Sunday,
February 3, 2008
Dear
Friends,
After
enjoying a year of fine health, this past Thursday
I learned that my cancer had recurred,
having spread
to my lungs and liver. There is no way to sugarcoat
this news. I shall undergo a regimen of chemotherapy,
more for palliative than curative reasons, but
must face the certainty that my cancer is terminal
and the great likelihood that my future will
be measured in months not years.
You
have accompanied me on this journey from its beginning.
What a comfort
that has been.
In matters
of mortality, we are all companions (the word
means, “those
who break bread together”). From its very
beginning, our repast has been a feast.
In
more than one respect, I feel very lucky. In the
fall
of 2006, my family and I had a dress
rehearsal
for the drama we now are entering in earnest.
My wife, Carolyn, and our four children, Frank,
Nina,
Jacob and Nathan were able then to begin working
through the complex feelings that always accompany
the loss of a family member, especially a parent.
As for me, I have greeted every day since my
reprieve (and shall greet the days to come)
as gravy.
I
won’t predict how my body will
hold up during the course of treatment, but I
can tell you what
I hope to do. Though all of our stories end
in the middle, with unfinished business piled
high, I should
like to end my story, if I may, by summing
up my thoughts on love and death in a book that
might bring
as much comfort to others as you have brought
to me. In it, I shall share what I have learned
from
you during the three decades I have been
privileged to serve as your minister. Time and
again,
at your loved ones’ deathbeds and together
in my study, we have struggled to wrench meaning
from loss, seeking
to find our way through the valley of the
shadow. Rarely acknowledging to yourselves (or
even
sensing) your great courage and remarkable insight,
on occasions
such as these you have taught me the lessons
of a lifetime.
Over
the weeks ahead, I shall keep Galen up to date
on my progress. I’ll also
post occasional bulletins from the front on
the All Souls website (Allsoulsnyc.org).
I hope to return to the pulpit on Palm
Sunday.
Since
it would be remarkably unimaginative for me to
die at fifty-nine as my father
and grandfather
each did before me, I shall do my utmost
to make it to September, when, after
rejoicing in my
daughter’s
wedding, I shall celebrate both my sixtieth
birthday and the completion of thirty
years at All Souls.
In
the meantime, know that my thoughts
and prayers are with you.
With
lots of love,
Forrest
Tuesday,
October 17, 2006
Dear
Friends,
With
apologies for sending this word out so impersonally,
I’m writing to share with you the news that
I have esophageal cancer. A bank of tests conducted
over the past two weeks has confirmed the existence
of a malignant tumor high in my esophagus, and
we shall determine a protocol for treatment (radiation,
chemotherapy, and, if possible, surgical removal)
before the end of the month. Unhappily, this is
a particularly fierce form of cancer; happily,
it apparently has not spread. More important than
any of these cold medical facts, I am in good spirits
and more grateful than ever for the gifts of life
and love. All four children have descended on the
household, and Carolyn is girding herself for the
struggle ahead. She’ll be the general, I’m
relieved to report; I’ll simply be the battlefield.
After
almost three decades as your minister, I have been
graced with so many teachers, whose courage in
face of life’s troubles has been a constant
inspiration. I can also report that the theology
I have hammered out in your good company—religion
as our human response to the dual reality of being
alive and knowing we must die, and the purpose
of life being to live in such a way that our lives
will prove worth dying for—offers me the
same comfort during my own time of trial that I
pray it has given you in yours.
It
comforts me also that All Souls is in such excellent
hands, ministerial and lay, and so strong in every
fundamental measurement as an institution, that
my personal troubles should, while touching the
heart, have only the most marginal impact on the
daily life and progress of our beloved congregation.
I will be taking a medical leave of absence from
my pastoral duties, but do hope to maintain my
preaching schedule if I can. Galen will be in the
pulpit this coming Sunday, and he will also find
a way to keep you informed about my progress over
the coming weeks. Assuring you that I am in the
finest medical hands imaginable, I encourage you
to send any messages to me through the church.
The best thing you can do to bolster my already
high spirits is to carry on all of your good works,
continue to expand our ministries during this critical
period in the life of our nation and world, worship
to a fare-thee-well, and keep the budget balanced!
As
for my three mantras—do what you can, want
what you have, and be who you are—I practice
each every day, feeling myself blessed beyond measure.
Please know that you live in my heart, an abiding
presence that fills my life with strength and joy.
Love,
Forrest
Thursday,
November 16, 2006
An
update from Forrest:
Dear
members of the wonderful All Souls Family,
After
a week’s visit, I am happily and successfully
returned from the hospital. The good news is, in
fact, excellent. The surgeon has successfully removed
the cancer from my esophagus by excising the offending
organ and attaching my stomach to my neck. I now
possess a promising, if not yet fully functional, “estomagus.”
The
less convenient news: one of my vocal chords appears
to be paralyzed. This means that my speech is temporarily
hampered. My abilities vary, but I can’t
really speak intelligibly on a telephone at this
point. I also can’t drink fluids safely because
it is active vocal chords that close to keep food
and drink from “going down the wrong way” into
the lung. For at least two months, it seems I will
have to get most of my sustenance during 12-hour
nighttime feedings by a pump through a tube directly
into my lower intestine. Meanwhile, I am beginning
therapy to reawaken my vocal chord. (The test that
determined my condition is fancifully called a
FEEST!) Though it now appears a best-case scenario,
I still anticipate a two-month convalescence, punctuated
by long walks.
About
my cancer, as Galen has reported to you, adenoid
cystic carcinoma is extremely rare (heretofore
only 60 known outcroppings in the esophagus), grows
slowly, and tends to recur in other parts of the
body, sometimes years later. My short-term survival
odds are only slightly less splendid than they
were before I contracted this cancer in the first
place; long-term survival rates (though the data
is scant) seem promising indeed.
Carolyn
has been brilliant throughout, permitting me to
focus my full attention on the task at hand. Your
loving thoughts, letters and e-mails have been
a magnificent boon to me. Committed to heart, they
will continue to grace my life whatever the future
may bring.
Many
of you asked me to keep my spirits high. With your
help, they are very high indeed. Given how dire
my prospects looked just a month ago, I feel truly
blessed.
Love
and abiding gratitude to each of you,
Forrest
Sunday,
November 19, 2006
An
update from Forrest:
Dear
Friends,
All is terrific here. I'm up to about a mile's walk each day, and I sleep
through much of my night “feeding.” Being hooked up to a food
pump for ten hours is no picnic, but neither is it particularly onerous, and
my days have begun to take on the appearance of normalcy. I still can't swallow
or speak, but one can get used to almost anything. I send my love to all of
you, together with the assurance that I am doing just fine. Oddly, in some
ways, I feel better than ever. Not that the pleasures and utility of eating,
drinking, and speaking are overrated—they aren't—but rather that
we underrate life almost criminally every day we take it for granted! My hope
is that all systems (including my magnificent new estomagus) will be “go” in
a couple of months.
Love,
Forrest
Tuesday,
December 5, 2006
An
update from Forrest:
Dear
Friends,
Buoyed by the wings of your loving concern, and
on the eve of the one-month anniversary of surgery
to remove a cancerous tumor in my esophagus,
I’m
happy to report that my recovery is speeding apace. I can finally eat and drink,
which means that the burdensome feeding apparatus I plug into for 10 hours
a night will soon be a thing of the past. I do have a paralyzed vocal chord,
which may not come fully back into play for months; but I’m crossing
my fingers that I will be back in the pulpit in no time. I should warn you:
this experience is proving a preacher’s gold mine. I have more half-written
sermons in my head than I can shake a stick at.
On
a more unsettling note, the final pathology of
my tumor revealed a different form of cancer
than that identified in the original biopsy.
I have a more aggressive cancer (early second-stage
squamous-cell carcinoma) than we had been led
to believe. The other news from the final pathology
report is cheery: the tumor was small; the margins
around the surgery were clear, and the lymph
nodes negative. This should give me a fair shot
at complete recovery.
To
facilitate that process, I have just received
the next-to-final edit for my new book, So
Help Me God: The First Great Battle to Save America (Harcourt,
September 2007). The book is a narrative history
of pulpit politics in the Early Republic. I think
it is my best book yet. (Be forewarned: I’ve
thought the same about each of the twenty-odd
others at this point in the publishing process!)
I shall gratefully dedicate it, “To the
members of the great family of All Souls, in
loving gratitude for thirty years of shared ministry.”
As
I enter the next chapter of my life and ministry,
I foresee restructuring my All Souls duties,
shifting my focus away from overall leadership
of the church—Galen has been guiding the
ship steadily onward during my sabbatical and
medical leave—toward more focused theological
reflection through my preaching and writing.
With a special emphasis on public theology and
religion in the 21st century, I envision preaching
about once a month at All Souls and continuing
to officiate when called upon at weddings and
memorial services, permitting me to be present
with you at times of joy and crisis.
My
sincere hope, God willing, is this: that I may
be in a position to help co-lead All Souls through
my 30th anniversary year on toward—dare
I mention this?—our 200th anniversary as
a congregation in 2019. That blessed event may
be thirteen years away, but we can surely discover
creative ways to celebrate between now and then.
The best way to celebrate our past, of course,
is to energize our present and vigorously stake
out a more abundant future. Few congregations
in the entire nation are positioned as well as
we are to raise the theological banner of Universalism
in a time where no religious task could imaginably
prove more redemptive.
I
love you and look forward, from the bottom of
my heart, to seeing you again soon.
Love,
Forrest
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