Neonatal Resuscitation Instruction Tenwek Hospital, Kenya, 2016
Personal Photo
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
for the wound of my people?
Jeremiah 8:22 (KIV)
The basis of our healing traditions are found in the books and stories that continue to inform our futures. A recent addition to that bibliography is the intergenerational story found in Abraham Verghese’s new novel, “The Covenant of Water”. Like his previous novel, it is a beautifully written epic that takes the reader to a new understanding of other cultures. Both have wonderful descriptions of the arts of medicine.
For me, the resonance of these stories with my own medical and educational experiences make these novels a “balm in Gilead”. We are all treated to a deeper understanding of the spiritual paths into healing. That understanding is what is most amazing to me as we read these epics in our secularized and fragmented Western culture.
The pragmatic questions that challenge the reader’s own stories may not be the most important when gratitude is most appropriate.
Thanks, Abraham Verghese for continuing to tell wonder filled healing stories.
Marvin
References
Verghese, A. (2023). The Covenant of Water (Oprah’s Book Club). Grove Press.
Verghese, A. (2010). Cutting for Stone (1st ed.). Vintage Books.
Hage, M. L. (2011). The Mystery of Healing.
http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2011/04/mystery-of-healing.html
Taylor, C. (2009). A secular age. Harvard university press.
Hage, M. L. (2016). Healing Leprosy.
http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2016/02/healing-leprosy.html
