Philip’s Journey, September 2009 - August 2010

Philip's Journey

This is a brief account of my recent life journey written for friends who want to know how I am getting on. It covers from September 2009 to August 2010; about 1.5% of my 76 years of life on earth so far. A lot can happen in 1.5% of a life journey.

I see life as a continuous learning process. I learn how to live in the process of living. The learning is lifelong and continues until the end. There is something unknown waiting to be discovered until the journey is complete. And so the journey of life is like a Who-Done-it? There is an unfolding mystery that is only fully revealed on the last page. Life is full of mystery until the very end.

Life is a natural process that happens all by itself. The process can be trusted; it knows what it is about. The process teaches us how life is to be lived. It is a cyclic process revealed in the cycles in nature; life ebbs and flows. The dying of the old and the rising of the new are phases in a cycle of life. Life is continually being renewed. The ups and downs, highs and lows we experience in life are part of the natural flow of life.

This account is a piece of my learning journal. I see every experience in life, whether good or bad, as a teacher sent by God to teach me a lesson. My journal is where I record what I have learned from these lessons; what God has revealed to me in the process of life. It is my personal scripture. This is another chapter.

In September 2009 I was enjoying life. Philomena and I had both just recovered from cancer. I felt well and people told me I looked well. My body still felt young; I was still doing the physical exercises I began in my 20’s, albeit with less haste and more grace. I loved my life, I loved my wife, I loved my home and I loved my friends. Then the first cloud appeared on the horizon. Philomena’s scans had shown up an aortic aneurysm that seemed life threatening. She began a series of hospital tests with a view to an operation. The tests gave contradictory results. Our uncertainty began to grow.

December was a difficult month for us. Some friends died, and we went to a pilgrimage reunion at which we lit candles to friends who had died before us. We ended up with a whole tray full of lighted candles, more than there were people in the room. So December left us shell shocked with bereavements. It was also the month I discovered that there was something seriously wrong with me. I was typing on the computer one day when suddenly the characters appearing on the screen were not the ones I was typing. I looked at the keyboard and tried again but the same thing happened. I had lost control of the fingers on my right hand. I felt scared.

In January a neurologist said that it was probably motor neurone disease (MND), but he needed to be sure. I had a series of hospital tests, some unpleasant and painful, and on March 22nd, after an age of uncertainty, the diagnosis was confirmed.

MND destroys the motor neurones in the brain with the result that muscles atrophy and tendons stiffen. Fine movements become difficult, while the body feels heavy, stiff and difficult to control. MND is progressive and incurable. Once you have it things can only get worse.

In March the symptoms were mostly confined to difficulty with my right hand and arm, and to a barely perceptible slurring of speech. Now it affects my whole body. I can’t speak nor eat normal food. Breathing is becoming difficult. My legs can barely support the weight of my body. If I sway slightly off balance twelve stones of soft flesh and fragile bones go crashing to the ground with potentially disastrous results. If I am in pain in the night I can’t move, I just have to live with it. Handling paper and cloth is difficult and it is surprising how much paper and cloth are handled in the course of an ordinary day. Just imagine going to the toilet! I can see, hear and think as clearly as ever, but I am increasingly helpless to respond to what is happening around me.

As I become increasingly helpless to deal with the world “out there”, the world “in here” becomes increasingly intense. A minor frustration can trigger infantile rage. I want to strike out but am helpless to do so. And so I am forced to deal with the rage internally. I am forced to face my inner demons. Carl Jung says that my worst enemy is within me. Jesus tells me to love my enemies. If I love the enemy within – my inner demons, I love myself as God loves me, because God loves all of me.

Meanwhile, after nearly a year of tests and uncertainty we now have a date for Philomena’s operation.

The speed of these changes is turning our lives upside down. The rules of the game are changing faster than we can adapt. And in the midst of this chaos, some patterns are becoming clear. One is to do with time. I am getting a sense that there is no limit to the depth of now; no limit to the journey into the deep.  We are both being drawn to live more deeply in the here and now.  And as we live more deeply in the here and now, we come closer to one another, and closer to God.  This is the God who is closer to me than I am to myself, who makes his home in the depths of my heart.  This is the God who goes with me wherever I go.  Even if I pass through the gates of hell, this God will not abandon me.  To live more deeply in the here and now is to make the journey into the depths of the human heart where God is always here now, patiently waiting to welcome us home.  And for some, the journey passes through hell.

Another clear pattern is to do with loving friendship.  I have become amazed at the love that surrounds me.  And this is not just from Philomena, nor close relations and friends, but also the health professionals who care for me, and even people I meet occasionally who remember me.  And so I am becoming aware that my death is much more than the death of a solitary individual.  It affects many people. It is a disruption in a web of loving relationships.  And this web is not limited to those friends who are still living; it includes those who have died before me.  Recently, while I was still able to drive, I was driving down the Avenue into Southampton.  Suddenly I had the sense of being surrounded by a host of friends who had died before me, who loved me, and who were waiting for me to join them.  It was a subliminal glimpse, then it was gone and I was back on the road surrounded by moving cars.  But it left a trace in my memory.

If my intuition is correct, then maybe, just maybe, those who have died have not gone away.  They are walking among us.  They cannot be seen but their love for us can be felt in the depths of our hearts.  That’s how we know they are there.  My mission in life is to express the love that I have in my heart.  When I die, the love I have expressed does not die with me; it lives on in the hearts of those I have loved. So death is no barrier to love, love transcends death and flows from those who have died to those who are living. 

This is the inheritance that is passed from one generation to the next.   So love cascades down the generations, leaping from heart to heart, from deep to deep, on its way from the original lover to the final beloved; from God the lover to God the beloved, drawing us all together in love.

So God loves God through us, and God loves us through one another.  There is only one love, and that love is gathering all things into itself.

Philip Sheppard, 29 August 2010

Finding Comfort in a Time of Affliction

I am passing through a time of great affliction.  I am visibly dying and I don’t want to die.  Each Thursday In June I drove into Winchester, climbed the stairs of the Olive Branch Christian Counselling Service, and supervised a group of counsellors.  I loved the work.  It was incredibly rewarding to see the counsellors growing in competence and to see the healing and nourishing taking place in their client’s lives.  By the end of August everything had changed.  The car was gathering dust in the garage, and rather than climbing stairs I was struggling to stand upright holding onto a frame.  The subtlety of the therapeutic conversation had been replaced by typing with one finger of my left hand on a Lightwriter which gives me an artificial voice.  I am dying and I don’t want to die.  I enjoy life here on earth and I don’t want to leave.  I love my wife, my home, my family and my friends and I don’t want to leave them.  Philomena and I are being torn apart after a lifetime shared together.  Can comfort be found in all this affliction?

What is most comforting is to know that I am not alone.  The main lesson life seems to be teaching me at present is that I am not alone; I have never been alone and will never be alone.  Even death does not separate me from other people.  We are one in death as we are one in life.  We live together and we die together.  Life and death are two things that we all share in common. To me it seems as if there is only one life that we all share.  There is no such thing as an individual life.  My life and your life are two sides of the same life.  Death is where my life ends and yours begins; where your life ends and mine begins.  I can’t live your life and you can’t live my life.  The life we live together, the life we share in common, is greater than the sum of the lives we live separately.  This is what comforts me most in my time of affliction; to know that my life is part of a greater whole.  And the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

If I lose myself in God, I find God in myself.

Philip Sheppard, September 2010

(any comments, or suggestions for inclusions on this website, please contact Philip's daughter, Hilary, at dovoru@bigpond.com)