CHRISTIAN'S SPIRITUALITY

Sixth Monday in Lent (March 31), 2020

From Active to Contemplative

Part 1

or

Your Life is Changing, but My Life is Changing More

    As most of you know, I have Ideopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, a progressive lung disease that is in my case and most cases terminal. The only cure is a lung transplant, a great thing for younger people with the disease but not advised for people of my age and health. Normal survival rate for IPF patients from time of diagnoses is 3-5 years, but this time has been lengthened by new drugs, which became available in 2014. The drug I take, Ofev, shows an average of 33% slowing of the progress of the disease. At least one study estimates that Ofev users may average up to 11 years mean lifespan after diagnosis, but we're not 11 years out from 2014, so it's only an estimate. I was diagnosed in January, 2017, so I am 3 years and 3 years and 2 months past diagnosis. 

     The disease tends to progress in spurts. A patient can stay at the same level for a fairly long time, then suddenly have a sharp decline, as I did a little less than three weeks ago. Once the decline is experienced, the patient cannot return to where he or she was before. The patient stays at the new level until another decline takes place.

     Two and a half weeks ago, my blood oxygen levels, which had been at a safe 90% and above, suddenly dropped to the mid to low 80's and remained at that level. A day later I called Pulmonary Triage at Duke, who told me to go immediately to the ER. I was in Duke Hospital the next 3 days and put on supplemental oxygen. I will likely be on oxygen the rest of my life. 

    I feel great, no pain. I am tethered to an oxygen supply and have canulas in my nose. My apologies to those to whom I have already told this story for retelling it here.

    At the end of last summer, anticipating that I would experience some health decline, I told the Omegas and Disciple people, as well as the pastors, that this would be my last year of teaching. I made a good call on that one.

      I saw myself moving from an active life to a contemplative life. What the contemplative life is will take considerable explanation. The short of it is that contemplatives pray. That's what they do. That is their principal job in life. They of course do other things, but they see prayer as their central focus. They know a lot about prayer.  They have studied prayer. They know ways of prayer unfamiliar to most Christians. They pray very deeply. They have close communion with God. Contemplatives are usually Roman Catholics, usually monks or nuns. In recent years the contemplative life, or some version of it, has increasingly attracted mainline Protestants. I suspect some might want to call these Protestant versions "Contemplative Light."

       In November I spoke to Justin about this. I asked him to be my Spiritual Director. He agreed. Spiritual Direction is a whole other subject, about which I will write at some later point. In essence, what Justin is doing is helping me to move from the active life to the contemplative life. We envisioned this as a gradual process occurring over the next several months leading into the summer. Justin assigned me books to read and the Ignatian Daily Examen to do. He held me accountable for getting it done.

         The process hit a jolting shock two weeks ago. My disease took a turn, and the Coronovirus became a pandemic. Life became different for all of us, different from anything we have had before, and more different for me. In an odd way the coinciding of my going on oxygen with the pandemic both moved me in same direction, and that direction complements my moving to a contemplative life. Or to put it another way,  I can't go anywhere, and even if I could, I couldn't. Okay, I actually can go somewhere. I have portable oxygen tanks I can drag behind and will soon have a portable oxygen concentrator that I can carry life a shoulder bag. But then there's nowhere for me to go. I'm at the top of the high risk level for Coronavirus and am self quaranteened. Both of these facts flow into the contemplative life, which needs quite a bit of solitude. I'm must not sure that I was ready for all this to hit at once. Fortunately I have Marianne, companion and soul-mate of nearly four decades. I have family who are taking care of some of our immediate needs. I have you, Omegas, and I have God. 

Faithfully,

Christian