GIFTS
After all else had failed, last summer the Universe gave me a final, last chance gift. The gift was
lymphoma,
a type of cancer that makes part of the lymph system go wild.
As I understand it, whatever happens to our bodies is neither good nor bad. These qualities are just
matters of perception, of form and are transitory. Our Spirits are eternal and part of our Higher Power.
The Great Spirit can use our bodies (or anything) to communicate with us and let us remove the illusions
from our Spirits. Such events are Gifts that we can accept or not when they are given.
God had tried “the success neurosis,” and I dutifully screwed up everything I tried and every opportunity I
was given. I knew I was no good, and I was proving it.
Then my Higher Power gave me alcoholism and eventually led me to a Twelve Step recovery program in the U. S.
Virgin Islands. I finally got sober in Florida, worked in alcohol rehabilitation for a couple of years, got
“cured,” and drank again for seven years. Finally, I got long-term sobriety and some serenity.
My wife and I moved to the Florida Keys. My core feelings about myself remained negative, so God gave me
throat cancer and then treatment, remission, and a cure. Yet nothing changed in me. I still thought I was
worse than most people and separate from them and God. Sending me to work in a psychiatric prison in
Charlotte County did not help.
By now my Higher Power was getting tired of the nonsense, so she sent Hurricane Charlie to straighten out me
and some others. I took our boat into a mangrove forest and mad a “nest” for us. Charlie changed course and
gave us a powerful experience.
I returned home to a destroyed house. The next day I pick up my wife from the special needs shelter where
she had volunteered as a nurse, and we brought the boat to our dock and moved aboard. But I still had not
learned or changed inside.
The Great Spirit sent us to Life Transitions and A Course in Miracles. Through the months I started to
change. At least I could talk the talk.
Last May my Higher Power saw this was not enough and gave me the gift of cancer. The first diagnosis was
pancreatic cancer, and the prognosis was poor. I finally started to really look into the relationship of
Body, Mind, and Spirit and became convinced that I had to make some major changes if I wanted to live.
I began.
Doctors and technicians messed around and tested to two months. Just before radical abdominal surgery, the
doctors changed the diagnosis to lymphoma. The prognosis was immediately better, and chemo therapy
treatment quickly started.
I stayed with Life Transitions and A Course in Miracles. I used positive affirmations from Louise Hay in
YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE and several of Peggy McCall’s ideas from YOUR DESTINY SWITCH, I studied the
relationships of quantum physics and spirituality, and some great books by Gary Zukav.
There were also contributions by the videos WHAT THE BLEEP and DOWN THE RABIT HOLE,
plus authors Joe Dispenza, and Lynne McTaggart.
Several weeks ago week I attended my second meditation session presented by Megan Hobbie at Life Transitions.
My Higher Power used the energies of those present (and not present?) to give me positive feelings I had
been needing all of my life:
GRATITUDE
LOVE
PEACE
The “love” includes respect and love for myself, as well as the rest of Creation.
Two weeks later, at Jim’s suggestion, Sue Linehan worked with me again. She “went up” to our joint
Higher Power and received the message or mantra, “I am free.”
I take this to mean that I am free of the feelings of negativity, guilty, unworthiness, etc. that have
been part of me for as long as I can remember. They were part of my core. Now I am free of them.
I will gladly carry them with me for as long as this life shall last and then to whatever waits beyond.
My thanks to my Higher Power for The Gift of cancer.
Thanks also to Jim DeMaio, the Life Transitions and Course in Miracles Community, my wife, and all others
involved in my transformation.
