ב"ה
On Illness, Wellness & Life
I talk to Him rarely. I rarely even pray for my recovery. I take all this for granted.
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There was no longer this "prison" or "vessel" or "garment" of the body. There was no longer soul and body as separate entities. What I was experiencing was in contradiction with all the language that I'd read and heard through the years
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In today's world, we're told that the faster and fuller we "carry on with our lives" after we lose someone, the healthier we are. Does this mean that we're all disposable and replaceable? Can our loved ones laugh so quickly after we're gone?
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It is a journey into memories of days lost or at least misplaced. Sometimes it takes every ounce of courage I have to not turn them away, to allow them to wrench my gut and heart with shame and regret and pass through my body like a wave of fire...
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There's this wonderful pool of light coming through the window, and beauty in the chaos of white, plastic envelopes awaiting pickup by hundreds of people who, like me, have come to see what was taking place in their innards
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The life lived in this lumpy body with its pathological blood. No one, I realized, envied my life or considered it normal. No one, that is, but me. Because, you see, it's my life...
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What does light give? The details. The color and texture. The fullness and the goodness. It balances the shadows and fills in the outlines, so that the remaining darkness only adds contrast, complexity, beauty and interest to my world.
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Let go to the weakness, to the unknown, to the sadness, to the future, to the new you that you are getting to know. Let go, and feel the thrill. Let go, and let G-d catch you as you fall
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I have a vision of You that is both magnificent and horrible, tolerable only in Your completeness, bearable only when I remember or occasionally glimpse that in being All, You also blend dark and light
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We land upon foreign, distant shores, pioneers of a self born simply of our soul demanding its expansion.
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And suddenly, one night, don’t ask me how or why, the point widened. Suddenly You were everywhere, too many places for me to reach at once, for me to contain....
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My hair, thank G-d, is growing back. Hair, beard, eyebrows, eyelashes, the works. My color has returned, or at least transformed from a yellow brown pallor to a more healthy tone. I'm lookin' good. At least that's what everyone says...
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Do any of us possess such simplicity and sincerity, such innocence and whole-heartedness, such impeccability in our bitachon as to eliminate any vestige of doubt or fear?
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"Jay," my friend wrote in his e-mail, "I don’t think you should go to shul and ask G-d for forgiveness. This Yom Kippur you should stay home, and G-d should beg you to forgive Him for what He's done to you"
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A strange thing has happened since my diagnosis. It seems that G-d's voice has grown louder. Too loud, sometimes...
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Are you hero or victim? The hero who never cries nor feels the fear, the panic, the regrets that are part and parcel of his condition? The victim who never encounters his bravery nor feels the transcendent power of rising above death, if only for a moment? Neither have bitachon...
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