A Poem For Thanksgiving II

A Poem For Thanksgiving II:

One Blessing had I than the rest
So larger to my Eyes
That I stopped gauging--satisfied--
For this enchanted size--

It was the limit of my Dream--
The focus of my Prayer--
A perfect--paralyzing Bliss--
Contented as Despair--

I knew no more of Want--or Cold--
Phantasms both become
For this new Value in the Soul--
Supremest Earthly Sum--

The Heaven below the Heaven above--
Obscured with ruddier Blue--
Life's Latitudes leant over--full--
The Judgment perished--too--

Why Bliss so scantily disburse--
Why Paradise defer--
Why Floods be served to Us--in Bowls--
I speculate no more--

-- Emily Dickinson.

When hot be thoroughly hot, when cold be thoroughly cold.

Yesterday was a bad day.  A day when I felt so bad that I barely felt like getting out of bed.  And then the self-incrimination began.  "Do I really feel so bad, or am I just giving in?"  "Am I really this sick, or am I just feeling lazy and lethargic?"  "Why the hell can't I just fight through this?"

And that's when it hit me.  Don't fight.  Practice non-resistance.

The Urban Monk article "How to bring the Peace of Non-Resistance into your life now" expresses it for me:

I mentioned cancer at the start of the article. What about it? Do I mean that you simply die, from non-resistance? No. Do everything you externally can to cure your cancer. Go the best hospital you can afford, find the best treatments you can, but give up all inner resistance. Let it be internally, in fact focus on happiness and the joy of life. That way you will not have any need for unhappiness, you’re not adding internal pain to your physical pain. If you pass on, you pass on in peace. If you recover, you recover in peace. In fact, your inner calm makes it likelier that your body will recover with medical treatment.

The idea is to be fully sick when I am sick, and be fully healthy when I am healthy. It's the cycle of life.  And those bad days will come.  When the diabetes becomes a problem, I want to be like animals and just lick my wounds and let myself heal.  When the heart disease forces incapacitation, just be incapacitated and wait for the better day.

The idea is to roll with the punches, to get into the rhythm of life.  And accept each day as it is.  Practice non-resistance.  Hopefully, I can learn to do this.

 

I'm a Dying Man

I am a dying man.

What an odd thing to say, I guess.  Of course, I know that everyone is dying.  I get that.  But usually when we say this about someone, we mean that either he is on his deathbed or has just a few months to live.

Neither of those things are true about me.  I may have many years or I may have just a few.  But what I have been faced with is the realization that this life of mine is near its end.

I've already lived 5 years longer than most people with my conditions.  I didn't know this until recently, but I suspected as much.  The interesting thing is that I have never lived as though I was dying.

And depending on how you look at it, that is a good thing and a bad thing.  A good thing because you just keep on putting one foot in front of the other toward the future and march as if nothing is matter.  But a bad thing because you don't realize how precious each moment is and don't look around at the universe and absorb its majesty.

So the question is, do you live like a dying man or like a living man?  Hopefully I'll find some answers as I start this journey.