A Bag of Gold

  

In her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom, Dr. Rachel Remen tells a Hindu story of how the god, Shiva, drops a bag of gold in front of a miserably poor man.  The poor man steps over the bag of gold thinking it is a rock.”I might have ruined my sandals,” he says, and continued on his way.

Remen, who counsels cancer patients, continues:

It seems that Life drops many bags of gold in our path.  Rarely do they look like what they are.  I asked my patient if Life has ever dropped him a bag of gold that he has recognized and used to enrich his life.  He smiles at me, “Cancer,” he says simply.  “I thought you’d guess.”