There are a lot of things that no one tells you about cancer OR Community is like Barium Sulfate

There are a lot of things that no one tells you about cancer/breast cancer.  

First off cancer is boring.  You sit and wait, A LOT. 

Second everyone gives you a gift bag.  Some are wonderful and thoughtful items from friends and loved ones, and some are handed out by medical people and are packed to overload with information in the form of DVDs, books, pamphlets and brochures.

Third, MRI machines sound like ray guns from a B-grade Sci-fi movie.  Seriously.   Who knew?

Forth, courage is beautiful, more exquisite than any breast.

Fifth, tenacity is really, really sexy.

Sixth, Community is like Barium Sulfate (or another substance: gadolinium which is number 64 on the periodic table and has the symbol Gd).

Barium Sulfate is given to people who are having a CT scan done (gadolinium is given for MRI scans).  The idea behind drinking this thick, chalky looking white paste (which they claim is way better cold or over ice) is to coat your internal system so that is shows up more clearly on the scan.  Drinking the Barium Sulfate helps expose what we know is there but rarely see.  In this way I think cancer has acted like Barium Sulfate in the lives of our family, exposing the community around us.

I'll be honest, in most of the circles I'm in, the word community gets used so often, and in such haphazard ways, that it often feels to me like it has no meaning.  On the other hand I wrote part of my Masters Final Project about it, so it must have some value in my life. :)  I think my main frustration is that we are not just part of A community, but a community of communities.  And here is where the Barium Sulfate of cancer has been a gift to us as a family.  As we bounce through our normal everyday lives we don't think all that often about the communities we are a part of.  Our family has community in our home, in our extended family, in the churches we are a part of as members / past-members/ / missionaries, we are part of the Parachutes community, the Dimond Estates Community, the Facebook community, the Anchorage community, the Klatt Elementary community and on and on.  What Stacey's diagnosis of cancer has done is expose all of these communities that we interact with daily that so often go unseen and give us a picture of the systemic nature of our interconnected reality.  Ok, that was a bit thick...I mean to say that it has given us the gift of seeing something we can only sense in normal times - the love of all the people we are in community with. 

Some see cancer as a curse, and it is that, but it is packed with blessings that can only be seen from the inside. One of those gifts, for us, has been seeing the communities we are a part of come to light in very tangible and visible ways: people from church that we've never met making us dinner, all of you reading the blog like its the New York times (for real, over 4,500 views in the first month is a bit overwhelming), cards daily in the mail, e-mails from acquaintances in Guatemala (hi Liz), creative offers of support like driving the kids to sports, family willing to travel to help out, Parachutes friends that have moved to Miami texting prayers (hi Saul), wise words from normally taciturn elders, gift cards from friends in Iowa and Nicaragua (Hi Jake and Steph, Gordon and Peggy) and so many more indications of community glowing in the light of this struggle.  Its an overwhelming, profound and precious thing to be able to see your communities this way.

May you too see all the ways your connected, loved, and blessed.

Joel K