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my temples hadn't helped either. The pain was awful, and it never let up. I felt dizzy, nauseous, and very disoriented. |
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I remembered the Zen teacher Alan Watts said, "Go into the pain." Whatever that meant. I tried it. I was inside the pain, and it really hurt. I became the pain. I was pain. It still hurt. After awhile, I couldn't maintain my focus anymore, and I went back outside the pain. I couldn't handle the headache. I started to cry. It didn't matter if I cried or not; the pain still kept coming. I sobbed, "Somebody, help me. Please, help me!" No one came. |
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There is a dark night through which the soul passes in order to attain the Divine light.
St. John of the Cross |
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I hoped I would lapse into sleep. Sleep . . . sleep. . . . I was wide awake, and the pain continued. I began to wonder if I might die from the pain. I began to wish that I would die. I was crazy from the pain. |
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So crazy, I was driven to prayer. I had never really prayed before. As I lay there, I contemplated my experience with prayer, and I remembered saying, "Now I lay me down to sleep . . ." with my babysitter after she tucked me into bed, when I was about five. I remembered going to church and bowing my head when the minister said to, and opening my eyes and peeking at all the women in silent concentration, and wondering what they were really doing. Now, for the first time in my life, I prayed. I had no idea how. I hadn't been to church since the seventh grade, and I certainly didn't pray then. I had gone to meet boys. When that didn't work, I quit going. |
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But my hopelessness that night in the Philippines was much worse than my adolescent angst had ever been. I felt deranged, and unable to lift my head from the bed. I would do anything to escape the pain. Unable to help myself, and with no one else there to help me, I felt completely hopeless. |
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A Course in Miracles says prayer is a testable hypothesis, but I knew nothing of that then.
1 I figured I had nothing to lose. So I prayed. I asked silently, "If there is anyone out there hearing me, please take the pain away. If there is a God, please help me. Or just please kill me, I don't care. I'll die, if that's what it takes. Please take me out of this misery. Please help me die." |
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