Blog entry for:

to avoid lingo associated with my spiritual path when i share in meetings. for me, this is not that hard of a task. i am very circumspect in my spiritual path in meetings and in general. having to own a religion when i was filling out my forms for my surgery, you know the just in case kind of stuff, brought me to the horns of a dilemma. i really did want to tell the medical world that i was a Taoist, but i have also arrived at a place in my life where i no longer hide who i am or what i am about. in meetings i use terms such as Higher Power and God to convey the idea of the POWER that fuels my recovery, which is not some sort of supreme being outside of Tao. to explain what being in Tao and of Tao is in a few minutes to provide context is just not possible in a meeting, so i use the default language of the fellowship within which i have found the ways and means to recover. for me, my spiritual path is my own, and it is part of who i have become, leaving behind all the garbage i carried for decades on end. if others want to see the spiritual side through a different lens, then more power to them, i spent far too long believing i had to people-please my peers by having a spiritual path similar to the ones they follow.
yesterday, the results of my pathology were published on my patient portal and to the best of my ability, i interpreted them to say that my melanoma, at this time, is a one and done sort of thing. i could be wrong, so i am hesitant to announce anything but my best guess at what those results said. i know i could copy and paste them in some sort of WebMD application and get a better idea of the state of the cat in that box, but based on my limited knowledge i would say that cat is dead. many of my friends, family members and peers have said they are praying for me, and i am not sure how to respond, not being from a spiritual path that embraces prayer. i am pretty sure that they say that out of care and concern and i just thanks for that and let it be. in days of yore, i would be praying for this sort of outcome and i have to admit, as tempted as i was to drop back into that sort of paradigm, i simply asked to be relieved of my obsession to “know” and to get on with living, pending the final outcome. for me, asking for the power to let go and be okay, feels more sincere than asking to be freed from my cancer. just for today, i will walk in the grace of the FAITH i have in the program that has brought me this far and introduced me to the POWER that fuels my recovery.

∞ DT ∞