Focus on Faith: Embracing Life and Counting Our Blessings

Wakefield Daily Item

Focus on Faith

The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell, PhD

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Last weekend I attended a going-away party. Only the person going away, my friend Diane, isn’t leaving in the usual sense. She isn’t moving. She is dying. Of brain cancer. It is the same kind of cancer that Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain had. It was discovered last Christmas, when she was in San Francisco to celebrate with her family. She had faced breast cancer a few years ago, and was enjoying good health when this blow came. She had some memory loss and then suddenly started having seizures. After surgery her doctors told her that the cancer is at stage IV. They thought she might have 10 to 24 months to live.

Diane is 59. She has lived all over the world—in the Midwest and New England, in Montreal, and in India for over 20 years. She has a PhD in religious studies that she completed in the Netherlands. In recent years her work has focused on dismantling racism, teaching white people like me how to understand the effects of racism at work in my life and in our society. She works with churches and synagogues, with community groups, and even cities and towns. She helps us understand that our lives are intertwined and deeply connected. Her life has been a bright light.  

While the cancer is arrested at the moment, thanks to some trial medications, Diane knows that there is no cure. So, while she could handle it, she invited her friends and family to be with her for one grand autumn night. There were 50 or more of us in her back yard—people from every race and background. Many were Christian, while some were Jewish and others Buddhist or Hindu. Together we were eating an Indian feast and sharing stores of life and love and loss. We began in the daylight and stayed until it was very dark. We were reminded that all of us there, at that moment, were alive. And that while we live we have much to teach and learn from each other about the amazing gift that life offers us each day, even when it’s hard. Maybe even especially when it’s hard.

Finally, after many had shared reflections of sadness and joy, as we were enveloped by the night, Diane spoke—reflecting on her life and relationships. We couldn’t see her, but we could hear her calm, peaceful voice. She shared love. She shared gratitude. She shared some sadness, too. And she shared hope. Hope for herself. Hope for her friends. Hope for the world she has known. I can’t imagine how hard and unknown life must seem to Diane right now. But I also know that she is a woman of profound faith—in God, in the power of life, and in the amazing community of friends that she has built in the time that she has. Some of us, many of us, likely won’t see Diane again. This was our chance to say goodbye. But we can know that we shared our love with her and that, eventually, she will carry that love with her into the heart of God.

For some of us, our days are short. And for others they are long. Regardless of length, the gift and the challenge are the same: to embrace life while we can. Most especially, to embrace the people we are blessed to share it with. As we begin this beautiful fall season, I invite you to reach out to the people you are blessed to share life with. Give thanks for them. Gather them around you if you can. Share your love. Allow them to love you in return. And then, accept God’s love as well—a love that created you, that seeks to fill your soul, and that promises always to draw you back to God’s heart.

We are told that we should not count our blessings. But maybe we should. Maybe we should count them, and be thankful for them. Not because they are so few, but because they are so many. Because these blessings give us life.