Six strings down, brother.
Posted on 07/12/2008 1:43:26 PM PDT by STARWISE
It's a sad Saturday morning for Washington's extended family. Fox News reported this morning that Tony Snow, who valiantly battled a merciless colon cancer in the public eye, passed early this morning. He was 53.
Snow brought humor and vigor to the podium as President Bush's press secretary after a career at Fox News that had made Tony one of the nation's most famous conservatives. On White House trips, he was a red-state rock star, with throngs of admirers lining up for a handshake or an autograph.
Fox said he died at Georgetown University Hospital at about 2 a.m. He leaves his wife, Jill, their son and two daughters, ages 10 to 15.
He lived in Alexandria, in a big house with a broad front porch and a tire swing in the front yard. He spoke subtly but convincingly about his Christian faith, and never accepted his status as a certified Washington insider.
"I don't think you ever ARRIVE — I think anybody who think that they've arrived, or made it, anywhere in the media — they're nuts," Snow once said on the air.
A fading Snow called Ann Compton of ABC News, president of the White House Correspondents Association, when she was traveling with Bush in Paris last month because he was worried about the health of veteran correspondent Helen Thomas.
"Tony had been hospitalized for weeks but kept telling me this was a 'bump in the road,' although he hesitated to say when he would be back," Compton recalled.
*snip*
I'm not Glowing Rhetorical Guy, so he'd have to downgrade some of his own wonderful way with words. … Barbara loved him, and so did I. … You knew you were gettin' the truth."
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
“The former president then handed the receiver to the former first lady Barbara Bush when the anchor pressed him for stories: “I don’t know — can I ask my wife? … Do you have any moments you want to share here, with Tony? They want to talk to YOU.”
Barbara Bush briefly came on the line, and choked up as she said: “I remember his unfalteringly loyalty to the people he worked for and people he knew. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. And we certainly send our love to Jill and the children.”
*snip*
Brit Hume is the substitute host of tomorrow’s “Fox News Sunday,” which will include a tribute to Tony.
Just ... damn
Somehow I dont feel sad for Tony but I do for his wife and kids. That gentleman lived his life the way I try to live mine. He’s still my hero.
This just blew my day. With so many that don’t love the Lord and could care less about mankind, we lose a man of this stature and faith. My heart is poured out to his Wife and Children.
AIGGHH.
God Bless you Tony
Tony was a beautiful child of God. He fought the good fight and he is now safe in the arms of the Savior. What a tremendous example he was for us all as he faced his adversity with courage and humility. May the Lord reward him for his faithfulness, and may his family be forever blessed by the time they had with him. His life made a difference; he will be sorely missed.
It is a sad day. I heard it while I was waterskiing with my friends. What a sad day for the Snows. I can’t express what I’m thinking!!
Very very sad. He really was a prince of a man.
Prayers indeed for his grieving family.
Pretty nice tribute from Politico.
Godspeed, Tony.
Media is quite suppressed compared to the orgy over Tim Russert, and then we know that (and Pauil Welstone’s funeral) will all pale with the passing of Ted Kennedy (the end of Camalot?). I have mixed emotions. Tony was first and foremost a very good man as well as the best at many things. Great guy. But, yes, we know he was going for some time (and Russert was a surprise). His colon cancer may have been arrested but it had gone to his liver etc. The saddest note is some cheap shots being taken by media, especially the damnable AP lashing out with catty remarks on a good man. Ave atque vale, Tony.
:( I will miss his voice...
I had the pleasure of traveling one day with Tony many years ago, we spoke for hours about God, the meaning of being one( a uniquely Christian concept) and the power derived from such thoughts and lifestyle. I enjoyed the conversation with him and will always remember his smile, warmth, graciousness and intellect..
Streak on like a rainbow Tony and tell all in Heaven hello for us still on earth..
Peace in Christ!!
Six strings down, brother.
This article by Tony Snow appeared in Christianity Today and I found it very comforting reading as I was going through my own 'cancer scare' at the time it was published.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cancer's Unexpected Blessings
When you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change.
July 20, 2007
Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23 Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen—leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but resigned August 31. CT asked Snow what spiritual lessons he has been learning through the ordeal.
Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.
The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.
I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.
But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.
Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.
To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life—and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many nonbelieving hearts—an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live—fully, richly, exuberantly—no matter how their days may be numbered.
Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise. 'You Have Been Called'
Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the healer announces.
The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter—and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."
There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived—an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tinny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.
The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.
There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue—for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.
Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.
We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us—that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us partway there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two people's worries and fears. Learning How to Live
Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.
I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."
His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity—filled with life and love we cannot comprehend—and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.
Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?
When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it.
It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up—to speak of us!
This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.
What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand.
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today.
What a wonderful event for you.
Many noteworthy posts on this thread about Tony’s passing.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2044355/posts?q=1&;page=1
Wow. He gets it. He has truly been molded by His Maker. Thanks for sharing this.
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