How a heart attack got me writing

Charles R. Drew is a famous black physician and researcher who has a university named after him. That’s not me. I am Charles D. Drew, a retired New York City pastor with broad interests and some wisdom on how those interests relate to faith.

Moishe, my gastroenterologist (you start seeing people like him regularly after a certain age) asked me how I was doing a couple of years after triple by-pass surgery.

“I’m doing great. Walking three miles every day with my wife. I preached a sermon and gave eight talks over a ten-day period within six weeks of surgery . . . But there is one thing that disappoints me.”

“Really? What’s that?”

“Well, I had hoped to be a wet nurse during my retirement, but my cardiac surgeon harvested both of my mammary arteries for the by-passes, so I no longer have sufficient blood supply to my breasts.”

As I said this, deadpan, I watched Moishe’s face glaze over as he tried to process what was happening. Had the anesthesia during my colonoscopy addled my brain? Was I having a stroke?

“It’s a joke,” I said. He laughed with relief and the post procedure consult came back onto the rails.

My brush with death did, of course, have a genuine impact on me. First, it got me treasuring the present moment even more than I had before. I felt more acutely what I had long known intellectually—that tomorrow as I envision it may never come. What matters supremely is the time and place where I find myself now and the person or people I find myself with at the moment.

These days, when I am about to speak publicly, I find myself often thinking, “This may be the last time I ever speak to any group of people in this world.” This thought lends weight to what I am doing. It also calms me, because I realize that this gig isn’t a stepping stone in my climb to some hoped for success down the road. It’s just what I am doing, now, and that’s enough.

The happy postponement of my death affected me in a second way. It awakened me to a sense of opportunity. God was lending me more time in this world. I am not completely sure what that loan is for, certainly not in detail. But one thing seems clear. God wants me to pass along something of what I have learned and experienced over the years.

Hence this blog. I don’t write because I think myself unusually wise. I write rather with a simple sense of stewardship. I have lived long (longer than I certainly would have in another age or part of the world) and I have taught and preached on a wide range of topics. I am reasonably confident that God has some things for me to share.

My entries will be weekly. They will be brief: I suspect you are busy enough with life and social media. They will vary in content, touching on the richness of life that has gotten my attention. If one particular week doesn’t strike a chord, don’t worry; the next one may. I will write about music, politics, science, love, the Bible, career, heaven, sailing, the psalms, and other things as well.

Stay tuned.