Life stories

Well, I'm going to attempt to bring the blog back to life.

An interesting tidbit for my Houston friends is that life stories are back in my life. The tradition of telling life stories was started by Chris and Lisa Seay, as far as I can tell, and basically involves telling the unabridged story of your life. Yes, a two-hour story narrative, with props if you want, horrors and joys of life all included. The small groups at Ecclesia, my Houston church, almost all partook in this. It was really touching to get to know people so deeply, hearing about their entire lives.

This tradition has now been brought to Princeton, NJ. I meet with a group of girls here every Wednesday night. The group was started three years ago as a Bible study, but now has evolved mostly to just a weekly girls' night. We get together, have some snacks or desserts, share about what's going on in our lives, support each other, discuss issues on our minds. It's a wonderful community that is totally "organic" and has stayed strong the past few years. I recently told the girls about the idea of life stories, and people were keen on it. We've done four now, and they are just beautiful. Beautiful! Our friend Krista shared this week, and it was amazing. I could relate to her about things I never knew we had in common, and I was reminded how much I love hearing these life stories.

Krista said at the end of the night that she thinks it's the anecdotal nature of our lives that make them so compelling. I have come to believe that stories are incredibly powerful. We learn through stories, connect through stories, share through stories. Movies and novels are all stories, as is history. I almost feel like I'm connecting to an ancient tradition when we tell life stories, or stories of our lives. Stories just resonate, are remembered, are felt. Long live our stories!

Holy crap, cancer is scary.

I recently found out that a good friend has a horrible kind of cancer. Not that there are any "good" cancers out there, but there are operable cancers, treatable cancers, manageable cancers. This cancer is ferocious, horrible, mostly inoperable. The five year survival rate is 30%.

It's a freak case. People who get this cancer have an average age of nearly 70, and my friend isn't even 30. The doctors have all said they have never seen or heard of a case like this.

My friend is going with the most ambitious route to get rid of the cancer, a surgery that is the best recommendation from doctors consulted all around the country. The dangerous part is that the procedure has a 20-40% mortality rate. Holy crap.

First I cried, and then I was generally shell shocked. I felt small and my own problems felt smaller (as cliche as that is... it's totally true). Then I felt at a loss. What could I do? All I want to do is help, but how? What can I possibly do? Sure, "be a good friend", "be supportive". Do you know how ridiculously meager that feels in the face of what my friend is facing? How much it feels that can hardly express the care and concern I feel?