During a recent silent retreat, I came across a poem by Symeon the New Theologian, an 11th-century Eastern Orthodox monk. The first stanza rattled me so thoroughly, I broke silence by gasping and then crying:
We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.
The words had the impact they did because a successful treatment regimen for early breast cancer has left me struggling with peripheral neuropathy. Nerve pain is like no other pain I’ve ever experienced; it’s weirdly eclectic. Sometimes it stabs. Sometimes it burns. Sometimes it tingles. There are days when I feel like my toes are encased in ice and others when my fingertips feel so raw, even the gentlest graze of the skin is intolerable.
