Reached

When my mom was diagnosed with melanoma I had no idea how important people I barely knew would become to me. I've always been one for rich, meaningful friendships and leaned toward having a small circle of close friends over a large gathering of more casual friends. It doesn't have to be one or the other, although for many reasons I found that I could enjoy a larger circle but felt more alive in a closer one. Mom's diagnosis came when I was about 21 years old and I turned to my family and a few close friends in that time. But when her disease progressed I discovered I was also leaning into the larger communities I'd become part of. They were rich, healthy communities, able to help carry the weight of reality in life...the joyous and the grave...for so many of us. It was a natural leaning for me because it was a relational one. I hold the memory of some dark days with the sweetness of those connections. I also saw how a bouyancy formed out of the hearts of people around the globe...people who simply heard a story and followed their hearts' responses.

Now I find myself in different but familiar circumstances with my brother Ned's cancer journey and see again how the comfort of established friendships and the rising of new ones form the love God meets me with. I usually have a lot of bandwidth for life's harder curves, but right now much of my capacity feels used up by the recent birth of my son and the play-out of some postpartum depression. At times I feel the ground in everything going on right now and at times I don't. In all of it I am grateful for friends and family who also live in light of love, shared love, love that embraces and accompanies. We don't usually know why new relationships enter our lives at certain times but I know that the advent of new circles in my life this past year is no accident. They widen my heart without diluting meaning...rather, enriching it. They carry part of my story, helping to remind me of what I know and marking pages for me to come back to. I am deeply grateful for friends old and new....in relating we can be for each other expressions of God's heart.

Ned's in surgery right this very moment and his post this morning shares a note he received from our sister Britt, a true illumination of the kind of love and living that most moves me....moves me toward desire for closeness with those I love and deeper appreciation for the massive host of humanity we are graced to be part of.

See the post here, click on his blog title for all of his posts:

http://nedabenroth.blogspot.com/2013/08/i-consider-myself-luckiest-man-on-face.html?m=1

Ned's Stories

It's a little after 5 am on this Friday morning.  I've been up since 3 am ... fed the baby, tucked him back into bed with Jonathan, and returned to the kitchen nook where I've been staring at the slowly dawning day for the last hour and a half.  The sprinklers are clicking away outside, soft music wafts through the room, a dim light shines above me, and summer's silent night breeze cools the earth as the ground prepares for the upcoming heat of day.  I'm at my dad & stepmom's house in Walla Walla, my hometown, for a weekend gathering of a few close friends & family to celebrate the birth of Jonathan's and my new, 6-week old baby boy.  I really should be back in bed, I know that sleep is one of the things I need most these days.  But the writing I've done in my head is aching to hit the page so I need to be here.  But I'm staring out the window instead...

While I'll share my own recent experiences, I need to start with this, my brother's blog.  Ned is not quite 4 years younger than me.  He's married and has 4 little kids.  He's a creator, an instigator, full of ideas.  He's a dreamer who makes things happen.  He's energetic and smart.  He's forward thinking and a risk taker.  He's reflective and he seeks meaning in everything.  He's fun and longs for joy.  He embodies the essence of Life and lives the wisdom he has come to know.  And he has cancer and he's writing about his story because shared space is where he knows his story already lives.

I love you Nedly!

The Gift of Cancer (& Other Tales)
http://nedabenroth.blogspot.com