Lot's lot

I recall on our last recreational nostalgia trip to Chicago--in which we actually stayed overnight in a hotel near the lake--as we were walking on the streets of Uptown, I was constantly going in and out of whiffs of raw sewage. I don't recall this on any other visits--but then again when I was in Cicago 32 years ago, there was so much industrial waste in the air that I doubt I would have noticed, if this smell was there. 

I recall getting up in the morning--down near Children's Memorial, Lincoln and Fullerton, and finding large and very adherent black flakes on my car.  This would have been around 1970; before I knew Flo existed.

She of course is a Chicago native and wouldn't have been surprised by anyone of this.

I also reflect that our new hospital is now a close neighbor of Del Monte Corp. and in the spring at the time of spring pea packing, there will arise such an odor as to take your breath away.  On the other hand, when you have been in the midst of it for about 10-15 min. you don't notice it anymore. The olfactory warning and gustatory apparatus is quickly desensitized, faster than our other senses and more completely.

It has always amazed me that man is so hyper-adaptable that he can live in the foulest places and call it home. It may be dangerous, dirty, and self-destructive but we can learn to love--or ignore--that too.

It reminds me of the old joke about the young lord whose butler was guiding him home, as the young man was quite intoxicated, when he queried his caretaker, "What is that strange odor, Jeeves?"

"That, sir, is fresh air."

I have actually met people in Chicago who were afraid to go outside its city limits, as if they would be destroyed (like Lot's wife?) if they set foot even in the closest suburb. Well so be it but as one well-known but despised prophet said,

"Remember Lot's wife"

STATUS POST MARION MONTGOMERY AND "THE PERMANENT THINGS" and yet...and yet....

12-11-11

From: “Notes from a Dead House”  --from Dost’s prison days

“But here I have been trying to classify all the prisoners, and that is hardly possible.  Real life is infinite in its variety in comparison with even the cleverest abstract generalization, and it does not admit of sharp and sweeping distinctions.  The tendency of real life is always towards greater and greater differentiation.  We, too, had a life of our own of a sort, and it was not a mere official existence but a real inner life of our own.”

“…there is something true and humane at the back of this idea—all are men; all are human beings.  But the idea is too abstract.  It overlooks too many practical aspects of the question, which cannot be grasped except by experience.”

There is no standard by which to measure the soul and its development.  Even education itself is no test.  I am ready to be the first to testify that, in the midst of these utterly uneducated and downtrodden sufferers, I came across instances of the greatest spiritual refinement. The contrary happens too; education is sometimes found side by side with such barbarity, such cynicism, that it revolts you, and in spite of the utmost good nature and all previous theories on the subject, you can find no justification or apology.”

Greater and greater individuation, eh?  And why this tendency?  The cause has to be greater than the effect…

Hobbit meets "Habit"

“I think the reason we can’t agree on this is because there is a difference between our two devils. My Devil has a name, a history, and a definite plan. His name is Lucifer, he’s a fallen angel, his sin is pride, and his aim is the destruction of (or, if not, distraction from-comment mine) the Divine Plan.  Now I judge that your devil is co-equal with God, not His creature: that pride is his virtue because there isn’t any Divine plan to destroy. My devil is objective and yours is subjective. You say one becomes “evil” when one leaves the herd. I say that depends entirely on what the herd is doing.

The herd has been known to be right, in which case the one who leaves it is doing evil. When the herd is wrong, then the one who leaves is not doing evil but the right thing. If I remember rightly, you put that word, evil, in quotation marks which means the standards you judge it by there are relative: in fact you would be looking at it there with the eyes of the herd.”

--F. O’C

“The Habit of Being” ( after which this blog is, hopefully playfully named) p 456

To John Hawkes, 28 November, 1961

Cultural or sociological half-or-less definitions of evil tend to enhance it, as the 20^th Century more or less proved.

The disembodiment of Lucifer is not his disembowelment—quite the opposite in fact—and the results are not just “real” but “hyper-real.”

reply to Dennis' comment

Just before my residency we explored--as we were supposed to do as UW grad--nothern Wisc. for a practice site--one of which was an office and home combined--the only one I have ever seen. I thought it was "interesting"--but Flo immediately nixed that--so--I know u!!!

MOB'd

I can hardly let this day pass without comment. Is this merely, "The Day that will live in infamy." or is it something else?  Many "Pearl Harbor days" have passed since that 9/11 political equivalent without a similar event.  Yet we choose to commemorate evil--"then the terrorists win."

With no disrespect to our vets, I will remember this day with joy for something entirely different.  This is opening day for a brand new hospital and for me a very different practice, provided by the architectural and conceptual changes in my--read "our"-- office alone.  Suddenly I find myself in the wide open spaces, not just on the outside--though we are now surrounded by fields and not houses--but a different sort of space inside the office which is somewhat the reverse of the outside changes. That is--bear with me please and use some imagination-- the houses have now moved inside. My office space, once secluded at the far reaches of the old MOB ( yes, that's right=Medical Office Building), so far out that cell phone reception was even difficult; is now right on the beaten path. 

"My door is always open."  That seems to be literally true now. And Dr. Scholl's office is only 1 door away. And thereby hangs a tale of God's Grace. I will attempt to be brief and fill out details as needed in the future, even though my gratitude seems to be and hopefully will remain or grow, boundless. "Doctor without Borders" indeed. (It helps that I no longer have the desire to browse bookstores!)

For years I have desired to have a Christian medical partner, in addition to my life's partner, Flo. I even hired a recruiter, briefly, when I was in private practice.  And what did I have move in? A Chinese atheist! Very funny, Lord.

I am finding once again that the more I try to choose my circumstances, and manipulate people, the worse things get. Micromanagement seems to be from hell, and the devil's choice; as it was Cain's.

But the more choices I leave to God, the more amazing things He does, right under my supposedly sensitive nose. Yesterday Dr. Scholl invited me into his office, to pray for our "new" (extralegal?) partnership; and to invite the Holy Spirit to do what He will with us--again, without plans or force or plans of force, which is the deeper trust--over the years we will be together. At least until one of us retires!

So my prayer has been answered after 30 years--after I had given up on it--and by my own personal physician too! The story is the same story as happened with the free clinic. I always dreamed of working in a clinic called Trinity--and now I do!

More later--I need to get back to The MOB!

DEPERSON ALL IZATION

From almost every sector we hear that depersonalization is a peculiarly modern problem and increasing due to technology and growing numbers of human beings.  Yet many of these same sectors contribute to the problem by depersonalizing what is inherently a very personal thing--evil.  One could certainly see this through numerous 19th and 20th Century philosophers and other writers.  By thinking of evil in the abstract, it quickly vanishes--as a theoretical problem. But in such an environment we are also instantly thrown off our guard and substitute "anger management" for any outliers.  Personal evil actually becomes unthinkable.

This contrubutes to the polarization of the body politic--evil is defined by being opposed to me and mine. Or to use Christian Lander's paradigm, evil is being with "the wrong sort of white people."

(I highly recommend his book, "Stuff White People Like" which is even funnier if you hear him read it.)

The Bible never gives in to the temptation to de-individualize evil--or good for that matter. Therefore it is highly objectionalble to philosophers and scientists (so-called) alike.  Yet it can never be a matter of mathematics nor can it be predicted with any certainty.  To try to do so is simply to use the wrong tools for the job.  And electrician's toolbox is totally different from that of a woodworker. Philosophically, if you will, this is called a category mistake; to which hubris is highly and almost always prone.

It's the equivalent to the old saw, "sending a boy to do a man's job."  But it may be the worse-reverse: sending a man to do a child's job!!!

"Living with Ingratitude"

When office staff or others point out to me the fact that many of my patients are not grateful for what we have done, I remind them of what I've been saying to myself for at least 30 years, to wit: If I got into this profession to get people to be thankful to me, I'm in the wrong profession.

People, as Flannery O observed, take all grace for granted and thereby resist it with all their might; most tellingly when they refuse to grant it to others, and take it for granted that they have earned it for themselves.
Rather like the parable of the guy who owed millions, was forgiven all of it, and immediately went out and beat up anothert guy who owed him a few bucks!

People who "go there" by their own wits, like unto Lot, often have to be rescued from their folies--I do that (the rescue thing, that is) all day long.  But it is also true that most people want the benefits of change without have to change even their habits, much less their manners of thought or sentience.

As I said earlier, Truth has few friends in high places.  Those who lord it over others are especially resistant to change. This was Hagar's problem: even tho Sarai chose her to bed down with Abraham, as soon as Hagar's son was born, she began to despise Sarai herself. This demonstrates another aspect of the Murphian Corollary: "When all things seem to be going well for you, obviously you have overlooked something."

"After all, human nature is corrupt--when life seems to be going well for us, it's difficult to resist the temptation to be rude and disrespectful to others."

I would say that medicine is a very humbling profession; at least to me when I am in a frame of mind liable to receive it--I get constant and quick feedback almost daily in regards to my presumptiveness.  Today we are moving to our new hospital--so things feel like they are going well for us. But this is a dangerous illusion, and mistakes are much more likely to be made in transition, and while we are enjoying the newness; and for some indefinite time afterwards.

Many among us look to the new, to save ourselves. Yet we take the same old "us" into the "new" settings and our "tech" will come to reflect our defects more and more as their reach is extended electronically.
This is a process of amplification that we, like rock 'n rollers, insist upon--but our voices and our vices still remain small-time and we will come to regret some of our "loud insistences." 

And though actual-factual truth is despised, it has a tendency to surface, as Murph said, "at the worst possible time."

--further news as "facts" warrant...

PS, extra thought of Bill E, the Diminutive/Dhimmi: I thought of a new adjective to describe the internet: "Cloying."   U like?