Mother Teresa

One of the reasons I've wanted to become a nurse was because I have a thing for the sick and dying. I want to hold the people that everyone thinks are too gross to go near, love the people that others think are too dumb or stupid to be loved, and show people that their value and worth are not dependent upon their situation in life. I want to hold the dying. The thought has crossed my mind before, "If there was a job in which I could just hold people as they die, that would be it for me. That's all I want to do: show the dying that they are loved."

I sat down in my office today and sitting on the desk was a book about Mother Teresa. As I flipped through the photography and read the quotes my heart began to constrict. They were pictures of her home for the dying. Pictures of people missing body parts, bone thin, bleeding, oozing, and severely unloved. And there were pictures of the volunteers there that held them and stayed near them, took care of them and their needs in order to make them as comfortable as they could and most importantly, to feel as vastly loved as they could as they spent their last moments on earth.

Suddenly, I realized that there was a place that I go could in which I could hold the dying as they passed. Where I could show them love in their last moments and work healing into a lifetime of suffering. But I did not have the reaction I thought I would. The thoughts that ran through my head were not the thoughts that I expected. I wouldn't want to live outside of America the rest of my life: America is the best country to be in. Working with a bunch of behind the scenes people and a bunch of nobodies of society? I would get no credit: no recognition. To stay there the rest of my life would mean never making anything of myself: never doing anything great or living up to my potential. I wouldn't want to live in unsanitary conditions and pour myself out to people every day and get nothing back: I wouldn't find fulfillment, I'd just be exhausted and drained all the time.

Who am I?

That's what I've wanted isn't it? To love those people? And I can do that and now suddenly being presented with the real opportunity, I don't want to? Do I really believe that I'd be happiest in America? That I'm too good to live in poverty? That loving people would be unsatisfying? That caring for people isn't real success? That I need to find recognition and prestige through social standing to be worth anything? Who on earth am? That is not what I want to be. That is not how I want to feel.

It's been continually driven home in my life that God gives and he takes away. I've had a tendency to claim my selfless love for others as a characteristic of my own, and I wonder if God is reminding me that it is only because that is one of his characteristics that I contain it. That if he takes it away, that is not who I naturally am.

I desperately need to re-evaluate who I am, what I want, and what I value. I know who I want to be: it's not who I am. There are plenty of characteristics we claim to have, desires we claim to have, ideas for our life that we claim to have and we say to ourselves and others, "if only I had the opportunity this is what I would do." Or, "if that ever happens to me, this is how I will react." Sometimes when we're really faced with a situation or an opportunity though, we are really faced with the fact that we are not who we want to be. I desperately want to change that.

Mother Teresa is who I want to emulate. I remind myself that I can only do that through God, though that's an ideal and I don't know if I completely believe it. These are some of her words that I do not want to forget.


"Love to be real, it must cost--it must hurt--it must empty us of self."


"I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look only at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time.

Just one, one, one.

You get closer to Christ by coming closer to each other. As Jesus said, "Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me."

So you begin...I begin.

I picked up one person--maybe if I didn't pick up that one person I wouldn't have picked up the others.

The whole work is only a drop in the ocean. But if we don't put the drop in, the ocean would be one drop less.

Same thing for you. Same thing in your family. Same thing in the church where you go. Just begin...one, one, one."


Convicting? Let's not lie about who we are: we are not the people described in these quotes. But we want to be. Let's be honest about that. And let's push each other to be those people so that maybe we'll have a chance with one another instead of living a lie alone.

10/7/11

The divinity of modern medicine

A leader in my life recently had her baby and I hadn't seen her in about a month. I finally got to see her, her husband, and her new baby boy today. They told me the story of her thirty-something hour delivery processes and how problem after problem had arisen. The worst part to me was that at one point they gave her a medication that she reacted abnormally to, and ended up for twelve hours not being able to speak, stay coherent, or remember where she was, what was happening, or even who her loving husband was. Today as he stood close to his wife and baby, rubbing her arm, pressing his cheek to her neck, he told us that there was a point in which she was bleeding, incoherent, and it was impossible for the baby to be born naturally, and that if it were one hundred years ago, her and their baby boy would be dead. I was struck. Struck by the most passionate and sincere of loves, struck by the idea of him losing what gives him vitality, and struck by the miraculous blessing of modern day science. I was overtaken by horror and awe at the total devastation that could have occurred, and I thank God that he spared humanity such a jarring distortion from the way it should be.

What a blessing. What a blessing that love like theirs still exists. What a blessing that a beautiful human being was brought into this world. What a blessing that it all turned out with a story book ending. What a blessing that we live in this day and age. What a blessing modern technology and medical science are to us.

It has been argued in circles claiming to be Christian that science and medicine are not spiritual, not necessarily of God: that prayer and faith that produce unexplainable miracles are much more holy and divine. But I say that if modern medicine can save the life of a loved wife and son in the face of total chaos and dysfunction that that is a blessing. That is divine. That is a gift straight from God no matter how explainable it is.

When I find it hard to praise God all I'll need to think of are the thousands upon thousands of husbands who lost their wives and children before and the incredible amount of broken families of the past. Praise the Lord for where he's brought us.

Praise the Lord.

10/6/11

Storm Brewing

I have been amazed at my perseverance this semester thus far. I haven't felt so overwhelmed or unhappy that I've felt the need to shut down and not get done what I have to. But that's changed tonight. Tonight I feel exhausted because I don't sleep. Tonight I feel overworked, overcommited, unprepared and incompetent. Tonight I miss old friends, have no patience, have no grace for others and their opinions. Tonight I'm tired of hearing that people are to busy: to busy for me, to busy to serve their community, to busy to do anything but dedicate their lives to school and facebook. Tonight I'm angry and feel like throwing in the towel on my responsibilities and slinking away to hide under the covers. It reminds me of something I wrote quite awhile back: I'm not sure how long ago. I've been waiting for a time to write it down and I think now is good.

* * * * * * *

I start like the breeze. Like the clouds on the horizon and you can feel it in your knees. I overcast you, and them, dark and brooding and overriding. I push like the wind: forcing and demanding, unrelenting and dizzying. I speak like the lightning and I see, then I feel, I look like the thunder. You feel it, and I know, and I build: I am empowered, and the lightning strikes. And with it that thunder. Louder and feeding-off you. And I will cry like the rain. Hysterical. Not withheld. And inside, I will shake. Like the earth. And like mud in the morning, I will collect my broken branches and shambles, and slide back into your sunlit solid arms. And your mercy will smell like fresh cut grass and your grace will sound like joyous bird songs and your wisdom-you will careen around me like galaxies awhirl, stars atwirl, and deep echoing endless knowing. And nauseous, I will take a step back.

10/5/11

Strength

I met an old man who loved his wife. Loved her with the love they write about in great literature, they film for the movies, and which every person believes is too good to be true. He was gentle in actions and words, frail in his age and soft in his good humor. I imagine him in sweaters, silently drinking tea, walking slowly in the fall, taking naps in a large arm chair. I recently heard that his wife was getting ready to pass on. And I found out that the morning she passed, as her breathing grew labored, he held her hand, leaned in close and told her it was time to leave. And so she did. In my minds eye I remember his soft and gentle manners, his frailty, and I am moved by the strength of an old man to give the love of his life permission to move on. I am changed: I see him as a stalwart, as strong arms, a surging wave, a radiant leader. He demonstrated a strength of the soul and a supernatural fortitude that transcends his physical countenance and anything that I would have the gumption to exhibit. He is worthy of respect.

I have gained a powerful loyalty to and respect for

a real man of power in God,

who without even knowing it has

completely transformed

my definition of

strength.

10/4/11

Adjustment Bureau

We watched this movie today for Faith and Film and it brought up a lot of questions for me about stepping out of the norm, trusting my gut feeling, and finding fulfillment. It made me doubt the decisions I've made to follow the typical college career path, made me more inclined to believe that what I feel is meant for my life really is, and challenge my hierarchy of values. That was the point, after all. It makes me want to take courage and run.

10/3/11

Lord have mercy

Lately I've been afraid to open my journal in public
because prayers are written on many pages
and

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy

is written on many a page.
Because the Lord gives and the Lord takes away
And he's been giving back the same 'ol
And taking away the peace.

So as it creeps back in
And I fight to breathe,
The phrase I cling to
is

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy

I feel he's balancing my stability on his finger tips
And I fear his decisions
and his faithfulness.
And I keep forgetting,
and I can't remember why,
It's okay to breathe.

Oh God my God,
Seriously,
Take it away
Have mercy.

I claim sanctuary.
To breathe.
I can breathe.





10/2/11

Sticky note: enabling

"You make my life easier."

"I know, it's a problem."


10/1/11