New Year Prescription

The usual rhetoric is “New Year Resolutions” but maybe a more realistic approach would be to “New Year Dreams” for 2019.  

What has been worrisome this past year is the disillusionment that seems to be epidemic in our lives.  In Wilmington, the shock and now malaise of Hurricane Florence is reality.  IDP’s (internally displaced people) are one of many realities.  There is FEMA, debris removal, replacement and repair but our world has been rocked.  This looks like the “new  abnormal” as described by Governor Jerry Brown of California. The joy we regularly share on the media is Schadenfreude - you don’t have to speak German to identify with this experience. 

I needed some therapy and here is what I found:

Renee Fleming and the New York Philharmonic New Year’s Eve Concert

Andrea & Matteo Bocelli - Fall on Me

Vijay Gupta - Street Symphony

Actually the new dreams found me in the beauty of music and story.  In a paradoxical way, our realities can produce our most beautiful dreams - a creative response that pushes all to a healing community.

Marvin

References:

Brown, Jerry “The new Abnormal”

https://theweek.com/speedreads/807164/gov-jerry-brown-says-massive-fires-are-new-abnormal-california

Smith, T. W. (2018). Schadenfreude: The Joy of Another’s Misfortune. Little, Brown Spark.

Renee Fleming and the New York Philharmonic New Years Eve Concert

https://www.pbs.org/video/new-york-philharmonic-new-years-eve-with-renee-fleming-ogvm7m/

Andrea & Matteo Bocelli, Fall on Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChcR2gKt5WM

Vijay Gupta - Street Symphony

https://www.pbs.org/video/street-symphony-1546641522/

Hage, M. L. (2013). Healing Music

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2013/05/healing-music.html

"Living the Dream"

“But Christian hope is a matter of discipline more than simple self-expression. Hope is about learning to dream – provided one remembers that the dream comes not so much out of one’s own unconscious, but out of God’s. Hope is first learning God’s dream, and then living it.” Samuel Wells, Learning to Dream Again: Rediscovering the Heart of God

It is advent and a time for Christians to reflect on one of the great Transitions - God’s radical entrance into our world.  These big stories resonate with the smaller transitions of our own lives.  

For me this fall has been one of those transition times.  I decided to fully retire from the practice of medicine - the previous attempts were only “slow withdrawal” moves.  The timing was coincidental with an invitation to give a lecture to incoming obstetric and gynecologic resident applicants.  I decided to use that opportunity to share personal and professional highlights of the last 50+ years.   The title of that review was “My Exit Interview” and the conclusion was “An Awesome Adventure” - it should have been titled, “Living the Dream”!

The real question for me and the applicants is (that was not asked), “What’s next?”.   I found part of the answer in the book by Samuel Wells, Learning to Dream Again: Rediscovering the Heart of God.  It is book that was published after his tenure as Dean of Duke Chapel.  He collected his highlights and reviewed them in the context of Biblical stories.  It is a great advent read.

So the advent question is what does this “New Birth” mean in our lives?   It is a big question, but I think one answer is that it is an invitation to “Dream Again” much like those young applicants that patiently listened to my story.  The good news is that the invitation is not age dependent.

Wishing you a Christmas full of dreams,

Marvin

References:

Wells, Samuel. Learning to Dream Again: Rediscovering the Heart of God (p. 11). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition. 

Hage, M. L. (2012). Awaiting “Good News”

http://healingagents.blogspot.co.ke/2012/12/awaiting-good-news.html

Hage, M. L. (2012). Vocation & Retirement.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2012/07/vocation-retirement.html

Hage, M. L. (2013). Rounds are Over!

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2013/09/rounds-are-over.html

Context and Content

Dr, George Worth (1867-1936)

“In April, Worth announced his engagement to Emma Chadbourn, a childhood friend who also had made a public commitment to foreign missionary work. They were married in the First Presbyterian Church in Wilmington at the end of July 1895, and two days later, they left for China with the farewells of the congregation ringing in their ears.”

                                                                                                     Lawrence Kessler 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance,

 kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. 

Against such things there is no law.

                                                                                             Galatians 5:22-23  (NIV)

We just returned from a church sponsored trip to China.  Part of that trip was focused on the contribution and legacy of Dr. George Worth and his wife Emma beginning in 1895 to a mission station in Jiangyin, China.  How did we see the content and context of his life’s work?  

Part of the answer is found a history of that mission station by Lawrence Kessler.  Most of that history is about context.  To get at the content of his life and practice we were treated to the oral history by his relatives.  It was a wonderful opportunity to think about how any of our lives will be seen in the future.

What he medically addressed was smallpox, diphtheria, leprosy, tuberculosis, opium addiction as well as the liver cancer that killed his dear wife, Emma.  He was alone without assistants in the beginning facing large volumes of patients.  The hospital he loved was destroyed in 1937 in what looked like a horrible conclusion to his life’s work.

What we saw when we visited Jiangyin that the content of his life was honored as a devoted physician   He would not believe the legacy that he left.  The Jiangyin People’s Hospital that displays his photo as it’s founder is now a 1200 bed teaching hospital!  

The conclusion is that the content of our lives is what is what will sustain us no matter the context.  Thanks for the witness of Geoge and Emma Worth both then and now, in China and in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Marvin

Jiangyin People’s Hospital

References:

Kessler, L. D. (1996). The Jiangyin Mission Station: An American Missionary Community in China, 1895-1951 (The James Sprunt Studies in History and Political Science). The University of North Carolina Press.

Hauerwas, S. (2018). The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson. Eerdmans.

Healing Clergy

“One of Christ’s historic roles is that of healer, making the cosmos and all creatures fully well, as he shows through his ministry in first - century Galilee and Judea. Christians have founded hospitals and clinics ever since, demonstrating God’s claim to be Lord even over disease and its distortion of human flourishing.”

Jason Byassee

There are real concerns about the health of clergy.  In a recent book, Faithful and Fractured: Responding to the Clergy Health Crisis. we hear about the efforts of the United Methodist Church of North Carolina.  It is a combination of quantitative and qualitative research results combined with a health promotion initiative.  

I was left thinking how similar their findings are to what we see in the reviews of the health of physicians, nurses and therapists.  We are all looking for a “flourishing” of our lives that is even more than a better lipid profile! 

As a practicing physician, I cherished my time in the pew.  Hearing a larger story and connecting it to the events of my life was a time of sabbath healing.  It is what we all need whether we are clergy of congregant, physician or patient.  

The power of this book is it’s dual authorship, a dialogue between an health advocate and clergy.  We need more of these kind of inter-professional conversations.  We will all find a kind of flourishing when we escape the isolation of our professional silos.

Marvin

References

Proeschold-Bell, R. J., & Byassee, J. (2018). Faithful and Fractured: Responding to the Clergy Health Crisis. Baker Academic.

Hage, M. L. (2011). Our Healing.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2011/06/our-healing.html

Hage, M. L. (2012). “Burnout” and a “Path Report”.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2012/08/burnout-and-path-report.html

Hage, M. L.  (2012). Equipping Healing Agents: Sustaining Vocation. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Hage, M. L. (2016). Healing Doctors

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2016/12/healing-doctors.html

Eye of the Storm

Screen Shot of NBC Nightly News

Each one will be like a shelter from the wind

    and a refuge from the storm,

Isaiah 32:2a (NIV)

At 7:15 am EST on 9/14/18, the eye of Hurricane Florence came to our home in Wilmington, North Carolina.

It is a paradox that coverage of Hurricane Florence’s eye was not seen by the those who were there.  The rest of the nation and world saw multiple views of this large hurricane and the responses across our community. 

One report that captured my community was on NBC nightly news (9/14/18).  I saw my surgical colleagues reaching out with other first responders to provide emergency care.  I saw their physical and emotional exhaustion.  I saw them in prayer for strength and courage.  That was for me a powerful reminder of the power of God’s presence and promise.

We were not in the eye of the storm, but many people from near and far believed we were.  We were blessed by their concern and confronted with communication of our “safe” situation.  The paradox is the hard work of not being there.  We feel drawn to return to be present even though the roads are flooded.  

We will return and in the meantime, we are thankful for our community, grieve for those who suffer and rejoice with those who have been blessed with a new sense of a power stronger than the storm.

Marvin

Healing Reassessed

First Reformed (2017)  Paul Schrader

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

Kate Bowler (2018)

How are we healed in the face of overwhelming suffering in this world?  Both Paul Schrader and Kate Bowler address this reality.  The big question and answer is found in the opening scene of “First Reformed”: 

The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) Question One: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”

We get to see Paul Schrader’s response in the lives of the church and Kate Bowler’s reflections on the realities of her own mortality.  Both challenge “easy” answers.  Both confront modern religious responses of security and certainty.  

So where is the healing?  I think both authors would argue that healing is the primal mission of the church.  I also think that both would agree that suffering is not the antonym of healing.  Both see the larger story of faith and community.  This is a stark reality for both authors.  The good news is that both authors have generated public challenges to the church and the wider culture.

What if being people of “the gospel” meant that we are simply people with good news? God is here. We are loved. It is enough.

Kate Bowler

Thanks for the witness of both these authors,

Marvin

References

First Reformed (2017) written and directed by Paul Schrader

Bowler, Kate. Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved (p. 21). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Christian Reformed Church of North America

https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/heidelberg-catechism

Hage, ML (2016) Another Kind of Healing

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2016/04/another-kind-of-healing.html

Happenings

Hubble Telescope Picture

Quantum mechanics and experiments with particles have taught us that the world is a continuous, restless swarming of things, a continuous coming to light and disappearance of ephemeral entities. A set of vibrations, as in the switched-on hippie world of the 1960s. A world of happenings, not of things.

                                                                                  Carlo Rovelli

Our gentle God created our kind to be kind by making it impossible

for us to exist without caring for those both like and unlike us.   

Stanley Hauerwas

How do we understand our interactions with each other?  In the 60’s we used the greeting “What’s happening?” and now I see how very profound that question is after reading a wonderful book by Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.  Proximate to this experience is reading Stanley Hauerwas’s The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson, and here we find some answers about our lives together.

After an invitation to be godfather by a dear friend and colleague, we are blessed by yearly letters to his godson on the anniversary of his baptism.  These are both intimate and profound descriptions of how we can live into who we are called to be.  These happenings are titled and described as virtues.  

The good news is that these virtues/happenings are, like the letters, gifts that come unexpectedly.  It happens within those relationships that we describe as our lives together.  It is the pilgrimage and signposts of our lives.

My response to each of these authors is deep gratitude for the gift of my life.  I was reminded of my parents and thankful for their lives as godparents.  My prayer is that my life will be named as a worthy adventure.  It has certainly has been an adventure!  

Marvin

References:

NASA Photo

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/potw1820a.jpg

Rovelli, Carlo. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (p. 33). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Hauerwas, Stanley. The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson (Kindle Locations 411-412). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

Hage, ML  Joy

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2013/06/joy.html