Affirmations, Psalms, & Structural Similarities: Does God Want Us to Pray This Way?

Photo by Jennifrog. Her page is here.

King David, Psalmist

Like a lot of cancer patients, I'm doing affirmations.

Yesterday I suddenly realized that many Biblical psalms are identical in structure and content to affirmations.

I wonder if the similarity between the Biblical psalms and affirmations offers any insight into the intentions, and the theological worldview, of the authors of the psalms. I wonder if this similarity is any indication of the theological correctness or efficacy of affirmations.

In short: Does God approve of affirmations? And does the affirmation-like structure of many psalms offer any answer to that question?

***

What are affirmations?

Affirmations are brief, declarative sentences. They are in the "present tense, positive, personal and specific" (source).

Affirmations are used by a variety of people facing various challenges. They can be used by sick people battling an illness, by survivors of traumatic events, or by athletes training for an event.

Below are some examples.

A cancer patient might make use of the following affirmations:

I trust in the power of love to heal my body.

I trust in the love given to me by my doctors (family, friends, etc.) to help my body heal itself.

My body is learning to relax in the presence of pain. (source)

Adults who were abused as children might help themselves recover from the lingering impact of that abuse by repeating the following affirmations:

I am a good person.

I am made in God's image.

I am intelligent.

Today I will put all negativity behind me.

I am loved. (source)

Athletes training for an event might use the following affirmations:

I am prepared.

I am going to win.

I feel better than ever.

I am confident.

I recover properly.

I am eating right. (source)

***

Why do people make use of affirmations?

For some, affirmations are believed to work on a purely physical level. If you tell yourself that you are beautiful, that message will make you feel good, and feeling good will improve your physical appearance. If an athlete tells himself that he works out regularly, that attitude will become second nature for him, and he is more likely to work out regularly and to benefit from his workouts.

For others, affirmations have a magical quality. Affirmations align you with a supernatural source of power and make things happen through a process that can't be observed or measured. This approach is typical of New Age thought.

Affirmations, for some Christians, is a form of prayer. This is typical of Unity Church and its publication, "Daily Word."

***

Again, affirmations are

Declarative sentences

In the present tense

That state a specific, positive, desired result

They are personal.

Affirmations are, in short, like many Biblical psalms!

Psalm 23, the most famous psalm, is one affirmation after another!

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 121, my personal favorite, is also a series of affirmations, although most are in the future tense, not the present tense:

My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

***

Not all psalms are affirmations. The most common psalm theme is lament. Others are songs of praise or thanksgiving.

***

We have records of Jesus's disciples only ever asking him how to do one thing – how to pray. In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus doesn't exactly follow the model outlined above.

His opening statements are affirmation-style, declarative sentences: "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

In subsequent sentences, though, Jesus does not state a desire as a declarative sentence. Rather, his sentences are imperative requests: "Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses. Deliver us from evil." Jesus doesn't say, in affirmation or psalm style, "You give us our daily bread."

Reading from "Save Send Delete" at Hawthorne, NJ's, Well Read Bookstore

I'll be reading at Hawthorne's Well Read Bookstore on September 14th. Please come!
Source

Well Read Bookstore interior. You get a comfy chair if you come for my reading on September 14th. 

Please come to hear me read from "Save Send Delete" on Friday, September 14^th, at 6:30 pm, at the Well Read Bookstore, 425 Lafayette Avenue, Hawthorne NJ 07506

"Save Send Delete" is the true story of my debate, and love affair, with a celebrity atheist.

One day a few years back I sent an email to a celebrity atheist I saw on TV. To my great surprise, this man wrote back to me. Thus began our emailed debate, and love affair. "Save Send Delete" tells that story. It's gotten some great review on Amazon, and some impressive blurbs from authors like Larry Dossey, Robert Ellsberg and Paul Loeb. You can read those blurbs below.

Hope to see you on Friday, September 14^th.

Here is what some readers have had to say about "Save Send Delete":

A quirky, intricately woven, multi-layered love story, a debate that couldn't be between greater opposites: a devout Catholic schoolteacher and a dogmatic atheist author.

– Stuart Balcomb, composer, Gravity and Grace.

Danusha Goska is a lyrical, forceful writer with a huge heart and talent to burn. Her inspiring observations embody the best vision of which we humans are capable. Goska deserves widespread attention.

– Larry Dossey, MD author, Reinventing Medicine and The Power of Premonitions

I was very affected by the love story. The last twenty pages really had me biting my nails. Your work reminds me of Etty Hillesum.

– Robert Ellsbergauthor of All Saints and Modern Spiritual Masters: Writings on Contemplation and Compassion.

Save Send Delete is beautifully written, and there is much in this work that intrigues, entrances, informs, & moves me. Danusha Goska writes with flair, vividness, and depth about two faith systems; two levels of consciousness; two geographical, sociological, historical, & psychological planes of existence – yet in each sentence, she searches for grandeur, wholeness & transcendence in both.

– Charles Ades Fishman, poet, Chopin's Piano.

Danusha Goska is a terrific writer and thinker and reading Save Send Delete – whether you're an atheist or an agnostic or a true believer – will be a blessing to you.

– John Guzlowski, poet, Lightning and Ashes.

It is a given, as consistently observed by others in print, that Danusha V. Goska is an exquisite writer. Her words paint the richest of images for the reader, while the images themselves become the suddenly clarifying metaphors for those parts of our humanity we may have forgotten. What is not so often stated is that one is hard pressed to read Ms. Goska's writing passively. Her essays and books oblige readers to assert their own positions on a wide variety of issues ~ note her work in "Bieganski," "Homosexuality and the Bible," or her latest work, Save Send Delete. Ms. Goska ultimately draws us into a dialogue about her and our faith – a theme that is the common thread throughout her writing. To this I can attest personally, as one who reads her works and is always energized by the debate.

– Dr. Michael Herzbrun, Rabbi Temple Emanu-El, Rochester, NY

Zippy and vivid writing; Goska spins a fascinating tale.

Oriana Ivy, poet, My Grandmother's Laughter

Cheeky, mystical, merry, dark, and deep, Goska's wit, intelligence, and faith shimmer on every page.

– Jim Learyauthor, So Ole Says to Lena

A powerful and evocative reflective journey.

– Paul Loeb, author, Soul of a Citizen.

Goska writes with wit, exuberance, and grace about matters of the heart and the soul. Save Send Delete works on multiple levels –emotional, spiritual, and physical – to evoke in readers an awareness of life's splendid mysteries. It's a Christian Eat, Pray, Love (without the Eat), offering readers an entertaining, insightful story about two very different but equally unforgettable individuals.

– Daiva Markelis, memoirist, White Field Black Sheep.

With spare but dramatic and searing description Goska takes the reader on a quest for the essence of life – and faith. Along the not-so-beaten path her followers discover heart. Save Send Delete is a story to Read Realize Retain.

– James Conroyd Martin, author, Push Not the River and Against a Crimson Sky.

I honestly absolutely love Save Send Delete. I was reading it last night and I was laughing so hard, I nearly fell out of bed!!

– Krystyna Mew, publisher, Lost Between Worlds.

Save Send Delete tackles meaty and timeless topics in a fresh and highly entertaining form. It packs in age-old questions of love, God, suffering, transcendence and death with humor, grace and wisdom. It explores relationships: between men & women, between students & teachers, and ultimately between ourselves and who we want ourselves to be and mean. As a practicing Catholic, I found myself humbled by Mira's insights and experiences. As a computing professional, I reveled in the interaction of two minds reasoning about faith. I inhaled this book in hours, yet I feel it will have a profound and lasting impact on my life.

– Barbara E. Moo, author of programming language textbooks and former executive at Bell Labs

Falling down the gap

When you arrive into the stations of the London Underground, a recorded voice intones 'Mind the gap. Mind the gap.' It is something Londoners take for granted.

We live in a world that, we are told, is getting smaller. We can travel around the globe in a matter of days, move between cultures in a matter of hours. What do we see when we arrive? We see the golden arches, the logos of familiar shops and all too often, the familiar sound of the English language. The world is getting smaller, we say. A comfortable mantra. A comfortable untruth.

We no longer see the gap.

Danusha Goska's book, Save Send Delete, tears that comfort away. She writes about a divided world, a world in which the unbelievably wealthy live in world that they barely see and are not aware of the immense privilege of their existence; and the unbelievably poor live in a world more harsh than we can imagine, but that also contains beauty and generosity.

Danusha Goska turns what could be an academic abstraction into the living world of real people who come vividly alive in her prose.

She not only sees the gap, she has gone into it, and in her writing offers to share that journey and the insights it has given her.

– Danuta Reah, author, Listen to the Shadows.

I'll admit I was skeptical, but Goska is such a good writer she had me hooked on the first page.

– Vivian Chern Shnaidman, author, Homicidal Intent

The writing is stunning, the intelligence razor sharp. A beautiful piece of writing and a story that will stay with me for quite a long time, I can already feel it.

– Laura Young, photographer, author, All is Well: Drawing Wisdom from the Well of Grief and Joy.

Everything Wrong with New Age Thought

Christ in Majesty source

The World card from tarot.
Note the influence of Christ in Majesty on this card.

Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, Rachel Pollack's tarot guide.
This book epitomizes everything that's wrong with New Age thought. 

Taking a break from talking about cancer and trying to sell my book – hey, go buy my book, Save Send Delete!

I just read an astoundingly crappy book, and I want to post my review of it here because this book is not random in its crappiness. Rather, this book epitomizes all that is wrong in New Age thought – thought that has penetrated public schools, even Christian churches, and far too many of our minds.

***

Rachel Pollack's tarot book "Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom" epitomizes the errors of New Age thought.

Writing clearly is thinking clearly. Clarity is non-existent in Pollack's book. Her constant fudging of consensus reality is typical of New Age thought.

If one wanted to use tarot for divination, it would be necessary to assign clear meanings to each card. Pollack doesn't provide that. She provides rambling stream of consciousness. An example: her "explanation" of the Chariot card. Here's a paraphrase: "The Chariot could be about death, because, after all, in India people associate horses with death and funerals. And John F. Kennedy was assassinated while traveling in a limo! So maybe this card is really all about the soul's triumph over mortality! The Chariot might signify destruction because Shiva destroys the world while conducting a chariot. The Chariot could signify lingams, or yonis. But you know Freud relates horses to the libido. So maybe this card is all about sex! But forget Freud. What would Jung say? Maybe the Chariot is about the Jungian persona. Or maybe not. Maybe it's all about human speech. Only humans possess language – although we have taught chimps to communicate!" (pages 64-9).

Pollack's attempt to assign numeric values to cards is equally risible. If she doesn't like the number a card has, she divides the number, multiplies it, adds to it or subtracts from it, or places it in the context of an alternative numbering system, for example that used in ancient Sumer, thus coming up with a new number (page 120). "This card takes any number I assign to it" becomes "It's true because I say it's true. It's true because it feels true to me," Pollack's narcissistic measure of truth. An image of salamanders with their tails in their mouths means one thing on one card (164) and a completely different thing on another card (169).

At every turn, Pollack tosses out random, undeveloped references to material conventionally assumed to be "deep" and "profound": allusions to Greek and Hindu mythology, Kabbalah, Shakespeare, and televised science specials starring Carl Sagan (really). Here's the thing – Pollack exhibits no engaged understanding of any of the systems to which she alludes – it was Alexander Oparin, not Carl Sagan, who developed the theory Pollack credits to Sagan. Pollack repeats urban legends, for example the widely believed but false notion that full moons increase criminal activity (126). "Michelangelo's famous painting shows a spark leaping from God's finger to Adam's" (161). No, it does not.

Pollack's misrepresentations, in several cases, are not random. Rather, they are part of the received dogma of New Age thought. These are:

1.) Christianity is an oppressive, totalitarian, violent, misogynist, destructive system.

2.) Before the evil Christians showed up, people around the world enjoyed peaceful goddess worship (46)

3.) All over the world, once a year, priestesses representing the goddess would kill and dismember the male leader of the tribe (50, 84-5).

4.) All religions have at their core the same truth: people must transcend ego and join with the one.

None of the above postulates are true. In spite of their falsity, Many New Agers uphold them as dogma.

The Goddess belief was thoroughly debunked by Cynthia Eller in her book "The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future."

James Frazer's "Golden Bough," the source of the dying and rising God belief, has also been debunked.

Pollack has a problem with masculinity and "patriarchal society." She provides negative interpretations for tarot cards depicting male characters, even cards usually perceived as positive. The Emperor card represents the best in essential masculinity. Pollack reads it as a negative card referencing "force, aggression and war" an old, stiff, rigid, lifeless, barren scene, society and its laws, people who have never realized that their father is just a human being, people who surrender control of their lives to their lovers. Compare this to her reading of the Queen of Cups, depicting an emotional and spiritual woman. Most interpretations acknowledge that this woman has her failings; she can be overcome by her heart. Pollack, though, reads this feminine card as almost all positive, while reading the male Knight of Cups and King of Cups as almost all negative.

Again and again, Pollack insists that the pinnacle of the Tarot is to become a hermaphrodite. This is not true – tarot is a powerfully and traditionally gendered system depicting nurturing, maternal females and active, horse-riding and sword-wielding males. But Pollack herself identifies as a transsexual. The message: I am transsexual; therefore, everyone else should aspire to be a hermaphrodite.

Forget the church; rather, read comic books for your spiritual guidance (26). Pollack is a comic book author. Schizophrenics are misunderstood by rigid, Christian society. Schizophrenics are really shamans (34-5). The Christian church crushed women (36). Pollack has never heard of, or doesn't want you to know about, 2,000 years of Christian women from Mary Magdalene to Junia to Hildegard to Teresa to Dorothy Day.

Pollack's hostility to, falsification of, and envious, power-hungry  insistence on supplanting Christianity with the High Church of Rachel Pollack renders her incompetent to explain tarot to anyone. Tarot cards are rife with Christian symbols. One example on a card Pollack mentions frequently: the World. This card represents the pinnacle of success and satisfaction. It depicts a central figure surrounded by a victory wreath and four animals: an angel, a lion, an ox, and an eagle.

The World card is based on a very common Christian motif: Christ in Majesty. The four animals in the corners of the image symbolize Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the authors of the four Gospels. You would think that a book that purports to explain tarot would mention the very close relationship between the World card and the Christ in Majesty motif. It doesn't suit Pollack's purposes to do so, so she does not mention it. Like a Soviet-era photographer, she merely airbrushes out of her revisionist history anything that does not suit her purpose.

Pollack tells us that all religions have as their goal each person transcending himself through his own effort, and uniting with an impersonal New Age super-soul. Differences between religions can be fudged in order to create the new Rachel Pollack church. Hinduism justifies suffering with the concept of reincarnation. You do a bad thing in your past life; you are reincarnated as an untouchable, and you are treated badly. That's okay, because you did bad things in your past life, and you deserve to suffer. This is just like the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit, Pollack insists, bizarrely (86). Paul meeting Christ on the road to Damascus is just like Buddha achieving enlightenment (119). No, these events and concepts from three different belief systems are not equivalent, and attempting to hijack and misrepresent them for Pollack's new church insults these traditions and misleads naïve readers.

Pollack says that the tarot's Death card rides a white horse because white symbolizes purity (103). One of the most well-recognized lines from the New Testament states, "Behold a pale horse…his name that sat on him was Death." Pollack appears to be unaware of some of the most famous scriptural lines and artistic motifs, cultural material that is essential to understanding how tarot cards come to appear the way they do.

Tarot has undeniable value: artists create their own decks; users dialogue with their inner selves; decks provide cultural data for anthropologist and ethnographers. There are fun, thought-provoking books out there that reflect on tarot. One of the best is Joan Bunning's "Learning the Tarot."

Duct Tape and Cancer Scars

Duct Tape

Deena Metzger

If I were a true and deep artist and woman, I would look at my scar and write a poem or sculpt something uplifting.

As it is, I look at my scar and think, "Duct tape."

I am a spinster with no man of my own. I'm related to lots of men – brothers, uncles, cousins, nephews – who would, in accord with my family's tradition, not pee on me if I were on fire.

As a manless spinster I use a lot of duct tape. It really does fix everything, and anything duct tape can't fix is not worth salvaging.

So, yes. I look at this mess of a scar and think, not poem or essay, but, rather, "Duct tape."

***

Now, see, if I were a true artist and woman, I'd do something like the breathtaking poster, above, by Deena Metzger. One of the most stunning, bravest, and most generous images I have ever seen.

***

Went to the hospital today.

Waited in the waiting room.

Paged through copies of "Cancer Today."

A lovely woman came in with a dog so elegant this dog would put to shame Joan Crawford in an evening gown designed by Adrian.

"Would you like a visit?" the woman asked.

I reached out to the dog. It was a black Pomeranian. I've never seen a dog with such perfect fur: lush, thick, sleek, shiny. The Pomeranian's name was Neena and she was friendly. She was wearing a little vest that identified her as a service dog.

Her owner told me Neena's story:

"My boyfriend is a long-distance truck driver and he had Sophie, a black Pomeranian who traveled with him on the road. He had her for 18 years. After she died, he couldn't stand the idea of a new dog. 'No one can replace Sophie!'

'Well,' I said to him. 'No one can replace Sophie, but there are so many dogs out there who are lonely and uncared for. We can give a dog a home and some love.'

I worked on him for six months. Finally he said he'd let me get a dog, but it had to be a black Pomeranian just like Sophie. I went on petfinder.com. I found a black Pomeranian but he rejected that one. Didn't look enough like Sophie.

I found another. She was a survivor of Hurricane Katrina. They sent me a photo. She looked awful in the photo. I showed the photo to my boyfriend. In spite of how bad she looked, he said, 'Her!' So we flew to New Orleans and picked her up and here she is.

I'm going to take her to the tavern in Peapack." Did she really say that? Is there a tavern in Peapack that serves dinner to dogs?

But Neena had to go and I went back to waiting.

Thank God for Neena. Thank God for that nice lady.

I am afraid of medical settings and medical people. I've had some really bad medical experiences I won't detail here. You'd think that this would be on my chart: fears medical settings and medical people.

They called my name and I went into the room and undressed. Yet another person I'd never met before and would never see again who would touch my body in intimate ways entered the room. I shook a little; some tears fell. The woman, who had a deeply tanned face, loomed over me with a large pair of tweezers. She yelled. "YOU ARE TENSING UP. THAT WILL MAKE IT WORSE AND IT WILL HURT. *STOP IT.*"

She quickly glanced at my chart, discovered my name and spoke it. "Danusha! Relax! RELAX RELAX RELAX! You are going to make it hurt!"

Now, you might think that having a strange woman with a deeply tanned face looming over me, yelling in an overtly angry way, "RELAX" might tense me up.

But I'm from New Jersey, and this woman was very Jersey. It worked, for me.

I obeyed. I relaxed. I imagined walking off through the fields of bruise-blue rye in Slovakia, my Uncle Jan up ahead. We were walking toward the hills, toward the thickly forested hills, where Uncle Jan's beehives where. We'd tend to the bees and then hike around the mountain and hear cuckoos and the heavy panting of wild boar. He'd give me juniper berries to bite on for their clean taste. We'd fill a basket with mushrooms he unearthed, where I saw only moldering oak leaves on the forest floor, to bring home to Aunt Jolana to put in the soup we'd have for dinner.

"Your scar looks good," the woman who never told me her name or her title said. I knew more about Neena than I knew about this woman.

If my scar looks good, I don't want to see the scars that look bad.

I heard the staples hit a metal tray. She was careful to remove the staples from different parts of the scar so that no one part became irritated. It really didn't hurt. So often the case – people who are good at the technical aspects of medicine lack bedside manner. Those with the smooth bedside manner might not know the right end of a stethoscope.

I was about to venture my duct tape joke when she said, "I'm going to glue you up." And then, "Now I'm applying the tape."

So, yeah, tape. And glue. My latest accessories. But no spit or carpet tacks.

***

In other news. Check out my book, "Save Send Delete." The Amazon page, with some fabulous reviews, is here. Each time I sell a copy it extends my life – not really. It just feels that way. :-)

***
PS: Multiple blessings on Chris Jaworski for giving me a ride to the hospital today.

A black Pomeranian

What Good Are Sick People? Why Not Just Get Rid of Them? A Scientist's Answer

Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo pushes a woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs
in the 1947 film noir, "Kiss of Death" 

What good are sick people? Why not just get rid of them? Remember ancient Sparta, where babies were inspected after birth and exposed to death if they were defective? Remember the Nazis. The first and last group the Nazis mass murdered was not Jews, or Communists, or homosexuals, or trade unionists. The first and last group of people the Nazis mass murdered was the physically handicapped.

Okay, so you're not a Nazi. But sick people give you the creeps. So you just avoid them.

After all, health and happiness are desired, not illness and suffering. Why not just avoid sick and sad people?

Xavier Le Pichon, a scientist, offers an intriguing answer. Based on his science, Le Pichon concludes that both individual human beings and human societies actually require contact with the sick and the suffering in order to be healthy and whole.

Plate tectonics. Xavier Le Pichon worked out this theory, and applies it to his argument  that illness and suffering are necessary to individuals and to communities. 

Xavier Le Pichon (born 1937) has an amazing resume. He has lived enough for several lifetimes.

He survived internment in a World War II Japanese concentration camp. He was imprisoned as a small child, and lived under death threats.

He got a PhD in physics. At age 29, he contributed to a revolution in his own field. When he started out, geophysicists believed that the earth was fixed. The continents were always where they are located now. Le Pichon developed a comprehensive model of plate tectonics. This showed that the earth is in motion, and the continents move.

At the top of his game, at age 36, having revolutionized his own scientific field, and having been honored for that, Le Pichon realized that there was something missing from his life. He dropped everything. He decided to quit science. He left his positions and his honors.

He went to Calcutta, to work with Mother Teresa. One day he tried to feed one small boy who was starving to death in front of his eyes. In that small boy, Le Pichon saw Jesus. The experience was so profound for Le Pichon he decided never "to turn away my eyes from somebody who is suffering."

***

Xavier Le Pichon insists that contact with sick people and suffering people are necessary for the health and wholeness of each individual human, and for the health and wholeness of human society. He harnesses his work on plate tectonics to make this argument.

Le Pichon, a geophysicist, studies the earth. He says that where the earth is softer and more pliable, changes occur without trauma. Where the earth is perfect and rigid, changes occur with violence and destruction.

He says that this model applies to human individuals, and to human societies. Perfect people and perfect societies become rigid. To change, they must break.

People and societies that have incorporated human frailty into their worldview and their functioning grow smoothly. They don't need to break to grow.

Le Pichon, a devout Catholic, incorporates his understanding of Jesus into his worldview and his functioning. When he fed that starving child in Calcutta, he saw Jesus.

But, Le Pichon says, human societies have long had the compassionate model as one of their options. He cites discoveries in the Shanidar Cave in Iraq. This cave contained remains of Neanderthals. These remains were tens of thousands of years old. Among the remains was a man who had several physical handicaps. Shanidar 1, or Nandy, was an old man (by Neanderthal standards) who was severely deformed. He had many injuries that had healed over time. Nandy, researchers argue, showed that this ancient proto-human community made sacrifices in its own lifestyle in order to allow this old man who continue to live among them.

Le Pichon argues that the compassion this community showed to Nandy wasn't just good for Nandy, it was good for the community.

"When in a family or community you really are taking care with love of somebody who is sick or in the last stage of his life. Suddenly, we take turns around this person, and you create an extremely specific kind of man community…They have reorganized themselves around the small ones, the babies, because otherwise there is no life possible…But also the people who are in great difficulty because of suffering, because of sickness, because of handicap, because life is coming to the end. And that's really very new and special. You know, it becomes a society which we call human."

Some choose to wall themselves off from the sick and the suffering. Le Pichon argues that these people miss out on the essence of human experience and spiritual life.

"I've known some people that I've considered very generous, very open, and so on, and I've seen them progressively close themselves, begin to shut the doors, begin to be afraid of being invaded by this problem from the outside. And it's as if their heart, you know, were shriveling.

With others, you have the impression that they are always more and more open. I met Mother Teresa and of course Jean Vanier, Father Thomas Philippe, and so on, who are people who have this extraordinary capacity to enter into a relationship with people always open and in a relationship in which they immediately join the part which is most hidden and hurt in them. They have this capacity to enter into this new life, and it seems to deepen and deepen with time. It's as if you had two different ways.

You have this kind of big awakenings when the big catastrophe happens, either a collective one like a war or major accident, but it can be also a tragedy inside the family, not just outside. And they may react in a way that you cannot predict. Sometimes it's very bad. Sometimes it opens them up. So it's something difficult but my experience is that once you enter into this way of, I would call it companionship, you know, walking with the suffering person that has come into your life and that you have not rejected, then your heart progressively gets educated by them. You know, they teach you a new way of being.

We have to be educated by the other. Our heart cannot be educated by itself. I mean, my heart cannot be educated by myself.

It can only come out of a relationship with others. And if we accept to be educated by the others, to let the other explain to us what happens to them, how they feel, which is completely different from what we feel, and to let yourself immerse into their world so that they can get into our world, then you begin to share something which is very deep.

"You can change the world, but it's up to you. God is a mystery, but it can be discovered only through the weak, the fragile, the part of us and around us. And then we discover that this has a power of transformation of the world. Not through very strong armies or rockets or whatever that is."

Le Pichon also draws on his own memory of suffering:

"I remember when I was in the concentration camp. I was eight at the time. And life was hard. All the babies were dying of hunger and we were together. We were the center of life. We were continuously present with our parents, uncles, and so on, and that is not a bad memory for me."

***

Quotes from Xavier Le Pichon come from this transcript.

Xavier Le Pichon's essay "Ecce Homo" is here.

Suffering Proves the Soul. How Do You Measure Up?

Soldier in a foxhole. Source.

You have friends who are so scrupulously politically correct that their shit glows with a white magnesium flame and it smells of bleach. These friends were the very first to support Obama. They drive a Prius and their TV sets are programmed to disable transmissions from FOX news.

But if push came to shove, would these Politically Correct, publicly virtuous bleeding hearts be there for you? If you needed a loan, a ride, someone to hold your hand, would these PC superheroes show up and do the necessary or would they turn tail and run for the hills?

How do you know?

***

Talk to an old soldier, a combat veteran. They all say the same thing: "You never know who you can trust in a foxhole."

These old soldiers will tell you: some men swagger, use judo moves to pick up cafeteria trays, clean their teeth with deer-skinning knives. You'd think that these Chuck Norris wanna-bes would be the ones you could rely on in a foxhole. Once the enemy fire started, these macho warriors would not be the ones to forget the most fundamental basics of military training, like how to pull the pin on a grenade. They would not break down and cry for mommy.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Other guys you don't even notice. They are as slim as shadows and as quiet as summer leaves. Their back pockets bulge with paperback books. They exhibit zero enthusiasm for the paraphernalia of war. If they talk at all, it's about what they'll do once it's all over and they can return to civilian life. You'd never want to be stuck in a foxhole with these wimps.

Maybe. Maybe not.

***

Yes, the foxhole is a big fat metaphor.

Life will throw you a curve. One day you are dancing, falling in love, enjoying the sunshine. The next day you get a cancer diagnosis, you are in a car wreck, you lose your job or you're accused of a crime.

The people who surrounded you the day you were dancing and laughing will be different from the people who surround you the day after your bad news.

Think you can predict, now, while things are good, who would stick by you after the shelling starts?

Maybe. Maybe not.

***

My provisional list of Foxhole Rules:

1.) You are going to be in a lot of foxholes: illness, financial setbacks, emotional crises, disappointments, days when, no matter how hard you look, you can't find the remote.

2.) You never know who you can depend on in a foxhole until you are in a foxhole.

3.) People you thought were your best friend forever will let you down. Rather than take names, you best learn, forgive, and move on. Remember the foxholes where you peed your own pants rather than be a hero; remember the times you let someone else down – and forgive yourself, learn and move on.

4.) Exactly because you don't know in advance whom you can rely on in a foxhole, you can't know who, of the people you see right now, is a hero. You are surrounded by foxhole heroes you do not recognize. The person who literally saved someone else's life, the person who donated a kidney, the person who stayed up all night with a broken-hearted stranger met in a bus depot, the person who loaned an unemployed parent a thousand bucks – you are surrounded by these people, and you do not recognize them.

***

Why does God allow suffering? I offered my best answer to that question in "Save Send Delete." I was promoting this just-published book this summer when I received a cancer diagnosis. I am now learning even more about suffering.

Suffering doesn't affect only the person who is suffering. Suffering affects others around that person.

I've watched a lot of people wrestle with cancer. I know how cancer reduces victims to helplessness.

I'm alone. No family. Few friends. No car. Little money. I live low-rent in a broken city, where I can't even rely on mail delivery, police protection from gang violence or garbage pick-up, never mind humanitarian social services.

How would I get through even the initial battery of tests – MRI, cat scan, x-rays, sonogram? The hospital I need to go to is inaccessible via public transport. Never mind days when I would not be able to walk from bed to bath.

I'm in a foxhole.

My suffering suddenly becomes a test for everyone I know. Will you offer a ride, bring groceries, say something compassionate?

Maybe this is part of why God allows suffering: not just so that the person who is suffering can grow, but so that those around the person who is suffering are offered a chance for growth.

Which one of these folks could I rely on:

The devout, church-going Catholics, who swear fealty, out loud, every Sunday, to service and compassion?

The academic hipsters, who announce at every wine-and-cheese how much more enlightened they are than the unworthy masses?

The artists, who insist that their unconventional life-path devoted to beauty, not filthy money, elevates their souls?

The suburbanites who work hard and play by the rules?

The leftwing Democrats who are certain that they have the formula to save the world?

The rightwing Republicans who are certain that they have the formula to save the world?

Want to guess?

***

Some people really did turn and run. Who?

People who had previously insisted that they loved me and that we were friends forever and ever. People I had known for years. People whose house I had slept at. People with whom I had celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas and birthdays. People whose hands I held when they faced life crises. People who publicly, loudly and repeatedly proclaim how much more righteous and compassionate they are than other people, who are shocked, shocked by other people's callous insensitivity and selfishness and hypocrisy.

I said, "I just found out I have cancer" and they disappeared as if they were cartoon characters and could erase themselves from my life and I from theirs, leaving no trace.

Do you think I'm inviting you to judge and condemn these disappeared ones?

I'm not.

Remember the foxhole rules: life is going to throw you a lot of foxholes, learn, forgive, remember.

Every one of the people who disappeared after I got cancer was someone who had been supportive of me in some other foxhole.

One of the people who disappeared – let's call her M. M is a very artistic, creative person.

This may sound silly to you. It's not silly to me.

I tell this story in "Save Send Delete."

One night I was very sad because I had watched a movie that ended badly. Ridiculous, I know.

I phoned M and she, using her artistic skills, rewove the entire movie for me. As bewitching as Scheherazade, she used her voice and her breath, in that phone call, to soothe me, but also to enchant me.

I love and value her powers of enchantment.

I'm sorry she can't be my friend now.

I forgive because I've let people down, too.

And I'm moving on. No looking back.

***

So here's my answer to the question I asked above. Of the groups of people I named, the right-wingers, the left-wingers, the Christians, the atheists, the this, the that.

Who let me down after I found out I had cancer? Who offered real support?

Some leftwing people have been helpful. Some have disappeared.

Some rightwing people have been helpful. Some have disappeared.

Some Christians have been helpful. Some have disappeared.

Some Atheists have been helpful. Some have disappeared.

Some people who stand up in public and beat their chests about righteousness and circulate petitions – some are helpful. Some disappear.

Some … but you get the idea.

Words and ideology do not matter. In a foxhole, actions matter. A person's substance matters. Only suffering proves that substance.

Like the old soldiers say, you can't predict whom you can rely on in a foxhole.

***

With one exception.

This is hard for me to say. I'm saying it because it's true, and it's worth thinking about.

With this new foxhole, as with every other foxhole, Catholic priests have let me down. They've been dismissive, passive, self-protective, trivializing, dense, arrogant, lacking in compassion, utterly clueless about how the real world works, or inaccessible.

I hope at some point we Catholics will take a look at our priesthood and consider changes we might make that might invite a different kind of person to become a Catholic priest.

***

I've talked here about how helpful Robin Schaffer has been to "Save Send Delete."

Perhaps people conclude that as kids, Robin and I slept over each other's houses, and read romance novels together by flashlight under the sheets, and ate raw cookie dough together, brushed each other's hair, applied polish to each other's toenails.

Not so.

Robin and I met as adults. We were working on the same campus. We spent very little time together, but we did like each other and we hung out.

I left to go to grad school. Robin and I fell out of touch. I moved back to New Jersey several years ago, googled Robin, and we got back in touch again.

We're very different people.

Example: I think the 1950, black-and-white, Bette Davis film "All About Eve" is one of the top ten films ever made. I recommended it to Robin. She didn't care for it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another example: Obama. Our feelings about Obama are the opposite of each other's.

So. There you have it. Robin and I are very different people, and though we are friends, we don't have a long, deep history.

This is not the person you would predict to be my best ally in a foxhole.

Bette Davis (r.) as Margo Channing in the 1950 film "All about Eve." Robin and I disagree about her.

We disagree about this guy, as well. 

Robin did three things that stand out:

1.) Robin sat with me.

I am an adjunct professor. I make money, but just enough to live hand-to-mouth. I teach – vital work – but adjunct professors are not valued enough by society to have health insurance. In a year when I made $6,000 as an adjunct professor, St. Joseph's hospital turned me down for charity care. Not poor enough. "We have people coming in with no income or assets whatsoever!" Of course that's not true, and everyone knows it. The people getting charity care at St. Joe's are wise enough to work under the table. Adjunct professors don't have that luxury, so St. Joe's turns us away. And St. Joe's is a Catholic institution.

Getting a cancer diagnosis and devoting a week after that diagnosis to trying to find a doctor to treat me was a slice of hell.

I did not visit that hell alone.

Robin was with me.

2.) Robin drove me.

I found a hospital to treat me, one not accessible via public transportation. Robin drove me there and back more times than I care to count.

3.) Robin took me in.

Nurses warned: after surgery, you cannot go home alone. I needed a bedroom and a bathroom and a pair of hands ready, in reserve, if I could not navigate the path between. Robin provided. She worked from home and stayed nearby so I would not be alone.

***

Pretty simple, no? As it happens, I did not require Robin to wipe my ass, or to drain my catheter, or to do any of that other icky stuff. I didn't break down and cry, didn't make demands, didn't make noise. I was determined to be an inconspicuous house guest, and I think I was. All until the last day when I yelled at Robin for vacuuming a floor I had previously swept, but, hey.

I sometimes wish I could say this to the people who are afraid to give, afraid to get involved: "It's much easier than you think, and it actually feels good."

Me? I want to save the world from environmental doom. I cannot do so. I do what I can do. I write checks to nature organizations: The Audubon Society, the World Wildlife Fund, the Nature Conservancy. For me, these checks are a lot of money, and I have to sacrifice some things to write these checks. Guess what? That little moment of sacrifice to do a good thing feels better than spending that money on presents for myself.

People are afraid to give because they are afraid that giving will be too much – someone will ask them for a kidney, a home loan.

Maybe not. Maybe you'll just have to sit next to someone who's gotten some really bad news, or give that person a ride, or let that person sleep under your roof for a week. And maybe doing that will feel better than spending that week in glorious isolation.

***

Otto Gross visited and transported and shopped and sent caring emails at key moments. Antoinette brought medication. Chris drove. Stephen sent a lovely email the morning of surgery: "Waiting to," he wrote "read the next great novel from one of my favorite authors. Speedy recovery!" A group of friends did something really kind I can't describe here – but stay tuned. If the storm passes, there will be a blog post about their kindness someday, too. Claire lit a candle and sent me a photo of the candle. A blessed group of people prayed. The Polish town of Markowa will offer a mass.

Not their own suffering, but someone else's, has taught these people, for a fact, this about themselves: I am someone who can be relied on in a foxhole. And it feels good to be that person.

***

I actually did save somebody's life once. Her name was Andrea Link and it was while I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. Funny – I wanted to save Third World children. I ended up saving an American woman.

At other times, I have not been someone you could rely on in a foxhole. I learned, thereby, to show compassion to others who drop the ball. I forgive myself and others. I move on.

***

In my next blog post I will relate the question of suffering, and foxholes, and the folks who have been kind to me, to the essay "Ecce Homo" by Xavier Le Pichon, the groundbreaking scientist and devout Catholic.

Who shares your foxhole? Can you rely on him? How do you know? 

I heard a bird sing

Bob Mullen, Nature Photography

I Heard a Bird Sing
by
Oliver Herford

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

"We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,”
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.