COLONOSCOPY AND SPIRITUALITY

I had a colonoscopy at the beginning of the Advent season, and for those of you who have been blessed with that experience know that it is not the procedure that is the trial as much as it is “the season of preparation”.  While the preparation time lasted around 18 hours in total, it seemed like a long time.  It is literally an emptying of the body, or at least the entire gastrointestinal system, so that the doctor doing the procedure can see clearly.

Since it’s been over—it was clear, so I don’t need another for 10 years—I have thought a lot about how hard it is been for me to do a similar emptying emotionally and spiritually.  My mind has been very cluttered and distracted for weeks, and on many days, my spirit has been more frantic than peaceful.  Even though the poems and scriptures I use during this time speak to me about letting go, and even though the darkness of the days in Minnesota during December invites surrender, it has been particularly hard for me to do so this year.

About a week or so ago, I asked—maybe out loud—“why is it so hard to be emptied spiritually when it was so easy to do so physically?”  And then I began to think about how easy it really was or wasn’t to go through the physical emptying.  And I had to conclude—it wasn’t all that easy!  I had to drink copious quantities of a mix (I’ll spare the details) that wasn’t pleasant, and then wait for it to do its work.  It meant feeling gross and disgusting.  It meant realizing over and over that “no, that was not the end of it” and “no, we haven’t arrived at the goal of complete emptying yet.” What made the ordeal possible in part was that I knew that it would be eventually over, and I knew it would be demanding, so I didn’t schedule anything else during those hours.  And I trusted that the health workers had my best interests at heart.

So how might that apply to my spiritual emptying?  I sure haven’t trimmed down my schedule—if anything it has been busier than ever, with eight productions of La Natividad, and extra activities at home and at work.  Even when I sat in the morning in darkness and tried to read or pray, my mind was often racing to what I needed to get done that day.  Even “getting in” my daily prayer and meditation began to feel like a chore—one more thing I had to get done.

What if I had decided that instead of a little input of the spirit each morning, I needed copious amounts, even to feeling over full?  What if paid attention to what was coming out of me, as much as I did when the colonoscopy prep happened?  I would have noticed more my resentment, anxiety and fear, for sure.  Perhaps even some self-judgment about my worth as a person and a spiritual leader.  I flushed my physical wastes down the toilet; but I’m not sure where my emotional and spiritual wastes have gone.  Maybe they haven’t left me, but are just hovering near me, waiting to get back inside.

Of course, spiritual cleansing is never over, unlike the short period of physical cleansing before a colonoscopy.  I’m never going to “be done with it.”  But if anything this Advent has taught me, it is that I need to trust more the healer who is bidding me do the cleansing, and to let go without worry, and without shame.  I will try to keep aware of that for the next ten years at least.

Be justice

Be beauty

Be empty

Patrick

KEEPING MASS IN CHRISTMAS

Of the many and various ways my spirit is afflicted over the Yuletide season are the strident calls to “Keep Christ in Christmas”, and its variant “Put Christ Back in Christmas”, as if the baby Jesus snuck off and was partying somewhere else, and we have to snatch him up and stuff him back into the feast, or else the time will simply not be redeemed.

These rallying cries are part and parcel of the program  of the currently reigning King Herod (remember, Jesus called him a “Fox”) in their never ending drumbeat to resist and defeat the “War on Christmas”, which rears it hoary head each 25^th of October or so, to remind us that “they” are out to destroy our faith, and we must resist, mostly by refusing to live by any of the fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) when it comes to our brothers and sisters who think different than us.  Hear ye angels, the cry of the strident masses defending the faith:

“I will get mad at you if you say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, and will righteously proclaim that ‘as for me and my family, we say MERRY CHRISTMAS!’  I am sorry (ed. Note: read “not sorry”) if that offends you.”

Apparently this ancient chant has the power to shame all heathens back into the fold, and we can all go merrily shopping for Christ-like gifts at all the imperial emporiums promising hundreds of door busters.

(I know, Ferlinghetti does this better—so look him up!)

The door busters of Jesus’ time were the boots and staves of the Roman occupiers, kicking in the doors of Jewish Palestinians, forcing their men into the army, raping the women, terrorizing the children.   The door busters of our time are the Taliban and the 2^nd Amendment Heroes shooting up school rooms, the barrel bombs of the Assad regime dropped on children, the narcos and politicos collaborating to kidnap and murder students, the police who kill unarmed black men, the ever tightened glove of hunger, violence and hate.

That is where Christ is found this Christ-mass, among those suffering masses.

I have no need to glorify “the masses” and make them into a righteous vanguard.  We are as human as human gets, and that gets pretty ugly.  But the little baby we so coo over at Christmas, loves ugly.  Loves brokenness, loves hurt, loves even death—not in the style of warm feelings, but in the style of hot actions to break the bonds and set the captives free.

(You blessed nullifidians: hang with me for awhile.)

Christmas was meant to be Christ-mass, and yes, in many ways it was started as a feast in order to co-opt the old harvest, solstice and even war gods.  I mean who, doesn’t like a baby (I mean for an hour or so, not a sick baby up every hour every night for a week).  Our Christmas is a mix of Norse, Germanic, Roman and more and more Nahuatl and African celebrations.  But the Mass part remains.

From a cultic point of view, the Mass meant a gathering of the faithful, often under persecution, in order to have their faith renewed. It meant hearing the old prophecies that

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
    and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
and the calf and the lion will feed together,
    and a little child shall lead them.”

It meant praying for those in prison or in sickness, and then organizing missions to serve them. It meant honoring the dead who had lived for a better world.  It meant sharing a feast. And it meant holding to the courageous faith that:

“They shall not hurt or destroy
    in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.”

That is the mass of Christmas. That and Mary’s cry that God has

“Scattered the proud in their conceit,

Cast down the mighty from their thrones

Lifted up the lowly.

Filled the hungry  with good things,

Sent the rich away empty.”

That’s the Mass I want to see in Christ-mass.  It is the mass of mission, of turning the world upside down again, or right side back, so that the justice and mercy and love planted deep in all creation may flourish.

I want to share two pieces of liturgy this early Christmas-time morn (it’s 5:02 am at my kitchen table).  First Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary’s womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody’s anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings

And Gustavo Gutierrez:

“The poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.”

Be justice. Be beauty.  Be a mass of hope and struggle.

Patrick

Christmas Under Another Name: La Natividad

We are in the midst of the 6^th year of La Natividad, a bilingual Christmas production that our church does in concert with the world-renowned In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater.  It is told from the point of view of an immigrant family in the neighborhood, and includes the whole of the Christmas story, most importantly murderous King Herod who is so afraid of this little child to be born.  In our telling, Herod tries to stop the immigrants from crossing a bridge, saying they aren’t allowed, they cannot work here, be here, belong here.  The “neighbors” in the play (actual neighbors in most cases), call out “mother—madre”, “hermano-brother”, “tia-aunt” in order to disarm Herod’s guards peacefully and allow everyone to pass.

We call it a play, a performance, but it’s more than that—it’s a procession of courage and joy through the most diverse neighborhood in the city, a neighborhood looked upon by many as “crime ridden” and “unsafe”.  And it is a political statement that the love of God shown by God’s people breaks down the barriers that divide us.  Barriers of race, religion, class, language, status, age—we can go on forever

I was interviewed about the show last night on local radio, and the interviewer asked me what I would say to those who say that such themes are not in their view of the Christmas story.  I can’t remember exactly what I said, but the basic thing I would say today is “read the book, would you?!”  Mary and Joseph have to leave their home in Galilee because Caesar wants to count everyone (for the purposes of taxing and conscripting into his wars).  They are rejected by Joseph’s kinfolk in his home town.  The little one is born among the most poor.  Then he is hunted by Herod, the puppet king of Rome, and the holy family has to flee to Egypt, where they are political refugees for seven years.  Yeah, it’s in there.

She also asked me how it was for children who had grown up in the show, and how that effected them (I chose “effected” over “affected” on purpose).  I talked about how people who have immigrated here, under hardship—and often persecution—can see their own life story in the Christmas story, and what a difference that can make.  They can see liberation and abundance coming, even in the midst of darkness, and see—and to a great extent be—God’s power working that in the world.

This is a poem that I wrote for La Natividad a few years back—the tricky angels, and the beasts with fins and paws and feathers can still be seen from December 11-21.  www.hobt.org.

One more thing: when I send an e-mail with La Natividad and spell check it, the first option given is “antiviral”.  Which I trust that it is: an antiviral against the brutality, division and fear in our land.

LA NATIVIDAD

Maria, you shop for tortillas, the tongue’s comfort,

a bed to lay the evening meal upon.  One eye out

for La Migra, one ear cocked for a shout, a boot,

a hard knock on the door.  You hear the bells

of tricky angels troubling, you listen to the voice      

of God that tells you your womb

is a quarry of bright diamonds, a pond

bearing wounded fish into the world. How

to explain that to a man who spends his days

talking to wood?  Finally, you walk. Together

and alone.  You take your feet and the child

feasting on your darkness and you carry

into the night, trusting that the dust you walk on,

the water you caress with your eyes

is the same dust, the same dew God

used to make the world, to make the man

and woman one and apart and free.

You cross a bridge, you don’t look back,

you march into the holy, abandoned rock

where beasts assemble and you wait. 

One by one the heavenly beings return,

with four paws and two, with wings

and fins and feathers, gathered to

watch the little one burst from you

and keep the silence love requires.

Look, Maria!  Listen! The voice of God

upon your lips.  Even your screams

turn the stars into dancing.

Be justice

Be beauty

Be antiviral

Patrick

Come and see how grownup these tricky angels are!

MY STRUGGLE WITH VETERANS DAY

Both my parents served in World War II, and were proud of their service.  Both had scars from that service, especially my dad, who saw combat duty in Europe.  As I’ve learned more about what veterans suffer with after war, I see a part of their suffering that often goes unnoticed is “moral injury”.  Moral injury is when your moral center is damaged because you’ve done something you know is wrong.  My father’s generation didn’t talk a lot about their experiences in the war, but one thing my father once said has stuck with me, probably because it was the only time he spoke it: “Sometimes in war you have to do something you shouldn’t do.”

Admitting to moral injury means having the honesty to admit your participation in evil and the humility to suffer through what that means.  It is the part of healing that rarely, if ever, gets publicity or calls for support or understanding.  Nearly every week, there is a TV news show that shows veterans bravely coping with physical injury, and the committed caregivers who work with them.  There are constant calls for us “to remember and support our veterans.”  Every NFL game last Sunday had some “Salute to the Troops”. Today Perkins is giving a free breakfast to past or present service members.  All these gestures are accompanied by the statement that they “did it for us”—to “protect our freedom”, usually.

I’m sure the breakfast was appreciated, but when was the last time you hear anyone talk about moral injury—in the news, in entertainment, or even in your place of worship (which should be the very place we talk about evil and heal from it)?  When have you seen a feature story or human-interest story about someone helping a returning vet to admit to the evil he or she had done, been forgiven for it, and be welcomed back into a community that has its own need to repent.

Probably never, I would guess.  Because for us as a society to offer that kind of help, we would have to admit that the evil done by our military was done for us and by us.  Which would mean that we have suffered moral injury as a result of our supporting and benefitting from what our nation has done in its wars.  My Lai, the tiger cages, Operation Phoenix (what a macabre irony that name is) and all the other atrocities done in Viet Nam are our atrocities.  Abu Ghraib, water boarding, drone strikes on civilians, Guantanamo are our shame.  The mining of Nicaragua’s harbors, the training of assassins at the School of the Americas in Georgia are our war crimes.

Often when I bring this up, particularly near Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day (or 4^th of July, which had nothing to do with the military), I am told “this is not the time to discuss that.”  But when exactly is the time to do so?  Is it just a pipe dream of mine that some day we the people will spend as much time remembering Hiroshima and Mozote as we do Pearl Harbor? Or spend even a fraction of the time remembering what we did on the other 9-11, facilitating a military coup in Chile on 9-11-1973?

Don’t want to think about all this?  Well let me ask what is to me what is one of the most problematic questions of all: Why is it that every country we’ve invaded since the end of World War II has been much poorer than us: Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, and including our proxy wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia and Nicaragua? Not to mention our support of military coups and dictatorships in Iran, Dominican Republic, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, the Congo, Uruguay and on and on. What does it say that the richest country in the world goes to war against some of the poorest?  What does it say about our values?  (Of course we did plenty of invading prior to WWII, mostly of other Americans—Native and Latin Americans, that is).

My father was a member of the VFW, but stopped going in the late sixties and seventies.  He didn’t like the jingoism that seemed to dominate every gathering.  I also think he was struggling with the idea that his sons could be drafted to fight in Viet Nam, in a war that he came to see as unjustified, from top to bottom.  In the last decades of his life, I believe that he found the most important “welcome home”, which was forgiveness and reconciliation.

I know that it is hard to hold together gratitude for the sacrifice our troops make, and anger at what our troops have done, in our name.  But it can be done.  At least some Germans reflected this November 9, about the 25^th anniversary of the end of the Berlin Wall, and the 76^th anniversary of Kristallnacht.  Many, many Latin Americans love our country for its freedoms and opportunities, while detesting what it’s done to their lands.  I think we owe it to ourselves as a people and as a nation to try.

This poem is one of a series about my father, and was published in the Ilanot Review from Israel, in their issue about “Conflict” (which ironically, went on-line right at the beginning of the latest war between Israel and Palestine).

FALLING

A man hung from his parachute

like a seed softly whirligigging down,

shouting “Don’t shoot—I surrender!”                       

in the tongue of the enemy, your first tongue.

He had no way to reach

his weapon, but the men under

you did, and in a minute—though your voice

was raised and your rank commanded

obedience—it was the county fair

in Shreveport, in Pembina, in New Ulm                    

and New Prague, step right up, everyone                  

wins a prize, the lights flashing,

the girls all giggles, and bullets

and a ribbon for the man who hits the nose.

Then, silence, the head of the boy

on his chest, his body limp

in its harness, gravity doing

its work.  The son of German cousins—

perhaps the grandson of your grandfather’s friend—

spoiled blood over his uniform. Father,

why did you tell me this story

and not my brothers?

Your memories are like your hands:

big, calloused, open.

His boots newly shined, pulled him

down to the earth he finally

met as a shroud, a nothing,

a home. Your men did not speak.

They held their rifles across

their chests, as if bearing sick children.

*  * *

Today, I feel that to

            Be justice, and

                        Be beauty

We must mostly

                                                            Be honesty

Patrick

JOY COMES FROM CREATING

During the last two weeks, I’ve attended a couple of conferences: one on the ministry of daily work, and one on our emotional and spiritual response to money.  While the presenters had a lot more faith in the market than I do, I learned—or re-learned—some things that are making me think.

            One is how important it is to have creative work, whether that is in your job or in family life or in an avocation that brings joy.  In fact, I don’t think you can have joy without immersing oneself in creating and in creation.   Creating—at least for me—brings me in contact with both the unlimited nature of human and natural gifts, and the struggle to bring those gifts into being as a fragile, complicated being.

            Another is how much our current economic system and our adoration of money saps the human spirit.  In part, because it takes the joy of creating out of people’s lives—especially the materially poor—and turns everything into a commodity.  Commoditization kills communion, because it takes compassion out of everyday life.

            And finally, I have learned again that creation often takes place in the context of struggle.  I doubt that anyone has a “perfect job” where there is no drudgery, conflict or futility.  My father was a barber for nearly three decades, and I know there were times of physical pain as well as emotional loneliness and spiritual struggle.  But he made our family a living, and especially as he grew older, he made of his conversation and welcoming spirit a place of hospitality for those who came through the doors of his shop.

            I’m thinking about saints on this All Hallows Eve, and Walter Hansel was one of them.  Here is a poem set in his shop, which explores the tension and love in our relationship (It was originally published in Turtle Quarterly, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize).

QUITTING TIME

I sweep up the hair that lies like pigeon’s feathers

on my father’s shop floor: Callahan’s red

mixed with the dark Slavinskys and Knauers and Ryshavys,

and one blonde Swede who must have snuck

in just before five.  His candied fleece shimmers

on top of the pile.  Dad double counts the till

and snaps caps back onto brown bottles of tonic

and grunts with the weight of the day. And all the men,

who sat in the chair while he plied their heads

with scissors and razors and combs, the men

from the plant, still aching from cutting hogs

and steers into bite size pieces, the men

who smoke Camel Straights and hit their kids

because God says it’s good for them and because

their hands were tied behind their backs

by fathers whose tongues were stolen from them

when they crossed the sea, all of them have

trailed off into the twilight like fog,

leaving their hair to sparkle under my broom

as my Father and I work in silence, and in hope of wings.

Be justice. Be beauty.  Be creative.

Patrick

ECLIPSED BY BEAUTY

Like a lot of people, I got up early to watch the total lunar eclipse today.  I saw the beginning from the bedroom window, and stood outside our house to see the advance of the shadow over the lesser light that governs the night.  The moon was setting as it was being eclipsed, and so I went to the park a few blocks away. 

There were a few other visitors whose voices I heard, or whose silhouettes I saw in the early dawn.  A man walking his dog. A couple in the front seat of their pickup, doing something.  Voices of a family leaving their house down the block.  A couple of birds.

It was a cool fall morning with lots of dew, and I am still recovering from hip surgery, so I didn’t sit down. But standing in one place made me feel cold and achy.  So I walked up and down a little on the edges of the park, keeping my eye on the moon, which changed shape and color with each minute, it seemed.

It struck me that I was walking on the very body that was causing the wonderful show in the skies.  I was moving on the earth whose movement made the shadow across the moon’s face, and revealed a beauty in our nighttime companion that we rarely see.  The last time I remember watching a total lunar eclipse was in 1982, at Camp Koinonia in upstate New York.  I was on crutches that night, and also had another body watching with me.  Here’s a poem I wrote about that night years later:

FULL ECLIPSE AT KOINONIA

I crutched out to Jubilee Meadow,

flashlight in my teeth, skin of light

bouncing off the low and high bush blueberries.

The dew was liquor thick

on the grass.  The mud, solemn.

I found my perch upon the wooden planks

where the campers did their silly skits.

I sat and waited for the moon to die.

That summer, gypsy moths had devoured

ash, maple, shag bark hickory

from Eldred to Liberty, leaving the forest

and its bright air stripped as for a scourging.

Trees forgot how to bend in the breeze.

Birds lost their bearings.  Even the long rains

and the raspy invasions of midges and bats

could not cleanse the sky of its desolation.

My foot sang in its temple of dirtied plaster.

That night, as the moon hunted above,

and the destroyer began to carve the shadow

into its bruised face, an animal rustled

a few yards down the path. My light found

its black and white form crouching

in the middle of my way home.

Her tail, a shadowed leaf

swaying in the wind, her head

bowed upwards, as if to catch

the light of heaven in its hour of need.

“Who are we, and how are we together”

is what the ancients asked, the children mock,

and now, sitting, I pondered, in the realm of skunk.

My companion didn’t seem to mind

the rending of the sky queen, nor my body

resting on the same earth

that was causing all the heavenly commotion.

(It was, after all, this planet we rode together

that was eating away the moon’s visage.)

And so, we sat together in the night,

until all that was left of the lunar countenance

was its halo, and the sky seemed to screech

with stars.  It began to chill, and I wondered

how I would hop and peg my way

around my sylvan friend, and back to bed.

I shined my beam upon her

and saw that she had gone.

Perhaps she became bored with her guest,

or tired of the celestial show we shared.

It’s probably true of skunks as much as a man on sticks

that seeing the moon come crawling back lacks the terror

and greed of seeing it eaten bit by heavenly bit.

Something else has power over us now.

Oh, the beauty of this early morning, when all created things were moving, and all creatures were held together in peace.  The beauty of this world, though beset with violence and hunger and injustice, calls out for our love.

Be beauty.  Be justice.

Patrick

OUT OF CONTROL AND INTO TRUST

A couple days ago, I got home from having total hip replacement surgery.  I was in the hospital for 3 ½ days, during which time I was working toward a series of small steps that would effect my release, a series that has some parameters, and has quite a bit of objective data from others who have undergone this surgery.  Once at home, I begin working toward a series of steps that are larger, not as well defined, and which can vary widely from person to person.  The data that surgeons and other healers have about this second phase is mostly self-reported by the patient and thus subjective rather than objective. 

I’ve only been home a couple days, but it’s looking like this stage of my healing could be much harder than the first one.

It’s interesting, because here at home, I have much more control about where I can go, what tools I have at my disposal, just how much physical space I can operate in, and how many physical activities it is possible to do, and yet in some ways, being in the hospital was easier.  There are many reasons, but it seems to me that at the core of them all was the issue of control.

When I went under anesthesia, I lost—or rather ceded—control of some key physical functions, among them breathing, urinating and finally, consciousness.  Agreeing to the surgery was essentially an act of faith.  I chose to trust people and a process over which I had no control. I chose to put my body and my life in others’ hands.

Even after waking from surgery, in many ways my life was still in others’ hands.  They decided when I could be moved from the recovery room, when I could eat solid food, when the catheter would come out. I had some control over that, in that there were certain steps I could pass.  I could drink a clear liquid diet and report no problems; I could report that I didn’t feel dizzy or nauseous.  (That reporting required a trust on the part of the staff—that I was telling the truth—but also they had a lot of machines to gather my data).

In fact, as the recovery in the hospital continued, I was asked to trust in a different way: that my body, with help, could do certain things.  Get up, walk to the hall, do physical therapy exercises, go to the bathroom, practice climbing stairs.  The more active I became, the more I was asked to both trust my pain (stop an exercise when it became intolerable) and trust that the pain would diminish as I got stronger.  The staff kept asking me to trust them with information: how I was feeling, if I could do more activity, if I could reduce the pain medication.  They also asked me if I had passed gas, and showed disappointment when I answered no (tell me another social situation where that happens!)

At home, it’s a different level of trust. I have to trust my family to adapt their lives and activities to my condition. And I have to trust my mind and spirit to make choices that aren’t necessarily black and white.  For example, how much should I push myself, and bear the pain, trusting that becoming active will reduce the pain versus how much I should take it easy, trusting that my body needs time to heal, and will do so at its own pace.

Anyone who has undergone major surgery will know that dilemma.  Doctors and nurses aren’t really helpful on this, because the best advice they will give you is “well, if it hurts too much don’t do it”, which basically leads you back to your subjective evaluation of what your body is telling you.

But coming home after surgery also challenges me to trust the trust I put in my family.  The people I trust the most are also the people I need to choose to trust the most.

The nurses and physical therapists never did anything that would test my trust in them. I was only in the hospital for 3 ½ days after all. But all of us in our family have done things that have damaged and even broken the trust between us for a time.  There has been more practice of forgiveness and reconciliation here, which has deepened the bonds of trust.  But even though I trust that I can trust loved ones with whom I have shared pain, I have to make that choice daily.  In the hospital, I didn’t have much of a choice whether to trust the staff: I depended on them.  At home, as I gain a little more independence physically, my dependence on my family is slowly diminished. But it takes time, time in which I must depend on people who are not being paid to help me (like in the hospital) but choosing to help me.  That dependence is a difficult spiritual discipline for me

I’ve been through a couple of workshops this year that sought to help us uncover—or discover—what is at the core of our being as leaders.  In both, my need to be in control surfaced strong and sure. I don’t like not being in control.  I want to know how things are going to turn out, and I feel that I need to make sure that they do.  Logically, of course, that doesn’t make any sense. No one can control the outcome of what we do.  But there is this power in me that demands that I keep my hands tightly on the reins, and shout directions to everyone travelling with me.  It is the opposite of trust, and the only way I can diminish that power is allowing myself to feel vulnerable and trust, even when I don’t feel it.  It’s not telling myself that “everything is going to be all right”, because not everything will be.  It’s more encouraging myself to trust that I will be all right, that those I love will be all right, that no matter what, life is precious and good.

I had a physical therapist in the hospital who epitomized the kind of coach or teacher I admire and aspire to be.  She was in her last year of school at the University of Minnesota, and combined in just the right proportions support and challenge.  She pushed me to do new things, and helped me to do them.  She was not going to make me get better, she was going to help me get better.  Her two most common phrases were “how do you feel?” and “do you want to try something else?”  No doubt, she had a written plan to guide her treatment of me, but it was her trust in me as a patient—that I would tell her what I was feeling, and that I would trust her as she guided me on—that made the healing relationship work.

Maybe we could apply that to other human relationships—at work, in our families, in community.  If we truly asked each other how we felt—and listened to the honest answer—and truly asked each other if we ‘d like to try something new, how much richer would our lives be?

I wonder.

Be beauty.  Be justice.  Be trust.

Patrick