Things to Learn While You’re Sick

For the last week, a severe head cold/chest cold/whatever has taken over my body and commanded attention. Symptoms include a profound loss of energy and, even worse, sinus pressure that has dropped my IQ by 50 points.

This sort of thing always upends my life, especially the part you might call “spiritual.” Saying Morning Prayer is more rote than substance. Silent prayer is impossible. I couldn’t give a rip about serving other people. You get the idea.

From this and previous illnesses, I’m learning at least two things about life in God. Both may seem obvious, but maybe they’ll give you hope when you get this bug.

1. I used to become terribly anxious about losing my grip on my “spiritual life” when sick. I’d try reeeallly hard to focus, castigate myself for letting my mind wander, etc. The lesson, it seemed, was always to let go and meet God “just as I am”—even if “just as I am” meant with no discernible thought of God at all.

This time around, miracle of miracles, I seem to be getting it. If I say Morning Prayer, or wait till Noonday Prayer, or just skip it and mumble something short at bedtime…if I skip the scriptures to read Dick Francis because that’s all my mind can take…it’s all good. And I know it.

In other words, I’ve actually learned something and moved forward. We humans can make progress. Who’d a thunk it?

2. The second lesson has to do with the reason our brainlessness doesn’t derail our prayer: we don’t do this alone. That may seem laughably obvious. Of course God’s there, we think. Of course it’s a two-way street. But how often do we give that idea lip service? Somewhere during my life, I picked up the notion that if something had to be done, I had to do it. So if prayer and devotion were to be successful—whatever that means—it was up to me. The thought of letting God shoulder the load is totally alien.
   

And yet…how utterly essential is it to do just that? I suspect Jesus had this in mind when he said, “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). My experience with the contemplative life testifies to that: out of the stillness in my soul, where God dwells, comes a great deal of growth.

Maybe these lessons have a broader application too. It’s not just me making progress; it’s the whole human race. Look at the grand sweep of history: how far, for instance, we’ve come since crucifixion and slavery and the absolute rule of kings. We still have overwhelming problems—and make horrific steps backward (like the Holocaust)—but slowly, haltingly, clumsily, the race seems to move forward.*

And what would happen if more of us could take the Other in this God-relationship seriously? If we could find a way to let go, to “rest in the everlasting arms,” according to the old hymn? How much more good would flow from our lives—and our life together?

*A tip of the hat to my father-in-law for this astute observation.