In the high woods that crest our hills, Upon a steep, rough slope of forest ground, Where few flowers grow, sweet blooms today I found Of the Autumn Crocus, blowing pale and fair. Dim falls the sunlight there; And a mild fragrance the lone thicket fills.
Languidly curved, the long white stems Their purple flowers’ gold treasure scarce display: Lost were their leaves since in the distant spring,
Their February sisters showed so gay. Roses of June, ye too have followed fleet! Forsaken now, and shaded as by thought, As by the human shade of thought and dreams, They bloom ‘mid the dark wood, whose air has wrought With what soft nights and mornings of still dew! Into their slender petals that clear hue, Like paleness in fresh cheeks; a thing On earth, I vowed, ne’er grew More delicately pure, more shyly sweet.
Child of the pensive autumn woods! So lovely, though thou dwell obscure and lone, And though thy flush and gaiety be gone; Say, among flowers of the sad, human mind, Where shall I ever find So rare a grace? in what shy solitudes? ~Robert Laurence Binyon “Autumn Crocus”
The late September emergence of autumn crocus is always sudden, rising up near the equinox in the shade of spent peony bushes.
These rare blooms: tall, tender, bold, and frail, their incubation triggered by retreating light from above, unlike their springtime cousins emerging through melting snow.
The autumn crocus waits with thoughtful temerity, summoned forth from the soil to remind us the end of summer is not the end of them or us.
A luminous gift of hope and beauty borne from a humble bulb; plain and only soil-adorned.
Slowly unfurling on a pale leggy stem, the tender lavender petals peel back to reveal golden crowns of saffron, brazenly blooming when all else is dying back.
Vulnerable to blustery wind and heavy rains, they easily wilt, crushed, deeply bruised purple – under the Sun’s reflection made manifest; returning defeated, inglorious, fallen, to dust.
Yet we know – they remind us: they (and we) will rise again.
…we know what is coming behind the crocus. The spring comes slowly down this way; but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. . . It remains with us to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer. C.S. Lewis from God in the Dock
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Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks rise Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes, Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour; And eyes, heart, what looks, what lips yet give you a Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?
And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder Majestic – as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet! – These things, these things were here and but the beholder Wanting; which two when they once meet, The heart rears wings bold and bolder And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Hurrahing in Harvest”
This poem is (in Hopkin’s own words) “the outcome of half an hour of extreme enthusiasm as I walked home alone one day from fishing in the [River] Elwy.”
This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park, Two little boys, lying flat on their faces, Were carefully gathering red berries To put in a pasteboard box.
Some day there will be no war, Then I shall take out this afternoon And turn it in my fingers, And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate, And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves. To-day I can only gather it And put it into my lunch-box, For I have time for nothing But the endeavour to balance myself Upon a broken world. ~Amy Lowell from “September 1918”
There is no point in seeing without responding; there is no way to respond without seeing.
Christian life and practice require both faith (the sight of the heart) and works (the lurch of the heart toward him in obedience). ~Kathleen Mulhern from “A Christ Sighting” from Dry Bones
Am I the only one who awoke this morning praying today might be a day of healing between peoples, when the barbarous becomes beautiful and we seek to become balanced rather than broken?
A day of no drone missiles being launched, no threats of annihilation and winner takes all, no one gunned down in the street, no vehicles used as weapons, no harsh and angry words spoken, no child misused, no one sold into slavery, no one overdosing, abandoned, homeless and starving.
Am I the only one who awakes and only seeks to watch the clouds to praise the heavens to see the leaves turn color to take out this one day and taste it and find that it is good, then put it away for self-keeping to share when and if I find someone else as hungry for grace and mercy as I am,
so as to balance myself somehow in the beauty of this world while teetering on its brokenness?
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
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed…
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. -2 Cor 4:8-9, 16-18
I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage …that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened. ~Fyodor Dostoevsky from The Brothers Karamazov
Twenty-five 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 a remembrance of the torrential red that flowed that day;
A quarter century later, our streets both near and far-away still course with the blood of innocents, so what have we learned from all this?
That terrible day’s edges were so sharp we all bled; still bearing the scars, we need comforting.
So do not be afraid: you are not alone.
We breathe and weep and love as we remember that day, emerging inevitably transformed.
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Day after day, day after still day, The summer has begun to pass away. Starlings at twilight fly clustered and call, And branches bend, and leaves begin to fall. The meadow and the orchard grass are mown, And the meadowlark’s house is cut down.
The little lantern bugs have doused their fires, The swallows sit in rows along the wires. Berry and grape appear among the flowers Tangled against the wall in secret bowers, And cricket now begins to hum the hours Remaining to the passion’s slow procession Down from the high place and the golden session Wherein the sun was sacrificed for us. A failing light, no longer numinous, Now frames the long and solemn afternoons Where butterflies regret their closed cocoons. We reach the place unripe, and made to know As with a sudden knowledge that we go Away forever, all hope of return Cut off, hearing the crackle of the burn- ing blade behind us, and the terminal sound Of apples dropping on the dry ground. ~Howard Nemerov “Summer’s Elegy” from Collected Poems
As far as I can see this autumn haze That spreading in the evening air both ways, Makes the new moon look anything but new, And pours the elm-tree meadow full of blue, Is all the smoke from one poor house alone With but one chimney it can call its own; So close it will not light an early light, Keeping its life so close and out of sight No one for hours has set a foot outdoors So much as to take care of evening chores. The inmates may be lonely women-folk. I want to tell them that with all this smoke They prudently are spinning their cocoon And anchoring it to an earth and moon From which no winter gale can hope to blow it,— Spinning their own cocoon did they but know it. ~Robert Frost “The Cocoon”
The summer ends, and it is time To face another way. Our theme Reversed, we harvest the last row To store against the cold, undo The garden that will be undone. We grieve under the weakened sun To see all earth’s green fountains dried, And fallen all the works of light. You do not speak, and I regret This downfall of the good we sought As though the fault were mine. I bring The plow to turn the shattering Leaves and bent stems into the dark, From which they may return. At work, I see you leaving our bright land, The last cut flowers in your hand. ~Wendell Berry “The Summer Ends” from A Timbered Choir.
I too regret the closed cocoon, so seemingly safe at the time — once launched before being ready, there is no returning.
In this fading, failing light, I feel undone, weepy at harvest, gathering urgently, not wanting anything to go to waste, trying to memorialize it all as it changes.
I part again from you, Summer – your gifts seemed endless until you yourself ended – a reminder that someday, so must I.
photo by Bob Tjoelker
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The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away….
Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed. ~Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland
Navigating the U.S. health care system over the last decade or so reminds me of Alice’s dreamscape game of Wonderland croquet.
A physician is given a flamingo mallet and a hedgehog ball and ordered — by the Queen at the risk of having one’s head lopped off — to go play, but the mallet won’t cooperate and the ball keeps unrolling itself and crawling away.
Just like any day in a medical clinic, a doctor’s time is spent trying to manage their flamingo. The patient, tired of waiting for weeks for an appointment, then stuck in an urgent care center or emergency waiting room– gets up and leaves.
At least Alice gets a good giggle out of it, but the reality in health care causes more tears than laughter. We are playing a very difficult game of changing rules and technology.
The flamingo in the doctor’s hands could represent the increasingly time-consuming requirement to search over 70,000 ICD-10 diagnosis codes rather than the previous 14,000 ICD-9 codes.
Or the requirement to search for a 10 digit NDC number for any prescription medicine sent electronically to a pharmacy.
Or the “meaningful use” criteria that regulate mandatory data collection and reportage on patients to the Federal Government in order to receive full payment for Medicare or Medicaid billings.
Or updated HIPAA and HITECH electronic security requirements to ensure privacy and the requirement for patient access to their chart.
Or the obligations to the new Accountable Care Organization that your employer has joined.
Or the Maintenance of Certification hoops to jump through in order to continue to practice medicine.
The exasperated and uncooperative “managed” flamingo keeps curling itself around and looking at us with a puzzled expression:
just what is it you were supposed to be trained to do?
is there actually a patient to pay attention to in all this morass of mandates?
And the poor hapless hedgehog patient is just rolled up in a ball awaiting a contact that never comes – for something, anything that might look like health care is about to happen.
Instead, for the patient, there are many electronic forms to sign: Notice of Patient Privacy, Notice of Patient Rights and Responsibilities, releases to share medical information, agreements to pay today’s co-pay and tomorrow’s deductible and whatever is left unpaid by insurance, agreement to have an AI app record and then transcribe the healthcare interaction, passwords to choose for each electronic patient portal: the chart, insurance, health savings account, lab and X-ray results and healthcare.gov.
It might be easier and less painful to just crawl away and hide from that bumbling health care provider who can’t seem to get their act together.
I wish I were laughing, but I’m not. As a once-practicing physician and now a patient, it’s getting harder and harder to play the game that is no game at all.
There is always a threat to the physician of a professional beheading: losing credentialing in an insurance plan, getting poor ratings on anonymous online physician grading sites, being inexplicably dropped from a provider list, keeping up with 50 hours of approved continuing education annually, being too unproductive to remain in an employer medical group, losing/forgoing board certification.
We keep trying to juggle the flamingo motivated by those threats, all the while ineptly managing the managed care system, knowing the patient might get up and walk away out of sheer frustration.
Thankfully, I didn’t ever see patients in a fee-for-service clinic setting, so I have sympathy for those who have no other option.
I think, at least I hope, I focused on taking care of people, trying to heal their illnesses and help them cope with life if they can’t be healed.
I wanted to provide compassionate care without all the fol-de-rol. These are absurd times for humans and hedgehogs.
It is enough to make a doctor cry. At least we meet our patients over the Kleenex box and compare notes, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll find enough common ground to even share a giggle or two.
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.
So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.And he said, “Where have you laid him?”
They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” John 11:17-37
Beauty, to the Japanese of old, held together the ephemeral with the sacred. Cherry blossoms are most beautiful as they fall, and that experience of appreciation lead the Japanese to consider their mortality. Hakanai bi (ephemeral beauty) denotes sadness, and yet in the awareness of the pathos of life, the Japanese found profound beauty.
For the Japanese, the sense of beauty is deeply tragic, tied to the inevitability of death.
Jesus’ tears were also ephemeral and beautiful. His tears remain with us as an enduring reminder of the Savior who weeps. Rather than to despair, though, Jesus’ tears lead the way to the greatest hope of the resurrection. Rather than suicide, Jesus’ tears lead to abundant life. ~Makoto Fujimura
When I read that Jesus weeps as He witnesses the tears of grief of His dear friends, I am comforted.
He understands and feels what we feel, His tears just as plentiful and salty, His feelings of love brimming so fully they must be let go and cannot be held back. He too is overwhelmed by the pathos of His vulnerable and visceral humanity.
Our Jesus who wept with us becomes a promise of ultimate joy.
There is beauty in His rain of ephemeral tears.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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How easily happiness begins by dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter slithers and swirls across the floor of the sauté pan, especially if its errant path crosses a tiny slick of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.
This could mean soup or risotto or chutney (from the Sanskrit chatni, to lick). Slowly the onions go limp and then nacreous and then what cookbooks call clear, though if they were eyes you could see
clearly the cataracts in them. It’s true it can make you weep to peel them, to unfurl and to tease from the taut ball first the brittle, caramel-colored and decrepit papery outside layer, the least
recent the reticent onion wrapped around its growing body, for there’s nothing to an onion but skin, and it’s true you can go on weeping as you go on in, through the moist middle skins, the sweetest
and thickest, and you can go on in to the core, to the bud-like, acrid, fibrous skins densely clustered there, stalky and in- complete, and these are the most pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare
and rage and murmury animal comfort that infant humans secrete. This is the best domestic perfume. You sit down to eat with a rumor of onions still on your twice-washed hands and lift to your mouth a hint
of a story about loam and usual endurance. It’s there when you clean up and rinse the wine glasses and make a joke, and you leave the minutest whiff of it on the light switch, later, when you climb the stairs. ~William Matthews “Onions”
I don’t mean to make you cry. I mean nothing, but this has not kept you From peeling away my body, layer by layer,
The tears clouding your eyes as the table fills With husks, cut flesh, all the debris of pursuit. Poor deluded human: you seek my heart.
Hunt all you want. Beneath each skin of mine Lies another skin: I am pure onion–pure union Of outside and in, surface and secret core.
…It’s true it can make you weep to peel them, to unfurl and to tease from the taut ball first the brittle, caramel-colored and decrepit papery outside layer, the least
recent the reticent onion wrapped around its growing body, for there’s nothing to an onion but skin, and it’s true you can go on weeping as you go on in, through the moist middle skins, the sweetest
and thickest, and you can go on in to the core, to the bud-like, acrid, fibrous skins densely clustered there, stalky and in- complete, and these are the most pungent… ~William Matthews from “Onions”
…I would never scold the onion for causing tears. It is right that tears fall for something small and forgotten. How at meal, we sit to eat, commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma but never on the translucence of onion, now limp, now divided, or its traditionally honorable career: For the sake of others, disappear. ~Naomi Shihab Nye from “The Traveling Onion” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems.
Onion, luminous flask, your beauty formed petal by petal, crystal scales expanded you and in the secrecy of the dark earth your belly grew round with dew. Under the earth the miracle happened and when your clumsy green stem appeared, and your leaves were born like swords in the garden, the earth heaped up her power showing your naked transparency…
…You make us cry without hurting us. I have praised everything that exists, but to me, onion, you are more beautiful than a bird of dazzling feathers, heavenly globe, platinum goblet, unmoving dance of the snowy anemone
and the fragrance of the earth lives in your crystalline nature. ~Pablo Neruda from “Ode to the Onion”
Everything smells of “eau de onion” here in the kitchen when the onions are brought in from our garden to be stored or dehydrated and frozen for winter soups and stews.
This is weepy business, but these are good tears like I spill over the whistled Greensleeves theme from the old “Lassie” TV show, or during any childrens’ choir song, or by simply watching videos of our grandchildren who live too far away to visit every day.
It takes almost nothing these days to make me weep, so onions are a handy excuse, allowing my tears to flow without explanation:
I weep over the headlines.
I weep over how messy things can get between people who don’t listen to one another or who misinterpret what they think they hear.
I weep knowing we all have layers and layers of skin that appear tough on the outside, but as you peel gently or even ruthlessly cut them away, the layers get more and more tender until you reach the throbbing heart of us.
We tend to hide our hearts out of fear of being hurt, crying out in pain.
Like an onion, each one of us exists to make the day a bit better, the meal more savory, to enhance the flavors of all who are mixed into this melting pot together, trying to make sad things new.
We aren’t meant to stand alone, but to disappear into the stew, and be sorely missed if we are absent.
So very dish needs an onion, and for the sake of the dish, every onion vanishes in the process.
No, I don’t mean to make you cry as you peel my layers away, gently, one by one, each more tender until you reach my heart. Chop away at me if you must but weep the good tears, the ones that mean we weep for the sake of our meal together: you eating and drinking, and me – consumed.
Lyrics: When the dark wood fell before me And all the paths were overgrown When the priests of pride say there is no other way I tilled the sorrows of stone
I did not believe because I could not see Though you came to me in the night When the dawn seemed forever lost You showed me your love in the light of the stars
Chorus: Cast your eyes on the ocean Cast your soul to the sea When the dark night seems endless Please remember me
Then the mountain rose before me By the deep well of desire From the fountain of forgiveness Beyond the ice and fire
Though we share this humble path, alone How fragile is the heart Oh, give these clay feet wings to fly To touch the face of the stars
Breathe life into this feeble heart Lift this mortal veil of fear Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears We’ll rise above these earthly cares
Lyrics: Light after darkness, gain after loss Strength after weakness, crown after cross; Sweet after bitter, hope after fears Home after wandering, praise after tears
Alpha and Omega Beginning and the end He is making all things new Springs of living water Shall wash away each tear He is making all things new Sight after mystery, sun after rain Joy after sorrow, peace after pain; Near after distant, gleam after gloom Love aftеr wandering, life after tomb
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There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone. ~Sara Teasdale “There Will Come Soft Rains”
…one of man’s purposes is to assist God in the work of “hallowing” the things of Creation. By a tremendous heave of the spirit, the devout man frees the divine sparks trapped in the mute things of time; he uplifts the forms and moments of creation, bearing them aloft into the rare air and hallowing fire in which all clays must shatter and burst. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
The fire burst the house and let it slam flat down, puffing out skirts of spark and smoke.
The crash. The attic smashing into kitchen and parlour. The parlour into cellar, cellar into sub-cellar. Smoke and silence. A great quantity of smoke. Dawn showed faintly in the east. Among the ruins, one wall stood alone. Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaped rubble and steam: “Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…”
When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it. ~Boris Pasternak
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest’s ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller’s head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. But no one descended to the Traveller; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller’s call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, ’Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:— ‘Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,’ he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone. ~Walter De La Mare “The Listeners”
Years ago, a young woman I’d been treating for depression for several weeks in my clinic called unexpectedly on a Friday afternoon and canceled an upcoming appointment for the following Monday and did not reschedule.
The receptionist sent me a message as was our policy for patients who “cancel and do not reschedule.” It gave me a bad feeling that she was turning her back on her treatment plan and I was uneasy about the upcoming weekend without knowing what was going on with her.
I could have just put on my coat and headed home at the end of that long Friday after a very stressful work week and even more stressful year. I was discouraged about many aspects of my clinic work load and my after-hours responsibilities only seemed to get heavier. I was frustrated at how ineffectively I was communicating to administrative supervisors about the need for change.
I was ready to quit and walk away.
Even so, in a moment of clarity about my role and commitment to those I was responsible for, I called my patient to find out how she was doing. She didn’t answer her phone.
I mulled over my options. Protocol was to call the police to go to her address for a “well-being” check. I looked up her apartment address and decided instead to drive the few blocks to get there.
As I approached her door, I could hear someone moving around in her apartment, but she ignored my knocks and my voice and when I tried to open the door, it was locked.
So I stayed right there, talking to her through the door for about 15 minutes, letting her know I wasn’t leaving until she opened up the door. I finally told her she could decide to open the door or I would call 911 and ask the police to come to make sure she was okay. She then unlocked the door, tears streaming down her face. She had been drinking heavily, with liquor bottles strewn around on the floor. She admitted an intent to overdose on aspirin and vodka. The vodka was already consumed but the unopened aspirin bottle was in her hand.
I was the last person she expected to see at her door.
Miraculously, the inpatient mental health unit at the local hospital had an open bed. I told my patient that we could save time and hassle by heading over there together right then and there, and avoid the emergency room chaos and delay, and the possibility of an involuntary detainment.
She agreed to come with me and be admitted voluntarily for stabilization. When I went to the hospital to see ger the next day, she greeted me with a hug and thanked me for not giving up on her when she had given up on herself.
In sobriety, her eyes were brighter and she was more hopeful. She never expected anyone to care enough to come knock on her door when she was at her lowest point. It was the start of her climb out of her pain and depression.
Four years later, a small card arrived in my clinic mailbox on another most challenging work day from an unfamiliar address two thousand miles away. The name looked vaguely familiar to me but when I opened and read the contents, this time it became the knock on the door to get my attention, to focus the beating of my heart on what was most important – not the stresses of my work place — and it was my turn to let tears flow:
“Dear Doctor,
I am not sure if you will remember me considering you see a number of patients daily; however, I am a patient whose life you changed in the most positive way. I never truly THANKED YOU for listening to me and hearing my silent words of grief and hearing my cries for help. If it had not been for you, had you not knocked on my door, I would not be writing this letter to you today. I don’t know exactly what to say to the person who saved me from hurting myself fatally. You were a stranger in my life, but a dear friend in my time of need. THANK YOU, for everything that you did for me. You have a permanent place in my heart, you have given my spirit hope, you have reminded me that a life is worth living. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Sincerely, L_____”
Somehow I had the sense that I needed to go knock on her door because I was keeping my word to take care of her at her lowest point. I had the stubbornness to stay put until she responded, and most of all, I’m appreciative for her gracious note letting me know it made a difference.
When I needed it the most, she made a difference for me that kept me on the job for another twenty years.
With her letter, she knocked, oh so gently, on my own locked door. I opened it, amazed that someone cared enough to let me know I kept my word.
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~Lustravit lampade terras~ (He has illumined the world with a lamp) The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter. – Blaise Pascal from “Miscellaneous Writings”
Tired and hungry, late in the day, impelled to leave the house and search for what might lift me back to what I had fallen away from, I stood by the shore waiting. I had walked in the silent woods: the trees withdrew into their secrets. Dusk was smoothing breadths of silk over the lake, watery amethyst fading to gray. Ducks were clustered in sleeping companies afloat on their element as I was not on mine. I turned homeward, unsatisfied. But after a few steps, I paused, impelled again to linger, to look North before nightfall—the expanse of calm, of calming water, last wafts of rose in the few high clouds. And was rewarded: the heron, unseen for weeks, came flying widewinged toward me, settled just offshore on his post, took up his vigil. If you ask why this cleared a fog from my spirit, I have no answer. ~Denise Levertov “A Reward” from Evening Train
Flee for a while from your tasks, hide yourself for a little space from the turmoil of your thoughts. Come, cast aside your burdensome cares, and put aside your laborious pursuits. For a little while give your time to God, and rest in him for a little while. Enter into the inner chamber of your mind, shut out all things save God and whatever may aid you in seeking God; and having barred the door of your chamber, seek him. ~Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works
And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment … a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present… ~Wendell Berry from Hannah Coulter
There were long days during my doctoring years when I would be near tears, physically spent, too fried to keep listening, problem solving, comforting.
I needed to feel something other than needed. I needed neediness myself — a sorry place to be for a physician and healer.
Of course it had happened before, many times: middle of the night mothering a vomiting child, middle of the night mothering a frail mother, middle of the night reassuring a frightened patient, middle of the night worried about the state of the world.
Yet morning always comes because God has never left, maybe not bright and shining and wondrous, maybe still hidden behind a fog, maybe not hidden at all but waiting inside my muddled thoughts –
I found if I gently closed the door to all that is not God, I would find Him looking for me and all would become clear.
Text by George Matheson: O Love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee; I give thee back the life I owe, That in thy ocean depths its flow May richer, fuller be.
O Joy that seeks me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, And feel the promise is not vain, That morn shall tearless be.
When the dawn O’er hill and dale Throws her bright veil, Oh, think of me!
When the laugh With silver sound Goes echoing round, Oh, think of me!
When the rain With starry showers Fills all the flowers, Oh, think of me!
When the wind Sweeps along, Loud and strong, Oh, think of me!
When the earth Sleeping sound Swings round and round, Oh, think of me!
When the night With solemn eyes Looks from the skies, Oh, think of me!”
-Frances Anne Kemble
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