Cancer Visits My World-By Bill Rayburn
I found out today that a former friend and lover has Thyroid cancer. She is 33. Her name is not important. Her fate, however, is very important to me. As flip as I can be here on Facebook and on other venues about matters of sexuality, and the opposite sex, I have not lived cavalierly in the world of love. There have not been many significant others. Two ex-wives, maybe a handful, if that, of committed relationships. And very little sexual promiscuity. So this young lady remains on my short list of loves I have shared in my 52 years.
She is the last relationship I have had, dating back to the early to mid-2000s. She was much younger than I; Asian, and a college graduate. Our two and a half years together staved off my upcoming depression and tail spin that began when I was laid off at the newspaper in 2009, the same newspaper where we had met.
We had cultural differences that rivaled the age difference, but we bridged them quite well. She was smart, tough and funny. She was a full generation younger than I, almost 19 years. I took some good natured ribbing from the more troglodytic male cohorts of mine. I accepted it with good humor. They could see, beyond their barbs, that we were good for each other. Our weakness balanced nicely with our strengths. We were much more complimentary with each other than one would guess, given our differences.
She made me feel younger than my age, and a million years old at the same time. She was a breath of fresh air for this tired old cynic. She exuded an alluring combination of innocence and shrewdness. She could be quite girlish, and yet all woman, often in the same hour. She grabbed life by the balls, always with her foot on the gas. She didn't drag her feet with constant reflection and speculation. She got things done. She was a doer, not a talker.
The only reason I am using past tense terms here is because we lost contact shortly after we agreed mutually that our love had run its course. She moved on to a more permanent arrangement. I think her time with me prepared her for the next step. The next man. At least I hope so. As legacies go, I do not have an abundance of them. My hope is that she is one of them.
She has married and has been very happy. Then this medical bombshell landed on her front porch with all the subtlety of a train wreck. She is scared. Cancer at the age of 33 is simply not supposed to happen. Especially to people with her joi de vivre, her spirit, her good soul. But it does.
It is one of the central ironies about growing old, that we experience death on an almost regular basis with each passing year. If we add up the weddings we go to in our first 40 years, with the number of funerals we are destined to go to in the next 40, which number do you think will be higher?
I have read many, many cancer stories on these pages. My sister died at age 48 of bladder cancer. My best friend’s wife passed recently at 64 of lung cancer. He himself has survived colon cancer.
Cancer has touched virtually everyone in some heinous way or other. It has become inevitable, ubiquitous, and as permanent as death itself. Or at least that’s how it feels.
She informed me via email today of this news. I was shell-shocked. And deeply saddened. The limitations of the written word, and I know them well, made my response to her difficult. I simply told her, boldly, that she COULD beat it. That she SHOULD beat it. That she WILL beat it.
I hate being in the cheerleader role. It makes me feel impotent, feckless, and even inconsequential.
The odds are very good that someone now reading this, or this writer, are currently harboring cancer cells that may kill us. Sure, there are forms of cancer that we can control whether or not we get it. Some cancer is behaviorally influenced. But cancer often strikes randomly, lethally, cruelly.
F**k you, cancer.
Leave the women on my short list alone.
Isn’t it bad enough they had to be with me?
...God?
By Bill Rayburn
Born 1960, M, from London, England, United Kingdom
Author Profile
...God?
…G.O.D.?
Been thinking about the big guy (gal?) upstairs lately. Nothing earth shattering. No sudden transformation for me. Just contemplating, dispassionately, why I don't believe in God.
I don't like labels, per se, especially when hung on myself, and I am not entirely comfortable with 'atheist', though by definition, that is probably what I am.
And the key word is 'probably'. Do I believe in God? At gunpoint, forced to reveal the absolute (hate that word) truth, I would honestly have to say, "I don't know".
I was raised a Catholic and remained one, as George Carlin once said so sagaciously, "...until I reached the age of reason". That was about 17 for me. Renouncing my religious upbringing coincided nicely with my sudden independence from my parents and family, as I had moved out of the house into an apartment. I was casting aside a huge portion of my childhood. And shortly thereafter my girlfriend moved in. This was 1978. The Catholic Church was not big on its parishioners living in sin. Nor was my dad. I couldn't have cared less. On both accounts.
There are many reasons I rejected organized religion and, soon thereafter, the idea that there was/is a God. Many of my reasons were intellectual in nature, yet there were still some lingering emotional issues from my eight years of Catholic grade school which had to be considered during my youthful repudiation of all things religious.
For example: I could never get my head around the idea that we should live in fear of God. Whether a precocious nine-year-old, or a wiser, yet still wet-behind-the-ears 17-year-old, it never made a shred of sense. I lived in fear of my father, whom I hated for breeding that type of atmosphere. Did God want me to hate him as well? I surmised he did not.
So that was the first of many rejections I went through regarding the bible and its teachings. The bible was, and remains, the most contradictory piece of ‘literature’ I’ve ever endured. I found it not only baffling and difficult to understand, but ironically, wholly uninspiring.
The 'fear' factor simply brought out my natural instinct for rebellion, prompting me to turn my contrarian instincts toward a God who was presented to me not as a friend, but as an authoritarian figure and, even more disconcerting, a ‘savior’. My attitude also mirrored my unwillingness to buy into what my dad was forcing upon me about the Catholic Church, which was a “believe in it or else” mantra which proved to be ultimately an anti-sales pitch.
I think my rejection of my dad paved the way for my rejection of God. Authoritarian figures have never fit in my world, and the two most unbending, influential icons in my life I rejected before I was old enough to vote.
As I grew into my 20s my intellect grew exponentially and the concept of ‘faith’ found its way on to my rejection list. I chose not to believe in 'believing'. This was the last major hurdle to shedding the yoke of Catholic dogma, a mindset designed to strangle independent thought. Once I wrestled that from around my neck, I was off to much more verdant, vibrant pastures of thought and concept. Religion was not an area where ambiguity and nuance lived. But it was where I lived.
The 1980s was anything but a carefree decade for me. Death and tragedy visited my family; two inevitable aspects of life that most people use their faith to endure or overcome. I did it the secular way. I drank.
Not really. What I did was think. I had long ago given up the Pollyanna idea that life was fair, and that fate only heaped as much onto your plate as you could eat at one sitting. All around me, I saw people who were unable to deal with the more sinister conundrums of life; people overwhelmed by their circumstances, self-imposed or otherwise. From where I sat, life appeared to be absolutely f***ing brutal, and whether one believed in God or not, the potential to be swept under the tsunami of life appeared to be available equally to believers and non-believers. Salvation was for suckers.
Once I identified as lip service what the faithful would offer up in explanation for the tragic events of life, I realized they were ensnared in an oftentimes very elaborate self-deception. Few things could send me sprinting in the opposite direction more quickly than 'denial'.
It’s been my experience that even those deep into their faith are rarely able to find a peaceful place when confronted with the worst life has to offer. I realized their faith guaranteed them no safe haven. Even if they thought it did, their rhetoric usually outweighed their actions. In fact, I saw that religious belief was about buying into the rhetoric. Behind the diaphanous curtain of scripture and biblical contradictions was a quite naked emperor with an embarrassed, almost apologetic grin, staring fecklessly at a machine with no levers or buttons or handles.
But I confess to doing some dancing here myself. The number one reason I have rejected God and religion has less to do with my intellectual pragmatism and distrust in faith, and more to do with simply not wanting to be associated with, lumped into, or perceived as aligned with, people that are ensconced in a force field of fear. So paralyzed by the uncertainty of life and the fundamental paucity of answers to most of life’s big questions, these people latched onto something and someone, based completely on faith.
God is a port in a storm. I understand the need and desire for such a port. But I personally reject it because it is a mirage.
Hypocrisy is also ingrained in the religious experience. Coupled with the fear and denial, it creates an environment in which I cannot live, let alone thrive.
Some key words: worship; fear; guilt; sin.
Who in their right mind would want anything to do with those four pernicious concepts? I know I didn't. I mentioned that fear was my first thoughtful rejection. In addition, Catholic guilt is a powerful weapon used by the church to keep the flock in line, and aligned. In a secular life there are more concrete, direct consequences to human foibles and missteps then ‘feeling bad’.
And ‘worship’ sounds simply wrong to me. Equality and fairness are my personal tenets. There is no room for worship when thinking the way I think.
Should I discuss the concept of sin?
As long as I can start with calling myself a card-carrying pagan, I’ll dive into this pool. I think the 10 commandments are, for the most part, a good idea. They are pretty solid guidelines which, if someone chooses to live by them, will provide civilized society some parameters for human behavior.
But when the commandments attempt to legislate human morality that is where I back out. Like “though shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife”. Harboring thoughts about Mrs. Jackson across the street as she works in her garden in her bikini top is simply not a sin in my book. Acting on it, depending on the marital status of those involved, may be a different story. I do believe in the marital vows and fidelity.
This has been a rambling explanation, which probably explains better than anything my ultimate answer of “I don’t know”.
But faith leaves no wiggle room. There is no part of faith that embraces “I don’t know”. One either believes or doesn’t.
I don’t.
My ultimate goal is to get to the next level, which is simply: I don’t care.
She is the last relationship I have had, dating back to the early to mid-2000s. She was much younger than I; Asian, and a college graduate. Our two and a half years together staved off my upcoming depression and tail spin that began when I was laid off at the newspaper in 2009, the same newspaper where we had met.
We had cultural differences that rivaled the age difference, but we bridged them quite well. She was smart, tough and funny. She was a full generation younger than I, almost 19 years. I took some good natured ribbing from the more troglodytic male cohorts of mine. I accepted it with good humor. They could see, beyond their barbs, that we were good for each other. Our weakness balanced nicely with our strengths. We were much more complimentary with each other than one would guess, given our differences.
She made me feel younger than my age, and a million years old at the same time. She was a breath of fresh air for this tired old cynic. She exuded an alluring combination of innocence and shrewdness. She could be quite girlish, and yet all woman, often in the same hour. She grabbed life by the balls, always with her foot on the gas. She didn't drag her feet with constant reflection and speculation. She got things done. She was a doer, not a talker.
The only reason I am using past tense terms here is because we lost contact shortly after we agreed mutually that our love had run its course. She moved on to a more permanent arrangement. I think her time with me prepared her for the next step. The next man. At least I hope so. As legacies go, I do not have an abundance of them. My hope is that she is one of them.
She has married and has been very happy. Then this medical bombshell landed on her front porch with all the subtlety of a train wreck. She is scared. Cancer at the age of 33 is simply not supposed to happen. Especially to people with her joi de vivre, her spirit, her good soul. But it does.
It is one of the central ironies about growing old, that we experience death on an almost regular basis with each passing year. If we add up the weddings we go to in our first 40 years, with the number of funerals we are destined to go to in the next 40, which number do you think will be higher?
I have read many, many cancer stories on these pages. My sister died at age 48 of bladder cancer. My best friend’s wife passed recently at 64 of lung cancer. He himself has survived colon cancer.
Cancer has touched virtually everyone in some heinous way or other. It has become inevitable, ubiquitous, and as permanent as death itself. Or at least that’s how it feels.
She informed me via email today of this news. I was shell-shocked. And deeply saddened. The limitations of the written word, and I know them well, made my response to her difficult. I simply told her, boldly, that she COULD beat it. That she SHOULD beat it. That she WILL beat it.
I hate being in the cheerleader role. It makes me feel impotent, feckless, and even inconsequential.
The odds are very good that someone now reading this, or this writer, are currently harboring cancer cells that may kill us. Sure, there are forms of cancer that we can control whether or not we get it. Some cancer is behaviorally influenced. But cancer often strikes randomly, lethally, cruelly.
F**k you, cancer.
Leave the women on my short list alone.
Isn’t it bad enough they had to be with me?
...God?
By Bill Rayburn
Born 1960, M, from London, England, United Kingdom
Author Profile
...God?
…G.O.D.?
Been thinking about the big guy (gal?) upstairs lately. Nothing earth shattering. No sudden transformation for me. Just contemplating, dispassionately, why I don't believe in God.
I don't like labels, per se, especially when hung on myself, and I am not entirely comfortable with 'atheist', though by definition, that is probably what I am.
And the key word is 'probably'. Do I believe in God? At gunpoint, forced to reveal the absolute (hate that word) truth, I would honestly have to say, "I don't know".
I was raised a Catholic and remained one, as George Carlin once said so sagaciously, "...until I reached the age of reason". That was about 17 for me. Renouncing my religious upbringing coincided nicely with my sudden independence from my parents and family, as I had moved out of the house into an apartment. I was casting aside a huge portion of my childhood. And shortly thereafter my girlfriend moved in. This was 1978. The Catholic Church was not big on its parishioners living in sin. Nor was my dad. I couldn't have cared less. On both accounts.
There are many reasons I rejected organized religion and, soon thereafter, the idea that there was/is a God. Many of my reasons were intellectual in nature, yet there were still some lingering emotional issues from my eight years of Catholic grade school which had to be considered during my youthful repudiation of all things religious.
For example: I could never get my head around the idea that we should live in fear of God. Whether a precocious nine-year-old, or a wiser, yet still wet-behind-the-ears 17-year-old, it never made a shred of sense. I lived in fear of my father, whom I hated for breeding that type of atmosphere. Did God want me to hate him as well? I surmised he did not.
So that was the first of many rejections I went through regarding the bible and its teachings. The bible was, and remains, the most contradictory piece of ‘literature’ I’ve ever endured. I found it not only baffling and difficult to understand, but ironically, wholly uninspiring.
The 'fear' factor simply brought out my natural instinct for rebellion, prompting me to turn my contrarian instincts toward a God who was presented to me not as a friend, but as an authoritarian figure and, even more disconcerting, a ‘savior’. My attitude also mirrored my unwillingness to buy into what my dad was forcing upon me about the Catholic Church, which was a “believe in it or else” mantra which proved to be ultimately an anti-sales pitch.
I think my rejection of my dad paved the way for my rejection of God. Authoritarian figures have never fit in my world, and the two most unbending, influential icons in my life I rejected before I was old enough to vote.
As I grew into my 20s my intellect grew exponentially and the concept of ‘faith’ found its way on to my rejection list. I chose not to believe in 'believing'. This was the last major hurdle to shedding the yoke of Catholic dogma, a mindset designed to strangle independent thought. Once I wrestled that from around my neck, I was off to much more verdant, vibrant pastures of thought and concept. Religion was not an area where ambiguity and nuance lived. But it was where I lived.
The 1980s was anything but a carefree decade for me. Death and tragedy visited my family; two inevitable aspects of life that most people use their faith to endure or overcome. I did it the secular way. I drank.
Not really. What I did was think. I had long ago given up the Pollyanna idea that life was fair, and that fate only heaped as much onto your plate as you could eat at one sitting. All around me, I saw people who were unable to deal with the more sinister conundrums of life; people overwhelmed by their circumstances, self-imposed or otherwise. From where I sat, life appeared to be absolutely f***ing brutal, and whether one believed in God or not, the potential to be swept under the tsunami of life appeared to be available equally to believers and non-believers. Salvation was for suckers.
Once I identified as lip service what the faithful would offer up in explanation for the tragic events of life, I realized they were ensnared in an oftentimes very elaborate self-deception. Few things could send me sprinting in the opposite direction more quickly than 'denial'.
It’s been my experience that even those deep into their faith are rarely able to find a peaceful place when confronted with the worst life has to offer. I realized their faith guaranteed them no safe haven. Even if they thought it did, their rhetoric usually outweighed their actions. In fact, I saw that religious belief was about buying into the rhetoric. Behind the diaphanous curtain of scripture and biblical contradictions was a quite naked emperor with an embarrassed, almost apologetic grin, staring fecklessly at a machine with no levers or buttons or handles.
But I confess to doing some dancing here myself. The number one reason I have rejected God and religion has less to do with my intellectual pragmatism and distrust in faith, and more to do with simply not wanting to be associated with, lumped into, or perceived as aligned with, people that are ensconced in a force field of fear. So paralyzed by the uncertainty of life and the fundamental paucity of answers to most of life’s big questions, these people latched onto something and someone, based completely on faith.
God is a port in a storm. I understand the need and desire for such a port. But I personally reject it because it is a mirage.
Hypocrisy is also ingrained in the religious experience. Coupled with the fear and denial, it creates an environment in which I cannot live, let alone thrive.
Some key words: worship; fear; guilt; sin.
Who in their right mind would want anything to do with those four pernicious concepts? I know I didn't. I mentioned that fear was my first thoughtful rejection. In addition, Catholic guilt is a powerful weapon used by the church to keep the flock in line, and aligned. In a secular life there are more concrete, direct consequences to human foibles and missteps then ‘feeling bad’.
And ‘worship’ sounds simply wrong to me. Equality and fairness are my personal tenets. There is no room for worship when thinking the way I think.
Should I discuss the concept of sin?
As long as I can start with calling myself a card-carrying pagan, I’ll dive into this pool. I think the 10 commandments are, for the most part, a good idea. They are pretty solid guidelines which, if someone chooses to live by them, will provide civilized society some parameters for human behavior.
But when the commandments attempt to legislate human morality that is where I back out. Like “though shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife”. Harboring thoughts about Mrs. Jackson across the street as she works in her garden in her bikini top is simply not a sin in my book. Acting on it, depending on the marital status of those involved, may be a different story. I do believe in the marital vows and fidelity.
This has been a rambling explanation, which probably explains better than anything my ultimate answer of “I don’t know”.
But faith leaves no wiggle room. There is no part of faith that embraces “I don’t know”. One either believes or doesn’t.
I don’t.
My ultimate goal is to get to the next level, which is simply: I don’t care.
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