the presence of 9/11

I’ve learned that when a piece of writing stirs me, I need to pay attention. The September 2010 issue of Science of Mind has a number of interesting articles, all of which simultaneously call to me. The one that jumps out at me today is prelude to a disagreement – not an outright argument because I don’t have the luxury of a live opponent – but rather an observation. I disagree with a statement made in one article is about a book ‒ From Cancer to Power ‒ written by its author.

For anyone who is dealing with cancer, the book sounds like it has some excellent guidance, except for one little bit of advice: the formula the author suggests for taking responsibility: E + R = O. This stands for Event plus Response equals Outcome. The author indicates that we are not always in control of what happens to us but because we are in control of how we respond, we can “therefore, control the outcome.”

What a pile of doo-doo.

I am thinking about the people who died on September 11, 2001. Many of them responded brilliantly and survived. Many of them responded brilliantly and did not survive. If survival was the desired outcome (and I am just assuming that it was), then a whole bunch of people did not respond the “right” way. I am not sure what the “right” way would have been for the people on the floors above the impact of the airplanes as there was no possible way to escape except to grow wings and fly. They were helpless, deeply submerged in a disaster that could not be undone.

Ditto for the people who were on the airplanes.

This simplistic solution for controlling our destinies has me a bit aggravated. I have not read the book, but I am hoping . . . a lot . . . that the author went on to define what she means by outcome. The implication of E + R = O is that if we respond in just the right way to each event, then we can control what happens next. That absolutely is not true and it sets people up for self-recrimination and blame when the outcome is not the one they had aimed for. That this idea is planted in a book whose audience is people dealing with cancer scares me. The author battled cancer and survived, but her methods were just that: her methods. They worked for her. They may or may not work for other people. None of us can ever know what life is like inside another person’s experience.

Control is an illusion. The only outcome we can truly control through our response is how we behave.

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The presence of Ted

I was reading Ted Howard’s blog on Understanding being human part 2” and am convinced that Ted is wired to the Universal Consciousness in a very special way. We all are connected in our own unique way, but Ted goes beyond unique. He goes where few brain cells can dare to venture.

As near as I can tell, the bottom line is that, as humans, our egos have evolved beyond our capacity to understand our entirety. We think we know everything, when in fact, the more we know, the more we find out we don’t know. We don’t even know the half of what we don’t know.

If you want to find out where you came from, check out “What is a human?” . You also will get a world-class view of where we are now and our capacity to go further.

Some time ago, Ted discovered that some of the cells in his body had changed their programming and become cancerous. He is meeting the challenge of healing his body which has somehow gotten the message to work against itself. Curing oneself of a metastasized cancer is not for wimps (however, if you are wimpy, taking on cancer is one sure-fire way to discover how strong you really are). One has to destroy or remove those cells who are beyond redemption while at the same time, convincing the cells who are on their way to becoming cancerous to change their minds. And then you have to talk to your immune system and ask it to beef up production while it continues its regular 24-hour job of protecting your body from all the other microbes who might seek to take up habitat in your tissues. Currently, the metastasized cancer cells are retreating and some apparently have given up the fight.

If anyone knows just how cells become cancerous and how they function, it would be Ted. In fact, he seems to know and understand a little too much to be an outsider. Ted must be an insider. Ted was probably one of the original designers of the solar system and this big round thing we call earth. Now, he is living the reality of his design eons later and discovering what works well and what doesn’t. And there is proof: curing cancer is definitely an inside job.

I can’t wait to see what he does next.

But I’m willing to wait another full lifetime to find out.

©2010 by Barbara L. Kass