The Eulogy for Liz Winkel

Apr17

The Eulogy for Liz Winkel
David Weiss & Margaret Schuster – April 13

On Monday, April 13, we held the funeral for our neighbor, Elizabeth “Liz” Winkel. It was a tender gathering, with a mix of elderly friends, extended family, and neighbors. (Liz was not in regular contact with much of her family, but we found her 2024 and 2025 Christmas cards and tracked down contact info for those persons, as well as her closest lifelong friends.)

We selected a few readings that we felt reflected who Liz was. These were read by family and a friend. Margaret sang two beautiful solos: How Great Thou Art and You Have Come Down to the Lakeshore (in honor of Liz’s love for Como Lake). The funeral home arranged for a pianist, a second soloist, and a Catholic deacon to preside. It was a very meaningful service to memorialize Liz. Afterwards, most of those who came rejoined us at the cemetery where Liz was laid to rest.

The deacon speaks the final blessing on Liz.

Below are the readings we selected, followed by the eulogy that Margaret and I gave.

THE READINGS

1. Liz appreciated the wisdom of the Trappist monk and mystic Thomas Merton. Perhaps these words of Merton echo in Liz’s soul:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your Will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

2. Liz was transformed by her years in Young Catholic Workers. She longed to be part of making a world where justice and equality rang true. This reading is from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, chapter 3, verses 26-28:

For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

3. Liz loved it as her yard came back to life in the spring—to see the grass become green and to watch for the first flowers to appear. This reading is from the 35th chapter of Isaiah, verses 1-4:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, the ground shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. It shall be as beautiful as the forests of Lebanon, as majestic as the hills of Carmel, and as fertile as the meadows of Sharon.

All people shall see the glory of the Lord, the wondrous power of God, who strengthens the weak hands and makes firm the feeble knees. Say now to those with an anxious heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Your God has come to save you.”

4. One of Liz’s favorite writers was the British novelist, Rosamunde Pilcher. She had hand-copied this quote from the novel September in a reading journal she kept:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well.

THE EULOGY

Margaret:

We’re going to share a few memories of Liz … working backward in time.

Liz spent 17 days in United hospital from March 17-April 2. Just two days before, on March 15, we had 14.7” snow that David, our housemate, Fernando, and I cleared the snow off Liz’s sidewalk and steps. She peeked out her blinds at one point and I waved to her. She’d also talked to a couple of her friends that day, so we knew she was up and moving around her house on March 15. On March 17, after not hearing from her for over 24 hours, David and I got into her house, found her sitting on her TV room floor, eyes open, dressed in daytime clothes, and when asked what happened, she said, “One minute I was up and the next I was down here.” But she couldn’t say how long she’d been there.

We called the paramedics and off we went to the hospital. While there, she had a battery of tests – all seemed normal, except to receive confirmation of significant brain tissue deterioration due to Lewy Body Dementia – a diagnosis David, Liz, and I just learned about on March 3 – Liz’s 89th birthday.

Liz experienced ups and downs while in the hospital – seeing people in the room or outside her window, many hours deeply sleeping, and spending a good number of days in delirium. One wakeful day, we had a most extraordinary conversation with her – one that was deeply and emotionally honest. That day, Liz was very aware that she had lost a grip on her mind and on life. She told us she felt like she was moving in a fog and had lost pieces of herself that she could not get back. She could pluck things out of the fog, but much of life was not within her reach. She said, “I think I understand now how people feel when they have a brain concussion or wake up after a car accident. Nothing makes sense to me.”

We accompanied her into this grave uncertainty – hearing her pain, knowing she’d been off balance for a number of months, and that there wasn’t anything we could do about it. Even the doctors, nurses, social worker, and palliative care staff rode a roller coaster with her care options. They had us look at transitional care facilities, then briefly considered long-term care, then memory care, and finally said Liz was ready for hospice.

David and I knew Liz desperately wanted to die at home – she’d been clear about this for many years. And we wanted to honor her desire. We hired a home hospice agency and an agency that could provide 24-hour home care. We recruited friends and neighbors for a “cleaning day” so that the house would be ready to welcome Liz home and to provide a welcoming environment for the care givers. When we told her she was coming home … she smiled and squeezed my hand. And we moved her home on April 2 – Maundy Thursday. Once home, she spent several hours weeping, covering her face with her hands, expending all the emotions she’d had pent up. We’re sure she was well aware she was home – and was home to die. Some of her dearest friends and neighbors stopped by to visit her, and as you are all aware, she passed peacefully in her sleep on Easter Day. 

David:

Over the past couple of years—especially the last couple of months—Liz’s life became more precarious as Lewy Body Dementia took over. She rarely slept well; her walk became a shuffle; her balance was always off; and her memory for daily tasks became unreliable. More recently, her world became populated by hallucinations left and right. Small animals and people became constant fixtures in her home. We steadied her life as best we could: cutting the lawn, shoveling the walk, putting the air conditioners in and out, taking her grocery shopping every Sunday. Assisting with a multitude of tasks that were now overwhelming for her. Eventually reading and explaining her mail to her. We knew this couldn’t continue forever, but we knew Liz couldn’t bear to think of living anywhere else than this house, where she’d been born 89 years ago.

Margaret:

In 2002, we moved in next door to Liz. She was busy caring for her mom and we were busy with our blended household of 5 kids and two cats. As neighbors do, we mostly waved at each other coming or going from our front doors because our lives did not have many spare moments to develop a deeper friendship.

Liz often talked how much she loved our neighborhood – for good reason. There were a number of families with young kids and lots of neighbors who had lived in their homes for decades. And although Liz often preferred the quiet of her house or backyard, she seemed to know – or was always curious about – the comings and goings of the neighborhood.

Plus, as a natural historian, Liz was always eager to share the history—and the colorful shenanigans—of other homes on the block.

David:

Liz often reminisced about her time in Young Christian Workers, which she was part of for about a decade, starting at 19. Small groups of young adults met weekly to discuss the moral challenges of their lives—and of larger society. They reflected together on Scripture and church teaching. And they committed to act. YCW changed Liz’s life in two profound ways.

First, it gifted her with deep friendships borne of mutual vulnerability. Many of these friendships followed her for the rest of her life.

Besides this, YCW ignited her passion for a more just world. In the late 1950’s she went door to door in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood striking up conversations about racial equality. Years later she handed out leaflets encouraging shoppers to boycott lettuce to support farm worker justice. Liz could taste that better world.

One extraordinary anecdote shows this. In 1962, at age 25, Liz left a promising career as a retail buyer at The Emporium, a local upscale department store. Fueled by the ideals of YCW, she joined the staff of the Catholic Bulletin, the newspaper of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Archdiocese. She was eager to help the church … be the church.

Two years later the newsroom staff unionized and began bargaining for a first contract. The publisher’s initial offer was abysmal. Liz took it to her YCW group. They discussed it, drawing on Pope Leo XIII’s social messages on labor. Then, risking her job, Liz wrote a letter to Archbishop Leo Binz, quoting from several papal messages and asking what they were worth if even within the church they weren’t lived up to?

Four days later the publisher made a second offer. It was astonishingly fair. The publisher told Liz that the archbishop had called him into his office, thrown Liz’s letter across the desk, and told him to offer a decent contract or he would shut the paper down.

Think about that. At age 27, Liz leveraged her YCW training into prompting an archbishop to direct a publisher to make a more just world possible right then and there.

Margaret:

Liz was 65 when we moved in and lived a lot of life before we really got to know her. And we were graced with accompanying her into her next life. But her physical presence is still very much here … in her writings, newspaper clippings she kept, photo albums of the many trips she took, readers journals, and more. We are discovering the Liz we never knew… the Liz many of you interacted with. And it is an honor to be on that path.   

One of the greatest gifts we experienced was getting to know some of Liz’s dearest friends. As we truly became her go-to people, she was more willing to share her friends with us. Sometimes at their urging, but often of her own accord, she’d share their phone numbers with us. Then if they couldn’t get ahold of Liz, they’d call us and over time, many of these calls turned into longer conversations about their concerns for Liz and her needs. We all loved Liz and wanted the best for her.

I pray this prayer of Young Christian Workers at the grave.

David:

As we consider the whole of Liz’s life, there is as much loss as there is promise. She went from the Catholic Bulletin to hold two positions in religious education—very successfully. Both times she was ultimately betrayed by the men above her. The exact details matter less after all these years than the deep wounds they left on Liz. Ever a Catholic in her heart, she came to distrust the church and resolved to keep herself at a safe distance.

We knew Liz only over the last two decades of her life. You might say we knew her when the promise of her life had faded. Still, we befriended her. Against all odds we won her trust. Alongside the faltering foibles of her latter years, she offered us shimmering glimpses of who she once was. And we came to love all of Liz, just the same. We didn’t plan on that. We were just trying to be good neighbors. But Liz needed us to be so much more. And somehow—by grace—we became the people she needed us to be.

We moved heaven and earth to bring Liz home at the end. And then there is this deep mystery. Liz Winkel, lapsed-devout Catholic, entered hospice on Maundy Thursday as Holy Week turned toward its conclusion. And she barely but resolutely clung to life until Easter Sunday, when she finally answered Jesus’ call to go home.

Liz, we were so glad to know you, to discover you, and to love you from earth all the way to heaven.

Liz told one of her closest friends that she prayed this prayer daily. I prayed it on her behalf as the last words spoken at her grave.

***

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.

Bringing Liz Home (RIP – April 5, 2026)

Apr6

Bringing Liz Home (RIP – April 5, 2026)
David R. Weiss – April 2, 2026

This tale is built of a million shards, some jagged, others glistening. I can’t pick up them all. And there are simply too many places to begin, so I will begin here, there, and everywhere.

In 2002, Margaret and I—a year married but finally able to live together—moved with our children into the house next to Liz. She was 65 that year, tending her elderly mom. Today Margaret and I are 66 … tending an elderly Liz.

In 1937 Liz was born in this house. She moved into her own apartment as a young woman, but at some point she moved back home. She helped her mom care for her dad whose health waned for years following a heart attack, then stayed to keep her mom company after he died, then stayed to care for mom. Altogether, Liz has lived about 87 of her 89 years in this house. No wonder she was determined to die here, too.

About three years ago, Liz—by then an aging 86-year-old—began to lose things: her watch, wallet, credit card, checkbook, telephone handset … and finally her mind. She found them all sooner or later (or we found them for her). Even her mind. Until that developed a mind of its own: Lewy Body Dementia. After that, no matter how much we chased it, her mind was always a step ahead of all of us.

Thursday morning at the hospital, waiting for the ambulance to arrive to take Liz home, Claire from Palliative Care stopped by for the third time. She’d helped us navigate the decision to shift Liz to comfort care as a prelude to home hospice. “Hi, David, how are you doing?” I started to reply, but my words were already awash in my throat. “It’s … a lot,” I croaked, my voice breaking. “Yes, it is,” she said. “These can be hard days.” Through my tears I explained, “This isn’t sadness. It’s awe at being trusted by another person—who has no one else—to hold their life in our hands and our heart. So many feels, and today they just overwhelm me.” “You and Margaret have done a … very … good thing.” My tears trickled down in agreement.

In high school Liz got a job in the boys clothing department at The Emporium (think a locally owned Macy’s Department Store). By age 19 she was their youngest and first woman buyer, travelling to New York to help select items for the next season. She was being groomed to be a senior buyer, but after several years she left. She remained a sharp dresser until her latter years, but she preferred variety to advancement in her jobs.

The first few years we lived next to Liz we barely knew her. She was busy with her mom. We were busy with our own lives and our kids. We waved to each other as we came and went and exchanged pleasantries across the fence. Nothing suggested we would carry her into hospice at home.

In the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s Liz was potential in every direction. Every job had its own set of stories. Margaret and I heard many of them. Over these decades she worked for the telephone company, a Catholic parish, the Minnesota Attorney General, a bank, an insurance company, a plumbing shop, and many others. She seemed to excel at everything. After writing family and children curriculum for her local parish, the bishop, who was being moved to Washington D.C. to establish the new (Vatican II inspired) US Catholic Conference, asked Liz to come with him to D.C.—to help shape Catholic education nationally. She considered it—she respected and admired the bishop—but ultimately chose to stay near her family. Until all the family she’d stayed here to be near died and left her all alone.

Around fifteen years ago we slowly but surely became Liz’s family. I took over cutting the grass and shoveling the walk. Putting in and pulling out her three window air conditioners each season. Pleasantries across the fence became longer conversations—including colorful tales about the house we’d bought since she’d witnessed generations of shenanigans next door. Eventually, the three of us went grocery shopping every Sunday. I pushed one cart for our groceries while Margaret walked with Liz, reading the shopping list Liz couldn’t make out for herself.

My hand, Margaret’s hand, and Liz’s hand on the covers of her hospice bed.

Liz’s life was transformed in her twenties by her participation in Young Christian Workers, a Catholic young adult program that blended education, critical thinking, faith, and action. Some of Liz’s dearest and longest friendships date from her YCW days. From attending conference around the Midwest to the many YCW get togethers she hosted in her own home, this circle of friends became a second family to her. Many were scattered over the years; by now most have died as well. But a couple of them remain: a silver thread running through seven decades of Liz’s life.

On March 17, we found Liz on the floor in her TV room, awake and upright, but with no memory of how she got there or how long she’d been there (somewhere between 2 and 22 hours). She assured us she could get up. It was perhaps the most preposterous thing she ever told us. And over the past year Lewy-Body-Liz said some pretty preposterous things. Liz couldn’t get up to save her life. (Turns out that was all too true.) When the EMTs (after checking her out) lifted her to her feet, she couldn’t put any weight on her left leg. No broken bones but it seems she badly twisted it on the way to the ground. Liz wouldn’t get up ever again. And so here we are today.

Over the past several years, Margaret and I resolved all manner of little troubles for Liz. From fixing her TV remote to reassuring her that she didn’t need to respond to that letter about her home warranty running out. We made sure her property tax got paid and that her cable got cancelled—soon after which she could no longer remember how to work the remote.

Just a day before she died her friends Bill (88) and Mike (82) came by to see her. Unplanned, they arrived within minutes coming from opposite directions. Liz was aware enough to know they were there; she managed a couple sort of twisted smiles and offered several garbled comments in response to the many memories Bill and Mike recounted from childhood antics to YCW adventures. Seated on either side of her bed, they regaled Liz (and us) for nearly two hours. Liz fell asleep before they left. These were her last moments of awareness—they were moments of joy.

Bill (88) and Mike (82), having exhausted Liz with the joy of their presence.

Quite a few of Liz’s other neighbors on Blair knew her. She was something of a keeper of neighborhood lore, and most of us who got to know Liz even a little bit received from her unexpected trinkets of history, legend, gossip about the earlier occupants of their house. She loved telling these tales. It was her way of weaving community across the generations in each house.

In 2023, Liz made the two of us (me and Margaret) her health care agents, co-executors of her will, and power of attorney over her affairs. At the time she still felt quite in power of everything herself, though, truth be told, the precarity of her power was building with each passing week.

On her second day in the hospital, Liz had her last day (ever)—and her first day (ever)—of genuine clarity regarding her circumstances. As we sat with her, she explained with painful honesty how lost she felt—as though part of her had gone missing, and she couldn’t find the missing part. No desperate abstract reflection, she was speaking from inside the lostness itself. We knew the name Lewy Body Dementia and the list of symptoms. Liz had been swallowed entirely by the inner chaos of it. Her walk had become a shuffle; her sleep a wishful idea; her executive function no longer functional; and her world populated by more hallucinations than real people. On this day alone, we heard Liz speak plaintively from within this swirling chaos—fully aware of it for a passing moment, but unable to find her bearing. With Lewy Body Dementia there are no bearings. Margaret and I knew that … from a safe distance. Liz was knowing it up close and speaking that anguish—as it tore her apart. And we held her in helpless love as she was swept away.

One of Liz’s dear friends from YCW days is Marilyn. They met at a conference in Chicago in 1963 and became pen pals, phone pals, and more through the ensuing decades. Marilyn, now 86 and living in Portland, Oregon, remains quite a traveler. For years she invited Liz to travel with her. For just as many years Liz demurred. We know she took trips into her 60’s: there are photo albums to prove that. But at some point, Liz decided to stay home for good. Marilyn would call Liz from her travels and recount her adventures of the day by weaving Liz directly into them: “Let me tell you what Liz and I did today …” That’s friendship.

We’ve gotten to know Marilyn a bit ourselves as we’ve kept her updated by phone and text on this last trip Liz will take. The two of them spoke by phone for the final time last Saturday. Since then, Liz has gone radio silent. Moving steadily toward completion, pulling her energy, her self, ever inward.

Altogether Liz spent seventeen days at United Hospital. Initially the doctors and therapists thought a stay at a transitional care unit (for physical and occupational therapy) would be her stepping stone into long term care or memory care someplace. But Liz’s leg never regained its power, and each day of continued immobility cost the other leg strength as well. Plus, her dementia severely limited her ability to follow instructions or even pay attention. We were regularly joined by children painting on the wall, a parade of adults strolling by, and others whom she was sure wanted a taste of her meal.

Then there was the delirium—when she slept all day for 5-6 days in a row and another couple at the end, never waking, but moaning and offering garbled remarks, free for the taking. Those days she barely ate. By Day 11 the hospital staff suggested it was time to consider hospice. No restorative measures were going to offer any gains for Liz. So, with our consent, we turned to comfort care and began exploring what it would mean to bring Liz into home hospice in her home.

Theoretically, we could have brought her home into hospice at our home. That might have been marginally more convenient for us (though with its own mighty challenges and complications), but we never considered it. Liz had been clear and consistent over the years. “I just want to die in this house. It’s where I feel most safe.”

By the time she was carried in on Thursday she hadn’t eaten for days. And her eyes only fluttered open on occasion. Her ears only very rarely perked up any sound. And her voice mumbled from somewhere far away. Still, the familiar smells carried the scent of safety. From wood floors to ancient carpets to roving dust bunnies (mostly vacuumed in advance) and the million magic spices in the air, this house reaches into Liz’s labored breathing and whispers, “Welcome home, we’re so glad you came.”

The home care coordinator and I hold Liz, keeping her grounded, amid her sobs of awe.

Indeed, as we settled her into the hospital bed, liz did something she hadn’t done before: opened her mouth and wept. Not loud weeping. It was more a shoulder-trembling mouth-wide-open silent sob. For two hours. We were transfixed. Margaret, me, the home health coordinator, and the hospice nurse. We tried to comfort Liz, but nothing worked. Ultimately, I decided (I do not know, but I believe) that what we witnessed was Liz’s two-fold recognition that she was finally home and that the only thing left to do was to die. I didn’t hear pain or grief or fear in her sobs. I heard the emotion of sheer awe. Overwhelming, wordless, nothing but tears and sobs could give it voice.

Before Liz came home, we needed to arrange for 24/7 wakeful presence in the house. Margaret and I could keep vigil long hours with Liz, but we’d need to sleep, too. (It being Holy Week, Margaret had a full slate of choir-singing at church.) We also chose a hospice agency to coordinate Liz’s end-of-life care. And we cleaned. Liz was actually pretty fastidious, even as age and dementia slowed her down. On a day’s notice, seven neighbors showed up to prepare her dining room for a hospice bed, raise some shades, chase down cobwebs and dust bunnies, give her bathroom and kitchen a thorough cleaning, and tackle her fridge—the only project that was a bit scary.

Thursday, as I rounded the corner to Liz’s room, I passed a pair of hospital social workers. Linda had given us leads on hospice and home care agencies days earlier and had been at pains to make sure we understood what we were getting ourselves into. I had just cared for my dad through home hospice in February, so we had a pretty good idea—although providing home hospice in someone else’s home is a unique undertaking. But as I passed Linda I turned back and told her, my eyes brimful of joy, “We’re ready. We have hospice and home care lined up. The house has been cleaned; the bed was delivered yesterday. And today we bring Liz home.” It’s possible my voice cracked with emotion. Linda beamed. I’m not sure how often hospital social workers get to beam, but on Thursday Linda did. She said, “You two make my heart happy. Thank you for being there for Liz.” It’s possible her eyes sparkled with a tear as she spoke.

Countless people—nurses, aides, friends—have told us we did something extraordinary. And we don’t argue with that. But I think we understand that the really extraordinary thing is that we (me and Margaret) found each other. We couldn’t do a fraction of this on our own. But as a couple we amplify each other’s better angels. We reach after goodness in so many ways we’re no longer surprised—but never less than delighted—by the things we manage to pull off.

Once Liz stopped sobbing, she breathed. Quiet, labored, sonorous in turn. Heaving at times. Groaning now and then. We repositioned her, gave her comfort meds, swabbed her mouth to keep it moist, combed her hair, lotioned her skin. Anything to ease the transition. But this last step was for Liz to take on her own. She seemed to spend much of Friday and Saturday near the edge. Her breath would slow, or her body would stiffen, and we’d think, this is the moment. But it never was.

We found a small book (a reading journal) in which Liz had collected favorite quotes from her current reading in the late 1980’s. As she crested fifty, she was enamored with woman’s self-worth and gender equality in both society and church. We took turns reading these quotes to her as she slept. They hinted at a woman far more daring in her ideas than 80-year old Liz, whose worldview was shaped around the fear mongered by talking heads on right-wing TV.

On Easter Sunday, Mary Jane (89) stopped by. Friends since elementary school and later YCW, they spoke on the phone regularly in their 80’s. By the time she came to visit, Liz was wholly unaware. There was no twisted smile or garbled rejoinders today. But Mary Jane greeted Liz nonetheless, told her what a good friend she was, and then chatted with us for thirty minutes about the Liz she knew. When she left, Margaret and I accompanied her outside to her car because she’s gotten pretty unsteady on her feet.

Unbeknownst to us, as we crossed the street to Mary Jane’s parked car, Liz was inside taking her last quick gasps of air. Alaysia, the home care aide on duty leapt to Liz’s side and held her hand until she was still. She knew Liz wanted someone near when she died. Only then did Alaysia come to the door and call us in.

We called hospice and did some cleaning. We hugged Alaysia in gratitude for her steady caring presence to Liz over the past three days. To be fair, we were moving in a bit of a daze. Overtired and overwrought. But this was the sweetness in our hug at the end: some three years ago Liz asked us to make choices for her if it ever came to that. We knew what she wanted. And with the help of many others, but especially the grit and love between us, we chose to bring Liz home. And we did. And now, having taken that last leap on her own, she was.

Home.

***

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.

This entry was posted on April 6, 2026. 1 Comment

Frederick Albert Weiss – September 26, 1936-February 14, 2026

Feb16

NOTE: My dad’s funeral service (2/20 @11a) will be live-streamed from the church’s Facebook page.

Frederick Albert Weiss was born to Robert and Hilda Weiss on September 26, 1936, in Michigan City. The oldest of five children, he was baptized at St. Paul Lutheran Church and grew up on the west side with the dunes as his backyard. He attended St. Paul Lutheran Day School and graduated from Elston High School in 1954.

In 1955 he met the love of his life, Carol Belling, when she came to Michigan City to teach at the Lutheran Day School. They were married in 1957 and for nearly 66 years the sun rose and set on their love. As Alzheimer’s Disease claimed more and more of Carol’s mind, Fred remained her beloved companion and caregiver until her death in 2022.

Fred studied drafting at Purdue Northwest, eventually finding work as a draftsman for Clark Equipment Brown Trailer in Michigan City. He worked for Clark for the next 35 years, including stints with Clark Michigan (Benton Harbor) and VME (Euclid, Ohio). While with Clark, Fred created his “Pray for Snow” festival which featured the annual hanging of the namesake plaque, much to the delight (or chagrin) of his workmates.

After retiring from VME as an engineering manager, Fred spent the next 11 years as a part-time bagger and delivery driver for Al’s Supermarket on Karwick Road. This “second career” allowed his conviviality and sense of service to flourish. During these years, the “Pray for Snow” party came home, becoming a treasured herald of the winter season for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Together, Fred and Carol raised four children in a home filled with family, faith, and love. Besides providing for his family, Fred was a devoted husband and father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Ever ready to play a board game or card game, read a book aloud, write a special note, or share tales of family history, their home became one where welcome ran wide and deep.

Fred was active at St. Paul Lutheran throughout his life, serving on the Day School board, the church council, and as congregational president. He was also a deacon and a Sunday school teacher. In church nearly every Sunday with Carol, they brought communion to homebound members for years.

In the early 2000’s Fred (and Carol) became active in Al-Anon through Dunes House, supporting each other and their son, Don, in his recovery journey. Fred spoke publicly at Al-Anon meetings across NW Indiana for several years. Around that same time (and likely as an extension of his love for Don) Fred started volunteering weekly with PADS (Public Action Providing Shelter), the precursor to Nest Community shelter, when it began as a men’s shelter rotating through church basements. For nineteen years (into his early 80’s!) he covered the 10pm to 4am shift every Friday night from October to April—some 535 Friday nights. In 2024 Nest honored him as the inaugural recipient of the Weiss Award for his dedicated service as a volunteer. Fred would say the real honor was to have served those in need.

Over the past year, as Fred’s health challenges multiplied, he had to learn how to be the one in need. His caregivers—in hospitals, rehab units, and at home—consistently marveled at his gentle good humor, even as his body’s pains grew. At the end, at Franciscan Hospital, he knew one thing: that he wished to go home. And so, his children brought him home and kept vigil with him, until he died peacefully in a bed set in the living room of the home he had so filled with love. Thanks be to God.

Fred is survived by children David (Margaret Schuster), Deon (Jerry) Bishop, and Deborah (Leroy) Reagor; brothers Philip and James; and a host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife Carol, oldest son Don, sisters Suzanne and Judith, and parents Robert and Hilda.

Visitation will be Thursday, Feb. 19 from 5pm to 8pm at Geisen-Carlisle funeral home, 613 Washington St., Michigan City, IN. Funeral service on Friday, Feb. 20 at 11am, with additional visitation from 10am to 11am before the service at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 818 Franklin St., Michigan City, IN. Burial will follow in Greenwood Cemetery.

Fred would be honored by memorials to one of his beloved causes: Nest Community Shelter (1001 W. 8th St., Michigan City / www.nestcommunityshelter.org) or Dunes House (211 E. 6th St., Michigan City / www.duneshouse.org).

This entry was posted on February 16, 2026. 1 Comment

Dad Seizes the Day

Feb6

Dad Seizes the Day
David R. Weiss –February 4, 2026

In my last post I described how, after five weeks in rehab following sepsis, we moved Dad into Trail Creek Place, an assisted living facility just a mile from the house that’s been his home for the past 61 years.

About this move I wrote: “He would’ve preferred to die at home. But he can’t live at home any longer, so he might not get to die there either. (Spoiler alert, I have promised him that if he wishes to go home when the end is near, to take his final breaths in that house, I will make that happen. But he is so weary by now, that I’m not sure he much cares. Still, that’s his call if he chooses.)”

It turns out he does still much care. On Monday night we met with a nurse from Franciscan Hospice at the hospital to discuss his transition to hospice on his discharge from the hospital and return to Trail Creek Place. When the nurse asked Dad if he was okay with that plan, his response hit me hard. “Well, I think it’s the way it has to be.” If you know mild-mannered Fred Weiss, you know that’s Fred-speak for “Hell no! I’m not okay with it. It’s the only option I see left.”

At that point I swiftly interjected—to remind Dad of the solemn vow I made a month ago when he was still in rehab: “Dad, you only get one choice here. Wherever you start hospice is where you’ll end hospice. So, you need to make the choice you want. And if you want to die at home, you need to say that tonight. Because I promised you, if you want that, we will make that possible.”  

His answer was even swifter than my interjection and unmistakably clear: “I want to go home.” His voice was desperate, pleading, but also fierce and resolute. It was his carpe diem moment. He seized the day by declaring where he wanted to die.

So, we switched plans then and there on Monday night. Spent all day Tuesday moving back home all the furniture we had moved into his small apartment at Trail Creek Place just two weeks earlier. (Huge kudos to our cousin Don, who offered very big help on very short notice!) We rearranged our living room and to create a spot for his hospital bed and moved extra seating into place for us kids and other family who might come by. We moved a mountain on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, around noon, we brought Dad home.

Okay, he came home by ambulance, entering the house through the garage, strapped to a gurney, from which he was deftly shifted over to his waiting bed. But we were all there to greet him. He was clearly relieved to be home at last. It may have taken him a few moments to realize this wasn’t a dream. But when he took his first sip of Coke from his sippy cup, the look on his eyes was priceless. And when, for supper, he indulged in some pickled herring in cream sauce, he knew he’d left hospital food far behind.

Not to say there haven’t been a few bittersweet moments when his full grasp of his situation wobbles. Several times he’s tried to remind us he needs to take medications at this time of day or that. And we gently explain, “No more meds, Dad. No more meds from here on, except as needed for pain, nausea, or anxiety. You’re home free now.” To which he sheepishly replies, “Okay.” He’s happy to be done with the strict medication schedule (happier still to be done with all the needle pokes), but it’s hasn’t quite sunk in yet. The habit of his pills still whispers in his ear.

More bittersweet was his request last night that we bring his walker into the living room. Deon and I traded confused glances. I asked, “Why, Dad?” “Well, so I can use it when I get out of bed.” Even more gently, I say, “Dad, you’re not getting out of bed again.” I don’t add “ever,” because that seems cruel. I don’t cry, because neither of us needs that right now. An instant of unspoken recognition seems to pass between us. He tells Deon, “Well, bring it in here anyway. I want it by me.” And she does. And it is. He hasn’t mentioned it again. He will, sure enough, leave this bed one day. But when he does no walker will be needed.

Today the hospice health aide who will bathe him twice a week stopped by to introduce herself. She is comfort and joy. “Well, Fred, when I come, I want you to think of it as having a spa day. It’s all about you.”

After that I remind Dad that supper tonight will be potatoes, corn, and city chicken—a favorite dish from his childhood until today. His mother made it; then his wife made it; then (because I also love it) I made it. And then, after I became vegetarian, I perfected a version using plant-based meats that Dad gave two enthusiastic thumbs up to. The first day I got to the hospital last week Dad tells me in a tone that suggests this is his Make-a-Wish wish, “There is no rush for this, but I want you to make your city chicken for me.” He leaves unsaid the word “soon,” but we both know his dining days are numbered, even though neither of us wishes to know their number.

But today is a feast day. And so, for this meal I tell Dad, “No veggie meat tonight. I bought beef and pork. This will be Grandma’s city chicken, not mine.” He whistles softly. Sometimes wishes do come true. I add (because Bloody Mary’s are the only alcohol he drinks anymore, and he’s missed them these past months), “I also have the fixings for a Bloody Mary, so I can make one to go with your supper tonight. I’ll even join you.”

“I want one now.” It’s not yet 2pm. I ask again, because maybe he’s kidding. Nope. So, I make him a Bloody Mary, served up in a sippy cup with the celery garnish held alongside the cup with a rubber band. And I make myself one, just a bit nervous what an afternoon drink will do to me. But it’s all good.

Just as we finish our drinks his hospice nurse stops by to meet him and do her official intake. She’ll be his nurse now until death takes him. Coming twice each week (more at the end) to make sure that comfort is his best friend from here on out. She’s great. With help from me and Deon she gets a clean sheet underneath Dad, along with a couple of clean pads. And we trade his hospital gown for an old Baraboo Circus Museum t-shirt, now slit up the back for easy access. He has a deep bench of old t-shirts, many from schools his grandchildren attended. I can already imagine a “farewell t-shirt tour”—each of Grandpa’s prized t-shirts slit up the back for one final encore. He will be clothed in love on his way out the door.

Supper is divine if I may say so myself. Dad eats with relish. A couple times with a bit too much relish as he starts to choke (just a bit) and needs to pause for a water break. I watch him, with joy, and I say—not with pride, but with a profound sense of accomplishment, “Grandma would be proud of me. Mom would be proud of me. I’m glad it tastes good.” He nods with something close to glee. This is what he came home for. Not just this, of course, but having his favorite foods in front of him—foods as rich with memory as with flavor—is a blessing. He will be tasting love right up until he pushes himself away from the table. (In his case, the hospital tray.)

After supper, he is chipper and chatty. All three of us kids are there—making the most of the sofa and love seat just positioned around his bed yesterday. We recount the day to Debby who has joined us after work. We joke. Dad smiles. I say, “Dad, I know that lately everyone is asking you to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10. But I’m curious how you would rate today—in terms of satisfaction—on a scale of 1 to 10.” “Today? Well, today was very satisfying.” I know, he didn’t pick a number from 1 to 10. But I’m pretty sure that’s because even a 10 seemed too small to capture this day.

I know, too, that not every day will be so satisfying. But, most of all, I know that even on the unsatisfying days, Dad will be glad he’s home. And we’ll be glad, too.

I promised him, this was his call to make. Monday night he made that call. Tuesday, we moved a mountain. Wednesday, we brought him home. And today, all together, we seized the day. Then again, scholars argue that carpe diem is really a horticultural metaphor that most literally means, “pluck the day when it is ripe.” Dad’s days are surely ripe now. Even when our eyes are moist, my sisters and I could not be happier to share in plucking Dad’s days for all they’re worth.

***

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.

This entry was posted on February 6, 2026. 1 Comment

Somewhere on the Far Side of Respect

Feb2

Somewhere on the Far Side of Respect
David R. Weiss – January 16 and February 1, 2026

Before I know it, the small plastic cup filled with ice and Coke is filled with neither. The ice spins itself in lazy spirals across the tray top while the Coke races to the edges, beating my napkin and dripping down to the floor. “No worries, Dad. I got this.” I corral the ice back into his cup and refill it with the last bit of Coke from the bottle.

This is the constant peril of being at times reduced to peripheral vision. Since breaking his neck a year ago—his top three vertebrae are now fused together—he can barely turn his neck side to side or up and down. If he knows the Coke … or the newspaper … or the red grapes are on his hospital tray anywhere other than right in front of him, he reaches for them with all the precision of an earth-moving excavator. Which is to say, not so much.

But there’s far more than a stiff neck plaguing him these days. Meet sepsis. It’s a condition triggered by infection in the bloodstream—the last place infection should be (blood is meant to be sterile). When that happens, your immune system goes into a mad tantrum, over-producing white bloods cells and sending them out to attack anything they can find. In Dad’s case they seem to have found and attacked his muscles: everywhere, but especially in his legs. We’ve been told that between the damage done by sepsis and the long-brooding arthritis in his knees, he won’t walk again. But we hope, desperately, that his arms recover their previous fragility. Not asking for much, merely the strength and steadiness to feed and groom himself.

A moment after the Coke debacle, I watch him slowly—and precariously—lift the short cup with the tall straw to his lips, and I’m no prophet, but I can see another mess in the making. So, I offer to transfer the pop and ice into a sippy cup with a closed lid and a short rigid straw. He readily agrees. Happy to trade one more token of his dignity for a surer pathway to his preferred beverage.

Over supper his aide encourages him to drink “all” of his 4-ounce protein shake. It comes in a paper carton, a mini version of the 8-ounce milk cartons I used to get for lunch at schools. He’s agreeable enough, but it takes a special talent to maneuver the 8-inch straw flailing from the 2-inch carton to his lips. For Dad it’s a slow-motion game of hit-and-miss. He knows the straw is down there—somewhere—but he can’t lower his gaze to get it in his sights. I don’t want him to feel embarrassed, and he won’t ask for help, but after a long minute that seemed like five, I step forward to steady the milk carton and guide the straw to his pursed lips. Once there, he devours the shake in three and four draughts.

It’s about here that the room starts to spin for me. See, it’s finally settling inside me, with all the grace of a bull in a China shop (leaving shattered shards everywhere): my dad is infinitely more mortal than I ever imagined. I knew he would die someday. I did not realize how much he might wither before death.

Yesterday he asked me to shave him with his electric shaver. I’ve never owned an electric shaver—I’ve never even wielded one. I can count on my two thumbs the number of times I’ve shaved my own cheeks to bare skin over the past thirty-five years! But here I am kneeling beside him in his wheelchair, his face held perfectly still while I work my way feverishly toward aged cheek skin through the patchy ungainly fuzz that’s been given free rein on his face for the past week. It is an exercise in trust and humility on his part. An exercise in humility and honor on mine.

Tomorrow (compared to January 16 when I started this piece) he will put hungry helpless effort into eating his vegetable soup. Leaning slightly to the side in his bed (seeking to alleviate the nagging pain of a bedsore above his butt) and with his back raised to 45 degrees, he brings the soup slowly, unsteadily, and with exquisite care to his waiting mouth. Three times in a row, as he tilts the soup to match the tilt of his mouth, all the soup ends up on his chest. He surrenders his spoon to the tray in silent frustration.

I am trembling inside as I walk around the end of the bed, go to his side, and ask if I can try. He nods. Through the silent frustration, saying nothing. My first attempt fares no better than his, although I have cupped my left hand below the spoon, so I catch the soup in my hand before it reaches his chest. How do you get a soup spoon into a tilted mouth without tilting the spoon?! On my second attempt I coach Dad, telling him (as I’m sure he once told me some 65 years ago), “Open wide.” He does, and I slowly put the spoon all the way in, then he closes his lips around it, and I tilt the spoon allowing the soup at last to find its goal. We work like a team for four more spoonfuls. “That’s enough. Thank you.” I’m spinning.

Now I’m going to leap forward two weeks. In the interim my sisters and I have made the necessary arrangements so that on his release from Life Care Rehab in Valparaiso (where he spent five weeks), he can move into Trail Creek Place, an assisted living facility just a mile from the house in Trail Creek that’s been his home for the past 61 years. He would’ve preferred to die at home. But he can’t live at home any longer, so he might not get to die there either. (Spoiler alert, I have promised him that if he wishes to go home when the end is near, to take his final breaths in that house, I will make that happen. But he is so weary by now, that I’m not sure he much cares. Still, that’s his call if he chooses.)

I’ve brought as much familiar furniture from his home over to his small 2-room apartment, so the dresser and nightstands, the end tables and TV, his recliner and Mom’s wingback chair all whisper “You’re home, Fred.” Although I don’t know if he hears that above the chatter of all that is unfamiliar. We bundle him up and he gets loaded into the Trail Creek Place bus by wheelchair lift. I ride on the last bench in front of him. He seems to smile as we pull out. Maybe he is excited; I am sure he is relieved. I make small talk as we ride along. I keep to myself the words I want to say, “Don’t be scared, Dad.” I’m not sure whether they are there because I sense his fear—or mine.

Well, he lasted five days at Trail Creek Place before the sepsis that sent him to the hospital back on December 12 made an encore appearance. He wound up back in the ER and then back in the hospital, where he’s been for the past five days. This time they seem to have found the “magic” antibiotic that has actually cleared out the infection. It is a mixed blessing, however. In his earlier stay, they attributed the sepsis to a series of chronic UTIs and treated it with IV antibiotics primed for the usual bacterial suspects in your bladder. This time they opted instead for one more adept at the type of bacteria—including MRSA—that might enter the bloodstream by way of the multiplying bed sores that now punctuate—and puncture—his body. It was exactly the right antibiotic.

These pressures sores, abetted by Dad’s moderate (not even severe!) diabetes, result from his inability to move any longer. The largest one, on his foot, is larger than a half-dollar—and mostly black. An ugly orb where it appears death is getting an early start on him. The other significant one is on his lower back at the base of his spine above his butt. More diamond-shaped, it’s not as big and not at all black; it’s more a bright pinkish red, but it’s deep and the dull yellow-gray spot at its center is exposed bone.

Per the doctor, neither of these open ulcers is going anywhere. And I don’t mean “any time soon.” I mean EVER. Dad will take them to his grave. Or the reverse. The powerful IV antibiotic can kill the blood infection that sparked the sepsis, but these two open wounds (and a third smaller one, and others likely to follow) will be welcome mats—hell, open doors, literally!) for more bacteria. Topical antibiotics and regular dressing changes will keep them in check … for as long as possible.

Now, we’re finally that two weeks forward, when I got back into this document to finish this piece.

Besides the bed sores, Dad also has edema—noted swelling in his feet and left hand. Some days the swelling in his hand makes it more a decorative appendage than a functional one. Ever try reading a newspaper (one of my dad’s favorite things to do!) with just one hand? That’s its own Zen koan, right up there with one hand clapping. Thus, yesterday I fed him vanilla pudding (cook-and-serve, made at home), which he eagerly ate. I don’t think he had images of baby food in his mind—he was getting pudding out of the deal, after all—but as I raised each spoon to his lips, it wasn’t lost on me, that he is now, at least some days, almost childlike in his dependence on the care of others.

Today was a better day. Two working hands and wide awake. It’s a low bar, but even the low bars count these days. Plus, we found a Chicago public television documentary (two parts, each two hours long, airing back-to-back!) on the history and cultures of Chicago’s south shore and north shore suburbs which Dad found enthralling. (I did, too, but I had the luxury of taking a 2-mile walk in the middle of it.) Tonight, he fed himself pudding. A victory of sorts. In a life where those victories will become increasingly rare.

When he’s discharged from the hospital (maybe Tuesday?), he’ll return to Trail Creek Place, sepsis-free and yet still somewhat worse for the wear. Once there, he’ll enter hospice. Not that he’s done living. He might well have months to go. Or maybe just weeks. Still, as the doctor explained to us, he is pretty much done healing. Those open ulcers will never become his best friends, but they will be his constant companions from here on. And, because he’s completely unable to walk, they’ll be inviting their friends. With healing no longer on the menu, we’ll turn toward comfort care. There’s a lot we can do to keep him comfortable during this last glide home. And each of us—Dad and all three kids—are ready for that, though each in our own complicated ways.

Me? I had three good cries today. Short, but shaking sobs, so they count. Well, (wipes away tears) make that four. Part sadness, for sure. Part trembling at the awe-full holiness of being so near to where the edge of life meets the edge of death. And part realization of just how infinitely mortal and infinitely fragile he is. The room keeps spinning.

This man was The Mountain of my childhood. Airplanes rides from his hands to his feet and making models and climbing sand dunes and grilling out and playing games and listening to him read poems to us at bedtime. The ands are endless!

True, we clashed often. Our temperaments and interests were decidedly different in countless ways, but we unquestionably loved more fiercely than we clashed. He was the measure of manhood for me: reliable, faithful, gentle, caring, level-headed. (Damn it, five cries.) I knew how to push his buttons. But I suspect I only dared to do that because I loved him so much—and because I knew the reverse was true.

It’s been decades now since we clashed on anything more than sports teams. The tale to reach that point is long and winding, with occasional switchbacks, but here we are. Graced. We are hardly mirrors of each other, yet we have cultivated an abiding respect for the varied choices we’ve made. I suppose that’s because we’ve both come to see how even our differences remain diverse manifestations of our shared core values like decency, fairness, mercy, and justice. And here I am exercising those core values in my tender care for him. An echo six decades in the making of the same tender care shaped by those same values that he showed me as a kid.

I know, it’s “full circle,” the way it’s meant to work. But that full circle has me spinning right now. I somehow foolishly imagined that “abiding respect” was the endpoint—and a fine one at that. But this inward dizziness tells me there is yet one more alchemy taking place. In real time.

I did not know I was capable of love like this. I have fathered two children and parented several more. I have loved—and do love—each of them with a love that regularly surprises and astonishes me. But I did not imagine that the love for an aged man—a very much worn-down mountain—could be … so sweet. He is hardly any of what he once was. Except in my heart, he is all of that still and more.

So, I am now somewhere on the far side of respect. And so happy for the tears that leave salty traces of love on my cheeks.

***

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.

This entry was posted on February 2, 2026. 2 Comments

Used Car for Sale

Jan22

Used Car for Sale
David R. Weiss – January 9, 2026

Margaret and I have been (happily) a one-car family for a dozen years now. But recently, with my dad’s increasing health challenges, my trips to Michigan City to help care for him have become more frequent and longer. Leaving Margaret carless for days, even weeks at a time. Friends have been very generous lending us the use of a car as needed, but we’ve been thinking about adding a second car to remove one point of complexity from our schedules.

Thus, when Margaret saw a Facebook post by a friend looking to sell a car, it caught her eye. And her heart. Karen, the seller, was a high school classmate of Margaret. Not close friends, but they sang in choir together and had overlapping friend circles. They’ve been Facebook friends for the past decade. Margaret had seen last spring that Karen’s husband, Mike, was battling cancer—and then that he had died in early November. By mid-December Karen was ready to sell his car.

The two of them traded several messages and phone calls and soon agreed on the purchase. But Karen lives near Omaha, Nebraska—a 400-mile drive from St. Paul. So, we weren’t able to schedule the actual purchase and pick-up until the second week of January. When Margaret and Karen hugged hello on January 9, it was long and heavy with emotion. This sale was another step in Karen’s grieving. A good step, but a teary one, nonetheless.

I was almost just a third wheel as the two women reconnected over high school memories—but that didn’t last long as Karen shared more about Mike’s cancer journey. He was first diagnosed with high-risk prostate cancer in 2017. His Gleason score (a measure of the cancer’s aggressiveness) was 9, the same score as mine is. Mike “beat” the prostate cancer. He had hormone treatment and radiation, just like me, and chemo on top of that. His cancer remained undetectable until 2025 when it “reappeared” in his liver. Except it turned out this wasn’t a metastatic prostate cancer it was an entirely new cancer. It was this second cancer—and the unanticipated side effects of treatment for it—that eventually took his life.

We only spent about an hour together. But the words shared in both directions were rich with feeling for all three of us. By the time we completed the purchase at the bank it seemed as though money was the least of what was changing hands. When Karen first took us into the garage to show us the car, she opened the door and said, with reverent gravity, “This is the car Mike drove.” This poem recounts that day.

***

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.

Beside Myself – If Only

Jan14

Beside Myself – If Only
David R. Weiss – January 14, 2026

I am so exhausted. Anguished. Angry. But these days exhaustion gets the final word.

I would say I am beside myself, but that’s only wishful thinking—this notion that there could be another me, beside me, able to be two places at once. Alas.

My chosen city, Saint Paul, and its twin, Minneapolis, (indeed, cities across the entire state of Minnesota) are under assault. ICE and CBP agents are decidedly not there to do “immigration enforcement.” That’s their cheap justification for waging terror on my community and its rich tapestry of immigrants. Their demonstrated purpose is to scare us—especially the allies, those of us with relative privilege—so that we lower our gaze, go about our business, keep to ourselves, and let them do their fascist ethnic cleansing as though it needn’t concern us.

They are, to be sure, inflicting all-out trauma on our immigrant neighbors, documented or otherwise, as well as making many citizens of color fearful. But they need our begrudging acquiescence, even our unwilling complicity in fulfilling their white nationalist agenda. Which is why they go out of their way to exercise a “shock and awe” brutality to intimidate those of us who could stay on the sidelines, in an effort to keep us there. Thus, my anguish and my anger.

I write these words … so very heartfelt. And so very much from afar. You see, I’m sitting in the Roots Market Café in Valparaiso, Indiana sipping Earl Grey tea. Twice now Roots has provided a quiet, welcoming, sanctuary for my troubled spirit while my dad naps just a few miles away.

I’m here to do my part (alongside my sisters) to help untangle and pull together the million things necessary for my dad to move into assisted living. It’s an unplanned transition made necessary by a December bout with sepsis that has left him too weakened to live on his own any longer.

Right now, he’s at Life Care Rehab in Valparaiso, though after four weeks he’s about as rehabilitated as he’ll get. Thus, “here” is actually a daily (or twice daily) shuttle between Valpo and Michigan City, my hometown and where I’m staying at my dad’s (soon to be former) house. Thirty-five minutes each way in good weather. Today the weather is not good. Snowing sideways. (The sign hanging above Roots doorway is banging and clanging in the wind like the world is on fire. Spoiler alert: it is.)

This work is heavy lifting, emotionally, physically, logistically, and bureaucratically. My days run far too long. And I am exhausted. I am also absolutely happy, fortunate, blessed to be here doing the sacred work of care for my dad. I’m certain that our conversations spur on his healing. And I’m cautiously hopeful that this unplanned transition to Trail Creek Place will help him coast more comfortably through the remainder of his years.

I’ll have more to say about both my dad and my chosen city in the days ahead. Today it is enough simply to say, I am beside myself. If only.

***

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.

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!

Watch the video if your prefer.

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

+++

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.

+++++++

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.