the jesus letter

Yesterday I received a letter, signed "Jesus," that said, very simply, "Thank you."

This threw me for a loop, as one might imagine. I figured it was from a family member, maybe my dad, who was just playing around with me, and that it was meant in the best possible way--i.e. thank you for being you, for making it through this, etc. etc.

Only later did it occur to me that it was indeed from someone I know named "Jesus." I'd given him a Christmas gift, but his name is not pronounced in the western Christian fashion and so I just didn't make the connection when I saw it written out.

But I rather like the connection! As I was telling my cousin just the other day, my daughter and I don't identify with any one particular church or faith. But that doesn't mean we're not spiritual. We just like to believe in absolutely everything.

On a related note, since posting about what it's like to hear a death sentence from a professional who's supposed to know what he's talking about (I do not choose the pronoun lightly--it's inevitably been male doctors who did this), others have written to me telling me about similar experiences.

Which means that I personally know at least five people who were told they had less than a year to live, and every single one of them not only survived the year, but has recovered completely: the cancer is gone and has not returned.

I'm still wondering about these doctors who make these pronouncements. You kind of have to wonder what kind of care you're getting from a doctor who doesn't believe you're going to make it anyway, don't you? Does that doctor say, "You're better off with hospice care, because we can't do anything for you?"

Yikes.

What I've learned from all this is that it's all about us--what kind of control we decide we want over our lives, what degree of influence we want others to have over us, what we want our quality of life to be. There's a lot we can all do to determine what happens to us, although of course it would be a huge mistake to think we can control everything. What we can control is what we're going to do about the things that do happen to us.

And that, as it turns out, is quite a lot.