Saturday February 9th 2013: The Happy Learner, Workshop 6.
Sickness is a
defence against the truth (W136)
It is a fact of the
world we live in that our bodies repeatedly fail us, and eventually will stop
working altogether. Few people are as well as they might be, and 'health' and
'sickness' represent opposite ends of the same scale, with most of us swinging
somewhere between the two. But we like to perceive average health as normal and
sickness as a collapse from the condition our bodies should be in. In other words, we take sickness personally.
Sickness can feel like a
failure, a punishment, or an attack. We want to know why, or why me, how to stop it, how to fix it. It is
a time when we want - even more than usual - comfort, kindness and some kind of
outside help that will do for us what we are frightened or ashamed or angry to find
we cannot do for ourselves. And yet it is when we are sick that often others
cannot or will not understand, when they become frightened or ashamed or angry
themselves. In a world which glorifies a healthy body, sickness is an
embarrassment, a nuisance, a burden, a cause for pity at best, and at worst actual
hostility: like animals who turn on the weak and wounded of their own species.
In this workshop we will
consider the many disorders and forms of distress that make us sick. We will be
looking at what the course says about suffering, healing, helping ourselves and
others, and what it calls magic: the many means we use to make ourselves
better. To understand healing, the course teaches, we must recognize that sickness - and health too - are purposeful. Well or
unwell, the question is, who does the body serve?
10.30 am to 2.30 pm. If you would like to come and join us, I look forward to seeing you.
