the better story...

According to Yann Martel, author of The Life of Pi, the book was born out of a conversation with an elderly Indian gentleman, who made the bold claim, "I have a story that will make you believe in God."

You should read this book.

Part One of the book chronicles Piscine Patel's ("known to all as Pi") early childhood and the details of his religious background. Born into a bright orange Hindu, introduced to Christ by a friendly Father Martin in Munnar, and wooed to the green of Islam by plain-featured Muslim mystic/baker, he practices all three religions interchangeably and without excuse. Even when confronted by three religious leaders, who agree on only one point ("...he can’t be a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim. It's impossible. He must choose."), Pi defends his piety.

"I just want to love God."

Part One ends with another bold claim: "This story has a happy ending." It is statement that I had to go back and reread a few times during Part Two, which starts out with a shipwreck and a scared Pi crying out to Jesus, Mary, Muhammad, and Vishnu for help. Sometimes it seems as if there can be no happy ending to this story. I don’t want to give away too much, but Pi spends almost 7 months at sea in a "genuine, regulation lifeboat," an experience in which he is forced to renounce his vegetarian beliefs but not his faith in God, which is (to me) impressive.

I read his story in awe and reverence. Then, like a slap in the face by a flying fish (one of the events in the story), there is a twist at the end of the book of M. Night Shyamalan proportions. A Mr. Okamoto, who is investigating the cause of the shipwreck with the ship's sole survivor, is forced to choose between two accounts...one that is beautiful and horrifying and miraculous and epic, and one that may be slightly more plausible but ugly and equally horrifying. Belief in either one requires a significant amount of faith, because the only one who can testify to the validity of either fable is Pi himself. The plausibility of the second story is based on my realm of knowledge...on what I think is believable and true. But, as Pi puts it himself, "You can't prove which story is true and which is not. You must take my word for it...So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story?" Mr. Okamoto decides that the beautiful story is the better story. Pi replies, "Thank you. And so it goes with God."

I don’t want to read too much into a work of fiction, which, according to the author is "the selective transforming of reality." But this book has made me think more about faith and doubt than my recent attempt to read the bible from cover to cover. I think Chapter 22 sums it up for me:

"I can well imagine an atheist's last words: '‘White, white! L-L-Love! My God!'--and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, 'Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,' and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story."

and the things that are not...

and the things that are not...

i have been contemplating that phrase over the past couple of weeks. it sits in this bible passage:

"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.'"

this is encouraging to me...God picking the foolish things and the weak things, the lowly things and the despised things--and the things that are not. it is as if God purposefully picks the benchwarmers, not the superstars. He sees the scrawny kid on the playground, the one with downcast eyes and red cheeks, the one who has stopped hoping for the first round pick and started praying that he will be second-to-last instead of last (again). God sees this kid and says, "you. I want you."

this is the God that i have come to love. the One who chooses the things that are not. He is a God Who sees the big picture. He doesn't just see us as we are at that particular point in time...when we are weak/needy/foolish/lowly/despised. He sees the potential. He sees us as we will be, not just as we are.

i have not been particularly wise or strong over the past few weeks, which is probably why i have not written anything particularly "spiritual" lately. somewhere along the line, i forgot what i was worth. i stopped seeing what He sees in me, and i started buying into the lies the world sells me. it is so hard to trust sometimes, and my faith falters on a pretty regular basis, but it was harder to find it lately. i am lucky that God pursues me, even when i don't particularly want Him to. i have also been lucky that in the past few weeks, i have heard God say again, "you. I want you."

God, i am so grateful that when i am scared and stumbling, You don't give up on me. i'm thankful that when my faith is small, You are still big. i'm so glad that i don't have to be strong or wise. i pray for faith...that i may know You more...and in knowing You more, that i might trust You more. amen.

carolina blue...

It is chilly in Chapel Hill Saturday evening. I parked in the municipal parking lot ($0.65 per 30 minutes -- much better than the parking in NYC, which is where I was last week) and walked the to Spanky's Bar & Grill. I expected a younger crowd, simply judging from the name, but I sat next to a pair of tables with what looked like older couples getting together for weekly conversation and pints of Guinness. I felt a little out of place because I was drinking Bass out of a bottle. That, and the fact I was about half the age of anyone in the little bar besides the wait staff. The large window I sat next to framed the brick buildings across the street, decorated with white lights and people in Carolina blue scarves. Or maybe Duke blue. I'm still getting used to the subtleties. I poured the beer into the glass provided (quite expertly, I might add, with just the right amount of head), and it stayed cold until the last ounce or so. I don't like warm beer, but I didn't want to waste it, so I finished it.

I walked outside to see three guys in long hair and acid-washed jean jackets walk by, smelling of high school and adidas cologne. Which, incidentally, are the same smell. I had forgotten momentarily that the 80s were back, so seeing them kind of threw me. I wear a denim jacket as well, so I definitely fit in with this group. Except that I was an old lady who didn't even get carded at the bar I just went to, and the last time I smelled adidas cologne was in 1998. Crazy how some smells fling memories into consciousness.

I am trying to figure out where I fit in. I am interviewing at a bunch of schools to see where I can get a residency. It is hard to judge a program based on one or two days of a formal interview. I am sure they don't get a true impression of who I am, since I will probably never ever wear a suit in their presence again after I interview. Never ever. I think we should all interview in scrubs...one less variable to be judged. Some people make checklists and take a bunch of notes to try and figure out where they will rank the places they interview at. I am mainly going on a gut-instinct-type feeling, which is sort of contrary to what I usually do. I guess I'll find out where I end up in March.

It was still chilly on Sunday morning, but the sun was bright and it warmed up quickly. I walked to a church by the hotel. I happened to go on a day where this church offered communion. In the midst of figuring out where I fit in, I forgot that I am part of a Body. It was comforting and familiar to worship with other people with whom I share beliefs. It was also comforting to know that I don't have to worry about where I wind up; wherever I match is where God wants me to be. I am feeling much more at peace about the whole decision-making process.

On a side note, with all this traveling, I didn't get a chance to go home for the Thanksgiving holiday, and now I'm feeling a little homesick. I was lucky enough to see my parents in October, and two months is by no means the longest I have gone without seeing them. I have seen my sister and her family a bunch as I stay the night with them before flights out of DFW. But for some reason, as I travel, I am acutely aware of how important my family is and how much I miss them. Loneliness is a good motivator to encourage reliance and dependence on my God, but it also is hard. Please pray.

"When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone." -- Tennessee Williams

collision...

I love being involved in a field where so many different academic disciplines collide. Historically, there were only four academic disciplines: theology, medicine, jurisprudence, and the arts. If you look for a definition of "medicine" on wikipedia, you come up with this:

"Medicine is the branch of health science and the sector of public life concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, treatment and possible prevention of disease and injury. It is both an area of knowledge -- a science of body systems, their diseases and treatment -- and the applied practice of that knowledge."

While this is a decent and concise definition of what I do on a daily basis, I would submit to you that it is much more. When you talk about "restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, treatment, and possible prevention of disease and injury," there just isn't one magic pill that I can prescribe that will take care of all of that. The restoration of health often involves taking much more interest in how and why the patient is sick, rather than just diagnosing and treating their illness. Restoration of health also requires that when a patient comes to see me in clinic with a chief complaint of "hypertension and refills," I need to distinguish if that is her real complaint, or if her true complaint is that she can't afford the $59 a month that she has been paying for her medications. And then I need to figure out how I can help her.

I think if I ever decide to go back to school in the future (I mean, um, after I get out of school), I would want to get a Ph.D. in sociology or social anthropology, studying the effect of inequity on access to medical care. It is easy to document an "outcome gap" (which is a horrible euphemism that basically means given a certain medical condition, a poor person is more likely to have a worse outcome than a rich person) and show that it is caused, at least in part, by differential access to increasingly effective technologies [Paul Farmer in Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor]. I think that what I can do now is make sure that I am providing equitable care for all of my patients, regardless of their race, sex, socioeconomic status, etc.

There is a famous statue depicting Lady Justice, where she holds the scales of justice and wears a blindfold. I do not have the luxury of wearing the blindfold of Lady Justice, and I'm not sure if I would want to. I want to be able to truly see people. I pray that I will not be blinded.

So here's my definition of medicine: medicine is the collision of science and sociology, affected by business and law and politics, and beatified by the arts and theology.

When we come to you
Our rags are torn off us
And you listen all over our naked body.
As to the cause of our illness
One glance at our rags would
Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out
Our bodies and our clothes.

The pain in our shoulder comes
You say, from the damp; and this is also the reason
For the stain on the wall of our flat.
So tell us:
Where does the damp come from?
--Bertolt Brecht, "A Worker's Speech to a Doctor"

exposing the lies...

The church that I go to here in Shreveport, Broadmoor Baptist, recently hosted a 3-session series by a guy named Justin Peters. The sessions were collectively entitled "A Call for Discernment." I had no intention of attending any of them; as a rule, I generally try to avoid spending too much time in a church building. My family came in to town the weekend it started, though, so I missed church at its appointed Sunday morning time and decided to go to the evening service, which happened to be "Session 1: Dangerous Doctrines." I had no idea what this was going to be about. I also did not think that I would go to all three sessions, but I was hooked after the first night.

Justin Peters has both a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Theology degree. He also suffers from a relatively mild case of cerebral palsy. His purpose for giving this seminar series was to expose the lies of the Word of Faith movement (the people who are on TBN--Benny Hinn, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Paul and Jane Crouch, etc.)...the "health and wealth"/prosperity gospel preachers. Here I shall digress a little...

I always thought of TBN as a cheesy Christian broadcasting network. I never really watched much of it, but flipping through the channels, I would see Jan Crouch with her purple wigs, plastic face, and fake eyelashes and just groan. And then vomit. Because if she was the type of Christian that gets televised, what must the secular world think of us? I would make fun of her and Benny, with his trademark hair and white suits. I mean, honestly, his part starts just above his ear. He can't think that looks good. It struck me as odd that they sit on these velvet and gold thrones. But I did not realize how sinister the Word of Faith movement really is...

Back on track...Basically, Justin Peters talked about the doctrine of the Word of Faith (WoF) movement, which has its origins in the metaphysical cultic movements (New Thought, New Age, Christian Science). Many of the doctrines that WoF embraces are in direct conflict with God's Word, and many of their beliefs tend to deify humans and make God more human. Such as the doctrine of "positive confession" ("name it, claim it"); this doctrine says that we can speak things into existence. Justin encouraged us not to just take what he was saying and believe it, but to be as the Boreans ("for they received the Word with great eagerness, searching the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so..."). And that was basically what Justin was doing anyway. He would put up video clips of the WoF teachers and let them dig their own grave, metaphorically speaking. Then Justin would expose their lies with the Truth.

The last session was entitled "The Hurt of Healing." I was particularly intrigued...as a doctor-to-be, I was interested in how this would be presented. I knew it was a topic near to Justin's heart, since he has cerebral palsy and was told by a faith healer that he was not healed because he did not have enough faith. So I thought maybe Justin might be a little biased, and in a way, he is. But that doesn't mean that he is wrong. WoF will say that it is ALWAYS God's will that you be healed. They also qualify this healing by saying that you have to have a sense of expectation (believe that God will heal you), money ("sow a seed of faith"), and the right heart and perseverance (keep believing and giving money).

The last thing that Justin showed us was memorable for me. Gloria Copeland was quoted several times as saying that it is not viable that your illness could glorify God. Justin put a few of her video clips in front of a video of a guy named Garwin Dobbins, who has a rare disease called myositis ossificans progressiva, singing "I Can Only Imagine" with Phillips, Craig, & Dean. I was sobbing by the end of the video clips. Because I saw.

This angers me, people. It makes me furious. It also scares the shit out of me. There are people posing as teachers in the church who are letting people believe that if they give enough money, they will eventually be healed. And these false prophets are living in $10 million homes and staying in hotel rooms that cost $10,000 a night...bought with money obtained from manipulating the hopes of God's people. I don't think that people who follow Benny Hinn or the others are necessarily bad people, but I do think that they have been deceived by them. I believe that healing does occur, and not just with medicines, but I also believe that what I am doing is not completely secular. I believe that God most definitely can be and is glorified through people's illnesses, Mrs. Copeland. It is viable that God be glorified in and through suffering. I have seen it. I saw it in Mr. Dobbins. I have seen it in a dear friend of mine, who at age 27 has breast cancer and is having a double mastectomy. I watched God be glorified in the suffering of many of my patients. He is a big God, and He is not limited just because someone says that He can't be glorified in a certain situation.

"But false prophets also arose among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies." 2 Peter 2:1

a levite and his concubine...

There is a story in the bible that in some versions is titled "A Levite and His Concubine." The passage in its entirety can be read in Judges 19-20. Warning: this passage may be a little shocking to the faint of heart...a tale of sex and woe and revenge.

Here is a brief synopsis of this story: a Levite takes a concubine from her home in Bethlehem, but she was unfaithful to him and goes running back to Bethlehem to stay with her father. After four months, the Levite goes to find her and tries to persuade her to leave. The father-in-law invites him to stay for a few nights, and when the man tries to leave after four days, the father-in-law tricks him into staying an extra night. Then the father-in-law makes them a little late in leaving the next day, and the traveling party has difficulty figuring out where to spend the night. The end up in a square in Gibeah for the night, and an old man asks them, "Where are you going? Where did you come from?" When the travelers explain that they are looking for a place to stay, the old man invites them in, with the words "You are welcome at my house. Let me supply whatever you need. Only don't spend the night in the square." Then some of the "wicked men of the city" surround his house and try and get the old man to send the Levite out "so we can have sex with him." I'm sure at this point the Levite was sweating buckets, but the old man came to his defense and offered to send out his virgin daughter and the Levite's concubine instead. The Levite ends up just sending out the concubine, who was "raped and abused throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go." She ends up falling down dead in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. The Levite takes her home on his donkey, and when he gets home, he cuts up the concubine into twelve parts and sends them to all the areas of Israel. This starts a huge war, with eleven of the tribes against the tribe of Benjamin.

There are a few stories in the bible that disturb me...this happens to be one of them. First of all, I want to feel sorry for the concubine, but I find myself thinking, "Well, she shouldn't have been at her dad's house in the first place." She was unfaithful, and then she ran and hid. I can relate because I tend to do this as well in my relationship with God, but I'm still not as sympathetic towards her as I could be. I also got a little mad at the father for wasting a few days...who knows what would have happened had the traveling party made it to Gibeah the night before, or left a little earlier that morning?

Again, because I have more of a heathen's appreciation of the bible, I'm trying to figure out the symbolism of the concubine being torn apart for the twelve tribes. Was she merely a macabre message, a call-to-arms for the other 11 tribes? Or does she represent the modern-day church? There is so much disunity, at least among the churches in America..it seems as though the Body of Christ is completely dismembered. I think that is because Americans like dichotomy; we like black-and-white; we like being divided among party lines and watching football rivalries. A lot of us (myself included) are more comfortable worshiping in a place where everyone looks a lot like us, thinks like us, votes like us, etc. Is it because we make new Christians look like us ("domesticating you until you look just like me" -- Derek Webb) or because we church shop until we find a church that fits well. I don't know. I'm guilty of the whole church shopping..it took a while, and I'm still not completely comfortable at the place where I am, although I'm pretty sure I would be less comfortable at other places.

Also, the questions of the old man are somewhat piercing for me..."Where are you going? Where did you come from?" I'm assuming he was just talking about their journey, and the answers would obviously be a town or city. But for me, when I think about my "journey" or "walk" (which I've been forced to do a lot lately, thanks to a good pastor), the old man's questions become a little more poignant. A friend and I were talking about this a while ago. I'm definitely not even close to where I want to be on my walk/spiritual journey, but I'm nowhere near where I was 4 years ago, or a year ago, or even 3 months ago.

Sorry that my line of thinking is somewhat tangential. I would love to hear your thoughts (not someone else's researched exegesis) about the concubine and her Levite. Or just email me and let me know your answers to "Where are you going? Where did you come from?"

empty room...

The sun was shining through the window as I entered his room this morning. The light scattered across the standard hospital-issued pink blanket and underneath the partitioning curtain. A new patient was on his way, but right then I was the only one in the room. Yesterday, there was a steady stream of family members and doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists, in and out and in and out. I was one of those people...

Four days ago, he was commenting on my "piercing blue eyes" and we were joking about his leftover bloomin' onion, which his family had picked up to try and coax him into eating. We didn't hit it off on our first meeting, but I was able to charm him into liking me. He laughed at my jokes, which made me want to tell more.

I checked in on him around 9:00PM...then 9:30...then around 10:10...then at 11:15. I left the floor to finish up some other things, then checked on him again at 11:45. I left his room, went down the hall into my call room, and cried for a little while. This isn't the first time I've had to deal with a dying patient, but I am not sure if experience makes it easier to deal with. I wondered what people would do if they really knew what death looks like. I took a shower and read a little bit. It was cold in the call room. I laid down on the bed, covered up with a few blankets, and tried to make the shivering stop. I attempted to pray, but I didn't really know how. I didn't know what I wanted God to do. I just wanted Him to show up. My prayers mostly consisted of "please."

He was pronounced dead at 12:43AM. I expected this ending, but it was still hard. I know God could have performed a miracle, and that maybe I would have walked into his room and he would be better, but I also knew that God is God and I am not. Today his room was bright and shiny and clean-smelling...and empty. And so is my heart, to some extent. I'm waiting on God to fill me back up, so I can pour out again. I am realizing more and more how difficult this calling is.

"But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith..."

"So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well..."

pride...

I have been in Jeremiah for a while now...inching slowly through some of it and flipping more quickly through other parts. I ran across this verse today in Jeremiah 13 - "But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly, overflowing with tears, because the LORD's flock will be taken captive." This pretty much describes what I'm feeling about the church in general right now.

I am not someone who is here to point out other's flaws. I am the first to admit that I'm a heathen, and probably a more accurate description is that I'm a "whore," though not in the "Adam knew his wife" sense. I recently went to a Derek Webb concert, and he sang a song off his CD "Mockingbird." In one of his songs he says this:

"There are two great lies that I've heard:
'The day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die,'
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican,
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him."

We all have this tendency to view Jesus through a cloud of smoke. The pharisees had this picture of what a "messiah" would look like based on their interpretations of the scriptures, and somehow Jesus just didn't fit that mold. He wasn't the kind of King they expected to see. I tend to view God through the screen door of my earthly father, which is probably not fair to either of them. There have been a few occasions where my dad hasn't been able to provide for me when I needed him to, so I sometimes think that God will not be able to (or won't want to) provide for me. I am not sure, but I think a lot of people believe the lie that Jesus was a white, middle-class republican, and maybe that's why they can't believe that He died on a cross for them.

The thing is, even though I'm convicted by Derek's lyrics, I'm not sure half of the church today would be. Probably 80% wouldn't understand what Derek means when he says that one of the lies that he has heard is that Jesus is a white, middle-class republican. Or they would get mad, label him anti-American, and bulldoze his CDs with the Dixie Chicks'. And what is sad is that I don't think he's saying that you have to be a democrat, either. The point is that Jesus is constantly asking us "Who do YOU say that I am?" And I think that our response to that question should be the same as Peter's..."You are the Christ." When you see Jesus as who He really is, stripped of the lies and personal preconceptions and politics...when you see Him naked and nailed to a cross...then you will see that He loves white...middle-class...republican...Americans...and everyone else, too.

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."
I Corinthians 13:12

personal statement...

My mother recently assigned me the task of sifting through a box of old papers to determine what would be worthwhile to preserve. Tossing aside miscellaneous announcements, report cards, and certificates, I found three spiral-bound notebooks filled in dark pencil with the deliberate and careful penmanship of someone who has just learned how to write. I read through some of my stories, laughing out loud at several, for who can understand how the mind of a child works? My earliest works of fiction showed my significant struggle with plot development and resolution. For instance, one story was about a princess who lived in a plastic castle that "broke once or twice" and was blown up by pirates while she was out picking berries and flowers. Regrettably, I was unable to restore the princess in her plastic castle to a happily-ever-after ending; the pirates left her with no home to which she could return, and "she is now a poor old Lady who has been dead for a Long time. The End." My aspirations of becoming a writer may have died with her, and it would be almost fifteen years later before I would select medicine as my career. However, the earliest evidence that I would one day enter the field of medicine may be found within the leaves of another notebook:

"Sometimes, they would get a cold or a viras [sic], but they would get over it."--Excerpt from "Mr. & Mrs. Clown," a short story from my third grade writing journal.

As an eight-year-old, I had already discovered one of the absolute truths of medicine: most patients will get better without any intervention. The challenge is to discern the patient who will benefit from a selected treatment from one that may suffer potential harm from the same selected treatment. I am fairly certain that as a young child, I did not understand the profundity of my observation. As a woman in her mid-twenties who is about to become a physician, I partially desire the story to read, "but then they would visit the doctor, who would heal them." Is this not the reason I have entered the field of medicine, to experience the joy of correctly diagnosing and treating a patient, followed by the instantly gratifying and dramatic response of recovery? In humility, I have come to recognize the limitations of the medical field; that sometimes, even with appropriate medical interventions, an ill person will not be healed, and many times, without any medical management at all, a person will spontaneously recover. This is the conundrum of primary care.
I did not always envision myself in a primary care vocation. As I rotated through the third-year clinical clerkships, I tried to keep my options open, but I found that I enjoyed my Internal Medicine and Pediatrics rotations the most. I thought about pursuing a career as an internist but felt that I would benefit from the variety of opportunities available in a combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics program. Specifically, I look forward to building rapport with patients, whether children or adults, and maintaining that relationship throughout their lifetime. I am passionate about working with people, educating them regarding both their acute and chronic illnesses, and helping them to make informed decisions about treatment options. Training in internal medicine and pediatrics offers the best opportunities for me to meet this purpose. I am hoping to obtain a residency that will allow me to develop my skills as the primary physician for patients and encourage me as I learn how to better diagnose, treat, and care for patients.
I also have the desire to build my career in the academic setting, focusing on medical education. In a sense, teaching and practicing in the academic setting is more of a vocation rather than just a career, at least according to Joris Nauwelaers. Nauwelaers, author of the Wakley Prize Essay, "Eraritjaritjaka," for The Lancet in 2000, defines eraritjaritjaka as "an archaic, poetic expression in Aranda (an aboriginal tribe in Australia), which means: 'filled with desire for something that is lost.'" Nauwelaers talks about his nostalgia for a time when medicine was a profession that demanded a mentoring-type of teaching. The teachers became lifelong examples and felt responsible for the doctors they were making. According to Nauwelaers, now "...since teaching is seen as a mere nuisance, nobody feels responsible for medical education." I disagree with his cynical perspective and have been taught and mentored by teachers who have helped me organize my thoughts and ideas, thus optimizing my approach to patient care. They realized the impact their dedication to teaching made on the education of my classmates and me. I want to be a part of the field of academic medicine as it progresses toward the future and redeems the educational aspects that Nauwelaers worries may have become less of a focus, for redemption is an underlying theme in medicine.

"Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person." - Tennessee Williams