Two Poems by Hopkins

I bid farewell to one of my favorite months on this Pentecost day with two stunning favorites by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

If any writer can get me to feel the rush of Spirit wind, the burning flame of the divine, the miracle of a reversed story-of-Babel  - Babel (and everything it stands for - arrogance, division) now gone and replaced by tongues speaking wonders for all the world to hear - it's Hopkins.  Enjoy.  [Photo:  Verbena by Patty Myrick.]

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

  It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

  It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

  And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

  And wears man's smudge and share's man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

  There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

  Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs - 

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

'As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame'

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is - 

Christ - for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Beginnings

Sometimes on a lazy Saturday morning, in addition to enjoying a cup of chocolate-flavored coffee and watching Saturday morning cartoons, I like to look at old family videos and albums, upload sepia-toned photos of ancestors, go through old letters and memorabilia, and reminisce a little bit.

This morning I was thinking about what happened when I was born.  It was a bit of a rough, early-ish birth.  Though I was relatively huge - over three pounds - by modern preemie standards, back in the early '70's in a Third World country, with me gasping for air and needing to be resuscitated on more than one occasion (pulmonary surfactant wouldn't be in clinical use until I was graduating from high school), things felt a little dicey for those involved.  In these VERY fuzzy pictures-of-pictures (above and below) I am already at the "feeder-and-grower" stage.

There's a happy follow-up story.  My mother once had lunch at a restaurant called Cafe Juanita, whose owner had gone into the restaurant business after decades in practice as an OB/gyn.  When the owner saw her name in the reservation book, he rushed to her table and said, "Doctora!" (My mom had been a pediatrician.)  "I was the OB resident who scrubbed in during your C-section!  You had a baby, girl, I remember.  Premature."

"She's now grown, married, with kids of her own," my mother told him.

Of course when I heard this story I had to see him for myself, this man who helped yank me from my mother's open womb on one of his weekends on-call.  On our last trip to the Philippines we visited his charming restaurant and got to meet him.  It was a thrill to think, "Wow, he was there the very first moment my physical being saw the light of day.  In fact, he helped make that moment happen!"

 

Happy long-term follow-up is such a blessing in medicine.  I bet he never thought he'd have his youngest patient - literally a fetus when we first met - come back to say hello!

Friendship and Female Physicians

I've noticed over the past several years that it hasn't always been easy for me to make friends.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the reason. Am I simply un-like-able?

When I was in grade school I constantly found myself blurting out goofy things and wincing afterward. I'm sure my social awkwardness cost me some friendships at that age.

Then there was high school Oy. Recently a friend from high school whom I've always admired told me I could sometimes be intimidating back then. ME?! Intimidating?! But I'm so sweet! And shy, and awkward! And un-tall! But I suppose my love of Renaissance history, French poetry, and molecular biology might have struck some people as off-putting...

I had a great time in college. I found like-minded people, kindred spirits, people in different spheres who loved a lot of the same activities, subjects, books, etc. I made some life-long friends in college, as many of us do (and a few good friends in med school and internship as well, though not as many).

I can think of a few things that can make building new friendships and maintaining existing ones hard after college. Relocation. Marriage. Parenthood. Jobs.

And if your job is in medicine as a resident of some kind, you get the added challenge of sleeplessness, no time, no energy, no patience, high stress, contact with suffering on a daily basis, making lonely decisions in what can be an isolating profession, all free time spent sleeping or running errands. Relationships of all kinds suffer during residency; friendships are no exception.

But I think there's yet an additional layer for female doctors. I can't quite put my finger on what it's made of, but it's there.

When people find out you're a doctor - that's if you can even get around to meeting new people in the first place - sometimes their whole vibe toward you can change. It's almost imperceptible, but there's a turn somewhere. It's there. A pulling back, maybe, or the inexplicable sudden presence of an invisible veil between you and the person you'd like to befriend who happens not to be a physician.

I'm not sure why that happens, or even if I'm making something out of nothing. Women-doctors want to hang out and watch chick flicks as much as any group of women friends, or go to cafes to chat, or cook together. Why the sudden barriers?

I have a friend - a drop-dead gorgeous, brilliant, super-sweet, supportive-beyond-measure, talented, couldn't-be-nicer friend, fellow-mom, and fellow-physician - who meets with a group of women on a regular basis to engage in a much-enjoyed activity. She told me that for a long time she didn't tell the other members of the group she was a doctor. She was concerned they might not be as relaxed, or their attitude to her might change, with the knowledge of her profession. I have another, newer friend - also multi-talented, also a fellow-mom and physician, very nice, with lots of different interests - who has observed a shift in others when she strikes up a conversation but then reveals that she's a doctor.

I don't think we're all just imagining this. There's something about us female physicians that seems to make some people hesitate to get too close, which makes making friends even harder in the context of busy, demanding lives juggling work and family. I tried googling "women doctors" and "friendship" to see if I could learn more, but no one seems to be talking about this much, or I'm not looking in the right places, or no one else thinks there's an issue.

Do male physicians experience anything similar? Am I just being over-sensitive? I don't know. But I do think the whole subject of physicians and friendship in general, and women doctors in particular, is worth exploring.

Cross-posted at Mothers in Medicine.

The painting above is by Filipino master Fernando Amorsolo, whose depictions of ordinary country life in the Philippines are among his best-loved works.

Book Blockade Update

"One should never underestimate the collective fury of book lovers when their book supply is threatened."  -Robin Hemley 

I am pleased to report that President Arroyo of the Philippines, in the face of a "torrent of criticism" from around the world, has ordered the Philippine Department of Finance to end the imposition of taxes on imported books that violates the UNESCO Florence Agreement. (See here for my initial blog post about this and here for Robin Hemley's follow-up article.)

To anyone with a cynical attitude about armchair activism, Facebook causes, and the like:  some of that "torrent" came from effective mobilization of social networking.  The Filipino community at home and abroad blogged about this, talked about this, wrote about this, got in touch with each other on Facebook about this, and after venting their opinions with each other across the seas - an important part of the process - sprang into action by sharing ideas about what to do, exchanging links / ways to contact people in authority, generating emails to the President and UNESCO, writing letters and articles, and making phone calls. 

It's a new day.  As Hemley writes, "Together, Filipino book lovers have performed what I consider a miracle in less than a month's time."  People across the world are watching each other and helping each other.  The blogosphere and the laptop can create or perpetuate movement.  Let's keep using these connections and communication technologies to support and add to the good work being done in the field. I've written this before:  even a small effort or act can make a difference!

***

Appendix - E-mails we sent to the President:

"Dear Madam President, If you care about the development of our people as individuals and as a society, you will STOP the corrupt practices of our Bureau of Customs.  By HOLDING BOOKS FOR RANSOM, they are violating a U.N. treaty we ratified and have honored for decades. Please show that you are worthy of your office and of service to our country by taking action against this SHAMEFUL book blockade by a bureau known around the world for being among the most corrupt in existence. We must show the world that Filipinos are not the ignorant, corrupt kind of people our customs officials represent.  With thanks and love of country, [T.]"

"Dear President Macapagal Arroyo, as an attorney and an American married to a Filipina I am deeply disappointed and outraged by the book blockade being enforced by Philippine customs officials.  I know from being married to my wife that Philippine women are intelligent, strong, and principled.  Perhaps you can bring some of those qualities to bear on the actions I hope you will take against this kind of corruption.  The word is being spread internationally, to journalists and on Facebook. We'll be watching eagerly for you to do right by your people.  Sincerely, [Husband of T.]"

***

Click here for another story about access to books  a kid with an ad-hoc library of banned books in his locker...

Facebook

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Anesthesia By Death and Other Mysteries

This post is dedicated to my mother-in-law on her birthday.

This past week NPR presented a series on "The Science of Spirituality."  Barbara Bradley Hagerty, author of the book Fingerprints of God:  The Search for the Science of Spirituality, aired the following articles:

The God Chemical:  Brain Chemistry and Mysticism

Are Spiritual Encounters All In Your Head?

Prayer May Reshape Your Brain...And Your Reality

Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?

and Decoding the Mystery of Near-Death Experience.

I enjoyed this series very much despite one or two minor annoyances.  I am always a little annoyed by the assertions that the existence of God is proven or disproven by the existence of specific kinds of electrical or neurotransmitter activity in the brains of people undergoing spiritual experiences.  These findings prove nothing.  If God exists, then of COURSE people's experience of God would manifest neurophysiologically, as all experience does.  If God does not exist, but humans nevertheless have an innate capacity for mystical experience for whatever reason, then of course brain chemistry is the means by which that capacity is expressed.  Maybe Richard Dawkins' brain isn't more evolved than a believer's, as he seems to believe about himself - maybe he suffers from a "mysticism deficiency" disorder!  (I chuckle naughtily - couldn't resist.)

I also get a little irritated when scientists arrive at "conclusions" that have been known to theologians, philosophers, and spiritual thinkers for years.  C.S. Lewis and Kierkegaard both wrote that prayer changes US, not God; now all of a sudden scientists concur that "Prayer May Reshape Your Brain...and Your Reality."  And don't even get me started on all the "revelations" in quantum physics that have been commonplace as ideas - conceptualized a little differently, perhaps -  in the minds of spiritual people for ages.

I enjoyed in particular the article about whether positive thoughts can help heal another person.  When I was a resident some researchers were patting themselves on the back for proving that prayer for cardiac patients not only failed to benefit them but also, in fact, made their outcomes worse.  When I read the study, I had to roll my eyes.  I would not call what the subjects were doing "prayer,"  nor would I necessarily measure prayer efficacy by outcome.

Prayer is not a mumbling of words for disconnected strangers in the hope of happier results; that, in fact, is childish superstition.  To me prayer is something far deeper: an act of humility and, most importantly, an act of love.  Matter cannot move or live without energy; without the energy and connecting force of love behind all the heartfelt words and thoughts, prayer is inert, soul-less, a husk without substance.  The article about physiologic manifestations related to positive thoughts "sent" by one loving spouse to another made me think of the power my own husband's love has had to transform me and our lives, and I felt an instant recognition.  He often tells me, "My life is a prayer, honey."  It's true.

Love has power.  Prayer born of love and fueled by love has power.  The two are meshed together; love is the ultimate prayer, and prayer is mindful love.  To be critical of it (love or prayer) for not being able to cure a kid with cancer or guard a woman's safety as she crosses a park at night or change the outcome of an accident is to fail to understand its nature entirely, I think.  It's not a magic spell; it's an agent for transfiguration that needs to be learned constantly and that cannot be understood in the ordinary language of time, space, observation, and fact.  

Perhaps you believe that love, like everything else we experience including awe and anything transcendent, is merely the result of neurotransmitters and chemical reactions.  Maybe.  But if that's true, than the divinity lies there, in the very stuff of those atoms and molecules.  I think there's more to the story, or we wouldn't be asking so many questions.

My favorite article in the series, of course, was the one about the person who had a near-death experience under anesthesia.  Now, this was no ordinary anesthetic.  This was circulatory arrest:  a stopped heart, blood drained out of the patient, body cooled to cadaverous temperatures.  Tell me that's not a DEAD person right there.  Anesthesiologists prefer to conceptualize the state as "suspended animation":  the closest you can get to death without actually crossing the line.  I am not a specialist in cardiac or neuroanesthesia; I've only done this twice in my life, with help.  I can still remember noticing my patients' eerie pallor - the phrase "white as a ghost" came to my mind - as I packed ice around their heads during cardiac standstill.  It's very cool (no pun intended) but very...spooky, too. 

Hagerty's article tells the story of singer-songwriter Pam Reynolds, who had a near-death experience in 1991 during surgery for a large aneurysm on her brainstem.  During the operation she felt her consciousness leave her body through the top her head and found herself looking down at the operation from above.  She overheard a discussion about narrow blood vessels in her leg.  She saw the bone drill used by the surgeons.  She saw twenty people in the room.  She chatted with her dead grandmother and uncle.  She heard "Hotel California" playing in the operating room as she re-entered her body.   "The line was, 'You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.' And I opened my eyes and I said, 'You know, that is really insensitive!' "

Her neurosurgeon, Robert Spetzler, later confirmed all these details (with the exception of the dead grandmother and uncle) and said he could think of no scientific explanation for Reynolds' experience. Skeptics ascribe it to "awareness under anesthesia."  Um, yeah - with her eyes taped shut, noise-generating, molded ear speakers placed into her ears, and zero bloodflow to the brain.  If that's the answer, it's unlike any case of anesthesia awareness I've ever read about.

Alas, cases like this probably have to be relegated to the "we may never fully know" category - unless you're a staunch materialist and have an explanation for everything. I prefer a worldview that honors reason and science but also embraces mystery and stays open to the possibility that there's more to us and our world than the usual models can explain or express.  On that note, I think I'll go alter my brain chemistry a little, and do a little meditation...or at least a little meditative oboe playing...

Missing Pieces: Who Was the Dark Lady?

On this day 400 years ago - May 20, 1609 - William's Shakespeare's sonnets (supposedly) were published (supposedly) by Thomas Thorpe.

I like this one, because it's refreshingly realistic about "true love" for a change, and it reminds me of what I often teasingly tell my husband is our marriage theme song - "If You Wanna Be Happy":

Sonnet CXXX

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

-William Shakespeare

Who isn't intrigued by literary or musical clues of a possible secret love, such as Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved," and Shakespeare's "Dark Lady?"

Was Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" a woman of African descent, as Anthony Burgess imagines in his novel Nothing Like the Sun, or a Mediterranean fellow-writer of sonnets as in Carol Goodman's book The Sonnet Lover?

I've often wondered about all the anonymous, completely-lost-to-history individuals who have enriched the lives and art of famous creative geniuses. Who were they? Were they "ordinary" people with inspring stories to tell? Were they incredible talents in their own right for whom these great artists pined in a kind of ecstatic self-torment, or seemingly unremarkable people with whom these historic greats could find a special, sheltered intimacy, or perhaps an overpowering, wild passion?

We'll never know, of course. Isn't that deliciously frustrating?

Sometimes the most significant, life-altering moments are those that seem to be the smallest, and the greatest influences, those that most people might overlook. As I think of the people and experiences in my life that seem to hover in its tiny moments, I wonder what shape my life might have taken without them, and I realize how important even the most fleeting moment can be. The moment a doctor taught me how to mask ventilate a patient manually couldn't have taken more than a few seconds, but it altered the course of my whole life.

Perhaps there's really no such thing as a small moment or an insignificant interaction.