New Blog

I am playing around with a new blog-- I will continue to post here, but thought I would flesh out an idea I had the other day, follow the link here to Hypochondriac Dream (http://hypochondriacdream.blogspot.com/)... It is a place to find something physical you can worry about.

A Dark Wood

Midway on the road of our life

I found myself within a dark wood

for the right way had been missed.

The above stanza is from the opening of Dante’s Inferno. It is often quoted, and has stuck with me since I first read the Inferno in college. At many points in my life I feel that I have experienced what Dante is describing, the awareness of being lost along a chosen path. I must admit that my awaking in a dark wood, however, has never resulted in a journey through hell. Yet it seems that my course through life is always in need of corrections to maintain the right path.

A few nights ago Dana and I took the older two kids out on a “fox hunt,” basically a night walk under the pretense of looking for a fox, which I might add we have never seen. Our rural neighborhood has very few security lights and it was an overcast night, making for a dark walk in which we had neglected to bring a flashlight. Halfway through the walk Benji pulled his little hand from mine and took off down toward a neighbor’s house, a way we were not going. It amazed me that he was running at full tilt away from us into the dark night. I am not sure how far he would have gone, but I decided not to find out and scooped him up and onto my shoulders.

The past few weeks have been full of contemplation. Last weekend I visited my parents’ farm and had a marvelous run in the autumnal morning light, winding through theirs and a neighbor’s adjoining pastureland. There exists a golden crispness that is only found for a short season in the Appalachian fall, the weather neither so cold as to be harsh nor so warm that the humidity blurs the edges of things. As I ran through the yellowing field grass, past an old barn once used to cure tobacco with the familiar earthen sweet smell that will never be cleansed, and over idyllic fields with horses and cattle I felt a great joy and a great sadness about my childhood and that of my children. Joy at the memories of whole afternoons lost in this same land, carving out an empire of frogs and crawdads and discoveries of century old gravestones and burned foundations. It was the wilderness of childhood that taught me to love the natural world.

Pondering these things, I wonder about the path I am on and how having children has changed my life radically. I want them to have some of the same experiences I had as a child, the hours away from adult supervision, the taste of a tomato fresh from the vine, and a comfort with the earth born of both leisure and hard work out of doors. But there is ever a balance between security and action in the world. For years I was convinced that I would spend my life in a remote part of the world as a physician, working to make the world a better place. I have spent time on three continents in the practice of medicine, and I realize that the only way to make a difference anywhere is to actually be fully present there.

It was our pregnancy with Claire that derailed our decision to pursue international missions. I was a threadbare resident and Dana was nauseated with her first pregnancy and we spent a month in Southern China. Looking back, I knew that what I had been pressing us toward for years might need to be put on pause. We decided to change course and have children, wait and labor in our own culture. We also decided to move closer to family. It was a decision born of fatigue from education and from lack of a specific “call.” It has been on my mind lately as I live and work here in small town America and I try to process through some of the currents in my subconscious mind. It seems that God is at work, but I feel to dull to comprehend exactly what He is urging me toward.

In the midst of these thoughts I stumbled across some old journals from medical school. It was sobering to see in them with what idealism I was committed to archetypical notions such as Compassion and Justice. In my own hand I heatedly expressed my commitment to following God and fighting for the plight of the poor and the downtrodden. I read myself denouncing the American dream of riches and security that in the end is hollow. I don’t want to turn this post into a long diatribe or a justification for a certain life. I simply am expressing that as the voice of a past self spoke to me I felt a sting of compunction that I will have to give account for the way I have lived my life and the things both done and not done.

Going back to my son running off into the dark while we were on our fox hunt, I have to wonder if perhaps this may not be a parable of the soul. How comfortable am I at dropping the hand of my Father and running off into the dark? I worry that this is a pattern I have become well versed at and like Dante Alighieri am going to wake in a dark wood. As I ponder these things, the only hope that I can find for staying on the right path is through repentance and faith. Repentance of the need to find my own way and faith that when I reach out a hand in the dark my Father is going to gently take it.

5 Random Thoughts

It struck me at 11 PM while Dana and I decorated a guitar shaped cake for Benji’s second birthday how radically different the evening hours of my life in my 30’s is from those in my 20’s. I am much more prone to do laundry at this hour than ever before and that is not because of a manic break, it is just life with small children.

After spending the day yesterday at work dressed like a pirate, I think people appreciate it if their doctor can be a little down to earth. However, it was hard to walk through the hospital on rounds in a blouse and poufy pants and expect to be taken seriously.

I have decided to watch the 100 greatest films as ranked by Roger Ebert, but knowing myself I doubt my ability to follow through with decisions like this.

Samaritan’s Purse allows you to donate money to a specific cause for Christmas rather than give a gift. As I was looking through their catalog at breakfast this morning, without warning I started to cry over children who are trapped in debt bondage. The sudden rush of unexpected emotion scares me and makes me wonder if there is some deeper spiritual thing I need to be mindful of.

Burying my face in the neck of my infant daughter and being overwhelmed with the warm smell of slightly soured milk, lotion, and Standridge head (any of you who know us intimately know the smell I’m talking about), I delight in the fleeting season of life I am in.

Red Door

The mouth of a house is the front door. Like an unnatural stoma, some houses have as their main intake a portal through the garage or carport. But this is all wrong for the flow into and out of the dwelling. There is much to be said about the psychology of entering a place. Having a gate or a patio that signifies a transition into home, a place of rest and joy, is essential. Many newer houses are dwarfed by their gaping maw of a garage, closed tight against any entrance without a special code. These houses have no soul. It escapes out onto the concrete to flee down an equally soulless street filled with homes covered in stucco facade.

We long for our home to be a hospitable place, the type of place where you want to come in and kick off your shoes and stay a while. Hopefully, when you come to our house, without asking you cut yourself a slice of the blueberry pie I baked this weekend.

I have always wanted a red door. It is a bit flamboyant, but sometimes so am I. A red door says here we are, come on home. In Feng Shui a red door improves the chi of a place. So this weekend, in a moment of trying to overcome the monotony of the moment, I went to Lowe’s and bought some “cut ruby” paint and now all my dreams have come true.

Fatherhood or An Education in Humility

Today on the way to the hospital, I had one of those strange events that I feel are slightly serendipitous. I was listening to the weekend lineup on NPR, a common occurrence seeing that there are a total of three radio stations to choose from in the rural community where I live. Driving in to make rounds on the firstborn of my newest partner, I heard an interview with Michael Chabon about his newest book, Manhood for Amateurs. It is a collection of essays about being a father, son and husband. The strange thing was that when I returned to the car, it was a different program, but still an interview with Michal Chabon. Nothing earth shattering, but hearing this man yet again discuss manhood, and in particular fatherhood, after seeing the face of my partner beaming about his son got me thinking.

"The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low," was just one of the quotes from Chabon’s interview that made me chuckle. He really is right. I started the morning reading an excerpt from a book Dana is reading, a chapter entitled “The Essential Father.” The whole gist is that absent fathers screw up their children and that fathers play a very important role. I know this to be true from my own experiences, but that does not make being a present father easy. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids and love spending time with them. From jumping on the trampoline pretending I am a child eating a lion to cuddling before bed, there are many hidden joys in fatherhood. But being present after a long or trying day, when my mood is sullen or when my mind is elsewhere, this is when things get rough.

It is a hard season of life – not just fatherhood. Pressure from many sides often threatens to erode my role as father. Parenting in general is frequently a mundane and tedious vocation full of trial and error, particularly error. If one is not mindful, it is easy to lose sight of the wonder that is to be found in the fact that my son loves the carwash, not just a little, but with abandon. He would spend my savings on a daily wash and wax if he had his druthers. My mother recently told me that she enjoys being a grandmother more than a mom because she can enjoy the kids for who they are, whereas as a parent she was just too stressed about surviving to take the time to cherish the fleeting joy that is childhood.

For all of this rhetoric, I question the appearance of some of my parenting this week. On Wednesday I ran to a local grocery store to grab some materials to make a salad and brought Benji in tow. It was only when I was in the checkout lane and behind three of my patients did I realize that I was wearing a dirty white bandana, was unshaven, and had spit up covering my navy tee-shirt. Unfortunately I was the better dressed of the two of us. Benji had a dirty mouth, no shoes, and snot in his hair, not to mention that he was underdressed for the rain. I felt like I should buy a pack of cigarettes with change from the food stamps. You might be thinking to yourself, he is only concerned with appearances, everyone has days like that. But I counter: you did not see my family at Wal-mart this afternoon.

When Dana announced that she had to get groceries for the week or we wouldn’t eat I was faced with the option of staying home with the newborn and the 2 year old while Claire (mature at 3 ½ ) went with her, or trying to come up with why this was a perfect afternoon family outing. Benji has been sick; he has some weird rash and a runny nose. I looked at the rash this morning and told my wife it looks a little like chicken pox, to which I got “It is not chickenpox” (read with condescension). I did offer that I have had seven years of medical training, but that does not really count for much. In the end I agree, it is not chicken pox, but here I was herding the children into the minivan for a fun excursion to Wal-mart. I must admit, as the numbers of H1N1 soar, Wal-mart is really not the best place for young kids. However, as it was another dreary afternoon, the prospect of confinement in the plastic zoo that is our basement/playroom made Wal-mart appealing.

It was only after Laurel had melted down and been transferred to the baby carrier and Claire was trying to shoplift a toy cell phone that I began to question the wisdom in my decision. Then it hit me, Gosh my chest feels warm. Any of you parents out there know where I am going with this. Babies are warm and cuddly, but the warmth of a baby is nothing compared to the warmth of fresh body fluids seeping through your shirt. Knowing it was not blood, I was hoping for urine, but instead my fingers came away from my chest with that feculent odor I am all too familiar with. Then it hit me, in the rush to get out of the house we had left the diaper bag at home. There was poop everywhere, soaking through her outfit and my shirt, it was a huge blowout. The really low point in my parenting came when I was wrapping my daughter in plastic bags in the checkout lane and an acquaintance passed us. Realizing what was going on, she offered me a diaper, as she too had her infant son on her chest fast asleep and minus poop. In my flustered state, with child screaming, I responded “Oh no, we don’t live far from here. I’m meeting Dana over at Subway and then we are going straight home.”

One of my favorite books, The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, begins with an address to people he is hoping to encourage. He says that he wrote the book for “the bedraggled, beat-up, and burned out… It is for the inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker. It is for poor, weak, sinful men and women with hereditary faults and limited talents. It is for earthen vessels who shuffle along on feet of clay… It is for smart people who admit they are stupid and honest disciples who admit they are scalawags. [It] is a book I wrote for myself and anyone who has grown weary and discouraged along the way.” His words often ring in my mind on days like today. Days when my cheese is falling off my cracker. His message is one of grace to ragamuffins who realize that they don’t have it all together.

As I was putting the groceries in the van with Laurel still screaming and staring at the duct tape that is holding my brake light on, I started to laugh. It is ridiculous to think that any of us “have it together” as fathers or otherwise. I think it is only when we realize this can we move forward in the grace that allows us to actually live in a way that truly loves and gives ourselves to others. Although I may not win Father of the Year for my grocery outings, I realize that I am attempting to be present with my children. With kids this is what counts, it is the quantity that begets the quality. Maybe this is what Peter means when he says “Above all, love each other deeply, for love covers over a multitude of sins.”

NPR link: healthcare

I think this is a great piece I heard on NPR yesterday. Check it out.

Maine Town Sheds Light On Doctors' Role In Cost Problem

Opinion: America's Heath Care Addiction

Here is an interesting article that I thing is a good opinion piece about the current healthcare crisis from a physician perspective. "America's Health Care Addiction" by Craig Bowron from the huffington post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-bowron/americas-health-care-addi_b_301318.html