{"id":310,"date":"2018-03-04T15:50:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T15:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=310"},"modified":"2018-03-09T13:58:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T13:58:09","slug":"inside-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=310","title":{"rendered":"Inside Illness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"STOCK_ill_man_35567368_m\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sermon #26 (4th March 2018 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This month at Essex Church we\u2019re taking on the theme of \u2018Health and Healing\u2019. And, ever the ray of sunshine, I thought I\u2019d get us started with a service on what it\u2019s like to be ill. In our society, talk of illness is often about symptoms, diagnosis and treatment \u2013 the medical side of things \u2013 which is of course an extremely important aspect of trying to keep us well. But I\u2019ve called today\u2019s service \u2018Inside Illness\u2019 because I want us to focus on the inner experience. I reckon that giving a bit of attention to that inner dimension of illness \u2013 what it\u2019s like to be ill<\/em> \u2013 might help us reflect on how best to respond to some of challenges that ill-health brings, both when we ourselves are unwell, and when people we know and love are suffering in this way.<\/p>\n

I feel pretty confident in my starting assumption that everybody here at church this morning has got some first-hand experience of illness. If you have made it to adult life without ever being ill in any way… then perhaps you should be up here, instead of me, telling the rest of us your secrets!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I will resist the temptation to stand here and tell you about every one of the numerous minor ailments I\u2019ve had in the last few years but you can rest assured that I too have some insight on what it\u2019s like to be ill. And, not to put too fine a point on it: being ill sucks. It can be really miserable when our body, or our mind, malfunctions suddenly.<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019re only afflicted with something relatively minor (in the great scheme of things) \u2013 a cold, a cough, an upset stomach, hay fever, cystitis, earache, backache, toothache, \u2013 all of these illnesses and injuries have the potential to disrupt our everyday lives, at the very least they interfere with our ability to focus, to work, to socialise, to sleep. <\/p>\n

However\u2026 There is illness… and then there is illness<\/em>. <\/p>\n

And I want to acknowledge at this point that there are going to be people in this room (some I know about and some I don\u2019t) who have got more serious illnesses to deal with. If that applies to you: I particularly hope you find something helpful in this service \u2013 if only that it acknowledges your suffering, your worries, the ways in which you have been affected \u2013 and perhaps it will open up an opportunity to talk to others about your experience or to ask for help. I do want to acknowledge that even so-called minor illnesses have a noticeable impact on people\u2019s lives, but at the same time I don\u2019t mean to be flippant about those not-so-minor-illnesses which are, in some cases, deeply serious, life-changing, even life-threatening. And it feels important to note that I make no distinction between physical and mental illnesses. Both are real, and significant, and can throw an unwanted spanner or two in the works of our lives. <\/p>\n

Our first reading this morning gave us a glimpse into the life of Professor Havi Carel, a philosopher, a phenomenologist, someone whose day job is to reflect on the inner world of lived experience. She is particularly well-equipped to give us some insight into what it\u2019s like to be ill and her story highlights some of the experiences commonly associated with illness. Carel was young and active \u2013 an academic, and a fitness enthusiast, in her early thirties \u2013 when she came to realise that something was going very wrong with her body. Basic abilities that she had previously taken for granted \u2013 to run, to walk, to breathe \u2013 were being lost one by one. She got a scary diagnosis and was stunned to hear there was no cure. This was the \u2018new normal\u2019 and she would have to adjust to her \u2018reduced circumstances\u2019. It sounds \u2013 quite understandably \u2013 as if Carel railed angrily against her fate for a time. At first she tried to carry on as normal, to resist the changes, as if she could defeat the illness by sheer force of will. Yet she found that her world rapidly shrank. Her illness interfered with her ability to work, to travel, and perhaps most upsettingly it interfered with many of her personal relationships. She lost a lot of friends who no longer knew how to relate to her. Many just disappeared. Strangers, acquaintances, even medical professionals were sometimes quite careless and crass. However, in time, Carel acclimatised to the change \u2013 you could say she reinvented herself \u2013 she lived within her new physical means and valued those friendships that had weathered the storm. She changed the focus of her philosophy and now mainly works on the phenomenology of illness. She has been working with medical professionals, to help them relate more compassionately to people who are ill, and with ill people, to help them with the process of meaning-making in such difficult circumstances. Since she wrote her book, medical advances have halted the progression of her disease, though \u2013 as I understand it \u2013 the damage it has already wrought to her lungs cannot be undone. <\/p>\n

So: what can we learn from Havi Carel\u2019s experience? <\/p>\n

Firstly, perhaps, that we need to listen to ourselves \u2013 our bodies, our feelings \u2013 and not try to ignore, suppress, or outrun anything we notice that \u2018isn\u2019t quite right\u2019. <\/p>\n

And secondly, that if we are suffering, it is OK \u2013 it is necessary, and healthy \u2013 to lament. When something really horrible, like illness \u2013 minor or major \u2013 is happening in our lives, lamentation \u2013 expressing our misery, distress, frustration, and anger \u2013 is all part of the process of getting through it and (hopefully) out the other side. What this looks like will vary \u2013 if things are really serious, maybe you will just need to lie on the floor and howl \u2013 maybe you\u2019ll bend the ear of a willing friend, or a therapist \u2013 maybe you\u2019ll let it all out in writing in a journal. There can be a bit of social pressure, I find, not to \u2018feel sorry for ourselves\u2019, or to dwell in self-pity\u2026 but why shouldn\u2019t you regard yourself with at least<\/em> as much kindness and compassion as you would anybody else \u2013 a friend, say \u2013 who was suffering? Let yourself have your feelings. Name your pain. Be a good friend to yourself. It may be that such heart-felt lamentation helps us avoid getting \u2018stuck\u2019 in our sorrow, long-term. And if you\u2019re the person whose ear is being bent by a friend who is ill: Havi Carel advises that you don\u2019t have to say anything too complicated in response. Say \u2018I\u2019m sorry. This sucks.\u2019 Sometimes, that\u2019s all you can say, and all that needs to be said. <\/p>\n

And a third thing we can learn from Havi Carel\u2019s story: Sometimes you just have to STOP. Abandon all your important plans and prior arrangements. Take time to rest and regroup. When we\u2019re ill, we can sometimes feel huge pressure to carry on as if nothing has changed, and Just Keep Going. There\u2019s a great internal resistance \u2013 quite understandably \u2013 to this rude interruption to business-as-usual. Our culture often seems to imply that if we\u2019re ill then it\u2019s somehow our fault \u2013 we\u2019ve not looked after ourselves enough \u2013 or it\u2019s a moral failing: we\u2019re not tough enough to shrug it off. Think of all those adverts selling cold and flu remedies to keep us in the office come-what-may (when arguably we really ought to be recovering at home and keeping our germs to ourselves). In this rather brutal capitalist age it can seem as if we are only valued for our economic productivity \u2013 think of the ugly rhetoric in certain sections of the media where people who are ill, or disabled, and needing support in times of crisis are dismissed as \u2018scroungers\u2019\u2026 Whereas we Unitarians, I\u2019m proud to say, often speak of the \u2018inherent worth and dignity of every person\u2019: this ultimate worth which is not dependent on our ability to get up off our sickbed and make money for the man. <\/p>\n

To recap: If something\u2019s not quite right in your body or mind \u2013 listen to what it is telling you \u2013 allow yourself to feel your feelings, and lament, rage, and wail about your suffering if you need to \u2013 and take the time you need to just step off the conveyor belt of life and STOP. Rest. I realise that sometimes the circumstances of our life make this hard to do… but I suspect that it might be possible more often than we think \u2013 at least to some degree \u2013 we can disengage from the world for a while without anyone or anything coming to harm. <\/p>\n

The Buddhist writer Jean Smith has this to say on the ways in which we react to getting ill: <\/p>\n

\u2018When we become sick, we often take the illness personally
\nand feel that our happiness is conditional upon getting rid of it.
\nWe forget that illness \u2014 along with aging and death \u2014 is a hallmark
\nof our human existence, and we get angry at our bodies for “letting us down.”
\nSometimes, out of fear, we generate horrendous stories about
\nour illness that may cause us more suffering than the illness itself.
\nWhen we realize that illness is inescapable,
\nthat stress around illness increases our suffering,
\nand that being sick is not a shortcoming,
\nonly then can we be at ease with, and even empowered by, illness.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

And she offers this wish, this prayer, which is on the front of your order of service:<\/p>\n

\u2018When I experience the unavoidable illnesses that are part
\nof my human condition, may I be mindful of impermanence,
\nfree from fear, and grateful for the blessings that also arise and pass away.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

Jean Smith\u2019s words hint at what is, perhaps, the most significant lesson we can learn from all these writers and thinkers on illness. It\u2019s there in Havi Carel\u2019s story, and echoed by Mark Nepo, the poet who gave us our second reading today. Both Carel and Nepo, and many other wise people, speak of the importance of trying to make some kind of sense out of it all, distilling a deeper meaning, from their experiences of illness: an experience they did not choose, but which they had to endure. Finding solid ground within themselves, perhaps, and putting their suffering in a cosmic context. <\/p>\n

Mark Nepo talks of how his brush with life-threatening illness pushed him to places where he would never willingly have gone\u2026 but because he engaged with his experience, and tried to find the meaning in it, that illness changed his way of seeing the world and deepened his way of living. At the very least you might say that it concentrated his mind and clarified what mattered most. He\u2019s not romanticising his experience \u2013 at least I don\u2019t think he is \u2013 not at all. It was a terrible time for him, and his family. He isn\u2019t saying \u2018oh isn\u2019t it spiritually enriching to be really, really sick\u2019. He\u2019s saying something more like \u2018this is the flow of the universe passing through us \u2013 we\u2019re all going to go to these hard, hard places to some degree, whether we like it or not \u2013 and if we approach it this way then those experiences can ultimately be meaningful or even transformative\u2019.<\/p>\n

Think about those illnesses that you have endured \u2013 that you are enduring still, perhaps \u2013 What has helped you through those tough times? What meaning have you made of it all? And what would you say to someone else who was going through what you went through? Each one of us is likely to have some wisdom we have gleaned along the way that we could share. <\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to close with an excerpt from a poem \u2013 a blessing, really \u2013 by the Irish poet and philosopher John O\u2019Donohue. It\u2019s from his poem \u2018For a Friend, on the Arrival of Illness\u2019<\/em>. <\/p>\n

May you use this illness
\nAs a lantern to illuminate
\nThe new qualities that will emerge in you.<\/p>\n

May the fragile harvesting of this slow light
\nHelp you to release whatever has become false in you.
\nMay you trust this light to clear a path
\nThrough all the fog of old unease and anxiety
\nUntil you feel arising within you a tranquillity
\nProfound enough to call the storm to stillness.<\/p>\n

May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness:
\nAsk it why it came? Why it chose your friendship?
\nWhere it wants to take you? What it wants you to know?
\nWhat quality of space it wants to create in you?
\nWhat you need to learn to become more fully yourself
\nThat your presence may shine in the world.<\/p>\n

May you keep faith with your body,
\nLearning to see it as a holy sanctuary
\nWhich can bring this night-wound gradually
\nTowards the healing and freedom of dawn.<\/p>\n

May you be granted the courage and vision
\nTo work through passivity and pity,
\nTo see the beauty you can harvest
\nFrom the riches of this dark invitation.<\/p>\n

May you learn to receive it graciously,
\nAnd promise to learn swiftly
\nThat it may leave you newborn…<\/em><\/p>\n

May it be so for each of us and for all. Amen. <\/p>\n

Sermon by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n

An audio recording of this sermon is available:<\/strong><\/p>\n\nhttp:\/\/www.kensington-unitarians.org.uk\/pod2011\/KU_jane.blackall_sermon_04.03.18.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sermon #26 (4th March 2018 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians) This month at Essex Church we\u2019re taking on the theme of \u2018Health and Healing\u2019. And, ever the ray of sunshine, I thought I\u2019d get us started with a service<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}