The Treasure in Sickness
Well, DPM started out with a bang and quickly fizzled into nothingness thanks to a mutant bronchitis-cum-walking pneumonia I’ve been saddled with lo these past three weeks. Gawd, the bone-crunching fatigue! I’ve not been able to stay more than 15 minutes at my computer without my eyelids snapping closed. I wake up several hours later, my chest a lake of drool and no idea where I am or where I’ve been (Hmmm. Missing time. Could be alien abduction).
If not sleep, I’m still unable to remain vertical for long – my body yearns for horizontal and gravity is just too damn heavy! How I made the drive to and from Santa Fe (1600 miles round trip) AND did facilitator training with this plague is a major miracle!
Upon return home, however, I completely collapsed into the illness and let myself sleep, sleep, sleep and READ…voraciously. This is my treasure in sickness – I have an “excuse” for indulging in two of my most favorite things in the world. I read Eric Idle’s The Greedy Bastard Diary, a eminently readable, amusing, sometimes sad and bittersweet blow-by-blow of his Greedy Bastard Tour in 2003 of the USA and Canada. There’s some amazing stuff in there about his friendship with George Harrison – stuff you wouldn’t find anywhere else, I’m certain. And a great passage about him being in an elevator in the ’70s with Henry Kissinger, Ronnie Wood and Kissinger’s bodyguard that had me laughing so hard it segued into an hour-long coughing fit! Idle has had the kind of life I’ve experienced in drips and dabs here and there and which I fully expect to increase with age. Very inspiring…
Another great read has been In Search of Sacred Places: Looking for Wisdom on Celtic Holy Islands by Daniel Taylor. It’s a beautiful little book on the meaning of the sacred and where it resides. It’s a paean to the depth of faith of Celtic monks and the deep holiness found in simplicity and turning within. I loved the fact that it’s author is a professor of literature and writing at Bethel University in St. Paul and was raised Baptist smack in the middle of Texas – exploring Celtic (Catholic) Christianity!
All this reading and watching old Star Trek has given me lots of new ideas, so I look forward to the Great Clearing of Phlegm and getting back into the flow. Thanks to my illness for forcing me to take time to reenergize myself!
