What's your cannonball moment?

By: Dr. Jonathan Lawrence, Contributing Writer

Hopefully you'll never get hit by an actual cannonball, but the idea goes back to Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. In 1521, a cannonball struck his leg and shattered it during a battle. As he recovered from his injury and a botched surgery to set his leg, he spent his time reading religious books and praying. These reflections led to his ideas for the Spiritual Exercises and the beginning of the Jesuits – a drastically different path than the military career he had planned for himself.

So, a cannonball moment is an event that changes your life as you know it and challenges you to decide what to do next.

I've had several such moments in my life, including the day that my dreams of medical school went up in literal flames, but that's a story for another day.

My most recent cannonball moment arrived on Graduation Day. The night before graduation, I sang at Baccalaureate Mass and told many colleagues and students that I would see them the next morning. Instead, I ended up in the hospital with a heart attack after ignoring the symptoms for several days. Two hospital stays later, I came home with stents in two blocked arteries, a bunch of new medications and instructions to adjust my diet and exercise levels.   Needless to say, this was not how I planned to spend my summer.

Much of the summer was spent trying new foods – low-fat, low-salt and sometimes low-taste – and going to physical therapy to try to regain enough strength to return to the classroom. I'm almost there, but I still have a lot of exercising to do. I also had a lot of time to think. I became more aware of the dietary and sedentary habits that combined with heredity to put me in the hospital, and what I can do to prevent another heart attack. But more importantly, I was reminded of the many family and friends who surround me and are willing to support me – if I let them. I also needed to make some choices in how to spend my time and my emotional reserves, and what things to let slide because I just don't have enough time or patience to deal with everything. I plan to focus on the things that are fulfilling for me – my family, friends and students. I'm learning to care for myself, so that I can care for others, but also to let others care for me.

Apart from a couple small scars from where they accessed my arteries and the bruises caused by some of my medications, you might never know I had a heart attack. When you meet people each day, sometimes you'll see the results of the moments that have shaped their lives, but many times you won't. Some people will talk about these experiences, some will wait until they know you better, others may never talk about them. Even if you don't know what's going on in their lives, you can still show you care for them – smile, greet them, learn their names and many other ways.

Jesuit tradition speaks of cura personalis, the care of the person – the whole person – their minds, bodies and emotions.  Even though universities often focus on training students' minds, the other aspects are also important. Here at Canisius we try to find ways to support each other as we grow into the people we want to be, and that also includes caring for yourself – taking a break, resting, doing things you enjoy, and reaching out for support from others in their everyday moments and their cannonball moments!

Mary Oliver ends her poem, "The Summer Day" with this question, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Maybe you're already asking this even without a cannonball moment, but I hope you know that there are others around you who will care for you when that moment arrives.