August 13, 2006
All is well here, the heat is abating, and the rains have come to save the planet of Sanctuary. On Friday I had a day that felt like the “old days,” very tired and listless, vaguely unwell. It gave me a turn and I realized that this is now a part of my life, too. . . the fear of remission suddenly ending. Ah well. I shall have to adjust. It was just a day, and yesterday I was back to feeling good again. My energy levels have been compromised a bit, but otherwise it all seems far away.
Our Kansas trip was an odyssey in the state where Charles grew up. We did a leisurely drive across, going south and west past harvested wheat fields, corn fields so dry and burned that they looked like October’s corn, and into the Flint Hills with its great rolling vistas of grass with rock coming through on the high spots. We stopped at Lawrence for the night, staying at the motel that follows the side of the river and is a space with a seemingly endless hallway with rooms only on the river side. The effect was very stark since on the non-river side there were no windows or pictures, just a blank wall. It was constructed with jogs in it, rather than curves, and Charles commented that the architect was likely a relative of the owner. In the morning we walked along the river and stopped to watch a gathering of egrets fishing below a small water fall.
It was dreadfully hot when we arrived at the cemetery in Burden, and the expected wind was blowing from the south. The grasses had grown up around most of the cemetery, but someone had mowed around the Ore graves. Perhaps the most memorable sight for me was the large number of little white grave markers with the print almost worn away by the elements. They were from the 1840’s into the late 1800’s and you could decipher that the ages were all of children. On one I could make out the epitaph, “Our dearest daughter Anne, now an angel”. On another stone it just said “Babies.” What a difficult time that must have been to live on the prairies!
We took another route home and as we drove Charles shared memories of his growing up and experiences in the various places. The whole adventure was a very fine one for both of us. Perhaps the lesson that always repeats itself is that life goes on and change is constant.
Today it rained! Everything here at Sanctuary immediately became green again and the curled dry leaves opened in relief. The sky is still full of restless clouds in differing shades of gray but I think our gift of water is complete. I did a nice “Thank you, thank you God!” dance in the woods with only Alphie looking on. I think he hoped I had discovered a rabbit or something pungent and interesting because he stopped and looked at me in surprise. 
We are closing the day preparing for a three day jaunt into Kansas, where we will visit Charles parents’ and grandparents’ graves. There, near the Oklahoma border, the people talk with a distinctive accent that is touched with a southern softening of the consonants and the south wind is constant and very hot in summer. Most of the graves have a top of very smooth concrete or marble, like a blanket over the site, and the particulars of the person beneath are written at the head of it. Where Father and Mother Ore are buried, wheat fields are just across the road, and the town is a little distance away. When Father Ore was in his ninties he had outlived most of his boyhood friends and neighbors. On our visits, he would drive Charles slowly through the cemetery and tell him that he came often because all of his friends were there and he knew that they would always be at home. 
About the rain. . . I think that once upon a time, had there been a “rainmaker” coming to Seward, I would have gone to the event, and added whatever was needed to pay the person because it would have been worth it. Or, if it were the thing being done, I would be joining the rain dancing to call up the clouds. When one is in the country, it is hard to ignore the weary courage of the plants and trees as they stand in the sun and hot wind day after day. The ground is as hard and unyielding as concrete and the growing things that started off the season with too much enthusiastic greenery above but too little root below have given up and died back. When I walked through Sanctuary this morning, I passed under the huge cottonwood tree that stands at the corner of the forty. It always rustles some leaves for me in greeting, and it remains serene in the heat and drought because its roots live below ground many feet where they remain connected to the water tables there. Most of the birds have given up their song since they no longer are defending territories, and the red wing blackbirds, grackles, and wrens have departed. Now we hear the occasional cardinal, the towhee, turtle doves and the elusive yellow warbler, with the blue jays always calling or scolding in the background. 
This afternoon I had a ganglion cyst at the base of my thumb treated because it was growing quite painful to use the hand. Our general practitioner identified it quickly, (common but harmless) and drained it right there in the office. I had become so accustomed to greater complexity that I was astonished at such efficiency. He also told me that these lumps found on either the top of the wrist, or near the base of fingers, were called “Bible” cysts because it was the practice to lay out the hand and whack it with the heaviest book at hand, usually the family Bible, in order to flatten it out and disperse the liquid within. Ah the joys of modern medicine! A tiny needle and a bit of cortisone followed by a bright blue wrap are far more appealing. 
“I’ve been asked to write about ‘Music and Suffering,’” I said to my husband, “What do you think about that?” “I certainly can relate to that,” he replied fervently, “I know I’ve suffered through a lot of music in my day.” That made me smile, but I quickly clarified. “That is missing the point entirely” I said, and proceeded to explain more fully the concept as I understood it, and he conceded that yes, he had shot wide. I did not need to point out to him that he too has joined my new life’s experience with an incurable disease in a most immediate way. Sickness of the blood is so very intimate. You can’t wad up the evil thing into a tumor or lump or breast or kidney or eye. Blood is essential, and mine seems hopelessly flawed. When the white cells diminished and diminished, this blood not only didn’t stop infections, it began to invite microbes and invaders to flourish. By itself the blood disease doesn’t cause pain or prickles, but it carries fear throughout the system. Fear of clotting – here today, tomorrow a vegetable, everybody’s nightmare – as close as the next heartbeat. Fear of infections, a scratch, red streaks away, fear. The pastor shook my hand yesterday in his finest greeting and I couldn’t wait to wash it with disinfectant. 
The year is 1949, and it is a spring morning in the Confirmation Room of a white painted rural Lutheran school on an Iowa hill. The pastor is teaching a lesson on “suffering” which is never to be forgotten. This man has dark eyes, a thin moustache and the very black hair on his head is combed straight back from a widow’s peak. He has arrived at our out of the way rural parish because of a mysterious nervous breakdown having something to do with his chaplaincy in the Second World War. He is very intense and he has placed a crucifix on the table before us. Then he says something like this: “Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died for our sins . . . He was literally nailed up and hung there.” Our eyes are fixed upon the crucifix, which had the crown of thorns and the spikes in the hands and feet. The pastor looks at the five of us in that year’s confirmation class, and inquires, “Now, what does that mean to you, he suffered and died for your sins?” His voice is challenging, and we know that our answers had better be good. I still remember thinking that I hadn’t done anything that could possibly bring on such agony. “Your sins” he says again, implacably . . . I ventured that maybe what we did added up, like not obeying our parents or really, really wanting to hurt one of our brothers, and he said with approval, yes, exactly, and not only that, but every single sin that we would commit throughout our life, and every single sin that every single human would commit throughout their lives was punished right there on that cross. That was suffering, he told us, that was really suffering. We all sat and looked at the crucifix for what seemed like a long time. I believe I carried this measuring stick through the years, never applying the word or concept to any of my own life experiences. When contemplating this writing project, I asked a group of friends how they defined suffering. One said something like this: “Suffering is anything that carries you outside the place of your perception of well-being. It can range from uneasiness about something through the worst kind of agony.” This seems a good and complete definition with which to work. After thinking that I knew a lot more about music than suffering, within the week, I experienced an arterial blood clot in the kidney, which killed a third of the living tissue there because of a lack of blood. In this experience, there was and still is a great deal of physical pain. It was as though the moment I needed it, I was provided with a teeth-clenching, hair-pulling example of physical suffering, with a degree of mental anguish added in that the doctors said they had not seen anything like this before when dealing with my type of cancer, and therefore the possibility of it happening again, randomly and unexpectedly, became an added concern. 
That music works as a palliative to suffering is well known. How and to what degree this happens is totally subjective, so discourse about it must also be addressed subjectively. In this essay, I will explain how it is for me. The musical element of “melody” is defined as a series of tones that move forward in one of three ways: by repetition, by going upward in pitch by steps or leaps, or by going downward by steps or leaps. When I taught music to 7th Graders, I would play a game with them to demonstrate that each of us carries a large number of melodies within. For example, I would play “Name the Tune” and say. “Christmas song” then sound the first two tones of the carol, “Joy to the World”. Since all of us came from a like cultural tradition, one half or more of the children would guess the song on as little as two opening pitches. In this way I would show the class the miracle of a collection of large numbers of melodies in each of our heads, just waiting to be recalled. As years pass, melodies gather, stored behind doors of which we often are unaware. Then a certain scent, a south wind, a friend’s laugh – any unexpected thing can fling open that door and the song is there, waiting. It is waiting to come and help heal during times of suffering as well.
A life time of playing hymns and teaching songs has provided me with a sizable collection from which to choose, and this music is as near as the next thought. When pain’s suffering is my human experience, there are songs bearing the poetry of psalmists and hymn writers to give me comfort. The miracle of music is that it can illuminate a deity as nothing else can. God is experienced by all of humankind, in some fashion, but God is experienced by each of us, one at a time, and uniquely so. Music is the same – its sounds are everywhere, impossible not to hear, but yet experienced by each of us, one pair of ears at a time and uniquely so. 
When I was a director of music, I planned worship services and became very adept at timing hymns’ length, so I have a time clock already in place for a stanza of hymnody; for example, one verse of “In Thee is Gladness” lasts approximately 50 seconds, so I know that singing it through will take me past 50 seconds of present pain. The words will help me, “He sees and blesses in worst distresses, He can change them with a breath.” Perhaps I will sing it again and again, and so the journey through the valley moves forward. The doctor says, “This will hurt, but it’ll be over in 20 seconds.” I sing out loud so I can’t hear the sounds of the intrusion. “Have no fear, little flock, have no fear little flock. For the Father has chosen to give you the Kingdom, have no fear, little flock.” (Time – 18 seconds) “Do I need another verse?” I ask. “No, we’re done.” he says, and I am thankful. “Thankful hearts raise to God, thankful hearts raise to God, for he stays close beside you, In all things works with you; thankful hearts raise to God.” This time I am silent outside, but inside, the organ is full and children’s voices are loud and true.
There is music created during times of suffering, and when it is sent out into the world, it is there to aid and comfort the listener. Here is a story excerpted from a Minnesota Public Radio interview with Paul and Ruth Manz: One of the Manz’s children, their 3 year old son, came down with a childhood illness that threatened to end his life.
Music is one of the conduits to the sacred sphere. When I am trapped within the body which is in the throes of pain or loss or change, sometimes the only way to endure, or to “pass through the valley of the shadow of death” is through the sounds of music. At such times one wants to plead with God first for surcease, if that is not possible, then for mercy, for strength or just endurance. When the thoughts are too plain and too near to help, it is a fine thing to recall a poet’s expressions carried on a composer’s melody. The music pulls God nearer to you, faith and trust in assistance from a greater power than your own can propel you forward into a place of survival. When we suffer, music can come to meet us and help us. . . it can come from within the great storehouse of songs that many of us hold inside, or from history or from newly composed works. It may come in the form of a Psalm where the very words sing, or in the melody of a musical written for Broadway. It may be instrumental, it may be tonal or atonal, it may be voices carrying wonderful texts or simply voices carrying melodies. Suffering is and will be a part of life, but at such times, music can strengthen and lift the heart. It can open perceptions of a God who is in every place – within, without, near as breath, yet vast as the universe. This is a gift of the Creator to humankind that can help and heal until such time when one joins in the making of the beautiful and perfect music that is sounding in God’s heavenly Kingdom, now and forevermore.