chronic illness

When illness took over my life, I developed a new understanding of the Eucharist.

The first time it struck me, I was reading Henri Nouwen’s Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring. “It seems fair to say that between the ages of one and thirty, people are considered young; between thirty and sixty, they are considered middle aged,” Nouwen writes. I was 29 and a little terrified.

The first congregation I served had just under 90 members, and among them were a dozen shut-ins, most of them over 90. 

Margery was not on that list.

Chronic illness is like Walden: life is pared down to essentials. But unlike Thoreau, I can’t walk away.