Nurturing Gratitude in the Face of Adversity

Nov30

Nurturing Gratitude in the Face of Adversity
David Weiss – November 30, 2025
Message for Merging Waters Unitarian Universalist
When Cancer Comes Calling – Book Three: Soundings #5

NOTE: I gave this message at Merging Waters UU, the congregation where I’m a member. Our theme for the month of November was “Nurturing Gratitude.” My reflection was the final one of the month. Hence, the gentle humor in the opening lines. Some years back the congregation identified three shared values that shaped their life together: authentic curiosity, mindful interdependence, and courageous love. I use them as touchpoints in my message because I knew they would resonate for so many of the people to whom I was speaking most directly. Hopefully they’ll resonate with you, too!

Here we are friends: we’ve reached the fifth Sunday of November. In other words, welcome to the end of gratitude. Ha. (In about 28 minutes!)

Most of you know I’ve spent 2025 battling a very aggressive form of prostate cancer. As we conclude our month of reflections on gratitude, I want to share a bit about what I’ve learned about nurturing gratitude in the face of adversity … while battling cancer.

Now, I know there are persons besides me at Merging Waters who have also faced cancer very directly. Either in your own person, or in someone you dearly love. Each cancer journey is its own unique collision of hope and fear, learning and loss. Each journey presents unexpected joys, unimaginable fractures of meaning, and heartbreak in a million ways—some small, some large, some altogether shattering.

My reflections are rooted in my own experience. I’m not trying to sum up “cancer journeys” in general. But we all face adversity—and in forms far beyond cancer. So, I hope that from wherever in life you are listening, you glean something worthy in my words.

Also, I’m a relative newcomer to the cancer club. Frankly, it’s likely that in the coming years my journey will contain chapters more harrowing than the ones I’ve faced so far. So, I share these reflections with a healthy measure of humility. Still, I hope what I’ve learned over this first year living with cancer will help me as I meet my own uncertain future.

I could tell my story in many ways. I’ve chosen two themes to help both of us—you and me—see the patterns. The first theme is that sometimes we make choices that help us find gratitude … and sometimes others make choices that help gratitude find us. The second is that, while I didn’t plan to use our congregation’s core values as an organizing device, as I reflected on my year, I kept encountering echoes of authentic curiosity, mindful interdependence, and courageous love. So, you’ll hear them today.

The first notice of my cancer appeared in a blood test last October, followed by a consultation with a urologist last November. But nothing was certain. Both my primary care physician and the urologist reassured me that while the lab result merited further testing, it did not mean I had cancer. So, of course, Margaret and I both clung to the hope that it wasn’t cancer. Until it was.

Last year, on December 29, Margaret and I co-hosted our end-of-the-year service right here. We called it “community driven worship”: sort of an open mic around the theme of being “On edge.” It was our last service of 2024, and we were on the threshold between two years, and two presidents. I described it as a liminal season: suspended between a vanishing “now” and a very uncertain “next.”

Ironically, Margaret and I were co-hosting that liminality most personally that day. Earlier in the morning, before we gathered here with you, we’d gone for an MRI, the first of two procedures that would confirm my cancer diagnosis. So we were both “on edge”—though in different ways. About an hour before the service, I saw the MRI report was available in MyChart, and I glanced at it. The results were highly suspicious of cancer, but I didn’t want to unsettle Margaret right before the service, so for the moment I kept that news to myself.

That day I learned what a gift it is to part of a community willing to be so authentically and honestly “on edge” together. Neither you nor I knew at the time just how much or how soon I’d need that. But I can still remember Teri singing “Both Sides Now”—and knowing I was among my people.

I learned a second thing later that day, when I shared the results of my MRI with Margaret. We didn’t know exactly what it meant—we wouldn’t meet with my urologist for a week. But we knew it wasn’t the news we’d been hoping for. We were suspended between a vanishing “now” and a very uncertain “next.” And yet, as we held hands in the stillness side by side on our sofa, I learned the gift of a spouse who would be with me every step of the way.

In January, first a biopsy and then a PET scan, gave me a definitive cancer diagnosis. Despite hearing the words “high risk,” at the time I didn’t realize how serious it was. I had two uncles and two cousins in my family, all ten years on the far side of surgery for prostate cancer, and they all seemed to be doing fine. Plus, my urologist told me not to worry. He would surgically remove my prostate and while, yes, there was a real possibility of recurrence in the future, in the short term my life could get back to normal. I now realize … “normal” isn’t coming back.

Over January and February, I made two crucial choices that helped me nurture gratitude.

First, I shared my diagnosis with family and friends, including during Joys and Sorrows right here. I was blanketed with deep compassion. My decision to be vulnerable opened me to the care of others. And having a circle of care around me from the beginning has made all the difference.

Second, I began to recount my cancer journey on my blog. Each of us has unique gifts and skills. Words are foremost among mine. Leaning into my adversity through words allowed me to meet the cancer on my strongest terms. Authentic curiosity became a discipline. I followed it wherever it led me. Initially, as I described the various procedures I underwent, that curiosity paid me back in wonder. Later, it would pay me back in fear. But I am grateful for both, because at some point the fear was necessary as I came to terms with the full scope of my diagnosis.

In early March my prostate was surgically removed, in fact at the earliest date possible after my biopsy. That should have alerted me to the urologist’s sense of urgency. Instead, I put my stock in his calm reassurance: everything would be fine. Spoiler: it wasn’t.

My biggest anxiety about the surgery itself was the slim but real possibility that something could go catastrophically wrong. And I might not wake up. This wasn’t my first surgery, but it was my most significant. And I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. So, on the day before my surgery, I hand wrote eleven short “just in case” letters. To my dad and two sisters; to each of my six children; to my dear friend Tachianna; and to my beloved, Margaret. I mailed ten of them that afternoon. I set Margaret’s letter on her pillow the morning we left for surgery, so she’d find it when she came home that night.

There is no shortage of people I love dearly. But I couldn’t write to them all. These were the people that—should anything go wrong—I wanted to make sure they received a last word of love from me. I came through surgery just fine. But it was an exercise in gratitude and courageous love to write those letters. To this day, I’m glad I did.

The day before surgery, Katie texted she was taking my surgery day off to keep Margaret company. Byron joined her a bit later. Their presence to Margaret while I was in surgery, and then to me in my hospital room when I woke up afterwards was an immeasurable gift. Sure, they’re family (Katie and I are cousins)—but this was next-level family. Unasked; simply offered. Our gratitude ran deep.

I came home the next day and slept all afternoon on the sofa … with our two cats, Ozzy and Zoey, perched atop me on the blanket. They’re friendly cats, but it’s rare for them to climb on us and lie down. Somehow they knew I needed gentle care. And my gratitude learned to reach across species.

Over the next week, a series of friends—including several from Merging Waters—kept us supplied with fresh meals. That’s mindful interdependence with meat on it. Well, for us it was plant-based meat, no egg or dairy, and gluten free. We were gratefully well-fed. Our two young adult Brazilian housemates happily covered my physical household duties, so our experience of interdependence went international as well.

For the rest of March through the first half of June, we waited. It wouldn’t be until June 16 that we’d get our first rush of real relief at my first post-surgery lab test to confirm the cancer was gone.

During those months I participated in a Stanford University Mind-Body Study about using your mindset to make a difference in your cancer experience. It proved to be a good opportunity for me to grow in appreciation of my own capacity to leverage my inner strengths in meeting cancer.

This was especially important because that mid-June rush of relief never came. Instead, the June lab test confirmed the persistence of cancer after surgery. In barely twelve minutes, my urologist told us the surgery had not succeeded: my cancer was still there—and aggressive. He explained that both radiation treatment and hormone treatment were in my very near future. And, oh, have a nice day. Bye.

Margaret and I were floored. And fearful. We’d braced ourselves for possibility of disappointing news—but not for devastating news. We entered another liminal season—an unsettling in between time.

Over the next several weeks I met the hard gratitude that comes from following authentic curiosity to bitter conclusions, whose only redeeming value is their truth. I was not happy with what I learned about the depth of my disease or the equally perilous course of treatment I was being rushed into.

Here, in a nutshell, is what I discovered. 85% of prostate cancer is considered medically manageable. 15%, deemed “high risk” or “very high risk” is aggressive, unpredictable, eager to metastasize, and particularly hungry for bone—from whence it is often deadly. My cancer was rated very high risk: an apex predator among prostate cancers. It was at this point that I became grateful for the word FUCK because nothing else captured my visceral sense of lostness.

That lostness deepened as I read up on the proposed treatment: a testosterone blocking drug, given as a six-month time-release injection. It would hopefully “freeze” the cancer’s growth while radiation took a swipe at it. But the drug had a host of potential side-effects—with no off-ramp for the six months it would last. And my urologist was suggesting 24 months of this, as if it were no big deal. Besides instantly cancelling my libido, it was likely to slowly weaken my bones, trade muscle for fat, stress my heart and liver, fuel sometimes debilitating fatigue, play havoc with my brain chemistry, and potentially disfigure my male genitalia and give me breasts in exchange.

Gratitude was sparse indeed in June and July. It arrived in unexpected moments of companionship.

Knowing I was going to visit my dad for a few days, Roger (who has lived with prostate cancer far longer than I) came by my house to gift me a book before I left. On the 8-hour drive to Indiana, I listened to hours of prostate cancer podcasts. Once there, I read the book from Roger and spent hours reading online anecdotes of men who’d walked this path of hormone therapy before me. Their vulnerability made mine bearable. Very little of what they wrote was comforting. But I was grateful for their willingness to speak their truth even when it was spoken as lament.

When I voiced my fears to my dad, he responded with quiet solidarity and respect. No stranger to health challenges himself, he said that if I chose to do radiation treatment but not hormone treatment, he could understand why and would support that decision. Ultimately, I chose to do a testosterone blocker—two, in fact. But that choice was easier to make knowing that both my dad and Margaret would’ve honored any choice I made; they trusted both the learning and the inner wrestling I was doing.

I came back from Indiana determined to more aggressively self-advocate regarding my cancer care. For several weeks my gratitude had “an edge” to it. I canceled the appointment I’d made two weeks earlier to get my initial 6-month testosterone-blocking shot. I started walking in earnest. Aiming to average 10,000 a day. Based on the book Roger gave me, I disciplining my eating habits to maximize my health, and I mapped out my own routine of supplements to support my body’s ability to fight cancer. Then, I received a box of supplements in the mail before I’d even ordered any—another gift from Roger. In a sense, I became both curious about what my body was capable of and mindfully appreciative of how plant medicines were part of the interdependent web—willing to support me if I invited them.

I searched for a medical oncologist to get more thorough information about hormone treatment. And for an integrative oncologist who could guide my use of supplements.

I found an integrative oncologist whose profile identified love as her driving passion. She celebrated my commitment to empower my own body, and she’s guided my diet and supplement choices for the past four months. Now relocating to Atlanta, at our final appointment she said, “I can no longer be your doctor. But now I will be your friend.”

I found a medical oncologist who described her joy in offering not just medical care but human care to patients. Soon into our consultation, she stated that unfortunately I could not be her patient—because she only worked with persons whose cancer had fully metastasized. My cancer, though potentially deadly, had not moved beyond my pelvic lymph nodes.

Still—and this was among the most astonishing graces I received all year—she spent an entire hour with me and Margaret. Listening with full presence, not only to my concerns and fears, but also to my hopes and passions. She referred me to a new urologist who she believed would better address my specific hesitations around hormone treatment. She said he’d have the expertise to advise my treatment choices and the appreciation of my intellect to engage me in generous conversation as I weighed my options. She was right.

He was also a faculty member at the U and when Margaret and I met with him, his gifts as a teacher were quickly evident. He explained my cancer with brutal caring honesty, helping me finally recognize just how much of a wall I was backed up against. With no easy options in front of me. Avoiding hormone therapy was a near suicidal choice. But he heard my concerns and affirmed my self-advocacy for a newer testosterone-blocker: a daily pill rather than a six-month injection. I still faced the prospect of unsettling side-effects, but at least I’d have the security of a quick off-ramp should I need it. He showed me the research indicating that while my odds were long in any scenario, they were best if I combined radiation with hormone treatment.

It was not the news I wanted to hear, but the news I needed to hear. I left that consultation with bitter but boundless gratitude for his uncompromising care for my whole person.

Next I met with a radiation oncologist, also a medical school faculty member. Her credentials were impeccable, of course. But I chose her because in her profile she named kindness as central to her understanding of quality care.

It was another brutally honest conversation. She’d reviewed my file meticulously in advance. She knew my disease, my doctors, and my reservations about hormone treatment. She explained that her treatment plan would have “curative intent,” but the simple fact that my cancer had already reached my pelvic lymph nodes meant the chances for a true cure, were all but nil. Nevertheless, her goal would be to push my cancer below detectable levels for five years, maybe longer.

And who could say what new treatments might appear during that time? Who could say what times I might relish with Margaret, my children, or grandchildren during those years?

This is some fierce gratitude. To be thankful for the person who says, with kind honesty, I probably can’t “save” you. But I can perhaps slow the course of your cancer. And I can do so while honoring who you are. So, if a day comes when the testosterone-blockers become too much to bear, I will support you in setting them aside and finding ways to give you the best care that fits with the deepest values in your life.

Then she added, “By the way, there’s some exciting new research suggesting you can delay metastasis and extend your long-term survival by adding a second testosterone-blocker this early in your treatment. That’s your decision, but I’d encourage you to meet with colleague of mine who’s a brilliant medical oncologist to discuss this option.”

To make a long story short, I did and I am.

This September I started on two testosterone blockers, persuaded that, despite the risks, this offers me the best chance to get the best results from my treatment. The fact that I went from being ready to reject hormone therapy to embracing it, reflects a rugged curiosity that learned hard truths; the interdependence I found in my chosen medical team (and in the constant care of family and friends); and the courageous love that manifest itself in strong self-advocacy in a medical model almost designed to disempower.

October and November have been marked by seven weeks of daily radiation treatments on weekdays, growing fatigue as the radiation that aims to kill my cancer also exhausts the rest of my body, and a string of unexpected gifts.

Radiation fatigue is a weariness you can’t sleep off or rest away. It clings to me all day long. For a month now my days are stitched together by deep sighs, extended pauses, and long hugs. It’s not exactly or entirely physical weariness. Yes, it takes extra work to climb the stairs, but I still manage 10,000 steps a day—though with decidedly less spring in each step. It includes a psychic or soul weariness: my attention is tired and my spirit falters. All. The. Time.

My sense of being productive has largely come to a halt. Granted, I managed to write this message, and a blog post and a couple pretty amazing poems, but that’s about all I have to show for the past two months. I know, I’ve been busy getting cancer care. Yet even in my weariness I’ve been restless—and helpless—to do more.

Which is where those unexpected gifts come in, arriving as my fatigue has crested.

My friend Rebecca tagged me in a Facebook post showing a regional training event in Iowa by More Light, the Presbyterian LGBTQ welcoming program. They were showing people how to use a readers theater script in building congregational welcome. It was one of ten such scripts that I wrote about fifteen years ago. And here they were, still building welcome today.

Soon after that I received a message from Amalia, a longtime friend, now a pastor in Arizona. She told me how profound my 2013 children’s book, When God Was a Little Girl, has been in her ministry, helping expand God images with children.

Just a few days after that, I received an email from Holly, whom I only know virtually—we both participate in monthly Zoom meetings as congregational connectors with MUUSJA (Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Association). She’s a seminary student at United, and she wrote to share the slideshow she’d made for a final project in one of her classes. It was about a pilgrimage she’d made to Prague, in the Czech Republic. She explained she was inspired to do this project by my blog post about Norbert Capek and the first flower communion.

I am so so tired these days. Unable to do much at all to make the world a better place. And it is as though the Universe has conspired to remind me that my past good work still echoes across time, generating more goodness again and again, even while my afternoons these days are given to naps.

And as I look around this room, the gratitude echoes everywhere. I think of all the times that so many of you have checked in with me before or after a service. Those of you who’ve shared about your own cancer journey. I remember a long gracious lunch conversation with Rev Krista, in which we discussed the deep questions of theology and personal identity, posed not just by cancer but also hormone treatments that plays havoc with both body and mind. Truly, each of you is part of the gratitude I’ve found—or that’s found me—this past year.

But listen, even at 26 minutes, I’ve barely told the half of it.

You look up at the night sky on a clear dark night, and the constellations leap out at you. But if you hold your gaze and let your eyes adjust, you realize these constellations are set against a backdrop of countless stars. And so it is for me. Over these long months of making my way into this uncertain, unchosen journey that is cancer, I can set some of the choices I’ve made and some of the gifts I’ve received into constellations of a sort. But even these are set against a backdrop of countless more.

Here is the final lesson I’ve learned. Ultimately, gratitude is not tied to outcomes. Because here is a hard truth. Even knocked on its ass by hormone therapy and radiation, my cancer still dreams about living its best life … in my bones. And while there will hopefully be some sweet victories and restful reprieves in my journey, good news will likely NOT get the last word.

But gratitude can.

Yes! I am grateful right now for the prospect of more life. But finally, gratitude is not about being grateful for something. It is the invitation to be unconditionally grateful. Period.

That is still a mystery to me. I sense the truth of it most days, but I won’t claim to know it from the inside. Maybe someday. But not yet.

I do understand now that we are—all of us, and in every moment—entirely vulnerable. Cancer drove that home for me, but it was true all along. The grace I am coming to know is this: that it is possible to be mutually vulnerable. To be authentically and humbly curious about one another. To be mindfully and reverently aware of our interdependence. And to be courageous in our love. This is what saves us. Not by keeping us safe. But by keeping us cared for—and in that sense, keeping us human, and keeping us whole.

May it be so. For all of us. Indeed.

I’ve been chronicling my prostate cancer journey since my diagnosis in January 2025.
Find my first set of blogs (January-June 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Innocence.
Find my second set of blogs (July-August 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Awakening.
My third set (September 2025 and beyond) is under the theme “Soundings.” So far it includes:
#1 Self-Advocacy: Sorry—Not Sorry.
#2 ADT – Making Deals with the Devil.
#3 Courting Kali, Goddess of Destruction.
#4 33 and Me
#5 Nurturing Gratitude

* * *

David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

33 and Me

Nov21

33 and Me
David R. Weiss – November 20, 2025
When Cancer Comes Calling – Book Three: Soundings #4

I’m not actually claiming an extra score of chromosomes. (That would make me a gray fox or a Przewalski’s horse, in case you wondered.) But over the past seven weeks I’ve had thirty-three sessions of radiation treatment for my prostate cancer. Thirty-three weekdays on which my morning to-do list has revolved around emptying my rectum, filling my bladder, lifting my shirt, and lowering my pants. You know, goals. Oh, and then supplicating science to restore a healthy measure of mortality to my cancer cells. Which is to say, kill off these damn cancer cells that have forgotten how to die.

Here’s a quick re-cap of the big picture. In early January 2025 I was officially diagnosed with prostate cancer. High risk. The biopsy showed maliciously malformed prostate cells: the type that are eager to metastasize—and only too happy to make a break for the bones. Fuck. In fact, a late January PET scan suggested that the cancer may have already set up an outpost in one of my pelvic lymph nodes.

In March I had my prostate removed, along with two lymph nodes. The lymph nodes were both benign. (Whew!) The prostate not so much. (No surprise there.) Still, the way oncologists score these things, my cancer moved from high risk to very high risk. Despite no seeming presence in my lymph nodes, the cancer had said hello to my seminal vesicle and neurovascular bundle on the left side. Both of these were also removed, but this made clear that my cancer was the traveling sort. Plus, there was a small “positive margin,” a place that cancer touched the edge of the prostate where it was cut out. Meaning some cancer may have been left behind. Small, as in only about a tenth of an inch. But with very high-risk cancer, a tenth of an inch is as good as a garage door. Fuck.

From March to mid-June was a waiting game. No next steps to plot until my first post-surgery PSA test could reveal whether I was (at least temporarily) “cancer free.” Or not. In the meantime, I focused on Kegel exercise to (successfully!) reclaim my continence. And I thought good thoughts.

But apparently not enough of them. Because in mid-June my PSA test revealed a persisting (dare I say apocalyptic?) presence of prostate cells—cancer cells!—in my body. A week later a PET scan indicated that neither of the lymph nodes removed in March was the one that was noted as suspicious back in January. That lymph node was now cancer-central. It was the only place harboring enough cancer cells to show up on the scan, although it now seemed likely that microscopic bits of cancer (too small to be picked up on the scan) were wandering around my pelvic area. Which is why “empty rectum, full bladder” has been my morning mantra since October 7.

That long gap from late June to early October was mostly me getting a grip on my rather grim prognosis. 85% of prostate cancers are low or intermediate risk, and in those cases the odds are decent for managing the cancer, even for effecting a complete cure. I know of at least four persons in my own extended family whose prostate cancer was like that. I assumed mine would be the same. But as one family practice doctor I saw remarked, “There are really two distinct types of prostate cancer—they almost ought to be called two different diseases. Because the high-risk type is an altogether heartless beast.” She said that after noting that both her father and her brother had the high-risk type. Like me. Fuck.

Getting a grip meant reading hundreds of pages, rearranging my medical team to center me and my goals and choices, and wrestling with the prospect of ADT: androgen deprivation therapy, i.e., chemical castration. In cases where radiation treatment is recommended for prostate cancer, ADT is often used to “frame” the radiation. ADT doesn’t typically kill cancer cells, but by depriving them of testosterone, it dramatically slows down their reproduction and may weaken them. It can hold the cancer in check. For a while at least.

But ADT is its own beast, with a host of challenging, debilitating, and cascading side effects. I was not eager to sign up. I managed to self-advocate for the one medication I viewed as the lesser of many evils. Then agreed to add a second ADT med—to achieve something called “testosterone annihilation” (fuck)—because doing so just might tip the odds a little bit in my favor. Where the odds are how long I can delay my cancer metastasizing, reaching my bones, and killing me. And there is a whole list of unsavory stops along that route.

Right now, my cancer (so far as we know) is still localized in my pelvic region: in my pelvic chain lymph nodes and the prostate bed (where my prostate used to be). I have no symptoms. No pain. No nothing. Just the foreboding knowledge that all day every day it dreams about my bones. Fuck. And so, because of its malevolent nature, our best bet is to hit it as HARD as we can while it’s still local. So that’s what we’re doing. ADT combination therapy to annihilate my testosterone, and radiation to try and kill as much of the cancer as we can. Right now.

So here we are. Thirty-three and me. I look just fine. And feel just fine (except for the side effects of treatment itself). But somewhere inside me are cancer cells playing a long game . . . in which I die. In response, I’m doing my best to play a long game of my own. In which I live. And live well. For as long as possible. And for the past seven weeks, that long game has revolved around emptying my rectum, filling my bladder, lifting my shirt, and lowering my pants. Small steps. Big hopes. Here’s how it works.

I had my initial meeting with my radiation oncologist in late August. I liked her. A lot. She was clearly invested in supporting me (and honoring my agency in setting my goals and making my treatment decisions). Beat the cancer, yes, but never lose sight of the patient as person. This is a rare gift: to professionally—and graciously—accompany people like me through unchosen liminal seasons in their lives. I am glad she’s my oncologist.

We agreed I would start the first ADT med in early September, add the second ADT med in mid-September, and then commence radiation therapy in early October. The initial ADT med I chose (Orgovyx) suppresses testosterone faster than other ADT meds, so the one-month lag time between starting it and starting radiation was sufficient. Plus, my PSA had started to rise again in August, which meant my cancer was reading travel brochures and it was time to act.

In late September we did my “simulation” session. This involved a CT scan creating a very through 3-D image of my pelvic area. It was my first “empty rectum, full bladder” protocol. The first hinges primarily on my regular routine (thanks, Metamucil!), the second on chugging 20-24 ounces of water about an hour beforehand—and holding it until the session is over. Alas, this is not an exact science! But for my simulation it worked fine.

The reason for this protocol is that both the rectum and bladder are immediately adjacent to the region (pelvic lymph nodes and prostate bed) targeted by the radiation. An empty rectum lies relatively flat and stays out of the way. Paradoxically, a full bladder pulls up and out of the way. Together, an empty rectum and a full bladder allows the radiation to pound the targeted areas while minimizing risk to healthy tissue right next door.

Radiation works by damaging the genetic material in cancer cells, eventually leading to their death. Two striking ironies here. Unlike most other diseases, cancer is not an outside pathogen infecting the body; it is one set of cells in the body … going rogue. It is part of my body turned against me. Second, these cells go rogue in large part by refusing to die. Our normal healthy cells die on a regular basis and are replaced by new ones. It is cancer cells’ quest for eternal life that threatens my desire to simply fill out my allotted years. So, radiation practices a form of “tough love,” reminding cancer cells the hard way that their role was always to die, so I can live. 

Back to this simulation. The goal was to match the PET scan from late June (which pinpointed the cancer-stricken lymph node) to my empty rectum/full bladder body in September. And then use those overlaid scans to create the radiation plan specific to me. Besides this, the simulation scan also mapped my body with enough anatomical reference points so that each of the next thirty-three times, when I laid down on the table, they could line my body up in sync with that September 24 scan to ensure the programmed radiation would be accurate each time.

My radiation oncologist decided how much total radiation to use—and over how many sessions. The goal is to use sufficient total radiation to maximize damage to the cancer, but spread it out over enough sessions so the body can handle the inevitable collateral damage. Even as precisely as the radiation is targeted (98% of it hits the targeted 3D point), the other 2% takes a real toll on healthy tissue. However, unlike cancer cells, which can’t repair themselves, healthy cells can. Hence, my thirty-three sessions included weekends off, so my body had a chance to make repairs along the way.

After the simulation, someone—a dosimetrist, which I’m pretty sure is just medical speak for “wizard”—ran the calculations to create my specific treatment plan, determining precisely where in my body the beams of radiation would be aimed. I never met my dosimetrist, but I am in awe of their wizardry.

Beginning on October 7 and concluding on November 21, every weekday was empty rectum, fill bladder, lift shirt, lower pants. Though, of course, there’s more to it than that.

My treatments were done at the Radiation Cancer Center at St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood (part of the MHealth Fairview system). I couldn’t have been more pleased with the Cancer Center. I had my own “reserved” parking space in a dedicated parking lot just for cancer patients right outside the Cancer Center. I didn’t feel like I needed to park close, so most days I parked across the street to get some extra steps in. But it was nice to have the option on days when the weather was nasty.

The two receptionists were cheery and very quickly greeted me by name each day. It’s a small thing, but with so much at stake, small things matter. And getting compliments on my wide range of social justice and Pride t-shirts: priceless.

There is a code of “caring silence” in the waiting room. We don’t know exactly why anyone else is here, but we know none of us is here on vacation. I could tell some persons were in more precarious condition than I am (right now). Each cancer journey is unique: an amalgamation of diagnosis, progression, temperament, and support network. My diagnosis is hardly cheery, but my progression is minimal so far, my temperament is upbeat, and my support network is stellar. I have a lot to be grateful for.

Across the empty rectum, full bladder, lift shirt, lower pants routine, the full bladder was far and away the most fraught. I learned by trial and error (and occasional panic and embarrassment) that depending on whether I ate breakfast and what I ate for breakfast, those 20-24 ounces of water one hour before my treatment might have barely started to fill my bladder—or might be straining against it with preternatural force. Eventually I settled on not eating at all until after radiation. Then I could gauge pretty effectively how quickly that water moved through me.

I also learned that I fared better if I didn’t drive on a full bladder. Something about being seated and jostled by every little bump put added stress on my bladder. So, I tried to arrive thirty minutes early and take a walk before treatment. (By the way, research suggests that moderate exercise—like walking—right before radiation, can agitate the cancer cells in a way that makes it easier for radiation to take them out.)

Many days, since I often walked right up until my appointment time, I’d check in at the front desk and be directed right back to the “personal” waiting room just outside the radiation room itself. Some days I’d barely sit down before being called back for treatment. Other days I’d be crossing my legs in panic as the minutes ticked by. A few times I thought of Alan Shepard, the Mercury astronaut who, when his launch was delayed repeatedly, was finally granted permission to pee in his space suit. His launch went off—wet, but successful. My situation was a little different. Besides NOT being in a rocket ship, if I peed myself, there would be no launch. Bladder empty, my treatment would have to be rescheduled. My Kegel muscles got a workout!

One day I sat in that small waiting room for a few minutes with a woman young enough to be my daughter. She was there while her dad was getting treatment. He’d been diagnosed “out of the blue” with stage four lung cancer just this past February. It had quickly metastasized in his bones and he was getting radiation to relieve the severe pain in his hips. He was just 66 years old … which is what I’ll turn next month. And my cancer is dead-set on reaching my bones. While I am “life-set” on keeping my bones cancer-free. We chatted amiably, almost reverently, about our respective journeys: mine and her dads. I kept unspoken my somber recognition that I may have caught a glimpse of my future in her dad.

From that small waiting room, one of the radiation therapists would bring me into the treatment room, affectionately known as THE VAULT. I think there were always two and often three radiation therapists present. Sometimes one of them was a student. The room itself has a very sci-fi feel to it. If you’ve ever experienced an alien abduction, this room is like that room. Well, minus the Grays. And I’m sure this tech is not quite as advanced. Still, it’s impressive.

I’d be asked to lay on a metal table covered by a sheet, with a foam wedge to rest my bent legs on and a foam cradle for my head. Every day they asked me my last name and birthday. I’m not sure why anyone else would try to sneak into my treatment session, but I suppose they needed to be sure I was me. Fair enough. And before long, they all knew my birthday (it’s Christmas Day), so I’m counting on a couple extra gifts this year.

They, they, they. I probably met 8-10 different radiation therapists or students. There were maybe four “regulars” and the others were students or persons covering someone’s shift on a day off. How to characterize them? Cheery, friendly, relaxed. Serendipitously I discovered that almost all of them were trained at St. Kate’s, where I used to teach theology and work in campus ministry. Like I said earlier, it’s a small random thing, but with so much at stake, small things matter.

Their jobs are many. They are the daily human face of my treatment; they sanitize and prepare the room before I enter; they carefully position me on the table; they double-check my position and my rectum/bladder status, and then they run the machine that does the treatment. It’s a mix of personal presence and technical precision. They practice it with gentle care with necessary boundaries. They greeted me warmly every day, but let’s be honest, there is no room for personal investment in their patients. Professional excellence and personal care, yes. But each of our diagnoses is different: some better; some far worse. For some of us these treatments are intended to be curative. For others they are “merely” palliative—that is to relieve the pain of cancer that has run amok.

Frankly, we are too many. And we would weigh too much for them to bear, if they tried to befriend each of us. But their daily demeanor of universal well-wishes was unmistakably genuine. I felt I was in good hands—and good hearts—every day.

So, once I’m on the table, I’d raise my shirts and lower my sweat bottoms and underwear to my hips. Sometimes they’d need to lower my pants a bit further. I’m really not that modest, but I didn’t want to “overshoot” the pants lowering, so I figured I’d let them adjust things as needed. They draped a light towel across the upper edge of my lowered underwear; a small courtesy. And they gave me a small blue rubber donut to hold onto with my hands on my chest as I lay perfectly still. Then, while watching that image of me made on simulation day, now beaming from a large monitor in the room, they’d pull the sheet beneath me this way or that way, until the me of today matched the me of simulation day.

“Okay, we’re going to leave the room now.” Which is a polite way of saying, “Shit’s about to get real.” It is, after all, a foot-thick door they close on the way out. It’s called THE VAULT for a reason.

Is the room really a circle? I doubt it. But the ceiling has a large lit circle on it, with the sensors that help them position me. And a bunch of twinkling lights inside the circle, much like the star maps you might’ve seen if you’ve ever found yourself on an alien ship. Anyway, they keep your mind occupied since you can’t move. And you have to pee. I spent more time in that room looking at the ceiling than anything else. So, circle it is.

In the control room, they run a quick CT cone scan. Don’t ask me to explain. All I know is that it’s much quicker than a regular CT scan—and most importantly involves much less radiation. I had thirty-three of these, one each day, so less radiation is way better. This is the moment they can see whether my rectum is empty and my bladder full. I know, it seems a bit TMI, and yet, I’d rather they know if things are not right than just cross their fingers and hit “start.”

There were several days that, after the CT cone scan, they’d come back in and say, “David, your bladder is only 60% full. You’re going to need to drink some more water and sit out in the waiting room while we do the next person.” Ouch. Walk of shame. But the last thing I wanted was to have my bladder or rectum hit by radiation. So, I’d swallow my pride—and some more water—and wait for my next turn. One day, after the scan, one of the therapists came back in, told me to lie very still, and explained that my sweatpants had a metal ring to guide the drawstring. They needed to get that ring out of range without moving anything else. I (sheepishly) lay perfectly still while she lowered my pants to my thighs, and then we proceeded. That was the only day I wore those sweats!

The machine that does the CT cone scan has two parts. One sends the beams, the other receives them. In between is me. They rotate around me, 180 degrees opposite each other. The beam-sending part struck me like the head of a praying mantis … examining me. Not exactly a cheery thought, but once thought, I couldn’t unthink it. So, I simply began greeting it as “Mr. Mantis” each day. (I’m glad I didn’t christen it “Miss Mantis”; those encounters never end well for the man!)

After the scan is done—this takes maybe two to three minutes—there is an interminable pause between when the two scanner pieces retract and the radiation begins. I suspect it’s probably all of sixty seconds, but I always spent those sixty seconds wondering, “Why is it taking so long? Is my bladder not full?” “And, if it is, then why the hell aren’t we starting?” Einstein discovered time was relative to speed; it’s equally relative to the pressure on your bladder.

Finally, the table would “lock,” and it was Showtime. Did it actually lock or move? I don’t know. It did something, which felt like a slight but sudden shift underneath me. At times I felt for a split second like I might roll off. Yikes. A perceptual quirk of stillness, no doubt. A moment after the table shifted, two bright white lights blinked on the ceiling. And then, humming loudly, the Varian Edge Linear Accelerator would get to work. It was a big metal disc (the size of a truck tire?) with a small window in the center, from which it sent a controlled beam of x-rays into me. It could rotate 270 degrees around me. It made four slow arcs from my right to my left and then back again. Maybe 60 seconds per arc. One pair of arcs was treating my lymph nodes; the other my prostate bed. That’s how it was for 28 days. The last five days only my prostate bed was treated, so just two arcs on those days.

At some point early in my treatment, I began to imagine the radiation itself as Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. I needed her penchant for destruction—aimed at my cancer cells determined to live forever. Against the sound of the buzzing, I pictured Kali, a necklace of skulls bouncing around her neck and a bloody cleaver in her hand, doing her worst—to my benefit. Sure, her bedside manner was a bit brusque, but the image fit and I used it every day. I even wrote a poem about it—which I shared with my oncologist and therapists.

After the final arc, the buzzing stopped. I’m guessing that meant the treatment was over, but I lay still until I heard a voice say, “We’re all done.” Then I’d return the donut, pull up my pants, pull down my shirts, and hop off the table. From the time I entered the room until I left was only 10-15 minutes. I always said, “Thank you,” and “See you tomorrow” or “Have a good weekend.” But I was also always in a hurry to get to the bathroom, so no small talk.

Every Wednesday (so seven times during treatment) after my radiation session—and after that stop in the bathroom—I met briefly with my radiation oncologist to check in. First a nurse would take my temperature, blood pressure, pulse, oxygen. And ask about any side effects. During treatment my oncologist was mostly concerned to monitor any side effects and support me in mitigating them. I didn’t have any significant side effects, so our check-ins were mostly short and sweet.

By week three or four I admitted that my long-established and dearly held bathroom rhythms were in in complete disarray. Soft, thin, frequent stools. An annoyance, but very tolerable. “But no diarrhea?” my oncologist asked every week. (Diarrhea is a common side effect when radiation is so close to the rectum.) “No diarrhea,” I said each time. (And thank goodness). But she kept asking, and I could never quite tell if her question was mere medical curiosity, or if she was wondering when my bowels were going to break.

I’m also up 3-4 times a night to pee. And I have some slight burning. Both were expected side effects as my bladder is understandably irritated—probably pissed off at me. It means my sleep is less sound, and I’m a bit more tired as the day goes on. Again, an annoyance, but very tolerable. All of this should resolve within a month or so after treatment ends.

I seem to have battled fatigue (a significant side effect of both ADT and radiation) to a draw by maintaining a 10,000+ steps per day average from start to finish. And I’ve started a resistance training routine three days a week. It seems the best way to offset fatigue is to stay active. Go figure. Well, I have done that with zeal.

Nonetheless radiation fatigue is cumulative. It builds as your body works repeatedly to repair the collateral damage—and to tolerate the intentional damage. Many people report “sailing through” the first half of radiation … and being caught off guard by the fatigue when it hits HARD over the last several weeks. I haven’t been caught off guard, but I will confess that for the past two to three weeks it has hit HARD. My days are now stitched together by deep sighs. I wake up bone-weary. Most afternoons I take a 2-3-mile walk, and from the first step to the last, I am bone weary. I take a bath, and I am bone weary—and ready to doze off. I spend several hours each afternoon or evening thinking “I should do something productive,” only to discover that I am too zoned out to do anything more than breathe. And that with some effort.

This is weariness like I have never known. It, too, will abate by Christmas. Though it will linger for some time after treatment ends, because the damage done by the radiation continues to unfold for some time, too. But bone-weary has been met by beast-mode. My step-count for November is better than 11,000 steps per day. The two exist side by side right now. The weariness and the determination to stay active.

I’m on an embarrassing cocktail of prescription meds right now—six of them. I’m grateful, of course. But it can feel disempowering when my wellbeing seems to hinge on forces beyond me. Radiation included. Yet, I also have started using a variety of vitamins and supplements to support my body’s own capacity for health. I eat a healthy diet—and I practice time-restricted eating (all my calories are consumed within an 8-10-hour window, and I fast in between). That not only levels out my energy, it also inexorably stresses the cancer cells (which are not adapted for fasts like this). I read (a lot!) to understand my cancer and its possible treatments. And I walk. In all these ways I have learned to empower myself to be a partner in my treatment.

So much could go wrong. So much could go right. Whatever happens, I will not be a bystander in how it plays out.

In three months, I’ll meet with my radiation oncologist again. We’ll review my latest PSA test to gauge the effectiveness of these treatments. (The combination of radiation and ADT will continue to kill cancer for several months, which is why we wait to assess it.) I am both eager and anxious. I know my odds are long. I know I’m doing all the right things. I know there are no guarantees. And I know when we meet, we will both be fully present to each other in the room. (Margaret, too.) And today that promise of full presence is enough.

Until my next post, from bone weary to beast mode, I am … radiantly yours.

I’ve been chronicling my prostate cancer journey since my diagnosis in January 2025.
Find my first set of blogs (January-June 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Innocence.
Find my second set of blogs (July-August 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Awakening.
My third set (September 2025 and beyond) is under the theme “Soundings.” So far it includes:
#1 Self-Advocacy: Sorry—Not Sorry.
#2 ADT – Making Deals with the Devil.
#3 Courting Kali, Goddess of Destruction.
#4 33 and Me

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.   

The Compass in Compassion

Oct21

The Compass in Compassion
David R. Weiss – October 19, 2025
Merging Waters Unitarian Universalist Congregation
New Brighton, Minnesota

This is the message I shared in my congregation this past Sunday. You can access it as a pdf here if you prefer.

NOTE: Because I intentionally echo some of the images in the service readings in my message, I’m including slightly abridged versions of those readings here.

Opening Words: “Charge from the Earth,” by Irene Glasse and Rev. Dr. Rebekah Savage

There is a song beneath the soil. Ten million, million voices raise their call in no human language. Life flows through the tangle of roots, mycelium, microbiota, and crawling burrowing tunneling life.

The song flows upward through trunks and stems and blades of tender grasses and races out into the air. It is picked up and carried on no human tongues. It is in the footfall of paw and hoof, it hums in the buzz of wings and the fluttering of feathers, it shines on scales and fins and slithering skins.

And if we are quiet and pay attention, sometimes we remember that we are part of this song as well and we have notes to sing. But what happens when we humans forget that the life around us is part of us? That these lives have no less inherent worth and dignity? How many more singers of the earthsong will go silent forever?

Today, we are charged to remember. To know that as we live together in community, we are also in community with the silently singing lives in the vast congregation of the earth as well. The interdependent web of existence is no allegory. It is as real as the heart beating within our chests. We are so charged in the name of the sacred song, the tapestry of life of which we are a part: let us remember, and then act.

Reading: from Chris Jerrey’s commentary on Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliviera

Modernity, Oliviera claims, is not about being contemporary or cutting edge, nor is it about technology or science. It is the state humans adopt when they believe they are separate from nature and not reliant on each other. It is when we view the planet as a storehouse of resources, rather than an organism. It is about viewing non-human animals as livestock, rather than brothers and sisters. It is thinking that polluting a river is okay because the human concept of profit is more important than the life of a waterway. It is about regarding a forest as timber rather than a complex web of life. It is the Slave Triangle, it is using Agent Orange in Vietnam, and it is the lies of the oil companies to defer action on climate change. It is the story of separation, of how humans have cut themselves off from the rest of life on planet Earth by believing that we can do precisely as we wish without repercussions.

We were wrong. Yet generations of modernity as the driving force of the Western world mean that it is everywhere. It is the story we hear whilst growing up and finding our place in the world. It shapes our education and what we do with the things we learn. It reaches deep inside us, filtering our view of the world, deciding what is possible and what is not, severing links with ancient wisdom and the diversity of human experience. It is a restrictive template for how we experience our own lives.

Story for All Ages: “Necessary Equipment” by Karen G. Johnston, based on a true story that happened in Iceland in December 2024.

[The story recounted an incident in which social media posts reported that a young swan was stuck, frozen to the ice on a pond, and seemed to be dying. The post sparked many responses, but one person posted, “I am on my way. With the necessary equipment.” That equipment turned out to be a thermos of hot water, a surfboard (in case the ice failed), and a friend.]

Song: “By Breath” by Sara Thomsen

[Through four nature-filled verses, this song unfolds its refrain: “By breath, by blood, by body, by spirit, we are all one.”

MY MESSAGE: THE COMPASS IN COMPASSION

CARE FOR THE EARTH—IN A TIME OF COLLAPSE?

Today’s twin themes are Cultivating Compassion and Care for the Earth. But that leaves a stark truth unsaid. Our real task is to care for the earth—in a time of collapse. Anything short of this is a task for another time.

I could spend the next twenty minutes supporting this claim. But I have more to say than that. So, I’ll just reference one recent headline.

For fifty years now we’ve known—beyond doubt—that rising CO2 levels could eventually imperil us. And we’ve determined that 350 parts per millions of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere is the “safe upper limit” for a climate hospitable to human civilization. Above that, a host of reactions begin that threaten the stability of ocean currents, growing seasons, ice caps, and much more.

In 1987 (the year my son was born), CO2 hit 350 parts per million. In the years since, it has soared past that safe upper limit, rising year after year without interruption. Just last week (10/15/2025) The Guardian reported that last year CO2 reached (another) record level of 424 parts per million. Worse, last year’s increase was the largest single year increase in CO2 since 1957 when modern record-keeping began. We’re far past 350, and we’re accelerating.

The truth is we aren’t asking about how to care for the earth in a vacuum—as though by learning some green practices, we can keep the planet pristine. Earth as we know it is dying. We may tend some of her wounds, but the juggernaut of extractive industrial consumptive capitalism is such that even the wounds we tend, will be torn open again before long.

So, I am saying the hard part out loud and up front. Our care for the earth is going to look a lot more like hospice then healing. I don’t say that lightly. I say it because we need to know. UU’s have been at the forefront of many social justice causes because our principles and values have helped us to discern truth and act with resolute conviction, even when it has been challenging and uncomfortable. This is one such time. I beg of us, that we hold tightly to our values and lean into the tumult, to be of service as best we can.

COMING HOME . . . TO A PLACE WE’VE NEVER BEFORE

To do that, we must come home.

Now, “home” was a topic of major discussion a few days ago when I discussed my thoughts for today with my Second Tuesday conversation group. I got more pushback for this choice of image, than anything else. Let me explain why I’m holding onto it, including how I mean it—and how I don’t.

It’s true, for some people “home” is not a happy memory; maybe not even a happy present. I lived for three years in a violent marriage that left me regularly bruised on the outside and broken on the inside. I know “home” can hold ambiguous meanings or worse.

It’s true, there are people who live far closer to the land than most of us do. But even farmers, naturalists, ecologists, even off-gridders—while they may understand the land, its creatures, and its systems better than most of us, they were still formed by a civilization built on a lie. Most of them are not “home” in the sense I mean. Unless you’re talking about the Bushmen of the Kalahari (or some other indigenous people largely untouched by the West) there are very few people “at home” in the way I mean it.

It’s true, “home” can wrongly suggest I’m inviting us back to some pristine earlier time some generations ago. No. Home, as I mean it, is nowhere behind us. It is only up ahead. And only if we chose to go there. In this sense, even the few tribes that still know many of the old ways, are no longer “home”; because their wisdom—which is real—will be shaken by a world made unknown to them because it is dying on account of forces beyond anything they can fathom.

In fact, that future will be marked decisively—for all us—by displacement, by homelessness to one degree or another. So why then speak of coming “home”?! Because I believe “home” still means something profoundly good, even if for some, that meaning is intuited in painful contradiction of our own experience.

By “home” I mean being in a dynamic relationship with our surroundings that is honest, trustworthy, and life-giving. In that sense, I’m asking us to come home to Earth. If we wish to care for the web of life in all its diversity, to be of service to the plants and animals, to the waters, skies and land, we must come home.

And right now, we are far away.

THE STORY THAT TOOK US FAR FROM HOME

Vanessa Oliviera was born into the overlap and conflict between indigenous heritage and the West. Today she works at the crossroads of indigenous wisdom and the Western worldview. In Hospicing Modernity, she argues that Modernity is governed by a Story of Separation that tells us we are separate from nature. That animals can become livestock, because they’re not our siblings; that the soil and water and air can be the endless recipients of our pollution and waste because they’re not living webs of relationship—at least not with us.

The first whispers of Separation began much earlier, with patriarchy, agriculture, domesticated animals, and anthropocentric cosmologies. What we’ve called “civilization”—urban settlements with science, leisure, and the arts, but also class structure, extractive and exploitive economies, and accumulative wealth—fed on the Story of Separation for several millennia before Modernity emerged.

But in the culmination of the scientific and industrial revolutions, powered by seemingly unlimited access to fossil fuels, and amplified by the globalization of economics and information, Modernity became a threat to life on Earth.

This notion that we were somehow separate from the natural world, was foolhardy from the first, but Modernity embedded it in every facet of our lives. It’s now the DNA of the systems we’ve built. Capitalism foremost. But our economic and banking systems; our transportation and manufacturing systems; our education and social systems; even our cultural and belief systems have all been shaped by a story that sets apartness rather than relationship at the heart of reality.

Vanessa says we were taught, generation after generation . . . to be separate—until today when our neurophysiology so limits our ability to sense and perceive nature that our separateness seems real.

Human beings once knew Earth was alive. That we were singers within a chorus that began in the soil beneath our feet and echoed in the trees and animals alongside us. Our distant ancestors knew Earth as home. We might even have entertained that distant memory in our own childhood imaginations . . . before the Story of Separation had its way with us.

It is demonstrably (and devastatingly!) “true” that the stories telling us we were “more” than Earthlings—somehow apart from Earth itself and all its limits—those stories led us to new heights, which we called “civilizations,” each one grander than the one before it. “Progress” was a rush to our egos and seemed such proof of our genius. Never mind that we achieved this by utter lack of civility toward our fellows, human and otherwise.

But now the repercussions of our “progress” are here. Rising CO2, warming temperatures, vanishing insects, weakening ocean currents, increasingly fraught weather, and collapsing carbon sinks to name just a few. The fractures are everywhere.

How do we care for THIS world? We must go home.

HUNGRY FOR HOME

And yet here we are, FAR from home, lost in a world now increasingly and inexorably un-worlding itself all around us. We have wandered so far and for so long in this Story of Separation, how will we ever find our way home from here?

I suggest the compass that can lead us home can be found in a stuffed bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Hear me out. Because we need wisdom anchored in images that stay with us.

There is a tale in which Pooh and his friends are out adventuring and get lost. Tigger is unfazed, but also frenetically unhelpful. Rabbit denies they’re lost—and stalwartly leads them in circles until panic sets in and he goes off on his own. As Pooh and Piglet take a rest in the small clearing they’ve now come to for the umpteenth time, Piglet names out loud his fear that they’re lost and wonders how they will ever find their way home.

Suddenly, Piglet is startled by a noise, but Pooh explains, “My tummy rumbled. Now then, let’s go home.” Piglet is confused and asks Pooh if he really knows the way. Pooh responds, “No, Piglet, but I’ve got twelve pots of honey in my cupboard, and they’ve been calling to my tummy. I couldn’t hear them before because Tigger and Rabbit were talking so much. I think I know where they’re calling from now, so come on. We’ll just follow my tummy.”

And sure enough, Pooh’s rumbling tummy guides them home.

It’s interesting; there’s a Greek word used frequently in the New Testament Gospels: splagchnizomai. It actually means tummies rumbling. Okay, literally, it means “to be moved deep in your bowels”—pretty much the same thing. When the Gospels describe Jesus as having a rumbling tummy, it’s translated as COMPASSION. Beyond pity, sympathy, or even empathy, splagchnizomai names that restlessness so deep in your gut that it drives you to act.

I offer Pooh’s rumbling tummy to remind us to trust compassion to lead us home.

ALLOWING OUR GUTS TO WRENCH

However, we will encounter challenges as we use compassion as our compass to go home.

Even for Pooh, the challenge was to hear the rumbling itself. Both the frenzy of Tigger and the adamant denials of Rabbit make it impossible for Pooh to hear his own tummy until he sat in silence. Vanessa would say the Story of Separation contains both Tiggers and Rabbits determined to keep us from hearing the rumbling in our own tummies.

Just ask yourself, which of your personal habits (your thinking, eating, entertainment, news, purchasing) and which institutional forces around you (where you work, live, and shop; your credit cards, debts, government) reinforce the Story of Separation and keep you from being moved so deeply in your gut by the suffering in the natural world that you cannot fail to act. I’m betting this isn’t a short list for any of us.

So, the first challenge is to become aware of how loud the Lie of Separation is in our lives, and then to call its bluff. Joanna Macy, a contemporary saint of ecological renewal, was a Buddhist practitioner and a scholar of systems thinking. She just died in July at 96. Her life’s work was to overcome the Story of Separation. In fact, the trainings she developed are known as “The Work that Reconnects.” Joanna was convinced our connectedness to the web of life ran so deep, far deeper than any of the noise generated by the Lie of Separation, that if we just genuinely pause and listen, we will hear the music of that song inviting us to learn its tune once again.

The second challenge is harder. Because while that song—the music of all the beings in the interdependent web—is just waiting for us. And while that music can indeed evoke reverence and wonder. In a dying world, as we choose to listen beyond the Separation that has framed our lives, we will hear cascades of grief upon grief upon grief.

The creatures, the plants and forests, the soil are all suffering on account of the damage done to this living Earth by a story that set one being—humans—outside the web. And while we may be happy to savor the reverence and wonder that nature can still evoke, the rumbling in our tummies, the compassion that is our compass, that will be felt as grief.

Compassion means, literally, to suffer with, and our journey home will lead us into the felt suffering of the world that we had learned we were separate from. And there, we will discover that we were never apart from all other living things. That intimate connection remains, like the still embers of a fire, deep in our bones.

But that discovery has two distinct steps. As we open ourselves to the pain of the world, we will feel that suffering (not ours, the world’s). And while that grief may seem overwhelming, it is ultimately our passport home. Because as we allow that grief to move through us, we will experience a rebirth of kinship deep in our souls. We will remember that we have always been kin to all that is on Earth. And that will be the first hint that we are nearly home.

THE NECESSARY EQUIPMENT

I end with three strong intuitions about coming home and some thoughts on “the necessary equipment” to care for a dying planet.

These days are fraught—and not just for the wider Earth community. Many members of our human community are also in peril. Immigrants and trans persons, the poor, persons of color, and women, all find their rights and wellbeing under attack as fascism asserts itself in this land. And across the globe there is no pause in human suffering. The Lie of Separation tells us humans matter most. But I say, far from distracting us from fascism here or suffering elsewhere, remembering our kinship with Earth will further deepen our care for our fellow humans. This is not either/or; it is emphatically both/and.

Second, it is critical that we include our youth and young adults as we come home. They are growing up smack on the fault line of the false promises of separation and consumption while both our natural world and social world are fracturing. They likely already feel the pain of the world. It’s essential that we help them recognize that pain as a beacon home.

Third, our inward commitment to compassion will take expression in diverse ways. I will suggest a few this morning. But ultimately, the journey itself will be generative of the actions we’ll need. Like you, I am a refugee from the Story of Separation. Our shared understanding of “home” will deepen and emerge as we go.

Now, the necessary equipment.

First is opening ourselves to compassion, both as the restless yearning in our gut and also as the ceaseless (and often senseless) suffering of our sibling creatures on the planet. Compassion is a muscle of sorts. As we use it, it will strengthen and be capable of more.

Alongside compassion, a host of personal and communal rituals and practices may help us. Think of them as “experiments in the Truth of Inseparability.” Some will work better than others. But we’ll only learn which ones work best by trying them out.

For starters, ask your five senses to help you know the world . . . intimately. Let compassion join your sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Pay attention to what evokes wonder and joy—and what evokes grief, perhaps even rage.

In light of the Truth of Inseparability, consider if the choices you make regarding pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides; or the food you eat; or the personal products you use. This isn’t about chasing ethical purity. All life takes life in order to live. It’s about becoming more intentional in choices that either reinforce the Lie of Separation or reclaim the Truth of Inseparability. Remember, too, simplicity is green. And, like compassion, simplicity is a muscle that can reach further the more we exercise it.

Read an introductory book on permaculture. This can get detailed and dense, but an introductory book can expand your imagination about what it might mean for agricultural, household, or even urban policies and practices to experiment with the Truth of Inseparability.

Create a meditative labyrinth (or really any simple trail) that features plants and animals that have gone extinct because of human activity in Modernity. Such a trail would ask us to really encounter, even briefly, the suffering wrought on our world by the Story of Separation. Not to make us feel guilty. Rather, to feel the world’s pain deeply so we remember our kinship with it. Imagine walking that trail with Sara Thomsen’s “By Breath” playing in the background.

Make green burial part of your own funeral plans. When we die, nothing pays final tribute to the Lie of Separation quite like taking extra steps to keep our dead body from re-entering the cycle of life. And it’s hard to overstate how shifting our death rituals away from Separation and toward Inseparability could harness the energy of these liminal moments for truth.

The last “necessary equipment,” just like in today’s story for all generation, is company. Everything I’ve mentioned above is more doable if we do it together. Additionally, because there will be waves of grief that wash over us as we go, it’s equally important that we cultivate communal wonder and joy to steady us. Things like our monthly Coffee House will be needed all the more as we make our way home.

Okay, that was A LOT. But it is no small task: to consider cultivating compassion as we care for the earth in a time of collapse.

Still, I leave you with two concluding words of wisdom.

Vanessa Oliviera says it is helpful to remember we are both insufficient and indispensable for the work that awaits us. The song of Life is not a solo for any species. We can’t sing it by ourselves, but there are notes that only our voices can hit. The song needs all of us.

Lastly, I said earlier that the future will be marked decisively—for all us—by displacement, by homelessness to one degree or another.

So, let’s be clear: home is not a place. It is a dynamic living relationship with the web of Life, especially those strands of the web nearest to us. As we move our hearts and our lives in the direction of compassion, the journey itself becomes our home.

May it be so.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

Homecoming: Times Three

Oct21

[A poem I wrote contemplating the changing seasons in my life from climate crisis to collapse to cancer …]

Homecoming: Times Three

‘Twas seven years ago, or eight,
I found myself awake—and late;
The rising heat, so clear to see,
It seemed to set a task for me.

And so, I set my mind and heart
A map to draw, a path to chart;
To summon all of us to meet
This moment well and cool the heat.

I read and thought and read some more
Then wrestled ‘til the words did pour;
‘Twas finitude the theme I sounded,
That life by death was wisely bounded.

That if we wished to know our worth
The truth is we’re at home on Earth;
The limits that we live within
Are bodied grace, not sign of sin

Could we but learn “enough” to seek
We might avert a future bleak.
From prairie blooms to river’s foam,
It would be well if we came home.

. . .

But then three years ago, or four,
It dawned on me that so much more
Than heat alone was now at play—
That other forces ruled the day.

It seemed to me—and seems so still
That all our efforts are for nil
Collapse will be—not if, but when
This earth our home no less, but then—

When home is all a wounded heart,
An ecosystem torn apart,
A world undone by endless more,
With peril now for all in store.

How might we claim this home as ours?
By leveraging forgotten powers:
Boundless care and boundless sorrow
And tenderness to meet tomorrow.

Through simple joys and generous tears
Through choosing right despite our fears
Behold in awe our starlit dome
Amid Collapse we yet come home.

. . .

Mere months ago, as few as three,
Collapse came home—and came for me.
When cancer flipped my world on end
And all the words that I had penned—

About a world on edge out there
Returned to me and laid me bare.
Does finitude feel noble still,
When it comes time to pay your bill?

What does it cost to call death wise,
Until it stares you in the eyes?
My body now a petri dish;
Ten side effects for every wish.

That wounded heart—it’s not just mine
My kids are six; my grandkids nine;
And Margaret, ever at my side,
Our love runs deep and just as wide.

With care and sorrow, joy and tears,
With gratitude for all the years,
Should I, too soon, return to loam,
This journey, too, is coming home.

. . .

September 5, 2025
David R. Weiss

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

Courting Kali, Goddess of Destruction

Oct17

Courting Kali: My Eight-Week Fling with the Goddess of Destruction

I lay in this stillness, waiting for her to come.
Sweat bottoms and underwear lowered to my hips,
I am exposed, vulnerable, and hungry.
My longing is not less than erotic,
because in ways that only she can deliver,
she will complete me. So I hope.
And so, I long for her coming.

Suddenly a flash of light and the portal opens;
right beneath me the table itself jumps
announcing her presence in trembling alarm.
Now the room is abuzz—“understated” is not her thing.
Next I know—what I want, what I need—she mounts me.
Her touch is ephemeral; for all my anticipation,
everything I feel is in my head; everything I need is in my gut.

My life (yours, too) rests on mortality:
the consistent—faithful!—dying of my own cells,
making mundane renewal—mundane life—possible.
But now some band of renegade cells,
cancerous prostate cells, have reneged on mortality.
Having chosen life everlasting—their choice imperils
my much more limited yet beloved life.

And so, here I am, courting Kali,
Hindu goddess of destruction and death.
Sure, by outward appearance it seems for these eight weeks
I’m getting zapped by intensity-modulated radiation
targeting my prostate bed and pelvic lymph nodes,
but these stakes are existential—far too personal
to settle for anything less than the goddess herself.

I see the bright flash of light, and I whisper,
“Welcome, Kali, sweet mother of chaos.”
I feel the table beneath me shift as she crouches,
and I nod my assent to her killing instinct.
The room fills with the buzz of her affection,
and I whisper sweet nothings into her ears
while her hands (all four of them) bring the death
I need for life.

October 17, 2025 – David R. Weiss

I’ve been chronicling my prostate cancer journey since my diagnosis in January 2025.
Find my first set of blogs (January-June 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Innocence.
Find my second set of blogs (July-August 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Awakening.
My third set (September 2025 and beyond) is under the theme “Soundings.” So far it includes:
#1 Self-Advocacy: Sorry—Not Sorry.
#2 ADT – Making Deals with the Devil
#3 Courting Kali, Goddess of Destruction

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

UUA Article II: Anti-Fascism is Us

Oct7

UUA Article II: Anti-Fascism is Us
David R. Weiss – October 7, 2025

Find a PDH version HERE.

[A message to my co-conspirators (those who breathe alongside me) in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, although the values that animate our lives will resonate with many others.]

Beloveds,

The time for unmistakable clarity is upon us.

We are now living under a fascist regime. Consider the features: hyper-nationalism; cult-like veneration of the leader; open disdain for democratic elections; repression of protest and critique; demonizing one’s adversaries; ignoring the courts; rampant militarism—including the intentional terrorizing of immigrant communities; rampant self-serving corruption that enriches the few, impoverishes the many, and scapegoats the vulnerable. We are witnessing a textbook unfolding of fascism in real time.

That clarity, however, is mere preamble for the clarity to which we are now called.

I suspect most UU’s tilt anti-fascist on impulse. Our twin historical roots centered the primacy of love (Universalism) and the priority of reason and free conscience (Unitarianism). And it’s likely that one or both of these sentiments drew us to this tradition. But these same sentiments are ones that fascism is wont to condemn or even criminalize.

Our commitments have often put us out of step with societal norms and have occasionally proven costly. We have our own roster of martyrs—from Michael Servetus (d. 1553) to Rev. James Reeb (d. 1965)—whose lived convictions cost them their lives. We have ample reason to be wary of authoritarianism, religious or secular. And fascism is unbridled authoritarianism. Of course, we are almost instinctively against that.

And yet, in this moment—as fascism becomes the ruling logic in our country—we need more than an intuitive impulse that is anti-fascist. Today it is critical for UU’s to be explicitly aware of and reflectively articulate about our often implicit anti-fascist leaning. For several reasons.

1. Becoming explicit and articulate will enable us to be in deeper covenant within and across our congregations. Because fascism is utterly antithetical to our shared values, being anti-fascist is expressive of our UU faith/identity. It is foundational for our covenantal solidarity.

2. This will also help us reach out to family, friends, and others who may be troubled by what is transpiring in our nation, but whose misgivings have not yet crystalized into a clear position or into actual resistance. We won’t persuade everyone. Yet, if we are thoughtful and clear we will persuade some few. And under fascism every few matters.

3. This will also set us in solidarity with immigrants, trans persons, the poor and unhoused, persons of color, protestors, and others who are being dehumanized, even demonized, by the rhetoric of this fascist regime, and its echoes in the streets and on social media. Our witness to our anti-fascist convictions may well be life-giving to those who find their lives under daily assault.

4. This will also sow seeds of possibility. Fascism’s theatrical displays of power and brute force aim to create the perception that it is inevitable and unstoppable—that resistance is not just futile, but unimaginable. Even while fascism plays out in our country, our faithful counter witness creates space for the imagination of liberation and Beloved Community to persist.

5. Finally, our clarity about the deep roots of our anti-fascism is critical because these convictions may prove costly. Fascism operates by a dynamic of domination. We will not resist it without risk. We may begin in ways that carry lesser risks, but we cannot know in advance how much further we may find ourselves called to act. Or how intolerant this regime’s fascism will be of even minor or merely symbolic resistance. Thus, the simple clarity of our convictions needs to be held heart by heart.

At any given moment one or more of these reasons may take priority because of the context. But I expect all five are likely to be front and center in our lives at different times.

As my title suggests, Article II of our UUA bylaws—which names the shared convictions around which we have covenanted to live—provides a framework for an anti-fascist faith. The foundational values by which we make meaning and pursue moral discernment are intrinsically and, upon reflection, explicitly anti-fascist. Let me show you.

We affirm Liberating Love at the center of life—the core of life’s purpose and meaning, the basis of life’s flourishing, and the motivation for our aspirations and actions. Fascism, because it trades in brute force as its currency, can only acknowledge love as a quaint feeling best domesticated and limited to personal relationships with no role in political and civic life. We know otherwise.

Fascism wants to replace love with order. In doing so, it denies the mystery, whimsy, and diversity that are the signature of Love across the cosmos from distant quasars to quantum mechanics and to the inmost sanctum of the human heart. The only anti-dote to fascism is the persistent choice of Liberating Love. So, in this moment we earnestly choose Love.

We value Justice—believing that systems of impartial judgment place a needed check on power and provide the infrastructure for sound democratic practices which benefit our lives at all levels. As Cornel West has said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

Fascism, however, has no use for justice except as the coerced or masqueraded approval of its unchecked power. Hence, the vetting of judges for ideological fidelity to the nearly unlimited reach of Executive power—and the disregard and disparagement of judges who still try to place checks on power. Fascism views justice, like love, as a quaint notion no longer relevant in a society where power is accorded absolute value.

Our commitment to justice sets us at odds with the injustices that are endemic to fascism. Insofar as we attest by our words and deeds to the ultimacy of Love as that which empowers not only our lives but also the just and liberating fabric of our communities, we set ourselves on a collision course with fascism. Not because we want that fight, but because we want to be faithful.

We value Pluralism because we regard diverse views and multiple voices essential for the pursuit of truth, the work of justice, and the joy of fellowship. We affirm difference as an echo of Love’s rampant creativity in the world and a fundamental good in our common life.

But fascism, as the embodiment of political arrogance and narcissism, considers the regime and its leaders as the sole arbiter of truth. Its hyper-nationalism never celebrates the nation’s diversity, but rather claims that only a certain sliver of a population represents the true nation. In this regime it is Americans of white European ancestry who matter. (Those who are nonwhite but willing to be loyal servants in the regime are praised, but when their usefulness to the regime runs out, they will be discarded quickly and brutishly.)

Fascism is driven to belittle, condemn, or altogether erase difference. From mocking public figures with differing views to dismissing minority voices and erasing their history, from demonizing immigrants to dehumanizing trans persons, fascism’s behavior relentlessly endangers both pluralism and persons. We will need to be equally relentless in actively valuing pluralism in our practices and in our public witness.

We value Interdependence—understanding it to be a fundamental truth, both ecologically and socially. Any one of us is, only because others are. And we humans are, only within a complex web of all else that is. Yet we humans have shown ourselves all too capable of choosing to actively deny this truth. Indeed, we have created economies and worldviews that operate against interdependence, thereby placing humanity and all members of the Earth community in peril. Thus, to say we value interdependence, is to say we choose to live by this truth.

In contrast, for fascism, interdependence is heresy. Fascism insists, loudly and belligerently, that its power (alone!) defines all relations and renders them subservient to its desires. Hence, its full-scale assault on the interwoven reality of immigrants in our economy and communities, its disregard for the community of nations, its aggressive denial of basic human rights, its undoing of the green policies of past administrations, and its ignorant rejection of the finitude of our world.

These very real echoes of interdependence elicit only contempt from fascism. Our valuing independence as essential to healthy community will invite contempt from this regime as well.

We value Equity as the practical manifestation of pluralism, interdependence, and justice across a social system. Equity seeks to ensure that all have the opportunities and resources necessary to flourish. AND—that no one holds or controls such a disproportionate share of power or resources that this prevents equity from being realized. Ultimately, we value equity because it reflects our bedrock conviction of the intrinsic dignity of each person.

But fascism reduces every person to their transactional value to the regime, inevitably reducing many to precarity, others to poverty, and others to sheer contempt—their transactional value being only to serve as scapegoats for the regime. This only amplifies the grotesque inequity capitalism has already brought about despite the abundance of material goods.

We will never establish equity in a society ruled by a fascist regime. Still, we can pursue equity in our congregations, our partnerships, our social justice initiatives, and our personal lives. In doing so, we bear witness to the possibility of a world other than the one fascism wants to dictate.

We value Generosity as an authentic response to our awareness that Life is ultimately Gift. In all its ecological and social complexity, all its spiritual/mystical depth, Life unconditionally offers itself to us. The reverence—surpassing awe—that we feel at Life’s Gift echoes in the generosity that emerges in our relations with others.

Fascism, however, because it is steeped in self-veneration, has no capacity for genuine awe or reverence. It may reward its inside players gratuitously but divvying up the spoils of goods stolen from the labor of others or from the Earth is the very perversion of generosity. When every relationship is rendered transactional, generosity is a concept devoid of meaning … except as corruption. Hence, the rejection of empathy and the open assault on those in need.

Our practice of generosity will not merely make us appear weak or foolish, it will directly challenge the lie of fascism’s ruthless logic.

Finally, we value Transformation for two reasons. At the personal level it is the promise and pathway of personal growth and self-understanding. In this aspect, transformation honors the unique and sacred character of each person’s journey. Fascism pays lip service to the heroic journey, but in reality, except for the elite few, it imposes crushing conformity on everyone else. To value personal transformation in a fascist society is to refuse—to resist, even to subvert—the pressure of conformation.

In its historical-communal aspect, transformation names the importance of discerning our vocation across time and place. We regularly ask as a community, “What form shall faithfulness to Liberating Love take … here, in this place and in this moment?” (Our recent revision of Article II is evidence of our commitment to transformation in our internal denominational life.) But under fascism all transformation is at the dictate of the regime. There is no room for communal conscience, only for conforming to the regime’s demands. Thus, every fascist regime including the present one cannot tolerate the dissenting voices of comedians, poets, artists, or religious leaders. Because such persons sustain our civic capacity to imagine things otherwise than they now are.

Genuine transformation, both personal and communal-societal, is antithetical to fascism.

Our Unitarian Universalist values are the foundation of our covenantal fidelity to one another. They shape our faith and the life we envision together. They guide our aspirations to be a liberating and transformative presence in the world. They do not dictate specific opinions or actions for us. They represent something more like the musical key in which we have chosen to improvise our music. Still, seven-for-seven these values—anchored deep in our consciences by intuition and mutuality—provide a musical key in which all our faithful improvisation will be anti-fascist. Not because we choose to be in opposition to the current regime, but because fascism is in utter opposition to our chosen faith.

On September 22, 2025, this regime designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. There is, of course, no such actual organization as Antifa. The term refers to something like an organic but largely uncoordinated alliance of efforts across a wide diversity of tactics (ranging from disciplined nonviolence to strategic property destruction) that share a singular concern: to oppose the rise and reach of fascism in societies. Indeed, it is satirically emblematic that this regime would declare Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. Any government that declares a movement that is by definition and by historical practice anti-fascist is by implication itself FASCIST.

I suspect most of the shadowy, autonomous, disconnected groups that might quietly and legitimately own the designation antifa would view our efforts too timid for their taste. Still, it’s noteworthy that our “brand” symbol, the flaming chalice, has its own anti-fascist origins in 1941 during World War II. Created by an Austrian artist refugee—the flaming chalice was first used by the Unitarian Service Committee as an “official” seal on the altogether unofficial travel documents they issued to assist countless refugees in their escape from the fascism of the Nazi regime.

As we live our way into this precarious moment with Liberating Love as our compass, our calling is clear. With the flaming chalice as our emblem, we must consider our respective contexts and our unique gifts, placing our values in the service of our faithful imagination. Our worship, from ritual to reading to reflection; our congregational practices, from polity to planning to fellowship and mutual care; and our public engagement, from welcome and outreach to witness and advocacy—All of these should be unapologetically and explicitly anti-fascist. Neither for our sake nor for the world’s sake can we afford to be discreet and unnoticed. Not now.

Our Unitarian Universalist faith, centered as it is in Liberating Love with an array of mutually supporting values, is anti-fascist from first to the last. Article II makes clear: Anti-fascism is us.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

Six Degrees of Separation

Sep25

Six Degrees of Separation
David R. Weiss – September 25, 2025

You likely recognize the phrase. It’s a pop culture echo of actual philosophical queries and mathematical modeling that investigate one of the surprising phenomena of social networks. Sometimes referred to as the “Small World Problem” (where “problem” means something closer to “curiosity” or “dynamic”) it describes the disarming connectedness that is a counter intuitive feature of humanity, simply on account of our social nature. (Wikipedia has a good brief overview.)

In plain English it asserts that any two persons in the world are separated by not more than five other persons. Hence, we are just “six degrees of separation” from the entire rest of the world. Of course, there are many factors that come into play and some mathematical formulas and computer models produce numbers a bit higher (or a bit lower) than six. No matter. The phrase has taken on a life of its own as a way of reminding us that we are all likely much more closely connected than we assume. And setting the exact number aside, that’s a worthy truth to embrace.

But I want to spin this phrase in an altogether different direction. While hopefully harnessing its memorable character to stick with you in new ways.

Yesterday I was listening to Paul Huttner’s Climate Cast segment on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio). He commented—himself stunned by the data—that since 1970, the average temperature in September in Minnesota has gone up—you guessed it—by six degrees.

That’s honestly hard to grasp. After all, each September is twelve months distant in our memory by the time the next one rolls around. And the other eleven months are warming as well at their own paces. And that’s a 55-year span. Still, imagine: in my body, normal temperature is 98.6. Raise that by six degrees to 104.6, and I’d feel that—with a panic.

Earth Day was founded in 1970, broadly focused on recognizing Earth as our home, and more specifically aiming to lift up environmental concerns and channel that energy into action. Well, here we are 55 years later, and there are now SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION between us and that first Earth Day.

Hardly the comforting notion of human interconnectedness. In this context it evokes the abject failure of our efforts (do you even call them “efforts” at six degrees?) to take climate change seriously. The drivers of this failure are many. From the triumph of corporate interests to the failure of our politics. From misguided religious commitments to colonized consumer habits. From reckless agriculture practices to foolhardy technological confidence. From an impoverished communal imagination to rampant individualism.

I could go on. By almost every metric and from almost every angle, human systems have been so misshapen by the dynamics of exploitive bias (othering those we choose to—because we can) and extractive wealth (taking whatever we wish to—because we can) that those six degrees represent not nearness, but the existential chasm between what we know to be true (Earth is finite—and our only home) and how we structure our lives.

A snapshot in time. Fifty-five years is a fairly random sample. And six degrees is just one way of counting that rising warmth, itself just one data point in an Earth system wildly atilt. And—gosh dang it—as I sit out on my porch on a breezy 80-degree day in late September, it just feels so … nice.

But those six degrees of separation push and pull Minnesota’s ecological fabric in manners that threaten to rip it apart. That creeping warmth, barely noticeable from one year to the next, is setting all the intricate relationships that make an ecology work on edge. Some of the plants, bugs, animals, and complex energy relationships in these parts take their cues from lengthening and shortening days—which (thus far!) have stayed the same. But others in this eco-community take their cues from temperatures—ground, air, water, daytime highs, nighttime lows. And as the historical mismatch widens, the wellbeing of each strand in Minnesota’s fine woven ecology is stressed.

Imagine a marching band where half the members follow one drum major and half follow another. So long as the drum majors are in sync, the band’s movements remain synchronized. But if those majors have, shall we say, six degrees of separation between them, well, that band is about to march itself into chaos.

And that’s where we’re at, this fall, in Minnesota. We may not notice it quite yet. Although those who do “Earth-work” for a living (farmers, meteorologists, wildlife biologists, ecologists, nature nerds) no doubt sense the strands they deal with have grown taut. At some point each thread (different points but compounding and cascading as well) will … SNAP.

We’re at six degrees of separation now. But we’re on our way to at least ten degrees of separation (or more) by the time we “celebrate” Earth Day’s centennial. (www.climate.umn.edu/MNclimate) By then, that ecological marching band will have marched itself into a toppled mass.

I don’t offer these “six degrees of separation” as a wake-up call. As though maybe now we’ll set different priorities just in the nick of time. No. The inertia of our human systems far outweighs the strength of our individual (even our communal) choices by now. Moreover, the inertia of the Earth systems we’ve knocked off balance has a planetary momentum we can’t even begin to slow. At this point, “six degrees of separation” is a call to lament.

It is a measure of the grief we owe one another and our fellow living creatures on Earth. Because that original meaning of six degrees stills holds true—even more so across this pale blue dot. Interconnection, whether by six degrees or sixty, is the foundational truth of all life on Earth. We only ever deluded ourselves when we thought otherwise.

We’re about to be tutored on the topic of interconnection. I’m guessing it’s going to be a painful lesson for most of us. Six degrees of separation. It cuts both ways. Driving home the nearness of our ecological relatedness. And the distance we are from anything that might be called sustainable.

I don’t write this as an exercise in despair. I actually think lament—grief as deep as the world is wide—is a path forward. Perhaps not to survival, but from grief to integrity, honesty, simplicity, community, and care.

Call those my six degrees of separation. Reconnecting us to one another and all that is.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

ADT – Making Deals with the Devil

Sep23

When Cancer Comes Calling – Book Three: Soundings
ADT – Making Deals with the Devil
David R. Weiss – September 23, 2025

Since mid-June I have been at a crossroads, desperate to avoid ADT (Androgen Deprivation Therapy). As of today, I am all in. To the point of annihilation. (All too literally.) It feels like a deal with the devil; multiple devils, in fact. And those devils are in the details, too.

ADT suppresses testosterone (the main androgen—“male-making”—hormone) as one facet of treating prostate cancer (PCa). ADT can stop (or at least dramatically slow) the growth of PCa in your body. It can shrink and weaken cancer cells and occasionally even kill them. Mostly, ADT aims to hold prostate cancer in check. (Until it doesn’t. Eventually PCa mutates and starts growing even with testosterone suppressed, but that’s a sad tale for another day.)

In my case, ADT is being used in combination with radiation therapy. Radiation is more likely to kill PCa cells if ADT has already weakened them. I’ll be on ADT for a month before my 33 sessions of radiation, which will run October 6 to November 19 (with weekends off for R&R). I started my first ADT med on September 5, and because ADT can help kill off cells damaged by radiation for several months after radiation ends, I’ll be on ADT for at least six months. However, because my particular cancer is “very high risk”—apex predator within the PCa family—the strong recommendation is that I remain on ADT for another 6-18 months: up to 24 months total. This would hopefully prevent my cancer from spreading beyond my pelvic region. But it’s a deal with the devil, and it comes with costs.

Radiation treatment has its own perils, but ADT feels much more ominous. As a systemic treatment that impacts my whole body—cancerous and otherwise—ADT is more akin to kicking a hornets’ nest. They’ll fly everywhere. Yes, the cancer will slow to a crawl, but the absence of testosterone will echo in my body (and mind!) in a host of other ways that have nothing to do with cancer. But everything to do with me. These are the devils that stalk me.

I’m on two ADT meds. And speaking of that “hornets’ nest,” these meds are so indiscriminate in their hormonal havoc that anyone other than me has to wear gloves to handle them. (I get to go bare-handed because they’re going to be making havoc inside me anyway.)

I started Orgovyx (relugolix) on September 5. It prevents the pituitary gland in my head from sending the hormone that prompts my testicles to produce testosterone. It effectively shuts them down. Rapidly. Within the first month my T-level will be as low as if I’d been castrated. Ouch! (It’s already almost there.)

I started the second ADT med, Zytiga (abiraterone), on September 19. Unlike Orgovyx, which targets the messaging center (the pituitary gland), Zytiga takes out the production facilities themselves: the testicles and the adrenal glands (which Orgovyx has no effect on). 95% of testosterone is made in the testicles; the remaining 5% comes from the adrenal glands. Zytiga makes it impossible for either gland to make any testosterone. It will drop my T-level as close to zero as is medically possible. This type of “combination therapy” is sometimes called Testosterone Annihilation because it is so unforgiving in its testosterone suppression.

My cancer has no idea what’s coming.

But I do. Call it collateral damage, if you wish. Some PCa doctors are honest enough to admit that, as helpful as ADT is in containing the cancer, its side effects are often nothing short of “catastrophic” for their patients. I’m still anticipating them, but they feel like deals with the devil. Multiple devils. Too many to count, but I can group them in five categories.

The devil I already know. Prone to melancholy since my youth, I’ve been through several bouts of severe depression. My melancholy likely has roots in the nexus of introversion, empathy, intelligence, introspection, creativity, etc. A “perfect storm” of traits (with antecedents in my family) that me me: passionate and driven. But also make melancholy my default mood, often just below the surface. Life stresses (and a couple life traumas) turned that melancholy into debilitating depression several times—one of which left me barely functional for months.

Now ADT says, “Hold my beer.” Because besides being the infrastructure of my maleness, testosterone also is crucial in men for healthy mood. It plays a central role in how our brains release two neurochemicals essential for mental health. Dopamine provides motivation and concentration, then tops these off with the feeling of reward. Serotonin, the “happiness chemical,” undergirds the sensation of calm, well-being, and emotional balance—as well as facilitating good sleep and appetite.

Imagine melancholy-me at Zero-T and it’s ugly. Add in the other side effects mentioned below as additional mental/emotional stressors, and it’s even worse. One guy, on Orgovyx for 6 months described his depression “MUCH worse than anything I’d experienced before; hard to describe—a sadness beyond sad.” Yes, there are things I can do, but I’ll be doing them in a raging current of madness. That’s the devil I know.

The devil I don’t yet know, but surely will. Not every person experiences every possible side effect of ADT. And (thankfully) the worst side effects are rare (but not impossible) if you’re on ADT for less than two years. But a handful of side effects are almost unfailingly present: complete loss of libido, hot flashes, fatigue, muscle loss, and accumulation of body fat around the belly. These results are simply what happens in a man’s body when the T is turned off. Our bodies are finely tuned instruments; they count on the right mix of hormones to hold to a healthy center. The average man loses 3-5% of their muscle during the first year of ADT (most of that within the first few months)—and replaces it with an average of 10 extra pounds of fat in their belly and on their hips.

Some guys report only mildly noticeable fatigue; others—including some on short term ADT—describe it as debilitating, even devastating. Hot flashes (which I haven’t experienced yet) are, of course, well known to menopausal women. But for men they come with a double whammy. Besides the immediate physical discomfort (and social awkwardness and/or sleep disturbance), for men hot flashes are also symbolically disorienting in the psyche. They provoke a sort of gender-sex vertigo: a reminder that this medication is playing with the foundational chemistry of my identity as a man.

And loss of libido. Check. It’s a surreal heart-breaking loss. Near the end of her life my mom barely remembered my older brother, Don (who died in 2004). I drove by the cemetery with her one day and she said, with wistful ache but little genuine emotion, “I think I have a son buried in there.” THAT type of loss. I can say, “I once longed for Margaret with erotic hunger that consumed me. At some level, I still ‘know’ that … but I can’t even imagine it anymore.”

Not that there isn’t deep love and intimacy and emotional tenderness between us still. There is—and vibrantly so! But eros? For now, at least, that is so much buried in my mythic past that I couldn’t tell you if it was ever real. And navigating that reality in our relationship is complicated and bittersweet, though more bitter than sweet, because while my libido has amnesia, Margaret’s libido is alive and well. It is a strange season for our love.

All these things comprise the devil I don’t yet know, but surely will. Here, too, there are things I can do. But these side effects have the hormones (or the absence of them) on their side. And that’s no small advantage.

The devil I don’t want to meet. ADT dysembodies you. It doesn’t dis-embody you (take you out of your body); no, it distorts the manhood you once had and taunts you with a femininity you never longed for.

With T-suppression in place, most men lose almost an inch of length in their penis. Some lose more. Some report they can no longer see their penis; that they can no longer pee at a urinal because there’s nothing to hold onto, and the pee just goes wherever it chooses. Funny? Not if every time you look at yourself in the mirror, you see a “pre-adolescent penis” on your aging man’s body. I already lost some of my penis length to Peyronie’s disease a decade ago. And I lost a bit more during my prostate surgery. When this devil comes my way, I’d like to say, “Sorry, I already gave,” but I doubt he’ll take that for an answer.

Alongside that, ADT shrinks your testicles from, say, the size of a grape tomato down to the size of a lima bean. This isn’t negotiable. There are no “counter measures” you can take. This IS what suppressing T does, and annihilating T will do as much as that and then some. Guys describe scrotums that are nearly “empty bags of wrinkled flesh” swinging between their legs holding next to nothing in them. They don’t find it cute. Dysembodiment is finding yourself exiled within your own body. Vertigo doesn’t do it justice, because beyond the physical sense of disconnection, it’s an emotional repulsion at foreignness-made-too-close-for comfort.

These bodily distortions are likely in my future. The literature tells me they “usually” reverse themselves when you stop ADT. But that same literatures always add a cautionary “but not always.” The devil is in these details, too.

And, because at Zero-T, the low levels of estrogen that naturally circulate in a man’s body have no testosterone to restrain them, they do what estrogen likes to do: build breast tissue. Men can experience nipple tenderness and breast development. This is more common beyond two years, but hardly unheard of in the first two years. Further, unlike the changes to male genitalia, breast tissue does not recede when ADT stops. I can cross my fingers it doesn’t appear. But, short of surgery, there is no way to remove it if it does.

There are a couple risky counter measures to forestall it. Tamoxifen, an estrogen blocker, has its own side effects. And “preventative” radiation of the chest is not always effective, rarely covered by insurance, and raises the risk of other cancers down the road. Finger-crossing, as futile as that seems, is probably my best bet.

This devil is close kin to the one that trans persons face as they come into their truth. They, too, experience the anguish-agony-anger over a body they know is not theirs, and yet is the flesh they wear. Each of us, cis or trans, is a self-interwoven-with-body. The sinews cling even when the fit is off. Which is why, for trans persons, medications like these can be life-saving, bequeathing a wholeness long apprehended at a visceral, intuitive level. And is also why, ADT can be so self-threatening to a man: it actively claws at those sinews until they rip away.

Recently, in response to Trump’s (and the entire Right’s) escalating war on the trans community, one of my longtime trans friends posted on Facebook: “It is time for Allies to stand up and declare, ‘I am transgender.’” Well, I have long been an Ally to the LGBTQ+ community, even aspiring to be an Accomplice in their liberation. Still today, as I find myself smack in the midst of ADT, I will proudly continue to be in solidarity with the trans community in every way I can. Still, when I saw her post—the very day before I started Orgovyx—I must admit the irony bit hard. This is the devil I don’t want to meet. But soon enough, in ways both visceral and emotional, I will be trans-gender.

[To be very clear: by calling myself “trans-gender,” I don’t mean to equate my reality on ADT with that of transgender persons. I am simply observing with poignant irony that these meds will put my gender in flux. They will unmoor me from the static security of the (illusory) gender binary and set me adrift somewhere … in between. That doesn’t make me transgender, but it might make me even more aware of what it is to exist in an in-between-space that much of the world chooses to deny—often vehemently—but which trans persons navigate daily.]

The devil that wants to wreck me. It turns out that quite beyond our mental health and our sexual health, testosterone is crucial to the structural integrity and the metabolic systems of our bodies. And ADT is about wrecking that, too. It begins with raised blood sugar, lipids, and blood pressure; over time it becomes diabetes and heart disease. It begins with muscle and joint aches; over time it becomes osteoporosis and bone fractures. Add in liver toxicity and irregular heartbeat. Bottom line, these meds will put irrepressible stress on multiple body systems, almost from day. It’s not guaranteed that any of these systems will give out, and if I can get off ADT in 18 months or so, I may escape the worst of these threats, but this is the devil that wants to wreck me. And it will be with me every step of the way.

The devil that would utterly undo me. Finally, there is the devil that is sheer terror for me. In some unpredictable slice of men, usually on long-term ADT, but occasionally even on short-term ADT, mental deterioration is pronounced. Brain fog and a diminished executive function can occur; the capacity to direct your own life can fade. Memory loss can be a minor daily annoyance—or show up as the wholesale loss of self in time and place. And for some, verbal acuity disappears. This whole essay is an exercise in verbal acuity. My life is woven out of verbal acuity. To be blunt: I would choose to die from cancer before choosing to surrender my verbal acuity. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.

These mental side effects seem to be wholly reversible once ADT stops. But this is the devil that would utterly undo me. If these side effects show up, I will find the quickest “off ramp” from ADT that I can find.

Devils to my left. Devils to my right. I have no death wish, but don’t try to sell me on the merits of these drugs. Cancer set me down at this crossroads, and here I am, making deals with the devil. These medications are hellbent on making mayhem in the male body. One precious sliver of that mayhem may work to my advantage. For which I will be grateful. But there’s no cherry-picking with ADT. The many other slivers of that mayhem will be working persistently to undo me.

The prospect of gaining several years (dare I hope a decade or more?) of life … with cancer pushed well into the background is alluring: there’s the deal! But it’s hardly free. ADT is a whole series of deals with the devil. Every. Damn. Day.

There are ways to protect myself from at least some of the side effects (that’s for a future post)—and I intend to put these protective measures to full use. But pretending the dangers just ahead are anything less than everywhere and existential is no protection at all.

So color me wide awake, on edge, all in, and determined to hold my own as I make deals with the devil at the crossroads.

I’ve been chronicling my prostate cancer journey since my diagnosis in January 2025.
Find my first set of blogs (January-June 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Innocence.
Find my second set of blogs (July-August 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Awakening.
My third set (September 2025 and beyond) is under the theme “Soundings.” So far it includes:
#1 Self-Advocacy: Sorry—Not Sorry.
#2 ADT – Making Deals with the Devil

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.   

Self-Advocacy – Sorry, Not Sorry

Sep15

When Cancer Comes Calling – Book Three: Soundings
Self-Advocacy – Sorry, Not Sorry
David R. Weiss – September 15, 2025

I was raised to be polite, and my own temperament has led me to be a mostly conflict-avoidant people-pleaser, especially in person. That often comes across as “pleasant and easy-going,” and most of the time that’s fine, because there’s usually not so much at stake that it’s worth getting bent out of shape over. But sometimes the stakes are really high and then being overly agreeable can be to my own detriment. This was one of those times.

Last Friday I met with the medical oncologist (the doctor who will manage my cancer meds) on my care team. I didn’t pick him, my radiation oncologist (the doctor who will do my radiation treatments) did, and she considers him brilliant, and I trust her, so I’m happy to have him on my team. Except my first consultation with him felt a bit rushed and rocky, and I’ve learned by now that “rushed and rocky” is not helpful when my goal is to be the person guiding my own cancer care.

The ”rushed” part was unfortunate but understandable. His first opening for a full-hour consultation wasn’t until late September, and the reason for seeing him was to review a final medication choice that needed to be made as soon as possible in order to keep my radiation treatment on track. So, I was happy when my radiation oncologist called his office, and then his office called me and said they could get me in on September 8, even though it was only a 30-minute slot. They could do this because I’d seen him about a difference issue in the past, which allowed them to give me this shorter “returning patient” slot. I gratefully took it.

We did come to a clear decision about the medication in question, a second testosterone blocker only used in localized prostate cancer when the risk of it spreading is deemed “very high.” This doubling down on T-blockers is called a Total Testosterone Blockade, sometimes more vividly referred to as Testosterone Annihilation. (Oh joy.) It amplifies the effectiveness of radiation, but at the same time raises the risk of some pretty scary side effects. The fact that we came to a decision about this was good, but it didn’t offset the rocky part of the consultation.

I’ll never know how much the “rocky” part was a result of the “rushed” part. This doctor is native Indian; he got his medical degree in India, and his English has a crisp accent and a fast pace. You have to pay full attention to catch every word. Still, it was more than this. A couple things left me unsettled. I can’t afford to have such a central relationship on my care team as the weakest link. In fact, with my life on the line, I can’t afford any weak links on my team.

So, after reflecting on it for a couple of days, I entered “self-advocacy” mode and sent him a follow-up message using MyChart (the platform my health care system uses for patient-doctor messaging). I expect I’ll be permanently in self-advocacy mode from here on, because there’s just too much at stake to not be. Anyway, this is what I wrote … stretched out over two-and-a-half messages because MyChart has a very unforgiving word-count limit. My actual message is in italics below, with a handful of side comments along the way to help you understand the points I’m making.

After correcting a minor mistake in my visit summary about the date we’d decided on for me to start this new medication and asking a question about the labs he had ordered for me before our next visit, (both minor but essential self-advocacy steps in themselves), I went full force into self-advocacy:

Finally, I want to clarify a couple things. I appreciate the effort made to fit me into your busy schedule. I know we had only 30 minutes because I was given a “returning patient” slot even though this is a new concern and perhaps needed a bit more time for a fuller conversation. Because of the hard and fast word limits imposed by MyChart, I’ll put my thoughts in a couple additional messages.

[Additional message #1]

I want you to know that although I have no medical background, I do have two graduate degrees. I’m also a voracious reader and critical thinker. And I intend to be *fully engaged* in guiding my care. So, I need complete, clear, accurate information about my treatment options, likely side effects, and possible mitigation strategies—AND I need deep respect for my intelligence and agency. I count on you for all of this. It’s crucial to my care.

When I explained why I chose Orgovyx as my primary testosterone blocker, I gave three reasons. I noted that unlike Lupron [the T-blocker most often prescribed by doctors], Orgovyx is an oral daily medication that I could stop quickly if I found the side-effects of testosterone suppression [which are many] intolerable. And I said I understood it is both newer and more effective than Lupron. You replied almost off-hand that, like Lupron, Orgovyx was also an “agonist” and that the efficacy of all ADT [testosterone-blocking] drugs is similar across the board. The first statement is simply wrong; the second is at least questionable.

[To be clear, I have NO DOUBT that he knows Orgovyx is NOT an “agonist”—a term that describes the mechanism by which Lupron and several other ADT drugs block testosterone. To be truly mistaken about this would call into question his competency. I have no question about that! He simply misspoke. But I’m quite sure he misspoke because he wasn’t listening carefully to me. Because he wasn’t giving me due respect for having done my homework on these meds. His tone carried the message “I’m the doctor; don’t bother yourself with the details.” And I needed to call “BULLSHIT!” on that loud and clear. So I continued …]

As you surely know, Orgovyx is an *antagonist.* Same effect; different mechanism. And it seems to me that Orgovyx actually does have a better efficacy. There is no testosterone flare. [Agonists actually BOOST your testosterone for several weeks before suppressing it; not so with antagonists.] Per the HERO study [the definitive study that helped secure FDA approval for Orgovyx], Orgovyx lowers testosterone (T) faster and more effectively than Lupron:

91% of men had T <50 ng/dL by day 8 vs. 0% on Lupron; 99% of men had T <50 ng/dL by day 15 vs 12% on Lupron; and 99% of men had T <50 ng/dL by day 29 vs. 82% on Lupron. Thus, when I start radiation in early October, my testosterone will be very low (in fact, 95% of men on Orgovyx had T <20 ng/dL by day 29)—and will have been low for several weeks. In that same study, Orgovyx also more successfully kept T below 50 ng/dL through week 48 (97% vs 88% on Lupron). And 55% of men saw their testosterone return to 280+ ng/dL within 3 months.

You may disagree about whether these results constitute “better efficacy,” but then we *need* to have that conversation between us. It isn’t helpful for you to make a sweeping remark that does not teach me anything. I intend to beat this cancer—with a medical team that puts ME, not the disease, at center. A team that equips ME to be at the center of decision-making. –David

[Additional message #2]

When I said I was using supplements to support my health and my body’s cancer-fighting ability, your response was unhelpful and dismissive. [He had replied, rather patronizingly, that he didn’t put any stock in supplements, because he felt that simply eating a balanced diet provided everything necessary to good health. This not only underestimates the challenge of eating a balanced diet in a Western industrialized food system; it also dismisses knowledge about the benefits of plant-based medicinal supplements—some held by indigenous traditions and now confirmed by Western medicine.] I can respect your personal/professional opinion, but plenty of evidence-based literature [that is, peer-reviewed scientific studies published in medical journals] indicates supplements are a *reasonable* *thoughtful* option. So, I need you to respect my educated choices.

As I said, I am working with an integrative oncologist (an MD) to select supplements that support my overall health, strengthen my immune system—and don’t conflict with any of my prescription medications or other treatments. After reviewing my new meds with her on September 9, I’m discontinuing two supplements (and will likely replace them with others that don’t interact with my meds). I’ll update these on MyChart.

I’ve been on a steep learning curve since the severity of my cancer became clear to me in mid-June. I’m now an ardent self-advocate because our current medical model, despite all the “patient-centered” rhetoric, remains rife with disempowering dynamics.

This is a *partnership.* I welcome your medical expertise. You are brilliant in ways I am not. I need you to welcome *my* expertise—re: my values and goals for my treatment and my life. On these things I’m brilliant in ways you are not. Our *shared brilliance* is what matters. I can’t do this without you. But I can’t do it *with* you—unless you make the room (and the respect) for me in our conversations. Only that will allow me to make thoughtful informed choices about my care.

And that will require more complete, accurate, respectful communication than I experienced during our initial consultation on September 8. I hope we can approach the October 8 appointment with a better understanding of what I need and expect from you.

Sincerely, David

Too much? I hope not. I suppose we’ll find out on October 8 (or sooner, if he replies to my message.) If I need to find another medical oncologist, I will. Because I cannot—and will not—have one that doesn’t listen to me or talk with me. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s a brilliant doctor and could be a real asset to my care team. But only if he makes his brilliance useful to me. And I don’t have the time to take a wait-and-see approach about that.

Self-advocacy can seem brazen, almost rude. But if it requires a breach of politeness to determine whether he can align himself with my needs and expectations, well, fighting cancer on my terms is worth it. So, sorry. Not sorry.

I’ve been chronicling my prostate cancer journey since my diagnosis in January 2025.
Find my first set of blogs (January-June 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Innocence.
Find my second set of blogs (July-August 2025) in a pdf here: When Cancer Comes Calling: Awakening.
This essay is the first one in my third set (September 2025 and beyond): When Cancer Comes Calling: Soundings.

***

David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.   

Final Tumblers Before Treatment

Aug28

When Cancer Comes Calling – Book Two: Awakening
Final Tumblers Before Treatment
David R. Weiss – August 28, 2025

This is a last (and much shorter) post to conclude my “Awakening” around prostate cancer (PCa). As indicated in the Introduction to my last post, when my formal treatment begins this fall, I intend to post a series of “Soundings,” short reflections on my lived experience in cancer treatment itself.

My “awakening” began in mid-June with the prospect of hormone therapy as part of the next phase of cancer treatment. I describe this in greater detail in my previous post. In short, although I had prepared myself (at least in the abstract) for the possibility of needing radiation after surgery, I had not really even considered the possibility of hormone therapy.

Thankfully(!) there was a week delay between the recommendation and my scheduled injection of a first six-month dose of testosterone suppression medication. I shudder to think where I might be today if my urologist had prepped the injection in advance and suggested I simply take the shot that day. I probably would’ve accepted it—likely to my immense regret.

During the intervening week I read up on hormone therapy, more specifically, ADT (Androgen Deprivation Therapy). ADT, which can be done using a variety of drugs, basically suppresses testosterone. Bluntly, it chemically castrates a person.Because prostate cancer cells depend on testosterone to drive their growth, ADT very effectively slows the spread of PCa, often weakening the cancer cells and making it easier for radiation to kill them. But testosterone suppression comes with a host of potential side effects damn near as unnerving as the cancer itself. After a frantic deep dive into ADT, I had learned enough to be legitimately alarmed about it—and legitimately reluctant to agree to it.

I cancelled the injection and ultimately changed urologists. While likely within the range of “standard practice” for cancer care, the way this treatment had been presented to me felt like a betrayal of my interests and a breach of trust. Since then, I’ve spent the rest of my summer learning about PCa, asking questions of my doctors (occasionally pushing back on their answers), and assembling a medical care team that fits my twin desires: to understand treatment as deeply as possible and to feel centered as a person during that treatment. I want to ensure that DAVID—and not just the cancer—is being treated.

And yet, here I am now, in the waning days of summer, preparing to start ADT in the next couple of weeks. Well, what’s shifted to bring me to a place of grim, resolute calm about this perilous chemistry project about to play out in my own body? (Equally in my mind. And just as truly in my marriage.)

I titled this post “Final Tumblers” (thinking about the tumblers inside a lock) because one way to consider my reluctant resolve toward ADT is to identify the various tumblers that have all aligned to allow me to move forward. I’m not “excited” about this phase of treatment. Even if it drives my cancer into remission for years (that’s the goal) it will come at a cost I cannot gauge in advance, and a cost I cannot be assured will be worth it at the end. Even if it adds years to my life. This is risky business, with existential stakes. So, let me tell you about the tumblers that have aligned to make it a bearable risk.

1. The first tumbler was the recognition that my cancer is the killing kind. 85% of prostate cancers are low or intermediate risk. Even those are nothing to smirk at, but (caught early) they can almost always be successfully managed or treated. The other 15% is the killing kind. Aggressive, mean-spirited, and bent on building a nest in my bones. In fact, my particular PCa is in the upper range of that 15%. I wish I had understood that sooner. But as I’ve come to terms with it, I’ve come to realize that, in the face of such extreme risk, I may need to embrace equal risk in my treatment. Not happily, but with resolve. I think, humbly, of Warsan Shire’s poem about refugees, in which she writes with heart-rending poignancy, “No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” ADT may be my boat.

2. The second tumbler is having a medical team I trust. I should emphasize: nobody gave me poor care. But as a person driven by intellectual understanding, I needed every single person on my team to be forthcoming and transparent with me about my diagnosis and treatment options. Moreover, as someone deeply grounded in personal values and a sense of vocation, I needed a team able to recognize and honor those facets of me in the midst of shared decision-making—especially if we ever need to face even more harrowing choices. (Which, with high risk PCa is a distinct possibility.) It took some effort to make that happen; such a team doesn’t assemble itself by chance. But now, from my primary care physician to my urologist, radiation oncologist, and integrative oncologist, that team is in place.

3. The third tumbler is claiming agency in my day-to-day health. Guided by my own reading, I’ve adopted a whole set of dietary choices and plant-based supplements aimed to position my body to fight cancer alongside medical treatments. Ensuring that I am no mere bystander in my own care is critical to being able to “lean into” the storm. I’m confident the choices I’ve made thus far can support my health, but I’m especially glad to have the guidance of a trained integrative oncologist to help me further refine them. And I’ll be adding a variety of practices, ranging from active exercise to gentle movement and mindfulness in order to ensure I’m as active a participant as possible in my own care. 

4. The fourth tumbler is having extra medical support ready and waiting in the background. Although I’ve not yet tapped into them, I recently found out that my health care system (M Health Fairview) has a whole suite of Oncology Supportive Care Services. Through them I can access guidance for nutrition, exercise, and mental wellbeing, all specific to a cancer patient’s journey. I can access counseling, expertise for sexual health during cancer, and, if necessary, palliative care and a social worker. I may not need all of these services at the moment, but just knowing they’re available provides a level of added security. It’s like discovering my care team has a “deep bench” that I can draw on as the needs arise.

5. The fifth tumbler is having medical insurance that, while imperfect, is pretty expansive and pretty generous. While it stung earlier this year to pay out my entire deductible and out-of-pocket max for co-insurance over just the first 65 days of the year, since then my medical expenses have been 100% covered—and have far outstripped what we had to pay early on. Every procedure and medication recommended by my doctors has been approved for coverage (except for one medication, which wasn’t a big deal). That’s not true for everyone. Cancer is expensive, and financial anxiety—or worse, medical bankruptcy—can be a devastating side effect. Thankfully, I’ll be able to focus on the side effects going on in my body and psyche without worrying (too much) about what going on in my wallet.

6. The sixth tumbler is my (still) growing awareness of the multitude of support groups and other resources that offer insight, guidance, and solidarity on this path. Through online forums, social media, and in-person encounters, I’ve engaged with other men dealing with situations similar to mine. One of PCa’s most insidious “symptoms” is its capacity to isolate you. There is so much untapped energy and empowerment in sensing the solidarity of others alongside you. Solidarity may not be curative of the cancer, but it is healing of the isolation. I expect I’ll be deepening my connections with support groups, because having good roots here will help anchor me—and because it’s a good feeling to know that I can help anchor others.

One specific resource I’ve just acquired is Androgen Deprivation Therapy: An essential guide for prostate cancer patients and their loved ones (Wassersug, Walker, and Robinson, Demos Health-Springer Publishing, 2023, Third Edition). There are countless online discussion threads about ADT and plenty of stand-alone articles and videos about managing the side effects, but this book is the only comprehensive guide written collaboratively by PCa survivors and medical professionals and focused exclusively on the side effects of ADT. It addresses how to anticipate, understand, and (as best possible) manage the side effects, personally, socially, and in one’s intimate relationships. Arranged as a workbook (ideally read and discussed with a partner or close friend), it just arrived two days ago, and it already feels like I’ve received a compass designed to help me navigate this unknown land—with Margaret at my side.

7. Last, but far from least, the seventh and final tumbler to slide into place has been the understanding of family and friends. Over the past two months, I’ve been able to bring family and friends up to speed on what this fraught path means for me. While I politely accept the well-wishes that say, “I’m sure everything will work out. I know you’ve got this,” the truth is I’m not at all sure ‘everything will work out,’ and I’ve read far more about my PCa than anyone who tells me that. I’m not at all sure that ‘I’ve got this.’ And words of encouragement that strike me as naïve don’t actually deliver encouragement at all. What actually does feel good is the much humbler pledge of simple solidarity: “Wherever this leads, David, we’ll be there with you and for you. And with and for Margaret, too.” That’s gold.

If my writing has been stark over these past two posts, it’s been so to make sure that the support I have, meets me where I am. I need the support of family and friends—Margaret does, too. But I can’t afford for that support to be rooted elsewhere than in the stark reality that I/we are facing. I’m glad to say my family and friends have taken the time to read my words carefully and do their best to hear me. I am not giving up, but neither am I interested in pretending that the odds are on my side. They’re not. Which is why it matters all the more to know that the people who love me are on my side—and that they’re not pretending about the odds either.

With those seven tumblers in place—a dire diagnosis, a medical team I trust, agency in my own health, supportive services from my care provider, solid insurance, resources from the PCa community, and the love and solidarity of family and friends—I am at last ready to move forward with ADT and radiation. With something akin to grim, resolute calm.

An extra word about the final tumbler in my medical team

Last week Margaret and I met with and confirmed the last member of my team, a radiation oncologist. During that consultation (and then reflecting on that appointment with each other over supper afterwards) I could feel the final tumbler falling into place. What made me so sure she was the right person to complete my team? In a word, “kindness.”

Actually, it was a lot more than just that. She’s an excellent teacher; she thoroughly explained her plans for my cancer treatment, pulling up the two PET scans (January and June) that showed my one lymph node glowing brightly with its “cancer signature.” It was very evident that she’d carefully reviewed my medical records, including the notes from other physicians. She entered the room ready to discuss my ADT reservations with care. She’d even reached out in advance to a medical oncologist colleague of hers about getting me a hurry-up appointment for a final consultation regarding one other medication I might want to consider adding to my treatment.

She was honest and forthright; this is a big deal in my book! I asked if she considered my cancer “curable,” and she minced no words. “Most doctors agree, once the cancer has reached the lymph nodes—and if we can see cancer in one of your lymph nodes, the odds are that it’s microscopically present in others—a full cure is no longer possible. What I can tell you, is that I’ll be treating you with curative intent, meaning the goal of my treatment is to push the cancer far enough back that you have at least five years before it shows itself again.”

As we discussed my apprehension about ADT, she reviewed the possible side effects and identified some basic ways to mitigate them. She also made two commitments that earned my trust. First, she was quick to support my desire to use relugolix (brand name, Orgovyx) as my preferred ADT drug. It’s a newer drug that seems to have fewer side effects. Plus, it’s a daily oral pill while every other ADT drug comes as a time-release injection lasting one to six months. Thus, Orgovyx offers the quickest “emergency off-ramp” should the side effects ever become intolerable—and the quickest return to normal (fingers crossed) afterwards.

However, because Orgovyx is still relatively new, there’s no generic version on the market yet. So, it’s not covered by most insurance plans (including mine) without prior authorization based on a doctor’s clear recommendation. I needed her explicit support for it to be affordable. Based on my concerns, she submitted a prescription request that won approval from my insurance. Orgovyx is a $3500 per month medication (most cancer drugs are pricey), but it’s now fully covered by my insurance. Honoring my peace of mind in using my “drug of choice” and getting it cleared for insurance—that’s trust-worthy right there.

Second, and just as importantly, knowing that Standard of Care (Western medicine “best practices”) guidelines recommend 24 months of ADT for high-risk cancer, she nevertheless pledged to support me if I chose to stop at any point before that. She heard my concerns regarding the toll that ADT can take on a man—physically, psychologically, emotionally, relationally, and (in my case) vocationally by potentially disrupting or even diminishing my ability to write. She recognized that, for me, beating cancer could not be the singular goal. And she promised to work with me to honor my other “quality of life” goals, even if that meant easing up on my cancer treatment.

Further, when I shared my interest in using integrative medicine to support my body’s own capacity to fight against cancer, she explained that, in fact, (and in ways not yet fully understood) the combination of ADT and radiation seems also to fight cancer in part by creating openings for the immune system to act with its own lethal force against cancer cells alongside these other treatments. And she affirmed her willingness to respect the guidance of my integrative oncologist on how to adjust my plant-supplement regime to work well with the rest of my treatment. Because the effects of radiation on my cancer will continue unfold for several months after my active treatment ends, acknowledging this partnership between ADT, radiation, and my own strengthened immune response can make a big difference.

This value of trust in this doctor-patient relationship is amplified by one of the quirks of using ADT in combination with radiation. The surest way to track my cancer’s progress—and to know the success (or failure) of our treatment efforts—is by monitoring my PSA score. The rising or (hopefully!) receding presence of PSA (prostate specific antigen) in my blood will tell us whether we’ve beaten the cancer back. Except—ADT by its very nature as a testosterone suppressor—renders a PSA score meaningless for as long as I’m on hormone therapy. Actually for a few months longer, since we’ll only get an accurate PSA when my testosterone bounces back several months after ADT ends.

In other words, for at least the next year, as we hit this cancer as much force as I can bear, we will have no way of knowing whether we’re doing any good or not. I’ll need to trust her care, care that may take a toll on me in multiple ways, because the entire time I’m in treatment, we’ll be flying through dense fog, with no way to get our bearings until we come out on the far side—a year or more later. That’s some trust. And she earned it.

In all these ways, my radiation oncologist proved herself the right person to complete my team. But let me come back to that word, “kindness.” There were several radiation oncologists I could’ve met with. Each with impeccable credentials. But this radiation oncologist highlighted the value of kindness in her brief online statement about her understanding of medical care. That’s a rare word to appear in any doctor’s description of their approach to medicine. Everything about her ended up impressing me. But it was the mention of kindness that first got me through the door. I’m so glad it did. And I told her so.

My cancer calendar

With all the tumblers in place, it’s time for this phase of treatment to begin. Here’s how.

Just this morning I had blood drawn for some labs. This will let my integrative oncologist adjust my supplements as she thinks best to support me during treatment.

On September 5 I have a consultation with a medical oncologist about whether to add abiraterone to my ADT regime. Recent evidence suggests that in high risk PCa, combining abiraterone with traditional ADT offers a dramatic increase in effectiveness. Still, while ADT is sometimes called chemical castration, using abiraterone is sometimes called androgen annihilation. It doubles down on the absolute erasure of androgens in the body, but it also doubles down on potential side effects. (And requires the addition of another medication, prednisone, just to offset its side effects.)

I’ll say more about this after the consultation. For now, my radiation oncologist believes the research makes it worth my thoughtful consideration, but she is emphatic that only I can make this decision. Trust. We’ll see what the medical oncologist can tell me.

Sometime soon after the September 5 consultation I’ll start taking relugolix/Orgovyx, with or without abiraterone. The “loading dose” is three pills; after that it’s one pill per day. In less than a week my testosterone will be gone. Part of the purpose of beginning ADT now is to wear down the cancer cells for a month before radiation begins.

On September 9 I’ll meet with my integrative oncologist to review labs results, go over any adjustments to my supplements, and discuss any other integrative supports she can offer now that the rest of my treatment is scheduled.

On September 12, I’ll have surgery to repair my incisional hernia. This was an unfortunate souvenir from my prostate surgery, an unexpected complication that appeared over the summer. I think it was present even sooner, but I initially misinterpreted it as a “slab” of scar tissue that would eventually soften and disappear. Nope. It grew and bulged. Oops. In any case, the repair, like the prostatectomy, will be done robotically—though this time as an outpatient procedure. My overflowing innards will be tucked back in place and stitched up, now with a piece of tissue-friendly mesh for reinforcement. As I heal, my body tissue will wed itself to the mesh, hopefully creating a much stronger incision site than the last one.

That repair might seem like a minor footnote in my treatment, but it’s actually critical because one of the best ways—one of the only ways—to stave off the loss of muscle (and the gain belly fat) when testosterone is shut down, is through persistent weight training. Not to become a body builder; just to hold onto as much of my “masculine” body structure as possible without testosterone. Some of this is psychological self-care; some of it is also preventative medical care because absent testosterone, the male body is prone to bone weakness and heart problems. I’ll want to commence weight training with caution post-hernia repair, but also in earnest.

On September 24 I’ll have my radiation “mapping” procedure. I’ll climb up on the table and the radiation oncologist records all manner of bodily reference points to make sure that each time the machine is fired up, its beams are aimed exactly where we want them to be—and nowhere that we don’t want them to go. At each actual treatment, they’ll use this set of reference points to ensure that the machine and I are in sync.

On or around October 6 (it takes about ten days to do the computer modeling so all the beams are coordinated), I’ll begin 33 sessions of radiation. Five days on; then the weekend off to rest and heal. Then again, and again, for seven-and-a-half weeks. Around November 19 those treatments will conclude, although the “echo” of the damage done to the cancer should reverberate into March 2026. ADT will continue in the background at least that long as well. If I can tolerate it, it may run through next summer. And, of course, my own immune system will be busy the whole time, too.

So many tumblers. All lining up. Just now. Just so. Hopefully to make this treatment both successful and endurable. Each of you reading is one of those tumblers, too. Falling graciously into place to help unlock the path forward. As I’ve come to realize how precarious this journey will be—both the diagnosis and the treatment—I’ve become equally aware of how precious every companion on this path is. Including you.

Thanks for reading—for keeping me company along the way. 

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.