February, 2006

A shadow fell on me. It drifted in with the New Year, following on the heels of departing family members, who had come to celebrate a last Christmas with mom. We had been a happy tangle of people—21 in all—and our joy at being together was tinged only slightly by sadness. We knew that, very likely, mom wouldn't be there for the next Christmas gathering.

As for the shadow, I thought perhaps it was the natural ebb of emotions that often follows elation, but it hung on for days, growing in magnitude and darkening all my heart. I grew afraid of it and felt that I wouldn't be able to escape it. An existential angst gripped me, something foreign to me, as I have never struggled with God's existence. God had always been real to me, and so to face the question of his existence now seemed to me a kind of failure, a sign that here, at the end, I would fall from faith.

It all seems so ridiculous now, but at the time I was terrified. All day, every day as a sort of desperate mantra, I would cry, “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.” My prayers were those of the abandoned: “Lord, don't let me go. I cling to you. Where can I go if not to you? There is no other place.” For several weeks I struggled under this black pall. I reminded myself of everything I knew to be true about God, but those things left me unmoved. I knew I simply had to hang on, but I was afraid I would never recover the joy that had marked most of my days since my diagnosis.

During this time, I started to feel that it wasn't right for me to pray for my own healing, but at the same time I so desperately wanted to be healed. I felt that all my prayers were motivated strictly by the desire to gain favor in the sight of God so that he would heal me. My sincerity in prayer sputtered like a wet candlewick.

In the end I decided to take a day to fast. As a rule, being sick, I don't fast, although my diet is such that I eat little meat and dairy, so I don't have to remove much to fast. The day I did fast, I had to lie in bed most of the day, as I had no energy. Nonetheless, despite my weakness, my mind was extremely clear. As I prayed, the thought came to me that my faith was being tested, something that had not occurred to me during the entire period of my illness. I had seen this bit of suffering as a way of purifying my character, or a means of drawing nearer to Christ, but as an all out testing of my faith, no. It also occurred to me that perhaps I was being attacked by the Evil One, whose wily arrows had managed to strike at a profoundly vulnerable spot, wounding me in spirit.

As I considered this idea of the testing of faith, the confusion in my brain that had clouded my thinking began to dissipate. I was relieved, almost happy at the thought that this was a trial from without, not a failure from within. Arming myself, then, was the next thing to do, with Truth begin the chief weapon. I looked at the passages on faith, especially in the writings of St. Peter. “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trails, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” And later in the chapter, “Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” I knew I needed to learn fortitude and perseverance. I was so easily dismayed and discouraged by difficulties. Here was an opportunity to learn to persist in my faith, even when things looked so dark. I needn't fear the shadow, for Christ was there, even as he had been for Peter, who, after climbing out of the boat in faith to walk fearlessly to meet his Lord, had been overwhelmed by the cacophony of the storm, and had faltered.

As in the case of Peter, I had begun to focus on the storm raging around me--on my illness and bleak prospects for healing, on departing prematurely from my husband, children and ministry--and I had despaired and started to sink.

But probably the most profound idea about this dark period came from a dear friend of ours, Fr. Luke Veronis, who calls almost every week to inquire after my physical and spiritual well being. As I was telling Fr. Luke about the shadow and my sense of utter spiritual desolation, he said simply, “That is what being poor in spirit is all about.” It had never occurred to me to think this way, so his words struck me deeply. I spent considerable time meditating on the first Beatitude, something I hadn't done before because the idea of poverty of spirit seemed too much in conflict with everything I thought ought to be true about my spirit. I had always dismissed from my mind the idea of “poor in spirit,” thinking it must just be some kind of expression that I didn't comprehend. The idea that it really did mean poor , that is, “destitute,” or “poverty-stricken,” hadn't ever occurred to me, but now I saw it does mean just that, poor . I had seen the wasteland of my own spirit and had been utterly dismayed by it. My experience under the shadow, rather than being some kind of spiritual failure was actually a gift to me—the gift of seeing my spirit as it really is, as poor and utterly desolate--not as I had tried to dress it up so that God would be pleased with me—but as truly in rags. Now, seeing myself thus, rather than being dismayed, I ran and threw myself joyfully and with complete abandon into the arms of Christ—He who is Love, who is the Bridegroom. He took me as I was—poor and wretched—and adorned me with lovely bridal clothes and offered to me the Kingdom of Heaven . “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

In the shadow lay a blessing. I saw that now, but the testing of my faith was also there, and will always be, I think, for in this life the Enemy of our souls is never far and he seeks our destruction. Christ is much greater, of course, but we must be vigilant over our own souls as well, “alert and roused to action,” as we state in the morning prayers. I have seen so often in the daily prayers the request that we be protected from the attacks of the Evil One, and I see that these aspects of our prayers are to be taken very seriously. Those, who wrote the prayers down for our good and our use, spoke out of long and deep experience of these things.

As to fortitude and perseverance in times of difficulty, I am grateful to have seen so vividly my own failure in that area so that I may, with God's help, begin to build upon my character. I have said to my children many times when they get to crying over small things, “You need to be tougher.” I say that to myself as well, “Be a little tougher. Show a little fortitude.”

After I finally emerged from under shadow, I decided that we needed a whole lot more humor around our house. I said to my mom one day, “We are too glum, too serious. We need to lighten up and look for the irony in things.” There are many humorous aspects to this business of being sick. It just depends on how we choose to look at them. We can cultivate a merry heart, which, according to Proverbs, “doeth good like medicine.” It is our choice. Even though our situation is so serious, it is possible to be much lighter at heart in the face of death because we have such great prospects beyond the grave. What joy will be ours, what freedom from that which limits us here—our weak bodies and minds, our small understanding and narrow vision. No more pain, no more fears, no more pills and shots, no more potions and lotions.