I caught up with an old friend on the book and face the other day who told me that one of her children has a rare neurological disease that takes much of her daily efforts. I have other friends whose children have downs syndrome, autism, rare forms of cancer, and genetic diseases. My nurse friend tells me that it is a grownup illusion that children are less prone to disease than adults. We are shocked to hear of children suffering with diseases. We think "unfair" and "how sad" but the fact of the matter is that many of us are born into illness and many more are born into conditions of poverty or brutality that can bring about physical or mental illnesses.
I listened to a podcast from BBC's All Things Considered this morning as I tidied up the mail and bank accounts. They featured Carol Myss who describes herself as a medical intuitive. She talked about that intriguing question in healing, the one that Jesus posed, "Do you want to be well?". It is an earthquake question and one I think about a lot when it comes to transformation and conversion.
She proposes that the change inherent in much healing (and some of that can be enduring sickness not becoming totally well - as she says it can be the way we carry an illness that equals our health...) will not be faced by some - not just physical changes but facing forgiveness, self-pity, letting go, acceptance etc. Some choose to die rather than make these changes. Some would rather hang onto their illness or their way of going through illness than face the transformation, the conversion to new practices that could make them their version of well in a planet filled with suffering and illness of many types.
And here is where I wonder at the power of play in the lives of many of those we consider less mature, less logical than us. When some big and little kids get five good minutes, they grab the Nintendo controller or beg for the bike or just move their action figures around the lumps of the blankets on their bed. They grab those small moments of joy and light and hang on until the next bump in the road. Sometimes I think that growing up has meant finding out what I used to really know. What do those who play in the middle of dark times know that I have forgotten about the nature of illness and suffering?
