A reader of mine battling terminal cancer observed how her illness “opens so many insights and clarity of thought.” She also lamented time wasted in the past. Unlike Prince Myshkin, her diagnosis assures no last minute reprieve, but her faith sustains her.
I watched a documentary in which a blind Carthusian monk with “dementia” spoke softly about light and love and God. Josef Pieper may call insanity an innate evil, but for some maybe it’s a kind of divine grace—a portal to higher insight? I thought this upon reading the concluding words of your essay: “But where danger is, grows/The saving power also.”
Thanks for these ruminations, John! Yes, when he characterizes it as an evil I think he means it is a privation, but a privation can be ransomed for the good. The dementia is not in itself something to celebrate, but singular goods can come THROUGH that limitation (not merely in spite of it).
A reader of mine battling terminal cancer observed how her illness “opens so many insights and clarity of thought.” She also lamented time wasted in the past. Unlike Prince Myshkin, her diagnosis assures no last minute reprieve, but her faith sustains her.
I watched a documentary in which a blind Carthusian monk with “dementia” spoke softly about light and love and God. Josef Pieper may call insanity an innate evil, but for some maybe it’s a kind of divine grace—a portal to higher insight? I thought this upon reading the concluding words of your essay: “But where danger is, grows/The saving power also.”
Thanks for these ruminations, John! Yes, when he characterizes it as an evil I think he means it is a privation, but a privation can be ransomed for the good. The dementia is not in itself something to celebrate, but singular goods can come THROUGH that limitation (not merely in spite of it).