I always liked St. Francis the best.
Readers of Esse Diem may be interested in this excerpt of my essay for A Spiritual Life: Perspectives from Poets, Prophets, and Preachers featured today on Jana Riess’s fabulous blog, Flunking Sainthood. (I could swear she named that for me, but she says no.)
Jana writes:
As we continue with our Thursday Spirituality series for May, we draw from what I thought was one of the most powerful essays in Allan Cole’s anthology A Spiritual Life. I had not heard of Elizabeth Damewood Gaucher before, but her compelling account of being diagnosed with MS at the tender age of 30 had me spellbound.
Where is God when you’re sitting across from the doctor and he tells you that your health and life will get progressively worse with little hope of a cure? How does that knowledge then change the way you live the time you have left?
Click here to read a portion of the essay: Where Is God in Chronic Illness? – Flunking Sainthood
Image credit: The Legend of St. Francis and the Wolf
Esse Diem 
Mercy, mercy, mercy is like umh, umh,umh. Of course the first thing I want to say is that I have a good friend and too many former students with MS. Good friend is a Church of Christ saint of a minister(and me a something other than theist or atheist), he was my son’s first of two most wonderful of all coaches, never cursed, never yelled, never showed disappointment, always positive and happy and tells me he loves me everytime we meet.
You do a fine life of encouragement and happy feeling and excellent writing–is that inspite of or because of MS or is that just you to start with? When i say have a good day I really mean it for anyone with MS. Have a good day.
Awww…..thanks! It sucks hard, as they say. And yet not. ‘Tis a mystery.
To answer your question, I was born an exceptional kick-ass person, nurtured to greatness by a family of super heroes and a cadre of wizards, and just plain lucky.
Every day of my life has been good. Seems like a trend…….
You just made me think of how much I love this quote about Kramer from Seinfeld:
“Kramer goes to a fantasy camp? His whole life is a fantasy camp. People should plunk down $2000 to live like him for a week. Sleep, do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors and have sex without dating… THAT’S a fantasy camp.”