Lesson #136
Sickness is a defense against the truth.
You are not your body. How could you be? Your body is constantly changing and yet, there you are watching the changes occur.
The medical sociologists make a distinction between “illness” and “sickness.” Illness is the biological dysfunction of the organism while sickness is a social role the person adopts in the management of the illness. If you are not your body and your body becomes ill what should a person make of that? What meaning does this illness have for the person? The point being made in today’s lesson is that just because one’s body may suffer from an illness, it doesn’t mean that one has to be sick.
In Alcoholics Anonymous, in step one, we come to the realization that our “sickness” has become unmanageable. We realize we can’t continue on thinking and behaving the way we have because it is damaging us and others. We finally admit that our sickness has been a defense against the truth of our holiness.
In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. In this search, we come to realize that the problem we have been trying to solve is in our mind, not in the external world. When we shift the focus of our attention from the external world to the internal workings of our mind, it dawns on us that the sickness we see in the external world is merely a projection of our fears within. We come to realize that what is called for is a healing of the sickness of our projection and an acknowledgement of the truth of our holiness which will set us free.
Today, we are asked to take fifteen minutes at the beginning and end of the day, and as often as we desire in between to remind ourselves that we are not sick, the world is not sick, that sickness is a defense against the truth of the Unconditional Love of God for the Oneness of God’s creation.
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