Making Miracles at Thanksgiving

As this holiday approaches, may I suggest an appropriate article written a few years ago and published in Newsweek:

"You and I are not good at fixing the international credit markets,
but we can become very good at splinting butterfly wings and filling boxes of food [at your local food pantry] . . . ."

So writes Rabbi Marc Gellman in Newsweek.  Check out his article on the butterfly effect and how you can begin a year of miracles today with a small act of kindness.

16 Years Cancer Free

 

Last week, I kept a long-standing appointment with my Urologist. 

His news was good news.  "16 years cancer free", he said.
No signs of cancer.
"There is nothing for us to talk about," he said.
"See you next year."
"YES!", I said.

16 years ago I wrote these words for our church folks -- and it has since been passed on and on -- I don't know where. 
You might like to read it. Please let me know if you pass it on.

"Cancer," he said.
"You have cancer."
Sobering words, for sure.

I knew he was talking about the cancer that kills more men each year, save one.

I knew that over 30,000 men will die from prostate cancer this year.

I also knew that an estimated two million American men are currently living with prostate cancer.

So, the doctor had my full attention.

Thus began three weeks of whirlwind research and consultations and tests.

Fortunately, all doctors concurred that for my age, and my particular circumstance, the cancer needed to be treated aggressively.

Our research revealed that some surgeons were reporting great outcomes using laproscopic techniques. However, only a few surgeons in the Philadelphia were trained in these procedures and few were actually doing the surgery on a regular basis.

As luck would have it, the most experienced surgeon in laproscopic prostatectomies worked out of Bryn Mawr -- alongside the urologist I have seeing for some 20 years!

Not only had he done more laproscpic surgeries than any other area urologist, but he had documented phenomenal success with positive outcomes. And, he is the first -- and currently, only -- one to use the very latest tool: a robot called DaVinci. And, Lankenau Hospital is the only hospital in the Philadelphia area to have this futuristic machine in use.

I knew from my research that confidence in the medical team was one of the most predictors of positive outcomes. I had that.

I also knew that an even greater predictor of positive outcomes was my involvement with the faith group that is Christ Presbyterian Church.

In recent years I have been collecting scientific studies that confirm what I have observed -- and long suspected -- members of faith groups heal quicker, have less pain, and experience better surgical outcomes than those that aren't.
In fact, research confirms that being a member of a church is a better predictor of positive surgical outcomes than the disease itself, the location of the disease, or, even family history.

The prayers and expressions of concern by so many in the church, in other churches throughout the Presbytery, and in other contexts as well, worked with the skill and dedication of the surgeon and the medical team to help secure the most positive of all outcomes.

Not only has my recovery gone very well -- my hospitalization was only about 24 hours and I have had very little pain or other side effects -- but, tests show that the cancer seems to have confined to the prostate and they got it all!

By all accounts, I am still cancer free!

Sadly, over 30,000 men will die from prostate cancer this year.

This is the cancer that kills more men each year, save one.

It is estimated that some two million American men are currently living with prostate cancer.

And this is a cancer that can be beat with early detection and treatment.

It would behoove all men to get checked today.

Reclaiming Mothers' Day

Mother’s Day Vigil for Peace outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto by Voice of Women a Canadian peace group, May 11, 1963.

 

Today is Mothers’ Day –
a time we set aside to honor the women who have meant so much to us.
In the culture around us, Mothers’ Day has taken a turn from its original intention,
and for the past few years in this church we have tried to say that Mothers’ Day isn’t just about the woman who gave birth to us,
but it is about remembering and honoring all women of faith who have affected us in our personal lives and throughout history.

In the world around us today, Mothers’ Day is a pretty big deal.  
Hallmark plans for 150 million greeting cards to be exchanged today.
More telephone calls are made today than any other day of the year.
An average of $150 will be spent on gifts today – did you get yours?
The Saturday before Mothers’ Day is the busiest day of the year at the car wash.
And the week before Mothers’ Day is the busiest sales time for Veronica’s Secret stores.
!!!!!?????!!!!!

It is good and right for us to take time to think about the woman in our lives who brought us up,
taught us values,
gave us life,
encouraged us along our way.  
But, you know, there is something about Mothers’ Day that has gotten lost over the years.

Mother's Day originally was not the kind of day it has become.
It was not invented by Hallmark cards or the association of retail florists.
It was not originally conceived of as a day to give presents to Mother and bring her breakfast in bed. Not that there's anything wrong with those activities, but that was not the original purpose of Mother's Day.

Mothers' Day [note the difference in spelling] in North America goes back to at least 1858 when Anna Reeves Jarvis organised a Mothers' Day in West Virginia to urge the authorities to improve sanitation for the people who lived in the Appalachians.
Out of that initial effort came a group of women that provided medical services for soldiers and civilians on both sides of the Civil War.  
Just after the war, Anna Jarvis organized a “Mother’s Friendship Day” in which mothers from both North and South whose sons had died in battle came, each dressed in blue or gray and held hands and sang together.

In 1870, poet/philanthropist Julia Ward Howe proposed that there be an annual Mothers' Day for Peace.
Remember after seeing the horrors of a battle, she wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic – never intended as a fight song, by the way.  
Julia Ward Howe was horrified at the slaughter caused by the battles of the Civil War, and at the slaughter that was taking place in the Franco-Prussian war in Europe.
And she called for the observance of a Mothers' Day.
It was her intent that women everywhere should show their opposition to military conflict.
She said, "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost."
The Mothers' Day movement that she organised continued to have an annual celebration in the Northeastern United States until the turn of the twentieth  century.

In 1908, Anna Jarvis’s daughter, also named Anna Jarvis, organized a Mother’s Day at her church in West Virginia.  
She wanted to recognize the unappreciated work that mothers do and to call for peace in the home and in the world.  
Word of a good idea traveled fast.
The very next year, Mother’s Day was celebrated in 45 states!

In 1914 the Congress of the United States formally adopted an annual Mother's Day celebration, but not surprisingly they established it as a festival of home and family life rather than as a protest against the horror and senseless slaughter of military conflict.