Moving a Mountain
Parrish's lovely wife Bonnie could not
have come to know the Baker family at a more significant juncture in our lives.
I am certain that she has come to know the resolve by which we live, the
determination we have, and the beliefs we possess. She knows a very small family
which speaks clearly that which they think and practices that which they speak.
I wish to share where some of that came
from.
I learned a song as a small child that included the words, "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." I believed those words. I understood them to be words which you practiced in your life. Those words have always made racial prejudice repugnant to me. It was sincerely only as a young adult that I learned that real hurtful prejudice existed in the America I loved.
On my walk to elementary school each day my friends and I passed the Roman Catholic church building. The other children would run to the doors and peek into the church and tell how the people there worshipped idols. This puzzled me and I asked my father if the children were telling the truth. He gently explained that they were in error and told me the true significance of the statuary. I accepted his answer. He was my father. He had never misled me, never lied to me. And of course I came to know first hand later in my life that my father's word was truth.
Diana was often told as she grew up that she only told something one time. If you weren't there and missed it, you weren't going to hear it again. She was being told that she was a person who spoke what she thought, and that was that. No need to repeat it. I have to say, I love that about her. Diana expresses truth most clearly. If you don't "get it" you must not have been listening!
On December 9, 2003 my surgeon told Diana that I had a Stage 4 inoperable cancer. I won't print what her one word response was. Then he said, "He'll have to have chemotherapy." Diana responded, "He won't do it!" Obviously she knew her husband. Friends, I have read dozens and dozens of medical web sites which all tell the same thing. The cancer which I was diagnosed with is non-responsive to chemotherapy. One hundred percent of the patients with that treatment for that cancer DIE. 100%. Yet the same web site reports say that the treatment is successful! A contradictory statement? A lie? NO. It is successful because of a little statistical fact. When I refused the treatment statistically I had two to four months to live. If I accepted the treatment then statistically I could live for six months. Therefore the treatment is successful, because the federal government requires that for a chemical to be injected into the human body the manufacturer must prove that the drug successfully slows the cancer growth thereby ensuring that the patient lives AT LEAST two months longer than those not receiving the drug. So you can have 100% of the patients die, but if a simple majority of them live two months longer, the drug is successful. Unbelievable.
So, I lived longer than the two to four months, right? I now have lived longer than the six months (remember that great two month bonus for that injected poison). But let me not lead you astray.
After the shocking office visit of February 23, Diana and I got mad! We said we were taking our lives into our own hands. I had written that "Craving Jack's Big Hickory Burger" column and then I had to go and recant what I said. Since then she and I have literally bombarded this bodymind with every good thing which we could find. Music, affirmations, meditation, vitamins, herbs, non-fat diet, non-sugar diet, massage and reflexology from Sherri Humphrey, and other things. I'm walking long distances daily. I'm running again. I'm alive and I love this moment.
Now some in the medical profession say that what I believe is denial. Now just a second, they're really saying you have no right to have hope. Theyre saying it is denial to believe in life. Remember what I said in the beginning of this column, what I learned as a child is what I believe. In Matthew 17:20 Jesus spoke to YOU and to ME. He didn't say you had to be a prophet to have this happen. He didn't say you had to be a saint to have this happen. No, he said it can occur for you and for me. The question is, do we believe what he said?
If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place: and it shall remove; and NOTHING shall be impossible unto you.
Now, he didn't say it would be possible to remove the mountain unless a doctor told you differently. He said anything was possible if you believe. Was Jesus in denial?
I learned a song as a small child that included the words, "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." I believed those words. I understood them to be words which you practiced in your life. Those words have always made racial prejudice repugnant to me. It was sincerely only as a young adult that I learned that real hurtful prejudice existed in the America I loved.
On my walk to elementary school each day my friends and I passed the Roman Catholic church building. The other children would run to the doors and peek into the church and tell how the people there worshipped idols. This puzzled me and I asked my father if the children were telling the truth. He gently explained that they were in error and told me the true significance of the statuary. I accepted his answer. He was my father. He had never misled me, never lied to me. And of course I came to know first hand later in my life that my father's word was truth.
Diana was often told as she grew up that she only told something one time. If you weren't there and missed it, you weren't going to hear it again. She was being told that she was a person who spoke what she thought, and that was that. No need to repeat it. I have to say, I love that about her. Diana expresses truth most clearly. If you don't "get it" you must not have been listening!
On December 9, 2003 my surgeon told Diana that I had a Stage 4 inoperable cancer. I won't print what her one word response was. Then he said, "He'll have to have chemotherapy." Diana responded, "He won't do it!" Obviously she knew her husband. Friends, I have read dozens and dozens of medical web sites which all tell the same thing. The cancer which I was diagnosed with is non-responsive to chemotherapy. One hundred percent of the patients with that treatment for that cancer DIE. 100%. Yet the same web site reports say that the treatment is successful! A contradictory statement? A lie? NO. It is successful because of a little statistical fact. When I refused the treatment statistically I had two to four months to live. If I accepted the treatment then statistically I could live for six months. Therefore the treatment is successful, because the federal government requires that for a chemical to be injected into the human body the manufacturer must prove that the drug successfully slows the cancer growth thereby ensuring that the patient lives AT LEAST two months longer than those not receiving the drug. So you can have 100% of the patients die, but if a simple majority of them live two months longer, the drug is successful. Unbelievable.
So, I lived longer than the two to four months, right? I now have lived longer than the six months (remember that great two month bonus for that injected poison). But let me not lead you astray.
After the shocking office visit of February 23, Diana and I got mad! We said we were taking our lives into our own hands. I had written that "Craving Jack's Big Hickory Burger" column and then I had to go and recant what I said. Since then she and I have literally bombarded this bodymind with every good thing which we could find. Music, affirmations, meditation, vitamins, herbs, non-fat diet, non-sugar diet, massage and reflexology from Sherri Humphrey, and other things. I'm walking long distances daily. I'm running again. I'm alive and I love this moment.
Now some in the medical profession say that what I believe is denial. Now just a second, they're really saying you have no right to have hope. Theyre saying it is denial to believe in life. Remember what I said in the beginning of this column, what I learned as a child is what I believe. In Matthew 17:20 Jesus spoke to YOU and to ME. He didn't say you had to be a prophet to have this happen. He didn't say you had to be a saint to have this happen. No, he said it can occur for you and for me. The question is, do we believe what he said?
If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place: and it shall remove; and NOTHING shall be impossible unto you.
Now, he didn't say it would be possible to remove the mountain unless a doctor told you differently. He said anything was possible if you believe. Was Jesus in denial?
Posted: Fri - July 16, 2004 at 07:07 AM
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"Chance favors only the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur
"Art arises from basic needs-a strong need to express and celebrate our everyday events.
In a museum most people spend less than twenty seconds looking at a work of art."
"Art arises from basic needs-a strong need to express and celebrate our everyday events.
In a museum most people spend less than twenty seconds looking at a work of art."
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Published On: Dec 26, 2005 06:36 PM
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Published On: Dec 26, 2005 06:36 PM