I am continually inspired by the depth, courage and sweetness of your posts. I know how comforting it is to find a higher purpose for suffering. Although I rarely reach your level of perseverance, I do find searching deeper meaning of whatever pain I am helps me to live through it and often find something redemptive. I hope you find it within you to keep on with your dances with meaning; they mean so much to so many.
However, I hope you also give yourself permission to rage and shake your fist at all of this. Sometimes the testing is to harsh, and all we can do is bow our heads and let others hold us as we ask, “Why me?” You deserve to demand this of God. To scream and curse at him if you need to. He is vast and his love is compassionate; he can take it.
I also want you to know that we can take it to. We will love and hold you just as strongly in your pain as we do in your resolve.
Oh, Michael,.y heart aches for what you are going through. I'm surprised you are still alive. It is exhausting to fight for your life, but I think I know why, for your wife and kids. They need you for as long as possible. Sending you healing strength!!
Dear Michael and Jenny, as you two know, I remember such a time when everything was holy and the usual veil lifted. I remember the sensation of being near that place. Hard to describe in words. And hard to offer words to you except I bear witness to your experiences with so much love and tenderness. I do offer my own learning from being near that place: love endures. Thank you for "reporting" to us what you are experiencing so we can stay attuned to you, even in that thin place. An image of you squatting with an umbrella : It's a huge umbrella because so many of us were with you invisibly, and each rain drop coming down on the umbrella and the trees and the greens and the dead leaves, each one, was a blessing.
As you said, "the space between here and the holy feels even thinner, just not more comfortable. " That space seldom is comfortable...often painful. We endure.
Just watched a story on KSTP regarding a glioblastoma trial being conducted at U of MN. Dr. Clark Chen. Something about injecting a virus into the tumor.
I am remaining focused on the things that you talked about in the post about the placebo surgery and the responses to that post. I see and feel the energy of all of us that guides a combination of a virtual catheter and the future actual catheter where it needs to be, and I feel the energy burn away what is not useful while leaving safe and intact what is useful and essential.
Maybe the holy isn’t comfortable. Michael thank you for keeping us aware of the impermanence of life and encouraging all of us to notice what we are missing. Your willingness to face discomfort and sit with it, under an umbrella in the rain or in an MRI machine, is helping us grow and realize how everything is holy now. Thank You!
Michael your sharing has been powerful in my life since I met you just a few months ago. Your habit of finding wonder and aliveness in the everyday (even crouched in the pouring rain!) and maintaining openness to a world of possibilities is one to emulate....I imagine you may have tried sleeping in a more upright position to reduce the headache.