Gift Reflections

Chicago Skyline as seen in the Cloud Gate -  Millennium Park

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up  until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4: 11-13(NIV)

There are real concerns about the ethics of gift-giving in healthcare, particularly when it has financial implications that are hidden and impact the patient without their knowledge or consent.  I would propose that there are other gifts that although frequently unseen are critically important to our vocation.  

We have been raised in an educational culture and have grown to believe that this is what sustains us.  Tactical educational responses of self-reflection, a mentor/coach or a new organization are proposed. *    What has surprised me are those unexpected gifts that have been critical to the direction of my life.  

One of those gifts is in "seeing again" that is more than self-reflection.  What became “common” leads to a kind of “blindness”.  We need to see again what we are doing.  Seeing again for me, has happened with “healing agent” children giving me the opportunity to revisit my vocation.  "Seeing again" is being a mentor or responding to a need in a new organization.

In another report, Atul Gawande, reports the importance of the gift of “other eyes”.**  The “other eyes” sees things that are difficult for the author/surgeon to see when he is focused in the performance of surgery.  A trusted senior colleague was the basis for finding a professional coach.  He reports that this new set of eyes was the way he is now seeing and responding to the hazards and challenges in the operating room. 

  

There is another gift that goes unstated and that is the gift of being invited into a trusting relationship with another suffering individual.   I have been blessed to be able to practice medicine for the last 44 years and involved in the education of healing agents and the recipient of the trust of patients.   That gift of “trust” is sometimes “earned”, but mostly one that is a freely given.  Like Atul Gawande, I have been blessed by relationships that have been gifts.  

Marvin

References:

*O'Connor M.  Walker JK. The dynamics of curriculum design, evaluation, and revision. Quality improvement in leadership development. Nursing Administration Quarterly.  27(4):290-6, 2003 Oct-Dec.

*Gaiser RR. The teaching of professionalism during residency: why it is failing and a suggestion to improve its success. Anesthesia & Analgesia.  108(3):948-54, 2009 Mar.

**Gawande A. Personal Best, October 3, 2011,  The New Yorker

A Right Mind

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well.  Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

Mark 5:14-17(NIV)

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.

2 John 1:3 (NIV)

“Dr. Gregory House” has become an iconic mythical figure in our culture.  He is not just a physician; he is a teacher.   He is looking for the “right diagnosis” but there is something “deeply wrong” with Dr House!   What should we call it?  What is your diagnosis?

What is fearful for all of us is the origin or etiology of the pain we see either in others or what we feel.   We look for words and names but more importantly we look for relief and if that doesn’t work we try to escape!   So like the incident in Mark, we are fascinated and yet fearful of what we see in “Dr. House”....it keeps us coming back but we wouldn’t want Dr. House to be either our physician or teacher.   The reality is that “IT” is more than pain, it is suffering!  “Suffering”, like birth, death and taxes, is what we all face.   Sometimes we give “IT” other names, but it is what we all confront!  

Dr. House, the residents and the patients are all suffering and looking for healing!  Dr. House’s strategy is a Socratic search for the truth with technology with clinical results that at best could be described as complicated.  The Mark account takes another approach and describes that healing looks like that is summarized by the phrase, “a right mind”.   This person who had no name, was physically and emotionally suffering now has a new life.  The problem is that even this good result makes the community nervous.  The community doesn’t want the healer to be around despite the “good outcome”.   

The “right mind” outcome is a gift of a peaceful and “purpose driven” life.  It has direction and seeks a shared truth and peace that is based in a extravagant Love that we call Grace.  Like the Mark account we still would rather pretend that we don’t need healing despite the suffering that we feel and see in this world.   It is a gift that we too often reject and or don’t share.  The good news is there are those in the world who are equipping healing agents and calling us to action.  Sometimes that looks like a Camp Geneva or a web site called the “The Peace Plan”.  

Marvin

Notes:

“A Right Mind” Dr. Laura Smit’s sermon title at Camp Geneva Worship Service August 28,  2011, Holland, Michigan

House and Philosophy: Everybody Lies  Edited by Henry Jacoby  John Wiley & Sons (2009)

Healing - Other Views

Photo by Vik Muniz - Waste Land* 

Then God came and stood before him exactly as before, calling out, "Samuel! Samuel!" 

Samuel answered, "Speak. I'm your servant, ready to listen."

1 Samuel 3:10 (The Message)

I have been impressed with the healing messages of some recent movies...“Waste Land” and “My Own Love Song”.  Both bring attention to Other Views of healing of some disadvantaged and unusual people.  The common theme for both these movies is the importance of being open to the healing power found within marginalized people and to some nontraditional methods of response to suffering.

Although one is a documentary and the other fiction, both share the method of using art as the catalyst for the healing story.  In many ways, the power of art, giving voice and form to relationships, is good news for lonely and marginalized people.  What is also the case is that it takes trusting and honest relationships to have the art materialize.  

In a recent analysis of responses to the needs in Africa, David Brooks outlines the virtues associated with altruism...courage, deference, thankfulness and “a noncontingent commitment to a specific place and purpose.”**   This kind of commitment is the basis of the relationships that are at the heart of healing.  For people of faith, we describe that noncontingent commitment as “calling” or as Leland Albright states in the David Brooks review “This is where God wants us to be.”


Marvin

* http://www.wastelandmovie.com/gallery.html

**http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/opinion/brooks-the-rugged-altruists.html

Power, Politics and Healing

They sent some Pharisees and followers of Herod to bait him, hoping to catch him saying something incriminating. They came up and said, "Teacher, we know you have integrity, that you are indifferent to public opinion, don't pander to your students, and teach the way of God accurately. Tell us: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

He knew it was a trick question, and said, "Why are you playing these games with me? Bring me a coin and let me look at it." They handed him one.

   "This engraving—who does it look like? And whose name is on it?"

   "Caesar," they said.

 Jesus said, "Give Caesar what is his, and give God what is his."

   Their mouths hung open, speechless.

                                                                           Mark 12: 13-17 (The Message)

God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful: wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.  

All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.

                                       1 Corinthians 12: 4-11 (The Message)

In a recent reports from Bahrain, physicians and nurses are being jailed for treating protesters in that country who have been participants in the “Arab Spring” protests - CNN Report and AMA request.  

The responses are arguments for “medical neutrality” of physicians and nurses in responding to any injured persons in times of violence.   Others have made the case for a social contract between medicine and society.*  It would appear that both of these arguments  have failed in Bahrain.

I have previously argued that the “telos” of healing agents does not include sponsoring state agendas even when the goals are laudable (December 24, 2010).   It seems even more obvious that the “telos” of Christian healing agents does not include torture and the denial of  care to the injured even if they have opposed the state’s agenda.  What should we do?

This brings me to modern Christian voices that opposed the state. The most instructive for me is  the writing of Alan Paton in his novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, and the challenge to the church in responding to apartheid in South Africa.  The book addresses the issue of racial violence in the struggle for justice.   The good news, despite the acquiescence of the church, is that God was at work to change an underlying evil.  I particularly love the last scene in the movie version of that book when in the face of death, Fundisi (James Earl Jones) goes to the beautiful mountains of South Africa to pray.  

As healing agents we need to look to the example of Jesus for models of response to the demands of the state.  Like Fundisi, we need to pray to the God of Abraham for relief to those who suffer for their practice of acts of healing and believe that God will be at work. 

Marvin

*Moreno, JD (2003) In the Wake of Terror: Medicine and Morality, MIT Press.

 Cruess SR. Professionalism and medicine's social contract with society.  Clinical Orthopaedics & Related Research.  449:170-6, 2006 Aug.

Minds, Bodies, Machines and Souls

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.  

                                                                                     Genesis 2:7 KJV

da Vinci’s Last Supper

In the course of their meal, having taken and blessed the bread, he broke it and gave it to them. Then he said, Take, this is my body.  Mark 14:22 The Message

Western thought has struggled to integrate our minds and bodies.  Leonardo da Vinci became the personification of this integration as inventor and artist.  Now, we have come to a new depth of integration of machines, bodies and our minds.  The recent PBS Newshour looked at bionic research and we are confronted with some amazing responses to disability and limb loss - Bionic Bodies

How can we understand the implications of what we make and how it alters who we are?  Two recent and different responses give some important answers.

Ann Patchett in her recent novel, State of Wonder,  explores unintended consequences of fertility research in the Amazon.  It is a complicated story that tells a cautious tale of acting on our abilities to make new compounds.  

Allen Verhey in his recent book, Nature and Altering It, addresses the underlying assumptions about who we are in relationship to the the science and technology that have changed our worlds.   He uncovers the mythos that surround the ethos of our scientific endeavors.

The question then is not so much whether we make new tools and use them, it is more about the unintended results and how we become the “machines” that we make.  There are many examples and some with names like “da Vinci".

My summary is that our science and technology are not what is at stake, but our souls.  What we make and our bodies are not who we are.  So now, the task is too find ways of asking more hard questions about a world that we are creating and the bodies that we are altering.  

Marvin

Our Healing

How beautiful on the mountains 

   are the feet of the messenger bringing good news,

Breaking the news that all's well, 

   proclaiming good times, announcing salvation, 

   telling Zion, "Your God reigns!"    

Isaiah 52:7 The Message

He came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. 

Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written, 

   God's Spirit is on me; 

      he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, 

   Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, 

   To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, "This is God's year to act!"

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. 

Every eye in the place was on him, intent. 

Then he started in, 

"You've just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place."

 All who were there, watching and listening, were surprised at how well he spoke. But they also said, "Isn't this Joseph's son, the one we've known since he was a youngster?"

He answered, "I suppose you're going to quote the proverb, 'Doctor, go heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in Capernaum.

                                                                   Luke 4:16-27 The Message

Most of the time our worlds get categorized into dichotomies...doctor/patient, teacher/student, nurse/patient, clergy/laity, us/them, etc.  These categories often carry with them a delusion of immunity and power.  The biblical story is that we are not immune and do not have the power.   Our healing is not distinct from those we serve.

We are vulnerable and sometimes we need to be at two different places at once...”providing care” and being “cared for”.   We know that sometimes we don’t have places to be “cared for” or we don’t  make use of the ones that are available.

One place to be “equipped” - to be a part of the suffering world - is the church.  It is a place where we can hear the “larger” stories of faith.  For Christians, the church has not only been a refuge but a community that believes that it has other responses to a suffering world.  The components can be prayer, meditation, singing, study and maybe even potluck suppers.   That is the wisdom for us as we read the visions of Isaiah and Jesus reading Isaiah in the “meeting place”.

There are many styles of response by churches*.  For some churches, “our healing” is part of its missional goal.   They focus on “equipping”  healing agents and sending them into a world of suffering.  This reality is named  “salvation” and for others “redeemed”, but what ever the word it is the basis of “Our Healing”. 


Marvin

*Dunlap, S. J. (2009). Caring Cultures: How Congregations Respond to the Sick. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press.

Healing, HeLa and Heaven

"And that's not all. You will have complete and free access to God's kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven.”  Matthew 16:19 (The Message)

Rebecca Skloot, the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks provides us with a long and wonderful story of healing that confronts the technology of cellular biology and the immortal  “HeLa” cell line.   This story identifies some surprising heros....an invisible patient, her family, a daughter who becomes a mother to the author and a researcher.

What I learned is that relationships and art are key ingredients to healing.  Chistoph Lengauer’s beautiful photo of the HeLa cells that previously have only been sources of pain; becomes a wonderful focus of communication and respect.   For scientists the art of the science maybe the best way to communicate when words and jargon only confuse and frustrate.  But art at its best must find meaning in the relationships with the communicants.  

By the art of storytelling, Rebecca Skloot, digs deep into the fractured relationships with a pilgrim’s persistence.   What is critical is that she is part of the healing story without diminishing the integrity of the others.   She becomes loved and through that love is able to hear and learn some remarkable truths.  

We are left with many unanswered questions at the end of this book.  I think the complicated questions of property and product will best be addressed by using the lessons previously learned.   We will need guidance and wisdom that may come from the patients and the community we serve; not just the voices of those who are the experts.

So what about the “heaven” part?...maybe that reality is when “the good” persists or as the title suggests is “immortal”.   We certainly know that when “the bad” persists it is “hell”.   So we can rejoice in the title, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” as a “the good” that persists, a little bit of heaven here on earth.   Thanks for the life of Henrietta Lacks and the good that persists in her ongoing contribution to healing.

Marvin


For more information:   http://www.RebeccaSkloot.com