How is Joyce doing?

 It’s a question that I have been asked more than any other in the past three months, and there is never enough time to unpack the complexity of the answer. As is my custom, I will do my best to accurately represent the details of our situation through a movie reference. “Wyatt, I am rolling” is one of my favorite lines delivered by Val Kilmer in his brilliant portrayal of Doc Holliday in the movie “Tombstone.” I can’t think of a better way to summarize the life of Joyce Sanchez at this precise moment in time. During the past month, she has spent three nights a week at the climbing gym “sending it” even on advanced routes of 5.10a (Yosemite Decimal System). One weekend we spent the morning taking in the spectacular views from the Lookout Express chairlift on a Bluebird Day before catching up with the Sun Valley Music Festival where guest pianist Joyce Yang performed some of the most inspiring compositions by Sergei Rachmaninoff.  To top that, she scaled the harrowing Angels Landing trail in Zion National Park, only stopping midway up the chains section when the combination of high winds, icy footing, and crowd sizes that could rival the traffic jams at the Hillary step were enough for yours truly to turn the party around before one of us earned our place as the 19th fatality on the trail. Our family discovered that some of the most breathtaking views are not seen from the top of a mountain, but only after rappelling 100 feet into the depths of a slot canyon that has been meticulously carved out from the sandstone over many centuries. Gambling on the hope that Joyce’s health would permit air travel during the Spring Break week, we went ahead and booked a trip to Kauai. Not only did she feel well enough to board a commercial aircraft, she also secured passage on a “Doors off” Helicopter flying over the Na Pali Coast, followed a pod of dolphins on a Zodiac raft tour, and made a valiant effort to ride a surfboard that had just caught a wave on its way to Poipu Beach.

 I think we’ve experienced enough adventure in the past three weeks alone to last for an entire lifetime. But if you look a little deeper, there is another side of the ledger that we can’t escape from. We shouldn’t assume from Doc Holliday’s confident demeanor that his life was easy. It’s helpful to remember that “I am rolling” loosely translates to: I’m a little hungover after a gunfight in which I required two sidearms because I was seeing double at the time, Johnny Ringo and I have been working through some relationship conflict, I have an advanced case of tuberculosis that will likely end my life before the age of 37, and in case you hadn’t noticed there’s an outlaw standing at point blank range with a shotgun ready to open fire. If only we could brush off this lung cancer with the same indifference: “I apologize, I forgot you were there. You may go now.” One of the most remarkable things that I have observed in Joyce’s response to this trial has been her growing courage to stand firm no matter what lies around the corner. In defining his four cardinal virtues, Aristotle described Fortitude as “the virtue of the man who, being confronted with a noble occasion of encountering the danger of death, meets it fearlessly.” I haven’t really experienced too many of these “noble occasions” in my life, but I do remember one time when I was in college when I found myself on an icy slope above a large cliff in Big Sky, Montana. I remember thinking that if my feet slipped as I was hiking out of there I probably wouldn’t survive. It would have been extremely rational to conclude that those types of experiences provoke fear, fear isn’t very much fun, and future experiences which might provoke similar fear should be avoided at all cost. Take home lesson—no more tram rides. After what we went through in November, I’m pretty sure I would go to any lengths in order to avoid having to experience that kind of pain and suffering again. But watching Joyce’s response to the situation has reminded me that there is another way. Instead of trying to avoid the fear, I can try to learn courage instead. I watched a You Tube video last night of a kid my son’s age skiing off a cliff twice the size of the one I was so afraid of in college, and he actually looked like he was having quite a lot of FUN doing it. You’ll have to ask Joyce if you want to know how she manages to get out of bed every morning and revel in this ever-present source of fear, but I have a suspicion it may have something to do with the many hours she spends as an online teaching leader with Bible Study Fellowship. This year we’ve been covering the book of Revelation, and it’s kind of like going to the movies to watch a feature film only to go home and realize you’re experiencing the prequel in real life. Joyce and I have recently been watching a “prequel” series for a critically acclaimed show on Netflix. I picked this one out assuming that she would enjoy the dark gangster related content that it offers, even though she bailed on the original series after just one episode. There are some extremely tense moments in the show, and just when I think one of the characters is about to get toasted I have to remind myself that they make an appearance in the subsequent series so it must turn out OK. In the same way, Revelation 21:4 promises that “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”