Sensei Says: WHAT HAS GOD TO DO WITH GERD? →

This excerpt is taken from an essay  intended for publication. To request the unedited version you may contact the author through this website.

submitted by Father Aloysius Michael

In 2012 I began noticing occasional acid spurts that sparked a sharp, burning sensation in the throat and along the alimentary canal. I resorted to my usual habit of drinking glasses of water in the hope that acid would thus be diluted and that the problem would vanish. Years ago I had learned to titrate acid (HCl) against alkali (NaOH) in my chemistry class. It worked in the lab and it should work in the stomach. It worked for a while. However with the onset of constant acid reflux I started chewing anti-acid tablets. The human body is infinitely more complex and anti-acid tablets alone wouldn't spell relief.

As symptoms persisted for weeks, I eschewed spices, coffee and hot peppers. My small sacrifice for Lent began before the appointed time in the liturgical calendar. Occasionally, though, I'd slowly sip two tiny paper cups of coffee provided at Sprouts for sampling. I couldn't imagine how much pleasure I derived from the small quanta of coffee. Lesson learnt: Gratitude for little things and never take them for granted. I realized I have a thousand things to be thankful for. 

The simple symptoms of acidity gave way to other annoying symptoms.  I burped on getting up in the morning, after drinking a glass of water, before a meal and after a meal. In fact I burped all day long, at times even when I awakened at night. So I counted the number of burps in one single day—52 times.

I made a full report to my physician at Kaiser and he seemed impressed by my ability to count. He prescribed famotidine 40 mg, 2 times a day. His advice was to avoid chili and tomato and to give up totally coffee, tea and wine. “I have kept,” I said, “these 2 commandments of manducation.” “One more he said: Eat slow and chew the cud.” I translated it as "Chew deliberately, eat mindfully.” My mind wound back to the Gospel narrative of the thanksgiving meal at which Jesus said: "Take and eat with full awareness and mindfulness, with gladness and gratitude.”  Of course he didn't spell it out with those very words. But I could hear Thich Nhat Hahn says, “Eat mindfully.”

Following my physician's advice, I began to masticate the food and eat slowly in small portions. "Do no harm" is the basic Hippocratic rule which I observed strictly. My awareness of eating slowly and eating mindfully led me to eat my three small meals in a para-liturgical manner—like a prayer, a gesture of gratitude to the creator of all good things. I want to disabuse anyone who may get the notion that I had an epiphany and was transported to profound depths of prayer. No, I was beginning to feel the incipient stirrings. I had taken the first wobbly steps in the right direction in a long journey.

I took the new medication with eagerness and hope. After a period of time, not seeing much benefit, I was discouraged and feeling down because of a host of small things happening all at once: bad back, lack of appetite, forbidden foods, indigestion and satiety. My physician had written GERD at the end of his observations. I didn't know what it was but it seemed daunting then. Compared to what people in the ICU go through, my heart should be overflowing with gratitude and it was. I did realize how lucky I was to have had such good health all my life and I took it for granted. But now I was beginning to experience everything as a divine gift. Is this what Albert Einstein felt about creation as a whole? To live as if everything in the universe is a miracle and everything in our life as a miracle! Yet on a dull, dreary day, dark feelings of dejection would wash over me because of long months of acid-related symptoms. At other times I could look at my symptoms with a sense of humor as when I said to my physician: "I am not burping food now and yet I feel the sensation of particles in my throat. I checked my throat with my two fingers and found none. Quantum phenomenon—particles in 2 places at the same time?" The bemused look on his face was his response.

I followed faithfully the new regimen for some two months but was losing weight and was weary in mind and body. My cheery expectations fell to the ground like tiny green lemons in the dry hot summer. Because of lack of appetite I ate one third of my usual portion. Sunken cheeks, drawn face and gaunt looks. The reflection in the mirror seemed alien to me and I wondered if that was really mine image. It looked strange and ghost-like. I said to myself that it is the normal process of aging. Didn't Ignatius of Loyola say in the Spiritual Exercises that one should be indifferent to good and bad health, long and short life? The corollary is that I should be indifferent to good and gaunt looks.

My habit of procrastination was trumped by the urgency of my condition.  And so I called the 800 number for appointments and took the first slot available for all tests and x-rays.  The tests ruled out esophageal cancer and ulcers. Acid burps have almost vanished but I still had satiety, lack of appetite, and an uneasy stomach.  But what is the source of my multifarious symptoms?

My belief is that my symptoms rose from the underlying cause of prolonged distress, but Dennis, my tennis buddy of some thirty years had discounted that theory.  However my basic belief in the connection between stress and disease persisted.  But I had no clear proof of my theory.  It is only serendipitous conversation with friends that gradually pointed up the possible connection.  On hearing about my acidity problems, Tom first offered me prilosac pills but I already had the generic version.  Drawing from his own experience, he suggested stress as a possibility.  “I cough,” he said, “when I am under stress, and you have been coughing all the time—a kind of dry cough.”   Now my brain was wide awake.  The real clue?  I have had this dry cough for many years when I taught at two college campuses driving daily from San Fernando Valley to the downtown campus and then onto West L.A., and then back to Sherman Oaks.  I still bear a large dark spot on my left cheek caused by my stress during my stint at teaching and academic writing.  That was almost ten years ago. Now there was no undue stress, unusual pressure and no time-line to finish writing projects and yet I continued to have that same dark spot.

Not only did I cough ten years ago, but I noticed that the cough continues.  On reflection I realized that I am still under stress.  It was caused by cumulative frustrations, anxieties and debilitating situations.  The move from Colorado to California was exhilarating because it brought me close to my friends and the old stomping grounds.  My mortgage banker in Colorado promised me a prequalification letter as soon as I found the right property.  When I did, his inability to deliver was a shock. “You do not make enough money according to underwriters,” he said.  His advice was to go to Merrill Lynch where I had an IRA account.  No success at Merrill Lynch.  Rose, my realtor, fully appraised of my situation, approached her in-house banker at her company.  Again no success.  As the banker was trying another possible source, Rose contacted a broker/CPA to work on my mortgage.  I cautioned her and the broker about my peculiar situation and the rigid new rules and protocols formulated by the banks after the colossal Wall Street debacle.  Even some thirty years ago my attempt to buy a property ran into trouble because of the lack of the required monthly cash flow.  That lesson was still fresh in my memory and I passed it onto my broker.  Being a CPA, he came up with a creative accounting solution acceptable to the underwriters of the bank.

Drawing on experience, Tom had linked my coughing to stress.  That there is a real connection between illness and stress has been my abiding conviction ever since I read the growing literature on mind-body continuum.  But I did not attribute my symptoms to stress because I failed to see it.  But Tom spotted it.  Ignatius of Loyola famously said when one is not a good judge in one’s own case and so he stipulated that all his Jesuits should have their own spiritual mentors.   Serendipitously Tom’s revelation started the process of critical thinking about my beliefs regarding my condition.  It was not inductive but more intuitive. Eureka! Tom was right.  As alcoholics confess they are alcoholics, I had to confess that I was really stressed—for a long time—without the awareness.  I had a new conviction and it rang true.  I shared this with Diane who possesses a remarkable psychological acuity. “Isn’t that the problem?” she said, “We don’t see the connection when we are in the midst of it, and we deny it.”  I was no different from the heat-denying frog that stays in hot water as the temperature gradually rises. I was like that frog.  We live day in and day out with mounting frustrations and are able to cope with them and so we give ourselves a clean bill of health.  We do what frogs do: raise the temperature slowly the frog stays in the water.  Raise it quickly, it will jump out.

Armed with fresh awareness I set about overcoming my long standing symptoms.  Dr. Herbert Benson has proposed a three legged stool model for wellness: the three legs are medical, relational and spiritual.  We seek out the best medical treatment under the care of doctors who have taken the Hippocratic Oath. Kaiser was good enough for me.   The second leg is a caring circle of friends and family.  In fact at various stages in my life when God was absent, silent and unknown and when agnosticism seemed the only answer to theodicy, I have been comforted at the thought of friends.  The third component of wellness is spirituality.  Its composition includes a wide variety of elements such as the pursuit of wisdom (mind), corporal works of mercy (charity), rituals of devotion (heart), meditation and constant contemplative prayer.

Not only have I known a whole spectrum of spiritual practices but I imagined I put them into every day practice.  Could it be that my imagination was pure maya, an illusion?  I have learned to co-exist with other illnesses but acid reflux/GERD with its attendant symptoms of indigestion, acidity, lack of appetite, weight loss and depressive thoughts of wasting away goaded me to a serious self-examination without rationalization, psychological subterfuge and deception.  Low and behold, yes, prayer has been part of my life.  But I prayed fitfully, not deeply.  I cared for my soul, again fitfully.  My psycho-spiritual symptoms which I judged to be normal were actually at a dangerous level.  The earthen vessel was developing cracks.  Since I was inattentive to my soul, the body spoke loud through the language of the GERD.  I saw with clarity the connection between my bodily condition, negative emotions, and fitful prayer.

Spiritual life consists of purification and purgation. Some think they occur after death.  Actually, they occur at the present moment.  Via purgatoria is intimately linked to constant prayer.  The more I know myself, the more daunting it seems to purify my thoughts and emotions and you cry out: Lord have mercy upon me.  I have used a prayer antiphon from the Hours ever since I lived in the community of Holy Cross Brothers at Sherman Oaks.  It was my good fortune to have lived there for some ten years with these extraordinary men who had seen combat in World War II and belonged to the greatest generation.  Even in retirement their days were punctuated by the Benedictine ora et labora (pray and work).  Knowing that the community will be eventually closed down because of their need for assisted care I moved to upstate New York.  But I wanted to carry with me something evocative—something that would remind me about the Brother’s spirit of devotion and dedication. That was the antiphon to the psalms they often recited in their husky leathery deep and soft devotional voices: O Lord, come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me. Their voices were not a rousing polyphony but a soothing prayerful harmony. Their intonation of the antiphon, the recitation of the psalms in alternating groups, the scriptural reading, the oratio and the singing of Salve Regina in their deep tremulous voices—all these created a sense of deep peace and quiet.  In the bustling valley, the Brother’s chapel was like an island that was, “full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs.”

My reflection on two gospel passages had bearing on my symptoms of GERD. I could say, “Lord, I have kept all these commandments and have prayed daily.” Then the Lord says, “Go sell all you have and come and follow me.” In my case I had to “sell” and dispossess myself of my preconceived notions, prejudgments, self-judgments, expectations, and goals; of my indignation, righteous and unrighteous anger, and my perfectionistic attitudes. 

The other passage tells me that my present “demon” can be cast out only by prayer and fasting.  I have to fast from notional knowledge and speculation, frustration and consternation, anger and rage, and must feast on patience and peace, kindness and compassion for myself and for every human being—friend or foe.  Purification must be accompanied by purity of intention with regard to projects, people and prayer.  Instead of fitful prayer one must pray continuously giving God what is God’s. We know that Jesus often repaired to the mountains at night all by himself to keep vigil with his Father—a practice the pious medievals eventually took up.  During the day his prayer flowed into rivers of compassion and words of consolation and healing.

Purity of intention with regard to action and people is focused on God alone and not on any utilitarian purpose.  Constant prayer is again directed to God alone.  Here “ora et labora” (contemplation and action) become one.  With the example of Jesus to guide me I became a pilgrim walking on the path of purity of intention and constant prayer.  The antiphon became the tool to cast out the demon.

The three legged stool of Herbert Benson really works.  Kaiser gave me the advantage of modern medicine with its diagnostic tools.  The circle of my friends—Tom, Diane, Lizette and Dennis—provided me with loving care which made my heart glow with delight and dance with gratitude. Karen gave me in two minutes the scientific explanation of how my stomach could have both acidity and indigestion.  I assumed they were contradictory and therefore could not co-exist.  Knowledge of their co-existence paved the way to overcome my condition.  Bernadette interviewed scores of people with the GERD symptoms and came up with aloe herbal formula to balance the pH in the stomach.  Spiritual practice, the third leg, which comprises of purity of intention, attention to body and mind, and constant forgetfulness of the self with its relentless demands has a healing power which medicine alone cannot give.  In this state one is beginning to sense that, “I live, not I” therein lies coincidence, serendipity, synchronicity and chance.  The religious word for them is grace.