[Dialogue] Healing Cancer/Heaven/Conquering Hope

Fri Oct 28 07:26:10 EDT 2011

For me this conversation about hope and hopelessness comes together with the earlier one on freedom through this quote from Kaz: "We come from a dark abyss, we go to a dark abyss, and the luminous interval is called life."  To embrace this poetry as truth is to live in freedom.  To hope for anything more leads to abject despair.

Randy

________________________________
From: Beret Griffith <beretgriffith at charter.net>
To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 5:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Healing Cancer/Heaven/Conquering Hope

From another poet...

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.

Emily Dickenson

Thank you all for wonderful quotes this week.

Beret

At 11:23 PM 10/27/2011, you wrote:

I’m not sure I know what I’m talking about, but will add 2cents worth. A little contextual statement first (as I watch the wild World Series game).
>
>*****
>Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hopeyou do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alienit just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? 
>       ~JWM, “The Heavenly Vision,” para. 10, Priors’ Council, 3/10/75 (Thanks, Jack.)
> 
>“Hope beyond hope” does not depend on me nor anything related to me in this world, finallyfaith, spiritual practices, family, sociality, therapies. “Hope beyond my hope” is not hoping the future will turn out the way I pray, but that hope will forever be part of reality, regardless of what I want. Bottom line: I do not engineer hope. 
> 
>“Hope beyond my hoping” is hope of the Other World that sometimes appears to me in This World. Like grace, hope is always present now, as utter gift, unmerited. And “hope beyond my hope” does not disappoint.
> 
>Hope appears when it appears. It happens or does not happen. Yet, it is forever at the heart of existence, always at the heart of my present situation, in spite of my despair and hopelessness. 
> 
>O Thou, I hope. Help Thou my hopelessness.
>
> 
>*****
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
>
>>________________________________
>From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Bill Schlesinger
>Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 9:54 PM
>To: 'Colleague Dialogue'
>Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Healing Cancer/Heaven/Conquering Hope
>
>Hopelessness is despair.  Hope is a wish dream – and we all know how God relates to visionary dreamers.  Conquering hope is acknowledging and embracing the knowledge that the dark abyss will claim us and all our works – and trusting ourselves to that destiny without escaping its compassion, or the responsibility of being linked to all that is that it thrusts upon us.  In a three story universe, we may hope for heaven and fear hell.  In this universe, we can only trust in the wonder and mystery that – often – appears as the abyss.  
> 
>Whether we die of cancer or boredom, we will certainly die.  Kaz claims that dying one way ‘fructifies the earth.’  Seems to me to be a good way to go.
> 
>Bill Schlesinger
>Project Vida
>3607 Rivera Avenue
>El Paso, TX 79905
>(915) 533-7057 x 207
>(915) 533-7158 FAX
>pvida at whc.net
>www.projectvidaelpaso.org
>
>>________________________________
>From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of John Cock
>Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 7:22 PM
>To: 'Colleague Dialogue'
>Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Healing Cancer/Heaven/Conquering Hope
> 
>This is a good stream. Started me brooding on the "hope beyond hope." When did we use that phrase?
> 
>John
>
>>________________________________
>From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of LAURELCG at aol.com
>Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 6:34 PM
>To: dialogue at wedgeblade.net
>Subject: [Dialogue] Healing Cancer/Heaven/Conquering Hope
>I think I agree with the speaker that hopelessness kills people in the face of a cancer diagnosis. Remarkable Recovery was an important book to me in my lymphoma experience. It documents many people recovering from terminal diagnoses. I don't agree with your speaker's second statement. It is trust in your destiny, in this moment and for the future, that is helpful. No oneknows they're going to heaven.
> 
>My memoir of my journey with cancer might be helpful:Illness as Initiation: an unlikely heroine's journey at http://booklocker.com/books/5100.html.
> 
>Conquering hope, IMHO, is what I attempt when I sit in stillness to meditate and let go of my self, my personal history, my possessions, my thoughts, my beliefs (e.g. in heaven), my hopes, my dreams, my fears. To travel back to before the big bang and identify with the mystery that was present in nothingness. Watching Fred McGuire really let go of everything on his journey to death taught me what meditation is for.
> 
>Blessings, Jim. May all of us, especially your daughter-in-law, be well and free from suffering,
>Jann McGuire
> 
> 
> 
>
>On Oct 27, 2011, at 9:49 AM, James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Listening to the Healing Cancer World Summit (daughter in law has rectal cancer) as I read your message, Bill . . . 2 comments from the speaker: 
>>
>> 
>>
>>Hopelessness is the killer, not cancer.
>>
>> 
>>
>>Then, later, he said:  People who know they are going to heaven have a better chance of surviving cancer because they know where they are going . . .
>>
>> 
>>
>>So, what is the relation between "going to heaven"  and "conquering hope" and "hopelessness"?
>>
>>
>>Jim Wiegel
>>
>>
>>Life isn't meant to be easy, it's meant to be life. -- James Michener, The Source
>>
>>
>>401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
>>
>>+1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel
>>
>>jfwiegel at yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com
>>
>> 
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> 
>John
>

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