Day 10 of my fever. I woke up with the fever a week ago Saturday, when Patty and I were in South Carolina, visiting my ailing father. She had to drive all but about an hour of the way back home that day so we could be back for worship the next morning. But, when morning came, I was in no shape to be in church. And there's been fever every morning since.

Fortunately, as it turns out, tests were already scheduled that the pulmonary specialist will use to get to the bottom of what's going on. I'd had a chest x-ray on September 7, which revealed areas of "abnormality" in both lungs, and a C-T scan was already scheduled for this past Monday, the first Monday back from South Carolina. Also, this past week, I had much blood work done, and endured a throughly distasteful surgical procedure called a bronchoscopy, during which lung tissue was removed for biopsy and for culture.

So now, I wait. On Wednesday afternoon I meet with the pulmonary specialist to see what we're dealing with and what the treatment will be. I have a few hours each day of semi-lucid thinking (usually aided by Tylenol).

I've walked with hundreds -- probably into the thousands -- of people through sickness during nearly three decades of being a parish pastor. But this is the first time I've been this sick for this long. I don't know how to do it!

I am better at it than I was a week ago, as a result of my prayer and thining!

For instance, I spent this past summer immersed in the writings of two Spanish 16th century mystics, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Teresa was sick a lot -- and she saw sickness as periods of spiritual growth. She writes that it gave her insight on Christ's sufferings. Otherwise, Christ's sufferings are only an intellectual concept, and we don't truly appreciate them. Hmmm. That's entirely counter to our therapeutic culture, isn't it? We're supposed to be feeling good all the time, right? If we don't feel good, then there's something wrong with us, right? So, I'm chewing on what Teresa writes. Hmmm. For another matter, it's so easy to move from what she writes, and to say that suffering is good. That is certainly not the case! But there is perverted theology in the Christian tradition that would make that claim. There's danger there.

John of the Cross wrote somthing that's more helpful for me. He urges us to look at what most bothers us during a period of suffering. When we identify that, then our spiritual task is to detach ourselves from that concern -- because that gets in the way of receiving the love of God during the suffering. That one is easy for me to understand. Those first nights of the fever, my dreams were lively with exaggerated anxiety -- projects that I needed to get to, responsibilities that I needed to fulfill, people whose needs I needed to meet. There was no possibility of God's love getting through all that crap. So: detach. Let go. Allow God's love free flow. There is healing in that.

Want to know one thing that's helped me with that detachment? Each morning I wake up, and I find that the world is still turning. Yes, it's true! It's true even though I haven't been doing a single "constructive" thing to help the world turn. So: detach. Let go. Allow God's love free flow. I am indeed receiving much spiritual and emotional healing, even as I wait for physical healing.