catapult magazine

Items tagged illness

• The healing power of touch

  A muscle therapist learns the power of physical touch?or not touching?in the struggle between life and death.

• Beauty from tragedy

  Discovering beauty that points to God, even in the middle of pain.

• Fragments of a sort of Midwestern hagiography

  Sometime the saint is in our blood.

• Late night thoughts on addiction as symptom

  A reflection that reframes the assumption that addiction is an illness.

• In the difficult moment

  The mother of an infant girl struggles to stay in the present through crisis.

• (Hyper)tension and energy

  A tension of thought reveals itself in physical symptoms.

• Pondering deficiency

  Reflection on illness reveals one of a different sort.

• March 16

  An excerpt from a journal about coping with chronic pain.

• A reason to smile

  A daughter’s medical condition requires finding a way to confront and understand death and suffering.

• The other side of illness

  One person’s story of the journey through cancer to self-discovery and renewed priorities.

• Suffering and love

  Photographs from Mother Theresa’s Home for the Destitute and Dying serve as aids for remembering important lessons.

• A post-hospital confession

  The ‘short answer’ after a hospital stay reveals the brokenness we miss every day.

• Gaudi’s cross the community of two

  A work of art serves as a reminder of the nature of Christian fellowship.

• Mother to mother

  Thoughts on shifting roles in the latter years of a parent’s life.

• Organic Fuji

  Comfort is in the particulars when you care for someone who’s ill.

• Loving enough

  A review of the film Away from Her by Sarah Polley.

• High on security

  A call to acknowledge suffering even as we celebrate good gifts.

• A meditation on two doctor’s appointments

  A time of sickness becomes a time of revelation about the interconnectedness of body and spirit.

• Crashing Waves

  A long illness and healing process shifts relationships and conceptions of self.

• Enough

  A short manifesto that's easy to memorize, but not always easy to live.

• A eulogy in 12 days

  Chronicling an unconventional friendship, in life and in death.

• A wonderful life

  On family rituals as occasions to pass down heirloom memories of joy and sorrow.

• Eating together

  A review of Harriet Brown's memoir Brave Girl Eating: The Story of a Family's Struggle with Anorexia.

• Dave + Lenore

  Life, confession and memory in the endless moment of illness.

• A wild ride

  A reflection on the one-year anniversary of a major injury.

• Finding good words in bad breath

  On the effort to create spaces that welcome all people.

• Understanding emotional sickness

  A window into the mental lanscape of the emotionally unwell.

• Stigma

  On a mother’s decision to keep a family secret...for now.

• The imperfect body

  Wrestling with church as a single mother.

• Ten resolutions in reverse

  Reflecting on a year of getting healthy without the pressure of New Year’s resolutions.