Kaleidoscope: “an optical instrument in which bits of glass, held loosely at the end of a rotating tube, are shown in continually changing symmetrical patterns by reflection in two or more mirrors set at angles to each other.”(p. 1043, Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd edition, 1987) This is the initial image author Mary Earle uses when she describes what serious or chronic illness does to a person’s life; as an image it works extremely well because she is right when she says that “illness turns the lens whether we want it turned or not.”

The Reverend Mary C. Earle is an Episcopalian cleric whose personal life, parish ministry, and graduate studies were intruded upon rudely in 1995 by an initial attack of pancreatitis. Occasional bouts since, of what is now a chronic condition, have required that she make adjustments in her life, in the way she opts to cope with most everything. So whatever creative and lovely patterns existed in her personal kaleidoscope up to that date, the shifting bits of glass of illness brought unwanted new designs, but ones that have had their own intrigue and beauty. How so? [Read more...]

In the summer of 1995 Mary Earle returned from a vacation feeling refreshed and restored from her time away. A few days later, all that changed, when she was rushed to the emergency room with a case of acute and life-threatening pancreatitis. Being ill, she discovered, forces you to learn to live in whole new ways, ones often marked by limitation and fragility.

As a priest and spiritual director, Earle began to explore ways in which her own prayer life might help her build a different relationship with her illness. Using the Benedictine practice of lectio divina, or sacred reading, she began to “read” her own illness, and discovered a way of befriending and helping to heal–if not cure–her body and her life.

In Broken Body, Healing Spirit, Earle introduces this strategy to others who are hungry to find ways of living more fully despite chronic or serious illness or pain. Her practical, step-by-step approach to “reading the text of our illnesses,” and learning to listen to what our bodies are trying to tell us will be of help to those who are currently suffering with disease or limitations, as well as to those who are caregivers and counselors.

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Mary Earle and Jane Patterson discuss the way in which Mary Magdalene became a spiritual authority for her community. This two-disc collection contains 120 minutes of lecture and discussion, and includes handouts for study and reflection.

Telling the Brothers was recorded live at VIVA! Bookstore in San Antonio. It is available exclusively from Viva!

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