A few days ago I posed the question, here, that I wondered for how many days of last year I would have described myself as feeling healthy. I made a note in the corner of my diary at the end of every day as to what, if anything had been troubling me or if my health was good. Here are the results:
129 Good
88 Knee trouble
69 Mouth ulcers or sore mouth
38 Cold, fever, chest infection or post viral
14 Eczema
6 Stiff neck
5 Insect bites
4 Bad back
3 Ear trouble
3 Infected finger
2 Headaches
2 Toothache
1 Allergy
1 Ganglion
Now here's some things:
1. I tore a cartilage in February and am awaiting knee surgery. It troubled me all the rest of the year but only in a noteworthy way, or as the most serious problem, on 88 days. That should be 88 better days in 2011.
2. I would say that last year I was fit and healthy by and large. This raises the question, 'What does it mean to be fit and healthy?' I had three colds last year but don't really remember being ill with them apart from two or three days. The worst health days I can recall were the few days in Gozo when I had insect bites and the period after I did my back (as a recovering disc-slipper I get scared when I do my back).
3. Some days I had more than one thing wrong with me but I've noted the thing I diaried as the lead problem
4. I'm not continuing with the experiment. It would look like OCD.
So all very interesting. What started as a piece of research for a talk on healing (what does it mean to be well?) all got a bit out of hand. Enough.
Showing posts with label Healing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Healing. Show all posts
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Sunday, May 16, 2010
How ill is ill?
What I would love to do, just once, is get inside the body of someone when they say 'I don't feel well.' I'd like to know how it compares to me when I don't feel well.
There are those people who seem only motivated by their own victimhood. They have nothing to say unless something is wrong with them? They look excited at the mention of 'How are you?'
Others come across as stoical in the face of accident or illness maybe walking into a room holding their damaged arm in the other one and saying things are a bit sticky right now.
Whenever I start to feel under the weather I hear a virtual female chorus of man flu man flu man flu. How could I know pain if I haven't had a baby? It's a fair point although two lots of scrotal surgery and wisdom teeth out by local anaesthesia must count for something. Heck, did I write that aloud?
Also, I never know, if having time off with 'just a cold' to prevent spreading germs, how long to take. I have had a cold virus for 17 days now.
One of the reasons for the recovery time is probably that I am coming round to my main holiday of the year. Regardless of the light I tend to make of it the work of a parish priest is quite demanding. Is it easier to go to work with a bit of a cold if you can get home at 6 and put your feet up with a brandy? Evenings take their toll.
I know the old line that the cemeteries of our nation are filled with people who considered themselves irreplaceable. I am not one of those, but today if I don't go and do two communions there will not be communions and I am also a musician at one of the services due to others not being available.
I have been up for an hour now trying to work out how I feel. This has helped a bit. Will post it after the morning.
There are those people who seem only motivated by their own victimhood. They have nothing to say unless something is wrong with them? They look excited at the mention of 'How are you?'
Others come across as stoical in the face of accident or illness maybe walking into a room holding their damaged arm in the other one and saying things are a bit sticky right now.
Whenever I start to feel under the weather I hear a virtual female chorus of man flu man flu man flu. How could I know pain if I haven't had a baby? It's a fair point although two lots of scrotal surgery and wisdom teeth out by local anaesthesia must count for something. Heck, did I write that aloud?
Also, I never know, if having time off with 'just a cold' to prevent spreading germs, how long to take. I have had a cold virus for 17 days now.
One of the reasons for the recovery time is probably that I am coming round to my main holiday of the year. Regardless of the light I tend to make of it the work of a parish priest is quite demanding. Is it easier to go to work with a bit of a cold if you can get home at 6 and put your feet up with a brandy? Evenings take their toll.
I know the old line that the cemeteries of our nation are filled with people who considered themselves irreplaceable. I am not one of those, but today if I don't go and do two communions there will not be communions and I am also a musician at one of the services due to others not being available.
I have been up for an hour now trying to work out how I feel. This has helped a bit. Will post it after the morning.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Thoughts on Healing
Jesus once asked a blind guy what he wanted to be done for him (Mark 10:51). Since the feller had been calling out 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me' for the previous few moments, so much so that Jesus' disciples had told him to shut it, and he was blind, wouldn't it have seemed obvious to you and me what he wanted.
Ah, there you have it. The obvious. Not always so, er, obvious. A great frustration of preaching is the hours of study you have to do to get to the point of telling people things that they then see as obvious. Things that weren't obvious to them until you told them. A joy and a privilege actually, as well as a frustration.
So back to the guy with the eye problem. 'I want to see,' he says.
Some years ago I had a back problem. The end of an undistinguished football career, the lack of personal fitness, a niggly injury that never cleared up and an undiagnosed double annular tear left me with chronic back pain for nearly five years. I couldn't stand for more than 20 minutes at a time. I was unhappy but willing to accept a disabled sticker if that was what was needed. Whilst I was prayed for I was healed by process not instant. Three weeks non-intrusive, rehabilitation treatment fixed my head. Then the body followed.
I believe a willingness to accept my lot, if that was what was required of me, was the turning point. The voice said, 'What do you want me to do for you?' I wanted to be well. I didn't want to be known as the guy with the back problem. I put my energy into getting well, even though it hurt like blazes to do so, because I was assured by experts that the pain was not causing me any further injury (that's the difference between chronic and acute pain in simple terms). Folks who have known me throughout the experience will tell you I am now fitter and healthier than I have ever been, but I will never take that for granted, ever again.
What's my new insight? It's this. I believe there are people around, some in local churches here, who would not know what to do with a healing. All their identity comes from the attention they are able to get by listing a series of illnesses, ailments and problems. What is the honest answer to, 'What do you want me to do for you?' Is it, 'I want to be well.' Or maybe, 'I want people to like me even when I have nothing that deserves their sympathy.' Or something else?
What do you want me to do for you? It's a great question and not at all obvious. I will be asking it more in future, although, of course, it will not be me who will be doing what you want. I will be asking someone else to.
The blind guy, so Mark tells us, got his sight back, without even being touched. It was what he wanted.
Ah, there you have it. The obvious. Not always so, er, obvious. A great frustration of preaching is the hours of study you have to do to get to the point of telling people things that they then see as obvious. Things that weren't obvious to them until you told them. A joy and a privilege actually, as well as a frustration.
So back to the guy with the eye problem. 'I want to see,' he says.
Some years ago I had a back problem. The end of an undistinguished football career, the lack of personal fitness, a niggly injury that never cleared up and an undiagnosed double annular tear left me with chronic back pain for nearly five years. I couldn't stand for more than 20 minutes at a time. I was unhappy but willing to accept a disabled sticker if that was what was needed. Whilst I was prayed for I was healed by process not instant. Three weeks non-intrusive, rehabilitation treatment fixed my head. Then the body followed.
I believe a willingness to accept my lot, if that was what was required of me, was the turning point. The voice said, 'What do you want me to do for you?' I wanted to be well. I didn't want to be known as the guy with the back problem. I put my energy into getting well, even though it hurt like blazes to do so, because I was assured by experts that the pain was not causing me any further injury (that's the difference between chronic and acute pain in simple terms). Folks who have known me throughout the experience will tell you I am now fitter and healthier than I have ever been, but I will never take that for granted, ever again.
What's my new insight? It's this. I believe there are people around, some in local churches here, who would not know what to do with a healing. All their identity comes from the attention they are able to get by listing a series of illnesses, ailments and problems. What is the honest answer to, 'What do you want me to do for you?' Is it, 'I want to be well.' Or maybe, 'I want people to like me even when I have nothing that deserves their sympathy.' Or something else?
What do you want me to do for you? It's a great question and not at all obvious. I will be asking it more in future, although, of course, it will not be me who will be doing what you want. I will be asking someone else to.
The blind guy, so Mark tells us, got his sight back, without even being touched. It was what he wanted.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
The dumb and the blind
Well It had to happen eventually. Statistics say that everything must happen eventually so I'll keep trying to strike that match on a jelly (see post on training Mum to use her DVD player).
As the cold I had been incubating got its timing perfect for making me feel dog-rough on the night of the Alpha healing talk I realised that the delightful Meg and Alan were sitting on the front row. Now Alan is unable to speak properly following a stroke - he has only said 'yes' or no' to me so far and Meg has very limited vision. I guess it helped me to work hard at the apparently random nature of healing today. Jesus made the blind see and the dumb speak once. Would he?
At the end of the talk I gave an opportunity for anyone who wished for prayers for healing to be prayed for. It wouldn't be fair of me to tell you who, or how many, took up this option.
When we had finished praying we had coffee and I got into an interesting discussion about whether eczema was too trivial a matter to ask God to heal (given the state of others so much worse off). I thought this was so nice a question, so humbly and sensitively put, that I intend to pray for the sufferer without telling them. Why don't you too?
As we left and Alan and Meg got their coats and headed out the door I said, 'Goodnight Alan'. He turned to face me and, clear as a bell, said 'Goodnight.' Meg turned round at once and said, 'That was very good; I think he's getting better.'
Once, when I was young, I asked God to make it snow heavily to show me he was there. (I did meet him half way; I prayed in Birmingham in winter.) The next day there was a light covering of snow. So God was lightly there. Ever since then I have experienced God's light touch here and there - a flurry not a maelstrom. Goodnight Alan.
As the cold I had been incubating got its timing perfect for making me feel dog-rough on the night of the Alpha healing talk I realised that the delightful Meg and Alan were sitting on the front row. Now Alan is unable to speak properly following a stroke - he has only said 'yes' or no' to me so far and Meg has very limited vision. I guess it helped me to work hard at the apparently random nature of healing today. Jesus made the blind see and the dumb speak once. Would he?
At the end of the talk I gave an opportunity for anyone who wished for prayers for healing to be prayed for. It wouldn't be fair of me to tell you who, or how many, took up this option.
When we had finished praying we had coffee and I got into an interesting discussion about whether eczema was too trivial a matter to ask God to heal (given the state of others so much worse off). I thought this was so nice a question, so humbly and sensitively put, that I intend to pray for the sufferer without telling them. Why don't you too?
As we left and Alan and Meg got their coats and headed out the door I said, 'Goodnight Alan'. He turned to face me and, clear as a bell, said 'Goodnight.' Meg turned round at once and said, 'That was very good; I think he's getting better.'
Once, when I was young, I asked God to make it snow heavily to show me he was there. (I did meet him half way; I prayed in Birmingham in winter.) The next day there was a light covering of snow. So God was lightly there. Ever since then I have experienced God's light touch here and there - a flurry not a maelstrom. Goodnight Alan.
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