I took a little break from my blog column this week.  It was precipitated by passing out at the local movie theatre this past Sunday.  It seems that I've had this growing brain tumor in my right frontal lobe for a while and it was, well, screaming to get out.  So, with a wonderful hospital, a great surgical team, and more support than I had ever dreamed of, the tumor went goodby, I stayed, and we're going to talk for a little bit about why facts are not trends and trends are not certainties especially when they show up as headlines..

Whenever you go through an asymmetric event like a brain tumor there is a tendency to flee to higher peaks and reflect waxfully in metaphors of deeper meaning and a higher purpose.  Doing that actually gives too much credit to the thing that happened and can allow you to bypass the transformational power of the event.  The transformation is where the real power lies....not the event.

In my case this week, the operation, the love from tons of friends, a therapy dog named Roe, a visit from my veterinarians and my family, have made me ask one simple question:  "Now that I know this, what do I have to become to get all that I want?"  Since, like the poet Emily Dickinson,  I could not stop for Death, I want to make his detour worthwhile.

As I was thinking about this over the week ( they want you relatively quiet after crainial surgery) it occurred to me that we get these kinds of things every day in the form of the news headlines, current events, world affairs, politic, etc. that we are exposed to.  It's how we transform inside our lives that tell whether we get to benefit.  All these things are is news to use.

Just a scant 5 months ago in the US,  we were looking at automobile gasoline prices that promised to bankrupt the average family.  Now, gas is cheaper than beer.  We thought we'd all be driving around in those hideous little "Smart" cars that can hold you, a dog, some sushi, and one CD.  Now Range Rover is sending out e-mails of the tax benefits of owning before year end.  ( I bought earlier so I wouldn't thave to wait on Christmas Eve)  Oil was going to go up and disappear along the way.  Polar Bears were eating each other on the way to" take out" in Yellow Knife, and rain forests were disappearing faster than GOP seats.

We've got some challenges in Michigan with automobiles, some marriage stuff in our non traditional communities, some malls that need to close, and some electronics stores that have forgotten that we already own all this stuff five times over so they are going to regroup and create new things.  There's nothing strange here.  Leaves do it in the Fall.  Bees in Spring.  The deer and the antelope.  They are all rearranging to take into account new information.  The reason they do it so well is that they have a history of transformation and they've seen it all before.  So, out in YellowStone Today the head Bison is looking up, sniffing the air, and pointing his furry hump down to where the water is a little less frozen.  In the Spring, he'll just do the opposite.  No protests, no national meeting, no international summit on Buffalo Warming....just a notion that they need to move higher or lower and get colder or warmer to accomodate.

We'll solve this little financial mess we're in and then we'll move on something else.  What we forgot is that you can't package chicken poop and try to sell it as chicken salad before  it's too long that both the chickens and the consumers find out. Three feet forward, two feet back, up and down lines, but progress just the same.  It's just our history.  We've learned how to transform things better than any country in the history of the planet and we're going to keep on doing it.

Oh,.... my transformation on this tumor thing:  What I've had reinforced this week is that there's nothing warmer than a black lab's belly on your feet, nothing softer than the touch or look of a woman who loves you, and nothing we're supposed to do here but love and take care of each other and get better and better at that every day.

The rest of the things are just headlines...just headlines..