Chapter 8
"Come in, Doctor Johnson-Angelo. What finally gave you the inner freedom to trust me enough to come over?"
John looked at the abbot with mixed emotions. "If you want to know the truth, it's the fact that you have read my wife's work."
"Oh, yes, I've read it and I respect it. She's thorough, she's sound and she's passionate about her love of God and the Church. I am grateful that I was able to meet her and that she lives on through her writings."
"You look a little confused, Doctor, can I help?"
"Well, it's just that you're sitting here dressed like someone from the Middle Ages and yet you are in touch with the latest in contemporary theologians and not intimidated by the questioning attitude of people like my wife and others. What are you--liberal or conservative?"
"Well, Doctor, I guess I can't be diagnosed all that easily. Let me put it this way. I try to live by the Tao and even that is an undefinable concept and experience."
"I know this much about Tao, Abbot, it has something to do with the coming together of all creation, the Yin and the Yang, the masculine and the feminine, darkness and light, opposites coming together and complementing one another, 'synthesis,' 'individuation,' words like that."
"Very true, Doctor, and all of that within the context of energy, life, God, grace, however you want to name it, him, her."
"Well, Abbot, all of that meant something to me until about two weeks ago when my wife was murdered and now I'm not sure what makes sense. What had been existing peacefully together in my inner life has been scattered to the four winds. Beth gave her life completely to God in one way or another for well over fifty years and this is what she gets in return. I give my life to helping other people and am left alone to do it."
"John, if I may call you that, life is obviously unfair. You know that very well on a head level from your work as a physician, as I do being a clinical psychologist and spiritual director. If you can assimilate that simple statement about unfairness on a heart level, you will experience the wonder of the Tao within your deepest darkness."
"That sounds beautiful and poetic, Abbot, but I hurt."
"I know you do. You've got to. I think maybe you hurt not only emotionally but also physically."
"What do you mean, Abbot?"
"Well, my specialty is behavioral medicine. Did anyone tell you that?"
"No, they didn't. I that thought you were a clinical psychologist."
"I am that, but I deal a lot with physical problems using behavioral science approaches. I don't mean this to brag, but I know that you understand what a post doctoral diploma, or board certification as it is sometimes called, is. In fact, my guess is that you are board certified in family medicine."
"That is correct, Abbot."
"Well, I fulfilled the mandatory five years of post-doctoral experience in behavioral medicine, obtained the necessary letters of recommendation from professionals in the field, submitted a video-taped and transcribed work sample to the board for analysis, passed the comprehensive examination and am a diplomate in behavioral medicine of the International Academy of Behavioral Medicine, Counseling, and Psychotherapy."
What a mouthful! Again, I offer this just to help to establish some credibility with you, John, and to build a little professional rapport. Also, the spiritual side of healing is much simpler and open to us all, no special schooling needed. And now that I've told you a little about my background and philosophy, it will be up to you to work with me or not as you so choose. I have more patients than I can manage as it is. I would be happy to work with you but am not desperate for work by any means."
"I appreciate your honesty, Abbot, and will try to keep an open mind. A physician playing God under these conditions just wouldn't work, now would it?" A faint smile.
"One therapeutic treatment which I use combines spirituality, physics, and psychology and is called by a variety of names and taught in a variety of ways and cultures but is something that many people would call Therapeutic Touch."
"I've heard of that. Some of the nurses were using that at the hospital and it had interesting results. But I must say that it just sounds like hocus-pocus to me."
"Well that's fine, John. Let it be hocus-pocus as long as it helps us. Here comes the kicker, John. I sometimes get an intuitive sense when I scan a person with my hands and once in a while when it's very profound I don't even need to scan, and that's why I know your whole GI tract is out of whack. You've had the runs for days; you've been vomiting, your electrolytes are off, and you want to stay that way."
"What do you mean, I want to stay that way? Who are you to tell me what I want and don't want? He paused to let his anger subside. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be so angry, Abbot. And I was so taken aback that I missed the part about asking you how you knew all of that. Are we still friends?"
"Of course, John. One of the first things I learned as a psychotherapist was that people often unconsciously transfer negative, and sometimes positive, perceptions from their past on to the therapist. The same is true with a physician and possible for anybody for that matter. We can become like a projector screen, better yet a lightening rod, for our patients. Sometimes I am the mother who abused them, the nun who took a special interest in them in grade school, and on and on. As the patient works through the often intensely powerful transferred feelings, he or she becomes free from distorted unconscious reactions and learns to respond more and more in freedom to life events. I guess you can tell that I was a teacher in a past life, so to speak."
"My father used to read our minds, tell us what we were thinking or feeling, and I hated it. This little discussion has made me more aware of why I am so sensitive when people do even a little bit of that. You have helped me already."
"The power to heal is within you, John. I am like a midwife; my role is to bring that new life out of you."
"What a beautiful image, Abbot. Now can you tell me how you knew about my physical symptoms?"
"Actually, I'm not sure how I knew and I didn't mean to confront you too harshly about wanting to keep your symptoms, but I think it's something we need to think about. As a physician, you know there's a payoff to being sick at times and I believe that your physical and emotional illnesses are giving you some type of payoff. Why don't you go home and ponder about what the payoff might be and then come back and maybe we can do some Therapeutic Touch? Okay, John?"
"Well, I don't know. I'll have to think about it. I truly appreciate your thinking about me but I just think I might like to leave things the way they are."
"I'm sure you would, John; I'm sure you would."
John left the office and walked toward his car. Passing a nun in her 40s on her way into the main building he thought that she looked vaguely familiar to him. The nun seemed to turn away and pick up her pace when he looked toward her.