Flapjacks On The Ceiling

By the time he was five years old, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart could already play both the harpsichord and violin.  He went on to become a highly acclaimed composer of classical music.  Italian Maria Gaetana Agnesi was fluent in French by the age of five and by the age of 11 she also knew German, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Spanish.  She went on to become a mathematician and philosopher.  As children, these gifted individuals had opportunities and the means by which to take advantage of them.  I did, too.  As a young lad I was uncommonly self-disciplined and made sure that I got up early every Saturday morning so that I could quietly go downstairs, sit down in front of our black-and-white television set, and watch reruns of The Three Stooges.  I went on to become a college chemistry professor.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence of Moe, Larry, and Curly (and Shemp) on the psyche of generations of young people.  For example, the Western parody Goofs and Saddles has a scene where they dump ammunition into a hand-powered meat grinder, which then functions as a machine gun spitting out hot lead instead of fresh pork sausages.  As a young man I found this rather inspiring, but I never did figure out a way to get our old meat grinder in the basement to do the same thing (with bars of soap instead of bullets).  The many short films they starred in are unarguably the finest and most sophisticated that American culture has ever produced.  I’ve often wondered why, with all the high-cultural events we have at Bob Jones University, we’ve never had a formal program featuring selected episodes of The Three Stooges.  Hoi Polloi seems like a particularly good candidate to me.  But it’s the things they did with food that are the icing on the cake.

In An Ache in Every Stake the three apparently grown men bake a cake for a birthday party.  When it goes flat in the oven, Moe—the smartest of the three—hooks up a natural gas pipe and inflates the cake.  When they realize that they didn’t make it big enough, Moe tells them to “pump in four more slices.”  And Larry complies.  Right before putting it back into the oven.  Yes, this was another seminal moment for someone who now uses denatured ethanol explosions in freshman chemistry classes to illustrate the concept of the stoichiometric limiting reactant.

Some of my most treasured childhood memories involve formally dressed adults in lavishly appointed mansions throwing cream pies and other delicacies at each other (on TV).  Most Stooges scholars identify In the Sweet Pie and Pie as being the best of this genre.  If you’ve never seen a Stooges’ food fight, then you’ve really missed out, and I’m not the only one to say so.  Did you know that throwing pies at people is so important in the English-speaking world that there’s a Wikipedia article on pieing?

Time to get back to my cancer.  Moe, Larry, and Curly stow away on a train to Hollywood in Movie Maniacs so that they can become stars.  During the trip Curly decides to cook breakfast and settles on flapjacks (a.k.a. pancakes, hotcakes, or griddle cakes).  He makes a monster in a large cast iron skillet and flips it into the air so that he can cook the other side, but it gets stuck on the ceiling instead.  It’s only a matter of time before Moe looks up at the ceiling, just an instant before it lets go and lands on his face.

Currently my follicular lymphoma is growing very slowly, and nobody knows how long it will be until it worsens and requires some kind of treatment.  It could be years, but barring unforeseen circumstances, sooner or later that flapjack is going to fall off the ceiling and hit me.

There’s room for a lot of fear in this picture.  How soon will it need treatment?  Will we catch it “in time” before it gets really bad?  Is the cancer in the process of spreading right now, even as I sit here at home and write this?  Will it worsen to the point where harsh chemotherapy will be recommended?  It’s in my neck:  Will it affect my voice?  If I decide to take chemotherapy, how badly will it damage my immune system?  Will I get so sick that I won’t be able to teach anymore?  How much pain will I have?  How much will it affect my mind?  What will my life be like?  How long will I live? 

My oncologist looked at all of my risk factors and based on his experience he doesn’t think I’m going to die anytime soon.  Most of the time I still feel pretty good, and when I don’t it seems largely like any other busy semester when I get tired.  But last Friday night I did have a major fight with fear.

When I googled “how do you deal with fear” this evening there were 220 million results.  There must be a lot of fearful people out there.  I don’t want a trick or tip that gives me a quick fix for a little while.  I’m looking for a solution to the mental and emotional conflict so that fear can be conquered. 

The prophet Jeremiah relates an incident where God told him to observe a potter making his wares (see Jeremiah 18).  God uses it as an analogy in which He is the potter and the nation of Israel is the clay.  As I sat in my chair, this passage came back to my mind and I began grappling with how it relates to my situation.  I began wrestling with my fear, and with difficulty I began talking to God about it.  I wrestled with the Divine Potter.

Christ made a bold, striking statement to those considering following him:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

(Luke 9:23)

Is this really necessary?  Self-denial?  Every day?  Jesus also promised that he would give peace to those that love him so that they need not be afraid (John 14:27).

As fathers let their children wrestle with them, so God held me gently as I struggled against him.  “Brian, do you trust me?”  One does not answer such questions flippantly.  I began to relax my efforts, and he loosened his grip.  Willingly I gave up.  “Oh Lord, you are the potter and I am the clay.  Do anything you want to do with me.”  And immediately my fear evaporated—once again I was at peace.  God always does what he says he will do.  Last Friday night this veteran insomniac slept uncommonly well.