[Oe List ...] Salmon: for your reflections

[William Salmon]

Colleagues--
    Is there a better message to live by when life turns everything up-side-down than to recall the insights of brother Bonhoeffer? Life does not define us, rather it is our relationship to life that we take that defines Life.

    The painful changes of life are amoral; they are just events, activities, experiences and realities. When our son Wesley died at 20 with leukemia he was victimized by this damnable disease, but he never empowered the disease by saying he was a victim. Rather, he chose (or, perhaps, I chose for him) to be a VICTOR! Whatever the choice, this was the self-story we all lived until he died. 

    It is a matter of choice, and an important choice at that! To chose to be a VICTOR---in spite of leukemia, or even because of it--robs the disease of any power over us. To choose to make ourselves VICTIMS is to empower the disease with attributes that it never possesses by itself. 

    While reality is characterized by death and pain, Castaneda reminded us that both death and pain never lie to us; we can ask, "Am I in pain?" and if the answer is, "Yes!" we can damn well believe we are." On the other hand. . . . 

    I have god-damned leukemia ever since Wesley's death to no avail. Leukemia is not my enemy. While I will never accept its friendship either, leukemia just continues to do its thing; it is fulfilling its created purpose.

    Is there Good News in here somewhere? Yes, the Christian story is that Jesus demonstrated that he was not a victim to the political and religious powers of his day, and deliberately chose to die on the cross as the demonstration that even death itself does not victimize us; Jesus is the first born of many brothers and sisters. When we choose to live out of This Story then we experience a resurrection; we experience The Christ. (JWM would love this!) 

    Well, duh! Death only does its thing too. 

    Ah, well, such is life. 

    Inner Peace, 

    Bill 

 
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