this week. There are demons and beasts here. And already I hunger and thirst.

Posted by Clifton at February 26, 2004 10:53 PM | TrackBack