Dear Reader:

I made the most delightful discovery yesterday while collecting broken branches, sticks and big pine cones. (I do believe I could win a pine cone contest….the pine trees are so old and so tall here in Miler that when they drop a pine cone…it could knock one senseless if it fell on your head.)

(Here is my pile of sticks, mostly tree branches and pine cones…I will sleep good tonight!)

But I digress…as I was straightening up the potting shed…I came across two cabbages I had placed in there in late fall (they were in pots…had watered them thoroughly but was too tired to plant them that day)….and now there they were ….just beautiful…..glowing from within…with special colors popping within other colors. (I cleaned them both up by pulling off all the dried up dead leaves around the bottom and gave them lots of overdue watering!)

I quickly grabbed my shovel and planted both of them beside each other…what an amazingly lovely pair they make….I am beginning to think cabbages are my favorite plants.

In spite of drought and a dark garage…these cabbages found a way to not only live…but bloom. They had healed themselves from within.

I found the most amazing article yesterday from an oncologist who shared his thoughts concerning the difference between curing and healing. When I finished reading the article….I just wanted to jump up and shout Hallelujah!

This is exactly how I feel…whether or not I (hopefully) one day am cured I still feel healed…from within. My “new eyes” help me see the world completely different these days...healing with feeling.

I have been give a second chance at re-inventing myself…can anyone ask for anything more than that?

I hope you take from this message a whole new perspective on healing. I rarely put a whole article in my blog…but this one was so powerful (and short) …that every word was needed to be heard.

” Difference Between Curing and Healing”

Dr. Michael Lerner, PhD.

Awakin Weekly

In my thirty years of working with cancer patients, I’ve seen a profound distinction between curing and healing.

Curing is what a physician seeks to offer you. Healing, however, comes from within us. It’s what *we* bring to the table. Healing can be described as a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual process of coming home.

Even if we’re losing ground physically, there’s extra-ordinary emotional, mental and spiritual healing that can go on. One of the most toxic new-age ideas is that we should “keep a positive attitude.” What a crazy, crazy idea that is.

It is much healthier, much more healing, to allow yourself to feel whatever is coming up in you, and allow yourself to work with that anxiety, depression, grief. Because, underneath that, if you allow those feelings to come up and express themselves, then you can find the truly positive way of living in relationship to those feelings. That’s such an important thing.

Then there’s the ideas we have about ourselves, our lives, about what the disease means. Often, people feel like their disease is some kind of judgment on them: “What did I do wrong?” I’m not sure that’s an idea that serves people very much.

When I had my heart-attack, I felt as though I was reborn. Even though I had been working with cancer patients for 18 years, when it was *my* heart attack, there was this profound rebirth experience. My beloved wife says that after the heart attack, I spent the first three months just rearranging the rocks in our garden.

The whole world seemed new to me. I was inventing my life all over again. So there is the opportunity that comes with cancer, to ask ourselves how we want to reinvent our lives. And that can be one of the most powerful healing things we can do.

Healing is the most fundamental aspect of our condition, and it’s a continuous rediscovery of what it means to be alive. It spills over into the rest of our life and guides us. It’s not only about some “spiritual experience” of being high all the time. Not at all. It is about living with the ongoing stresses and strains and difficulties — and joys — of life, but doing so in a way that we feel whole.

Living in relationship with the struggles of life is what makes us human.

………………………………

So until tomorrow…”Amen.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* I asked Kaitlyn to send me different pictures of Rudy…and I would simply put his picture in each day with a call to keep our little family member in everyone’s prayers. I love the following picture taken earlier at the “Blessing of the Animals.” Can’t help but think that will help too!

This is Rudy at the blessing of the animals! He liked the priest. Thats John Zahl. He is at Grace Episcopal Downtown now 🙂 

* Great news today…the doctors have put Betsy through tests and more tests but a new doctor yesterday said he felt like the medication was in place to help Betsy now (hasn’t had an “episode” in two weeks) and the test results (for possible other causes) were ambiguous enough to simply continue checking at intervals but in the meantime….go live your life fully.

Awards go out to Libby…Caregiver of the Year and Betsy…Patient of the Year. Y’all make a great team gals!

Joan finished her initial sketch of Sadie by turning it into this….just amazing! I don’t have a dog and I want Joan to paint a picture of my imaginary one!

If you haven’t voted in the “Boy or Girl…Give It a Twirl” baby contest for Mollie and Walsh and Rutledge…here is the ultrasound photo again…going to be a big baby (around 9 lbs…legs are in the 98th percentile…so long as well…and as you can see lots of hair.)

The baby will arrive in just a few short weeks with the jonquils and daffodils…I will keep the results of the tally a secret until after the delivery and then give Mollie the sheet to keep in the baby’s keepsakes. So if you also want to make a comment…please do and I will add it along side the guess.

‘Healing with Honey’ works too…she arrived yesterday with sunny flowers and sunny soup…but most importantly sunny Honey!