Poetry Monday

Saturday I had the pleasure of listening to Margaret Mohrmann give the keynote at the UVA's End-of-Life conference. Blow. Me. Back. The weight of the subject matter and her nimble language. The stories steeped in years of experience ecclesiastical and medical. Is frank compassion a thing? I think it may be her thing. One of the two times she made me well up (for my patients, for my loved ones, for me, for my fellow RNs & MDs, for humanity):A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illnessby John O'DonohueNow is the time of dark invitationbeyond a frontier that you did not expect.Abruptly your old life seems distant.You barely noticed how each day openeda path through fields never questionedyet expected deep down to hold treasure.Now your time on earth becomes full of threat.Before your eyes your future shrinks.You lived absorbed in the day to day so continuouswith everything around you that you could forgetyou were separate.Now this dark companion has come between you.Distances have opened in your eyes.You feel that against your willA stranger has married your heart.Nothing before has made you feel so isolatedand lost.When the reverberations of shock subside in you,may grace come to restore you to balance.May it shape a new space in your heartto embrace this illness as a teacherwho has come to open your life to new worlds.May you find in yourself a courageous hospitalitytowards what is difficult, painful and unknown.May you use this illness as a lanternto illuminate the new qualities that will emerge in you.May your fragile harvesting of this slow light help yourelease whatever has become false in you.May you trust this light to clear a paththrough all the fog of old unease and anxietyuntil you feel a rising within you,a tranquility profound enough to call the storm to stillness.May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness,ask it why it came,why it chose your friendship,where it wants to take you,what it wants you to know,what quality of space it wants to create in you,what you need to learn to become more fully yourself,that your presence may shine in the world.May you keep faith with your body,learning to see it as a holy sanctuarywhich can bring this night woundgradually towards the healing and freedom of dawn.