War and Peace

"I've spent too many years at war with myself,
The doctor has told me, it's no good for my health."
Sting

Cancer is war, or so I thought. I was a boxer, in the ring, blocking body blows, going to the mat, and standing up for the next round, angry, defiant, in a deathmatch with a threatening rival. But then I met Jim at lunch in the cafeteria of Cancer Treatment Centers of America and he says: Cancer is not a fight; it is a surrender. And I realized that cancer is also a surrender, a letting go, a love for your entire body, your entire life, cancer and all.

Although there may be a time for it, war is the failure of diplomacy. Fight is one half of the stress-producing response of fight for flight. Stress breaks the immune system, encouraging cancer. Cancer asks us to make peace, to forgive, to relax, to let go, to surrender, to change.

Cancer is not war or peace. It is a knife's edge between life and death, pain and serenity, good and evil. All of this is inside ourselves. We are a mix of black and white plumage like the magpie. We are tresspassers and tresspassed upon. Tresspass often leads to war, and cancer with its squatters city setting up camp in a healthy body appears to be itching for a fight. But we learn to say, "Forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive the tresspasses of others."

I will show courage, strength, fortitude. I will stand firm in the face of the oncoming hatred, like Martin Luther King, Jr., but I will not go to war. And, deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day.