August 9, 2004
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Grace and Grit
I finally got my own copy of this book so I can underline and mark it up, because it is truly a book to learn from. Originally suggested to me by thedavidwang, it is the story of Treya Killam Wilber as told by her husband, Ken Wilber, a psychologist who has written many books in the area of psychology, philosophy, and healing. Treya Wilber, who was also involved in the healing professions, died of breast cancer diagnosed shortly after their marriage. The book is a description of their five-year battle together and what they learned. While there is no cancer in my immediate family that I’m aware of, I think almost everyone has in their peripheral vision the scenario of how they would deal with a life-threatening illness, what kind of depths would their courage have if it was needed. Ken Wilber explores not only the illness itself, but all the forms of treatment, as well as spiritual paths in general. I’ve begun to read the book and will share bits and pieces as I go along, starting with this:
…the first thing you learn about cancer information is: basically, none of it is true….In any disease, a person is confronted with two very different entities. One, the person is faced with the actual disease process itself…Call this aspect of disease “illness.” …But two, the person is also faced with how his or her society or culture deals with that illness–with all the judgments, fears, hopes, myths, stories, values, and meanings that a particular society hangs on each illness. Call this aspect of disease “sickness.” …If a culture treats a particular illness with compassion and enlightened understanding, then sickness can be seen as a challenge, as a healing crisis and opportunity…When sickness is viewed positively and in supportive terms, then illness has a much better chance to heal, with the concomitant result that the entire person may grow and be enriched in the process….Most disturbing is the fact that when society judges a sickness to be “bad,” when it judges a sickness negatively, it almost always does so exclusively out of fear and ignorance….Now cancer is an illness about which very little is actually known (and there is virtually nothing known about how to cure it). And therefore, cancer is a disease around which an enormous number of myths and stories have grown up. As an illness, cancer is poorly understood. As a sickness, it has assumed awesome proportions. And as difficult as the illness of cancer is, the sickness of cancer is absolutely overwhelming.
Deep Thought: The old pool shooter had won many a game in his life. But now it was time to hang up the cue. When he did, all the other cues came crashing to the floor. “Sorry,” he said with a smile.
Today I am grateful for: Weather forecasts
Comments (10)
Ken Wilbur is definitely on my list when I have a book-buying budget again. I love his consciousness, his writing. And he is so right to characterize the double-sidedness of disease, the illness itself, and the attitudes towards the one who is ill, a mixture of empathy, pain, fear and love perhaps. What I find most disturbing, however, is, even among ‘enlightened’ healers, the blame the victim mentality. A person who is fighting a life-threatening illness should not have to carry around guilt and self-recrimination because they have been told, have come to believe that somehow their thoughts caused the illness! Take this burden off those who are facing death, and perhaps they will find it easier to heal back into life…
Yes, and this is one of the things he addresses which I will mention in a later post. I got my copy online from Powell’s book secondhand. You can get amazing deals through Powell’s or Amazon.com.
the book sounds interesting, yet depressing. i’ve never lost anyone to cancer but i have seen a friend or two go through chemo. i’ve often thought that it would be helpful to go through hospice with someone to really get a first hand experience at a spirit leaving this world. is that morbid? i just think it would be good preparation.
To me, the idea that the book provides information about all possible sources of comfort and hope is the opposite of depressing, especially since those sources can be used for other challenges besides desperate illness.
I did visit someone in hospice once who was dying of AIDS. He was so full of morphine and unable to speak it was hard to know for sure what was happening with his spirit.
I also was at the bedside of my father, my mother, and an aunt very close to their deaths. None of them could speak either because they were too ill. It did give me a much greater push to protect my own health and also to plan to be able to die at home when the day finally comes – if at all possible.
Unfortunately, as a nurse in an inpatient setting, I see the worst, . . . the cancer patients with end of life issues, pneumonia, uncontrollable pain, severe weakness, weight loss. So, many of us, (nurses) have negative perceptions about this disease. We don’t see the ones that have outpatient treatment, get better, make joyful decisions about their last years, and so on. We could learn alot from this book.
Yes, I think we call could. In the case of Treya Wilber, I haven’t read the whole book yet but I believe she and her husband faced all of the above and probably time in the hospital also.
anything that helps you survive is better…
felix
I was thinking of my own blood relatives, hon. Besides Felix, there was Ron’s mom.
wow, i was flipping through grace and grit just now as i surfed to this post. glad you like it!