Meditation XVII

Narrative Medicine, Honoring the Stories of Illness by Rita Charon is written from the perspective of a physician and her relationship with ailing patients.  It is a mistake, however, to believe that these relationships cannot be viewed from a larger perspective,  allowing anyone to view relationships differently.   For instance, her references to John Donne's Devotion's upon Emergent Occasions takes me back to Lit 12 and the impact Meditation XVII had on me then.  At that time, all I got was the basic "we're all in this together" theme, as I focussed only on the edited version  of it.  As one untouched by death, and oblivious of social class, I  went no further than a youthful naivety 'of course we're all equal' without feeling the enormity of what Donne was saying.  Over the years the words of  No Man is an Island have had different meanings to me, depending on anything from a personal loss to global loss, the sight of a homeless person, to my own feeling of being disregarded by someone who seemed to have a sense of superiority over me.

Donne's words are timeless, and where Charon feels a relationships with Henry James, I feel a similar relationship with mankind through Donne's words.   Even though these words were written 400 years ago,  I can feel this connection to not just him, but with those he was writing it for at that time.  I can feel his sense of mortality, knowing that his own death was inevitable, but finding comfort in his belief that his life, just by being, had impact.  I find comfort not just in knowing that he felt that, but more so that he knew that his life was no more or less important than anyone else's.   That these words have survived mean that they resonate with others, creating a bond throughout the centuries, over the continents, connecting social hierarchies, religions and faiths.   It is about survival.  Not only are we are all in this together, but we cannot survive alone, either individually or socially.

I feel this ethical commitment to Donne that Charon speaks of, to honour his words.  While I have never thought of it that way, it seems that I innately know this.  As Charon brings to my attention the relationship between the writer and the reader,  I am reminded once again that we must be careful of what we let in our lives.  It is not enough to be aware of the company we keep, we must also be aware of what we watch on television, what magazines we read, what books we read.   As Charon says, "Some stories' ethical visions might be dangerous ones, shaping readers into instruments of sadism or destruction" (p57) I am reminded once again that we need to be cognizant of what we let in our space, our mind, but most importantly, our hearts.

It has been a long time since I sat and read this meditation,  and today I got a little something more from it.  I don't know if it would be in agreement with literary scholars, but through Charon I realize that maybe that doesn't matter.  It is between me and Donne.