Devising a Diminishing Life

P.Allan A bit of overkill that title, huh? Diminishing life? I took it from Walter Wangerin’s book, Letters from the Land of Cancer. Though my health condition is far easier to bear than his, “diminishing” fits me too.

I’ve posted more than a half-dozen “Personal” blogs (see “Categories” bottom right), most of them sharing my faith-struggles over Primary Lateral Sclerosis. That’s a chronic, incurable neurological disease that weakens legs and arms and inflicts an assortment of other symptoms. Far worse is Wangerin’s. After finding a lump and undergoing a series of tests, he heard his doctor’s blunt report: “This kind of cancer doesn’t go away. It will kill you. Sooner or later, this will be the cause of your death.” Since that diagnosis in 2006, Wangerin has continued to write, teach, and preach, all the while on a roller coaster of “treatment”.

I’ve read two-thirds of his book. Compelling. Fascinating. Challenging. And I’ve found this we have in common: “a diminishing life.” More about that in a moment.

I wish I had this book forty years ago. It might have changed the life-outlook of a thirty-two year-old. Every young pastor should read it. It will better equip him to serve his aging and ill “sheep”.

Now: halfway through Letters I came upon these thought-provoking statements . . .

” . . . perhaps fifteen years ago, I mentioned an odd ache to my father, who was then in his seventies. Mine was just a passing comment. But he responded with an old man’s wisdom and a complete lack of sympathy. He said, ‘Get used to it.’ These pains come. Sure enough, they stay.

“It’s the staying that takes the getting-used-to.

“I mean: until now I’ve met most diseases with the assumption that I would get better.

“Now, however a different kind of mentality is required. I will never again be able to draw a full two-lungs worth of air. I will ever puff at a flight of stairs. This body will nevermore be what it has been .

“We’re not really talking about aging itself, the plain passage of the years. We are talking about the breaking down of bodies, which begins earlier or later, depending on each person’s various experiences and constitutions. We’re talking about another way to live, about devising new methods for confronting old Time and physical degeneration.

“In fact, it presents an irony. When we are young we strive forward, peering toward and planning for the better things to come. But we base the presumptions of our forward-peering-planning on the experiences of our past, such as getting sick and getting better every time
. . .

“Now I have fetched up on the shores of those ‘forward’ years. Here there is only a strip of beach before the sea, only a limited distance into which to peer, for which to plan . . . .

“One gets sick and then does not get better again. A fellow finds himself boxed in: fewer future years, fewer promises to be drawn from all those many former years.

“Nevertheless, this thing is fresh and new, this devising methods for living the diminishing life. It can (it probably has to be) as creative a passage as any writer ever wrote. And that grants it the possibility of depth, gravitas and fulfillments and joy.

“Well, there are those who, their lives tightening around them, act as if it were prison walls closing in, intensifying their more unhappy qualities. Whereas once they might have been able to control their natural angers, anger becomes the strongest response–and can finally be nothing but a failing device, a lion devouring all the remaining years.

“Get used to it.

“I don’t have the hang of that yet . . .

“My project, then. To get good and old. Spiritually to approach my losses with the same craft and talent and devotion which I bring to the writing of a novel, a poem, a sermon.”

The first eight paragraphs above are hard to swallow. I’ll never be able to run with my grandchildren again. My body is breaking down. Only a strip of beach before the sea. Apart from a miracle, no getting better for this sickness.

But then these enlivening sentences: “Nevertheless, this thing is fresh and new, this devising methods for living the diminishing life. It can (it probably has to be) as creative a passage as any writer ever wrote. And that grants it the possibility of depth, gravitas (seriousness) and fulfillments and joy.”

My last chapter? Only God knows. But it is “fresh and new, this devising methods for living the diminishing life.” Besides, Jesus is still calling, “Follow me.” I just have to be patient with myself as I limp behind. I can’t “preach the Word” behind the pulpit anymore. Now it’s preaching by blogging (and reaching more people!) Everything takes more time. But, ” . . . no one has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4). The “all things” are fewer, but Christ still strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). And, to top it all . . .

“Though [my] outer nature is wasting away,
[my] inner self is being renewed day by day.
For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for [me]
an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
as [I] look not to the things that are seen
but to the things that are unseen.
For the things that are seen are transient,
but the things that are unseen are eternal.”(2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

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