This may be a secret among only a few of its recipients, but cancer is a direct and positive gift from God. Its chemo and radiation therapies wrack and ruin us... and its alternative therapies may bewilder us with the arcane and often whacky character of their methods... I chose the traditional medical program of three chemo and thirty-five radiation sessions, begun immediately after diagnosis of my cancer, and I praise Allah for the doctors who treated me with their medicine chest of tough love. _________________Redemption happens the way/water falls/Forgivenessis air/let into an airless room/Even at the top of the highest peak/we can't just step off into the sky/At some point only God's Love has any reality/and everything hangs enraptured from thatferocious hook/Streams of light continue toenter us from we/know now where/The truth of our beings/light streaming everywhere