Personal, but not Private: Answers in Hindsight

Greetings again!

I feel great, physically and more. I feel filled with gratitude, clarity and focus on the days and the long-term priorities of my life and our purpose. May I share my weekend with you, up front and personal, to the end that you may find vicarious understanding and clarity in your own life and yearnings? I know I do so at the risk of being misunderstood. Again, this is personal, very personal, but I feel compelled to not keep it private.

One night while laying in the hospital, a simple thought came into my mind briefly enough for me to recognize the thought. It was, Mantle Cell is my friend. That was all. I did not reject the the thought as crazy or ridiculous. I simply acknowledged that the thought had come to me. It had not been created in my thinking process. It had just come. I have come to know that most personal revelation (inspiration - answers to prayer) come in this way. A quiet, simple thought comes and leaves me (us) with the option of what to do with the thought -- accept and consider it or reject and discard it. So, Mantle Cell Leukemia was my friend? The obvious follow on thought was that you do not fight a friend. Rather, you acknowledge and embrace the friend.

I determined that the battle was not against cancer, rather, the battle, quest, was for health. So, I proceed to eat and live as healthy as I know how, without becoming radical nor fanatical. A friend introduced me to a green drink product that Judy and I are now both using and believe it is helping in our race for greater health. As we teach in Dream Team, more clean water, deep breathing, mild large muscle exercise (walking at this point -- next, hiking), good nutrition and adequate sleep, rest and moments of sweet calm stillness. This then is our non-battle with the disease. We'll let all of our combined prayers fight that battle. And in wisdom will work with the doctors' skills for that role in the process. That is the strategy.

The weekend was warm and wonder-filled. Life here on the the mountain is teeming everywhere. The snow is gone at our elevation, the leaves will be out next week and the hummingbirds are returning in mass. Little yellow and white ground flowers are building a carpet of beauty and wonder. If you were here we would lay on our bellies and get our noses close to the tiny miracles of life. Then we would raise our heads (my bald head) and we would hear the songs of the birds as they declare their territorial nesting and feeding rights. And we would laugh at the child-like squabbling of the hummingbirds as they try to exert their claim over the flowers and the feeders. And we would laugh. Remember the HM family invitation for all new Executives to join us here for just such revelry.

Saturday I walked to the knoll behind the lodge and sat facing the sunset over the mountain. It is such a great place to breathe, ponder and pray. And I did.

Then I cranked up one of the ATVs and took Judy for a ride around the area and some brief visits with our maintain friends who were here for the weekend. And we remembered how good it is to have the gift of friends. Then a quiet, simple dinner with my sweetheart, a little eyes gazing, scriptures, prayers and the restful full night's sleep. So good.

Sunday morning brought sweet Sabbath study and a return to our tiny church on the mountain. Hugs and love from friends who had focused their faith and prayers in my behalf these past three weeks overflowed. I taught the priesthood lesson and a joy-filled potluck lunch following the services. Fellowship is healing.

Now for the personal insights and confessions. I hope the openness is not uncomfortable.

For a very long time, years, I have in the private recesses of my thoughts and prayers had concerns over the contributions of my life in contrast to the blessings, talents and my yearning to make a difference. I have often felt that it was just not enough -- on several fronts. And my sins and shortcomings were not other than the general variety that most of us deal with in our fallen, mortal state. Nonetheless, mine haunted me and I worried that they had and were removing me from greater opportunity to serve and make a meaningful contribution. I know that may come across as naive and over zealous, but it is true, I thought, and I worried long and much about it -- particularly during the last year. It was cankering (cancering) my soul.

Simultaneously to this thorn in my heart, I was also heavy with the awareness that I was living largely without joy. That is to say, I was so busy doing the tasks, of admittedly good things, yet lightheartedness (not light mindedness) and laughter and personal play were missing from my life. And therefore I was not able to fully share in the joy of life, even the joy I was striving to create for my family and others. Fishing trips, ATV rides, feasts, lessons, work -- project after project -- task after task, were facilitations to creating joy for others. But I was not smelling the roses. I wasn't pausing enough and partaking of the joy that was all around me. I was always two projects ahead, two days, weeks, months, years of tasks ahead in my mind. I was looking beyond the moment and its own priceless harvest of joy to the creation of the next event. I felt it and my family saw it. I think this sickness of task orientation may affect (infect) many, if not most, men. We are fixers -- next, next, next. Again, I felt the sickness and had been praying earnestly about it during the last several months. I needed healing.

Then came my friend, Mantle Cell Leukemia. And then came yesterday and the night of new thoughts. And it came. The medicine and answers to my honest cries for help both for contribution and for joy had been ever so graciously administered by a loving God in the form of cancer - Mantle Cell. It stopped me, shall we say, "dead in my tracks" (tasks) and held my "busy"ness at bay. It stopped my rush and gave me the ever so needed pause to see and to understand.

And now my understanding and vision is crystal clear. Their is no greater contribution that I can make with my talents, and my time, than that which I am doing in forwarding the cause of heritage making -- practical family history -- and bringing mothers home with the understanding of how to build their children's life foundations and heritage. It is enough and more. I shall not want more than you, my Mantle Cell friend.

In the quiet moments in the hospital and more since as I have begged for forgiveness of the impact of the rush of my life on my sweetheart -- as I have gazed in her eyes, held her close, walked hand-in-hand and talked, really talked and really listened -- as we have pondered our future and its uncertain days and trials -- together, I have found the joy I had passed by and that now I savor and live for. Now I see, feel and have found the joy that is all around me and I will not miss again partaking in the feasts I help to create. Nor will I be slow to cherish the feast of life the Lord and others set before me. And I will become as a little child, filled with amazement, life, trust and joy. Thank you my friend, Mantle Cell. And thank you dear Father for the answers to my needs, my weakness and my pleas.

And thank you for allowing me to share. In the sharing, there is further healing. And I sincerely hope that for those who read, they may find, vicarious healing, meaning and answers and direction for the balm so readily available to each of us.

I do so look forward to the continuing gifts of my new friend and companion for all he has to teach me. And with His and your permission, I look forward to sharing that journey and adventure with you.

Onward and Upward!

Love - Doug