Countdown # 3

Fortunately, today was a boring day in the chemo chair, except for the bit when both nurses had to leave the room, and the lady in front of me started having a heart attack and couldn't call above a whisper, and I heard her and started yelling for her, and everyone came running to take care of her. And the bit where Dr. Blue and Brown (yep that was what he was wearing: Janey recognized him as he walked past the waiting room, and we both started giggling) told me that yes, my tumor has reduced from a defined lump to nothing defined, and I'm only half way through my treatments, so it's looking good so far. 

Other these moments, it was boring, and I had hours to devise thoughts about my countdown and how I am on number 3. What is good about three-ness? 

I was talking to a friend recently about the six-ness. the six days of creation. Although he wasn’t sure about the exact six days, I thought it had to be six, that what the author was getting at was the fact that creation had a “sixness” about it. Otherwise, why is it there? Maybe all creation, even human creation has a “sixness” about it. I don’t know. I’m curious. I know all creation has a “rest” after it, a “seven-ness.” 

Of course how long the six days lasted is a controversy, a recent one in history. Some people think the creation days are God days, days defined by God’s dictionary (one day = a thousand years), while others think the days are human days, using hours as we define them now. This is a hard one to resolve. God’s sense of time has bothered humans for millenniums. The insistence in Revelation that God would not delay Jesus' return mirrors first century Christians’ belief that Jesus would return during their lifetime, and consternation hit when he did not. The idea that we would be waiting for him 2000 years later would have appalled them. It’s that whole thing of God loving processes and taking longer at them than we would like.

But today, being number 3 in my countdown of treatments, so that I have two left, I want to talk about “three-ness.” I think that the “three-ness” of the Trinity is so foundational to creation and especially to human nature that we see it everywhere. We see it in science, in human language, and, especially, where I see it, in culture. I think we can have great fun with this. Like I said, “there’s treasure everywhere.”

Look at our stories, with their beginning, middle and end. Look at all the “threes” in fairy tales like Goldilocks or The Wizard of Oz. The process of human creativity, itself, is thee-ish. You have an idea. You write it, (draw it, sculpt it, tell it, then watch kids’ great frustration when it doesn’t match up exactly with their orignial idea). Then an audience reads it, (and how they interpret it is out of your control and can also be frustrating). In fact there is “threeness” in all human communication, which is about two humans and an idea getting trasferred. (There's Plato here, if you're looking). This is different from what animals do who merely signal events: “Enemy!” “Food!” They don’t write poetry about the beauty of sunsets and try to get that across. No one who sees those ancient cave pictures in France thinks that antelope drew them.

Perhaps the most fascinating story about human language is Hellen Keller's. Before her magical day, when she finally understood the word “water,” she was basically an animal and a very bad-tempered one. On the magical day, she took a doll given to her and ripped it apart in anger. Hellen was able to signal using the signs Anne drew on her palm, so that she asked frequently for cake, but according to her, the word was just a way of signaling a want, and she had no conscience bugging her about the hurtful things she did. On the day that that water spilling over her hand finally awoke the idea of water in her head, and she connected the two, the liquid thing and its symbol spelled in her hand, everything changed. She says a fog lifted. She ran around asking Anne the symbol for everything, and for the first time learned who she was and who Teacher was. And at the end of it, she went to the room where she had thrown the torn doll, took it up in her arms, and wept. She had become human. This is the three-ness of human language that reflects how we are made in the image of the Trinity itself: you have a thinker, an incarnation of the idea onto paper or palm, and then a transfer of the idea into someone's head, something vaguely like what God's Spirit does for us, and what occasionally happens around teachers.

 

I don’t know what “threeness” there is to chemo. Maybe it’s me, a competent nurse, and the chemo that brings us together. I was just pleased it was # 3 in my Countdown. It is also three in the morning as I write. Does that count?