{"id":80225,"date":"2020-09-21T17:25:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T14:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=80225"},"modified":"2020-09-21T18:49:28","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T15:49:28","slug":"prayer-and-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/prayer-and-healing\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayer and Healing"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"80225","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":80223,"related_cahpter":"573","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The prayer? For the wisdom of physicians\r\n\r\n","content":"

For more than four decades, I have cared for very ill people with cancer, blood diseases, and AIDS. During that time, I also experienced my own illness in the form of prolonged pain from failed spinal surgery. The words of Psalm 6 speak deeply to the psychological core of patients\u2019 fears, and how prayer can surmount fears and provide focus and direction when we are most bereft.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the diagnosis, all who are afflicted with a life threatening malady, like the author of this Psalm, imagine at minimum two wrenching terrors: to be in unrelenting pain, and to be abandoned. Those two fears can be felt both physically and emotionally. The sick worry that even the most adept physician may fail to relieve the agony of the illness, thus prompting the physician to retreat in frustration, surrendering patients to prolonged suffering that will only end in death.<\/p>\n

As Susan Sontag wrote, the ill often live as if \u201cin a different country.\u201d Illness may be experienced as\u00a0galut<\/em>, exile, alienation from all that centers us, including our faith. We may feel abandoned not only by friends and family but by God. Listen to the voice of the Psalmist cry \u201cO Lord, do not punish me in anger…\u201d<\/p>\n

King David was a warrior, and it is not surprising that this Psalm attributed to him uses the imagery of \u201cenemies…\u201d While warrior metaphors for facing disease are controversial, in my experience, many patients find them meaningful. With AIDS, the enemies were more than HIV attacking the immune system; they were prejudice against gay men and xenophobia against Haitians and Africans, \u201cenemies\u201d that threatened to prevent society from mobilizing, and \u201cenemies\u201d that stigmatized the sick and worsened their plight.<\/p>\n

As a person of faith and as a physician-scientist, I have long thought about the place of prayer in the setting of illness. I don\u2019t conceive of disease as punishment, but as a natural consequence of our being mortal creatures living in a natural world. And the idea of prayer as a magical incantation that will erase illness defies the realities of treatment and recovery that I witness. What then might prayer for healing accomplish?<\/p>\n

A true story I cherish from years ago: My patient, an older Italian woman from Boston\u2019s North End, a devout Catholic, was hospitalized with advanced breast cancer. Every morning she would grip my hand and say \u201cDoctor Groopman, I am praying to God.\u201d I felt uncomfortable, unsure what to offer in reply, assuming she was praying for a miracle cure, which was understandable but unlikely given how widespread the cancer had grown. So I was mute. Then, one morning, I mustered the courage to reply, \u201cWhat are you praying for?\u201d My patient looked at me warmly. \u201cI pray every day for God to give my doctors wisdom.\u201d I nodded and intoned \u201cAmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

This post and others in the series, by courtesy of the PsalmSeason project.\u00a0For more on the PsalmSeason project see here.<\/a><\/p>\n

By Jerome E. Groopman, M.D. the Dina and Raphael Recanati Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and one of the world\u2019s leading researchers in cancer and AIDS. He is a staff writer for\u00a0The New Yorker\u00a0and has written for\u00a0The New York Times,\u00a0The Wall Street Journal,\u00a0The Washington Post\u00a0and\u00a0The New Republic. <\/em><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":80226,"id":80226,"title":"ps6-J. 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