Editorial Comments
A Personal Perspective
by Stephen A. Schmidt
Living with a chronic illness is a challenging opportunity. One knows that one will never be healthy. So the “good” months are cherished, celebrated and enjoyed as they form a psychic barrier to despair and loss of hope. One knows that those good months will not last forever. I suspect such knowledge is in itself ambiguous. Feeling good is transitory. Tomorrow may be the advent of a new active bout with illness.
Most readers know that I have lived with Crohn’s disease for nearly thirty years. So my comments in this editorial are deeply personal. My friends see me, on a healthy day, filled with energy, with a genuine lust for life, and an almost obsessive desire to fill every waking hour with experiences of joy, love, hope, and happiness. These are times for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a Shakespeare performance, or a grandchild’s basketball game or jazz concert. I love people and enjoy good food and good friends between periods of illness.
Casual acquaintances see me during those transitory times and greet me with affection and positive comments about how well I look or how well I must feel. They give me hugs with joy and love, and a passing word. “Steve, I hope you will be this way for a long time. It is good to see you healthy.” They know, and I know, that these good months of health and symptom-free living are transitory. They want to celebrate their own relief to see me happy and full of energy.
Recently I was leading a presentation in our congregation’s adult education program on the Chronic Illness Group in the parish. With six other members of that group we were sharing what it is like to be chronically ill.
One of my past university colleagues began the conversation by telling the audience how “dark and depressed” I am at times. He referred to my annual Christmas letter, which over the past years has surely been a reflection of my life with Crohn’s disease. He led the group in peals of laughter as they recognized that his words about me were the experience of many who knew me well. But he added that even those sad Christmas letters always ended with hope and confidence, even though that may not be experienced this side of eternity. Members of the class nodded, laughing and smiling.
I must confess I felt loved, accepted and even admired. And I surely felt a moment of existential ambiguity. I knew the truth of my friend’s words. And I knew the love of so many parish members and my own hope against hope about the future. It was a moment of honesty; I truly am what my friend said, existentially ambiguous.
Later that day I returned to church for another in our parish Bach Cantata series. The cantata for that Sunday was “Contented Rest, Beloved Pleasure of the Soul.” And here I was to experience a mature, mid-life Bach, writing of his own theological ambiguous life of suffering and hope. Bach can speak for himself.
“…Contented rest, belove’d inner joy. We cannot find thee midst hell’s mischief, but rather in the heave’nly concord… The world, that house of sin, brings nought but hellish lyrics forth and seeks through hate and spite the devil’s image e’er to cherish… What sorrow fills me for these wayward spirits… who shall, therefore desire to live in this existence, when nought but hate and misery before his love are seen… I’m sick to death of living. So take me Jesus hence! I fear for mine offenses. Let me find there that dwelling where I may find rest…” (English translation prepared by Z. Philip Ambrose)
I suppose there may be readers who write off these sentiments as vestiges of a “dark” Lutheranism. Perhaps that is true. But equally true, I think, is the daily life of many who are chronically ill. They know the ambiguity of illness. They experience both the challenges and rewards of chronic illness. The YES of God’s love trumps the NO of experience, and one rests ambiguously at peace, a touch of paradise yet to come. And for today that is enough!
