Precarity

Lake Michigan Holland, Michigan, 

Personal Photo - 8/8/2023

“The angst of facing mortality has no remedy in probability.”

Paul Kalmanthi

“It seems, when we’re doing life correctly, 

Other children and adults begin to see hope in one another.”

Brad  Montague

The reality of this post pandemic year puts me into the category of “survivor”.  Currently, my health has been good since I have still been able to participate in most events around me.  The larger question is more than just participation; it is purpose.  What am I called to be in this overtime post pandemic period?  

The changes that we are living since the “end” of the Covid 19 pandemic are difficult to articulate.  There have been major changes in our living as well as our institutions.  The word that seems to best describe this time of deep uncertainty is “precarity”.  It is this disorientation  that requires a reassessment of plans that we once thought of as secure.  The “fog” of Covid is more than an individual symptom but a definition of what we are all feeling.

The answer for me is to continue learning, but in a different kind of classroom than schools, clinics and operating rooms.  It is in listening and reading together.  It is with what have been given to me as gifts - younger lives around me that are also searching for meaning and direction.  

Marvin

References

Kalanithi, Paul. When Breath Becomes Air (p. 134). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Montague, Brad. Becoming Better Grownups (p. 107). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. . Becoming Better Grownups (p. 107). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

End of the Federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/end-of-phe.html#:~:text=What You Need to Know,share certain data will change.

Singh TK; Zidar DA; McCrae K; Highland KB; Englund K; Cameron SJ; Chung MK

A Post-Pandemic Enigma: The Cardiovascular Impact of Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2. Circulation Research. 132(10):1358-1373, 2023 05 12.

Hage, M. L. (2020). Our Healing.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2020/05/our-healing.html

Hage, M. L. (2022). Healing Ministries.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2022/06/healing-ministries.html

Healing Myths

 

The Little Mermaid - Statue Copenhagen, Denmark

“It’s fiction! Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives!”  

From The Covenant of Water

Come and hear, all you who fear God;

    let me tell you what he has done for me.

Psalm 66:16 (NIV)

It was a strange coincidence after just finishing The Covenant of Water to be watching the newest release of The Little Mermaid with my grandchildren.  I remember thinking there seem to be similar themes working in both these stories.   Hidden behind both these stories is another older tale that is the basis of both these modern myths, “Ondine’s Curse”.   

Why do stories have such a powerful resonance over time?  Is it the missing element in our current Western medical care?  Does healing happen when we can tell the story?  

For me, the healing stories are the ones I have heard from patients and physicians that have always had a sense of “awe” and left me wanting to “hear more”.   This clinical curiosity is an important foundation of the creative aspect of the practice of medicine.  It begins by listening to the patient’s story.  It moves the specific story to connect with a larger cultural story of healing.  It was one of the joys of the practice of medicine.

Thanks be to God for old and new myths that bring us healing!

Marvin

References

The Little Mermaid, Disney

https://movies.disney.com/the-little-mermaid-2023

Verghese, A. (2023). The Covenant of Water (Oprah’s Book Club). Grove Press.

Demartini Z, Maranha Gatto LA, Koppe GL, Francisco AN, Guerios EE. Ondine's curse: myth meets reality. Sleep Med X. 2020 Jul 13;2:100012.

Zmijewski P; Lynch KA Jr; Lindeman B; Vetter TR

Narrative Medicine: Perioperative Opportunities and Applicable Health Services Research Methods.  Anesthesia & Analgesia. 134(3):564-572, 2022 03 01.

Packer, L., Why we need fairy tales

https://storynet.org/why-we-need-fairy-tales/

Hage, M. L. (2011). The Mystery of Healing.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2011/04/mystery-of-healing.html

Hage, M. L. (2015). Telling the Story

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2015/01/telling-story.html

Healing Visions

“The Father of Microbiology”

Personal Photo, Burial Site of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Olde Kirk, Delft, Netherlands 

“To see the miraculous in the ordinary is a more precious gift than prophecy”

Quote from the book “The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese

And afterward,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your old men will dream dreams,
    your young men will see visions.

Joel 2:28 (NIV)

At this time of commencement for so many, there are the large questions of “what next?”.  This is a critical question for the healing professions.  We have had significant disruptions with the pandemic.  What have we learned?  Are the answers found in other disciplines?  Are there new visions?

Abraham Verghese felt the weight of the pandemic and finished his book, “The Covenant of Water.  It is a beautiful book that asks these hard questions.  Like his previous epic novel, there are haunting sculptures, that capture the tension in our lives of what separates us and what connects us. 

The reader is left to ponder these questions.  For me, the answers are found in the young, the new graduates, the new residents.  They will find new answers to the suffering in the world.  They will have new questions.  Some may find wisdom in the ancient responses.

Thanks for the promise of new healing visions.

Marvin

References

Verghese, Abraham. The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) (p. 258). Grove Atlantic. Kindle Edition. 

Hage, M. L. (2013). “Seeing the Elephant”.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2013/02/seeing-elephant.html

Hage, M. L. (2012). Rx Ubuntu.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2012/04/rx-ubuntu.html

Hage, M. L. (2020). M & M - “Who’s Presenting?”.

https://healingagents.blogspot.com/2020/03/m-m-whos-presenting.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR2k95e9LN4lldPtQSH6XcxrP6zHa1k36bzFPyw8iDmZ2Uq_z7SMArn7pCw

A History of Healing

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

New/Old Healing Conversations

There are sometimes uncanny coincidental events, independently addressing deep issues that we all face.   Both events started with remote video presentations from two universities - one a religious response to a broken health care system and the other political-social response addressing mental health.. 

What was new for me was the revolution in mental health care.  What is clearly identified are the poor outcomes and the barriers to improvement in the epidemic of mental illness.  The author’s answer is not just symptom relief, but recovery and healing.  More than social determinants of health, we are faced with the moral determinants of health. 

The moral dimensions of health care brings me to the other presentation and the Heidelberg Catechism.  This presentation presents a moral alternative to our current health care culture that is “broken”.    It is a fresh way of thinking about the vocation that has called many of us.

For me, both of these presentations address the underlying purpose of healing in healthcare. Both are hopeful visions.  Both are realistic and are complimentary to the other.  What is exciting is that these conversations are occurring.

Marvin

References

Tilburt, J.,(2023) Body and Soul in Life and in Death: Living the Heidelberg Catechism in Healthcare. YouTube

Insel, T.,(2022)  Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health. Penguin.

Hage, M. L. (2012). “Everybody Dies”.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2012/05/everybody-dies.html

Hage, M. L. (2021). Timing Connections.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2021/09/timing-connections.html

Hage, M. L. (2010). The “Telos” for Christian Healing Agents.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2010/12/telos-for-christian-healing-agents.html

Berwick, D (2020) Moral Determinants of Health

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2767353

Lenten Healing Revisited

 “Sankofa Brid”

“Looking Back to Move Forward”

“…life-shaping belief in God requires things like conviction, formative discipleship, and habits and practices that don’t make sense apart from that belief. It also requires, as we’d like to 

contend here, ongoing immersion in traditions—of inquiry, of practice, indeed of living and being—that can illumine our present circumstances and draw us toward hope-filled futures.”

                                                                                        Andrew Hogue and Gregory Jones 

As we start this Lenten season 2023, we are still at the “intersection” of deep suffering in the world.  The war in Ukraine is taking on a new dimension, the Covid 19 pandemic continues to challenge health care responses, global economies try to respond and deep political divisions show no sign of resolution.  What and where are the Lenten responses?

For me, it is a time of reflection, looking back to see the way forward.  There is a wonderful icon for this response - “The Sankofa Bird”.  This story  is what we practice in Lent as we look back to see what we have forgotten.   It is not nostalgia.  It is not “living in the past”!  It is a catalyst to our living into our Christian calling that we so easily forget.

I have felt the reality in the Lenten stories that are shared in the communities of faith that continue to sing and listen.  These celebrations events are the “good news” that shines in the darkness.

Thanks be to God,

Marvin

References

 

Hogue, Andrew P.; Jones, L. Gregory. Navigating the Future (p. 15). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition. 

Sankofa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankofa

Previous Lenten Posts:

Hage, M. L. (2021). Promised Healing.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2021/03/promised-healing.html

Hage, M. L. (2021). Healing Memorials.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2021/08/healing-memorials.html

Hage, M. L. (2022). Lenten Peace.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2022/03/lenten-peace.html

Hage, M. L. (2022). “Holy Covid”.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2022/04/holy-covid.html