Steve

Disease, treatment (and faith) revisited: Ten years of “Embraced by God”

Steve · February 5, 2017 · 2 Comments

This past month I celebrated a few milestones. It has been ten years since I was first diagnosed with a rare blood disease called Langerhan’s Cell Histiocytosis and embarked on a three-year journey of disease, treatment, recovery and remission, and seven years since I finished the manuscript for my book, “Embraced by God: Facing Chemotherapy with Faith.”

In celebration of all that (yes, even the disease, which changed my life positively in so many ways) I am going to publish a series of excerpts from my book over the course of February. If you know someone for whom these words might be of help, please feel free to pass them on. The book is now out of print by my publisher, although some copies might be available out there on the internets. I also have a supply gathering dust in the basement, so let me know if you’d like to purchase a copy for yourself or to pass on to someone you love.

Additionally, I will be giving a retreat based on my book this summer from July 14 – 16 at the Marianist Retreat and Conference Center just outside St. Louis. “Embraced by God” will be a weekend retreat exploring the spirituality of living with cancer and other chronic diseases.

Embracing the Mystery

True faith has nothing to do with jollying people along. It has everything to do with facing the fact that things may be an utter and total mess, may be on the verge of going to hell in a hand-basket, with the conviction that God is at work in the mess.

– Michael Himes

For some mysterious reason, my body has decided to throw a wrench into my otherwise very good life. Even though I’ve been basically healthy for a while now, and my treatments haven’t overly disrupted my everyday life, this disease and its treatment have changed me in many ways – some of which I may never even realize. And even though my doctors and nurses are wonderful, and I’m surrounded by caring friends and family and all their prayers, there is no doubt that this whole thing encircles and encompasses me. It is the great and brooding mystery of my life. So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about mystery.

Living with Expectation, Gratitude and Availability

Steve · January 1, 2017 · 14 Comments

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Somehow, it’s January 1 once again. We have made yet another trip around the sun. I’m not one for making public declarations of my resolutions (although I do need to step up my walking and watch my portions once again…) but today I return to a question that might lead to a good resolution for all of us to consider on this first day of a New Year: How do we begin each day?

The older I get, my biological clock seems to be replacing the digital one beside my bed. On most days I awake a few minutes before the mechanical one goes off. So waking up is not a problem. Especially when you consider the alternative! I used to joke that I rarely saw the sunrise (“You mean to tell me that there are TWO six o’clocks?”) but now on most days I’m up before the day is. The question is, HOW do we wake up?

A Video Christmas Card: Christmas to Me

Steve · December 14, 2016 · 16 Comments

Thanks to you all for reading and responding this past year. Here’s a little Christmas greeting for you that asks the important question: What is Christmas to you?

Christmas to Me

Christmas to me, isn’t the lights on the tree
The wrappings and the bows
A reindeer’s glowing nose.
Christmas to me, isn’t so easy to see
In endless games and toys
For little girls and boys.

And no matter where I go
All the trappings and the snow
It just isn’t merry
It just isn’t Christmas
Till I am home again with you.

Christmas to me, echoes the mystery
The sacred holy night
A grace so pure and bright.
Christmas to me, lives in the memory
Of family and friends
A love that never ends.

Words & music by Katie Cooper Nix, Phil Cooper, Steve Givens, and Jim Russell
©2007, Potter’s Mark Music

The MO Bottom Project

John Caravelli, guitar
Phil Cooper, piano
Pat Dillender, drums
Steve Givens, vocals
Gerry Kasper, bass

The Creative Spirit: Music in the Silence

Steve · December 11, 2016 · 14 Comments

_MG_8193 — In the chapel at Marianist Retreat & Conference Center. Sculpture by Br. Mel Meyer, SM

“Going nowhere…isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.” – Leonard Cohen

Last weekend, I helped lead an advent retreat at the Marianist Retreat & Conference Center just west of St. Louis. Whenever I return to this beautifully spiritual place, I feel like I am returning to “nowhere,” as Cohen writes above, to a place where I can step away for a while and see everything a bit more clearly. And I think I begin to hear more clearly and succinctly, too, as the noise of the city and everyday life melts away and I find myself surrounded more and more by silence.

In that silence, I have found, I can often “hear” what God is saying to me, can begin to discern more clearly what God perhaps has been saying all along when I was too busy to listen and life was just too loud. Sitting in the chapel late last Friday night, I began to think of this silence in terms of music, which is itself made up of both sound and quiet, of course. In the “music” of this all-to-hard-to-find silence, I began to feel myself drawn in the direction of the master composer and musician, the One who brings all to life, throws beauty over the world like a prayer shawl, and invites us all to “waste time with him” every once in a while. So I wrote this short poem:

The light in the chapel has been dimmed
the retreatants retreated to their rooms
the silence of night surrounding me and ringing in my ears
a present but somehow unheard concerto.
Quiet like the drawing of a bow across invisible strings within
a soundless song that yet angles me in your direction
points me toward your presence
floating in the room like a single bright yellow fan of a gingko leaf
dropping slowly and freely and yet
demanding my attention
asking for my consent and response
requiring my awe like a whispered sigh from my lips.

A song, yet not sung
as silence demands itself to be heard alone.

O you, who make the leaves fall noiselessly.
O you, who make the silence sing.
O you, who compose and give life
and demand we play it through to the orchestrated end.
Only you, O God.
Only you.

Happy third Sunday of Advent to you. It’s a time to stand still and learn to be amazed. In the immortal words of E.B. White’s sage spider, Charlotte: “Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” For it’s there.

The Mo Bottom Project’s CD Now Available

Steve · October 19, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Friends and readers…

I am happy to announce that my band — the Mo Bottom Project — has released our first CD, “Well Traveled Road,” a collection of 11 original songs that span some of our favorite musical genres from Americana/folk to bluesy old-time rock ‘n’ roll and are lyrically inspired by the history, landscape and stories of the Missouri River Valley near where we live and grew up. These are stories of out-of-luck farmers, young lovers, old men in even older houses, flooded roads, and the car cruisin’ culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s. (Though not specifically religious, we’d like to think these are songs of faith and redemption…)

If you’d like a copy of the CD, there are a couple of ways to do it. You can visit the band’s website — mobottomproject.com — and order a direct download from ITunes or CDBaby, or you can write to me at givenscreative@gmail.com and I’ll tell you how you can receive a good old-fashioned CD copy.

Thanks for reading…I’ll be back soon.