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"God, I hurt."
Prayer is inspired by God's character, his promises and love for us, not our faith or feelings. We pray because we believe that God exists and cares for us. The psalms are survivor prayers from a people who desire and expect deliverance from God. They pray as if their request has already been granted. This is hope. We too, pray for the will and ability to enter into the healing and salvation that is already present.
An occurrence of pain can be brief and simple or prolonged and complex. In chronic pain is the opportunity for impression, interpretation and revelation. Pain is experienced both in chronos and kairos time. Chronos is clock time, the human construct we use to order our lives. Kairos is the time and space where chronos stands still. It is the divine place where human time does not exist. It is the place where God hears, God heals, and God saves.
Praying in pain places us in the presence of God, with or without words. This presence is a form of praying, without effort, in kairos time. This is sufficient, because God's grace is sufficient.
Suggested Psalms
Ps. 61, especially verse 1 - "Hear my cry, O god, listen to my prayer."
Ps. 30, especially verse 2 - "I cried to you for help, and you have healed me."
Ps. 22 Note the transition from plea to praise.
Ps. 73 Job - Why me?
Ps. 77
Ps. 88
Ps. 91
Ps. 102:17
Ps. 130
A meditation from Chaplain Christiana Liem
Imagine that you are in the preparation of entering a beautiful castle that is your inner self. In this beautiful castle dwells someone that you highly respect and love, the King of Glory. You want to enter this place with reverence. The gate to enter the castle is prayer. As you enter the gate, you notice a sign, "The King of Glory dwells in this castle."
The castle has its round shape and the King of Glory resides in its center. His loving light shines through out the castle. However, the castle is huge and not all paths receive enough light from the center. There are many paths, twists and turns like difficult life circumstances that you may have to go through before you reach the center.
Sometimes, your paths are dim and you may stumble or fall. But, you determine to continue your journey. The further you walk into the castle, the further you walk into your inner self. As you go further inside, you walk closer to the center and your path gets brighter and brighter. You feel the warmth of the light. It is a loving light of the King of Glory.
Your desire is to be in the presence of the King. His voice invites you to come closer to him, "Come, all of you who are weary and heavy-laden, for I will give you rest." Always remember his saying and continue your journey till you reach the center, in the presence of the King of Glory, that is the Divine who dwells within you. As you are in his presence, may his face shine upon you and may his presence give you peace, comfort and assurance of his faithfulness.
Every year, M. D. Anderson treats hundreds of patients 18 years of age and younger with diverse malignancies. Psychosocial supportive services can enhance the patient and family's adjustment to treatment and help insure a positive quality of survivorship.
Beginning on Dec. 1, the Child, Adolescent and Young Adult Outreach Program will be available to address the psychosocial and educational needs of all patients ages from birth to18 years. All new patients from birth to 18 years old who remain at M. D. Anderson for care will have a psychosocial/educational needs assessment and evaluation through the Child, Adolescent and Young Adult Outreach Program.
The services and benefits provided to these patients will include:
- Patient and family education, preparation for medical tests and procedures and ongoing peer support groups.
- Classroom and bedside academic instruction by qualified teachers and counselor-liaison services to coordinate schoolwork with the patient's home school or help with the transition back to school.
- GED and SAT preparation, job discovery of career interests, college application assistance and job interviewing skills.
- Assessment and counseling by licensed professionals, neuropsychological and development testing (upon medical consultation).
This new psychosocial outreach program is lead by pediatric psychologist Martha Askins, Ph.D., and sponsored by the Children's Cancer Hospital. Patients will continue to be cared for by their primary care team, but will have access to additional resources that will support their psychosocial and educational needs.
For more information or to refer a patient, call 713-792-6868 or e-mail kidsrule@mdanderson.org.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Honoring
The Honorable James A. Baker, III
and
Susan Baker
Honorary Co-Chairs
Dr. and Mrs. John Mendelsohn
Benefiting
The University of Texas
M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Dept. Of Chaplaincy and Pastoral Education
THE HOUSTONIAN HOTEL
111 North Post Oak Lane
Houston, TX 77024
For more information
Call 713-862-8482, or visit our website at
www.chaplaincyfund.org
Chaplain and cancer survivor Debra Jarvis provided the Texas Medical Center chaplains with her insights, many of which she has included in her recent book, It's Not about the Hair. Jarvis provides a unique perspective as one who provides pastoral support to those who are ill, and has faced a life-threatening diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. I found her to be engaging, humorous, and insightful. I've included below a few of her insights which I jotted down during her presentation. You can also join me in a discussion on our community forum, where I have a message tree entitled: "survivor vs. pilgrim".
".....the medical aspect is such a a small part of the cancer experience."
" ...we connect through our vulnerabilities."
"...be alert to the gifts in the cancer experience - no one can tell you what they may be, or when or where they will show up - just be alert."
" ....in terms of transformation in the context of a life-threatening illness like cancer - people are tempted to go back to the way it was before the illness, which is to lose the precious opportunity to learn and grow from adversity."
Once cancer care ends, many patients have the same question, "Now what?" To help answer this and many other concerns, M. D. Anderson has launched a new survivorship Web site. Through this site, our survivors can learn more about cancer, cancer treatment and survivorship. Thanks to early detection and improved treatments, millions of Americans are surviving cancer. There are more than 10 million survivors in the United States and more than 20 million worldwide. For those in the health field, survivorship is an up-and-coming issue. "I think we are entering a new phase in the medical chronicles of cancer care," says Alma Rodriguez, M.D., vice president of Medical Affairs. "Today many types of cancers are either curable or chronic, and patients will live through the cancer or with the cancer for years." There are three stages of survivorship: living with cancer, living through cancer and living beyond cancer. "Anyone who is living with and through and after the cancer is a survivor," says Rodriguez. "There are just different problems to deal with at each of these stages."
The site has facts for every stage of survivorship. You may also search by disease or cancer-related topic for more specifics. To access the Web site, go to http://www.mdanderson.org/topics/survivorship/ . Not only is the site a learning tool, it sends a message of hope through patients' personal stories. For easy use, the site has five sections:
- Patients' stories
- An online survivorship guide
- Medical survivorship services at M. D. Anderson
- Social, psychological, spiritual and educational resources at M. D. Anderson
- News and articles about survivorship
"The survivorship Web site will benefit patients by directing them to services available at M. D. Anderson.," says Rodriguez. "It provides published and updated information from various literature sources, as well as updated policy and advocacy concerns that may be relevant to patients with cancer and patients who have been treated for cancer. Through links, such as to the Anderson Network, it also connects patients to other survivors, who may be able to share their experiences and provide support. It is a one-stop shopping site for those who are seeking various types of information." With over 40,000 survivors at M. D. Anderson alone, this site will continue to grow to give the most up-to-date survivorship information available at M. D. Anderson.
Modern medicine has accomplished incredible things in the last fifty years or so. Developments in vaccines, antiobiotics, surgical interventions, prevention and treatments of major illness have been extraordinary. Everyone knows someone who has been blessed by medicine. There is every reason to believe that future advances are still in the pipeline. In a strange way, however, the very scientism of medicine has contributed to the undoing of an appreciation for the spiritual dimension of human experience. On the positive side, if one becomes ill, the problem is reduced to a "matter" of chemistry, tissues, and organs that can be physically treated. At the same time, the experience of illness is reduced only to matters, viz., chemistry, tissues, and organs. The ill person, therefore, need see nothing of spiritual significance in illness in order to be successfully treated. God, in a sense, is removed from the equation. You see, the spirit never shows up in the test tube. And yet, the true spiritual foundation of life pushes through. Human beings are not finally content for their lives to be reduced to samples on a slide. The Spirit which is within us all cries out for God to be found within matter itself. We want to know that our lives matter, have significance, and purpose, maybe even our diseases. In an ancient twist of logic, it is that very longing to see God's work in everything that led people to say that God "caused" illness, or "permitted" it to happen, or even "intervened miraculously" to bring about a cure. I think what we really wanted to affirm is not that God causes illness or tragedy but that God is involved in every aspect of our human experience. God truly is sovereign over all not because God makes everything happen but because God cares for everyone and everything that does happen. Science on one extreme took God out of everything; religion on the other made God the puppet master. Both missed the point. The spirit cries out that we are more than matter. We see meaning and purpose, even promise in every illness, every injury. God meets us where we live, in the good and the bad and the ugly. And that is what we truly mean by the providence of God, that God provides all that God's children need to face life with love, with wonder, and with hope. Medicine has been a blessing and a challenge. Yet the traditional view of Western medicine is being expanded to include spirit along with matter. When we stop putting things in separate boxes we will see the unity, the sacred unity of all things. Then we will understand that in medicine, in illness, and in treatment the work of God is being done.
- Steven Spidell DMin , BCC
A film screening is coming up this month that should be interesting. The film is called "The Power of Forgiveness" and is a new and powerful documentary offering stories with Thich Nhat Hanh, Elie Wiesel and features on the Amish, Ground Zero, Beirut, Belfast and others. The Boniuk Center along with The Documentary Alliance are the sponsors of this event on Saturday, November 17th at the Rice Media Center. Please see the campus map at www.rice.edu.
7:00pm - filmmaker reception
8:00pm - film screening
9:00pm - q/a with the director
Admission is $10 and includes refreshments. Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance at Rice University
Sending His Cancer a Signal
When doctors told John Kanzius he had nine months to live, he quietly thanked God for his blessings and prepared to die. Then 58, he had lived a good life, with a loving wife, two successful adult daughters and a gratifying career.
Read the article here: Sending His Cancer a Signal (free registration required)
Prayers for Healing: 365 Blessings, Poems, and Meditations From Around the World. edited by Maggie Oman. c1999.
The goal of this collection is to foster healing by gathering together inspirational writings from a wide variety of different traditions and historical periods. The collection is organized according to seasons in "the hope that being mindful of nature's cycles will foster healing." Some of the selections are anonymous while others have a religious identification which ranges from Christian Psalms to Zen chants to The Upanishads. In addition, there are a large number of selections by religious and literary authors, such as St. Bernadette, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lao-Tsu and Rabbi Harold Kushner. Plus, there are many beautiful and inspirational pieces by little known authors. The editor hopes that every reader will find at least one prayer that "will resonate deeply within them".
Angels. Jane Williams. c2006
This is a beautifully illustrated engaging book. It discusses the appearance, purpose and relevance of angels as they appear in Jewish and Christian scripture. It also touches on literature (for ex. Milton, John Henry Newman and C.S. Lewis) and art and how these traditions or depictions of angels do or do not relate back to scripture. The tone of the book is relaxed and conversational. In one place, it is almost humorous, in the author's description of a biblical story about a donkey seeing an angel when its master could not. Topics range from "What do angels look like?" to "Angels and Jesus" and "Angels and God". Although written by a theologian, and including a few passages of scripture, this is not an academic book. Rather, it is a refreshing tour through angels in scripture and their possible relevance to our everyday world.
On Tuesday, October 30th, at M. D. Anderson's Hickey Auditorium, an audience of clinical faculty, clinical staff, support staff, chaplains, local clergy, and visitors were treated to an in-depth and comprehensive presentation of the current state of research about religion and cancer. The event was hosted by the Division of Cancer Medicine and Chaplaincy Department, and featured guest lecturer George Fitchett, Dmin, PhD, Associate Professor and the Director of Research in the Department of Religion, Health and Human Values at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Dr. Fitchett can be contacted at: George_Fitchett@rush.edu
Dr. Fitchett presented a compelling argument that there is a growing body of research that is helping healthcare professionals to determine the effects of religion upon well-being, in the context of cancer. He organized his presentation of current research by focusing upon six desired outcomes. He then made reasonable conclusions, based upon the evidence for a measurable association between religion and cancer. The following summarizes his presentation:
1. Incidence, mortality, survival: Religious involvement is associated with lower incidence and mortality and longer survival: Evidence - Incidence - suggestive; Mortality - Mixed; Survival - No association
2. Health behavior: Religious involvement is associated with greater adherence to recommendations for cancer screening: Evidence - Reasonable
3. Importance of religion: A large majority of cancer patients report that religion is important to them. A diagnosis with cancer is associated with increased importance of religion: Evidence - Consistent
4. Quality of Life: Religious involvement is associated with better quality of life: Evidence - Reasonable
5. Psychological adjustment: Religious involvement is associated with better psychological adjustment to illness: Evidence - Reasonable
6. Religious struggle: Religious struggle is associated with poorer psychological adjustment to illness: Evidence - Suggestive
On November 2, 2007 Guideposts Magazine will be honoring Dr. and Mrs Mendelsohn with their Humanitarian of the Year Award. The Norman Vincent and Ruth Stafford Peale Humanitarian Award, created and first given in 1999, recognizes outstanding, caring individuals whose generous and compassionate motivations have made a significant, positive difference in the quality of life in our society. The recipients exmplify Norman and Ruth Peale's philosophy, that of being " willing to give not only time, prayer, love and service, but also personal resources", and thereby they "discover one of the great laws in this universe...the law of abundance."
John and Anne Mendelsohn are considered two of Houston's most prominent and influential citizens. Dr. John Mendelsohn has made countless contributions to medicine and cancer research, while Anne Mendeloshn has devoted her life to civic service, technology advancement, and philanthropy.
The Mendelsohn's are also good friends of the Chaplaincy Department, with their faithful support of our programs, our people, and our efforts to bring compassion and hope into the context of cancer care.
Congratulations Dr. and Mrs. Mendelsohn!
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