Thanksgiving | Waves of Gratitude

On the day after Thanksgiving I sat in front of our gas log in the dark of early morning, as the valley outside filled with fog and my neighbors' rooftops took on the expected white coating of frost, and I felt grateful for the warmth and for being able to lose myself in the dancing flames. As I watched them I felt waves of gratitude for both my team of providers (physicians) at Sutter Health in Sacramento — and for the loving support and prayers of you friends and family on this mailing list. I was grateful to my "care team" for giving me more than two additional years of life since the day in August of 2022 that I was diagnosed with a neuroendocrine carcinoma which was about to cross the barrier between my sinuses and brain. And for you on my "prayer team," I was grateful for our time spent together, over the years. Even though some of us aren't related, every one of you have made significant contributions to my memories upon which I now sit, contentedly and nostalgically ruminating.

Treatment Update

I'll spare you beloved from the details of my current condition, but briefly, The nodules in my lungs and gastrointestinal system have grown and mulitpled and the sinus cancer has returned to the sinuses, affecting the bones surrounging the eye sockets (orbits.) I've agreed to surgeries to address those issues between now and possibly the end of January. There will also be radiation directed at the largest of the nodules on my liver. Maybe the team can eek out another few months or even a year of life from this regimen. Please pray that all this won't affect my cognitive ability — or the entire effort will be meaningless.

In the meantime I expect that my posts here will be more infrequent . Often I have time to write but I don't have energy to write. Today is an energy day. :) Here's my latest "philosophically-oriented" poem:

"Culture lubricates the gears of a tribe

And is only useful within its margins.

Once defined it sets the memes of

Intercourse, both sexual and symbolic,

Pulling in both attire and artistic expression with it.

Up and Down the Hemisphere —

Arctic to Antarctic — European Conquerors

Forcefully imposed Church-culture on various

And sundry New World Tribes

Causing great distruption within their borders.

A respectul newcommer would've followed his own

Maxim, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'

But these did not, and were at first disprected and ridiculed.

'The European ignores the plain evidence of nature all around us.'

But the self-described Westerners persisted sometimes

By unspeakable torture and other times by the pragmatc,

Feigning acquiesce of the conquered tribes.

And so it went — and so it goes.

The past is finished and can't be brought back.

The Old World is finished — bring in the New.

While we modern indigenous revive

The shreds of our culture and religion,

We should take lessons learned from them:

'... in Rome do as the Romans do'

Let's enjoy but not expect to impose our beliefs

On ourselves nor on the hemisphere's res publica."

For those of you readers and subscribers who are interested in how the thinking of a retired person evolves from the age of 70 until 80, you can read samples from my archive in the order first published. You can also see the drastic turn it takes after August 2022 when terminal cancer was diagnosed. I think the piece"An Atheist's Queries" epitomizes the pre-cancer phase. Interesingly it was posted only a month or so before the diagnosis. The more recent piece "Poetry | ... of Gods and Bibles" is the summation of the my conclusions currently, during the cancer phase. Again, Thank You for being here. Vern