Editor’s Note: Gerald May (1940-2005) worked at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in different teaching roles for more than 20 years and authored nine books on spirituality and psychology. This article was first printed in the Fall 1995 edition of the Shalem News and is published here with the permission of Shalem News.
Friend Kathy Dahlk asked that these journal entries be shared in Shareletter because she has found them to be insightful, tender, and powerful in their insights.
Jerry’s cancer was discovered in 1995 and as he underwent treatment, he kept a journal. As he wrote at the time, “It is impossible to thank everyone personally for all the prayers I am receiving. I hope these notes of my recent journey will serve as a small gift in return.”
April 15, 1995, Holy Saturday. I put my canoe into the water for the first time this year, and I feel completely happy for the first time in my life. I used to be happy about some things but not about others. But now, even with the war in Bosnia and so much other suffering in the world, I am truly happy. I have such a sense of completion that I lightly wonder if I might be going to die soon.
April 21. The happiness continues steadily; I’m sure it’s not hormones—it is joy. Memories of my trip to Bosnia last summer come to me frequently, and with them God’s presence is so intimate and delicate that I am filled with gratitude.
May 4. I discover a lump in my right testicle. I go through a day of denial, refusing to think about it. Still the joy and sense of God’s closeness remain.
May 15. My urologist says, “This needs to be removed quickly.” I begin to say good-bye to my testicle and tell my family and friends that I might have cancer.
May 23. It is like a hernia operation, and I’m surprised at how much it hurts. Sometimes in the pain, I think of Bosnia, yet still there is joy.
May 24. I teach at the Spiritual Guidance Program residency, hobbling on my walking stick, forgetting most of what happens there.
May 27. The word is getting around; cards and phone calls are arriving from everywhere. I am overwhelmingly prayed for. My gratitude deepens and again I think of Bosnia. In the evening my sons ply me with margaritas and testicle jokes. Humor helps fear, but it hurts to laugh.
May 28. My incision hurts from all the laughing last night. I fear I’ve pulled my stitches—I cannot bear the idea of being incapacitated. For the first time, I am depressed. Yet the joy remains.
May 30. Pathology report: malignant lymphoma, diffuse large cell type. The urologist transfers my care to oncology. I spend a week thinking about putting my affairs in order and how it might feel to die. Fear grows, yet still I feel deep joy and gratitude. I am in God’s hands. I can feel them holding me. And Bosnia.
June 6. My oncologist says, “You’re fixable.” He means I’ll recover. All I’ll need is some short-term chemotherapy. I tell my family and friends. Great celebration.
June 20. I intend to dig a hole in mother earth and get in it for a while. I’ve had this wonderful yearning-leading to get as absolutely close to the earth as I can for what healing She wants to give me.
June 21. I am suddenly touched by the two words “vulnerability” and “innocence.” The first means literally “capable of being wounded” and the second means “not yet wounded”. I don’t know why they touch me, but it’s very tender. Maybe it’s because both speak of undefended-ness, and I have had enough defended-ness in my life.
June 22, Morning. My oncologist has shocking news. My bone marrow is not only positive for lymphoma, but it is a different kind: low grade, small cell. He has never seen such a double-diagnosis. He thinks I’m still “fixable,” but the treatment will now have to be extremely aggressive: six months of high-dose chemotherapy, probably a bone marrow transplant and losing my other testicle. He asks if I want something to help me sleep. I walk out of his office unsteadily. I have to go immediately to another residency to introduce Jack Welch’s seminar on John of the Cross. I only have time to call and tell my wife. “We’ll make it,” she says through tears. “You’re still fixable; that’s what counts.” As I walk to the car I know being fixable is not what counts, not to me. “God damn it, I’m not going to go through all that! Here I am feeling better than I ever have in my life, and they’ll turn me into a poisoned, hollowed-out, castrated shell. No way!” I rant as I drive, wondering if there’s some statement I could make by sacrificing my life in Bosnia. “If I’m going to die, I’ll choose the time and place before I become incapacitated.” It feels so good to think about taking things into my own hands.
June 22, Afternoon. As I’m listening to the wisdom of John of the Cross, a radically different image comes to mind. I now picture myself lying on a hospital bed, completely passive, having surrendered my will entirely. Strangely, this image feels just as good as the opposite one I had entertained a couple of hours ago.
June 22, Evening. I talk and cry with my family. We promise to be there for each other. Later, I pray about my two opposing images. I quickly see that both are ways of trying to regain control; even the image of surrender is my picture, something I’d choose. But I know what I really want, what I’ve always really wanted, is God—and what God wants. For this I can only be present to what’s given each moment. All strategies gracefully disappear. I am committed, neither to a noble death nor to a battle against cancer, neither to self-assertion nor to passivity, but to being as open and responsive to God as I can possibly be. All else will come from this.
July 14. After endless tests at NIH, I begin a six-month course of chemotherapy. I have a venous line in my neck and am carrying around a pack that pumps drugs into my bloodstream. It hurts, and the drugs are already making me feel bad. But joy and gratitude remain.
July 22. I felt worse all week, and now have been hospitalized for jaundice and GI tract paralysis. I am permitted nothing by mouth and feel I’m dying of thirst.
July 23. I dream of drinking from a clear mountain stream. I awaken, parched, praying for real water. I remember two little girls last summer in Bosnia, filling a bucket from the single working water tap in their Muslim side of town. Never again will I take water for granted.
July 24. In the night, in the midst of pain and thirst, I have a vision. God has placed me upon a promontory and has spread out before me a small version of the universe. It is a beautiful rolling meadow, and I am meant to see every part of it. All around its circumference I can see where the universe ends, where someone could wander off and disappear forever. But I see also that along the edges God has stationed angels to keep all things safe. I think there must be some place left unguarded, some unprotected precipice. I spend hours searching, yet the angels are everywhere; there is nowhere outside God’s protection. The vision fades and words come: “So you see, God has everything covered, without exception. Because God overlooks nothing, there is never any need to worry about anything, ever. You can worry, and you probably will worry, but you never have to worry, about anything, ever.”
July 25. I realize the difference between worrying and caring. Worrying comes from mistrusting God’s grace, from believing I must cope with things myself. But simple caring is nothing other than my own love and grace. It is the place from which I become an active, privileged participant in God’s grace, where I join the angels at the edge. No wonder such gratitude.
In the afternoon, I am given real water to drink.