I am home from Iceland, in body at least. The last forty-eight hours were intense. First a 150 mile drive through Iceland’s western fjords, dogging a plethora of raindrops and sheep (who roam freely along the busy, zooming highways), but enjoying the emerald hills, waterfalls, and mountains. Then turning in my Land Rover Defender (driving it was a dream come true in itself), getting to the airport, the seven hour flight, getting home at 1 AM. Then up at 5 AM and to the hospital for labs then 10-hours confined to a chair getting my IV chemo. So far, the labs look better than I expected, cancer labs still pending. With the physical exertion of the trip, missing chemo for a week, and eating Hákarl—a nasty Icelandic treat of rotten shark meat—I was worried that my basic labs would be off the rails. I had forgotten that the reason they let the shark meat rot for five months is that the Greenland shark has so much urea in it, that it is poisonous to humans. Over those months, the urea slowly converts to ammonia. With renal failure, I already have too much urea (BUN) in my system. What was I thinking? Denise said the Hákarl smelled like a used diaper pail (for those of you who used cotton diapers in the past for your children). Yum! You must chase each bite of Hákarl with a sip of brennivin, a Iclandic herbal 80-proof liquor.

I awaken this morning at 3:40. Part of that was still being on Iceland time and part of it was having to take steroids with my chemo yesterday. I usually get up very early the day after steroids, the pills rendering 3-4 hours of sleep as enough. I was never a morning person before, but there is something tranquil about watching the sunrise from a hot tub. You hear the birds slowly waking up and watching the mist rising off our quiet lake. A glorious moment. It is also a good time to write.

I am going to start a new series on this idea of magical thinking. I’ve spoken/written about this many times before. But I want to take a fresh approach, and with more boldness. This brand of boldness is related to my previous post about seeing the end of my life clearer than ever before, regardless of how long I live.

This is cancer’s only gift, to see the frailty of life honesty. Without such a mortal challenge, death takes on a type of magical thinking of its own. Most people don’t think much about the end of their life when they are well. That’s probably a good thing, unless it leads to complacency. Neglecting broken relationships, not speaking of their deepest thoughts, or asking the most threatening questions. To the religious person, such questions are, “God are you there? Is my religion true?” or to the atheists, “God . . . are you there after all? Is there any meaning to life?”

The hardest question, for me at least, is the same one that Private Ryan asked his family when he was old and visiting the grave sites of his band of brothers who died trying to save him. As Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) said in his last breath decades earlier, ““Earn this! Earn it!” In the U.S. cemetery in Normandy, France Ryan says to his wife, in tears, as he stands in front of Miller’s grave, “Tell me I’ve led a good life. Tell me I’m a good man.” His wife replies, “You are.” These are the hard questions that near death experiences can give us. For the Christian, no I’m not talking earning salvation. I’m talking about the practical aspects of leaving the world better off than when we entered. Yeah, a hard question.

So, in this spirit of trying to speak the truth in love, I want to take another stab at describing the main theme of my deepest thoughts. It is about seeking honest truth in an age dominated by the loss of truth. It is about the 30,000 foot view, trying to transcend culture, which is really hard to do. The boldness required of me, is my fear of alienating people, religious people and atheists alike. So, if you want to take this word journey with me, please use grace. My ideas are just that. I don’t have certainity in them. My goal is not to convert people from their long-held perspective to mine. I write for those people on the narrow edge, holding on with their fingernails, who feel bemused about their long-held beliefs that just don’t seem to make sense anymore. I would not be surprised if not a single person agrees with my assessment about these big questions, and that’s okay. But my goal is to write honestly and provocatively. If this journey doesn’t interest you, no offense will be taken. I’m just glad you are here and are interested in my personal journey with cancer.

Mike