Establishing a House of Prayer

When you were little, assuming you had a two parent family, who did you go to when you were hurt or when you needed something? If you didn't grow up in such a family take a family from Tv such as the Cosby Show, Leave It to Beaver or even the Foreman's of That Seventies Show.

When one of the children need to speak to a parent who do they speak to? Is it the father or mother exclusivly? Nope...not even in the father-led, 1950's Cleavers, sometimes "the Beave" went to his mom and sometimes to his Dad and recieved different advice from both, and different comfort from both.



So as the literal children of Heavenly Mother and Father whom do we go to when we need something, or when we need comfort? Does it not seem out of balance to always go to the Father - to always seeks only guidance and assuarance from the masculin side of the Divine?

In D&C 88:119 we are told to "Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer..." So praying should be like a house. We are the children asking for love and understanding from our parents so why always go to the father for that? Why never the Mother?

Psalm 123 tells us that prayer should be like a servant to his master. The master rules the house and the servant looks to the master for guidance just as we look to God for guidance in our "house" in which we serve Him. But it doesn't stop there. Psalm 123 actually says, "Lift up thine eyes unto the Lord and plead with him for mercy. Unto thee lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us (Mollenkott).

God is both our Master and our Mistress, our Mother and our Father and we seek the direction and compassion of both just as we serve both. Should we then not be praying to both? Should we not seek out the Mother for motherly things and the Father for Fatherly things?

After Joseph Smith revealed the concept of Mother in Heaven to Eliza Snow, one of his wives, she was moved to write the Mormon hymn now called, “O My Father!” This hymn was originally called “Eternal Mother and Father”

President Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President and Prophet of the LDS church said that “O My Father” was a hymn of revelation given to Snow.
Let me repeat that, a revelation, given by a woman about Mother in Heaven, a prophet said this. So what does her revelation say?

"I had learned to call thee Father, Through thy Spirit from on high,
But until the key of knowledge Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heavens are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason, truth eternal Tells me I've a mother there."

Let's break it down a bit further. "I had learned to call thee Father" When do we call upon God? In prayer of course! The keys of knowledge were restored through Joseph Smith Jr. and now Eliza (and all of us) know that in the context of calling upon God we have also a Mother in Heaven!

"But didn't President Hinckely tell us not to pray to Mother in Heaven?" I hear you asking through cyber space. Well, no, not exactly. So what did Hinckely say exactly? Here's the most important piece, “in light of the instruction we have received from the Lord Himself, I regard it as inappropriate for anyone in the Church to pray to our Mother in Heaven.” He went on to say that those who prayed to Heavenly Mother are, "well-meaning, but they are misguided.”

Some key words here are "I view it" and it is "inappropriate" but not outright appostesy. At no time does Hinckely say God said not too. No it's more missguided. But Hinckely did not say these famous words as the Prophet, he was not yet the prophet when he said them. So how much weight do they carry?

Should we head the words of Wilford who was a Prophet when he said that Eliza's hymn was a revelation? Do we listen to scripture that says prayer should be like a house, where we all understand that even in the most patriarchal socieities the Mother is a source of knowledge and comfort at some point too? Or do we choose to listen to Hinckely and his talk of missguideness?

I suppose the choice is yours. Red pill or blue pill?

Establishing a House of Prayer

When you were little, assuming you had a two parent family, who did you go to when you were hurt or when you needed something? If you didn't grow up in such a family take a family from Tv such as the Cosby Show, Leave It to Beaver or even the Foreman's of That Seventies Show.

When one of the children need to speak to a parent who do they speak to? Is it the father or mother exclusivly? Nope...not even in the father-led, 1950's Cleavers, sometimes "the Beave" went to his mom and sometimes to his Dad and recieved different advice from both, and different comfort from both.



So as the literal children of Heavenly Mother and Father whom do we go to when we need something, or when we need comfort? Does it not seem out of balance to always go to the Father - to always seeks only guidance and assuarance from the masculin side of the Divine?

In D&C 88:119 we are told to "Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer..." So praying should be like a house. We are the children asking for love and understanding from our parents so why always go to the father for that? Why never the Mother?

Psalm 123 tells us that prayer should be like a servant to his master. The master rules the house and the servant looks to the master for guidance just as we look to God for guidance in our "house" in which we serve Him. But it doesn't stop there. Psalm 123 actually says, "Lift up thine eyes unto the Lord and plead with him for mercy. Unto thee lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us (Mollenkott).

God is both our Master and our Mistress, our Mother and our Father and we seek the direction and compassion of both just as we serve both. Should we then not be praying to both? Should we not seek out the Mother for motherly things and the Father for Fatherly things?

After Joseph Smith revealed the concept of Mother in Heaven to Eliza Snow, one of his wives, she was moved to write the Mormon hymn now called, “O My Father!” This hymn was originally called “Eternal Mother and Father”

President Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President and Prophet of the LDS church said that “O My Father” was a hymn of revelation given to Snow.
Let me repeat that, a revelation, given by a woman about Mother in Heaven, a prophet said this. So what does her revelation say?

"I had learned to call thee Father, Through thy Spirit from on high,
But until the key of knowledge Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heavens are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason, truth eternal Tells me I've a mother there."

Let's break it down a bit further. "I had learned to call thee Father" When do we call upon God? In prayer of course! The keys of knowledge were restored through Joseph Smith Jr. and now Eliza (and all of us) know that in the context of calling upon God we have also a Mother in Heaven!

"But didn't President Hinckely tell us not to pray to Mother in Heaven?" I hear you asking through cyber space. Well, no, not exactly. So what did Hinckely say exactly? Here's the most important piece, “in light of the instruction we have received from the Lord Himself, I regard it as inappropriate for anyone in the Church to pray to our Mother in Heaven.” He went on to say that those who prayed to Heavenly Mother are, "well-meaning, but they are misguided.”

Some key words here are "I view it" and it is "inappropriate" but not outright appostesy. At no time does Hinckely say God said not too. No it's more missguided. But Hinckely did not say these famous words as the Prophet, he was not yet the prophet when he said them. So how much weight do they carry?

Should we head the words of Wilford who was a Prophet when he said that Eliza's hymn was a revelation? Do we listen to scripture that says prayer should be like a house, where we all understand that even in the most patriarchal socieities the Mother is a source of knowledge and comfort at some point too? Or do we choose to listen to Hinckely and his talk of missguideness?

I suppose the choice is yours. Red pill or blue pill?

(07.31.08) Recommends:

Starting Your Day With a Breakfast Burrito.




We regularly sustain oursevles throughout the day on nothing but nuts and Diet Dr. Pepper. We are also regularly early risers, but today woke up at an hour that was uncharacteristically early even for us -- we're noticing a case of Wednesday-onset insomnia and we think it's our immune system not being able to handle what has heretofore been a disappointing season of Project Runway -- so while driving around aimlessly before work (read: while sitting in traffic because there is traffic regardless of the time or day around these parts), we decided to finally stop in and give D/Los Burritos (not sure which one it actually is) a try, breakfast burrito style.

Well, it was an unmitigated success. We walked out of there with a bounce in our step ready to tackle another day in the world. It's gonna be a good Thursday. And we can't wait until the next case of Wednesday-onset insomnia.

TN Shooting

Joseph Smith Jr's father was a Unitarian Universalist. As I've said on this blog many times, I consider UUism to be the grandfather of Mormonism. We are all shocked and sadden by the recent events in Tennessee (my birth state BTW) Here's what you can do to help, from a UU email service I'm on:

The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in collaboration with the Thomas Jefferson District has established the Knoxville Relief Fund to bring ministry, spiritual care, and practical financial assistance to those affected by the tragedy in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Read More


Those killed and injured were from two area congregations that were participating in a joint worship service at TVUUC. Letters of sympathy may be mailed to both Knoxville congregations:

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
2931 Kingston Pike
Knoxville, TN 37919-4624

Westside Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
616 Fretz Road
Knoxville, TN 37934-1604
Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have at (888) 792-5885 or campaign@uua.org.


Catherine Lynch
Director of Campaigning

TN Shooting

Joseph Smith Jr's father was a Unitarian Universalist. As I've said on this blog many times, I consider UUism to be the grandfather of Mormonism. We are all shocked and sadden by the recent events in Tennessee (my birth state BTW) Here's what you can do to help, from a UU email service I'm on:

The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in collaboration with the Thomas Jefferson District has established the Knoxville Relief Fund to bring ministry, spiritual care, and practical financial assistance to those affected by the tragedy in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Read More


Those killed and injured were from two area congregations that were participating in a joint worship service at TVUUC. Letters of sympathy may be mailed to both Knoxville congregations:

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
2931 Kingston Pike
Knoxville, TN 37919-4624

Westside Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
616 Fretz Road
Knoxville, TN 37934-1604
Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have at (888) 792-5885 or campaign@uua.org.


Catherine Lynch
Director of Campaigning

July 30, 2008 - Woodpecker

This last week of my vacation, I'm relaxing up at our little house in the Adirondacks. The place has no lawn and is surrounded by woods, so just by looking out the windows we're sometimes treated to some up-close-and-personal wildlife. I've already seen deer outside the house several times, this trip.

This afternoon I was attracted by some movement outside our living-room window. I was rewarded by the sight of two very large woodpeckers, who had just zoomed in and attached themselves to a couple of trees.

These birds were LARGE - bigger than I ever imagined a woodpecker would be (although I have to say, I've never seen one this close). One flew off pretty quickly, but the other hung around for a while, moving from tree trunk to tree trunk, looking for bugs no doubt.

I tried to get a picture, but by the time I got the camera into position, it had gone. I called Claire right away (she's the birdwatcher in our family). Based on my description - it looks like Woody Woodpecker, I told her - she said it was probably a Pileated Woodpecker. I checked it out on Wikipedia, here at the public library (where I now am), and found out she nailed the identification (kudos, Claire). Wikipedia says this bird was the model for ol' Woody.

Pretty cool, to see a couple birds like that right outside the window.

The Creator has all kinds of free gifts to offer us, if only we have eyes to see.

Parliamentary Debate Workshop Underway

Faculty pose: Bojana Skrt from Slovenia, Nicole Colston from Vermont, Steve Llano from St John's in NY and Debbie Newman from the UK (coach of England World Schools team). Alfred Snider from Vermont not shown.

The World Debate Institute's 2008 College Parliamentary Workshop is well underway. The intensive five day program is training students in the basics of parliamentary debating by using the WUDC or "worlds" format.

Each day features a mix of lectures, drills, elective classes (several different subjects offered at once) and two debates.

Steve Llano said of day 1:

The first day wasn't just housekeeping matters and such - we managed to get right into the material and had a very nice practice debate on the motion "This House would ban consumption of tobacco products." The round I saw was quite good even though it featured one team that was new to the format, and another that was totally new to debate.

For those of you interested, today's schedule is:

WEDNESDAY

9-11:30 AM
9:00-9:45 AM Lecture: Proposition-Skrt
9:45-11:30 AM Coaches: Session 4
9:45-10:00 AM Prep for debate
10:00-11:30 AM Debate 4 with Critique

11:30-1:30 PM Lunch

1:30-4:30 PM
1:30-2:30 PM Elective 1
2:30-3:00 PM Prep for debate
3:00-4:30 PM Debate 4 with Critique

4:30 PM End of Day

July 29, 2008 – Some Cancer Poetry

Here’s another way some survivors respond to cancer: by writing poetry. I ran across this poem on a New York Times health-related blog.

It’s by a woman named Kyle Potvin, who’s just gotten over chemotherapy for breast cancer.

The backstory is, Kyle had just come back from a business trip to Texas, where she’d bought her sons terrariums to grow cactus plants. Working with them to plant the cacti, she was inspired to write a poem, “The New Normal”:

To grow a Texas cactus from the start,
You scatter tiny seeds on dirt and sand
(Your nail works well to nudge stuck ones apart).
Then sprinkle water with a steady hand.
Each day, my son asks, “Will it get real tall?”
He crowds his brother as they check for growth –
The way I’ve searched my hairless head since fall.
I pray young shoots will sprout up soon for both.
It happens all at once – soft spikes appear;
I rub my scalp while calling to the boys.
They peer in close to analyze each spear.
My bigger joy is lost to hooting noise.
The victory is all my own: Mom’s hair?
The news is that we grew a Prickly Pear.

(07.29.08) Recommends:

5.8 Reasons Why It's Acceptable To Drink A Beer Over Lunch Today.



More here about the earthquake that shook our office today in downtown los angeles.




UPDATE: The earthquake was lowered to 5.4. We are more than willing to give our extra 0.4 worth of beer to this person.

The New Knitting

The New Knitting: This Is Not Your Grandma's Arts & Crafts

By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet. Posted July 28, 2008.

To casual observers it may look like adults making toys and keeping them, but embroidery hoops and homemade clothes are officially cool. Read the full story here

I don't know about homemade things being cool or not - I don't much care about "cool" - but what I do know is that learning to knit and sew are parts of the revolution. Instead of complaining that everything is made in China I decided a while ago to learn how to make my own clothes. I encourage everyone to do it (I'm looking your way my few male readers :)) I know it's not easy. I don't have an elder to teach me these things so I've been piecing it all together slowly over about 10 years now but when it comes down to it, I can knit a sweater and I can sew clothes for myself and my kids.

This is why when the end of the world comes, Mormons will survive and not just because of their food storage - it's because they continue to teach their children to sew and knit, to not rely on others for the basics but to know how to do for yourself.

I took my power back - I knit - take yours back too!

The New Knitting

The New Knitting: This Is Not Your Grandma's Arts & Crafts

By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet. Posted July 28, 2008.

To casual observers it may look like adults making toys and keeping them, but embroidery hoops and homemade clothes are officially cool. Read the full story here

I don't know about homemade things being cool or not - I don't much care about "cool" - but what I do know is that learning to knit and sew are parts of the revolution. Instead of complaining that everything is made in China I decided a while ago to learn how to make my own clothes. I encourage everyone to do it (I'm looking your way my few male readers :)) I know it's not easy. I don't have an elder to teach me these things so I've been piecing it all together slowly over about 10 years now but when it comes down to it, I can knit a sweater and I can sew clothes for myself and my kids.

This is why when the end of the world comes, Mormons will survive and not just because of their food storage - it's because they continue to teach their children to sew and knit, to not rely on others for the basics but to know how to do for yourself.

I took my power back - I knit - take yours back too!

(07.28.08) Recommends:

Quite The Sales Plug.

For a few months now, we've been kicking around the idea of purchasing a scooter. Large parts of LA are not covered by the metro line, large parts are not pedesterian-friendly, and oddly, at the same time, large parts aren't really car-friendly, either: the streets are too narrow; the stop lights rarely seem to be synched up; there are rarely turn signals, resulting in at least four drivers attempting to turn on every yellow/red light, at least two of whom with not use their turn signal; the main requirement to be a driver of a city bus is to be completely unreasonable; gas is $4.50 per gallon and on and on and on. As a result: we've become very interested in the idea of buying a scooter.

So on Friday we noticed this article in the Boston Globe for the Vectrix scooter. The numbers are insane. It's electric so it gives off zero emissions. It costs one cent per mile to run the thing. It gets the equivalent of 357 miles per gallon. The California Air Resource board will subsidize $1,500 of the purchase. Apparently the thing can even go on the highway.

Since we've read the article, all we notice are scooters around us; we've become like those women, desparate to become mothers, who break into tears at the sight of a baby. Next up in the due diligence process is learning about the Vespa.

Update: The Vespa LX. A very handsome looking scooter, yeah?

Old Fashion Sunday Comics....

Old Fashion Sunday Comics....

South Asian Students at World Debate Institute Do Television

Islamophobia program

The US Department of State, the Study United States Institute and the World Debate Institute at the University of Vermont have been working with 18 students from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan on debating skills and public communication this last week.

On Thursday afternoon the students composed, practiced, arranged and taped three television discussion programs for broadcast in Vermont and to offer online. The topics of the discussions were:

• Islamophobia
• Global Food Crisis
• World War Three Happening Now

All three can be seen starting later today at http://flashpointtv.blogspot.com/

The first of the three programs is linked above.

Sunstone in the News

Read here

Sunstone in the News

Read here

Fire Fighter Signs

New post over at Peaceful as a River Academy about making signs for our brave fire fighters!

Fire Fighter Signs

New post over at Peaceful as a River Academy about making signs for our brave fire fighters!

Baptism Pics

So Ronan recently gave our camera a bath (ugh) and when I finally got it fixed some random pics that had vanished early mysteriously returned. So here's some I took before my baptism!



On my way out the door to go get dunked!




Hand sewn amulet parchment bag designed after the one Joseph Smith use to own. I took it with me and squeezed drops of baptismal water into it after my plunge :)

Baptism Pics

So Ronan recently gave our camera a bath (ugh) and when I finally got it fixed some random pics that had vanished early mysteriously returned. So here's some I took before my baptism!



On my way out the door to go get dunked!




Hand sewn amulet parchment bag designed after the one Joseph Smith use to own. I took it with me and squeezed drops of baptismal water into it after my plunge :)

July 25, 2008 - Insurance Company Rules

While I'm on a roll with embedding YouTube videos, this little TV commercial makes a satirical point about the way some medical insurance companies like to operate:

July 25, 2008 - Farewell to Randy Pausch

Sad news, but news we expected eventually. Professor Randy Pausch of Carnegie-Mellon University has died of pancreatic cancer:



See my October 24, 2007 blog entry for more on this remarkable man, and his "Last Lecture" delivered at Carnegie-Mellon. It's become one of the most popular downloads on YouTube. Oprah also had him on her show, to give a Reader's Digest condensed version of the lecture.

Here's a link to a news article about his death.

Many of us are grateful to Randy for modeling what successful survivorship is all about.

Carl

(07.25.08) Recommends:

A Blogger in the White House.

So yesterday we ranted about the old guard media. While we were hammering out that post, Barack Obama was, as you know, giving a speech in Berlin. There was a lot in there that we've heard before: skinny kid, funny name, goat herders, army cooks, coming to america, Kansas, Kenya, etc.

But near the end he slipped something new in there:

Now the world will watch and remember what we do here...Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe?

There's a blogger in his campaign who has his ear. And that's a very good sign. It also makes sense. Obama understands the power of networks. He started off as a community organizer. During the primary he leveraged the internet to reinvent campaign fianance (click on this very cool pdf for a graphical depiction of the reinvention). He knows that the power of this country lies in its citizens. As more and more of those citizens share their wisdom and talent with others through tools like blogging software, sources like CNN will be forced to change or die. Having a president with blogger advisors will not change the health care system or cure the economy or the environment. But we're convinced that having a strong blogging culture is a step in the right direction.

(07.24.08) Recommends:

Understanding that if CNN Really Is The Most Trusted Name in News Then We Are All Really, Really Fucked.

So, we have this friend, Fellow Blogger. She's among the smartest people we know. Both book smart and current event smart and generally just smart at life. So once a week or so, she'll send us a ridiculous headline from CNN.com. A common example is something like "54% of Americans think we may be headed toward a recession." Or "George Bush doesn't think we are headed for a recession." Everytime they are Very Serious headlines from a Very Serious news source. And everytime they are completely and utterly useless.

We never check CNN.com unless we get these articles, but we always sort of figured Fellow Blogger was just cherry picking the worst articles.Umm , we now seriously doubt this. For this morning, we casually checked out CNN.com. And this is what greeted us (click for larger image):



Yikes. Where do we even start with this? First of all, the fact that there are Black people in America? Is this really a Live! Developing! Story! And not just that but do we really need Your! Reaction! to the fact that there are Black people in America? I mean, is this Turn Back The Clock To The 1800s Day on the Internet? Moving on to Latest! News! check out those stories.

Is marriage only for white people!
Black people not playing football!
Mississippi closed for the day!
Kids playing with sawdust and paper!
Helping whales help themselves!
Video sluts pissed off that people think they're slutty!
Kid Rock! At the Waffle House!
All this, plus super heroes and Salman Rushdie!

Huh?
Huh?
Huh?
Huh?
Huh?
Huh?
Huh?
Okay, my head just split in two; no more, please!

I guess this should not be too surprising. CNN, the television station, is pretty absurd. There's Lou Dobbs, a border-line xenophobe. Larry King, a border-line robot. Anderson Cooper, who used to be the host of reality game show The Mole, and who often produces Hard! Hitting! Journalism! a representative example of which is how the fact that prostitution is legal in parts of Mexico is evidence of international sex-trafficking. And, lest we forget, there's Wolf Blitzer. Who can forget Wolf Blitzer, just last week, on the Situation! Room! running around, mouth agape, eyes bulging out of head, convinced that No American could possibly understand that the New Yorker is a liberal magazine known for producing satirical cartoons (the same Americans who, before this morning, were unaware of the existance of Black Americans).

So here's what we're thinking about this morning: As newspapers continue with massive lay-offs and the unending tide continues toward the internet and 24-hour cable television for news, should we be concerned that CNN.com, presumably one of the most trafficed web properties, offers up almost nothing but steaming piles of horse shit?

We, unlike Wolf Blitzer, believe that the vast and overwhelming majority of reasonable Americans understand that the New Yorker is liberal and the cover was satire. To that end, we are hopeful that the vast and overwhelming majority of reasonable Americans understand that CNN is completely full of shit and offers, perhaps, 5% news and 95% foaming at the mouth nonsense.

Two questions we have this morning. Is this a reasonable hope? And, even if it is a reasonable hope, what pressures, if any, does the success of CNN.com (and CNN) put on sources who actually are trying to enlighten, educate, edify our society?

They're taking over....

So now in New Zeland you better give your kid a safe name like "Chris" or "Joe" otherwise a judge may make them a ward of the state so he can change their name!

Now, I understand, some names listed in this article were ridiculous but the little girl in question didn't have THAT bad a name and ridiculous or not it's a parents right to name a child what they want - the child can always go by a nickname and then change their name when they're older.

I'm really worried about a world wide trend this may start. My children have "weird" names or so I've been told. Many friends of mine have children with names like Rainbow, Heart, Leaf, Sky, Blue, Green, Indigo, Unity, Serenity - who's going to decide what's too weird? It looks like the court system, that's who.

Another gross over step into peoples personal life by the courts if you ask me.

They're taking over....

So now in New Zeland you better give your kid a safe name like "Chris" or "Joe" otherwise a judge may make them a ward of the state so he can change their name!

Now, I understand, some names listed in this article were ridiculous but the little girl in question didn't have THAT bad a name and ridiculous or not it's a parents right to name a child what they want - the child can always go by a nickname and then change their name when they're older.

I'm really worried about a world wide trend this may start. My children have "weird" names or so I've been told. Many friends of mine have children with names like Rainbow, Heart, Leaf, Sky, Blue, Green, Indigo, Unity, Serenity - who's going to decide what's too weird? It looks like the court system, that's who.

Another gross over step into peoples personal life by the courts if you ask me.

(07.23.08) Recommends:

The Track "Ten Dead Dogs" from Wild Sweet Orange's "We Have Cause To Be Uneasy" (Canvasback Music, forthcoming, July 29, 2008).

As we mentioned in our last update, we haven't been blogging here lately as much as usual, as we've been playing around lots on Twitter and we've been fumbling around on Tumblr -- one anonymous tumblr that if you're savvy enough and/or have too much time on your hands you can find by scrubbing this blog, and another double secret Tumblr that we can tell you right now you'll never, ever discover, so don't even bother asking.

In addition, we've been listening almost exclusively to this WSO track, Ten Dead Dogs. We first saw WSO back in March -- my goodness, has it really been over four months since that show?? -- and about a month ago their full-length debut showed up in our mail boxes.

Let's back up though. When we say we've been listening almost exclusively to this track, we actually mean we've been listening almost exclusively to the first forty-five seconds of this track. As we Twittered earlier, the first :45 might be our favorite music released this year. Not an understatement: on the rare occasions in which we drive to work, our commute takes up to forty five minutes, which means we regularly listen to this part of the song 60 times in a row. But it's not just us who are crazy: we introduced this song to Law School Friend -- one of the few humans whose picture has ever appeared on the blog here, here, here -- during her ridiculous July 4th cookout. Last weekend, when we hung out with her again, she informed us that she had not been able to stop listening to the song. We may or may not be exaggerating when she said she listened to it 45 times consecutively.

While that may sound quaintly amateurish compared to our devotion, it is still a sign, we think, that this song is like E. Coli: some people will come in contact with it and won't notice anything every happened; others will have their bodies completely overtaken for 5-7 days before returning to a normal state; large numbers will die. Okay, probably this song won't kill you, but it will vanquish any chances you have of being productive, because you'll find yourself having to stop to hit the "back" button to start the song over. You'll do this repeatedly -- so you can try to copy his enunciation on "apartment," so you can try to hit the high note on "omen," so you can do that little "buh da doom" part, so you try to match his voice on "I watched the sky turn from blue to black to red and yellow, too," they'll be others, trust us -- until you notice that it's an hour later and all you have to show for it is the sad realization that, despite your best protestations, it probably wasn't lack of time committment to singing in the shower that prevented you from being a rock star.

Okay. Enough talking. On to the music, maestro.

Wild Sweet Orange -- Ten Dead Dogs -- mp3.

July 23, 2008 - Early Mid-Life Crisis?

The more I move through this journey of cancer survivorship, the more I’m coming to realize it’s a continuing process. Being a survivor is different one month after treatment ends than it is a year, or two years or more, afterwards. We continue to grow into this reality called survivorship.

I don’t imagine this is something a person who hasn’t been through it can easily understand. With most other medical situations – say, for example, an infection that’s successfully treated, or the hernia-repair surgery I had a few months ago – when it’s over, it’s over. Cancer is never over, not even if remission continues into the long term. There’s always the possibility it could return.

Here’s another quote from Glenna Halvorson-Boyd, from Dancing in Limbo: Making Sense of Life after Cancer (which I’ve now finished reading). Here, she shares a long-term survivor’s perspective – reflecting also the perspective of others, that she’s learned about through a number of interviews:

“At some point, those of us who have survived cancer stop wondering why it happened. We get over the posttreatment letdown. We tolerate our fears of recurrence in the full knowledge that there is no sure cure. Our relationships are renewed on current terms. Life goes on.

While our preoccupation with cancer fades, our awareness of mortality remains. That heightened awareness guides our lives, whether we recognize it or not. It creates anxiety, but it also reminds us that we are alive. Our time on earth is short and precious. This is the stuff of great art and trite greeting cards. Only a writer of Franz Kafka’s perverse gifts can get away with stating the obvious, ‘The meaning of life is that it stops.’ When we use a brush with death to refocus our lives in more authentic and meaningful ways, we are making the best of the situation, to be sure, but we are not romanticizing our misfortune. Cancer is not glamorous. Surviving cancer is neither romantic nor heroic. It is our good fortune, and it is forever a part of our lives. We may feel stronger for having endured the trials, or we may feel more vulnerable. Probably we feel both, on alternate days or even at the same time. Sometimes we know that ‘sadder but wiser’ is a cliché because it is true....

For some of us, having had cancer means that we don’t have time to waste; for others of us, it means that wasting time is our greatest luxury. For some, it means pushing to achieve our ambitions; for others, it means releasing ourselves from worldly ambition. As life goes on, we each sort out what it means to be a survivor.”

– Glenna Halvorson-Boyd and Lisa K. Hunter in Dancing in Limbo: Making Sense of Life After Cancer (Jossey-Bass, 1995)

At the time she was writing, Glenna was reflecting back on more than ten years’ experience as a mouth cancer survivor. She had surgery that removed a part of her tongue as well as other tissue inside her mouth, and she had to learn how to speak again. Unlike me, cancer has left Glenna with a continuing disability, but the change she’s talking about is deeper than the merely physical. It’s a matter of soul.

I’m especially struck by what she says in the last paragraph, above, with respect to ambition. Some survivors want to aggressively pursue some long-deferred dream. Others want to shed worldly cares and learn to live as slowly and deliberately as Thoreau did beside Walden Pond. I think I’m somewhere in between. Some days, I want to go seek a call to some tall-steeple church and write a bestselling book. Other days, I just want to settle in where I am, be as good a husband and father as I can be, and simply try to live as authentically as I can. At this stage in my survivorship, I’m experiencing major ambivalence.

Here at our little cabin in the woods, ever since Claire ran out of vacation days and had to return home, I’ve been feeling that tug in two different directions. I’ve got some major writing projects in the works – most urgently, an overdue third installment of a preachers’ commentary on Cycle A of the Revised Common Lectionary. CSS Publications is going to combine this manuscript with books I’ve already written on Cycle B and Cycle C, and bring them out as a single volume. This morning, I finished my draft of Cycle A, and – once I drive into Plattsburgh, to my favorite wireless hot spot in the Borders bookstore café – I’ll e-mail it off to my editor. I’ve still got a good bit of work yet to do, on some additions the publisher has requested for the previous two volumes. It will be a good feeling to finally finish that multi-year project, which I began before my cancer diagnosis. I just may be able to finish it before my vacation ends in a couple of weeks.

I have to admit, though, I don’t have quite the fire in my belly for this project as I did when I began it. It’s all part of that ambivalence I’m feeling. Do I want to be one of those survivors Glenna talks about, who’s eager to “achieve worldly ambitions”; or, would I rather “release myself from worldly ambitions?” I’m still trying to figure that one out.

Maybe I’m having an experience similar to that of a testicular cancer survivor named Neil, whose story Glenna tells:

“Another cancer survivor described his cancer experience as an ‘early midlife crisis.’ Neil was thirty-two when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer twenty years ago. Although the prospects for a cure are quite good today, back then he faced almost certain death. Neil fought for his chemotherapy and became one of the early successes in the treatment of testicular cancer. When faced with death, he took charge of his life. As he puts it, ‘At thirty-two, I woke up to the fact that I’m going to die, and... I don’t want to waste my time. So you recognize that your time is limited and precious, and that you... have some control over it.’” (p. 147)

Some people go out and buy a red sportscar to celebrate their mid-life crisis. I got lymphoma.

I should have bought the sportscar instead.

Future South Asian Leaders Get WDI Debate Training

Eighteen students from South Asia (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) are attending a one-week session at the World Debate Institute at the University of Vermont as part of a US Department of State month-long program centering an the Study of US Institutions (SUSI for short).

The debate session involves public speaking training, argumentation and refutation drills, debating in the WUDC format and is then finished as students tape three television programs of discussions they have researched and implemented on selected topics. The taping will be Thursday, and the topics are: Islamophobia, 21st Century as a New Age of Conflict and the Crisis of Rising Food Prices.

The program is taught by Alfred Snider of Vermont and Rhydian Morgan of the UK. "These students are immensely talented," said Snider, "and I think it is a great idea to also help them sharpen their oral communication and critical thinking skills."

In other parts of the program students learned about US political institutions, worked with community groups to develop an appreciation for service learning, engaged in sporting events designed for the disabled, attended fireworks and a small-town 4th of July parade and will be visiting Boston and Washington DC.

For more WDI news go to http://worlddebateinstitute.blogspot.com/

World Schools Session Concludes

Top four speakers: Becker, Lee, Hayes and Fuentes

The World Schools Debate workshop at the World Debate Institute at the University of Vermont came to a close on Monday and students departed on Tuesday. The session ended with a tournament, a final round, speaker awards and certificates presented to the attendees. The final night involved dinner downtown and a supervised taste of Burlington night life.

Students and faculty from six nations (Korea, Slovakia, Mexico, UK, Slovenia & USA) made the two week session intense from a debating perspective but also gave people an opportunity to make international contacts and learn from each other.

The final round was won by the team called "Slomerica" consisting of Jacob Klein, Sebastian Becker and Katarina Krasulova, although Katarina had to catch her plane for Europe and missed the final round itself. They triumphed in a 3-2 decision over the team called "Electric Pleasure Trio" consisting of In Hyok Lee, Andrew Hayes and Willis Danielson.

The top four speakers, pictured above, were:

1. Andrew Hayes, USA
2. In Hyok Lee, Korea
3. Aurea Fuentes, Mexico
4. Sebastian Becker, USA

The workshop was directed by Bojana Skrt of Slovenia, with the assistance of Rhydian Morgan of the UK. Other faculty involved were Jackie Massey of Oklahoma, Alfred Snider of Vermont and Mandy Frank of Vermont.

True Potential

"In the private sanctuary of one's own conscience lies that spirit, that determination to cast off the old person and to measure up to the stature of true potential."

Thomas S. Monson (1927 - )
Source: Ensign , May 1987, p. 69., © by Intellectual Reserve, Inc

True Potential

"In the private sanctuary of one's own conscience lies that spirit, that determination to cast off the old person and to measure up to the stature of true potential."

Thomas S. Monson (1927 - )
Source: Ensign , May 1987, p. 69., © by Intellectual Reserve, Inc

WDI 2008 Shirt is Unveiled

The WDI shirt has become fairly famous in the last 26 years. Ever since our very first one, with a huge red star ringed by "People's Republic of Burlington" we have produced a lot of collector's items.

Other shirts have included, "Brain Farm - we grow em big," "Turning Weapons Into Words," "Emancipate Yourself from Mental Slavery," "Logic & Love," to "Critical Thinking Creates a Better World." A few years ago the CEDA college national debate championship was won by two WDI graduates, and one wearing his WDI shirt.

This year we seem to have another winner. On the front it has a repeat of the "critical thinking" slogan, but the back has a comment balloon with "Where the future is born." We like to think about the amazing young people we are training and how they will make a difference in the future, hopefully for the good. Always optimistic is how we feel at WDI.

We also used navy blue as the color because we have not had a navy shirt ever, and we want to keep mixing it up.

They are not available for sale. You need to be here to get one.

Join us next year and get your own.

July 21, 2008 - Triple-Barreled Shotgun

A news release from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society directed me to an article in The Oncologist, which includes this conclusion:

“Treatment options for patients with follicular lymphoma have significantly expanded. They include ‘wait and watch,’ radiotherapy alone for stage 1 or 2, rituximab alone, RIT alone, single- or multiple-agent chemotherapy combined with rituximab, and participation in many ongoing studies with a variety of different treatment combinations and intensity levels. Therapy might thus ultimately be adapted to the patient’s individual situation, depending on the aggressiveness of the particular patient’s disease while still relying on a continuously growing repertoire of salvage therapies.

Multiple studies in NHL indicate that chemotherapy combined with rituximab or RIT yields superior results compared with chemotherapy alone. We argue that chemotherapy combined with both RIT and full-dose biological treatment has an even higher efficacy potential. The tripletherapy approach employing upfront chemotherapy combined with optimized RIT and extended biologic treatment with antibodies may represent the best chance for prolonged disease-free survival, and potential cure, keeping in reserve the possibility of intensification with ASCT or allografting for relapsed patients.”

(Franz Buchegger, Oliver W. Press, Angelika Bischof Delaloye and Nicolas Ketterer, “Radiolabeled and Native Antibodies and the Prospect of Cure of Follicular Lymphoma,” The Oncologist, 2008;13:657–667.)

I plowed through the whole article, dense medical jargon and all, because it could very well describe the course of my next treatment.

Of the various treatment options described in the second sentence, I’ve already had “multiple-agent chemotherapy combined with rituximab” (the R-CHOP chemo cocktail I received in January-May, 2006). Ever since my relapse last spring or summer, my current “treatment” (if it can be called that) has been “wait and watch.”

I’ve known for some time about three other treatment options: autologous stem-cell transplant (ASCT), “extended” or maintenance treatment with rituximab, and radioimmunotherapy (RIT). RIT refers to one of two drugs, Bexxar and Zevalin, each of which attaches a radioactive tag to rituximab molecules, allowing tiny particles of radioactive material to piggyback on rituximab’s unerring ability to find and travel to lymphoma cells.

RIT is the treatment that came close to disappearing at the end of last year, when revised Medicare reimbursement guidelines threatened to price it out of existence (see my November 14 and November 30, 2007 blog entries). After a deluge of letters from cancer patients and their friends, Congress swooped in at the last minute and granted a temporary extension of the old reimbursement guidelines. Recently, the same thing nearly happened again. The President vetoed the latest Medicare bill that included sufficient funding to keep RIT alive, but Congress overrode his veto.

What’s new about this article is that it’s recommending that a triple combination of therapies – chemo, maintenance rituximab treatment and RIT – be undertaken before a relapsed NHL patient goes for a stem-cell transplant. Because of the dangers associated with stem-cell transplants, this new thinking pushes that option a little lower down the priority list.

My former treatment was like a double-barreled shotgun: go after the cancer with both barrels at once. Reserved for the future were two other promising possibilities: RIT (with or without a follow-up program of maintenance rituximab) and stem-cell transplant. There was also, of course, the possibility of simply reloading the shotgun and firing the same two barrels again (rituximab combined with a different chemo cocktail – since CHOP cannot be repeated). Now, the authors of this article are recommending that a third barrel be added to the shotgun, blasting the cancer with all three at once: chemo, RIT and maintenance rituximab.

I wonder if this will become the new standard for treating relapsed follicular lymphoma? Or, if it will simply be one strategy out there, that continues to be debated?

I wonder, also, what the insurance companies will think of the new triple-barreled combination? It will surely be more expensive (although probably still not as pricey as a stem-cell transplant).

Last week I received a phone call from Dr. Lerner, letting me know that my July 1st CT scan indicated only slight growth in my abdominal mass. How slight? Two millimeters is what the doctor said – explaining that the growth is so small, some would consider it to be within the margin of error. Dr. Lerner confirmed that, when I meet with him in early August, continued watch-and-wait will be his recommendation.

I think I’ll ask him what he thinks of the triple-barreled approach – just as a matter of interest. In any event, the slow pace at which my disease is progressing suggests it may be some considerable time before we’ll have to make any treatment decisions.

This is, of course, a good thing. By then, the “continuously growing repertoire of salvage therapies” may well have grown a little more, and that the ongoing debate about treatment options will have advanced that much further.

July 20, 2008 - Featured on Presbyterian Bloggers

Last Friday, this was the featured blog on the "Presbyterian Bloggers" blog. Check it out.

Click HERE, then scroll down to Friday, July 18:

http://pcusablog.blogspot.com/

I Have My Train Tickets

I bought my train tickets yesterday *bites nails nervously* I guess this means I have to do it. I have to go through with it and stand up in front of all those people and act like I'm smart! LOL

In all seriousness I'm excited and scared to death all at the same time!

A lot of people have been asking me, what is the Sunstone Symposium? Here's a quote from this years program:

The Salt Lake Sunstone symposium is an annual gathering of Latter-day Saints, scholars, and others interested in the diversity and richness of Mormon thought and experience and who enjoy pondering the past, present and future of the unfolding Restoration. Hosting discussions from all disciplines and presentations of all kinds, the symposium is based upon the principles of an open forum and the trust that both the cause of truth and the society of the Saints are best served by free and frank exploration and discussion.

So I roll into SLC on Aug 7th after a 17 hour train ride from Sacramento with two kids (pray for us) and roll out of SLC on August 10th (pray for me again)

Even though it's a long ride I'm really looking forward to the train! What a way to travel!

I Have My Train Tickets

I bought my train tickets yesterday *bites nails nervously* I guess this means I have to do it. I have to go through with it and stand up in front of all those people and act like I'm smart! LOL

In all seriousness I'm excited and scared to death all at the same time!

A lot of people have been asking me, what is the Sunstone Symposium? Here's a quote from this years program:

The Salt Lake Sunstone symposium is an annual gathering of Latter-day Saints, scholars, and others interested in the diversity and richness of Mormon thought and experience and who enjoy pondering the past, present and future of the unfolding Restoration. Hosting discussions from all disciplines and presentations of all kinds, the symposium is based upon the principles of an open forum and the trust that both the cause of truth and the society of the Saints are best served by free and frank exploration and discussion.

So I roll into SLC on Aug 7th after a 17 hour train ride from Sacramento with two kids (pray for us) and roll out of SLC on August 10th (pray for me again)

Even though it's a long ride I'm really looking forward to the train! What a way to travel!

WDI Instructor Heads for Serbia, But Will Return

Steve Llano, right, with Sam Nelson of Cornell and Bojana Skrt of Slovenia

Steve Llano of St. John's University directed the Coach/Teacher workshop at WDI this year. He is now on his way to Serbia to do a debate workshop there before returning to WDI to teach at the College Parliamentary workshop. He leaves with fond memories of his stint at WDI so far.

Here are some passages from his own blog, found at
http://progymna.blogspot.com/2008/07/notes-from-wdi.html

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Notes from the WDI

There are a few things I expect to do every summer that I come to the University of Vermont to teach at the World Debate Institute.

One is that I'll eat Ben & Jerry's. Another is drinks at Red Square. A trip to the KKD is in order as well as Ali Baba's, the Red Onion Deli, and possibly a new place to eat as the turnover is pretty darn high around here.

Other things - I know I'll have to walk up that damn hill too many times. And I know I'll be tired, and I know that I'll meet a lot of people who will point out to me in a lot of ways how much learning I have left to do.

No disappointment this year. Even as an instructor I found the courses to make me think in new ways about teaching debate. Everything old is new again. This is exactly why I choose to teach at WDI in the summers when I could easily just stay home and relax. Already looking forward to next year.

In a couple of hours I'm off to Belgrade for more teaching and learning debate. This is a new workshop for me so I'm very interested to see how it goes. Then after that I will return to Vermont for WDI's World Style Debate institute. With over 30 students registered, it should be a really good workshop.

More from Belgrade tomorrow as I settle in and get a lay of the argumentative land.

Blue Hair

Seth thought it would be cute - I couldn't resist. What do you think?

Blue Hair

Seth thought it would be cute - I couldn't resist. What do you think?

On the Mend

Thank you for the prayers and well wishes we are on the mend! I'm off to pick up some craft supplies at the thrift shop and then we're all sitting down for a Star Wars-a-thon (thanks to our sweet neighbors for lending us those!)

Even when I'm sick I have to have some busy work to keep me still otherwise I wont rest. LOL

On the Mend

Thank you for the prayers and well wishes we are on the mend! I'm off to pick up some craft supplies at the thrift shop and then we're all sitting down for a Star Wars-a-thon (thanks to our sweet neighbors for lending us those!)

Even when I'm sick I have to have some busy work to keep me still otherwise I wont rest. LOL

Coach/Teacher Workshop Draws to a Close

Steve Llano of St. John's University and Rhydian Morgan judge a debate

The five-day Coach/Teacher Workshop is drawing to a close here at the World Debate Institute. It has been an action packed week for them, and they have gotten even more than they bargained for. On Thursday, for example, each coach was presented with a huge pile of DVDs and CDs of instructional materials in every single debate format of interest. They have been introduced to Lincoln Douglas, policy, parliamentary and public forum debate. They are full of questions and anxious to learn.

Steve Llano of St. John's University has been directing the classes, but has had help from Jackie Massey, Rhydian Morgan, Alfred Snider and others. Steve is perfect for this position because he has been both a high school and a college coach and has experience in all of these formats, as well as having a doctoral degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

About the class, Steve said, "It was engaging, enlightening and practical. The teachers discussed everything from the basics of modern argumentation theory to the pragmatics of how to have the first meeting to start their debate teams off. Any teacher interested in improving the quality of critical thought at his or her school would have no trouble finding all the tools to do so in this workshop."

Stomach flu

We're down with a stomach bug.



No, make that a stomach couger.



Pray, work spells and/or send good vibes our way please.

Stomach flu

We're down with a stomach bug.



No, make that a stomach couger.



Pray, work spells and/or send good vibes our way please.

July 16, 2008 - Certainty Lost, Wisdom Gained?

There are many losses associated with cancer, but among the most slippery to deal with is the loss of certainty. Such is the observation of Glenna Halvorson-Boyd and Lisa K. Hunter in Dancing in Limbo: Making Sense of Life After Cancer (Jossey-Bass, 1995). It’s a book I half-finished reading some months ago (see my April 18 blog entry), and have only recently picked up again. Here’s what these two cancer survivors say:

“We assumed that we had a future; now we don’t know. We assumed that we were safe in our own bodies; now we can’t be sure. We assumed that we had more control over our own lives. If we did the right things, we would be all right. In general, we believed in a more certain world.” (p. 88).

Most of us, in our younger years and well into middle age, live our lives based on certain assumptions. They’re irrational assumptions, but still we hold them dear. We know, intellectually, we’re going to die one day, but we really don’t believe it in our heart of hearts. By the same token, we may know that a certain percentage of the population will fall ill with life-threatening diseases, but we really don’t believe we’ll be numbered among them. We believe that if we do the right thing – or try to do the right thing – a beneficent Providence will reward us with life, liberty and a happiness we scarcely have to pursue.

We work hard, at times, to keep this irrational belief-structure in place. When we see neighbors get sick, many of us believe – consciously or unconsciously – that somehow it must be their fault. Maybe they smoked, or drank to excess, or gorged on some carcinogenic food we ourselves are wise enough to avoid. To believe otherwise – to acknowledge that many cancers and other life-threatening illnesses just happen, and scientists can’t say why – is too uncomfortable a thought to hold. And so, we search out a reason, a cause for the catastrophe. We leap on every rumor that the latest artificial sweetener or food additive is carcinogenic. We line up to protest the new cell-phone tower, because of course everyone knows those radio waves can’t be good for us. Before we know it, we’ve transformed those rumors into rock-solid certainty in our minds, based on scant scientific evidence. Flimsy logic, to be sure, but it will do in a pinch, if a whole belief-system is at stake.

Here are Halvorson-Boyd and Hunter again:

“Americans in the United States in the twentieth century hold some basic beliefs about life: that illness is caused by a known agent and can be cured; that if we follow the dictates of a healthy life-style, we are protected from sickness and even death; and that we can choose when and how we die. As cancer survivor Neil Fiore says in The Road Back to Health: Coping with the Emotional Aspects of Cancer, ‘The expectation of an understanding and controllable world is so deeply embedded in the modern mind that when horrific events occur we tend to attribute them to a logical, cause-effect relationship, rather than acknowledge that some things are still beyond our human understanding and the control of our technology.... As attempts to explain uncontrollable events, blame and self-blame are particularly damaging to one’s ability to cope with cancer.’” (p. 108)

We cancer survivors are mourning a multitude of losses. Few areas of our lives have been left untouched by the disease. Of all these losses, the loss of our cherished, irrational certainties may be among the most debilitating. Cancer has bestowed on us younger survivors a kind of wisdom, wisdom most of our peers won’t gain until they’re much older and facing health challenges of their own. Once we were relaxing in the soft candlelight of old and comfortable certainties. Abruptly, cancer turned on the overhead lights, and now we’re left blinking in their harshness – wiser, perhaps, but not necessarily happier.

In ancient Norse mythology, Odin, chief of all the gods, is offered the gift of wisdom. The gift, however, comes at a steep price. Odin must give up one of his eyes in exchange. So eager is Odin to obtain wisdom that he reaches into his eye-socket and plucks out his own eye. He undergoes terrible pain and lifelong disability in order to become wise.

Those ancient Scandinavian people were onto something. Wisdom never comes cheap. Always it demands something of us, by way of sacrifice.

None of us cancer survivors chose this kind of wisdom. But we do get to wear the eyepatch.

July 13, 2008 - Mind-Body Medicine Stories

Late this afternoon, Claire and I are sitting on the screened-in porch of our little house in the woods. It’s been raining softly most of the day. We have neither energy nor desire to do anything other than just sit here. After all the frenetic days of getting ready for the trip, a long day of driving and another day of settling in, we’ve finally hit rock bottom. We’ve arrived. We’re officially... on vacation.

The first book I picked up to read, out of the pile I brought with me, was one I’ve been hoping to get to for some time: The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine, by Anne Harrington (Norton, 2008). I found it so lively and fascinating, I plowed right through it.

Harrington heads the History of Science Department at Harvard. In this wide-ranging survey, she traces the history of a very old idea that’s continued to bob to the surface, despite periodic attempts by some medical scientists to push it back down: the idea that our state of mind influences our bodily health.

The movement called “mind-body medicine” – if it can indeed be called a movement – is fairly amorphous. It contains within it everything from serious scientific studies to absolute quackery. Rather than trying to portray it as a coherent system, Harrington wisely chooses to tell stories. She identifies six signature “narratives” that come up again and again, across the generations:

1. The Power of Suggestion – Beginning with roots in religious exorcism rituals and continuing through the rise of mesmerism (later known as hypnotism) in the 18th and 19th centuries, this narrative culminates in the more recent understanding of placebos as something that may have real therapeutic value. Even skeptical, post-modern folk continue to respond to what has been called “the power of suggestion,” especially when mediated by a doctor or other authority-figure we trust.

2. The Body that Speaks – Beginning with the work of Freud, Harrington traces the efforts of various pioneers of psychology to listen to what their patients’ bodies are saying: not just the quantifiable messages of blood counts and body temperature, but also more subjective messages related to state of mind. From primitive Freudian notions of “hysteria” in women, through studies of “shell shock” (later, post-traumatic stress syndrome) in soldiers, through now-discarded truisms like stress as the cause of stomach ulcers, this narrative has evolved through many incarnations. The saga continues to be told by modern practitioners like cancer-treatment guru Bernie Siegel, who – rightly or wrongly – traces the roots of many cancers to emotional unease.

3. The Power of Positive Thinking – From “faith-healing” miracles at Lourdes, through Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science, through Norman Vincent Peale’s “power of positive thinking,” through Norman Cousins’ laughter therapy of the 1970s, to AIDS activists’ embrace of the self-healing concept in the 1990s, Harrington describes the persistent idea that we can think our way to better health.

4. Broken by Modern Life – Before the mid-20th century, the concept of “stress” was nothing more than an engineering term. But then, beginning with the pioneering work of psychologist Walter B. Cannon at Harvard (who identified the “fight or flight” response), and continuing through Hans Selye, who popularized the idea of stress as the signature problem of the modern era, stress is now on everybody’s mind. We’ve heard of the “Type A” personality that’s said to be at greater risk of heart attacks, and we’ve heard how stress-management techniques have helped AIDS patients maintain a healthy immune system. Can anyone doubt that psychological stress is real, and has an impact on physical health?

5. Healing Ties – “If two lie together, they keep warm,” observes the book of Ecclesiastes, “but how can one keep warm alone?” To that ancient wisdom, Harrington might add, “how can one stay healthy alone?” From stories of close-knit, ethnic communities whose members are inexplicably spared the worst of certain diseases, to tales of isolated, sickly children in orphanages who were rarely picked up and cuddled, to support groups that keep cancer survivors healthy, there’s ample evidence that social relationships play a big role in our health.

6. Eastward Journeys – The more disenchanted we in the industrialized West come to feel about our mechanistic, often soulless society, the more some of us are turning eastward, borrowing insights from ancient spiritual practices of India, China and Tibet. Harrington tells the tale of Harvard physician Herbert Benson’s interest in Transcendental Meditation – which he later secularized as “the relaxation response” – and of the east-west migration of practices such as acupuncture and qigong into complementary treatments for cancer.

Reflecting on Harrington’s rich depiction of mind-body medicine, I have to say there’s something troubling about it. If the mind can influence the body in the direction of either health or illness, then what does that say about those who become sick? Are we who have cancer somehow deficient in our thinking? Should we, the victims, be blamed?

Harrington is alert to this problem, mentioning it on several occasions throughout her book. One of the most memorable is connected with her quotation of a “darkly comic” 1940 poem of W.H. Auden, called “Miss Gee.” It’s about an elderly spinster who gets cancer, which her doctor attributes to her tightly-buttoned emotional life.

Here’s an excerpt:







“She bicycled down to the doctor,
And rang the surgery bell;
‘O doctor, I’ve a pain inside me,
And I don’t feel very well.’

Doctor Thomas looked her over,
And then he looked some more;
Walked over to his wash-basin,
Said, ‘Why didn’t you come before?’

Doctor Thomas sat over his dinner,
Though his wife was waiting to ring,
Rolling his bread into pellets:
Said, “Cancer’s a funny thing.

‘Nobody knows what the cause is,
Though some pretend they do;
It’s like some hidden assassin
Waiting to strike at you.

‘Childless women get it,
And men when they retire;
It’s as if there had to be some outlet
For their foiled creative fire.’” (p. 90)

(The “rolling his bread into pellets” is, I expect, a reference to the fact that some early placebo pills were made of bread.)

Ought cancer survivors to be blamed, somehow, for some “foiled creative fire” that has rendered us susceptible to disease? Harrington urges caution. She’s well aware that the insights of mind-body medicine can be a double-edged sword. For that reason, she concludes her book by urging that these healing narratives be used with discretion. Such stories must be used descriptively, not prescriptively. They help us “bridge the lacunae in our thinking.” Even though the use of such narratives may seem, to some, unscientific, medicine still ought “to embrace them as part of its map and part of its territory alike” (p. 255).

The Cure Within is a satisfying read. Check it out.