VI: CRUCIBLES-Escape Routes by Johann Christoph

ESCAPE ROUTES

For People Who Feel Trapped in Life's Hells By Johann Christoph Arnold

VI: Crucibles

The towing rope binds a boat, but is the bondage its meaning? Does it not at the same time draw the boat forward? - Rabindranath Tagore

Diane never dreamt that multiple sclerosis would affect her--she didn't even really know what it was. Until she was twenty-two. Then it hit her, unexpectedly and so speedily that in the space of a month, her legs, hands, chest, and back began to tingle and go numb.

Researchers know little about MS. The one thing Diane's doctors could tell her with any certainty is that each bout with MS leaves its mark. Eventually most patients end up in wheelchairs. Depression is common among people afflicted with the disease, and suicide is a frequent means of escape.

Luckily for Diane, six months after diagnosis, she's still on her feet. Not that it's been all roses:

After I was diagnosed, I looked up MS in a friend's nursing text. It detailed all the effects of the disease. I started crying. Would I go mental? Would I die young? Would I live till seventy with some horrible disability?

A verse she found in the New Testament, however, helped her pull herself together:

I opened my Bible and picked a random verse. It said, "My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is made perfect through weakness." I've never read anything that seemed to point so directly toward me.

Lately I've even felt that I'm privileged, because I've been forced to live just one day at a time. I guess that was always true, but now it's become real for me.

Especially in religious circles, it's become a cliché to talk about sickness in this way: to note that it is capable of bringing about inner growth; to suggest that it may even temper the soul and leave it stronger than before. Despite a certain truth to this, there are grimmer aspects to illness. When Elena, an anorexic relative of mine, began to lose ground, her whole demeanor changed, and though she had once been happy and outgoing, she became angry and withdrawn. As her sister describes her illness (from which she is now recovering):

Elena was thirteen when she was first diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. She seemed a most unlikely candidate. Some people appear to have most things in life going for them and Elena was one of those. Always popular, she was a natural leader among her peers and never had trouble relating to people. She did well at academics, and excelled in sports of any kind. Caring little about her physical appearance, Elena would arrive at the dinner table smelling strongly of horses, her black hair rumpled, sneakers untied. She had never been a picky eater, but dumplings were always the favorite- her record was nine in one sitting. So from the outside, Elena's life seemed to be running fairly smoothly. She was to start high school in the fall and already had plans to be a veterinarian.

During the summer of her eighth grade year things began to change. Elena became quieter. In everything she did she was more diligent. She became more withdrawn and despondent. She rarely ate, always claiming she had eaten a big snack or didn't feel hungry.
Then one day she began vomiting, and collapsed in the bathroom. She called me in to help and I was horrified at the sight of her. Every single rib showed, her stomach was shrunken, her legs pencil-sized, her skin sickeningly white. She vomited again, then wept silently, whispering, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die."

She told us of the voices in her mind-very real, audible voices that told her how worthless, fat, and selfish she was. There seemed to be only one thing to do. Disappear. And so she shrunk before our eyes. She communicated in barely audible whispers. Her handwriting became barely legible characters using only the tiniest spaces on a page. Once she ran away, and Mom found her at the barn with her horse and held her tightly as she wept. "Mom, you have no idea what it's like. My life isn't worth anything. It's no use."

Sometimes hell is just hell, and no amount of talk can help. Johann Blumhardt (1805-1880), a German pastor, points out that because the physical, emotional, and spiritual are so deeply entwined, the best answer to illness is the one that takes into account all three. Beyond that he suggests this age-old, simple solution: "Through prayer and self-examination, seek the direct intervention of God."

Tragically, most of us resist doing this. As Blumhardt once observed, "Most sick people would rather drag themselves ten miles than search their consciences or bend their knees." Yet Jon, a friend, says such action is vital-and well worth the humility and soul- searching it demands. Recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, he says:

When I first noticed my lumps I hoped they would go away. I think a lot of people have that sort of attitude when they sense that things aren't right with them spiritually. But lumps don't always go away, and nor do problems. If there's something inside you that you don't like, you'd better take care of it. You have to be a fool to say, "I don't care; I don't need therapy." Because whatever you're dragging around could kill you.

How vital do you think it is to
"take care of what ever you're dragging around?"

As someone who has sat by the bedsides of hundreds of dying people, I can assure you that people like Jon--people who have, in his words, faced "whatever you're dragging around"--are far more likely to die in peace than those who haven't.

That is why it is often said that at the hour of death, nothing else matters but our relationship to God. This relationship can be measured by very concrete things--the love we have given others, or failed to give them; humility or pride-and these are the things that will either comfort or torment us as we prepare to die.