‘So how, one might wonder, can one hallow, or make holy one’s diminishments?’
Rosalind Smith reflects on ‘hallowing’
Seven years ago, when my husband began to exhibit signs of Alzheimer’s disease, I became his full-time carer. Since then I have had to relinquish various activities and interests, all of which were rewarding and life-enhancing. Recently, John Yungblut’s Pendle Hill pamphlet On Hallowing One’s Diminishments has been speaking to my condition.
Some of the dictionary definitions for ‘hallowing’ are: to make holy or set apart for holy use, to consecrate, to respect greatly, even to venerate – an unusual term. When John Yungblut’s life began deteriorating after a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, he soon saw that his ‘first step in learning to “hallow” the progressive diminishments in store for me was a deep-going acceptance’. But it would have to be a positive rather than a negative one, if it were to be a real hallowing. He learnt to cooperate with the process by maintaining a friendly attitude toward it, an understanding that it was ‘part of the process by which I shall ultimately die unto God’. One can learn to treat one’s diminishments as companions, thereby affording oneself a certain detachment – even to develop a sense of humour about them. But he recognises that the forces of diminishment are, in the words of Teilhard de Chardin, ‘vast, infinitely varied, their influence constant’. These forces can be external, the ‘slings and arrows’ that life flings at us; or inward and irretrievable such as physical defects, or intellectual or moral limitations.
Further diminishments to my own life manifested in physical symptoms, brought on by the amount of lifting I now had to undertake. My walking has been severely affected, and I can only get about with the aid of a frame. So be it. Operations and physiotherapy are helping but are unlikely to be a complete cure. And as my husband had to be placed in care rather suddenly, he too has experienced a diminishment in his own life.
Hallowe’en, the eve of All Hallows’, or All Saints’, was considered to be when wandering souls were about. At least, this is the connotation given it these days. The following day of All Saints is mainly ignored, except by the orthodox churches. So how, one might wonder, can one hallow, or make holy one’s diminishments? I think it comes down to firstly accepting what has happened, and then looking ahead, rather than backwards, to seeing what is still left in life, what we can do about it, and how we might use it creatively. We must let go of what we thought, mistakenly, was our ‘path’ and embrace a new avenue, which will open before us if we let it. We must let go, gently, and welcome that road ahead which is not yet taken.
John Yungblut had a great sense of humour and once asked a group of Friends: ‘I had understood an inner quaking and outer trembling as evidence that the Holy Spirit was prompting me to share a vocal ministry. But when one is trembling all the time, how does one discern the prompting of the Spirit?’
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