Category Archives: Ryan’s mind

Pledging Allegiance to What?

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I was the son of a preacher man. I was homeschooled. Enough said.

Right?

Today’s my son’s first day at public school and it felt…weird. It was weird because it’s an experience that I don’t really share (I did go to first and second grade…but that was oh so long ago!). It was weird because a part of me feels guilty for shipping him off (homeschooler, remember?). It was weird because my son’s such an odd kid and he was really concerned that his backpack cubby was too far away from his desk and it seemed like too much work to him to have to walk back and forth. It was weird ’cause there were some kids just sobbing at their desk. It was weird ’cause he’s now a part of the system…integrated.

But you want to know what felt the most strange? Walking out of the school to the kids all saying the pledge of allegiance. Isn’t there something strange about our kids reciting the pledge of allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Honestly I don’t really want my kid pledging allegiance to a flag or a nation. I’d much rather my kid pledge allegiance to things that last, to things that matter.

al·le·giance

(noun)

1. the loyalty of a citizen to his or her government or of a subject to his or her sovereign.

2. loyalty or devotion to some person, group, cause, or the like.

Do I want my kid claiming devotion to America? Really? If you could claim complete devotion to something and insert into your life a daily rhythm in order to support this devotion to what would you choose to devote yourself? Loving your neighbor? Being a faithful spouse? Devotion to God? Devotion to peace, unity, generosity? Devotion to America…

So…

Stand up–as if you’re ready to take action, poised and prepared to follow through with the committment you’re about to make

Stand in unity–stand amongst friends, co-workers, classmates because if we’re going to stand for something we’re better off standing together

Place your hand on your heart–as a symbol of the unification of your heart which represents your core inner identity and your hands which represent the actions that result from your personhood

Pledge devotion–to something, to someone, to some idea. But mean it. Live it. Love it. Die for it.

Some will choose flag and country others will choose anarchy…but we should all choose…shouldn’t we?

To be honest I bet Jones was completely confused by the whole thing. I’m imagining a silly look on his face begging the question “what the heck are we doing?” The kid questions everything and doesn’t let anything slide…crazy kid. I hope he enjoys his first day at school.

Ninety-Nine Thank You's…and yet still not enough

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It’s time I said thanks to a few of you…

  1. Thanks Nancy for the balloon you brought to the hospital while I was in surgery. Every kid that visited me played with it (no joke)
  2. Thanks Amy for buying my family really good pizza the night before the surgery. The Meaty Beatty Big and Bouncy was a great way to head into a pre-surgery fast.
  3. Thank you Erika for coordinating meals so amazingly
  4. Thank you Patty for helping to keep our house from being gross. You practically killed the cancer by yourself (if it’s actually gone)
  5. Thanks Jon and Leandra for dinner!
  6. Thanks Debbie for not only bringing dinner but all sorts of other goodies
  7. Thank you Gina for depositing money into my bank and for helping with laundry
  8. Thank you Wintermute for the Bible. I’ll be eagerly waiting to see you next year.
  9. Thank you Josie for writing me a funny joke. I like jokes.
  10. Thanks Compass, Paul, and others for the night of prayer prior to surgery
  11. Thanks Aaron and Brittany for the ICU thai food. I wasn’t supposed to be on solid food yet…but it was worth it
  12. Thank you Renovatus kids and teens for the cards
  13. Thank you Carson for always going above and beyond when there’s a large something to draw on.
  14. Thanks Mom for keeping my garden, my children, and my wife alive during all this
  15. Thanks Luke and Marie for the delicious food!
  16. Thank you Granbergs for your leadership and mentoring in prayer
  17. Thank you Anni and Mo for the fund raiser. What a humbling and fun night
  18. Thank you Pepper for the book
  19. Thanks Sherilee for caring for my wife and keeping my house from being gross
  20. Thanks Matt, Tim, and Christie for the movies. When your awake at 4am what else are you supposed to do (besides write blogs and cry by yourself at times!)
  21. Thanks Graham fam for being present and available and for getting things done.
  22. Thanks for the pot of flowers Robbie and Chrissie…they only just died yesterday!
  23. Thanks to Karl, Sunrise, Emily, Phil, Erika, Ken, Laura, and others who were there during surgery even if I never saw you.
  24. Thanks Sam (Arslanian) for the robot drawing. My kids like robots too.
  25. Thank you Kathy for brining us flowers from your garden. You know we’re jealous of your edible and beautiful landscape
  26. Thanks Paul for watering my garden that one morning
  27. Thank you Rebecca for teaching me how to use my medicine!
  28. Thanks aunt Tina for giving me advice on getting my catheter ripped out
  29. Thanks Jill for so much, but especially the Wine Dogs…so incredibly strange and cathartic
  30. Thank you Federal Way cronies for the quilts (my son sleeps with his every night)
  31. Thanks for the milk shake Brandon
  32. Thanks Achterbosch’s for letting me watch some basketball and for all the great food you’ve provided
  33. Thanks Gina for the random Ice Cream Renaissance
  34. Thanks to Mo, Kate, Dwayne, Levi et al for all the little coffee and food surprises
  35. Thanks aunt Dee for the book but more especially for the trinkets for the kids
  36. Thanks downtown Ashely for secretly dropping off a card at the house. It was great to see turn up
  37. Thanks Anni and Kayli for the good food and creepy card
  38. Thanks to the mysterious person who decorated and wrote messages around our house when we came home from surgery. I still don’t know who you are!
  39. Thanks Mark for fixing our stair rail. I haven’t fallen yet.
  40. Thank you Rebecca for the concern and initiating prayer
  41. Thanks Katie for being one of kid’s favorite friends and for spending time just chillin’ at our house
  42. Thanks to the quilting aunts and Grandma for the prayer filled gifts
  43. Thanks Roy for fixing things ’round the house and giving us your wife all too often
  44. Thanks Sherk crew for weeding the backyard
  45. Thank you Brandon and Angela…too much to say here, but you care for so many people!
  46. Thanks Kim and crew for helping to clean the house
  47. Thanks Valentas for bringing over dinner (you can bring the same meal again if you want…and if you’re capable)
  48. Thanks Brittany and Monica for the pampering you gave to my wife
  49. Matt and Oso thank you for making the community meals work
  50. Thank you Chris and Trudi for the frozen meals. Seriously best vegetarian lasagna I’ve ever had. No joke.
  51. Thanks Sarah and Aram for the gf cookies
  52. Thanks Hope for being a last minute baby sitter and loving our kids so well
  53. Thanks to Kristy et. al for the amazing anniversary gifts and surprises
  54. Thanks to Melody and Jill for the massages
  55. Thanks Ben and Steve for giving me my first taste of good scotch prior to surgery
  56. Thanks Anni for the inspiring art over the last week (co-shout out to F&33rd)
  57. Thanks Sunrise for the great conversations via email and even occasionally in person (oh yeah…and for OMSI!)
  58. Thanks Matt for coordinating a hot date for my wife and i
  59. Thanks Sam for always coming over on Sunday’s to play with my ding dong
  60. Thanks Brittany for cleaning our house every week. You were awesome.
  61. Thank you Lynelle for checking in, for showing up even when we’re not home, and for your compassion.
  62. Thanks Rachel, Lincoln’s Beard, Beth, Jill, Jenney, Pepper, and so many others who donated things for the silent auction. Your art, creativity, and generosity inspire me
  63. Thanks for the Pok Pok Mo Mo
  64. Thanks for to Danny and Rachel and Sarah for all the Baja Fresh hook ups.
  65. Thanks Patty for the water hookup for the meals (that gf pizza was amazing!) and everything else
  66. Thanks Arnada Community Meal people for always leaving my kitchen clean during all of this…you don’t realize how much of a gift this is
  67. Thanks Aram for being a courier–you don’t realize how stress free and freeing it has been
  68. Thanks Sherilee for catching me
  69. Thanks Jenny for your poetry and your potted plants (that are still alive)
  70. Thanks Kileah for the milk and for bringing in food during surgery
  71. Thanks Brent for extending your stay longer just so you could be around during surgery
  72. Thanks Mo, Bridget, Cheryl and whomever else was a part of getting my wife in that spa
  73. Thanks Kevin for just happening to be there the morning of
  74. Thanks Grandma for teaching me about generosity
  75. Thanks Ken and Dody for dinner and for making sure we’re always able to pay our bills
  76. Thanks for the wine Mav and Niccole…especially the part where you drank it with us
  77. Thanks Grandma, uncle Greg, Dee (were there others?) for hanging out with me at one of my biggest moments (cath free!)
  78. Thanks Cheryl for taking over the Compassion Vancouver duties–what a relief!
  79. Thanks Mav and Niccole for being easy and available…such a blessing.
  80. Thanks Kris and Jim for bringing us vegetables (and those figs!)
  81. Thanks Liesl for dinner
  82. Thanks for the wings Ethan (OK, so it hasn’t happened yet…but it will)
  83. Thanks Toree for accompanying me to my new rehab gig with a milk shake in hand
  84. Thanks Aaron and Bekah for the frostee and to Chris for the milk shake…y’all didn’t know but I had just found out I was dying of cancer
  85. Thanks Oso for surprising us with coffee and thanks to Dwayne for making it happen
  86. Thanks James and Andrea for bringing multiple trips of stuff over from the house to the hospital
  87. Thanks Steve and Marlette for the surprise ice cream and the standard Youskyme
  88. Thanks Mo for making me cry all too often
  89. Thank you Ruth for the book. Can’t wait to read it!
  90. Thanks Danny and Rachel for helping with the kids and having us over for dinner too
  91. Thanks Steve for checking on me all the time, giving me rides, and being a good friend.
  92. Thanks Arwen for keeping my wife company at just the right times
  93. Thanks Jay for the Safeway hook up
  94. Thanks Nina for the shoes and backpack. This might be the most practical and necessary gift along the way. What a lifesaver
  95. Thanks Chris and Christie for bringing pancakes and turkey bacon over
  96. Thanks LaRae for the kind card and gift
  97. Thanks Jurgen and Azriel for moving the couch (harder than anticipated eh?)
  98. Thanks John and Brent for going bald in solidarity with me…sorry I didn’t go bald in solidarity with you.
  99. Thanks Mo, Dwayne, Kate, Levi, and Sarah for the hilarious picture that’s now sitting all around downtown. I don’t care if it brings in a dime…the picture is amazing.
I’m sure I’m only missing about fifty other people to thank. There are huge things I’m spacing right now and there are seemingly minuscule things that are missing from the list. From huge to small y’alls gifts and thoughts and generosity have been stupid amazing. We still have no idea what future prognosis await us…but at least I am confident with who stands beside us regardless of our future. We love you all. (in the time its taken me to write this final paragraph I’ve already thought of six more things that should be on this list! Because I like the whole ’99’ thing I’m not going to add them and just assume that this list will and should always be undone and incomplete. There WILL always be another person to thank…and for that I’m thankful!)

Reflections from Camp

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Yesterday turned out to be quite the day full of surprises. The family got up early and readied ourselves to drive up to Camp Yamhill and crash the camp that happens every labor day weekend called Faith Quest. It’s a gathering of 500 teens and chaperons up in the beautiful forest centered around the simple message of Jesus. It’s not one of those freaky camps they make documentaries about but a genuine and valuable expression of community gathered around a common hope. But to be honest our family was headed up there for the day ’cause there were about thirty or forty people I wanted to hug and we knew we could pawn off my kids on grandma and grandpa who were up there already.

Driving up to the camp was surreal because it was one year ago at this exact moment that I was a keynote speaker engaging in dialog with these kids about Jesus–but what was surreal was to realize how much has changed between now and then–to realize how little was known at this exact moment one year prior. It was a strange feeling.

Within moments of arrival we were overwhelmed with hugs, with love from a community that we only seem to see on Facebook, and it was overwhelmingly glorious. Thank you!

Within the first forty-five minutes I was asked if I would share with the camp some of my story from the last four months. It caught me off guard a bit, but at the same time I realized that it would be the first time in this whole process (at least post surgery) that I’d actually spoken publicly in any format. It felt right and there was no doubt in my mind that I needed to share.

Sitting on stage with my wife three hours later it was cathartic to be able to tell the teens that life sucks sometimes (or rather to claim with the teens the reality that life is effed up. Teenagers know this already don’t they? What person in their right mind wants to go back to being in high school or jr. high?) Like I’ve blogged about I went ahead and asked the question “where’s the hope?” Is there only hope in healing? Can there be hope in death? And we talked candidly for twenty minutes about my God’s promise to transform ashes into beauty, sorrow into joy, crap into something beautiful. The hope is in the story that God is able to tell if we let him in the midst of the good, the bad, and the ugly of life.

I don’t know if any kids heard me or if there was anything to hear, but it was good for me…and I think that’s enough.

Then those stupid kids passed around stupid buckets collected up a couple of thousand of dollars in about ten minutes time to help cover our medical costs. Seriously? What kind of teens have that cash? And why do people keep giving so generously to us? And why do I still hate it? (this is me trying to say thank you…I’m still learning)

Our kids had so much fun and played so well that eventually we just put ’em to be and Jess and I stuck around ’till midnight (long 1.5 hour drive home though!). While the kiddos slept we sang lyrics that made me cry like a baby ’cause I was still thinking a lot about death.

“Blessed be your name when the road is marked with suffering, when there’s pain in the offering blessed be your name.”

“There’s a stirring deep within me, could it be my time has come? When I’ll see my gracious savior face to face when all is done.”

“Wake up O sleeper, rise up from the dead and the light of Christ will shine.”

What an unexpected day filled with surprises. Thank you.

 

Top 15 Things I've Learned About Fighting Cancer

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(I could have typed a list of twenty…but here are fifteen in no specific order)

  1. Having a good medical clinic with not only doctors that you trust but a supporting staff that serves as your advocate is huge (thank you Northwest Cancer Specialists!)
  2. Physically and emotionally things can swing from amazingly wonderful to hell and back in a matter of hours. Finding that tension between living in the moment and realizing that it truly is just a moment is both important and difficult.
  3. Learning to be honest with yourself and with others about how you feel (both good and bad…though for me being honest with self and others about the bad was much more difficult) is hugely important not only for support but also for your health.
  4. Prayer works. I don’t mean to say that it works like some amulet or charm, that it’s a hocus pocus trick that if you get enough people praying you’re going to make it. But God does speak, he does act, and he does value our voices. In all of my healing (both emotional and physical) prayer has been central…and it makes a difference.
  5. I’d rather be sick than be the caretaker. This is harder for my wife than it is for me and she deserves all the grace, pampering, and vacations I can muster to show her how grateful I am.
  6. A loving and capable wife/caretaker covers a multitude of sins. If it weren’t for Jess I would not be doing as well as I’m doing now. I wouldn’t have always remembered or had the strength to take my meds and do the things I need to do to bring healing. From shots in the belly to chicken noodle soup, from acupuncture in my feet to being my private chauffeur she has covered every base and done it without complaining or faltering even once. Simply amazing.
  7. Being positive is generally easy when you’re constantly showered with support from a loving community.
  8. Being prayed over by your doctors is kind of surreal. Both my oncologist and my naturopath have held my hands and prayed over me in their office. It was a trip and it was pretty damn cool. Not only have both of these two docs prayed over me but they are actively working in partnership together (a very rare thing). What a blessing!
  9. Setbacks are a part of the mix but they don’t define it. Blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, side affects, headaches, vomiting, constipation, weight loss and weight gain, swelling, rashes, etc. came and went (though some seem to linger at times) but they are not the focus. It gets easy to be caught up in these ‘little’ things and forget the real task at hand: killing cancer.
  10. I’d rather be in pain (to an extent) than be constantly overwhelmed with exhaustion. When you’re so tired that you cannot physically function in any way and your brain is in a constant cloud its quite debilitating. At the same time, however, it doesn’t ‘feel’ like anythings wrong. I like that when I’m in physical pain I feel like I’ve got something to fight against, an enemy to beat. The exhaustion stuff was hard on the emotions and soul.
  11. Waiting is what you do. It’s just a part of it whether you like it or not. You wait for results, you wait for recovery, you wait in doctors offices, you wait…wait…wait. Get used to waiting.
  12. There are three ways that we have been blessed by people’s help: Routine, random, and offered. The routine help has been a lifesaver (no joke, i don’t say that lightly); knowing that someone will help us pick up our house on a few specific days a week allows us to focus on things like expending the little energy we have with our children instead of the dishes. Routine help has been wonderful. The spontaneous/random stuff has been great too: when people showed up with cups of coffee early in the morning or pints of ice cream in the evening, when people randomly watered our failing garden outside because they noticed it needed to be done…this kind of stuff brought tears to my eyes often. Finally (and I don’t say this in a jaded way) anytime people offered to help (even if they were unable to follow through) it was a blessing to be genuinely cared about. Even when it did not come to fruition the offers mean something to me and I am grateful.
  13. Supportive parents (on both sides) is such a gift. We couldn’t have gotten this far without our family (siblings included!!). Enough said.
  14. You don’t know what works…and you probably never will. If (when) the cancer is gone I won’t know if it’s because of your prayer, the natural supplements I take, the hydro-therapy I do, the positive energy in our life, the radiation, the chemo, the things I’m doing to make my body more alkaline, the food I eat, the acupuncture treatments, or something else! Most likely the answer is “all of the above” but all I can do is to keep doing the next most right thing.
  15. A story is always being told. In death, in life, in sickness, and in health our lives are telling a story. I hope my story is defined by its inclusion in one larger than itself (larger than myself!) that includes love winning, death being overrun, and peace reinging free. And I hope that regardless of my life situation the story I live is consistent with its inclusion in the larger narrative.

My Thoughts on the Future of Our World

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What is it about flying cars? It seems like since the beginning of time our dreams of the future (of the ‘year 2000’) included flying cars. And yet here we are driving on the ground and flying in planes. I guess our sci fi movies wouldn’t have been as cool had they dreamed of a future where information could be shared wirelessly, where you could spend money you didn’t have if you just swiped a piece of plastic, and where Starbucks ruled the world.

Here are some of my predictions of the future in no particular order:

  • Angry Birds will come out with a game for the X-Box platform
  • Purgo hardwood floors will become even more prevalent in our homes
  • Pennies will be eliminated and we’ll start using our dollar coins (but we’ll choose to call them loonies like they do in Canada…’cause that’s kind of awesome)
  • Those slap bracelet things will become popular again
  • Books will still be around and a slew of new brick and mortar book stores will open that don’t use ‘the digital age’ as an excuse for non-innovative or successful business practices.
  • A hologram will become president
  • Toilets will be considered an opiate of the masses
  • Upon finding out that cloth bags are bad for the environment our economy (which was built on a platform of cloth bag usage) will crash
  • Ikea stores will get bigger and they will introduce a new “stay and camp for the night” alternative
  • Our national anthem will be re-written to the tune of “twinkle twinkle” so that it can be more universally accepted
  • Women will stop painting their finger nails
  • Puzzles will be cool again
  • A counter movement to the wireless age will emerge. They’ll use corded phones, connect to the internet via land lines, print only on computers they’re plugged into, email colleagues by throwing paper at them across the office, and most importantly they’ll refuse to cut umbilical cords so as to keep a wired connection to their mother forever.
  • Oh yeah, and I do think there will be flying cars.