Category: conflict

A Painful Wuthering

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Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.
~Emily Brontë “Fall, Leaves, Fall”

It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.
~Emily Brontë from Wuthering Heights

The loudest crows
cawing over the tops of the oaks
call me to autumn already,
and though my back is to the window,

I know the sky must be a gray wuthering,
and the curlews are crying. The wind
must be moaning as it goes sweeping
across heath and moors and the spikes
of purple heather thousands of miles away
from where my body sits; yet

I feel the gorse
grazing my ankles as I go.
~Andrea Potos “Brontean Morning” from Her Joy Becomes

I avoid watching sad movies and will close a book that is clearly heading for a weepy ending.

I don’t need to wrap myself around things that hurt when there is enough sadness and pain in the world already. Deep emotion sticks to me like velcro, even when I know the tragedy is not my own. I take it on as if it is.

As a result, the Brontë novel Wuthering Heights is not my cup of tea. I suffered through the book as well as the movie versions. It is grim with wild, destructive passions that only lead to more sorrow. I become immersed in those desperately gray “wuthering” scenes feeling the sharp thorns of the words I read that end up drawing blood from me.

But most suffering is not at all fictional. When I become aware of tragedy happening far away, when the hurricane leaves behind terrible devastation or bombs and bullets rip communities to shreds, even though there is little I can physically do to help, I can’t turn away and not look. I can’t close the book that makes me sad and uncomfortable.

I too must feel the hurt, embracing the thorns rather than avoiding them.

Jesus did just that, taking it all upon Himself. He never turned away and still, now, today, He is pierced, bloodied for our sake.

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Let the Years Be Kind

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Just down the road… around the bend,
Stands an old empty barn; nearing the end.
It has sheltered no animals for many years;
No dairy cows, no horses, no sheep, no steers.
The neigh of a horse; the low of a cow;
Those sounds have been absent for some time now.
There was a time when the loft was full of hay,
And the resounding echoes of children at play.
At one time the paint was a bold shade of red;
Gradually faded by weather and the sun overhead.
The doors swing in the wind… the hinges are loose,
Windows and siding have taken a lot of abuse.
The fork, rope and pulleys lifted hay to the mow,
A task that always brought sweat to the brow.
But those good days are gone; forever it seems,
And that old barn now stands with sagging beams.
It is now home to pigeons, rats and mice;
The interior is tattered and doesn’t look very nice.
Old, abandoned barns have become a trend,
Just down the road… around the bend.
~Vance Oliphant “Old Barn”

We will call this place our home
The dirt in which our roots may grow
Though the storms will push and pull
We will call this place our home

We’ll tell our stories on these walls
Every year, measure how tall
And just like a work of art
We’ll tell our stories on these walls

Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind
Let our hearts, like doors, open wide, open wide
Settle our bones like wood over time, over time
Give us bread, give us salt, give us wine

A little broken, a little new
We are the impact and the glue
Capable more than we know
To call this fixer upper home

With each year, our color fades
Slowly, our paint chips away
But we will find the strength
And the nerve it takes
To repaint and repaint and repaint every day

Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind
Let our hearts, like doors, open wide, open wide
Settle our bones like wood over time, over time

Give us bread, give us salt, give us wine
Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind
Let our hearts, like doors, open wide, open wide
Settle our bones like wood over time, over time

Give us bread, give us salt, give us wine
Give us bread, give us salt, give us wine

Smaller than dust on this map
Lies the greatest thing we have
The dirt in which our roots may grow
And the right to call it home
~Ryan O’Neal “North” (listen to the choral versions below)

Each of us needs a home.
Every creature needs a place to put down roots and rest their head.

Yet, due to ravages of time,
a poverty of spirit and strength,
discouragement and discord,
natural disasters and drought,
or the devastation of politics and war —
too many find themselves chipped away until nothing is left.

It is time for restoration. It is time for renewal.

It is time for kindness:
the broken repaired,
the lonely made welcome,
the hungry fed.

Somehow, someway, we rebuild, repaint and restore
so all put down roots and thrive
and are welcomed home.

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Restless Sabbath Love

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The old church leans awry and looks quite odd,
But it is beautiful to us, and God.
~Stephen Paulus “The Old Church”

A little aside from the main road,
becalmed in a last-century greyness,
there is the chapel, ugly, without the appeal
to the tourist to stop his car
and visit it. The traffic goes by,
and the river goes by, and quick shadows
of clouds, too, and the chapel settles
a little deeper into the grass.

But here once on an evening like this,
in the darkness that was about
his hearers, a preacher caught fire
and burned steadily before them
with a strange light, so that they saw
the splendour of the barren mountains
about them and sang their amens
fiercely, narrow but saved
in a way that men are not now.
~R.S. Thomas “The Chapel”

It’s just a boarded-up shack with a tower
Under the blazing summer sky
On a back road seldom traveled
Where the shadows of tall trees
Graze peacefully like a row of gallows…

The congregation may still be at prayer.
Farm folk from flyspecked photos
Standing in rows with their heads bowed
As if listening to your approaching steps.
So slow they are, you must be asking yourself
How come we are here one minute
And in the very next gone forever?
Try the locked door, then knock once.

High above you, there is the leaning spire
Still feeling the blow of the last storm.
And then the silence of the afternoon . . .
Even the unbeliever must feel its force.
~Charles Simic, from “Wooden Church” from The Voice at 3:00 A.M.

The church knelt heavy
above us as we attended Sunday School,
circled by age group and hunkered
on little wood folding chairs
where we gave our nickels, said
our verses, heard the stories, sang
the solid, swinging songs.

It could have been God above
in the pews, His restless love sifting
with dust from the joists. We little
seeds swelled in the stone cellar, bursting
to grow toward the light.

Maybe it was that I liked how, upstairs, outside,
an avid sun stormed down, burning the sharp-
edged shadows back to their buildings, or
how the winter air knifed
after the dreamy basement.

Maybe the day we learned whatever
would have kept me believing
I was just watching light
poke from the high, small window
and tilt to the floor where I could make it
a gold strap on my shoe, wrap
my ankle, embrace
any part of me.
~Maureen Ash “Church Basement”

Mom,
You raised your hands while we sang this morning
like I’ve never known you to,
but I guess until recently I’ve never really known you in a church that let you feel alive.

Were you tired of hiding,
or just tired?

Thank you for letting yourself be seen.

Thank you, Lord, for her.
~Griffin Messer from “An Analysis of Worship Today”

There is so much wrong with churches overall,
comprised as they are of fallen people
with broken wings and fractured faith.
We who look odd and lean awry,
so keen to find flaws in one another
when we are already cracked open and spilling with our own.

Yet what is right with the church is
Who we pray to, why we sing and absorb the Word-
we are visible people joined together as a body
so bloodied, so bruised, yet being healed
despite our thoroughly motley messiness.

Our Lord of Heaven and Earth
rains down His restless love upon our heads
no matter how humble a building we worship in,
or how we look or feel today.

We are simply grateful to be alive,
eating a meal together,
mourning those we have lost,
coming together to raise our hands,
to kneel and bow in a humble house God calls His very own.

photo by Barbara Hoelle
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The old church leans nearby a well-worn road,
Upon a hill that has no grass or tree,
The winds from off the prairie now unload
The dust they bring around it fitfully.

The path that leads up to the open door
Is worn and grayed by many toiling feet
Of us who listen to the Bible lore
And once again the old-time hymns repeat.

And ev’ry Sabbath morning we are still
Returning to the altar waiting there.
A hush, a prayer, a pause, and voices fill
The Master’s House with a triumphant air.

The old church leans awry and looks quite odd,
But it is beautiful to us and God.
~Stephen Paulus

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The Oldest Tree

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Lately, when I awake desolate
feeling half-swamped
by runaway currents I name—
dread, for my children, and theirs,
and this planet—I backstroke
through time to rest my palms
against the delicate skin
of the gingko tree, the one
and only, in my home town.
Rooted in siltish sand,
come autumn, it flaunted
10,000 golden fans:
a waving descendant my uncle said,
of the oldest tree
to inhabit the earth. Memory
replays three fluting sighs
of a mourning dove, high in the canopy,
that vast fretwork alive again
with rustling endearments—yet
ghostly, too, as his unseen hand
almost rocks my skiff of a self.
~Laurie Klein “Lately, when I awake desolate”

So many reasons to awake in the night,
eyes wide open, searching the dark seas of trouble
for some sign of hope
for calm and peace in this stormy world.

Rocked to sleep again, I float among abundant
golden gingko leaves, each waving like a sail in the breeze,
before it tumbles, swirling, to the ground, forming
deeply cushioned and comforting pools of yellow.

Navigating these brutal times, desperate to
anchor within some safer harbor – I treasure
the old ginkgo as it reaches over each cherished child
with its golden cloak of love and protection.

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Swinging From the Rafters

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The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun
that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion
whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,
and a small brown spider has hung out her web
on a line between porch post and chain
so that no one may swing without breaking it.
She is saying it’s time that the swinging were done with,
time that the creaking and pinging and popping
that sang through the ceiling were past,
time now for the soft vibrations of moths,
the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,
the cool dewdrops to brush from her work
every morning, one world at a time.
~Ted Kooser “Porch Swing in September” from Flying at Night

We build our little lives so carefully, strand by strand,
one world at a time;
planned and choreographed and anticipated,
and all it takes is a creaky swing to pull it to shreds.

So we rebuild once again, spinning and creating web designs,
believing we belong because it is that time of year.

Everything around us is changing, swinging from the rafters –
who pays attention to how we’re left hanging?

We keep trying.
We keep trusting we have a place here, still weaving connections.
We keep trying to make the world a little more beautiful and habitable.

For everyone belongs, no matter who we are…

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Throwing Away the Key

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When we look long at one another,
we soften, we relent, listen,

might forgive. We allow for silence
—and when we see each other,

are known, and in that moment
might change

though nothing has moved
or been spoken.

There are some who say
the walls cannot be broken,

but suddenly we are in a free place,
and the fields

that extend from its center
stretch for miles

as if out of the pupil and the iris
of that momentary kingdom.
~Annie Lighthart “When We Look” from Pax

The weasel was stunned into stillness as he was emerging from beneath an enormous shaggy wild rose bush four feet away. I was stunned into stillness twisted backward on the tree trunk. Our eyes locked, and someone threw away the key.

Our look was as if two lovers, or deadly enemies, met unexpectedly on an overgrown path when each had been thinking of something else: a clearing blow to the gut.

It was also a bright blow to the brain, or a sudden beating of brains, with all the charge and intimate grate of rubbed balloons. It emptied our lungs. It felled the forest, moved the fields, and drained the pond; the world dismantled and tumbled into that black hole of eyes.

If you and I looked at each other that way, our skulls would split and drop to our shoulders. But we don’t. We keep our skulls. So.
~Annie Dillard from “Living Like Weasels”

The pupil and iris are a portal to our thoughts, our dreams, our passions and our fears. They are simultaneously window and mirror, revealing feelings we try to keep to ourselves.

Locking eyes can be one of the most thrilling, stomach-butterflies, ecstatic moments of connection. It can be tender, loving, reassuring and encouraging.

Or it can be intimidating and terrifying. I tend to avoid eye contact when passing a stranger on a dark street, or when engaged in a very stressful public interaction. I don’t want to reveal my insecurity, vulnerability, or worry through direct eye contact. While studying primates in Africa, I learned never to look a baboon in the eye as it can communicate aggression and instigate an attack.

So instead, I learned to look at my feet.

I’d much rather lock eyes and learn everything I can about you. I want to dive deep into who you are, breaking down the walls and dismantle the barriers that keep us apart from one another. Then I’m letting you in too. The black holes of our inner universe.

After all, this is preparation when we see the face of God and allow Him to lock into our eyes, knowing our truth.

No keys needed forevermore.

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Edges So Sharp

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The ghosts swarm.
They speak as one 
person. Each
loves you. Each
has left something undone.

Today’s edges
are so sharp

they might cut
anything that moved.

The way a lost
word

will come back
unbidden.

You’re not interested
in it now,

only
in knowing
where it’s been.
~Rae Armantrout from “Unbidden”

I wish for you the blessing
of a room where strangers sit
breathing unashamed
into a chosen silence

Not the gasping breath
of travelers on a crowded plane
or the tenuous wheeze
of the waiting room

May you know the power
of those who have decided
to submit to the silence
to enter the mystery
be consumed by it
and emerge transformed

May you belong among those
who inhale the stillness
as if it is keeping us
because it is
keeping us alive
~Bethany Lee, “To Enter the Mystery” from Etude for Belonging: poems for practicing courage and hope

The grace of God means something like:
Here is your life.
You might never have been, but you are…
Here is the world.
Beautiful and terrible things will happen.
Don’t be afraid.
I am with you.
~Frederick Buechner in “Wishful Thinking and later” in Beyond Words

Twenty three years ago,
a day started with bright sun above
and ended in tears and bloodshed below.

This is a day for recollection;
we live out remembrance of
the torrential red that flowed that day;

Two decades later, far-away streets still course
with the blood of innocents.

What have we learned from all this?

That terrible day’s edges were so sharp
we all bled and still bear the scars.

So do not be afraid: we are able to still breathe and weep.

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Clearing the Fog of Medical Advice

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Be obscure clearly.
Muddiness is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a destroyer of life, of hope: death on the highway caused by a badly worded road sign … think of the tragedies that are rooted in ambiguity, and be clear!
~E.B. White from his classic book on writing well –The Elements of Style

As a family doctor with over forty years of clinical practice under my belt, I have found the E.B. White’s advice for writing can be applied to the field of medicine. I tried my best to clarify the obscurity of the human condition in my job, hoping my patients could provide me the information I needed to make a sound diagnosis and treatment recommendation.

Communication is hard work for many patients, especially when they are depressed and anxious on top of whatever they are experiencing physically. There is still plenty of unknowns in the psychology and physiology of humans. Then, throw in a disease process or two or three to complicate what appears to be “normal” and further consider the side effects and complications of various treatments.

Evidence-based decision making isn’t always perfectly equipped to produce the best and only solution to one individual’s problem.

Sometimes the solution to a patient’s symptom is foggy, muddy, and obscure, not at all pristine and clear. It is the physician’s job to try to bring everything into the best focus possible. Then it is our job to communicate our thinking and decision process in a way that respects the patient’s right to be skeptical.

A physician’s clinical work is challenging on the best of days when everything goes well. We see things we have never seen before, expect the unexpected, learn skills we never thought we’d need to know, and attempt to make the best choice between competing treatment alternatives. Physicians constantly unlearn things we thought were gospel truth, but have just been disproven by the latest, double-blind controlled study, which may soon be reversed by a newer study.

We find ourselves standing on evidence-based quicksand even though our patients trust that we are giving them rock-solid advice based on a foundation of truth learned over years of education and training. Add in medical decision-making that is driven by cultural, political, or financial outcomes, rather than what works best for the individual, and our hoped-for clinical clarity becomes even more obscured.

Forty-two years of doctoring in the midst of the mystery of medicine means learning, unlearning, listening, discerning, explaining, guessing, hoping, and remaining very humble in the face of a disease process or a public health threat like COVID. What works well for one patient may not be appropriate for another despite what the best evidence says or what insurance companies and the government are willing to cover. Each individual we see deserves the clarity of a fresh look and perspective, instead of being treated by cook-book algorithm.

So, as a physician and healer, be obscure clearly. 
A life may depend on it.

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A Mind Blurred

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For all
the pain

passed down
the genes

or latent
in the very grain

of being;
for the lordless

mornings,
the smear

of spirit
words intuit

and inter;
for all

the nightfall
neverness

inking
into me

even now,
my prayer

is that a mind
blurred

by anxiety
or despair

might find
here

a trace
of peace.
~Christian Wiman “Prayer” from Once in the West

We all have times when nothing makes sense. The mind blurs with stress or fear or a sense of unreality – all focus is lost and the world becomes simultaneously fuzzy and prickly.

If that happens here in these pages, through these words and photos I share, it is because I need reminding: things often don’t make sense to me when tragedy, pain and suffering happen to people on the other side of the earth, or just down the road from here, or to those I love.

Or to me.

It still makes sense to God. He has clear vision I will never have.

He doesn’t make bad things happen; He grieves it too.
He is the focus when all else is blurry.

God calls to us out of the haze that obscures. Only then peace begins.

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Under the Sheen

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So many want to be lifted by song and dancing,
and this morning it is easy to understand.
I write in the sound of chirping birds hidden
in the almond trees, the almonds still green
and thriving in the foliage. Up the street,
a man is hammering to make a new house as doves
continue their cooing forever. Bees humming
and high above that a brilliant clear sky.
The roses are blooming and I smell the sweetness.
Everything desirable is here already in abundance.
And the sea. The dark thing is hardly visible
in the leaves, under the sheen. We sleep easily.
So I bring no sad stories to warn the heart.
All the flowers are adult this year. The good
world gives and the white doves praise all of it.
~Linda Gregg, “A Dark Thing Inside the Day” from The Sacraments of Desire

Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray–
For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife.
Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest
May fall, flit, fly, perch–crouch in the bowery breast
Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;–
Moveless there sit through all the burning day,
And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay.
~George MacDonald from Diary of an Old Soul

My cracks seem to expand with age:
do they not heal as quickly
or am I simply more brittle than before?

I know how my eyes leak over the beauty of the morning,
my heart feels more porous
then world events break me to bleeding.

Yet the Light pours in the cracks
to illuminate wounds old and new.
Let the world know, let the world know,
after a hurt comes healing.

May I become the perfect offering.

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The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Ah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free

You can add up the parts
but you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~Leonard Cohen from “Anthem”

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