[...]... endure suffering, confront death, and reflect on the meaning of life This volume, the sixth in the series Interpretive Studies in Healthcare and the Human Sciences, presents many voices of suffering and challenges healthcare professionals to respond fittingly to the call to care As we offer new ways of thinking about suffering, we invite everyone to remain open to the possibilities that arrive with suffering. .. Stitching through the Whole: Coming to the Inquiry All interpretation is grounded in understanding Heidegger, 1927/1962a, p 195 Joanne was a quilter, and quilts are storied Quilting, like hermeneutics, invites ongoing dialogue and makes possible the making, preserving, and sharing of meaning Symbolism and openness abound in the gathering of hundreds of individual pieces in their path toward being “singular... the suffering of someone else to produce a feeling in oneself (Arendt, 1977) Compassion, in contrast, involves empathy—being so stricken with the suffering of another that one suffers as the other does Unlike pity (merely an exchange about suffering) , compassion is about cosuffering—knowing and entering pain (Davis, 1981) Not all suffering involves physical pain, but Arendt (1959) describes it as the. .. compassion: Caring for others and helping ourselves Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Younger, J B (1995) The alienation of the sufferer Advances in Nursing Science, 17(4), 53–72 1 Meaning in Suffering A Patchwork Remembering k at h r y n h k ava n a g h Dr Rain appeared, the bulging pockets on her white jacket straining its center button She absentmindedly squelched buzzing apparatuses while looking... and themes (pp 178–195) Bloomington: Indiana University Press Madison, G B (2005) On suffering Unpublished manuscript Polkinghorne, D (1988) Narrative knowing and the human sciences Albany: State University of New York Press Picard, C (1991) Caring and the story: The compelling nature of what must be told and understood in the human dimension of suffering In D A Gaut & M M Leininger (Eds.), Caring: The. .. Drawing on the thought of Calvin Schrag, she writes that the way the gift becomes present is through the interaction of the sufferer and the healer Harris reminds us that meaning is double edged since it is all too often that negative rather than positive meanings are taken up These negative, destructive meanings close down our ways of being in the world, prevent healing, and distort attempts to regain wholeness... carefully against the benefits that can be secured by focusing more intentionally upon the preservation of quality of life for dying children In the final chapter Shelley Raffin Bouchal offers an ethnography of the human practices of nurses who care for dying individuals Illuminating the sense of vocation that nurses often bring to their work, she describes the “calling” they experience in helping their patients... meditation in a quest for self-understanding: being in quiet surroundings, sitting still, and repeating mental patterns “Zen quilts” are created out of a desire to make them rather than to have them; they invite sewing with more spirit than rules (Detrixhe, 2004) Joanne Meaning in Suffering 17 often e-mailed me about quilts she was working on, her descriptions sharing a way of living the coming of memories... listening, and further suggests that listening involves “attending to both the dominant and the muted meanings [and] searching for the pain and stories that lie outside expectable discussion.” Ingrid Harris then offers a compelling philosophical approach to suffering Suggesting that suffering can be a gift, Harris creates awareness of the opportunities that come to sufferer and healer alike Drawing... Prednisone since April? Why?’ This set up more doubt for me—did I do the right thing?” [Diary 1] The experience of suffering is the product of both the phenomenology of the individual self/body experience and the shared social body of symbolic representation Viewed close up, this understanding of human suffering is difficult to express (Kleinman, 1995) Suffering can also be Meaning in Suffering 21 exaggerated . scholler-jaquish 1 Meaning in Suffering: A Patchwork Remembering 7 kathryn h. kavanagh 2 The Gift of Suffering 60 ingrid harris 3 Finding Meaning in Adversity. of America Library of Congress Cataloging -in- Publication Data Meaning in suffering : caring practices in the health professions / edited by Nancy E. Johnston