Getting a ride into Seattle a few days ago I realized more of the beauty and danger of this itinerant life. I had attended a conference last week called “We are the Medicine”, put on by a center in Oregon (The Sacred Art of Living and Dying) to help health-care workers understand themselves better in relation to Death and dying patients. It was a powerful all-day event, full of wisdom and stories from cultures and times all around the world.

Like Mohammed recommending
“Die before you die”
so when you die, you’re not dying…

And the Irish good morning greeting translating to
“May you have a happy death”

Yet since I left the auditorium to step out into the rain, I hadn’t once thought about it. All caught up in the beauty and business of my life, on-call at the hospital, at an improvised farming conference with friends, receiving guests, revising the pilgrimage book, and teaching a cooking class. And here, now, this morning, I walk into the hospital and remember all of that input. And it comes flooding back, relevant, semi-digested, ready to be of use.

Just strange that without conscious reflection — indeed without the space for conscious reflection — some of these truths and knowledges still seep deep within us.

This morning, then, I saw a man sick with cancer, depression, addiction, homelessness, and an inability to forgive himself. He is intelligent and educated, a successful business owner who sought the comfort of crack cocaine after a romantic relationship broke down, almost 20 years ago.

There’s, of course, a lot, but I wanted to share a little bit about the process of spiritual diagnosis, his sense of self, and what he taught me.

We went through the four regions Richard Groves (who wrote a book called The American Book of Dying) had recommended as possible areas of spiritual pain. I haven’t thought about his matrix too much or tried to improve upon it, just trying it out.

HOPE
FORGIVENESS
CONNECTION
MEANING

Pretty standard areas for us all to get tripped up on. When I asked my new friend, with a gaping abscess in his neck and hooked up to more plastic tubes than a child in the Matrix, about Hope, he brightened up and shared heartfully about the depth of his hope and faith in the divine. Unflinching confidence things were going to work out. Incredible hope from a man in the basement of a beeping hospital.

Both times I had visited that room previously, it was to attend a death.

And when we got to Forgiveness, it all broke down. He was ready to admit how much he held against himself, how little he forgave himself for this 17-year “lunch break” from his normal life. He offered a prayer to god, asking forgiveness, with earnest devotion.

We sat in silence. I asked him, “[Name], do you think that’s really it?” Trying to get more specific with this diagnosis, trying to follow the paradigm. Thinking of the doctor holding the right hand and asking, “Where exactly does it hurt?”

“I think God has forgiven you a long time ago. I thought the whole point of the story was that you were already forgiven. To whom should you be praying?”

And he broke down again, could look me in the eyes and really understand, could really *feel*, that he was holding all this pain up against himself, pinning himself against a wall of guilt and agression. It was so incredible to see, to learn from, how an intelligent mind so used to language and thought could see beyond words and constructs he’d been using for so long (praying for forgiveness, speaking of forgiveness) and have a moment of “oh shit, i get where this is coming from.”

The morning lesson in chaplain school. I had never spoken so much or so directly in a visit before. I usually just listen, pray, offer love, affirm. Just learning through practice, but sometimes it seems the words, the direction, can help in subverting their own…

Near the end of our visit, he shared with me –
“They can delay me, but they can’t stop me. Whoever they are: Including myself.”

Which i think is a pretty relevant conclusion.

love
ankur