To Survive Cancer you need Connections.

Oncology Youth Connection

Good Evening.

Imagine for a minute, you’re sitting in your doctors office or on the phone when you hear the words “We found something, you have cancer.”

Your head begins to spin. You voice won’t speak. Your legs feel as though they may buckle out from underneath you at any moment.

You don’t care about the car you drive. Your career ladder has no rungs left to hold you. You scramble in your mind for the rewind button. If only you can go back 15 seconds and not answer the phone. If only you could step back outside the office door and refuse to turn the door knob, if only this wasn’t happening to you.

But it did happen to you didn’t it. It happened to me to. We are now part of a growing club that we didn’t want to get in. We tried so hard to pass our tests in school and now the one test we can’t study for, we long to fail.

Cancer will always be part of our lives, part of our story, and for some the story is longer than others.

Several months ago I got to meet some of your board members and find out more about the Oncology Youth Connection.

What I discovered is a group of people with huge hearts and an idea to take some of the fear out of cancer.

Tonight, you will hear from some of them. You will walk out that door different than you were when you walked in tonight.

Cancer is not the end of the world for me it was the beginning. There is a freedom in knowing cancer is scary, cancer is difficult, but cancer is beatable.

What you most need when you have cancer is someone else who has been there to guide you through the process.

Fear is the worst enemy, even more dangerous than the cancer that tries to destroy your body.

Tonight we are here to fight fear. We are here to raise money and awareness about the Oncology Youth Connection so these folks can go out and help the thousands of young people who found out this week, that they too have cancer.

Music and the Mind

I know you are busy. I know you have so many things to do. I know that you are not supposed to be on the internet at work and you don’t want to get caught. But do yourself a favor, take a few minutes and really watch this entire story. Don’t stop in the middle as they are explaining a few details, the details are important and the ending worth being there for. I promise you will not be let down.
All I can say is Wow.

Processing Cancer: As Individual As We Are

I was talking with a fellow Prostate Cancer survivor at the pool the other day and I’m surprised by how differently people are impacted by the disease.

I know a handful of guys who would agree with him that cancer really didn’t change their lives they got through it and moved on. They don’t get involved in anything that has to do with Cancer they just put it behind them and live their lives.

I’m not for a minute saying this is wrong but I would be lying if I said I understand. We all take things differently and respond in personal ways to tragedy.

For me, going through Cancer has given me a freedom I’ve never experienced before. I want to be involved in talking about it, fighting it, and encouraging people through it.

Tonight I’m headed to Portland to emcee a fundraiser for the Oncology Youth Connection, a group of young people who’ve survived cancer. Their goal is to help other young people as they go through what can be a devastating process.

We all need to process difficulty in our own way. I just thank God that He’s given me the ability and desire to do it this way.

Labels Get in Relationships Way: No Wonder Politics Fail.

As I finish up 668 pages of transcripts from more than two years worth of interview we’ve done for “The Hatfield Project” I’m touched by these comments made by former Hatfield Staffer “Sue Hildick.”

She sounds like me (smile)

“ I learned a lot about courage and standing for what you believe in and even standing in the winds of discomfort.

I learned a lot about relationship building.

I learned about how people’s labels mean the least when you’re building relationship.

And I learned a lot about labels.

I learned a lot because people would say to me, well Mark Hatfield he’s a Republican therefore X, Y, Z.  Well no he’s not that kind of Republican.

You can’t label him that way and describe him with any integrity.  So that was a key lesson I think in being a part of this team”

“Sue Hildick: Former Hatfield Staffer”

When Will We Simply Stop

Most of you know I like to pick on both the secular and the religious worlds. (I leave the spiritual world alone)

As times get more difficult both seem more ridiculous.

As May approaches party’s and their candidates make more promises they won’t keep.

And religious organizations develop new programs to attract us to their establishments forgetting that what draws us is the person of Jesus Christ, not better marketing.

What happened to the truth? Not your brand or theirs but the real truth.

I don’t argue with people as much as I once did. The sport has lost its luster and bores me. I don’t have time to be right anymore I spend my time trying to live.

I think that comes from realizing that I don’t know as much as I used to think I knew.

I’ve seen too many of my positions lose their footing which causes me to be off-balance.

Are my idea’s wrong? Is my focus off? Or is it simply the fact that people are becoming more important than winning?

It could be a little bit of all three. The greatest gift cancer has given me is the ability to not care as much about the end of the story and to put far more into living it.

I Hope You Are Ready

There’s a Rumbling

Change is in the wind.

Something is about to move.

People will get restless.

Some will strive to find answers.

Mistakes will be made.

This is no time to panic.

I found this picture on the Internet the other day and can’t seem to get it out of my head. It reminds me of the world we live in right now.

I meet with people frequently who want to bring me onboard their new plan/program or idea to change the world.

Secular or religious, it doesn’t matter, many of these ideas sound okay on the outside but as I listen on the inside the words jumble together to create this hollow rumble.

I believe what people are looking for is freedom and hope. At one time we called it “Change” but change has lost its value. That’s what happens when you over use a term or fail to deliver on a promise. People want leadership that masters follow up and yet we see little of that in the world we live in.

A few years ago the big deal in the institutional church was relevancy.

Churches realized people were leaving in streams and leaders looked to better worship music and lobby coffee shops to save the day.

People forgot the church is not supposed to be relevant. In fact, irrelevance is the reality.

This isn’t just the institutional church that strives for its place but our governments and even culture itself.

We are caught in a prison and we want out but can’t see that the door is wide open we just need to take a step in the right direction to get out.

Things we once counted on no longer matter as much.

Governments look for dollars and can’t find them.

As I listen to these conversations I find myself much more quiet than ever before. I’m not disengaged from the conversation or even disinterested but the clamoring bells just keep taking us around and around and around.

I remember arguing points and throwing out figures to prove my side. Something funny happened I no longer find myself on a side. I realize sides are useless and usually produce stagnation not imagination so I refuse to take one instead I take action and move.

As I look at the picture above, the guy standing in jail, hands on the bars, waiting to be let out, I wonder.

I honestly believe life will never be as it was before the Great Recession. Simplicity will be our way out of this self-absorbed mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

History has answers and those of us brave enough to give up things will find them.

For those who have faith in God, I can promise you this: He is in this. If you stop looking at the bars and start looking to Him you will see His fingerprints all over this.

As followers I think it’s time we quit trying to manipulate the creator with our ideas and listen to what He said and what He’s still saying.

Put your program aside. Lay down your plans and quit blaming God for what you think should happen.

Change is coming but it might not be the kind of change you put on a bumper sticker or sell in a political or religious speech.

Life will never be the same and that gives me great hope.