The Bible. Sometimes I studied it intensely. But other times, or maybe most times, I would pick it up and read some random chapter (carefully avoiding that area near the front so as not to wind up in Leviticus or Numbers or Deuteronomy…), looking for, well, anything really. A message, or inspiration, or a hint about something that was weighing on my heart. Some little personal communication.
Sometimes passages would stand out, perhaps out of context, but would cause an emotional response. Those were the good ones, the little personal messages. But, sometimes you just get genealogy lists…
It was a bit like using a Magic 8 Ball.
I hunted for messages more often when I was stressed, which happened a lot in college. By the time I left school, most of that was in the rear view mirror, though on occasion I still did the random-message-hunt thing. Gradually that faded away, perhaps through disappointment or just unreliable results. It seemed like I would just decide what I wanted to hear, and hunt until I found something that sort of sounded like what I was looking for. Then I’d fall asleep.
It had been a few decades since I did anything like that. But when I found out a girlfriend from college, someone I cared a lot about, had ALS, it shook me. I went Magic-8-Balling again.
1 Sam 3:1 (Scofield)
“And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.”
Ok, that got my attention. Yes, hello, it’s been a while.
1 Sam 3:11 (Scofield)
“I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall tingle.”
Miracle on the way, baby! Score! I’m going to look for a cure for ALS!
Ok, I was a high school valedictorian, and I know how to read science journals, so I wasn’t intimidated. But the only course I ever hated was biology. The last time I took a life sciences course was when I was a sophomore – in high school. I have a terrible memory, and life sciences were all about memorizing. Even chemistry, which I tolerated much better than biology (I even took a couple of college freshman chem courses) had a lot of memorization. I’m an engineer. A software engineer. I don’t do memorizing. And I didn’t know squat about ALS.
But ALS, like a lot of neurological diseases, is an enormously complex disease. And nobody has any good ideas on what causes it, or how to cure it. So I just thought it might be possible that in all the studies and trials and experiments that maybe, just maybe, they had overlooked something. That they didn’t turn over a rock, and somewhere in the literature I might find a clue to a path the researchers missed. It was a lot like looking for a bug in software or hardware, and I was really good at that. Maybe an engineering perspective would show up something that a highly trained life sciences mind might miss.
Magic 8 Ball, should I try to find a cure for ALS?
Proverbs 8:17 (Scofield)
“I [wisdom] love those who love me, and those who seek me early shall find me.”
I took that as a yes…
I reasoned that it didn’t hurt to try. I had no career status to worry about, so I could pursue any wacky idea I found. And though the odds were long, the only guarantee was that if I didn’t try, I wouldn’t find anything. Disappointment or regret? If I don’t try, I’ll regret it. If I try and fail, I’ll be disappointed. If I succeed, I’ll be a hero. And I still had my day job...
The choice was a no-brainer. So began a two and half year deep dive into ALS.
What I didn’t expect was to actually find a rock that hadn’t been turned, but not be able to do anything about it. That possibility had never occurred to me. I didn’t find a cure, just a path that hadn’t been investigated - a path that had been overlooked because of the timing of external events. I couldn’t pursue it because I don’t have a PhD in biochemistry and/or molecular biology, so I can’t initiate a study. And I couldn’t get qualified researchers* to give me the time of day. That wasn’t just disappointing, it was frustrating. Really frustrating.
Two and a half years - that’s where the path led, and that’s where it stopped. A year later, she died.
I didn’t ask for the laws of the universe to be annulled in my favor. I didn’t ask for the sun to reverse its course. I just asked for knowledge to save the life of someone I almost married a long time ago.
I learned a lot, but not enough to save her. So now her children don’t have a mother, and her husband lost his wife, and they all had to watch her deteriorate into a prison where she couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t even swallow her saliva, but was as mentally bright as she had ever been. Locked in. And eventually the muscles that move her lungs gave out, and she died.
And that’s not even the worst neurologic disease you never heard of. Try Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s or Lewy Body Dementia.
Magic 8 Ball – are you there? Do you give a crap about anything?
“Don’t count on it.”