She Told Me

She told me she had been a tabletop dancer. “Got married 17 times that way. I would dance. They would marry me. I’d get bored, leave one, dance some more, and marry another one.”

“Why didn’t you marry a rich one?”

“None of the guys, I danced for were rich.”

“Too bad.”

“I wasn’t in it for the money. I liked the attention. My boob job helped.”

Rolled with fat, sloppy, balding, and boob-jobless when she became my patient, she was the prototypical Wal-Mart shopper. With her cart loaded with chips, candy, cigarettes, cat liter packages, cosmetics, Coors, and charcoal lighter, she could weave her way down one hundred Wal-Mart aisles without drawing anyone’s attention. My imagination lacked the reach to visualize her mesmerizing 17 men while table dancing.

Her wacky psychiatric descriptions seemed as fabricated as her dancing history. Sobbing, hysterical protestations marked her office visits. Every medication gave her bizarre side effects, but she constantly appealed for “pills to ease my bewildered brain.” Although possessing creative suicidal plans, she refused to be admitted to the psychiatric unit with all the “nut cases.”

Snakes were her favorite hallucinatory subjects. Once she claimed to see snakes climbing out of the wall—“Big snakes. Huge snakes. Cobras. And Boas. They are vicious too. They are trying to bite me and all of them want to squeeze me to death if they don’t bite me dead first.” I gave her an antipsychotic, Risperdal.

The next day her third-cousin, once removed left a message on my voice mail: “That medicine you gave Sally Sue made her go crazy. She put on pink lipstick and dressed in a pink baby doll gown and went walking downtown where she picked up a pinkless man and took him home and made out with him right on her pink carpet. That medicine turned her into a sex maniac. She told me you were the best psychiatrist she ever had. I don’t believe her, but that’s what she told me.”
##############################################################

The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious and any resemblance to the names, character, or history of any person is coincidental and unintentional.

A CUP OF WATER

         You have heard about a great many people who did something with their lives. It is only fit and proper that you read a little about those who didn’t. Millions started doing something significant, and then stopped doing anything worthwhile permanently. These, by their very numbers, are respectable, and are therefore entitled to be heard—not in a loud voice, but a modest one; not a boastful one, but an apologetic one. They ought not be allowed much space among people who did something with their lives. I concede that. But they ought at least to be allowed to explain the process by which they didn’t do anything. Surely, this sort of revelation has some value.

         I must have been 5-years old, because it was before I went to school I think. We lived in Wharton, Texas. I can’t remember the date exactly. How long ago that was. Sixty years.

         I went to Wharton several years ago to visit the neighborhood where we lived for six months or so. I found our old house. It was still there. A tiny rectangle shaped clapboard house, painted white but not fresh. The weedy vacant lot next door was still there. And just like then there were no trees around. The garage was detached from the house and sagged a little. There was still just a gravel drive up to the garage. The house seemed locked up and I wondered if anyone lived there, but I didn’t go up to the door and knock. After all what would I say? “Hello, I lived here long ago.”

         The thing that struck me the most was the hill going up to our neighbors house. It wasn’t a hill at all, just a slight incline instead. But to a little boy a slight incline is a hill.

         As I said, I think I was five-years old at the time. I could have be six, but almost certainly not four. I was standing out in the front of the house for some reason. I don’t remember my mother being there. Or my father. Or my brother. I remember being alone. Another example of how time fades memory, for surely I wasn’t alone at that age.

         A garbage truck pulled up to empty our garbage can. A man hopped off the rear of the truck and headed for me. He wore grease-smeared overalls; he was slim, almost gaunt. He had a two or three day stubble flexed with gray. He was sweating profusely and smelled like rotten eggs and mildewed vegetables.

         “Little boy,” he said. “Would you please run and get me a drink of water? I’m very thirsty.”

         I ran to the house and entered the back door. What kind of glass was I going to use? Certainly not the good glasses or even the jam glasses. This man was old and sweaty. He couldn’t drink out of the good glasses. I began looking in the bottom kitchen cabinets for something appropriate for the grubby, stinky man to drink out of. I looked and looked. I needed to find something. At the same time, for some reason, I didn’t want to face that man again. Finally, I found a chipped Mason jar and filled it with water. I ran back to the street. The garbage truck and the man were gone. I stood out in the front yard holding that Mason jar filled with water. I held it for a long time.          

I looked down the street, wondering if the man ever got his water. I stood there holding the water, knowing that I had not done anything and the thing that I had not done was very significant.

 

*********************************************************

 

 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

                                                                Matthew 25:3-36

 

 

THE POWER OF FOUR

THE POWER OF FOUR
by Tom Hanks

Not long ago I was reading about the problem of gridlock on the freeways of Southern California--the traffic jams which cripple the city, stranding millions and laying waste to time, energy, and the environment. Gridlock is as serious and as impenetrable a problem as any we face, a dilemma without cure, without solution, like everything else in the world, it seems.

Some smart folks concocted a computer simulation of gridlock to determine how many cars should be taken off the road to turn a completely jammed and stilled highway into a free-flowing one. How many cars must be removed from that commute until a twenty-mile drive takes twenty-five minutes instead of two hours? The results were startling.

Four cars needed to be removed from that virtually stuck highway to free up that simulated commute... four cars out of each one hundred. Four cars per one hundred cars, four autos out of every one hundred autos, forty cars from each thousand, four hundred out of ten thousand. Four cars out of one hundred are not that many. Two cars out of every fifty--one driver out of twenty-five drivers.

Now, if this simulation is correct, it is the most dramatic definition in earthly science and human nature of how a simple choice will make a jaw-dropping difference to our world. Call it the Power of Four. One commuter in your neighborhood could put the rush back into rush hour. So, if merely four people out of a hundred can make gridlock go away by choosing not to use their car, imagine the other changes that can be wrought just by four of us--four of you--out of a hundred.

Take the Power of Four and apply it to any and every area of your concern. Politics:Four votes swung from one hundred into another hundred is the difference between gaining control and losing clout. Culture: 2 ticket buyers out of fifty can make a small, odd film profitable. Economics: by boycotting a product 1 consumer out of 25 can move that product to the back of the shelf, and eventually off it altogether.

Help is a four- letter word. We will always be able to help.

Shame

Pride knocks you down; shame keeps you down; humility pulls you up. 

The film, The Lion King, is a good example of how pride leads to shame. Humility allows us to overcome shame. When shame is put behind us, we can inherit the kingdom.

The birth of a lion prince, Simba, makes his uncle Scar the second in line to the throne. After Scar kills the King, Scar causes Simba to believe it was his fault. Simba flees the kingdom in shame. After years of exile he is persuaded to return home to overthrow the usurper and claim the kingdom. 

Young Simba: Hey, Uncle Scar, guess what? 
Scar: I despise guessing games. 
Young Simba: I'm gonna be King of Pride Rock. 
Scar: Oh, goody. 
Young Simba: My dad just showed me the whole kingdom. And I'm gonna rule it all. Heheh. 
Scar: Yes, well forgive me for not leaping for joy. Bad back, you know. 
[flops on his side] 
Young Simba: Hey Uncle Scar, when I'm King, what'll that make you? 
Scar: A monkey's uncle. 
Young Simba: [laughs] You're so weird. 
Scar: You have no idea. 

---

Adult Simba: I know what I have to do. But going back will mean facing my past. I've been running from it for so long. 
[Rafiki hits Simba on the head with his stick] 
Adult Simba: Ow! Jeez, what was that for? 
Rafiki: It doesn't matter. It's in the past. 
[laughs] 
Adult Simba: Yeah, but it still hurts. 
Rafiki: Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or... learn from it. 
[swings his stick at Simba again who ducks out of the way] 
Rafiki: Ha. You See? [You learned from the past.] So what are you going to do? 
Adult Simba: I'm going back! 

Rafiki: Good! Go on! Get out of here! 

---

Scar: Ah. so you haven't told them your little secret. Well, Simba, now's your chance to tell them. Tell them who is responsible for Mufasa's death. 
Adult Simba: [pause] I am 
Sarabi: [whispering] It's not true. Tell me it's not true. 
Adult Simba: It's true. 
Scar: You see? He admits it. Murderer! 
Adult Simba: No! It was an accident! 
Scar: If it weren't for you Mufasa would still be alive. It's your fault he's dead. Do you deny it? 
Adult Simba: No. 
Scar: Then you're guilty. 
Adult Simba: No, I'm *not* a murderer! 

---

Scar: Look Simba. You're in trouble again. But this time Daddy isn't here to save you and now everyone knows *why*! 

---

Adult Simba: Tell them the truth! 
Scar: But Simba truth is in the eye of the behold... 
Scar: [Simba chokes him, he whispers] All right. All right. I did it. 
Adult Simba: So they can hear you! 
Scar: I killed Mufasa! 

He mocks proud mockers, but gives grace to the humble.

The wise inherit honor, but fools he holds up to shame.

Proverbs 3:34-35

Brains in Your Head and Feet in Your Shoes

Some people have brains but no plans to go

Others have feet that outstep their know

A mind-maker-upper never up makes his mind

A feet-steper-outer leaves his thinker behind

A brain that's best used

Tells the feet in the shoed

To plan for the place

And step with the pace

That wins the right race

Life Predictions

Life is about as predictable as a matchbook boat spinning down a drainage ditch. You never know what you’ll encounter or where you will end-up. I was reminded of the unpredictability of life on a recent outing with my granddaughter. Following a thunderous rain, my granddaughter, Lori, and I left the house to play. Strolling to a neighborhood creek, we put two matchbook boats side by side in the stream. We ran as quickly as we could to the footbridge crossing the creek and watched the progress of the two little boats. Although these boats were identical in size and structure, one boat quickly sailed under our footbridge, while the other boat bumped along slowly, was caught in a hydraulic force, and spit into an eddy where it stalled.

“Pop, how come that boat kept going and the other one got stuck?” Lori asked. Wanting Lori to be the smartest kid in gym class, I said, “According to scientists studying chaos theory, it’s due to deterministic non-periodic flow.”

“That’s what I thought,” replied Lori. “I think I’ll go ask Mimi.”

I never discovered Mimi’s answer, but Lori’s dilemma presents some difficult questions: Why did one boat sail swiftly with the current, while the other boat floundered in shallow waters? In somber times, we sometimes ask a similar question about our lives. Does the outcome of our life depend on the currents of fate or the structure of our life or something else? Are our actions determined? Do we have free will to sail the streams of our choosing?

Watch two bits of paper flowing side by side at the bottom of a waterfall. What can you guess about how close they were at the top? Nothing. Watch two people sitting side by side at church. What can you guess about the experiences they have had? Nothing.

Why do matchbook boats sail erratically? Why are our lives so unpredictable? Why does the kid voted most likely to succeed spend his life under a park bench while the class clown wins the Noble Prize?

LITTLE DID HE KNOW

Tiny differences in input can quickly become overwhelming disparities in output. A butterfly stirring the air in Scarsdale, New York can transform storm systems in London the next month. A man pushes the snooze button on his alarm clock. He leaves his house in the morning thirty seconds later than usual. A swerving truck misses his car by inches. Walking from the parking garage, a falling wrench at a construction site knocks him dead. Little did he know that thirty seconds was a half-a-minute too late. Just as there exist too many butterflies for the weatherman make an accurate forecast all the time, psychiatrists have a difficult time predicting how an individual will respond to the alarm clock. Thus, there is no definite explanation for why some lead successful lives and others are always a little behind schedule.

A WEIGHT WAIT

A British woman planning to start a new life with her husband in New Zealand was banned from entering the country because she is too fat. According to a British Newspaper, The Daily Mail, Rowan Trezise, 33 remained in England, while her husband, Richie, 35, had already made the move down under leaving her desperately trying to lose weight. When the couple first tried to gain entry to the country they were told that they were both overweight and were a potential burden on the health care system.

THE HIDDEN CONSEQUENCE OF COMPASSION

Compassion, a wonderful virtue, has the potential for generating a troubling consequence. Recipients of a "compassionate government" can develop an infantilizing sense of entitlement--an addiction as lethal as drug dependence.

A patient with six children had been admitted to our psychiatric unit six times with post partum depression. I suggested she consider a tubal ligation. She replied, “I couldn’t do that. I need more money. Every time I have a baby I get a bigger government check.” Unearned gifts kill personal responsibility.

LIVING SMART

We all know someone who scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT and flunked out of college by the second semester. That’s because success in college, and in life, has little to do with raw intelligence. IQ predicts success about 20% of the time. Behavioral scientists have discovered that 80% of success depends on emotional factors.

Harvard students from the 1940s—a time when there was a wider range of IQ at that school—were tracked into middle age. The high IQ men were not anymore successful than the lower in intelligence. Similarly, 450 boys from Boston slums were followed into middle age. Success in this social group was not dependent on intelligence. Ten years after 81 valedictorians and salutatorians graduated from their high school, only four were at the highest level of young people of comparable age in their chosen profession. Academic intelligence fails to predict how one will react to the vicissitudes of life.

Psychologists gave col¬lege freshmen tests to measure optimism. Four years later, the psychologists found that optimism predicted grades better than SAT scores or high-school grades.

In a Met-Life Insurance Company study, insurance executives hired a special group of applicants who failed the normal screening tests, but scored high on optimism. The first year on the job, the "dumb" optimists sold 21% more insurance than the "smart" pessimists. The second year, the optimists sold 57% more insurance than the pessimists. "Dumb" opti¬mists sell more insurance than "smart" pessimists.

Daniel Goleman, a former brain sciences editor of The New York Times, has written a follow-up book to his enormously popular, Emotional Intelligence. The sequel, Working with Emotional Intelligence is based on studies done by dozens of experts in 500 corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations worldwide. An examination of these studies asserts that emotional intelligence is twice as important as either IQ or technical expertise in predicting career success.
Here’s good news for all of us with average IQ scores: Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence continues to grow with life experiences. Since emotional intelligence is essential to career success and leadership potential, let’s look at those areas that define emotional intelligence:

KNOW THYSELF

Knowing our internal states—our emotional strengths and weaknesses—can help us develop our talents while minimizing our defects. For example, if we understand that we have a weakness for impulsive decision-making, we can train ourselves to sleep on a decision or wait through a weekend before making a determination. On the other hand, waiting until we have enough facts to be confident that we have covered all the bases causes deal-defeating delay. Taking action when we have 50-60% of the information prevents “analysis paralysis.”

COOL UNDER PRESSURE

Those with high emotional intelligence know that they have control over one factor—their internal state. While we are unable to control other people or events, we can control our feelings by changing our belief about people and events. We can also learn to manage our disruptive emotions—control our temper, our pessimism, and our cynicism.

MOVED BY ACTION

Many talented people waste their abilities because they remain inactive. Productive action comes from the desire for pleasure, the urge to avoid pain, and the belief that goals can be accomplished. Motivation comes from craving success multiplied by the belief that we can accomplish our desires. Belief in ourselves is enhanced when we see others accomplishing their goals.

WINNING WITH PEOPLE

The art of getting along with people is more important than raw intelligence. Studies at the Carnegie Institute of Technology proved that even in the technical areas of science and engineering, 85 percent of success depends on skill with managing people and 15 percent of financial success is due to technical knowledge. John D. Rockefeller said, “The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.”

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY, NOT EQUALITY OF RESULTS

All of us seek equality of opportunity. Opportunity, however, fails to guarantee equality of results. Some people can jump higher and run faster than others. Some have better minds than others. Some have more musical talent than others. Not everyone will win. We will not receive equal prizes. Doing our best is the best we can expect of ourselves.

OATMEAL COOKIES

Walking home from the creek where Lori and I had sailed out matchstick boats, my thoughts centered on the ideas her question had generated. As soon as I stepped over the threshold of our home, the aroma of freshly baked cookies wafted from the kitchen where I found Mimi and Lori taking the first batch from the oven. “Have a cookie.” Lori said.
Sometimes when we try to explain the unexplainable—nature and nurture, genetics and environment, normal and abnormal, we can thank God for oatmeal cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren’t any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a warm hug, an act of kindness, a word of encouragement, or the gentle touch of a loving hand, not to mention, sailboats, basketballs, violins, butterflies, and reading The Chronicles of Narnia to grandchildren before bedtime prayers. These and other simple pleasures, the nuances, the incongruities, the subtleties, are what give life value. They are the unadorned enchantments that frame our lives. That’s the best I can do to explain the wonder of human behavior. And so it is that a simple question from a child gives me the hopeful assurance of life’s richness for us all.

Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow

LITTLE DID HE KNOW
Tiny differences in input can quickly become overwhelming disparities in output. A butterfly stirring the air in Scarsdale, New York can transform storm systems in London the next month. A man pushes the snooze button on his alarm clock. He leaves his house in the morning thirty seconds later than usual. A swerving truck misses his car by inches. Walking from the parking garage, a falling wrench at a construction site knocks him dead. Little did he know that thirty seconds was a half-a-minute too late. Just as there exist too many butterflies for the weatherman make an accurate forecast all the time, psychiatrists have a difficult time predicting how an individual will respond to the alarm clock. Thus, there is no definite explanation for why some lead successful lives and others are always a little behind schedule. 

What You Can't Tell About A Harvard Man

Harvard students from the 1940s—a time when there was a wider range of IQ at that school—were tracked into middle age. The high IQ men were not anymore successful than the lower in intelligence. Similarly, 450 boys from Boston slums were followed into middle age. Success in this social group was not dependent on intelligence. Ten years after 81 valedictorians and salutatorians graduated from their high school, only four were at the highest level of young people of comparable age in their chosen profession. Academic intelligence fails to predict how one will react to the vicissitudes of life.

THE HIDDEN CONSEQUENCE OF COMPASSION

Compassion, a wonderful virtue, has the potential for generating a troubling consequence. Recipients of a "compassionate government" can develop an infantilizing sense of entitlement--an addiction as lethal as drug dependence.
A patient with six children had been admitted to our psychiatric unit six times with post partum depression. I suggested she consider a tubal ligation. She replied, “I couldn’t do that. I need more money. Every time I have a baby I get a bigger government check.” Unearned gifts kill personal responsibility.

Con Man

He had sinewy arms, greasy long hair framing a scruffy beard, a tattoo on the left forearm of a skull impaled on a dagger, and a right arm tattoo of flames that he plans to extend up his biceps and onto his back where a Phoenix will rise from the flames. When the cops came to get him for breaking his girlfriend’s jaw, his claim of hallucinations and suicide intent earned him commitment to a psychiatric hospital instead of a trip to the jailhouse. He said he was going to hang himself from the tree where his father hung himself.

            “Your father hung himself? I thought you told the admitting clerk that you didn’t know who your father was.”

            “Well, this man was like my father. He was the brother of my step-father, but he was more like my father than my step-father so I call him my father.”

            “Tell me again about your plan to hang yourself.”

            “I was going to tie a rope to a cinderblock, wrap the rope around my neck two times, then jump off the tree, and decapitate myself.

            “Sounds gory.”

             “Yes, but I want to make certain that I kill myself this time. The last time I tried it the rope broke.”

            “The rope broke? It’s amazing to me how many patients I have had who have tried to hang themselves and the rope breaks. Rope makers must put out a lot of inferior product.”

            “Yea, the rope that broke on me was 400-pound test rope. Brand new. Right off the shelf and it broke.”

            “Did you think about shooting yourself? That would be more of a sure shot thing and a little less messy than a decapitation.”

            “Well, the last time I tried to shoot myself I got some federal explosives, some federal bullets. You know those federal bullets are the best bullets made. They never misfire, being federal bullets and all. Well, I put that gun to my head with those federal bullets in it and pulled the trigger six times and the gun misfired every time. That’s why I’m using the cinder block this time.”

            “If the rope broke with just the weight of your body, how is the rope going to withstand the extra weight of a cinderblock?”

            “I’m going to get a 800-pound test rope this time.”

            “You told the nurse that you murdered two people in prison.”           

            “Yeh. I threw one off a three-story building. Splattered his brains all over the exercise yard. The other wanted a sexual favor and I cut off his most favored asset with a razor. He bled to death right there in front of me.”

            “Why didn’t he get a longer prison term for killing your fellow inmates?”

             “The guards saw me do it and they knew the men deserved to die so they didn’t turn me in. They wanted to give me a medal, but I wouldn’t take it”           

            “Why no teardrop tattoos? You know those little tear drop tattoos that prison murderers have burned in the corner of the eye. Why don’t you have any?

            “I didn’t want them. Girls might get the wrong impression about me.”           

            “Have you every heard the statement, ‘Don’t try to con a con?’”

            “Yea, I’ve heard that.”

            “Since we have that straight, let me tell you a story. My son and I were driving into the College Station Wal-Mart the other day and we saw a guy with long hair and a scruffy beard. My son laughed and said that that man must be the token College Station hippy. I wonder if that was you?”

            “Was that man driving a rusted out wreck of a car?”

            “I think he was.”

            “Yep. That was probably me.”

            “Well, you know College Station is a conservative town. If you drive around here with long hair, you might get beat up by some of the Aggie Corps. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. Have you thought about moving to Austin? They accept longhaired people better there.”

            “That’s a good idea, but I like the idea of moving to Graceful Grove, Wisconsin. They have a lot of long-hair Pentecostals up there.”

            “Pentecostals? Did you grow-up in the Pentecostal Church?”

            “Sure did. Spoke in tongues and all that until the snake bit me.”

            “A snake bit you?”

            “Sure. We was all shoutin and hollowerin and speaking in tongues and people was holdin’ these snakes in the air. They was writhing around and a big ol’ Cobra lashed out and bit me right on the hand. But as quick as flash I pulled out my knife, made a couple of deep cuts and sucked that poison right out of there.”

            “A cobra? That must have left some terrific scars.”

            “Nope. Those elders put some oil on it, laid on their hands, and prayed all the cuts away. See. Look here. You can’t see any evidence of that snake biting me. If you ever get snake bit you sure can count on those Pentecostals.”

            “The Pentecostals—what a blessing when you were in Graceful Grove. How’s your spiritual life now?”

            “I read the Bible every _______ time I get into trouble. As the Bible says ‘A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.’”

            “It says that in the Bible? I didn’t know that. Where in the Bible?”

            “I don’t know exactly because when ever I get in trouble I pull out my Bible, and I just put my finger between the pages and read whatever pops up.”

            “Must be a great comfort to you.”

            “You bet your _____________it is.”

            “I notice that you cuss quite a bit. I don’t believe the Bible ever mentions that Jesus cussed.”

            “He didn’t have all the troubles life has dealt me nuther. With all my worldly woes and sorrows and burdens, I’m praying all the time. That’s what fills my life prayin’ and movin.’ I keep movin’ around lookin’ for that pot of Gold. I get considerable encouragement from what God told Noah—‘There’s a pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow.’”

            “I’m glad your spiritual life is sound and your searchin’ keeps you movin’ on. I don’t think we have the funds for a bus ticket to Graceful Grove or even Austin for that matter. Nonetheless, I don’t think you need any psychiatric care right now do you?”

            “No. Can I call my girlfriend and have her pick me up?”

From the Insight Guide to Israel:

"If the heartbeat of the nation's culture lies in the written word, then Israel has a problem because, despite the revival of Hebrew, there are no more than 4 or 5 million people world-wide who can speak and understand it, and certainly no more than 3 million who can comfortably read it."

Hidden Meanings in Numbers

Finding hidden meanings in numbers is called gematria. For example, the four consonants of God's name (Y-H-W-H) have numerical values as follows: 10, 5, 6, 5. The sum of the squares is 186, which is the numerical value of M-Q-W-M, which means "place." This reminds the rabbis that God is omnipresent (in every place). Or, the numerical value of both the words wine and secret is 70 which lead to the saying "when wine enters, secrets are out."Gematria sounds more like a parlor game rather than true scholarship, but I would be interested to know if you discuss this in future courses. 

A HARVARD MAN WITH A SIMPLE PLAN

 

            When I was older and about to retire, I moved to a medium sized town. The hospital had a family practice residency, but no medical school to back it up. It was a small time program and, from time to time, the hospital had difficulty filling all their residency slots. The family practice residence rotated through the psychiatric unit where I would teach them, the best I could, about psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. I enjoyed teaching them, but the residents were average doctors, not as smart, nor as driven as the residents I had at Duke when I taught there.

            There was one exception—a young man who asked to do more than expected. “I would like to dictate the psychiatric admitting and discharge notes and I would like you to read them and tell me how I can improve,” he said. Then he wrote out his number and asked me to call him if I had any consults in the hospital. “I would like to see those patients first and then you can come by and see them and we can discuss the case and you can tell me how I did on my evaluations.” He did extra reading and kept up with the current literature. He was smart and eager. I quickly became impressed with the breadth and depth of his knowledge.

            “Where did you get your training?” I asked.

            “I went to Harvard as an undergraduate and Johns Hopkins for medical school,” he said.

            “My gosh, what are you doing here? You could write your own ticket. You could get into any top notch family practice program.”

            “When I finish my residency, I am going back to my home town in Alabama. I want to work in the rural areas. That’s where I grew up and where my folks live. That’s where doctors are needed the most. I figured if I was going to practice in a rural area, I should get my training in a smaller program. You practice medicine differently down here. You are practical. You are more interested in talking to patients and examining them, than you are in fancy diagnostic tests. When you hear hoof beats, you look for horses, not zebras. Stanford, Yale, Columbia—they are great programs, but I think I will learn more about being a real doctor here.”

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S CATAFALQUE DREAM

A few days prior to his assassination Lincoln recounted the following dream:

About ten days ago I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death­like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invis­ible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the sounds of distress met me as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I anived at the East Room, which r entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers. 'The President,' was his answer; 'he was killed by an assassin!' Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd.

Source: Oates, Stephen B: With Malice Toward None-The Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Harper and Row, 1977, pp. 425-426.

A Physician's Prayer

A Physician's Prayer

 

Lord, Thou Great Physician, I kneel before Thee.

Since every good and perfect gift must come from Thee

I pray give skill to my hand, clear vision to my mind,

Kindness and sympathy to my heart.

Give me singleness of purpose, strength to lift at least

A part of the burden of my suffering fellow men,

And true realizations of the rare privilege that is mine.

 

Take from my heart all guile and worldliness,

That with the simple faith of a child I may rely on Thee

Joy Stealers

·      Joy is a choice we have to make every day.

·      Life throws a lot of stuff at us.  And some of that stuff has a way of stealing us of the joy Jesus is talking about.

·      Some Joy Stealers

o     worry

o     unresolved guilt

o     negative self-esteem

·      How quickly we forget that we are all created in the image of God.

·      Some will point out that the reason they have no joy in their lives is because they don’t have a reason to be joyful.

·      It’s hard to be joyful when you’re struggling with troubles, or overwhelmed by pain, or unsure of your future.

·      Jesus told us that “… In this world you will have trouble...”

·      God doesn’t want us to be under our circumstances.  God wants us to be overcomers.

·      Karl Barth once defined joy as “A defiant nevertheless.” 

·      God’s kind of Joy is not an emotion that happens to you.  God’s Joy is His tool for you to use to take control of your life.

Thoughts on Mystical Experiences

 Recently I have been thinking of ways to express mystical encounters that I experience from time to time--usually when I am studying, writing, listening to music, or helping others. Sometimes I have these experiences when I am praying or when I am with a group studying the Bible or when I am reading the Bible. 

The “naïve” Christian considers God as a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears. A profounder sort of Christianity takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of the universe that reveals to us an incomprehensible being whose systematic superiority makes human contribution utterly insignificant and yet—at the same time—in a counterintuitive way that remains unexplained, makes human contribution a vital part of the great cosmic ocean of thought. This conviction of a supreme, holy, unexplainable being produces an intoxicated joy at the beauty and grandeur of the world that seems more like a feeling or emotion than a thought. This mystical experience that only can originate outside the brain is a thought-feeling from God that is best expressed through music and poetry. We might call this process “grasping cosmic loving-intelligence.” This cosmic loving-intelligence came in human form as Jesus Christ. Most of the time we are unaware of this cosmic loving-intelligence. On rare occasions, some “spiritual puff” may stimulate a sudden, brief rapture that impresses the mind and heart with an unwavering conviction—“I have just encountered the divine.” This mystical experience fills one with the desire to act toward others with kindnesses, warmth, good-cheer and generosity not to receive a reward but as a way of expressing a cosmic encounter.

WHAT THE BEAUTY WANTS FROM THE BEAST

Four Erroneous Propositions 

Men don’t know how to keep their promises

Men don’t know how to be spiritual leaders

Men don’t know how to talk to their wives

Men don’t know how to raise their children

THE NICE GUY MYTH

The main goal of a man is to be a nice guy

This is the reason there are so many tired and lonely women

…so many fatherless children

…so few men around

Every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, a beauty to rescue

Deceptions

The devil is not around

Don’t hang on to the truth

We let the enemy intimidate us

God is not with us

We make a deal with the devil

We have no weapons against the devil

We won’t be wounded by the devil

A Beauty to Rescue

I am lonely, will you rescue me?

Will you give me your strength?

Will you use me?

Will you fight for me?

Will you stay with me?

iChat on the iMac

No Chat or Losers Lament

 

A cyber sent signal sang signing offline. 

He'd stopped what twas writing and gone out to dine. 

Before I could tell him I had no time to chat. 

He had turned off the 'puter and fled like a rat. 

When I see him I’ll squeeze him, I'll Smee’s him, I’ll sneeze him with cheeses,

Cause I can’t cater a snorting, snot-snake son who signs on and off as he pleases

 

Didn't know the orbit he’d sent,

Couldn't ‘pect the shape he’d bent

'Till that cad, not that gent,

Turned off the 'puter and went

He had interrupted my brilliant thought.

My mind had fried. I was overwrought.

He had stopped me from thinking.

He’d started me drinking.

 

Drink taught me thus to philosophate,

Chatters online therefore to contemplate:

If every talk message brings cause to ruminate

Chatter- interruptus will bring life to ruinate.

Because the losers in life are really quite sad,

Everything they do turns from worse to real bad.

The mail in their box is nothing but junk.

When the project's 'most finished the computer goes clunk.

But the worst loser of all, I've heard it's been said

Sends a chat message to buddies that have fled.

 

 

 

Decided, then, to forget that dork.

Forget chat.  Get back to work.

Stop my drinking

And restart my thinking.

 

Had just put on my wisdom-washed wonder-filled face,

When all of a sudden out of the blue cyber space

Came a nanosecond zap zipping through that cyber zone.

In a mamosecond zac that throttled the thinking tone.

He on his Mac, me, on mine

We talked smack, online

My son’s iMac, so fine.

My iMac, quick time.

We had TV in space, face to face.

We could see each other in cyber space.

We could do some info sharing,

Some bond-like father-son caring,

Some picture looking and family talking,

We could even watch each of us walking.

An amazing thing is this cyber chat,

But don’t interrupt me you silly rat.

 

Dear friends ‘tis a moral to this story.

And all know there’s a path to every glory.

No matter then the chipper chatters that shatters my mind

When he crudely, lewdly, rudely signs on and offline

I’ll lose page and verse; I’ll give chapter and book

Just to capture time, to have a chat, to take a cyber look.

Daily Prayer of a Physician--Attributed to Maimonides

"Almighty God, Thou have created the human body with infinite wisdom. Ten thousand times ten thousand organs hast Thou combined in it that act unceasingly and harmoniously to preserve the whole in all its beauty the body which is the envelope of the immortal soul. They are ever acting in perfect order, agreement, and accord. Yet, when the frailty of matter or the unbridling of passions deranges this order or interrupts this accord, then forces clash and the body crumbles into the primal dust from which it came. Thou send to man diseases as beneficent messengers to foretell approaching danger and to urge him to avert it.

"Thou has blest Thine earth, Thy rivers and Thy mountains with healing substances; they enable Thy creatures to alleviate their sufferings and to heal their illnesses. Thou hast endowed man with the wisdom to relieve the suffering of his brother, to recognize his disorders, to extract the healing substances, to discover their powers and to prepare and to apply them to suit every ill. In Thine Eternal Providence Thou hast chosen me to watch over the life and health of Thy creatures. I am now about to apply myself to the duties of my profession. Support me, Almighty God, in these great labors that they may benefit mankind, for without Thy help not even the least thing will succeed.

"Inspire me with love for my art and for Thy creatures. Do not allow thirst for profit, ambition for renown and admiration, to interfere with my profession, for these are the enemies of truth and of love for mankind and they can lead astray in the great task of attending to the welfare of Thy creatures. Preserve the strength of my body and of my soul that they ever be ready to cheerfully help and support rich and poor, good and bad, enemy as well as friend. In the sufferer let me see only the human being. Illumine my mind that it recognize what presents itself and that it may comprehend what is absent or hidden. Let it not fail to see what is visible, but do not permit it to arrogate to itself the power to see what cannot be seen, for delicate and indefinite are the bounds of the great art of caring for the lives and health of Thy creatures. Let me never be absent- minded. May no strange thoughts divert my attention at the bedside of the sick, or disturb my mind in its silent labors, for great and sacred are the thoughtful deliberations required to preserve the lives and health of Thy creatures.

"Grant that my patients have confidence in me and my art and follow my directions and my counsel. Remove from their midst all charlatans and the whole host of officious relatives and know-all nurses, cruel people who arrogantly frustrate the wisest purposes of our art and often lead Thy creatures to their death.

"Should those who are wiser than I wish to improve and instruct me, let my soul gratefully follow their guidance; for vast is the extent of our art. Should conceited fools, however, censure me, then let love for my profession steel me against them, so that I remain steadfast without regard for age, for reputation, or for honor, because surrender would bring to Thy creatures sickness and death.

"Imbue my soul with gentleness and calmness when older colleagues, proud of their age, wish to displace me or to scorn me or disdainfully to teach me. May even this be of advantage to me, for they know many things of which I am ignorant, but let not their arrogance give me pain. For they are old and old age is not master of the passions. I also hope to attain old age upon this earth, before Thee, Almighty God!

"Let me be contented in everything except in the great science of my profession. Never allow the thought to arise in me that I have attained to sufficient knowledge, but vouchsafe to me the strength, the leisure, and the ambition ever to extend my knowledge. For art is great, but the mind of man is ever expanding.

"Almighty God! Thou hast chosen me in Thy mercy to watch over the life and death of Thy creatures. I now apply myself to my profession. Support me in this great task so that it may benefit mankind, for without Thy help not even the least thing will succeed."