God's Grace

"Hey, I'm Dan and I hear you guys need a ride,"

Dan Todd, Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer

It is not easy to write about “God’s Grace” in the face of disasters and loss.  It is certainly not the words that I hear on the news reports covering Hurricane Sandy.

Despite that reality, I have seen God’s grace in the concerns expressed and organized by and in caring communities.  It happens by preparation, rescue and recovery.  Those realities also occur in our personal lives when we are threatened by “storms” that we name as diseases that profoundly change our ordered and ordinary lives.  

So here is how I would describe God’s grace.  It is that “extraordinary” reality that we see when God intervenes.  It is not about the disaster or disease, it is about the responses we see in the community of faith and those organizations that are the healing agents.  Help us to see the reality of God’s healing and blessings in our communities and our lives even during life’s storms.

Marvin

References

See message by Rev. Ernie Thompson, “Hardships and Blessings”, 10/28/2012 at First Presbyterian Church Wilmington, NC

http://www.firstonthird.org/Sermons/SermonVideos/tabid/189/Default.aspx

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/10/29/173002/tall-ship-lost-1-dead-1-missing.html

Thoughts

“Si on soumet tout à la raison notre religion n'aura rien de mystérieux et de surnaturel. Si on choque les principes de la raison notre religion sera absurde et ridicule.” 

“If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.” (Pensées #173-273)

“Le cœur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point.”

“The heart has its reasons, of which reason itself knows nothing.”

(Pensées #277)  Blaise Pascal(1623-1662)

Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and philosopher, addresses the assumptions of both his worlds...worlds that seem to exclude each other!   That was a long time ago!  So how are we to address this tension in our world?  Where is the credible and grande “middle” space?  

It is said that French is the language of “Love” or maybe the secret is how it creates that space in our lives.  What is that space like?   What words or behavior convey that sentiment?  There is no question that it is a critical element in our lives.   

I have been the recipient of a “Love”.  It was and is a gift.  It was not words per se, but the lives that have been shared because of a faith.  It was and is a deep connectedness and commitment found in the hearts of others.   Mystery and reason live together in a space created by that “Love”.  There is no conflict, just gratitude!

So in our world of facts and evidence, let us continue to make room for mystery and reason in a space made in and by that “Love”!

Marvin

Healing Words

Rosetta Stone

Reçois favorablement les paroles de ma bouche Et les sentiments de mon coeur, O Éternel, mon rocher et mon libérateur!  Psaumes 19:14 Louis Segond (LSG)

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.  Psalm 19:14  NIV

I am in the midst of trying to relearn another language.  It is a challenge to find the right words!  More importantly, it has been an intense and difficult time in our global village of finding the right words!   “Words” seem to have a power that we have never seen.   The power seems to come in that we can share the words to a wider audience at speeds we have never experienced. 

In our Western culture, the “first test” applied to the exchanged words is the “truth” test and in healthcare, we have come to believe that our first obligation to patients is to tell the “truth”.   Another obligation is to use words that are “healing”.    This standard does not deny “truth”, but it means our words and our hearts have another purpose that we need to consider and get right.  

In a recent email from a dear friend, I got a clear report about his care in the face of metastatic cancer.  The facts were clear, but more important was how he was cared for by providers whose hearts were as important as the reported facts.  

In what ever language or culture, we need to find those healing words and hearts.  Healing words have and will connect us and they are “good news” to a suffering world.  

Marvin

References

Here is a current example of other healing conversations:

http://www.onbeing.org/program/next-christians/4839/audio?embed=1

"Burnout" and a "Path Report"

A recent publication(8/20/12) in the Archives of Internal Medicine published from the Mayo Clinic reports that up to 1/2 of all physicians surveyed have symptoms of burnout.  This looks like an increase as compared to earlier reports of 1/4 of physicians.   What is more alarming is the authors know of no specific effective recommendation.

“Unfortunately, little evidence exists about how to address this problem.”

I think there are answers that look at “well being”.  Here is the conclusion of a reflection by Dr. Sharon Dobie,

“Seasoned clinicians who still love their work know that there is a path. It is well worn, if quietly traveled, by those of us who know that relationships with patients do have mutuality. Our patients and we know that they add to our lives. We both know that we have grown in self-awareness, in part because of the lessons learned in relationships with our patients. We both know that our interactions go best for both of us when we are mindful, coming to an encounter fully present and attending to the dynamic process happening around the narrative presented by the patient. The path is there. It is time to show it to our students and to teach them how to walk it, instead of simply trusting that they will discover it after some frustrating years of fearing they are lost.”

“Equipping Healing Agents: Sustaining Vocation” is a “path report”  that should be available at Amazon in September, 2012.

Marvin

References

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1351351

Dobie S. Viewpoint: reflections on a well-traveled path: self-awareness, mindful practice, and relationship-centered care as foundations for medical education. [Review]  Academic Medicine.  82(4):422-7, 2007 Apr.

"Green" Healing Agents

 

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
    the world, and all who live in it; 

Psalm 24:1 (NIV)

A modern social virtue has been identified in the “green” movement.  How do we act as good stewards of the resources entrusted to us?   There are a lot of answers that address those resources that are external to us; but what about us, what sustains us?  

Whether we are in ministry or medicine, our communities have invested a great deal in our training and support.  How do we most effectively, efficiently and sustainably care for this investment?  In reality, most of the effort has been in addressing the “unsustainable”.   What hasn’t been addressed is what is sustains us as healing agents.

In the soon to be published book, “Equipping Healing Agents: Sustaining Vocation” the gifts that we have received as a part of God’s creation are addressed.  It is not a self-help or book on professionalism.  It is about a wider view of what has been given to us as we follow our vocation and how those gifts sustain us.  

Marvin

"Green" Jesus is retrieved from http://www.cfact.tv/2012/06/20/christ-turns-green-at-un-earth-summit-literally/

Vocation & Retirement

“Remembering Forward”

“Who do we want to be?”

On Being with Krista Tippett

9/8/2011

“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' says the White Queen to Alice.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

 Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

1 Corinthians 7:24 New International Version (NIV)

“You are retired?” is the most common question when I meet colleagues that I haven’t seen recently.   It is a reasonable question since most of my medical school colleagues are retired.   The better question for me is what does vocation look like at the end of full-time practice?

There are a lot of books about retirement and even some studies regarding surgeons.   It seems to me that approaching the question from a vocational perspective is different than most of the books and the studies of physicians.  A report from physician Dr.  N. Thomas Connally gives us his personal and vocational account of retirement. (Select this report by clicking on it to see his video report.)

Vocational questions mandate looking back at the “direction of your life” and naming the “call”.  The good news is that “age” gives us the benefit of seeing our story and its themes.  Sometimes we find the answers and examples in other vocations.  The CD “Paul Simon Songwriter” is a wonderful summary of the vocation of Paul Simon.   We would not even think of asking the question, “When are you going to retire?”   He will always be “Paul Simon Songwriter”.

For me the question of retirement from being an actively practicing physician does not have vocational meaning.    The real question is not retirement but vocation.   What new aspects of my vocation do I need to address?   What are the missing pieces that have yet to be mastered?  I have come to believe that my “call” has not changed even if full time practice stops.  

Marvin

References

http://www.onbeing.org/program/who-do-we-want-become-remembering-forward-decade-after-911/257

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2375385-alice-s-adventures-in-wonderland-and-through-the-looking-glass

Luce EA. The ageing surgeon. [Review] Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery.  127(3):1376-83, 2011 Mar.

http://www.paulsimon.com/us/music/songwriter

Hope

“In a "medicalized" dying death is regarded as the great enemy to be defeated by the greater powers of science and medicine.”

Allen Verhey. The Christian Art of Dying: Learning from Jesus (Kindle Location 107). Kindle Edition. 

The recent book, The Cost of Hope,  Amanda Bennett chronicles the realities of end- of-life care in the United States.   It is a personal memoir of a fascinating, intelligent man written by a caring  and insightful wife.  Their story is not about lack of care but about the “medicalization” of death in our society.  It is an honest and powerful story even in her denial of what was obvious to others.   “Was I insane? Was I outrageous? Not at all, he answers. You were typical.”

Allen Verhey, writing from a perspective of a Christian bioethicist facing a lethal disease, describes the medicalization but also sees another dimension of dying.  He sees “Hope” not in the technology, although he is grateful for it, but in the community of faith and a belief in a larger Christian story.

So how are healing agents to behave in the the context of the medicalized culture?  What is key is our belief about hope and grace.   We must move to another facet of our faith as expressed in the arts.   A wonderful example is the music and images by Jonathan Elias  in the Prayer Cycle.   Here are two selections on “Hope” and “Grace”


Marvin

Bennett, Amanda (2012-06-05). The Cost of Hope: A Memoir (p. 213). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.