I Really Don't Want to Go Anywhere, Honest...

Diagnosed with cancer a mere three weeks ago has been quite an upheaval to my daily activity and to patterns of thought that I’ve had for years, unquestioned, unchanged, not really wanting to look at to be honest. This event has been quite a spiritual revelation, removing blinds from my eyes things that have been present for so many years and have forced me to reexamine some long held beliefs.
In my thirties I was faced with a dilemma that required that I place aside my prejudices and seek a spiritual way of life that was meaningful at deeply, profoundly personal level. I really didn’t want to go looking really, I would have been pleased with a self-help book or two and in a day or two a brand new me, but no, all the books in the world were not to keep me from getting off my ass and heading off on a journey.
Today, I have cancer and love is coming at me in so many different ways, ways I would have been offended at the past. I received a reliquary from my wife’s side of the family, long standing Catholics from the same tradition I came from and rejected so many years ago. The reliquary is a large crucifix, inside the crucifix is some relic of St. Oxymoron the Prolific (who knows), it could be finger nail clipping, a piece of his last pair of sandals, anyway it’s something that was personally attached to our aforementioned saint. There was time I would have been truly offended and sent it back. Today it’s hanging on my reading lamp in the bedroom, another signpost on the road to my spiritual growth. My friend Amy told me her dad praying for me, with other friends Catholic, American Indian, Baptists all doing the same.
Which leads me to this: The form of spiritual love you put forth does not matter, form is nothing unless the form is your belief, and the form is the signpost that leads you to the threshold of your spirit.
And what is the threshold you might ask? Speaking for myself, the crucifix, the 5 Buddha’s, the Celtic Crosses that abound in our house are pointing me forward beyond all form and towards the essence of what it is that I am, words and form do not exist when you step beyond your form threshold. Jesus as viewed through the scriptures, the will Allah revealed through the Quran, Buddha hood revealed through deep contemplation are all ways of bring me to the portal of the void. To have come so far to let go of the familiar and step into a spiritual center that I do not know how I will change me is fearful. What exists when one steps towards an experience beyond words, visions and forms?
I could be transformed, or mentally disintegrate into something I did not know existed, I may be enlightened, or stripped of old belief’s and prejudices that have propped up my psyche for 58 years.
What I do know is that powered by all spiritual love and strength I’ve been receiving I have the tools and power to step into the void.
I thank you all for the opportunity to grow, although I could have by-passed the cancer diagnosis.
Onward, towards the void we go…