The Lavender Fields
Living with Cancer
Canadian composer, James Moffett, begins the first song of his Lavender Fields song cycle with these words:
Before you’ve even thought about it
Or anyone has named it for you,
Your cells have been busy
Betraying your body,
Secretly amassing, multiplying.
Tiny pieces of you
Are trying to kill you.
Their swelling rebellion is still unnoticed.
Altogether they make a mass only one centimeter across
But there are already one hundred million of them.
You’re not scared yet.
The Lavender Fields was debuted on April 6th in the magnificent Trinity-St. Paul’s Bloor Street performance space. My husband Dan and I were able to drive into Toronto for the concert. James and his family are our friends. They are parishioners of St. George’s. And James is living with cancer.
Like many artistic people, James’ composing had been put on the back burner because it wasn’t how he was paying the bills, because he was raising a family and going to work, because when you’re in that busy time of life it is normal to hardly notice the things that have been crowded out. But in June 2017, James was diagnosed with an incurable cancer, and James started composing again. The Lavender Fields, subtitled Living with Cancer, features his poetry and music, and it gives expression to the journey that starts even before you receive the news that your body has gone rogue.
All of us who were there in the audience on April 6th were there with love for James and his family. We were there because we have shared something of the shock and fear of his terrible diagnosis. We were there as another piece of the love and prayer that we are seeking to offer to their family.
But we weren’t just there in that audience to share in James’ story. We were also there because James has dared to give voice and song to a story that isn’t just his. His music took us to those other stories of cancer which have touched our lives, or the lives of those we love; those other thunderstruck moments when a doctor delivered the bad news to us or to a family member; those sudden recognitions of the body’s capacity for betrayal, the mind’s capacity for betrayal. We were there because we also know something of what it is to have the rug of certainty and stability and predictability yanked out from underneath us and the world is suddenly a very different place. Through his own story, James was telling us the truth of just how fragile this whole human enterprise really is. My body and the bodies of those I love are vulnerable. We get sick. We break down. We know loss. We die.
Almost six weeks ago, Christians began our Lenten journey with these Ash Wednesday words: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It wasn’t just the start of Lent, but also the start of our preparation for Easter. We begin our journey toward Easter with the dust. We can’t, don’t, understand what God does in Easter without first knowing the truth about ourselves and our lives.
We are now mere days away from Easter. Holy Week is a day-by-day participation in the final week of Jesus’ life. For those following the pattern of Christian readings known as the lectionary, the Monday of Holy Week always invites the church into a story that stands in the space between death and life, the story of the anointing at Bethany. A version of this story is featured in all four Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, but it is the account from John’s Gospel that is offered to us this week.
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We are taken into the home of Jesus’ dear friends, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Jesus had just recently performed one of his greatest and most stunning miracles: the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus had been dead for four full days, entombed for four full days, and Jesus raised him back to life with one simple command: Lazarus, come out! Now, Jesus and his friends are sharing this celebratory dinner, teaming with gratitude for life reclaimed.
But there are growing shadows in this story. There is now an active plot to put Jesus to death because of his powers, because his powers are amassing a following, and the religious leaders are frightened of Jesus’ power and popularity.
Lazarus’ sister, Mary of Bethany, comes forward. Mary is the one who, in a previous story, was called out by sister Martha for shirking household duties so that she could sit and listen at the feet of Jesus. Jesus, in a move that is usually named as startlingly progressive and feminist, had defended her right to do just that. Mary didn’t need to be relegated to the kitchen; she could be his student too. Now, as a gesture of utter and total gratitude for what Jesus did for her brother, Mary comes forward and anoints Jesus’ feet with perfumed oil, the most precious thing that she owns.
In other Gospel accounts of this story, the woman is nameless and is criticized for being a “sinful woman.” But here, Mary is simply criticized, and by Judas of all people, for being wasteful.
Again, Jesus defends her. He names outright the growing shadows around him. She has anointed him for his burial. He is soon going to die. This act of care is received as a kindness toward his own fragile body. Lazarus sits at this same supper table, resurrected from the dead, and pointing to the promise of God’s ultimate power and great love. In contrast, Jesus is naming the truth of the brokenness and vulnerability of what it is to be human.
In between them, Mary names the truth of why we are here, of what it is we are invited to figure out with our fragile bodies, of what it is to be human and to say ‘yes’ to that partnership, that partnership embodied in Jesus, that partnership that promises life and light, even in the face of death.
Mary’s perfumed oil represents the extravagant and beautiful gift God gives us in giving us life. Somehow or other, we are invited to figure out what it is to pour out that gift from our own fragile bodies, our own fragile hearts, in order to anoint, bless, care for, love another fellow traveller. On our own, maybe that offering looks like not much of anything. Maybe Judas is right. Maybe it’s just a waste. And with God, it becomes a window into eternity, into all of the gifts and beauty that God gathers up and raises up and does not let die.
The mid-point of James’ song cycle takes us into the meaning of the lavender fields for James and his family. In fact, in James’ powerful words at the beginning of April 6th’s concert, James spoke about “the lavender effect,” the choice we all have to live each day as a gift being given, not a possession being taken away:
We go to the lavender fields in early July.
Bright bristles paint the field with light violet vibrancy,
Each bud dripping with colour and fragrance,
Bristling with life, dancing with bees in the warm wind.
We say, let’s not think about September,
When the greyed buds will crumble, tired and faded,
Littering tiny flower bits about like crumbs,
Let’s not wait for the lifeless, desiccated sweet release of the petals,
Shaken from their stems and gathered up into sachets,
Their fragrance hauntingly strong as memories.
They say you have sixty months, maybe.
Days slowly unwinding, swirling away.
In early July the lavender blooms, full of life,
Its perfume all freshness, cleanliness, bright and calm.
We go to the lavender fields in early July.
The concert bore witness to what this lavender effect might look like. A group of exceptionally talented musicians partnered with James to bring his music to life. His family joined with him in overseeing every detail of the evening. And family and friends and music-lovers and poets and artists filled the hall and received this offering that was true, raw, hard and beautiful. In the midst of cancer cells crowding into his body, James extravagantly poured out the costly perfume of his life. The sweet perfume of that offering filled the room and spills out into the world.
The song cycle ends here, with the song entitled The Gift.
Every today is a gift
that you want to open slowly, carefully,
revealing unexpected treasures.
Like a child’s birthday party, dear friends and family circle you,
love in their eyes, wishing you happiness.
With you, they treasure every present moment.
