I was reading some Anne Lamott today on the plane to Tulsa.  She was remembering what it was like to be a little girl playing a birthday party game.  Remember being blindfolded, spun around and then pointed in the general direction of a donkey on the wall?  Remember being afraid to take that first step?  We didn’t know then if it was a step away or toward the donkey.  That wall has become Jesus for her she said.

I closed the book and thought about what the blindfold could be, and the step, and the spins.

Lately, I’ve felt blind.  Temporarily.  I’ve felt as if my prayers are made of lead.  No sadness.  No despair.  No panic.  Just silence on the other end.  I’ve felt like a child whose parents are away on a long planned trip.  I miss God but I know He’ll be back soon.  It also feels a little like maybe I’m walking straight for the birthday cake and the wall is off in another direction.

After sound check this afternoon, Brian, traveling with me today, looked up from his phone and asked, “Have you talked to Becky today?”

“Yea, when we got here, why?”

“Did she tell you about Judy?” he asked.

Weeks ago a friend of Becky’s, Judy, was told she had cancer throughout her body and that even with radical surgery and chemotherapy she would probably not last the year.  We prayed and you prayed as Judy deteriorated slowly.  Spiritually she seemed to grow though.  Acceptance and peace seemed to be filling up the spaces that fear and anger had flooded in those first days.  All this is conjecture on my part.  I’ve never spoken to Judy.  I hear from Becky who hears from Judy or Judy’s close friends like Redneck Neighbor’s wife, those who see her almost daily and care for her relentlessly.

Yesterday Judy went to the doctor and was told the chemotherapy had stopped the cancer from spreading further but had not forced it to retreat at all.  Time is short, she was told, she might last till the end of the year.

Today the doctor told a different story.  The cancer that had once filled her body is now only in her esophagus.  He’s forecasting at least another year of life.

Being out here on the road I’m not privy to the whole story.  I don’t know if the first scan was a mistake.  I don’t know much at all, and so my inner realist is talking to my inner skeptic and they’re pretty convinced there’s a logical explanation we just haven’t heard yet and that there’s still a good chance Judy will lose her fight with cancer.

And I say, maybe.  Maybe so.  Or maybe this is a peak through the blindfold meant to make the next step for all of us a little easier to trust.  Maybe this is a peak at the donkey on the wall.  Maybe this is the kind of hopeful moment leaked from heaven to still our spun flesh and bone and whisper through their disbelieving thickness to our spirits: I’m here.  I’m right here.  Keep stepping.

Maybe.

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