Awe of Healing

The Golden Hour Awe

Lake Michigan

Elizabeth Hage

Watercolor, 2026

"I get tears in my eyes every time I pass a barbecue joint.”

Lewis Grizzard, 1982

“As the beneficiaries of this kind of passion and dedication, 

we owe our scientists a lot. We owe them gratitude, awe, respect.”

Mary Roach, 2025

A lot has changed in medical devices since I first confronted them as a resident at the University of Michigan.  What hasn’t changed is the awe that surrounds their use as recently reported by Mary Roach in her book, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy.  She, like Lewis Grizzard, is a wonderful writer that captures the seriousness of these “replacement parts” and the devotion of those looking to bring healing with their use.

  

Another Michigan connection was her report of ECMO (heart-lung machine) with its inventor, Robert Bartlett (1939–2025).  The title of that chapter is “Heart in a Box” where she describes the evaluation of portable ECMO for a more effective transfer of donor hearts to their recipient using a pig heart experimental model.  The pig heart is removed and perfused with the ECMO device.  She looks for a  single word to describe the experience of holding that beating pig heart: “Is there a word for awe mixed with tenderness? That’s how it feels”

Maybe, there aren’t words for this “larger awe” of creating that is better described by the creative arts that have their source in a deep faith and vocation.  This is the argument of Hokoto Fujimara in his book, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making.  Here is the first part of his benediction to those healing creators:

A BENEDICTION FOR MAKERS 

“Let us remember that we are sons and daughters of God, 

the only true Artist of the Kingdom of abundance. 

We are God’s heirs, princesses and princes 

of this infinite land beyond the sea, 

where heaven will kiss the earth.”

Thanks be to our Creator God,

Marvin

References

Roach, Mary. (2025) Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy (p. 198). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Grizzard, L. (2010). They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat. NewSouth Books. Originally published in 1986

Grizzard, Lewis (2011). I Took a Lickin' and Kept on Ticking (And Now I Believe in Miracles). Green E-Books. Kindle Edition.  Originally published in 1993

Laros RF, Hage ML, Hayashi RH: Pregnancy and Heart Valve Prosthesis. Obstet Gynecol 35: 241-247, 1970.

Fujimura, M. (2021). Art and Faith: A Theology of Making. Yale University Press.