Bless You Heart Attack

I'd like to say, by way of beginning, that Advent is my favourite church season. It is, first of all, a time to look back and acknowledge our shortcomings. A limerick sums it up: God's plan made a hopeful beginning, 'til man spoiled his chances by sinning. We hope that the story will end in God's glory, but at present the other side's winning. But as well as shortcomings it encourages us to look forward, clean up our act as much as possible and bring hope to the future. Now, an extract: 'I was given a phone and called my closest male friend Don. We had become friends 47 years previously, aged 17 and 18 respectively, when he was a Med and I an Arts student at Sydney University. He had since moved to Melbourne where he now practised as a psychotherapist. My phone call was a bolt from the blue. He had no idea I was ill, let alone in hospital. Choking with tears, I managed briefly to explain the situation and to say 'goodbye'. Weeks later, I apologised for the shock I had caused him. He was very understanding.' I immediately started work on a eulogy, which I now update from time to time. Only recently it occurred to me that I was assuming Bruce would pop off before I did. So I asked him to prepare a eulogy for me. We are now both on the same page, so to speak. One of the things about the book I particularly like is Bruce's grasp of theological issues. I'm not going into detail here but I admire the way he was able to extract himself from the Sydney Anglicanism we were trained in. It became apparent to us that its theology was at bottom rationalistic, so much so that for a while I referred to our Principal as the Reverend David Hume. Bruce insisted that the heart of Christianity is mystical, not rational. Not that he ever thought of himself as a mystic; if he has to wear a label he prefers 'orthodox'. But he became convinced that the answers to our questions about faith were not to be found in rationalist theology. Here is an extract from someone else: 'A year ago I underwent heart surgery and it was utterly life-changing. I came out of that experience with a completely different view of life and a new realisation of who I really am.' That was from Shane Bowden, a finalist in this year's Archibald Prize. He had a tough run, but nothing like what Bruce went through. Bruce's ordeal, sparked as it was by a near-fatal misdiagnosis, lasted much longer and still imposes limits on what he can do. But in the end he could find gratitude. This is the heart of the book's title, and to dispel any sense that it might be wordy and puzzling I will conclude by reading to you the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from his book The Gulag Archipelago from the dedication page: 'Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realise that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.' As presented at the Launch of Bless You Heart Attack on 1 December 2019 Don Meadows Retired psychotherapist, Former editor of The Australasian Journal of Psychotherapy.