Reading
“My Grandfather's Blessing” by Rachel Naomi Remen
“I had a man in my practice with osteogenic sarcoma of the leg, which was removed at the hip in order to save his life. He was 24 years old when I started working with him and he was a very angry man with a lot of bitterness, a deep sense of injustice and a very deep hatred for all the well people, because it seemed so unfair to him that he had suffered this terrible loss so early in life. After working with this man for a couple of years I saw a profound shift. He began “coming out of himself.” He began visiting other people in the hospital who had suffered severe physical losses and he would tell me the most wonderful stories about these visits. Once he visited a young woman who was almost his age. It was a hot day in Palo Alto and he was in running shorts so his artificial leg showed when came into her room. The woman was so depressed about the loss of both her breasts that she wouldn’t even look at him, wouldn’t pay any attention to him. The nurses had left her radio playing, probably in order to cheer her up. So, desperate to get her attention, he unstrapped his leg and began dancing around the room on one leg, snapping his fingers to the music. She looked at him in amazement, and then she burst out laughing and said, ‘Man, if you can dance, I can sing.’”
Sermon:
I'm sorry I missed T-shirt Sunday in early September – that was three days after my surgery as I recall – but the t-shirt I wish I could have worn was one I saw on someone at Chautauqua Institution this summer. It read, “Scars Are Tattoos With Better Stories.” That resonated with me since I knew at the time I would be having surgery, but the true meaning of those words didn't really sink in until I actually had an impressive scar with quite a story.
I do feel that I've joined a club of the scarred. I know many of you are members, and after getting one myself I know how hard it is to earn. I consider it a badge of honor. When the doctor told me that I needed major surgery to remove the pre-malignant polyp my first response was, “Thank God they found this before it became cancerous. It could be so much worse.”
My second response was, “How in the world am I going to do this?” I didn't have time for a medical emergency. I'm a busy guy. I can't fit a month of recovery into my schedule. And besides, it shouldn't be happening to me. I take good care of myself, and I'm one of the good guys. In fact, I'm a God guy – well, not God in the traditional sense. But I'm a religious guy – well, not religious in the traditional sense either. No wonder this happened to me. But the point is I don't deserve this.
“Welcome to Life” was all I got for my whining. In fact, on my first Sunday back a couple of weeks ago, I visited the children and youth downstairs to tell them I had some surgery but I was OK and back at church. In one classroom, a little girl about 6 or 7 told me that she had cancer surgery and another little girl told me she had four surgeries. That quickly put an end to my whining.
I do fear becoming like some folks who will tell you all the details of their surgeries before they tell you their name. Much more fascinating than how each of us got our scars is how we recovered and healed from them. This adventure of physical recovery and emotional and spiritual healing is especially challenging and demanding. And it's been the most difficult adventure of my life, but the most enlightening as well.
It seems that the more challenging adventures are, the more opportunity we have to learn from them – though I often wish I could just read a good book instead. One of the most important lessons on healing that I learned was that we need to be health warriors throughout our lives, and especially when we face a medical crisis. We cannot afford to be passive. If we truly value our physical health – and that means our life -- we must be willing to work for it constantly, not as an avocation but as a calling.
But we also need to realize that not everyone has that opportunity. I feel fortunate that I had such excellent care, but one of the questions I kept asking myself following my surgery was, “What happens to the millions of people in our country without health insurance when they have a similar situation?” Chances are that they will not get a colonoscopy. Chances are they will not find out if they have a tumor. Chances are that if they do have a tumor they will not get adequate care and will likely die. That's not just a shame; it's a tragedy beyond measure and a national disgrace.
Being privileged meant that my life was spared, and I actually had the opportunity to recover and heal. One of my revelations during this recovery time was that we are the culmination of all that we have done in our lives. Our health is a result of our nutrition, our discipline of exercise – or lack of it – our attitudes about our bodies, as well as our relationships and depth of spirituality.
Though I don't want to suggest that we are to blame for all of our maladies – especially since so many of them are genetic – we certainly do have the power to avoid many of the diseases that can threaten our lives, and we have the power to recover and heal from those that do threaten us. That means having regular colonoscopies as well as other preventative tests that can help us avoid some very serious illnesses. And it means being physically and spiritually prepared for crises in our lives.
Once we're in the medical system, it's especially important to become pro-active. I was fortunate to have my wife by my side, checking and double-checking everything, asking tough questions, and making sure that I did not fall off anyone's chart. But when it came to recovery, it was up to me, with Terry's support and urging, to get out of that bed and walk those corridors no matter how much it hurt, and then to walk around our house and down our street. It was up to me to be a health warrior, doing everything within my power to recover.
Part of being a health warrior for me was to listen repeatedly to a recorded guided meditation for people undergoing surgery. I discovered this series of healing meditations when I heard Belleruth Naparstek speak at Chautauqua Institution several years ago, and I was so impressed by the studies she sited that I encouraged our parish nurse, Carolyn Menk, to obtain a copy along with another excellent one on pain management. These are available to everyone, by the way, and I highly recommend them. Strong evidence from the Cleveland Clinic and other hospitals show that these meditations can significantly reduce discomfort and pain and increase the speed of recovery.
I found that by listening to this meditation during the week before my surgery, my anxiety was greatly reduced, and even more important, it helped me to draw on some helpful resources. The guided meditation took me to a place of my own choosing where I felt especially comfortable and safe. From there I was able to enter into the virtual operating room where I could observe my own surgery by competent doctors and nurses. That was followed by imagining my own healthy and healing recovery.
But the most helpful part of the guided meditation was when I became aware that while I'm on the operating table I am surrounded by all those who care for me. These angels and allies, as they are called, followed me into post-op and finally into my room, and they have never left. They – and that means all of you – are still with me in my recovery.
This reminder that I was surrounded by and cared for by my family and friends from around the world and all of you was a tremendous comfort to me. It made for a crowded operating room, but I didn't care. I opened by arms gladly to all the prayers and positive energy being sent my way. And let me add that I felt privileged to be in the prayers of people from a number of different Christian denominations as well as other faiths.
I learned that it takes a village for someone to heal and recover. There is no time in our lives when we need loved ones and people who care about us more. The man dancing on one leg is a good example of how we can be uplifted from the deepest depression and grief by others. I recall a member of our church telling me not too long ago that she didn't know how she could have survived the death of her husband without our church community, and now I know what exactly she meant.
Most helpful of all was having one very special person as my caregiver. My wife, Terry, was constantly by my side, doing everything she could to help me recover. And she had an especially difficult job since I wasn't always the most patient patient.
I learned not only how absolutely necessary it is to have someone who loves you to take that difficult journey with you, but also how hard it is to be a caregiver. They not only witness someone they love in pain and crisis, but they're assuming the role of nurse, doctor, social worker, counselor, and most of all, healer. Let me add that this crisis brought us closer together than we've ever been.
There's one more lesson on healing I want to share with you. Another helpful part of the guided meditation was the post-surgery portion that included spiritual affirmations, such as the need to let go of those changes we can't control and instead focus on our own inner peacefulness. Alison will share some of these affirmations with you during our Embracing Meditation, but the important point is that by listening to these affirmations repeatedly I was able to reach down into that well of spiritual resources and sustenance to help in my own healing.
The affirmations also reminded me that there is a big difference between curing someone of a disease and healing them. To cure someone is a medical issue for the most part, though we certainly do have the ability to affect our cure. Healing is bringing someone who is suffering from sickness back into a state of wholeness. Did you hear that? healing is bringing someone who is suffering from sickness back into a state of wholeness.
The difference between health and wholeness is that you can be ill and still be whole. We may not be physically healthy, but we can have purpose and meaning in our lives. To heal we need to reconnect with the true meaning of health and wholeness, with a deeper purpose and spirit in our lives, and with the healing power of community.
Rachel Naomi Remen, a doctor and healer in the best sense of that word, explains that, "Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn't you--all the expectations, all of the beliefs--and becoming who you are. Not a better you, but a realer you."
This is a spiritual and religious process that weaves together with the physical and emotional. And it's one I struggled with in my own recovery and continue to struggle with. I felt so weak and vulnerable, and that did not feel like me. And yet it was in that vulnerability that I was given the opportunity to let the inconsequential parts of my life peel away so that I could experience myself outside of my usual roles and expectations, so that I could experience who I really am.
Rachel Naomi Remen tells of a cartoon in The New Yorker “which shows two yogis sitting on a mountain in the Himalayas. Sitting there cross-legged, they obviously have been interrupted in their meditation by a 747 airplane which is flying by. One of them looks at the other and says, ‘Ay, they have the know-how, but do they have the know-why?’”
When we know why we live, and when we are committed to that purpose, then spirit becomes a major factor in our health and healing. That doesn’t mean that by living committed, spiritual lives we will never become ill, just as it doesn’t mean that if we are ill it is because we haven’t been living purposeful lives.
The purpose of life is to grow in wisdom and to learn to love ourselves and our world more fully. If our lives serve this purpose, then health serves this purpose – and illness serves it as well, because illness is part of life.
These are some of the lessons I am learning in my healing: to be a health warrior, to invite all those who care about me to help in my healing, and to draw on my deep spiritual resources to find meaning, purpose, and joy in living. Let me end by telling you the rest of the story about the man with one leg since this story pulls together all of these lessons so well. Rachel Naomi Remen writes:
“...At the end of therapy you do a review – people talk about what was significant to them and you share what was significant to you as a therapist working with someone. We were reviewing our two years of work together; I opened his file and there folded up were several drawings he had made early on. I wanted to return these to him, so I unfolded them and handed them to him. He looked through them and said, ‘Oh, look at this.’ And he showed me one of the earliest drawings. I had suggested to him that he draw a picture of his body. He had drawn a picture of a vase, and running through his vase was a deep black crack. This was his image of his body and he had taken a black crayon and had drawn the crack over and over and over. He was grinding his teeth with rage at the time. It was very, very painful because it seemed to me that this vase could never function as a vase again. It could never hold water.
“Now, two years later, he came to this picture and looked at it and said, ‘Oh, this one isn’t finished.’ And I said, extending the box of crayons, ‘Why don’t you finish it?’ He picked up a yellow crayon and putting his finger on the crack he said, ‘You see, here – this is where the light comes through.’ And with the yellow crayon he drew light streaming through the crack in his body.”
May we never forget that we can grow strong at the broken places. We can find purpose in our pain. And in the darkest of times, in the turmoil of grief, or the depression of disability, we can let the light of the spirit shine through to heal the heart.
So may it be.
Embracing Meditation by Belleruth Naparstek:
Take a couple of deep cleansing breaths.
Now listen to these affirmations and let them become a part of you...
I know there are times when I become worried, fearful, sad, or angry, and I acknowledge and accept what I feel as my inner truth of the moment.
I know that when I accept and allow what I feel without criticism or blame the more I allow my body to be well.
More and more I can soften and release my emotions once they are acknowledged.
I can send them out with the breath in the interest of my own well-being.
More and more I can consider the possibility that my body is teaching me something useful, that the circumferences are challenging me to learn and change and grow.
More and more I can let my heart stay soft and open even in the face of fear and discomfort in the interest of my own well-being.
I know that when I send the gentle warmth of the breath into the belly softening my fear and tightness I allow my body to heal.
More and more I see that when I soften and let go of harsh expectations, unrealistic demands on my self and others I allow my body to heal.
I know that when I forgive myself and others for errors of the past I allow my body to heal.
More and more I can love and appreciate myself, take time to care for myself, and stick up for myself.
More and more I can let go of worrying about things I cannot control and focus on my own inner peacefulness.
I know that the time to be motivated by guilt, fear, or harshness is over, now is the time to do things out of love and celebration and the joy of self-expression.
I call upon my intention to heal myself and keep my body well.
I engage my powerful will to assist me in doing this.
The blueprint that I hold in my minds eye that I instruct my body to follow is the picture of a healthy, vital, strong body. I can see it and I can feel it as I hear these words: healthy, vital, strong.
I invite assistance from my friends and loved ones past, present, and future, to lend me their support. I see myself surrounded by their love and caring and I feel it all over my body like a warm wave.
