Walking Pains

The local chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society asked me to speak this week on the spiritual and psychological impact of chronic pain to both sufferers and their families. I’m not interested in chronic pain at all. Perhaps because I don’t suffer from it, but mostly because I don’t understand it. I’m not now and have never been interested in things medical. That kind of stuff bores me.

I can salivate to satisfy Pavlov over a 16th century manuscript (I’ve done it), but anything that hints of stethoscopes or angiograms, even when my own health is concerned, induces in me a catatonic stupor.

But I am interested in people. I even love some of them. Over the past forty years I’ve had chronic pain and disease rob me of people I love. I’ve watched bodies slowly deteriorate as souls inside crumble, their lives stolen. So I’ve read about chronic pain, studied textbooks and manuals and read the well-intentioned but largely unhelpful advice written by those who are supposed to be able to do something but don’t know what.

Chronic pain is neurological in its beginning, but the real havoc it wrecks is spiritual. It steals hope from the mind. It enthrones fear in the hearts of its victims. And its victims aren’t only those who suffer the physical pain of chronic illness, but in more subtle and oft-times more insidious ways, it attacks the family and friends of the sufferer with equal vehemence. I’ve seen it rob the best friend of my youth of his mother—sending her first to her bed where she lay helpless for years until it sent her on—to an early and rightly-hated grave.

So Thursday night I spoke to a group of multiple sclerosis sufferers—families and patients, victims all. I spoke about hope and courage in the face of adversity; I talked about not giving up and finding ways to squeeze what they could from life.

They want me to speak again.

I don’t know why. I’m pretty certain I didn’t say anything that they haven’t heard before—in spades, no doubt. But I’ll go back and say words to them they don’t need to hear. I’ll go, not for their sake, but for mine. Because as I talked to their group, it wasn’t they who learned, but me. On their faces was a fixed determination, made gentle by years of struggle, not to be overcome. These were people who may very well die of their diseases, but won’t be conquered by them.

I went to teach and stayed to learn. Not for the first time since God set me on my labyrinthine path.


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FROM MY BOOKSHELF this week I pulled a small but delightful volume titled Is Shakespeare Dead? Penned by Mark Twain during the last years of his life, it explores the hackneyed question of “who” actually wrote the works commonly attributed to William Shakespeare.

Twain comes down, more or less, on the Baconian side of the question, but not so as it would matter. As with so many of his literary meanderings, the ostensible topic is just an excuse for Twain to expostulate on the foibles of the “damned human race.” It’s a longish essay (my copy runs about 100 pages or so), published with some of his others: “Concerning Tobacco,” “How to Make Dates Stick,” and “Taming the Bicycle.”

Occasionally, Twain does address the question of the authorship of the Shakespearean Canon, but mostly the essay provides a cover so he can do what he does best: poke fun at the sacred and venerable cows of his America-religion, the Congress, and academia.

As with all he wrote, it’s easy and fun reading, and it becomes obvious Twain doesn’t care what you think of the topic ‘cause he doesn’t care too much either. Reading this essay (which I’ve yet to finish) is like going for a leisurely walk with a good friend; you may often disagree, but his company and wit makes that just part of the conversation. Twain’s thoughts on the passing issues of his day make for fun historical reading, but his rapier-pointed observations on the ongoing—and unchanging—nature of the human race still puncture today.

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Father Sanchez' Challenge

“To everything there is a season,” wrote the grim-toned author of Ecclesiastes. Lent has passed, Easter has come, the time to sing Alleluias.

This past Lent I spent in the desert—and a good many friends accompanied me. I followed the abbas and ammas into to fiery furnace of desert piety, even if from a distance. I lived with them through their words. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers was my companion for the season; I spent three hours a day or more reading the old texts, being challenged by their wisdom and shamed by their courage. I read their sayings to discover gems for meditation—yours and mine.

In doing so, I faced a daily dilemma. Some of what they had to say was too much for me—so blunt the words stung, so insightful they sometimes burned because their words were too profound and I didn’t (still don’t) have the courage to follow where they lead. “What does the world have to offer you in place of God?” one of the desert fathers asked his disciples. “To see the answer go and look at a corpse.” Despite its truth, it’s not the sort of thing I wanted to share as a Lenten meditation with friends who, like me, have to live in the world.

My great and good friend, Fr Robert Sanchez, wrote me a week or so after Easter saying, “I was hoping you’d continue your Lenten meditations with a series for Eastertide.” Father knows me very well, and I’m sure he was pricking at my conscience, figuring I’d already thought of it—and was too lazy. He’s too polite to say so, but I know what he was thinking.

He was right, I’d thought of it and even drawn up a little plan. But as I considered it, I felt daunted by the project, though unsure as to why.
It wasn’t until a few days later I realized my reluctance.

C S Lewis, author of the justly-praised Screwtape Letters, was asked by an admirer if he ever considered writing a sequel. You may remember Screwtape took the form of a series of letters written by an old, experienced devil to a newly-appointed tempter, whose job it was to ensure the damnation of his human “client.” Screwtape is a delightfully fun book to read, but it holds a mirror before each reader, giving devastating insights into the weaknesses each of us carry in our souls like cancer in our bodies.

Lewis’ admirer asked him about a sequel from the other side: a series of letters from an experienced angel to a neophyte “guardian.” “But even if a man—and it would have to be a far better man than I—could scale the spiritual heights required,” Lewis answered, “how does one do it? Every sentence would have to smell of Heaven.”

My answer to Father Sanchez is not much different. I can write easily about temptation and sin; that’s a daily part of my life. Heaven is something for which I long, but of it I have only the most fleeting and imperfect glimpses. Lent is the season my natural habitat—not of inclination (that would be Christmas)—but of spiritual need.

But as cooling breezes soften a hot summer’s day, Easter comes. It’s not just a reminder of a past Sacred Day but a promise of Good Things to Come. And here’s the real problem. It’s not so hard to regret our sins—even those of us who don’t believe in such a thing as sin know how to regret our past—but how do we rejoice? We know how to fast, but how do we feast? We’ve kept the forty days of Lent, how do we celebrate the fifty days of Paschaltide?

I have some ideas—but I’ll let them percolate a bit. Perhaps something will have brewed by next Easter and I’ll be up to Fr Sanchez’ challenge. For now, I wish each of you Joy—such as this naughty world cannot give.

SPENDING LENT ELSEWHERE

Dear friends,

For the duration of the Lent (March 9 through April 24, 2011) I will not be posting here; instead, I'm posting daily at "The Lenten Desert. A link may be found at the bottom of the dark blue bar to the right.

Come the Resurrection, I'll put fingers to keyboard here at Labyrinthus once again.

Wishing you a strenuous and challenging Fast,

Pax,
Gregory Lee Wilcox+