Call to Life: Exploring the Spiritual Dimension as a Dialectic Between Suffering and Desire Experienced by Coronary Bypass Patients

This article tries to conceptualize the nature of spirituality from a perspective of suffering and desire. The conception of hermeneutics and interpretation applied in this study was inspired by H. G. Gadamer. In this study the method used involved 2 focus groups. The result shows that the participants’ experiences can be likened to a sacred journey into the universe of spirituality visible in different stages: explicit suffering; concealed, unrevealed suffering; the inner space; belief; and serving in love. If the spiritual dimension of life is ignored, the patients are deprived of their dignity as human beings. Ontological evidence implies that this theory is reflected in the care of the unique patient where the spiritual dimension is explicitly brought out.