January-March, 2022
The ambulance sped down the road with siren blaring and lights flashing. It was a hot June day in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was my first ride ever in an emergency vehicle. I felt it rock back and forth as the driver drove over a median to bypass traffic. The medic attending to me in the back called out to the driver and instructed him to notify the hospital that they were transporting a “code white.” I was to learn later that a “code white” indicated a patient having a stroke.
Less than an hour ago, I had been calmly getting ready for work when I started to feel odd. I sat down at my dining table to relax for a few minutes. But the strange sensations increased. I began feeling disoriented. The right side of my body seemed to be growing numb and I noticed that my speaking was slurred. I realized that whatever was happening, it was getting progressively worse. I asked my son, who had the day off from work, to call for an ambulance.
As we approached the hospital, my mind was a jumble of thoughts. I was supposed to be at work in an hour. I had meetings to attend, projects to complete, deadlines to meet. Yet, I wasn’t in any shape to make a phone call or text a message to a coworker or my boss. I felt suddenly cut off from my world of responsibilities and to do lists. What do I do now? I felt helpless.
At the moment that I realized I couldn’t do anything, my mind cleared, and my Course in Miracles training kicked in. “Okay, Holy Spirit,” I thought. “This is your responsibility now. I can’t solve this myself. I put myself in your hands.”
A team of medical personnel were waiting when the medics wheeled me into the hospital. I was taken to a curtained off section of the emergency room where I was awkwardly transferred from the ambulance gurney to a bed. As the medical staff scurried around me, attaching various instruments to my body, I felt a strange sense of peace. There was nothing I could do. “I need do nothing.” (T-18.VII.)
In the Course, Jesus teaches: “To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides.” (T-18.VII.7:7-8)
Up until now, my life had been one of always striving to be in control. But now the realization set in that I really have no control in this world. I never had control and I never would. The things of the world that normally seemed so important to me now faded into the background.
Jesus teaches that the only problem that exists in this world is the belief in separation. Well, there is nothing like a serious illness to separate oneself apart from others. Jesus also teaches that there is only one solution to this one problem — the atonement. Lesson 79 of the Workbook states, “Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.” (W-p1.79) I could trust in the Holy Spirit to take my belief in sickness to the truth. He is the problem solver and the great comforter.
The emergency room nurse explained that since I had arrived within three hours of having the stroke, I would be able to receive a medication that was designed to dissolve a clot which a CAT scan had revealed was lodged in the left side of my brain. I was thankful that I had not hesitated to ask my son to call for an ambulance. And I was grateful that he had been home with a day off from work. I am not sure that I could have made that phone call on my own in my disoriented condition. Perhaps the Holy Spirit had already been at work in the healing process.
As the drug flowed into my veins over the next three hours, I again sought comfort in the teachings of A Course in Miracles.
I knew, at least intellectually, that despite appearances, my stroke was a mental issue, not a physical one. l was only dreaming that I was a body having a stroke. I was projecting my dream outward so that it appeared to be happening to me rather than something that I was doing to myself. Healing must be a process of changing my mind. Lesson 94 of the Workbook states “I am as God created me.” (W-pI.94). And Lesson 199 states “I am not a body. I am free.” (W-p1.199)
At the same time, I obviously believed that I was a body that could get sick. As the drug continued to flow through my “body,” I knew that I was going to have to overcome my suspicions and distrust of doctors, medical procedures, and medications. I had read awhile back about something called a nocebo effect. Whereas the placebo effect indicated that someone could be helped by a pill based solely on their belief that it would work, the nocebo effect was a situation where a medicine would not work simply because someone believed it wouldn’t. The Course teaches that the mind is very powerful. Belief is powerful.
I asked the Holy Spirit to help me see the doctors and nurses as my brothers and sisters who, despite appearances, were one with me. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me see them as trying to be truly helpful, as offering healing according to the best way they knew how. Later, I began to see the doctors, nurses, and therapists as friends through which the healing power of the Holy Spirit was working. I would forgive the medicines (magic) that they would administer and offer them to Holy Spirit, who would reinterpret them according to truth. “Healing is the change of mind that the Holy Spirit in the patient’s mind is seeking for him.” (M-6.4:3)
I would be in the intensive care ward for five days. During this time, a steady stream of therapists, case managers, doctors, and nurses visited me in my hospital room. I said a silent prayer of forgiveness and blessing for each one, thanking the Holy Spirit for working through them. They would help me relearn how to speak, eat, walk and write.
The experience was not without its share of frustrations and anxiety. The medications had bothersome side effects. A friend of mine brought her copy of A Course in Miracles in to me which I read from daily. I was grateful to have a copy of the Course in my room for the rest of my stay.
After seven days in the hospital, I was transferred to a rehab center where I began physical therapy. Ironically, as I began to regain my physical strength and coordination along with my ability to speak and chew food, I found myself losing awareness of the Holy Spirit. Instead, I was hearing the ego interject that I didn’t need the Holy Spirit, that I could do this by myself. It became more difficult to maintain vigilance over my thoughts. The more I progressed in physical therapy, the harder it was to keep myself from thinking that I was healing myself, doing it all on my own. I was forgetting that the Holy Spirit was the only real healer. I was experiencing the confusion that Jesus mentions in Lesson 96: “Mind can see itself as divorced from spirit and perceive itself within a body it confuses with itself.” (W-p1.96.4:4)
Guilt began to rise up in my mind. If only I ate a better diet or exercised more or managed stress better, maybe I wouldn’t have had the stroke. I needed to remind myself that guilt was of the ego. My healing was in my forgiveness. Jesus teaches about forgiveness in Lesson 62 of the Workbook: “It will remove all sense of weakness, strain and fatigue from your mind. It will take away all fear and guilt and pain. It will restore the invulnerability and power God gave His Son to your awareness.” (W-pI.62.3:3-5)
I was in the rehab center for about 10 days. During that time, I was well taken care of by a team of nurses, doctors, case managers. social workers, housekeepers etc. On the tenth day, my doctor told me I was well enough to go home. I reflected on the gratitude I felt for my brothers and sisters who had done their best to be truly helpful in my healing. I saw clearly now that the Holy Spirit had worked through them. I forgave myself for thinking of them as separate bodies and identities. I forgave myself for seeing myself as a body.
I knew that a lot of hard work was still ahead of me in my recovery. And there would still be many lessons to learn. But I was finally going home.
I Need Do Nothing.
Rev. Michael Dagenais is a Pathways of Light minister living in Las Vegas, Nevada Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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