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

[Isobel and Jim Bishop]

Dear Bill and colleagues,
I appreciated your thoughts in writing so much.
Grace and peace is yours,
Isobel Bishop.
On 15/09/2010, at 9:38 PM, William Salmon wrote:

> 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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