Healing and Being a Whole

I hate being sick.  One of the best feelings in life is that of getting beyond an illness -- feeling again that solidity of life within oneself, even when not yet fully back to original strength.

Most people hate being sick.  Offhand, the only instances I think of in which illness is preferred are when a person is unconsciously trying to heal a larger psychological pain. Such as a child wanting to stay sick at home out of a fear of school.  Or an invalid wanting the psychological support of a family member.  Most people prefer physical wellness.  Therein lies a wonderful mystery of how organisms have evolved so as to make whole what is broken apart.

One of the most fascinating lessons biology students learn is how the bodies of organisms fight off injury microscopically -- similar to how a colony of individuals might fight off an invading army. One example is the way blood platelets barricade a break in the blood vessel's wall with their bodies and fibers, while white blood cells race to the site of invasive infection, attacking the alien bacteria. Microscopes reveal such cellular processes to be fascinatingly similar to how social insects respond to an invader's damaging the structure of their home. The two processes are so eerily alike that it can lead one to wonder where the line between an organism and a colony should be drawn.  The science-writer Lewis Thomas puts it eloquently:

" [B]ees and termites and social wasps... seem to live two kinds of lives:  they are individuals, going about the day's business without much evidence of thought for tomorrow,
and they are at the same time component parts, cellular elements, in the huge, writhing,
ruminating organism of the Hill, the nest, the hive."

The commonality between healing and rebuilding a whole is also revealed in the origins of certain English words.  The word "whole" is derived from the Middle English hole, meaning "unharmed."  The words "whole" and "heal" both trace back to the "kailo" constellation of Germanic/Old English roots.  These word-origins show how even before microscopes, people could feel within themselves how getting well again was like being made whole.

Despite healing, we humans are mortals, something we also share with other living beings on this planet.  Even as our faith-traditions elevate us toward higher values, they remind us of our commonality with other mortal forms of life.  For example, the Buddhist Jataka stories tell animal-related tales with reminders about compassion for animals, remembering their continuity with the Buddha and humans.  In the Christian Bible (most of which is shared with Judaism), the word "mortals" is used 88 times to emphasize how both humans and animals are mortal beings (a notable contrast to the merely 4 times humans are described as being made "in the image of God").

We are mortals, and so sometimes no cure for an illness can be found. Even without a cure, however, there can still be a kind of healing in the sense of feeling not cut off -- feeling a part of a larger, beloved, sacred whole. Therein lies another word in that root constellation "kalio":  The Old English halig means "holy."

~~~

Have you found a way to be more whole by being a part of a larger whole?  How?

(The Thomas quote is from his essay "On Societies as Organisms"

 in The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas, © 1974.  p. 12.)