CHAPTER 1

The First Surgery

My medical adventure began in November 2000, when I perforated my intestine. Ihad thought I had a stomach flu, but instead of putting me on an antibiotic, thedoctor sent me to a surgeon, who sent me to the emergency room. The surgeonordered blood work, an X-ray and CAT scan, but when the X-ray showed a pool ofair in the top of the abdominal cavity, he told his assistant, "There is no timefor a CAT scan. We will just have to deal with whatever we find when we get in."His face was grim.

The surgeon went off to prepare to operate. I handed Beverly my Palm Pilot andasked her to get people praying for me. She went off to make calls, and I wasleft alone on a stretcher in the emergency room.

I know what I am going to say next will inspire a lot of skepticism, but theonly way I can think to say what happened is just to say it.

Jesus walked in the door.

John Henry Newman, when describing an early religious experience, said it was"something of which I am still more certain than that I have hands and feet."That night, I knew that kind of certainty. Nothing will ever convince me thatthis wasn't real.

I didn't see or hear anything, no words were used, but what I felt was intense.Unfortunately, the feeling can only be described with words that have become sotrivialized that they no longer have the power I need.

I felt loved. That says everything, and nothing. I now understand how a love canbe so wonderful that one would sell everything one had if that is what it cost.To be loved by Jesus, accepted with no trace of criticism, offered a safe placewhere nothing is demanded, and all of my deepest needs are understood without myneeding to say anything. To really start to believe that he is enjoying beingwith you is something I never experienced before.

I felt safe. I had no idea if I was going to survive the night or not, butsomehow it didn't matter. "To live is Christ, to die is gain." In an instant, Iwent from believing it in my head to believing it in my bone marrow. For as longas it lasted, I couldn't imagine how anyone could ever be afraid of anything. Ifthat is the faith that Jesus had in his Father, no wonder he never understoodhuman fear.

Jesus was there, and while he was there, it was impossible to want anythingelse. I didn't want to ask, "Why?" If he had the answers, I didn't need to. Ididn't ask for any particular outcome. He was going to do the best thing, so whyworry?

I know It sounds like a form of insanity. But if it is not, it unmasks the way Iusually think as a form of insanity. The two ways of seeing reality are mutuallyincompatible.

The feeling of his presence lasted about a week. It left a wonderful aftertaste.Now in times of discouragement or fear, I recall the memory. I know him. Wespent a week hanging out together. I know what he is like. If I can't feel it atthe moment, that doesn't change his nature in the slightest.

With it comes a great sadness and frustration. I have this great glowing thingin my heart, and I can't get it out of my heart and give it to someone else.When I see someone making herself miserable carrying a grudge against God, orfeeling lonely and hopeless and abandoned, I want to scream, "It doesn't have tobe like that. He wants to give you something much better. Can't you openyourself and receive it?" The looks of suspicion and hostility I get when I makethat suggestion make me want to cry.

A Lesson

Coziness

In the theological tradition I come from (liberal Midwestern mainlineProtestantism of the 1960s vintage) nobody would ever recommend "coziness" as apositive theological symbol. It was axiomatic back then that the job of a pastorwas to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." The impact of thatfrom an emotional point of view was to instill a deep suspicion of any kind ofcomfort. If you were afflicted, it was acceptable to ask for some comfort, butif you ever got really comfortable, you had better watch out, because in someunspecified manner, you needed to be afflicted. Some kind of middle ground whereyou were a bit comfortable and a bit afflicted was all you could hope forwithout feeling guilty.

I want to raise an objection.

My first conscious experience of coziness was sitting on the sofa with my fatherwhen he read to me from the Childcraft book of poems for early childhood. Wewould sit together, very close, with a blanket over our laps (unnecessarybecause the room was always adequately heated), and I would revel in theexcessive warmth, the sense of safety, and the incredible silliness of thepoetry. Reading poems about "The Little Old Man of the Sea," who saved his boatfrom sinking by making a hole in the bottom with his knife, "so that all of thewater ran out," just added to the pleasure.

I have never lost my connoisseur's appreciation for coziness, especially when Iam feeling under the weather. The worse I feel, the more I appreciate it. Itseems like a special grace given at times of special need. To be not just warm,but really warm, preferably wrapped in a blanket (preferably electric), andsnuggled in it up to your neck still gives a feeling of well-being and safetythat I have come to treasure after months of chemotherapy.

And why not? If Jesus insisted that we enter the Kingdom of Heaven like littlechildren, what speaks more clearly of a healthy relationship between a child anda father than that cozy snuggle before bedtime? I remember it as a time ofabsolute trust, of my littleness and his bigness being a source of security andpleasure—in short, a wonderful symbol of what a healthy relationship with God ought to be.

With so many people I talk to, the main spiritual problem might be diagnosed asa kind of "coziness deficiency." God may be feared, in the wrong sense. God maybe respected, and even admired, from a safe distance. But the God who takes sucha personal interest in us that he counts each hair on our head, who promises tomeet our needs if we will just rearrange our priorities to put him first, a Godwho can absolutely, no kidding, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die be trusted—thatGod never appears on the radar screen.

I am starting to suspect that when he used the term "faith," Jesus had in mind arelationship...