Greetings from the B.R.I.
December 2005
Thank you for all the prayers, cards, visits, phone calls and good will messages. Having agreed to enter the RUH for what was expected to be (by me) an overnight stay; I am now into my ninth week in hospital and am looking forward in “Joyful Expectation” to my release.
I now understand what the Jewish people feel when they say “next year in Jerusalem”. I am (hopefully) on the run up to some medical procedure (flutter ablation, or some type of pacemaker) which will enable me to return to St Patrick’s and resume my duties “as of yore”.
I expect this to happen some time during the week Dec 5-10, but in the NHS I have found that time measurement is flexible and varies considerably from day to day.
Being on a list or even being next on, or top of, a list can mean anything or nothing. This lends an air of uncertainty and excitement to every day and is a source of discouragement and frustration for the hard working and very caring medical and nursing staff. Bottlenecks are nearly as ubiquitous as bedpans, resulting in a very high bed occupancy by patients in waiting mode for some procedure. This is a mode with which I am now very familiar.
In hospital one loses touch with the hours, days and months. Time is measured by mealtimes, injection times, consultant’s “entourage” visits, then all of a sudden visitors are talking about Christmas and I realise that now must be Advent. I think of Emmanuel (the Christmas message) and Advent (the waiting, the preparation). I feel divorced from, out of contact with, the Liturgical cycle. I must discover something more immediate, something closer to home, something more “tactile”, something more nourishing. Being created in God’s image and likeness, and looking for and recognising this image and likeness in myself and others has, for some time now, been a source of strength and nourishment for me. But I no longer feel content with this attitude. I am still hungry. I need a more direct source of nourishment. Let’s say I need a spiritual intravenous feed.
Perhaps the Christmas message – “Emmanuel” – does not just mean God with us, with you, with me. Perhaps Christianity is not just about living in the presence of God, or showing the face of God to others, or introducing people to knowledge and belief in God, or even living with God, but being God – God is me, God is you, God is us. If Emmanuel means that “I am God” then I do not just bring people the gift of God – I am the Gift. I do not just show or demonstrate the compassion, care, forgiveness of God to myself and to others, I am that compassion, I am that care, I am that forgiveness, I am that Love. In short I must be God to myself and to others. Others are God to me. What better way to prepare for “Emmanuel” than to be God for each other.