Prologue: Yesterday I had the privilege of attending an adult Bat Mitzvah, invited by a friend whom I first met a few years ago when I led a women’s writing group at Jewish Family Services. Her son had died suddenly at age 16, and she had come to the group in hopes writing could provide a way to express her grief. Yesterday, a journey inspired by her son, she celebrated her Bat Mitzvah. It was a moving and joyful celebration, and I felt grateful to have witnessed her journey from suffering to healing. When she stood to share her story–her journey to fully embrace Judaism–I was moved to tears, remembering the first day I met her and yesterday, seeing the transformation in her joy and radiant smile as the ceremony ended. Faith, Spirituality–these are important antibodies in helping us heal after tragedy, loss and serious illness. Today’s prompt is one previously posted October 21, 2012.
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Like so many Americans, I have become a lapsed church-goer over the years, discovering a different kind of meditation and prayer to sustain my daily life. It is my writing practice, a ritual that begins in the early morning—a walk with my dog followed by sitting in silence outdoors–before the tasks of the day intervene to pull me into their noisy demands. I watch the sunlight embrace the trees, listen to the noisy serenade of the birds, and drink in the solitude before returning to the house to write. There is gratitude waiting to be found in the early morning, and inspiration–poems, stories, insights–if only I sit quietly and notice.
When I go inside, I write, opening the same notebook I’ve had for years, rubbing my fingers lightly over the Celtic knots engraved on the green leather cover, before picking up my pen. Often the first words are no more than a response to the question, “what did you notice?” But it is enough. Writing is my prayer, a door that opens to the deeper landscape of my interior life. It is why, in part, I encourage others to express and explore the experiences of their lives through writing, particularly those diagnosed with cancer. It is humbling work, yet deeply gratifying, and for the many years I’ve been doing it, it has become a spiritual practice: bearing witness and witnessing others’ lives.
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time—Thomas Merton
Faith and spirituality are often written about, so important to the quality of life among many cancer patients.
In his 2009 New York Times blog, “One Man’s Cancer,” editor Dana Jennings, after being diagnosed with an aggressive prostate cancer, wrote about the importance of “spiritual antibodies” in his cancer journey.
I converted to Judaism five years ago, after decades spent stumbling toward God. That faith has helped sustain me this past year, from the diagnosis of my prostate cancer, through surgery, and through radiation and hormone treatment when it was learned that I had an aggressive cancer.
I am not a fool. I am a patient with Stage T3B cancer and a Gleason score of 9. I need the skills and the insights of the nurses and doctors who care for me. But they don’t treat the whole man. Medicine cares about physical outcomes, not the soul. I also need — even crave — the spiritual antibodies of prayer, song and sacred study.
Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs may be, faith and spirituality can provide strength and comfort during the difficult and painful chapters of life. No one choses to suffer, to be diagnosed with cancer or suffer debilitating pain or trauma. Those events may feel, at first, like a death sentence, and they can challenge your faith. But the difficult chapters in our lives offer something else– a chance to deepen self-understanding and compassion, the opportunity to define what is essential and important in life, and to pay attention to and appreciate the ordinary gifts of each day. “Each moment holds out the promise of revelation,” Jennings wrote. (He survived his cancer ordeal and continues to enjoy life with his wife and sons).
As Jennings so eloquently expressed, the experience of cancer, of getting through treatment and recovery, is a deeply spiritual journey. Cancer forces us to pay attention, really pay attention, to what matters in our lives. Your faith may deepen or you discover a nurturing spiritual practice. Oftentimes, when I ask the survivors in my writing groups to describe what sustains them during long months of surgery, treatment and recovery, I hear, “My faith grew, and I prayed a lot.”
While faith and spirituality are related, they’re not synonymous, yet whatever your beliefs may be, they can be an important source of strength and comfort. Stephen Levine, best known for his work in death and dying, remarked, a 1989 interview with The Sun, As part of our wholeness, we need our woundedness. It seems written into spirituality that there’s a dark side to which we must expose ourselves.
Cancer—and other hardship–may plunge you into that dark night of the soul. And while it may your faith may be challenged, it is an opportunity to explore what is truly essential—and soul nurturing—in your life. Meditation and prayer are a way to explore your faith or spirituality. And so does writing, offering a door to enter and explore the deepest realms of our being.
“When you’re caught up in writing…” poet Denise Levertov remarked in her final interview, “it can be a form of prayer.” When we write from our lives, we must have the courage to take a deep dive into our inner lives. “Tell the truth,” Maxine Hong Kingston tells her war veterans as they meet to write their stories of battle. Writing, whether of cancer, war, or other painful events in our lives, cracks us open. We embark on a deeply spiritual journey. It’s why so many established writers will tell you, “writing is a courageous act.”
Varda, a writer in my first group, died of metastatic breast cancer several years ago. She wrote throughout her cancer journey, often humorously, sometimes poignantly, but always honestly. She became one of our most beloved group members. Nearing the final weeks of her life, she wrote “Faith,” a poem that examined her relationship with God:
God and I always had a special relationship,
sealed in ancient Hebrew prayers
and stained glass windows.
The Shofar blown on Yom Kippur.
The Book of Life open for ten days a year,
and then my fate sealed.
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.
I have come home to God, and we have renewed
our friendship.
To trust—float free…an incredible well I did not know I had. As you write this week, consider these questions: Has your faith been challenged at difficult times in your life? What has sustained you in times of illness, hardship or struggle? Where have you found your solace, your strength? Write about how cancer has challenged or deepened your faith or spirituality. What “spiritual antibodies” were most nourishing and sustaining for you?
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