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Oliver Sacks: Extraordinary and Ordinary

I have been very moved by the illness and death of Oliver Sacks. I first began reading his books with their wonderful narrative accounts of his patients when my children were young. He is a compassionate and insightful interpreter of people and how they, with their brains, make meaning. As I read about extreme neurological conditions that would be categorized as “abnormal,” I gained insight into what I would have called “normal.”

"9.13.09OliverSacksByLuigiNovi" by Luigi Novi. Licensed under CC BY 3.0
“9.13.09OliverSacksByLuigiNovi” by Luigi Novi. Licensed under CC BY 3.0

Just this past week I got enormous pleasure from reading his memoir, On the Move.
Glorying in the extraordinary mind of Oliver Sacks, I took account in a fresh way, an ordinary mind (mine).
Dr. Sacks’ life and work are overflowing with subjects for innumerable homilies and blogs, but here is one for today.
Oliver Sacks is a keen observer not only of his patients, but of himself. In a 2012 interview after the publication of Hallucinations, Terry Gross expresses surprise about how many intense neurological episodes Oliver Sacks has had for one person in one lifetime. She says (and you can hear her wonderful gee-whiz enthusiasm):
“Honestly, like you’ve had migraines from, like, the age of 4, and you heard the voice when you were mountain climbing and would have died had you not kept walking in spite of a severe leg injury. You’ve had spinal pain and, you know, wanted to understand the, you know, nerve causes of that. You’ve had visual disorders. And it just seems like you – you have experienced so much which I know has been useful to you as a doctor. But it seems like a lot for one person to go through.”
“You’ve lost your sight in one eye because of cancer. And that started out with all kinds of distortions.”
Dr. Sacks answers:
“Yes. Well, it has been a lot in a way. But I’m – I feel I’m lucky. I’m close to 80, and I’m still in fairly good shape, especially if I can go swimming. I limp a bit on land, but I’m powerful in the water. And it’s true, I’ve only got one eye now, and the other one needs of some surgery. But I manage. I suspect that most people may have quite a lot of neurological things to which they don’t pay much attention. I think I probably differ from others only in having paid attention to things.”
He hasn’t had more experiences; he has just paid attention.
The Christian practices of prayer and meditation are means of paying attention. When I am able to stop and focus, when I write, pray, when I talk with my spiritual director or with a close friend, I am more able to recognize my experience and begin to make meaning.
Oliver Sacks’ modest admission: “I think I probably differ from others only in having paid attention to things” offers this challenge:
Take seriously your experience, neurological, spiritual. Observe, analyze, get counsel and wisdom from your companions and from your community. Who you are and what you have is yours, all you have, unique, given by God, ordinary and extraordinary.
How carefully do you pay attention?
 
C_Kittredge_web_hs_160x200Cynthia Briggs Kittredge (@cbkittredge) is the Dean & President of Seminary of the Southwest.  She believes that historical and literary study of scripture in its ancient context can inform and nourish the imagination for faithful preaching and teaching. Professor Kittredge, a contributor to The New Oxford Annotated Bible and the Women’s Bible Commentary, is the author of Conversations with Scripture: The Gospel of John and Community and Authority: The Rhetoric of Obedience in the Pauline Tradition. She co-edited The Bible in the Public Square: Reading the Signs of the Times and Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.

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