Sickness, while primarily a problem of pathology, is a crisis of the total person, not only a physical disorder. There is a spiritual dimension to sickness. At a moment in which one’s very living is called into question, the secretions of character, commitments of the heart, the modes of answering the ultimate question, of what it means to be alive, are of supreme importance.
How to be sick gracefully? The process of healing is war, and the first casualty when war comes is moral pretentiousness. Peevishness, resentfulness, suspicion are not restrained by constipation. How to grow spiritually in distress? Sickness ought to make us humble. In a world where recklessness and presumption are the style of living, and callousness dominates relationships between man
and man, sickness is a reminder of our own neediness and extremity, an opportunity for the cynic to come upon the greatness of compassion.
and man, sickness is a reminder of our own neediness and extremity, an opportunity for the cynic to come upon the greatness of compassion.
[Insecurity Of Freedom]
