When Healing Becomes Educating, Vol. 2 - Waldorf Research Institute

Here, the personal destiny of the sick individual does not emerge. The
story is more about the people whose destiny has brought them into association
with him and who go through great changes. The sudden illness of the
slave helps the Jewish elders, the centurion and his friends to find their way
to the Christ. Asking about the meaning in this case, we have to realize that
“success,” the meaning of the illness, is seen not in the sick man himself but
in the people whose destiny had made them be around him.
It may seem strange at first that someone goes through a serious illness
and the significance of this is not primarily for himself but lies in the things
gone through by those who cared for him and took an interest in his life
and development. A look at daily practice dealing with sick people does,
how ever, show this to be frequently the case. There are patients where the
meaning-issue clearly relates to the individual concerned, with those around
him endeavoring to help him in this learning process, though the event
does not bring any major changes in their own attitude to or understanding
of life. One also sees exactly the opposite. The sick individual is accepting
his God-given destiny and is content in spite of the severity of the condition;
but those around him go through despair and the depths of concern, fear
and uncer tainty. The illness is shaking them awake. Just as children see
their parents in a very different light and vice versa, and each goes through
very different experiences with the other, so people relate to this situation
in different ways.
Destiny links between people show an extraordinary degree of differentiation.
What matters is the wholly individual nature of the developmental
situation of the individual and his relationship to the people around him.
With destiny links we enter a realm where everything is incomparable,
special and unique. No destiny is like any other for people’s inner lives
are utterly different, even if their biographies seem superficially similar.
This be comes apparent if we succeed in gaining people’s confidence and
real insight into the things they have actually lived through, suffered and
achieved in life.
Apart from the personal and social levels of destiny involvement there is
also a third, human level. Individuals have their destiny, and so have groups
of people, religious communities, nations, large and small social groupings
such as families or groups that work together. Beyond this, however, there
is also the general human destiny context. Humanity as a whole has evolved
through the millennia; it has a past, present and future—it has its own destiny
in the world as a whole. Here, too, sickness brings awakening, for it can make
individuals aware of being part of the whole of humanity. The meaning of
an illness is then not limited to the personal or destiny-determined social
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