The Spirituality of Illness – Mountains & Heart Surgery

I listened to a Speaking of Faith podcast recently with cardiovascular surgeon, Dr Mehmet Oz. It’s funny how priorities change. Last year when I started to download these podcasts I went through the archive for interviews I wanted to listen to. I presume I just skimmed over this one, not even registering its presence, because it wasn’t of much interest. I was fit and well, and anything to do with this kind of subject would just be of academic interest. Things have changed somewhat.

Speaking of the role of illness in faith formation, he said,

At the end of the day, being ill is an opportunity for us to learn more about why we’re here. “Some folks climb mountains, others get to have heart surgery,” I’ll often tell them.

I found that strangely helpful. I see this as a mountain that I must climb where physical recovery begins on its farther slopes.

It’s not that I would have chosen this, in the way that a mountaineer chooses to challenge him- or herself against a mountain that just happens to be there. But now that this challenge has raised its head, it is there to be tackled. This is my mountain. It’s there. How I face this will go a long way towards determining the role it plays in my life and in my faith formation.

I sometimes think that I now have a better understanding of Jesus in Gethsamene, wrestling with his options, pleading for an escape route, and finally learning to accept the will of God. And in turn I understand better what it means for Hebrews to say that he was perfected through his sufferings and knows what it’s like to be human.