Lamh Books Themes: Healing
I’d like to share a short series of blog posts about the themes I have woven, and hope to weave, into my stories. These are complex ideas I am always mulling over and seeking to discover anew in my life and relationships. Many of them are deeply connected to my faith as a Christ follower, and some are philosophical in nature. My hope is that these posts can serve as way-markers for myself and others, as my books slowly make their way from my imagination to bookshelves.
HEALING
In his study on The Meaning of Healing: Transcending Suffering, Dr. Thomas R. Egnew concludes that a fitting definition for ‘healing’ is as follows:
"Healing [is] associated with themes of wholeness, narrative, and spirituality. Healing is an intensely personal, subjective experience involving a reconciliation of the meaning an individual ascribes to distressing events with his/her perception of wholeness as a person. [Therefore, for medical professionals . . . ] Healing may be operationally defined as the personal experience of the transcendence of suffering.”
It’s a fascinating study to read, if you don’t mind medical jargon. But what struck me in this overview was the word narrative which sticks out among the other words used to describe the healing process. And yet, I love its inclusion! Because narrative refers to the stories we tell ourselves about reality.
If you’ve ever been stuck in bed with nothing to do while your body suffers through waves of chills and fever sweats, unable to sleep and just as unable to be entertained by the usual diversions of books, games, or TV, then you know what it feels like to be bored unto death. Your mind is either plagued with morose thoughts—
I’m all alone. Why doesn’t anybody bring me something? Ah, but I don’t want to get them sick. I wish I could sleep and just get to the end of this sickness!
Or perhaps occupied with productive story-telling—
I had the chills this morning and took ibuprofen at seven, so I should be feeling a bit better in a half-hour or so. Then I’ll get some sleep. Hopefully I can stay comfortable until the 4 hours have passed and I can take more medicine. I’ll drink some broth at dinner time and see if it settles alright. I’m sure I’ll be feeling better by tomorrow morning . . .
The purpose of narrating past events and predicting future ones, I believe, is an attempt to make sense of the current problem of suffering and to mentally prepare to endure the pain until it should pass. Even in the instance of a minor, temporary head-cold which causes us to complain profusely but which does not usually threaten to kill us, we need these narratives to keep a positive outlook.
As we were discussing this concept of narrative in the experience of suffering, my husband pointed out that this dynamic isn’t limited to seasons of suffering. A person who has a lot of material wealth and physical health might live in a constant state of mental disease because of the narrative he or she tells themselves. If only I had ____ , then I’d be truly successful etc. The narratives we tell ourselves in all of life are way finding tools we implement in a search for ultimate meaning.
And as Egnew infers, the purpose of these narratives is to integrate our understanding of how whole or broken we think we are with our lived experiences.
In A Voracious Grief, the main characters (Ambrose and Mattie) have undergone an extended season of grief as they say goodbye to family member after family member. Ambrose is unable to integrate this experience of suffering into his preexisting mental framework of “how the world works” and so he lives in a state of cognitive dissonance where he tries to operate based on his ethical and sociological convictions without assimilating his feelings of grief. Mattie is a representation of his disassociation with reality—on the one hand, he’s determined to reenter society and Mattie’s grieving behavior is the only thing holding him back from doing so, on the other hand, the potential of losing Mattie (if she died) is a constant, harrowing reminder of his unresolved grief.
Ambrose is surrounded by other people who have suffered their own losses and somehow overcame. His housekeeper, Tothill, has walked through the valley of the shadow of death alongside he and his sister. Their losses are her own. Unlike Ambrose, Tothill’s stolid faith in ultimate good coming of life’s hardships undergirds her choices. She remains faithful and toils in small, steadfast ways while she waits on the deliverance she believes will come.
His friend, Godfrey Foxe, is also a man of faith. Like Ambrose, he has lost a close friend. But apart from Bennett’s death, Godfrey also is trapped in several difficult situations outside of his control which have a daily affect on him—he feels called to ministry but isn’t politically important enough to be given a church; he has someone he wants to marry, but she won’t have him. In the narrative of Ambrose’s story, we don’t get much of a glimpse into how Godfrey is spending his time as he waits for his life circumstances to change for the better, but we do get a glimpse of how he thinks about suffering in the way he comes alongside his depressed friend, Ambrose. Godfrey doesn’t offer Ambrose concrete solutions or empty platitudes—he merely points him to the one thing we always have some control over in our lives, namely, how we reach beyond ourselves to extend love to others.
If Tothill represents how faith provides hope, and Godfrey how love provides meaning in seasons of suffering, then perhaps Anna Holm gives a glimpse into the role companionship plays. Her initial role in Ambrose’s life is that of mentor. She imparts words of wisdom based on a shared experience of hardship. But as their life circles grow closer together, Anna Holm becomes something more for Ambrose. She becomes the sort of person he wants to be. Anna falls into the place of friend and confidante with ease, quickly becoming someone Ambrose trusts and is inspired by, even when her outlook on life feels so foreign to him that he can’t imagine living in her kind of world where good triumphs and love wins.
The narrative I was endeavoring to tell, in A Voracious Grief, is one of healing. Of characters who become whole, transcend suffering, and integrate their losses into the meaning of life, moving away from despair and toward one another in love. It’s a story of what it means to grieve, and what grief teaches us as we seek the deeper meaning of our pain. And because suffering is such a constant human experience, I doubt any of my books will make it to shelves without touching on this aspect of human story in one way or another. It’s a theme I’m constantly exploring and one I hope will continue to add depth to the stories I intend to tell.
