Sabbath Messages > Sabbath Message: January 7, 2006
Good Sabbath
January 7, 2006
When I finished writing my message last Saturday, as is our custom, Fran read it for contents and errors. She was unable to read it and I realized that she had the symptoms of a stroke, with scrambled syntax and discontinuity between thoughts and words. We rushed to Scripps Hospital emergency, and after some hours of examinations and tests, went into intensive care. The shock of this was more felt than spoken.
It may mean that when God needs our attention, He makes us ill. We concentrate on living and wishes rather than comprehending our numbered days and our incredible opportunities. There is a great miracle called "attention". It allows us to become more aware of where ever we are, what ever we are, and our passed days and unknown number to come.
"The way we love something is to realize that it might be lost."
(Chesterton)
"We all cling to the past or long for the future, making us unavailable to the present."
(Rajneesh)
Our souls are divided into compartments: There is the known and the felt; there is the aware and understood; there is the loved and loving; there is the awesome and the wise. Of course I am still building and discovering mine, for the soul is an invisible presence that takes a lifetime to construct and empower.
"Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it." (David Starr Jordan)
As the holiday weekend passed, we realized that doctors take days off and our key ones were unavailable. We discovered new ones, associates of those on whom we usually depend and trust. Our learning curve was steep and unhappy for there is so much that is unknown about most illness, especially that under the cloak and mischief of blood pressure. Like a headache, whose causes are myriad, blood pressure can be caused by...eh... you name it. Old age simply tells most doctors : "well, it's expected because of age", hiding ignorance under that facile unknown.
As I looked at my love, I didn't want her to feel helpless; I didn't want her doctors to be hopeless or helpless, as test after test came and went and then evaluated, as replacement doctors manned the fortress of time.
The biggest threat to cure is the busy-ness of doctors who simply do not have time to do what they are asked to do. They are seldom research scientists with the skills and allowance to experiment. They are practitioners, and more than that which makes them less than they should be, specialists. I hasten to say that I understand this, but I despise its self-imposed limitations.
In contemporary times we look for high-tech solutions and ignore the timeliness and the marvel called common sense. That's why we'll never find the cure to a common cold because common sense is so uncommon. Wisdom doesn't take years and sagacious maturity; it takes common sense and focused attention. Yes, it also requires thinking outside the box.
"If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both." (Horace Mann)
We began to appreciate the unsung, the nurses, the interns, the sweepers and the movers of machines. We find tenderness when we need it but don't expect it. Illness makes us cynical, protecting us from the expected failures of others. Yet that is unfair, for true professionals aim to satisfy our needs, no matter how menial. They try not to harden to their tasks because they've seen so much suffering and pain, which spreads into their system of values.
As Fran was moved out of intensive care, her blood pressure still had to be taken, but not as often. But we missed our regular doctors who might have noticed the eccentricities of this hospital stay and what was occurring in the body of evidence and symptoms, plus that pressure had to be measured very often no matter who was busy or which doctor was or wasn't present.
Finally, the cure, called "home" was granted and we came here content that one part of the battle was over and the mysterious remained to be discovered as new tests were ordered. Yesterday, seven days after it began, Fran had a good day of blood pressure and we could breathe a little easier.
As time wore on and I read my e-mails, I learned that one of our dearest friends, herself suffering an incurable disease, had lost her 92-year old grandmother, who went directly to heaven-I am certain. Other friends were still locked in battles with cancer and past strokes. Life goes on when it is there to go one. When it passes on, we celebrate the memories of what was and will miss what we've lost, thinking it irreplaceable, which it never is.
We are born to die, with the opportunity and obligation to live. Our lives should be filled with making ourselves memorable to those whom we love and who love us and care for us. We do not want to join the ranks of those who when dead left no memory that they had ever lived. We are born to leave the world a better place no matter how hopeless we find that job.
Remember that heaven is open to all kind hearts, for that is where the soul is found to be, and that is where God looks for it to be beheld.
Have a wonderful Sabbath, holding close those who still are here, while remembering, with love , those whom we have lost.
sandy
