Alejandro, Janice and me.

When my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 1/2 years ago, my initial response was the requisite, “Why her?” She’d experienced a number of life challenges and I felt as if she’d had her fill.

Yet, that was then and this is now. 

Janice took an unconventional approach to cancer by treating it not as an enemy with which to do battle but as a rather unwanted companion who had shown up to offer her insights into her feelings, her body and her relationships. 

She reflected on thought patterns that had created undue stress and began to change the way she saw the world and let go of her propensity to worry about things beyond her control. 

She chose not to reduce her interaction with the health care system to oncologists, surgeons and cell destroying meds. Nor, was she going to rely exclusively on conventional medicine to heal as she intuitively knew that she was far more familiar with her body than an oncologist whose attention focused exclusively on her cancer. 

Instead, she chose to view her body as a living organism which wanted to cooperate with her healing. She participated in an acupuncture study at Tri-Health Integrative. She received therapeutic Healing Touch the morning of each chemo treatment. Bethesda generously allowed Ceece, her Healing Touch practitioner to do a treatment pre-op and post-op. Ceece created a loving , healing environment for all of us in the waiting room as she is aware of the impact a family’s stress can have on the patient. As she worked with me, I could feel a spaciousness inside of me that facilitated a deeper level of acceptance.

Yet, it did not stop there. Recognizing the power of the mind to facilitate healing, Janice listened to guided imagery CDs which have been proven to alleviate stress and promote positive surgical outcome; her surgeon noticed that bleeding was remarkably minimal. Janice also used a set of CDs designed to invite the power of the mind to assist her in navigating the debilitating effects of aggressive chemotherapy. Her oncologist remarked upon Janice’s surprisingly minimal side effects.   (She told him her approach once her treatment was complete; she didn’t want to risk his skepticism clouding her commitment to the path she’d chosen).

She also chose to examine relationships which served her healing and those that would create stress. (This sometimes included me as she told me I loved her so much that she could feel my fear). She set clear boundaries on relationships as she reflected on her energy capacity for different encounters. She used her cancer to consider which relationships were life giving and life draining and she made necessary changes.

While she has no desire to repeat this cancer journey, she recognizes this uninvited guest became a companion that engendered a profound personal and spiritual transformation for which she is abundantly grateful. She has, in her characteristically unobtrusive fashion, offered these insights to other women experiencing cancer.

Today, we walked our 5K with my daughter and her hub, my niece, my brother-in-law and of course, withAlejandro, my grandson who thinks his Tia Janice is the next best thing to Pepperidge Farm goldfish.   

I just had a conversation with my friend who was raised in a secular Jewish household by liberal parents.  She studied for years with a spiritual guru and is one of my more interesting friends. She’s the one of the most honest, reflective people I know and she has no interest in impressing anyone except maybe her boss.  

I first met her in an Integral Theory program at JFK University and frankly was intimidated by her intellect and her low tolerance for anything I might call inauthentic drivel which I engage in occasionally.   We’ve become friends who talk regularly about Integral, our families and our lives. She encouraged me to pursue my idea of an online sangha (community) for people interested in post-traditional Christianity.  

The other day, she sent me an e-mail in which she wrote: 

one of these days i want to talk to you about the idea of someone sacrificing for your spiritual advancement.  the whole christ died for your sins thing is completely weird to me. 

It never made much sense to me either. So I explained to my friend that this misinterpretation is rooted in sketchy theology.   The Greek word being translated as “salvation” is what scholar Lynn Bauman might call “restoration to fullness of being.”  It isn’t about anyone dying FOR anyone in the typically sacrificial sense.  

Rather, it is about entering into deep communion…loving so deeply, so fully that this love unites the I and the Thou.   I’m not talking about sentimental, gushy love.  I’m talking about a fierce love which stands solid and steady in a state of open surrender to what IS in the midst of some of the biggest curve balls life throws you.  (The Buddha’s insight helps here.  Life is suffering.)

I also explained that there are other texts beyond the four familiar gospels which help flesh out the Jesus path.  This is helpful as the four gospels in the canon have been interpreted in some pretty frightening, misogynistic ways.  

These other texts include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of Philip. They predate the canonical gospels and Jesus has a distinctly Buddhist feel in these texts.   For instance:

If you bring forth what is within you, what you will bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.    (Nothing like the shock of recognizing our hidden selves).  

These other texts also place Mary Magdalene in the front of the room…as the one apostle who fully understood Jesus’ radical message of love.  

So I said this to my friend: “It’s as if the path of Christ consciousness hasn’t been fully realized or understood by mainstream Christianity.  It’s a case of mistaken identity.  And I see many people embarrassed and ashamed to be Christian these days and I understand that as well.  But, there is a wealth of inner, contemplative wisdom in these texts.  There is a well worn path of love.  

She said “You wouldn’t know it by what you see out there.”  

That’s because they don’t get attention.  Loud people do.  And, while I’m not a traditional Christian, I do find many traditional Christians leading a life of love.  They’re in hospices and homeless shelters feeding dying people.  There are also countless Christians, traditional and post traditional, practicing contemplation born in the wisdom path of conscious love in which the divine is not out there in an elusive far away place called heaven.  Rather, it is in the stillness of our hearts for we are participating with a divine force of love some call God.    

Renowned scholar, Huston Smith, distills Christianity to this:

We’re in good hands, and in gratitude for that fact it would be well if we bore one another’s burdens.

She found this helpful.  She said it makes more sense than using religion as what she calls a “political bludgeon.” She found Christianity frightening as a kid growing up.  No big surprise from a woman from a Jewish household.  

We also talked about the “spiritual but not religious” postmodern tendency to meld all religions into one ignoring the distinct contributions of the world religions which is useful in moving past “my way is the only way” mindset of traditional religion, but it often tends to distill wisdom to pablum.  

So, we might ask, why start over? Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?  Why not integrate ancient practices with modern and postmodern insights?   Traditionalists have much to offer in a world in which Girls Gone Wild is often seen a distorted pinnacle of sexual freedom.  

She wants to tape a conversation in which she asks me some of the more difficult questions.   I’m open.  While I’ve no interest in Christian apologetics,  I do have an interest in contributing an alternative perspective that often gets lost amidst the clamor.