Quotes On Illness

[Narcissus]

This is a place for quotes about sickness and being ill.  Some are from works on illness that I've sought out and some are things I just happened to come across in my normal reading.  If anybody's struck by anything posted here, please say so!
 

Tonight I'll do a few from a short book I've been reading called "The Theology of Illness".  These are all, obviously, very spiritual in nature.  

 

"By confining the soul within the limits of the body, sickness and suffering destroy any illusions of fullness and self-sufficiency a person may have previously had, illusions fueled by a state of health he took for granted.  They teach a person the extent of their poverty, even their ontological nakedness...The person can no longer consider himself as absolute, since his fundamental pride is broken....by virtue of illness 'man comes back to himself.'"  - Jean-Claude Larchet

 

"...illness...challenges our former, false equilibrium, and leads us to question the very foundations of our existence.  It effectively weakens our impassioned attachments to the world.  And in so doing, it reveals the vanity of those attachments and leads us to surpass their limits."  - Jean-Claude Larchet

 

"A healthy man is always an earthly, material man...But as soon as he falls ill, and the normal, earthly order of his organism is disturbed, then the possibility of another world makes itself known to him at once; and as the illness worsens, his relations with this world become ever closer."  - Dostoevsky

 

"...illness offers us the opportunity to acquire the fundamental virtue of patience."  - Jean-Claude Larchet 

[bubble]

thank you for sharing!

 

bubble

[Petunia]

Thanks for starting this thread Nar,

I hope you will write some more quotes, I'm finding them helpful.

[mattinsmom]

I really like this idea. Thanks for starting the thread.

[Narcissus]

Thanks everyone for commenting!

 

I'll do some more quotes from Larget today.  Sometimes, if I'm feeling uncomfortable with the word God, I'll substitute in the word Life instead.  I recommend trying this if you're not formally religious, it can make some ideas things easier to engage.

 

I struggle with believing some of the things Larget has to say here.

 

"God uses illness to purify man of his sins and passions, he grants him to rediscover the way of the virtues and to make progress in them."

 

"To emerge victorious from testing and to enjoy the fruits of victory, a person must first of all avoid passively submitting to the illness and its suffering, and allowing himself to be dominated, enclosed and beaten down by it.  To the contrary, it is essential that the person do all possible to preserve an attitude of vigilance, in the expectation of receiving divine assistance."

 

"The conscious mind often obsesses in cases of extreme suffering, to the point that it can confound the faculties of the soul.  Then we can do nothing other than to accept this state of utter emptiness, of personal barrenness, in an attitude of total abandonment of the self into the hands of God."

 

"By systematically requesting that he be healed, the ill person merely seeks the fulfillment of his own will, because the human will always desires the lessening of pain and suffering.  Yet a person's illness can also teach him to accept God's will before his own.  Through it he can learn to free himself from an egotistical love of self.  This is what God might well desire for the patient by delaying his healing, in order to unite that person more intimately to himself by conforming his will to the divine will."   - I find this very powerful.

 

"God knows better than we do what it is that we need.  He gives to each one of his what is spiritually most useful."

[Narcissus]

Here are some quotes from a totally different kind of thinker, the philosopher E.M. Cioran.  Some of this stuff is indulgent and intellectual, but it's interesting.  Not really for guidance or comfort.

"Sickness brings grace, for it nourishes otherworldly passions.  Through sickness we understand the saints, and through them, the heavens"  - E.M. Cioran

 

"...disease is an activity, the most intense a man can indulge in."  - E.M. Cioran

 

"After great pain, a voluptuous feeling comes, as of infinite happiness...he who has sipped the cup of suffering to its last dregs can no longer be a pessimist."  - E.M. Cioran

 

"Without illness there is no absolute knowledge...Consciousness is a symptom of estrangement from life caused by illness.  Everything that is not nature was revealed to the sick man when he looked up at the sky for the first time."  - E.M. Cioran
 

[Petunia]

"By systematically requesting that he be healed, the ill person merely seeks the fulfillment of his own will, because the human will always desires the lessening of pain and suffering.  Yet a person's illness can also teach him to accept God's will before his own.  Through it he can learn to free himself from an egotistical love of self.  This is what God might well desire for the patient by delaying his healing, in order to unite that person more intimately to himself by conforming his will to the divine will." 

 

I've sensed this particular 'battle' going on below the surface.  Although I wouldn't say I was learning to free myself from an egotistical self love.  Its more that my egoic sense of self and its illusion of control is being stripped from me, piece by piece, moment by moment, leaving me with no choice but to admit that my own will is nothing but a facade.  I guess that eventually, there will be no fight left in my individual self and it will be reduced to nothing, then what remains of 'me' will be reclaimed by whatever it is that is divine.

 

I have no idea what that will be like and the prospect of it is quite scary because living life according to my own ideas of what is 'best' is all I've known.  Its fear that seems to be the enemy here, a tangible entity, living in my body, fighting for its own survival, but turning away from God and life in the process.

 

I doubt that God has any particular desire for my individual little fragment of self, after all, we were 'given' free will specifically so that life could be experienced from that perspective.  But from that perspective, there seems to be a desire 'here' for some kind of unity with something more divine and whole than this fear driven little fragment of self which pretends to be so much more.

[mattinsmom]

Petu

I wish there was a "mind-blown" button.

[Narcissus]

I wonder where you're headed Petu.  Maybe you should try to trust in it?  Sounds like you're headed there whether you trust it or not.

[Petunia]

  Maybe you should try to trust in it?  Sounds like you're headed there whether you trust it or not.

 

I believe you are right, and trusting would make it so much easier, but my nervous system is in a cortisol fueled state of fight or flight for the majority of the day.  Its easier to trust in the evenings, so that's when I start trying to trust. But the trust I manage to build in the evenings is like a house of cards, it gets blown down every morning and I have to keep starting over.

[Narcissus]

"People are inclined to regard a sick man as rancorous; but anyone who fights with and conquers his disease, and even exploits it....benefits thereby to an extraordinary degree...he has passed through several stages of human psychology with which a healthy man is entirely unacquainted e.g. he has learnt by introspection the spiteful and revengeful spirit of the sick man and his religion.  Second, in his moments of freedom from pain and gloom his thoughts will be all the more brilliant."  J.M. Kennedy on Nietzsche.

 

"It is a radical cure for all pessimism to become ill, to remain ill for a good while, and then grow well for a still longer period.  It is wisdom, practical wisdom, to prescribe even health for one's self for a long time only in small doses."  - Nietzsche (The whole preface to Human, All-Too-Human is about illness and emancipation, difficult but fascinating!  If anyone wants to read it I can post it here.)

 

 

"If there were no confusion, there would be no wisdom...chaotic situations must not be rejected.  Nor must we regard them as regressive, as a return to confusion.  We must respect whatever happens to our state of mind.  Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news."  - Chogyam Trungpa.  I try to think of this when a flare-up occurs.  Trungpa calls this attitude the 'lion's roar', the ability to say in any situation, "Even THIS can be worked with".  Easier said than done of course.  

 

"As for health, consider yourself well."  - Henry David Thoreau.  Make what you will of that.
 

Robert A. Johnson on ignoring the 'gold' (which I suppose represents our unique gifts, things that demand to be realized, related to our 'higher calling') in our psyche, "Ignoring the gold can be as damaging as ignoring the dark side of the psyche, and some people may suffer a severe shock or illness before they learn how to let the gold out.  Indeed, this kind of intense experience may be necessary to show us that an important part of us is lying dormant of unused."  This comes from the Jungian view that illness is the result of fragmentation, whether of the psyche or of the body.  Illness tells us that we are not unified, not whole somehow.  

[Narcissus]

"Things are well in their place...Things out of place are ill." - Annie Dillard

[Jemima]

 

  Maybe you should try to trust in it?  Sounds like you're headed there whether you trust it or not.

 

I believe you are right, and trusting would make it so much easier, but my nervous system is in a cortisol fueled state of fight or flight for the majority of the day.  Its easier to trust in the evenings, so that's when I start trying to trust. But the trust I manage to build in the evenings is like a house of cards, it gets blown down every morning and I have to keep starting over.

 

 

Holley Gerth addresses a lot of the conflicts you express in her book, You're Going To Be Okay: Encouraging Truth Your Heart Needs To Hear, Especially on the Bad Days . I bought this on February 28th and am just now finishing it up for the second time, complete with highlights and notes. This hectic, mammon-worshiping world teaches us a lot of lies that encourage us not to value ourselves and Holley spells them out. This is the most valuable book I've read in years, and I read a lot.

[Jemima]

This is a place for quotes about sickness and being ill.  Some are from works on illness that I've sought out and some are things I just happened to come across in my normal reading.  If anybody's struck by anything posted here, please say so!

 

Tonight I'll do a few from a short book I've been reading called "The Theology of Illness".  These are all, obviously, very spiritual in nature.  

 

"By confining the soul within the limits of the body, sickness and suffering destroy any illusions of fullness and self-sufficiency a person may have previously had, illusions fueled by a state of health he took for granted.  They teach a person the extent of their poverty, even their ontological nakedness...The person can no longer consider himself as absolute, since his fundamental pride is broken....by virtue of illness 'man comes back to himself.'"  - Jean-Claude Larchet

 

"...illness...challenges our former, false equilibrium, and leads us to question the very foundations of our existence.  It effectively weakens our impassioned attachments to the world.  And in so doing, it reveals the vanity of those attachments and leads us to surpass their limits."  - Jean-Claude Larchet

 

"A healthy man is always an earthly, material man...But as soon as he falls ill, and the normal, earthly order of his organism is disturbed, then the possibility of another world makes itself known to him at once; and as the illness worsens, his relations with this world become ever closer."  - Dostoevsky

 

"...illness offers us the opportunity to acquire the fundamental virtue of patience."  - Jean-Claude Larchet 

 

This last quote really struck me.  I've often said that if we don't get anything else out of AD withdrawal, we'll at least learn patience.

 

Great thread!

[Narcissus]

Patience, the mother of all virtues!  

 

Thanks for commenting Jemima.

[mlrp]

 

"By systematically requesting that he be healed, the ill person merely seeks the fulfillment of his own will, because the human will always desires the lessening of pain and suffering.  Yet a person's illness can also teach him to accept God's will before his own.  Through it he can learn to free himself from an egotistical love of self.  This is what God might well desire for the patient by delaying his healing, in order to unite that person more intimately to himself by conforming his will to the divine will."   - I find this very powerful.

 

 

 

Thank you for an excellent topic. It may be an encouraging sign that I felt well enough today to investigate whether such a topic already existed. I likewise found that Larchet quote to be powerful, and true of those times when I am coping best. It is reminiscent of the tone of Therese of Lisieux's The Story of a Soul. I look for inspiration to her paradox of somehow remaining trusting despite her deep crises in faith. But she, of course, was a saint.

 

And from the sublime, to... I was just commenting elsewhere on what a bastard Time can be in this waiting to heal business and these Bowie lyrics came to mind. They certainly speak to an illness of the soul. Not particularly uplifting (I'll try to add more of those), but applicable to my sometime frame of mind about all things w/d. Hope this don't bring down the tone of the joint too much.   

 

Time

  by David Bowie

 

Time - He's waiting in the wings

He speaks of senseless things

His script is you and me boy

Time - He flexes like a *****

Falls wanking to the floor

His trick is you and me, boy

Time - In Quaaludes and red wine

Demanding Billy Dolls

And other friends of mine

Take your time

The sniper in the brain regurgitating drain

Incestuous and vain

And many other last names

I look at my watch

It says 9:25 and I think

"Oh God I'm still alive"

We should be on by now

We should be on by now

 

You - are not a victim

You - just scream with boredom

You - are not evicting time

 

Chimes - Goddamn you're looking old

You'll freeze and catch a cold

'Cause you've left your coat behind

Take your time

 

Breaking up is hard

But keeping dark is hateful

I had so many dreams

I had so many breakthroughs

But you my love were kind

But love has left you dreamless

The door to dreams was closed.

Your park was real greenless

Perhaps you're smiling now

Smiling through this darkness

But all I have to give

Is guilt for dreaming

 

We should be on by now

We should be on by now