Entering the Whale

Firstly, apologies to all of my regular blog readers, who may have noticed that I have been inactive for a month. It’s not a holiday, much less a picnic…

Imagine this: you are a strong boat sailing on various waters; accustomed to repelling the pirates of the sea, and repulsing the birds of prey from the air. You have done it for years – all is dandy. Then, suddenly, out of the blue one Saturday, when you least expect it, you are swallowed whole by an enormous whale which all the while had been lurking beneath you – it’s mouth closes all around you, and you go down living into the depths.

Such happened to me. We set out, my wife driving, one Saturday, to visit my brother in Essex but never made it! Acute pain built up, and nearly made me pass out; we had to turn back and by evening I was in the Emergency ward of Bournemouth General Hospital. A clear blue sky had turned sombre and truly I was in the belly of the whale.

I stayed there for six days and nights – a land of not-living and darkness, despite the glow worms of some nursing kindness. Three blood tests, three CT scans, two X-rays, other tests and a procedure they asked permission to do because there was a “risk”. And still they didn’t know – what was it?

I could not sleep for four nights and I did not eat for five days, and all the while a phantasmagoria of suffering and pain was going on around me! The screams for more morphine racked the air at random times. For three days my temperature was all over the place. The external consolation on a daily basis was the visiting of my wife – how precious is love at these moments?

And internally – I focused on my breathing, I meditated, and I prayed. Three lines from the Bible came to me again and again, and I used them as the focus of my prayer and contemplation.

The first, as I remembered the line was from Genesis. Sarah laughing in disbelief when she hears God promise her husband, Abraham, that she – in her old age – would become pregnant and bear a child. God rebukes her: “Is anything too difficult for the lord?”

In my illness I focused my prayer on that aspect of God that I knew from my own life: namely, that with him all things are possible. What then was this 6 cm obstruction in my gut compared with that power to do impossibly difficult things?

Then, I reflected on the Psalms: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you.” The promise of God – this was my day of trouble – to call therefore, in my spirit, in my mind, in my emotions, demanding the honouring of that pledge, demanding with humility and contrition.

Finally, I remembered and prayed around that wonderful line from the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament. It is written, “Moses endured…” because? How? …”he saw Him who is invisible.” Because he saw what is un-see-able. A perfect paradox: to see what cannot be seen. Yet that strengthened me.

I focused my prayers on seeing the one who cannot be seen – and in the depth of the fifth night I wept as I felt His beauty beside me, in me – I felt the joy of the Lord. And after that I slept soundly for the first time in five days and in that sleep I had a vision.

I saw the cause of my illness, and symbolically I met the illness itself – “Alfred” – a three foot midget who stopped me flying. As I suddenly woke from the vision at a key point in the dream I knew the ending was still unclear, but also that God had shown me what I needed to do to create the healthy ending I sought.

On day six, though weak and with my wife, we persuaded the doctors to discharge me from the hospital and so I quit the whale.

Now at home, I am recuperating, and imagining that the chrysalis will return to health, and be a butterfly soon. Thank you for reading this, your prayers for me are appreciated.