{"id":147773,"date":"2022-12-07T14:34:45","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T13:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=147773"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:33","slug":"leprous-cherub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2022\/12\/07\/leprous-cherub\/","title":{"rendered":"Leprous cherub"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is the meaning of life? Of all of this, of the things we do or neglect to do? I do not often dwell on such questions. No, seriously. I usually ask them out loud, in a rhetorical sense, after I’ve talked myself into a corner, slightly ironically and with a wide grin. I\u2019m not usually one for deep ontological analysis. I\u2019d rather content myself with the belief that meaning is something that can be found in all the manifold aspects of life, such as music, art, social interaction, religion and much more besides. Whatever people prefer.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>, \t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPauline Wiersema<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

It\u2019s half past six in the evening, and I\u2019m looking out the hospital window. I\u2019ve had a long day, full of lots of seriously ill patients, and it seemed like nothing could go right. It\u2019s dark outside, and the winter horizon has swallowed the sun early. I know there\u2019s a car park out there, now largely empty, and behind that rows of ugly high-rise flats, but it\u2019s too dark to make out any details. I can see patches of colour: grey, black and dark blue. Street lights and vehicle lights twinkle like stars. If I squint, I can make out the colourful tissue of the universe.<\/p>\n

What is the meaning of life? Why did I want to work in a hospital? No, really. We extend people\u2019s lives \u2013 even save lives now and then. Without medical assistance, they would die, or their suffering would be worse. In days of yore, you would advise someone to chew on some willow bark, but that was pretty much all you could do. Death was a more prominent part of life. Ascetics even deemed pain to be meaningful. They had their reasons for thinking that.<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018Can\u2019t we teach patients to make peace with death, to return to God or, if they prefer, to the eternal void?\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Why do we provide healthcare, when it produces mountains of plastic waste and costs the public a pretty penny? Especially when patients pump themselves full of junk food and cigarette smoke following recovery. Wouldn\u2019t it be better to spend that money on education? On improving quality of life? On democracy, on justice? All those elderly people, whose intensive palliative care costs a tremendous amount of money \u2013 what do they do apart from continuing to fester in care homes? Can\u2019t we teach patients to make peace with death, to return to God or, if they prefer, to the eternal void?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been fascinated with ascetics, by the way. I wouldn\u2019t mind being one, but I\u2019m not sure I know where to find a cave to shelter in. I also realise that there\u2019s often a certain perversity to ascetics\u2019 actions. Their efforts to overcome their own desires kindle resentment in them towards others who don\u2019t do the same. Take Ayatollah Khamenei, who has no issue with exterminating his own population because they don\u2019t want to live according to his strict beliefs. Lovely, good, courageous people. What an idiot.<\/p>\n

Not even Jesus was an ascetic, in the self-flagellatory sense. He took things as they came, which is great. I\u2019m suddenly reminded of l\u2019abb\u00e9 Agathon<\/em> by composer Arvo P\u00e4rt. It\u2019s a choral piece, based on an old Christian story. An angel disguised as a leper asks Agathon to carry him and to give him sustenance. When he does so without complaint, the angel reveals himself to Agathon and gives him the blessing of Jesus. Agathon is one of those rare examples of a good ascetic, and yet, in part because \u2018agathon<\/em>\u2019 is Greek for \u2018good\u2019, I\u2019m inclined to regard the story as allegorical. It\u2019s a nice story, but it never happened.<\/p>\n

My train of thought leaves me feeling wistful, yet also tranquil. I leave the hospital and enter the cosmos. I put on my headphones and lose myself in P\u00e4rt\u2019s music. I find myself in the process of dismissing my earlier thoughts as trivial, incoherent and deplorable when a leprous cherub descends from the heavens, lands on my shoulder and whispers into my ear: \u201cPar charit\u00e9, porte-moi l\u00e0-bas<\/em>\u201d, or \u201cBe gracious and carry me.\u201d Sure thing, dear friend, I can do that.<\/p>\n\n\t

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