I can't believe this is just the end of the second week of school. I feel as if I've been here for months. As usual, I'm inundated with reading -- if it just weren't all so engrossing I'd be doing more skimming. Instead, I find myself rereading particularly beautiful passages. Okay, I'm not so excited about readings from Aristotle and Aquinas, but I just finished At the Will of the Body: Reflections on Illness by Arthur Frank. It's a great book for chaplains to read after CPE, but I wish I'd read it before the summer. Frank reflects on his experience with a heart attack and with testicular cancer, with emphasis on the latter. He explores our generally dysfunctional attitudes toward illness and cancer in particular. His main point is that "The responsibility of the ill, then, is not to get well but to express their illness well. And the two have nothing to do with each other" (127). Good stuff.
The picture is a favorite of mine from early spring. It's Junko, Noriko, and Kuni -- one relative and two friends.