Prayer

 I have always been rather lazy with prayer, and sometimes confused about its purpose. Now I find myself on a large number of institutional prayer lists and included in the daily prayers of many people. Such care fills me with gratitude, and also makes me reconsider my own attitude to prayer.

 

I expect that my early history of prayer was similar to many of my generation. We might label our first prayers as level one prayers. These are not unlike the prayer lists on churches and so on. My mother taught me to kneel beside my bed each night and recite a litany of family members to be blessed. It would start “god bless mummy, God bless Daddy” and continue with my sister, aunts and uncles, grandparents alive and “in heaven”. I don’t think the discipline lasted very long after the parallel ritual of bedtime stories ceased.

 

As a kid, I think I was more interested in what I would now label as level two prayers. These are akin to requests from Santa Claus and are really personal begging. Most commonly, I would invoke this sort of prayer when faced with a threat, large or small. I could pray for something as mundane as a critical victory for the soccer team I support, or that I would not be caught out in some misbehaviour at school. Though the frequency of this sort of prayer decreased as I grew older, I confess that I still invoke it from time to time. When the epidural of my ex-wife failed to take effect at the time my daughter was to be born, and a decision was made to carry out a caesarean birth, I will have prayed level two prayers long and hard, hoping for a good outcome. Now, each time I face a brain procedure with a general anaesthetic, I find myself praying for a good outcome, and include some wishes for the blessing of my wife and family in the event that I don’t recover. Perhaps having all these other people praying for me might make me more inclined to pray for my own recovery, or perhaps I am just scared.

 

I first became more conscious of what I label level three prayer once attending Church became a more regular part of my life. I equate this sort of prayer to the simple idea of unhurried contemplation. This is the main opportunity I derive from attending Church services, but also just sitting quietly in a church or another place of peace. Around services, the quiet times at the beginning or end are excellent for contemplation. Services do tend to include a segment devoted to prayer, but this is usually a disappointment to me, especially in Catholic churches, where they just read out something bland written by a Vatican functionary, or, even worse, pursue a line akin to political propaganda.

 

Usually the most useful segments of a Christian service for contemplation are the readings followed by the homily. There is invariably plentiful material to contemplate in the readings, especially the gospel, and most weekends I will hear two homilies offering an interpretation, at least one of which is generally excellent.

 

This past weekend was a good example. The gospel told a parable where a rich fella invited the great and good to his banquet, but they failed to turn up, offering weak excuses. The host extended the welcome to all and sundry, who showed up and had a good time, but one dude showed up in unsuitable attire. I was expecting the host to show kindness and mercy to this chap – after all he might have been poor and certainly received the invitation late – but instead the fellow is cast out cruelly. “Many are called, but few are chosen” is the punchline.

 

Two good homilies set me thinking about this story. The essence is that it is not enough just to expect redemption, we have to do our bit to prepare ourselves. If we believe in life hereafter, we can consider the whole of life to be such a preparation. Only if we do this well, with serious intent, can we be hopeful of a kind judgment.

 

I spent much of last week in hospital, inevitably contemplating my own demise. On Saturday I found myself tearing up while leading the congregation in “Abide with Me”, as morbid a hymn as exists in the mind of most English folk. The whole experience, parable, homily, reflection and expression, acted as prayer for me. I welcomed it heartily. I find this happens most weeks and it helps me to accept the predicament I find myself in with greater equanimity, thought for others and peace.

The lovely thing about the gospels is how helpful they can be for prayer even if we do not accept a literal interpretation. So this week, with the procedure involving general anesthetic, as usual I spent time trying to be as ready as possible for the end, or even the beginning of the end. What does attending the party in suitable attire mean for me? My best answer is to ensure that my important relationships are all in good health, that there is no estrangement or unfinished business that might cause lasting damage to others should I not survive. This sort of prayer is also not entirely unselfish. Often, I find that trying to follow the messages in the gospels are a key too my own contentment.   

 

I was enraptured by a slightly different take on prayer some years ago while I was following a twelve step programme. The only mention of prayer comes in step eleven, which states “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”

 

I still find this formulation to be helpful. Twelve step programmes ask to accept the possibility of a higher power, but allow us to interpret the concept in our own manner rather than being beholden to any particular doctrine. Then, in the prayer, I like the way we are guided away from level one and especially level two prayer, instead accepting our fate, humble but not passive. We are powerful, and can achieve wonderful things, but at the same time we are powerless in the face of the majesty around us.

 

I am not sure if I am abusing the welcome of the Church and its adherents, but I permit this attitude to enable me to partake of the blessings of religion without necessarily believing very much of its literal doctrine. My concept of God is highly abstract. But who am I to deny such doctrine? I am profoundly grateful for the consideration and love of many religious people. Just last Sunday my wife and I received valuable comfort from a visiting priest at my hospital bedside. It did no harm to our humour to also learn that this lovely man carried the ordained name of Hyacinth, seemingly an important Polish (male) saint, but a name forever associated by Europeans with the eponymous Mrs Bucket of situation comedy.

 

This gratitude also brings me back to all those prayer groups and individuals praying for me. I hope I don’t offend by disclosing that I struggle to accept much of the literal language in some of our prayers. I consider myself blessed in being able to derive enormous comfort from my own prayers and from those of others, and respect every one of their beliefs and their faith. And, even if we do not have any confidence in the existence of an afterlife, prayer is surely helpful and a chance for us to do good for others even if our own time may be short. “Abide with me, fast flows the eventide”. After a tough couple of weeks, I can only wonder at the power of unhurried contemplation and the prayerful support of so many.           

Deja Vu all over again

 For most of us, anniversaries are more often memorials of tough times than celebrations. My mother became a widow on March 16 1976 and worshipped that date for the thirty six years she lived for afterwards. I tried to remember to call her on that date every year, and she had a ritual of visiting the room in the Eastbourne crematorium where they keep a book of remembrance. It was nearest thing she ever came to spirituality.

 

Now my cancer journey is at its first anniversary, and I wonder if, depending on how long it will continue, certain dates will assume importance for my wife and me. This week certainly bears remarkable similarities to the start of the journey, since I am back in hospital.

 

It was today, 12^th October, last year that I had the appointment with the neuro-opthamologist, in which he identified the brain as the root cause of my peripheral vision issues and advised me to check into urgent care the following day to find out exactly what was going on. That trip to urgent care led quickly to a CT scan showing a mass, then a more conclusive MRI that night, and the first biopsy five days later, involving six nights in hospital in all.

 

That set off twelve months of trials, starting with steroid land, the second even less optimistic biopsy, the long period of inconclusive diagnosis, the third hospital visit just before Christmas for the major operation, then the intense radiation therapy followed by the seven rounds (so far) of oral chemo. I have been lucky, because the basic cancer has not developed at all and has even been supressed for now by all the treatments. I have had a few little setbacks, but have generally felt quite well and able to continue a pretty normal life, with only the minor inconvenience of not driving and the various bouts of nausea and fatigue to put up with.

 

Then this month has been a bit tougher. The last chemo round was a bit harder to tolerate, and one of the occasional side effects, itchiness and rashes, came up. I had pills and creams on hand to deal with that, but it did lead to unusual levels of fatigue, before a new problem emerged via a swelling near the site of the original incision. Initial antibiotics did not clear it up, so last Thursday I was requested by my oncology team to report once again at urgent care. That has led to another minor operation and seven nights so far back in hospital, making seventeen altogether in the calendar year.

 

Even though I am in a different hospital and being treated for different symptoms and issues, the similarities to that first six-night hospital stay have been uncanny. It is not an experience I would recommend.

 

The parallels start in the urgent care department. The first time I drove to Long Island and parked the car there and left my stuff in it, all rookie mistakes. This time I went by subway and remembered to bring lots to read and very little else. Both times, the urgent care environment resembled a crowded bus terminus, teeming with people but achieving very little at any pace. This time I sat in a waiting room for a full six hours, during which little was achieved beyond the insertion of an IV line and drawing of blood, and rudimentary interviews with many people who did not seem motivated to communicate with each other. At least this time after the six hours I was actually placed in a real bed in a real ward, contrasting with earlier experiences languishing in other waiting areas and corridors.

 

So we come to the ward experience, also full of parallels. The rooms were probably designed for single occupancy, but long ago subdivided as twins. The patient rooms are overloaded with equipment and the neighbour is always too close and usually seems to prefer permanent junk TV on full volume. But what else are they supposed to do, especially if they are doomed to remain in the same dismal place for weeks on end? On this visit I am now in my fourth room, an improvement on the eight (including corridors and waiting areas) of my first hospital stay. Even so, being moved around is always unpleasant.

 

The equipment is plentiful and sophisticated, but still somehow flawed. Despite all the buttons and options, I have yet to feel comfortable in bed for a single moment. The machine dispensing fluids into my IV often beeps, perhaps because I moved my elbow microscopically or perhaps because of a tiny bubble in the bag. I have learned the trick to stop the beeping, but sometimes that only offers relief for a minute or less. And my neighbour often has no such trick available.

 

There are long spells of boredom, but also many visitors, often during the night. Some visitors have a routine task to perform, some have the job of checking up on me, and some are the real decision makers, whose communication skills are decidedly mixed. Most staff are friendly enough and many are lovely, they have their own priorities and inevitably deprive their patients of peace.

 

Just like during my first stay in hospital, an initial burst of tests and an MRI led to the conclusion that I needed to stay for an operation, for which I had to wait for a space in the schedule to open up, aware that other cases would have higher priority. Then, in both cases, the operation experience showed up other features of the hospitals. There is some preparation on the ward, then a spell in the pre-op area, where not a lot happens. Then I am wheeled into an operating room, put to sleep, and the next thing I know I wake up in the post operation recovery unit, an oasis of calm. This time, as has happened at least once before, my post-op residence lasted through the night, until a new home was found for me back on a ward.

 

The day or two after an operation are the most physically discomforting, at least in my case where the operations have been to my head area. It takes many hours for the post-anaesthesia pain to even start to subside, but there are still machines and buttons and wires everywhere, plenty of visitors, and not much real news. Then today, two days later, comes the welcome turning point, with a lot less pain and the start of talk about recovery, getting home, and next steps.

 

There are other uncanny similarities. The food is remarkably good. The fellow patients cover the gamut of resignation, anger, pain, boredom and a sense of life ebbing away. The staff embody humanity in all its richness too. And the extreme hierarchy among the staff is plain to see, including power exuding from some uniforms and even the physical features of groups at different hierarchical levels.

 

As usual, the emotional journey is as taxing as the physical one, but here perhaps my enhanced experience has helped me. For sure during the first visit to hospital a year ago we were excessively fearful, frantically preparing for a possible sudden death and attempting goodbyes and its contingencies. Such thoughts were present again this time, and inexplicable floods of tears still emanate, especially early in the mornings, whether out of fear, dread, love, thankfulness or some combination. But together we have kept our emotions in check better this time. Thankfully, things seem to be trending in a positive direction, and that last phase unleashes the same flood of thankfulness.

 

Are there any lessons from all of this? Staying out of hospital must be one, but hardly a very practical one, because if we are sick then we need treatment to get better. Getting angry should be avoided if at all possible, but can be difficult when in pain and filled with fear. Enduring hospital without a loving partner must be horrible, and must also inhibit recovery. It is always right to maintain the balance of hope for the best and preparedness for the worst. And, most of all, it helps to feel thankful.