Illness as a Spiritual Practice

Illness as a spiritual practice? I would rather not think so…

I’ve written a number of reflections over the years about spiritual practice as it appears in daily life—not as doctrine or belief, but as something nourishing that quietly feeds the soul. Often it shows up in surprising places.

Brother Lawrence found it while washing dishes.
Others find it standing silently beside an incoming tide.
I once wrote about the spiritual power of a manure pile—how it can grow astonishingly large pumpkins.

These are the kinds of places we like to find wisdom. They are earthy. Familiar. Even a little charming.

Illness, however, is not charming.

It is uncomfortable.
Sometimes painful.
Always inconvenient.

It stops us cold. It costs money. It cancels plans. And most of us do everything we can to avoid it. Yet illness visits anyway—often when we are least prepared and most certain we don’t have time for it.

That was true for me this year.

When the Body Interrupts the Calendar

As 2025 closed and everyone was offering hopeful wishes for a happy new year, I found myself in a hospital bed, gasping for breath, newly diagnosed with pneumonia. In the middle of the night, machines were turned on and tests were run to rule out anything immediately life-threatening. No clots. No interventions that required emergency heroics.

But try telling that to a wheezing body at two in the morning.

For four days I sucked on inhalers, swallowed antibiotics and cough medicine, and slept in short, restless stretches. And I will confess this freely: not once during that time did I think, Ah yes, a spiritual practice.

I didn’t feel prayerful.
I felt sick.

I wasn’t interested in layering any “ought-to’s” on top of that. I just wanted to breathe.

This matters. Because too often we rush to assign meaning while the body is still struggling. We want illness to produce something—insight, growth, gratitude—before it has even loosened its grip.

That wasn’t possible for me. And I’m not sure it should be expected of anyone.

Reflection Comes Later

Only now—home again, still far from well but able to sit at my desk—do I have the capacity to reflect on what actually happened beneath the symptoms.

This distance matters too.

Spiritual practice, at least as I understand it, is not about forcing interpretation in the middle of crisis. It is about returning later, when breath has steadied, and asking different questions than the ones fear supplies.

Which leads me to this one.

Sitting in the Presence of Mystery

What is prayer, really, if it isn’t sitting in the presence of mystery?

Some name that mystery God.
Some call it the Universe.
Some don’t name it at all.

Yet the experience is universal. There are moments when life is completely out of our control. Moments when we feel alone, frightened, or abandoned. And still—somehow—we are held together. Enough that we don’t dissolve into nothingness like a snowflake on a warm day.

What that “something” is called matters less to me than recognizing its presence.

Because without awareness, my default response to illness is grumbling. Life isn’t fair. Illness is pointless. This is lousy timing. None of this should be happening. Grrr—rr—rr

Slowing down has given me a different question:

What is this journey really about? And who is in charge, after all?

What Medicine Can’t Dispense

There are things no pharmacist can dispense that keep me alive.

Yes, pills matter.
Advice matters.
Care matters.

But they are not the whole story.

Something else sustains us—something unseen, unearned, and widely underappreciated.

I call it Mystery.
You may call it Grace.
At its root, I would call it Divine Love.

Not the tidy, religious kind. But the kind that follows us without our awareness.

The kind that does not require affiliation or compliance.

The kind that is as present as oxygen—and just as easy to take for granted until breathing becomes difficult.

What Illness Teaches—Reluctantly

This is why I now say that illness can be a spiritual practice.

Not because it feels holy.
Not because I welcomed it.
Not because it arrived with insight attached.

But because it forced what nothing else could.

It slowed me down—often the only thing that does. It asked uncomfortable questions:

What actually matters if I must be still?
What remains unfinished if I vanish today?
What do I truly value?

Illness strips away my illusion that productivity equals worth.

It sharpens my attention to small things: Merton curled up next to Dekker, the warmth of sunlight through a cold window, the humbling grace of someone else doing the chores I usually manage myself.

These are not dramatic revelations. They are quiet recalibrations. And they happen slowly.

Learning—Again—How to Receive

Illness also teaches—once again (will I ever learn!)—the art of receiving.

Love, after all, is conversational. If we are always giving and never receiving, we deny others the joy of offering care.

I thought I learned this lesson many years ago. I have written about it before.

But here it is again.

Illness hands us the uncomfortable invitation to accept help. To let love flow in both directions. To stop narrating our worth through usefulness. To stop measuring our achievements.

This is not easy. Especially for those of us who are practiced at competence.

What Only Reflection Reveals

None of this felt holy while it was happening.

Only afterward.
Only in reflection.

And that may be the most honest thing I can say.

Illness does not announce itself as a spiritual practice. It arrives as disruption. It narrows life. It reduces the future to the next breath.

But when we are able—later—to look back with steadier eyes, we may find that something was at work beneath the symptoms. Something holding. Something sustaining. Something breathing us when we could barely breathe ourselves.

If you are in a season of illness now—or recovering from one—there is no requirement to understand it, redeem it, or speak wisely about it.

Perhaps the invitation comes later.

When breath has returned.
When strength is steadier.
When reflection finally becomes possible.

You might simply ask:
What held me when I could not hold myself?

That question, asked honestly, may be practice enough.

And that may be more than sufficient.