I’m on my way to Berkeley this week, teaching “Writing as a Healing Ministry, a week-long intensive course for clergy, seminary students and anyone interested in attending. During the week, we’ll explore the arena of therapeutic writing, witness many different approaches to leading healing writing groups, and by week’s end, each person will define how writing can be a healing ministry – for themselves and for others. Part of the course is to also experience what it is like to write, deeply and honestly, from the heartaches and struggles of one’s life. Invariably, we segue into the spiritual aspects of writing to heal, and for many in the workshop, writing turns to prayer.
Prayer. It’s interesting that in this day of modern medicine, something as basic as prayer has such beneficial impact on our health and well-being. Dr. Larry Dossey’s book, Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine, summarizes a number of studies demonstrating the positive influences of prayer on health and healing among patients with breast cancer, HIV, and coronary disease, among others. “I believe that everyone’s prayers helped me make it through with grace and strength,” one former member of my writing groups once said.
We find prayer in every religion and culture, written in every language. Studies have found that religion and spirituality are very important to the quality of life among many cancer patients. Prayer sustains us and offers solace. My daily writing practice is my meditation, my solace and my prayer. Although religion and spirituality are related, they are not synonymous. Religion refers to a specific set of beliefs and practices, usually within an organized group, while spirituality is more concerned with our beliefs about the meaning of life. You may think of yourself as religious or spiritual or both.
Whatever our religious or spiritual beliefs, our faith or spirituality can provide strength and comfort. “As part of our wholeness,” Stephen Levine said in a 1994 Sun interview, “we need our woundedness. It seems written into spirituality that there’s a dark side to which we must expose ourselves.”
Cancer may seem like a dark night of the soul; it may even challenge your faith, but it may also offer you the chance to explore your spirituality by deepening your self-understanding and compassion for others. “My faith grew, and I prayed a lot,” said another. Laura, who lost her struggle with metastatic cancer, wrote a prayer for mercy as she struggled through long periods of treatment:
A wad of pain
In the pit of my stomach
Lord have mercy
I focus on it
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy…
Writing can be a form of prayer or meditation and it often becomes the prayer itself. “When you’re caught up in writing…” poet Denise Levertov remarked in her final interview, “it can be a form of prayer.” Writing takes us on a voyage of discovery, and in the wake of cancer or other life-threatening illnesses or suffering, it can become a deeply spiritual practice. Writing offers a door into our spiritual journeys. During cancer treatment or other serious illnesses, we’re often face to face with our mortality. That’s when the irrelevant and unnecessary falls away, revealing the meaning in our lives. Call it what we will–hope, prayer, faith, or a meditation–we discover a higher consciousness, something larger than ourselves.
Varda, who died of metastatic breast cancer several years ago, wrote throughout her cancer journey, often humorously, sometimes poignantly. As she neared her final weeks, she examined her faith, acknowledging that even though challenged by cancer, her faith had offered her strength and solace:
But our relationship has changed. In asking me to surrender to this illness, God has asked me to let go—to trust—float free. And I have found this to be a most precious time. My cancer has challenged my faith, and I have found an incredible well I did not know I had. I have found true surrender, enormous peace.
This week, think about those beliefs or practices that sustain you. Write about prayer or meditation, about your faith or spiritual journey. Perhaps your faith has been challenged like Varda’s. Perhaps your illness or life struggles led you to a spiritual journey you didn’t anticipate. Write about it.
Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes.
Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way,
clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we
pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart,
and in eye, clear. What we need is here.
(Wendell Berry, “What We Need is Here,” Collected Poems, 1957-1982)
Reblogged this on Word Medicine and commented:
Dear Readers, I’ve been away, but am planning on my regular blogs in the coming months. To get started, I thought I’d repost this lovely piece from Sharon Bray.
Sharon, a lovely post. I do believe that writing is a form of praying. Where is that last quote from? It seems familiar.
All best, Sara
Hi Sara–it’s from Wendell Berry–and I forgot to say so…
Thanks for re-blogging! I hope all is well.
Sharon
Dear Ms. Bray,
As always, I love receiving and mulling over your blog. And I am especially grateful that you how introduce me to poets and other writers whose work I haven’t known. Thank you.
I have written to you before. I, too, teach writing to people with cancer (as well as many other groups). Are you a member of any of those organizations linking healing and creative arts, such as what used to be called something like The Society of Arts in Healthcare? Do you think they’d be useful to join?
Anyhow, my most common writing practice these days is writing personal prayers. I was asked to create a prayer-writing class at a local synagogue, and getting familiar with the relevant information really excited me. I’d like to share a few with you.
Janet Falon
_Prayer for Me in Relation to my Elderly Mother_
Fortify me, Compassionate One, as I help my elderly mother make life-altering changes.Teach me patience as I support her in keeping true to herself.Help me make my contact with her loving and clear in spite of complications we’ve had in the past.Be there with me as I hold her hand as she moves forward, and given her age, support me in trying to make each communication with her end with loving words.And please, help me balance the needs of my mother with the needs of my daughter, and nourish me with a bottomless well of courage and stamina. Amen.
_Prayer for The Spider who Built its Web Between my Rear-View Mirror and the Driver’s Side Door and Hung on for the 110 miles from Cape May to Home_
This is the second time recently, God, that I was lucky enough to have a spider attach itself to my car and survive a long drive.Thank you for imbuing spiders with the instinct to protect themselves, and the apparatus for doing that.Thank you for showing me the tenaciousness of the natural world, and for helping me evolve in my feelings about spiders — from annoyance and aversion to respect and, believe it or not, affection.I am open to having another such hitch-hiker ride with me again.Amen.
_ Prayer for the Wrinkle on my ChinApril 2, 2014_
Source of Years, I finally have a wrinkle that doesn’t go away like the lines on my forehead do.I can feel it even without looking in a mirror, a little indented line that runs between my mouth and chin.I was shocked when I first saw it, not so much by its presence, but by its permanence.It’s with me all the time, unlike “frown lines” and “laugh lines,” that go away when I stop frowning or laughing.I can either bemoan this wrinkle, or celebrate and accept it – and God, I’m choosing the latter.Given that it’s the time in my life when my contemporaries are starting to die, I say welcome to my wrinkle and to the others that will appear; come, brand me with the lines of aging.Let me look like the years I’ve been given and survived and conquered.Let my lines reveal my gratitude for each year I’m being given.I’ve long known that I want to get older gracefully – but I want to age gratefully, too.Amen.
_Prayer for Faith_
If you’re out there, God – or in me — or somewhere else – thank you for being someone or something to open my questing self to.(And unlike my therapist, you’re free.)
What a rich response, Janet–thank you for sharing your prayers with me. I’m emailing you separately re: organizations… Warmest regards,
Sharon