This I believe

“The Gift of Chronic Illness”

by John Harmer

       For my entire life I have had to cope with a chronic inflammatory condition which had expressed itself in a myriad of miserable ways.

My response to the diseases’ attempts to limit how I live my life, the pain, discomfort and social embarrassment has followed the predictable model of anger, denial, bargaining, but never acceptance, for to arrive at a place of acceptance, I would have to acknowledge the illness and its power to control my life. So, for a very, very long time I was firmly ensconced in a state of denial.

My opportunity to move beyond denial came unexpectedly late in my life when I was hospitalized and was given the time to think about who I am and perhaps decide if I am more than my serial illnesses or have the various manifestations of my condition defined who I am and how I choose to live my life?

It was the cold day near the end of January 2019 and from my hospital bed, I could see snow falling in the early morning light outside my window. It was perhaps the 14^th or 15^th day of my 19-day sojourn in a kind of limbo as I slowly recovered from surgery to repair a necrotizing small intestine, create a new stoma for my ileostomy, and get my shell-shocked kidneys functioning again with a regime of dialysis. I had a lot of time to think.

I didn’t conceptualize this as a search for truth and meaning, or even purpose in my life, but I was drawn to begin an intrepid examination within myself to arrive at an understanding of my own personal truth; meaning might follow later. It was a painful odyssey when I stripped away all the big-little lies I had told myself, all the armor of rationalization and self-soothing justification. What I was left to contemplate was a mixture of good intentions strewn with terrible outcomes.

In so many ways, it was often painful and humiliating. Depleted, dispirited, at my lowest emotional and physical ebb, I recognized that I would need professional help with the depression I had suffered for decades due to my illness and other factors. 

In this respect, I was very lucky as my angels led me to a skillful therapist who helped me change my way of thinking about the debilitating inflammatory disease and the inevitable toll it had extracted on all my relationships. 

At this juncture, I still saw my chronic illness as a scourge, the idea had not yet taken hold, that such a preposterous notion that my ulcerated colon, colon cancer, heart attack with bypass surgery, radical colonoscopy with stoma, and most recently autoimmune cirrhosis of the liver were all parts of a great gift offered to me, one that I rejected outright not imagining that this suffering was indeed a precious gift that might bring me closer to my spiritual essence. 

It was only when my therapist pointed out that almost every ego contains an element of victim identity that I began to realize that I had created a strong victim image of myself based on my pattern of chronic illness and all its manifestations. 

I had fashioned a prison for myself, whose bars were made of thought forms and had an emotional attachment to my victim of illness story, which I ruminated on with bitterness and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of self-pity. But what if I could create a new narrative? I was having what Eckhart Tolle describes as a witnessing presence of my inner state and with that awareness came transformation and freedom.  

Persian poet and philosopher Rumi captures the same liberating experience when he wrote “the wound you suffer is where light enters your soul “and grief will become the garden of compassion. Pain becomes your greatest ally in your life, search for love and wisdom. 

I am now in the last segment of my life, and I find that acceptance of chronic illness’ gift has provided a new sense to the reason for my existence. The gift is like a wonderful, chest of drawers filled with such an array of treasures! As one drawer contains understanding with compassion, another contains a willingness to both right old wrongs. The device to enter and understand with compassion, a willingness to both right old wrongs and forgive those who have caused me hurt or harm, another contains tolerance and acceptance of a tenacious will to bring happiness into the lives of others, crystalized a need to serve and help those whom I might assist. 

But gratitude and compassion above all others. No longer do I lament the things I cannot do. I focus instead on what I might still do. I have enough and I am enough. I live in a secure environment with a loving spouse with whom I can still manage a short walk at the Canora Ranch Lake in the early morning sunshine. One of the treasures in the panoply of gifts, the chronic illness offers is a more spiritual connection with nature and a way that enriches my life and demonstrably enhances my well-being. Blood pressure drops and anxiety levels all but disappearing. The spiritual connection with nature has become an external dimension of what it means to be a human being for me and his added to the full awareness of consciousness of who I am. This is the gift of equilibrium that chronic illness has given me a wholeness and peace within myself.

I alluded to the gift of gratitude, the feeling of great joy at just being alive and in possession  of my faculties, gratitude in all things, cultural and spiritual discipline of mindfulness and intention. Chronic illness offers the path to gratitude by shifting focus from my deficits to the abundance which now infuses my life.

Chronic illness has taught me to appreciate my connections I hold and my experiences in this congregations and Community of friends.

And lastly, chronic illness has created in me a profound awareness of the suffering of others. For me, compassion has become a pathway of enlightenment and an engagement with the suffering of all living creatures.

Chronic illness forces a realization that life is so brittle fragile and transient. So yes, I firmly believe that chronic illness is a gift in and of itself. It is a precious gift. It is a gift we are called to use and enjoy if we have the intelligence to understand and accept this precious gift.