Diary of a Theologian

I Don't Want to Be an Expert on My Cancer

I read the novel 20 or more years ago: The Good Husband by Gail Godwin, an Episcopalian who still lives in the Hudson Valley. The intellectual woman at the center of the novel is diagnosed with breast cancer, rather far advanced. She decides to forego treatment, saying something like: I don’t want to spend the rest of my life becoming an expert on my cancer.
    So she approaches death neither denying it nor focusing on it. For the time she has left, she has life and (hence the title) a good husband. I remember thinking this was a brave and not necessarily correct moral choice. We have a moral duty to preserve our life for the sake of what God wants us to do. But we are not obliged to try at any cost to prolong our life. So it could be exactly right to refuse treatments.
    What I recall as particularly interesting in this novel was the main character’s attitude to her approaching death. She did not want to become an expert on it! She had other things to do!
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    Death is an undeniable reality. But we all know that modern medicine presents us with moral temptations, a main one being that if we just eat the right things, and take the right prescriptions, and, and, and . . . then death can be pushed off indefinitely into the future.
    There is another cost that, perhaps, we don’t reckon with seriously enough. It is cost of focusing our attention upon such things as diet, activity, tests, follow-up appointments, more tests, more adjustments, more appointments. All that takes a lot of attention (and to an extent, it is our moral duty to attend). But at what cost?
    Godwin’s character said: I don’t want to give my cancer that much attention. It will kill me, but in the meantime I will do other things that I can do.
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    We professional religious people (priests like yours truly) are often preaching to ourselves. I return again and again to Psalm 90: So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Not: that we may apply our hearts to the odds and options before us as we face our mortality. Wisdom: that’s what matters.
    I think: I’m on the far side of 50 now (on the very far side, actually, even the far side of 60, but who’s counting?) and so I’m definitely beyond the midpoint of my earthly life. What is wisdom? What do I want to be doing the rest of my days? What does God want me to do? What should I be about for the time that remains, whatever it may be?
    That’s a great question, whether we’ve received a cancer report or not.
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    Out & About. I am to preach on Sunday, August 11, at the traditional services of Church of the Incarnation, Dallas.
    On the Web. I recently reviewed the book Modern Kinship, which styles itself as a Christian guide to queer marriage. Why the review? I’ve been thinking about marriage (and friendship, and kinship) for some time, and it was a chance to lay down some markers. I’m not keen on the book, but I’m also not keen on a lot of heterosexual marriage either. Here’s the review: https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2019/07/16/are-kinship-and-marriage-synonymous/
    What Theologians Read. This week I read the Autumn 2015 issue of City Journal. (I told you I live in the past!) While still focused on New York City, this 25th anniversary issue is on the American city, with articles on Nashville, Buffalo, Baltimore . . . and even Oklahoma City. You can peruse it here: https://www.city-journal.org/magazine?issue=209 . The people of God, the prophet Jeremiah says, are to care for the cities where we live; and the kingdom to come, of course, will be a city descending from heaven to earth. This journal is a bit wonkish for my tastes, but (agree or disagree) I admire its care to advance humane urban life.

A Lawyer Wrote me About "Trespass"

He had read my recent columns on the Lord’s Prayer and found it interesting that the translation is “trespass.” “In the common law,” he wrote, “the tort of trespass is the basis for almost every crime and civil offense against the person.” Trespass, in other words, is at the root of most crimes and offenses.

His return address, however, was scrambled and my reply failed to get through. But it may be of general interest also. So here it is.
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The Greek word that is translated “trespass” comes from parapipto, which means literally to “slip aside.” One can see how that is used for an error or transgression.

But that is not the word in the Lord’s Prayer. We find “trespass” only in Matthew 6:14-15, when Jesus, after finishing the prayer, goes back to explain that line.

Look it up in the King James Version: At Matthew 6:12, we are instructed to ask God to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” (This is the traditional translation maintained by Presbyterians.) The Greek words there (both instances) are from opheilo, which means to owe, to have a debt. (Yes, it is also related to “Ophelia.”)

There are two versions of the Lord’s Prayer in the New Testament. The other one, in Luke, uses two different words in this line (again, the distinction is maintained in the King James Version). It’s at Luke 11:4. “Forgive us our sins; for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us.” The word for “sins” comes from Greek hamartia, which means missing the mark—going off course (like a stray arrow, say; one might even say erring and straying). “Debtors” again comes from opheilo.

So: the “explanation word” that Jesus gives, “trespasses,” becomes the word we traditionally use in corporate prayer in English. Whatever the historical trajectory of that, it is interesting to learn that trespass can be understood as the root of all (or most) crime and offense. We are asking God to forgive something that is at the root.

(More on this line in a future post.)
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Out & About. I am to preach on Sunday, August 11, at the traditional services of Church of the Incarnation, Dallas.

Looking Ahead. It’s not for more than a month, but for the next “Good Books & Good Talk” seminar we’ll be reading The Master and Margarita (note: not “The Master and the Margarita”; it is not a book about alcoholism.) This novel, written during the Soviet period by Mikhail Bulgakov, is a satire and a romp with odd theological elements. I find it a fast read, but it is nonetheless 400 pages (but hey, that’s less than half of War and Peace). The devil appears in the first chapter. He says it’s easy for him to walk around in communist Russia, because no one believes he exists. He was also (of course) at the events in Jerusalem some two thousand years earlier. It’s worth the time—but not something to be read in the weekend before the seminar! (Which will be Sunday, September 15, at 6 p.m.)

What Theologians Read. Here’s an interesting essay from the latest Image magazine, on the moon landing and faith—reviewing two books and the film “First Man”.

I also recently read—in an hour—The Sunset Limited, a “novel in dramatic form” by Cormac McCarthy. It’s the first McCarthy I’ve been able to finish (and several of them have been recommended to me over the years). The two characters are “Black” and “White,” sitting in Black’s small city apartment, discussing suicide. It seems White recently attempted that, and was caught up in the arms of Black. The dialogue is sharp, surprising, deep—McCarthy is a genius—and sometimes I felt I was reading an updated version of C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. Yet, in the end, I was less than satisfied. That, however, may be my problem; if you have a soul for looking into the abyss, this is a better look than you will usually get. (May I again commend the Dallas Public Library for their collection?)