(I wrote this in 2017. Today, this applies in a whole new way due to other situations. May I continue to gain new perspective and see whatever God shows me.)
“Why do I stand up here?” asked Mr. Keating in Dead Poet’s Society.
“To feel taller?” asked one snarky student.
“NO! Thank you for playing Mr. Dalton,” exclaimed Mr. Keating. “I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way. See, the world looks very different from up here. Do you believe me? Come see for yourself. Come on. Come on! Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in a different way–even though it may seem silly or wrong–you must try.”
I usually enjoy a change of perspective. One day, when we needed to do some work on our chimney, I climbed up on the roof to give Doug a hand with a bucket of mortar. It took me a bit to get my bearings and get over the shaky fear of falling. Once I did, I happened to look up. No longer did it look like my yard, then our neighbors yard, and if I stretched on my tippy-toes high enough, their neighbors yard. Now, I could see the land loping out for a long ways with houses placed regularly throughout like little kids claiming their territory. I turned my head the other way and was surprised to discover that I could see the Grand River from our rooftop and Riverside Park spreading along its bank.
When I was a kid needing to escape homework or chores or family dynamics or just to get a little peace and quiet, I would climb up the half brick wall behind our house where the metal garbage bins were kept and pull myself up to the roof of my parents house. I could see vast more up there than I could on the ground. Somehow, it grounded me. It helped me realize there was more than what I could see right in front of my face. It lifted me out of the ordinary and helped me look at my life in a different way.
My Dad-in-law’s cancer is doing that for me. I now know more about the pancreas than I ever have known in my life. I know its location, its function, what it looks like. I know what happens when a tumor grows inside the pancreas and the effects it produces. I know the gravity of that same cancer having spread to the liver. I am amazed at how I have taken for granted this little-mentioned organ. I know what the stages of cancer mean and the statistics that go with it.
I now am familiar with the Lemmon-Holton Cancer Pavillion which is so physically close to me yet I never noticed it before. Inside that building on the 3rd floor I saw more heads without hair, more knit caps over those bald heads, more people sitting with their loved ones connected to IVs than I ever realized could be in one floor at one time. I see those faces knowing one tiny aspect of their story, that they all are part of this club no one asks to be a part of. I, who have never been a germaphobic before in my life, washed my hands probably 13 times in 2 and a 1/2 hours and wore a mask so my hacking cough wouldn’t cause alarm and danger to everyone surrounding me in that building whose immunize systems were compromised due to poison–once their enemy and now their friend–dripping in their veins.
I now see time as precious, a whole new thing, an entity that feels alive somehow, that I want to reach out and wrestle and say, “HOLD ON, I AM NOT READY FOR YOU TO GO THIS SPEED YET.” I don’t want to waste words. I want to have those conversations I have been meaning to have.
I admit, if asked, I am not altogether happy about this new perspective. However, since I and my family have had our familiar world turned upside down, I might as well take a look from this new vantage point I am in and glean what I can.
There is a verse that I have as my “signature” at the bottom of my emails. I have had it there for, oh, maybe ten years. It is a reminder about perspective, and although it is originally ancient, it is also new if you haven’t taken time to look before. This is it from Jeremiah 6:16:
“This is what the LORD says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”‘
I am looking, Lord. Show me your way.
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