Spirituality in Crisis

Spirituality and religion can be touchy topics and I don't want to alienate any of my readers, but for many people, connecting with their spiritual side is an important part of the coping, care, and healing process. I promise not to proselytize on my blog (that's not the point and, besides, whatever your beliefs are is perfectly okay with me), but since it's supposed to be a chronicle of our family's experiences, our spirituality will inevitably be a part of our experience of this journey. So, here's the post tackling spirituality in crisis.

I have a bit of a patchwork quilt of a spiritual background. Born into a maternal family proud of its Catholic heritage and adopted into a paternal family strong in their Episcopal faith, I split my childhood between the two religions. To this day I have a preference for some of the Anglican prayers and sometimes accidentally say them during Catholic Mass, and I still consider my father's church part of my family. I admit that I miss their musical arrangement of the Doxology. It's prettier than ours. A crisis of faith in my teens and twenties led me to try out as many religions as I could, eventually leading to serious study of Buddhism. I still have quite a fondness for world religions and Campbell's archetypes, but today I call myself a Catholic with a deep appreciation of Buddhism. My husband, I think, calls himself a Buddhist with an appreciation of Catholicism. Call us Southern, but we both believe in prayer and miracles.

The hospital where I work has a small children's chapel that has always been one of my favorite places to visit. My whole life, I have been drawn to numens of various sorts, be they quiet groves or towering cathedrals. I'm almost convinced that I would have become a nun of some kind if I had never married because of how much I wish I could live in a church and attend Mass all the time. It's just so comforting and centering to me to be in a place where human beings gather to pray and meditate. I often find my way down to the hospital chapel over lunch break where I sit and pray for our patients. Sometimes I pray for my own patients and sometimes I just open the prayer request book and pick a few recent names - those can be the most difficult because they are usually letters written by parents for their children. It reminds me of the connection between us all and of the way that each of us are faced with times of fear, suffering, and hope, and of the spiritual crisis that so many face during illness. A hospital is a place just full of human emotion and full of people praying, worrying, hoping...In a way, it's like working in a cathedral except that we have no formal ceremonies of celebration and our rituals consist of taking vital signs, charting rounds, changing linens, rinsing bed pans... I try to make my job a working meditation and, with 12 hour shifts over night, I often have quite a lot of time to pray. This month, it's been harder to think of my patients and most of my prayer has been selfish.

When your child is sick, it can be so hard to have faith. It was hard for me, even though if anyone should have unshakable faith, it should be my family! You see, this is not our first journey with a frightening diagnosis. At 23, my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer - a grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma. Over the next 5 years, he came through two brain surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation and today, miraculously, is none the worse for wear ...except that he now has a great excuse for forgetting to take the trash out! Cutler's brain cancer deepened both of our spirituality and was, in the end, an experience that we are thankful for because of what it taught us about living and about faith. It also served to make us pretty loyal to the skills of the professionals at Duke Hospital. However, when I learned what "Adrenoleukodystrophy" was, I'm almost ashamed to say that I found myself struggling with a selfish faith. I stopped to pray for others, but mostly I was too consumed with my own worry to be very diligent or to think very hard about the suffering of my patients. When I went down to the chapel, I said a general prayer for the loved ones of all of the parents who came here to pray, understanding now how they must feel, but I spent most of my time thinking about my own son. I didn't want to carry my Sorrowful Mother rosary, my favorite because of the beautiful, old frosted blue beads and the lovely, delicate picture of Our Lady. I didn't want to think about the possibility of having certain of those sorrows in common with Mary. I caught myself bargaining:"God, if You make him okay I'll volunteer with the hospital ministry...." "Mother, if you intercede on his behalf, I'll take Third Order Vows..." (which weren't even fair bargains since I've been considering them, anyway!). I'd catch myself and say "I'm sorry. Even if you don't, I'll try to do it. I know You don't bargain."

Maybe I sound like a religious nut right now (maybe I AM a religious nut). It strikes me  that perhaps I should be concerned that I'm making others uncomfortable with all this prayer talk. Maybe I should take a second again to reassure you that despite whatever neurosis I may or may not have centered around spirituality, it really doesn't bother me what your own beliefs, non-beliefs, and practices are. I really don't intend this to be a judgement of anyone else's beliefs, just a chronicle of my own struggles with faith during this time.

It occurred to me that maybe I should be mad at God. After all, this is really NOT FAIR. Haven't we paid our karmic debt when it comes to healthcare? Haven't we shown how grateful we are for Cutler's health? Didn't we learn a whole lot? Don't I work in healthcare now? Don't I volunteer all my free time with the rescue squad? Aren't I paying it back?! But, despite thinking that maybe I ought to feel angry, I didn't really. I understand the people who do feel angry and anger is part of the coping process, it's totally normal, but I didn't feel angry. Not really. Okay, a little flabbergasted and annoyed -what more?! - but not ANGRY. I don't feel angry because I know that God doesn't cause suffering. Now, Pat Roberson might blame the bad things that happen on the feminists, the pagans, and the gays, but I'd like to believe that I know better. I don't believe in a God that causes suffering; I believe in a God that is love.

My favorite quote is from Thomas Merton and he says "Souls are like athletes that need opponents worthy of them if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers and rewarded according to their capacity." I believe that suffering is just a part of life and that it's meant to bring out the best in us, to bring us closer to that which we call "God." Still...Still, even knowing this, I do have moments when I am frightened that I am being punished. Now, think of how egotistical that sounds! That God would cause my child to suffer to punish me for being a bad mom, for not being good enough. Rationally, I know that this is ridiculous...but rationality and emotion don't usually go hand in hand. Despite feeling a little guilty for being so consumed by worry, feeling so frail in my faith, I know that THIS IS OKAY. My sensei back when I was studying Buddhism told a story about a man who said that he was struggling after his wife died. Buddhism teaches non-attachment (surprise! So does Catholicism!), but he was suffering a great deal, missing his wife, and didn't find it possible to not be attached right then. His sensei said to the man "That's okay! You're only human! Don't get too attached to non-attachment."  I'm only human. I don't think God expects perfection; I think that maybe that we sincerely want to be more perfect is enough. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm okay and you're okay. Whatever you're doing, wherever you're at, you who are struggling with crisis, with faith, who is feeling imperfect, who is failing... Whatever it is you believe, you're okay. We're all only human.