This is a guest post by RMR. She is a clinical instructor and primary care physician for Stanford University. She recently participated with her husband and two children in the Women’s March in San Jose.
Yesterday in the office I saw the gentlest of women– a 70-something burqa-clad Iraqi immigrant who came in worried about a bruise on her upper thigh. She always comes in with the simplest requests– a hearing aid that won’t hurt her ears, a new brace for her arthritic thumb. As she lifted up her long skirts I saw for the first time her underclothes– crisp white cotton bloomers and gray wool stockings of the softest kind. As I thought of the rain outside, I had a brief moment of envy imagining being cloaked in the warmth of her wrappings.
All these people– the lady from Iraq, the transgender girl, the fondue of immigrant faces– are my patients. I’m their primary care physician. In the medical community this means they belong first and foremost to me. They are mine.
Oh my . . . I love this.
“Is only the pain allowed by our physical bodies strong enough to seal our spirits together?” — I’ve tried to think differently but keep coming back to yes, maybe–maybe physical pain is the only thing that triggers empathy enough to bring us together.
Your writing is so beautiful and was just what I needed to read. Thank you.
Thank you for a vision of the purifying, sanctifying nature of suffering. It’s so important now to reach out to those who are suffering wherever they are.
Thank you for this.
I’ve been reading BCC for a long time and never posted, but this really moved me. Thank you so much for sharing. It resonates with my soul.
This is extraordinary.
This is how you do it. Thank you.
Remarkable, thank you. I especially appreciate the reminder that the crowd of people I’m called to extend the same sense of stewardship toward includes people I’m very angry with, like the president of our country. The hard things are those with power to change us.
Yes. My mind has been running along similar lines recently. There are people I’ve worked with, people in my life that heaven wouldn’t be heaven without, for all their faults and funny ways, and I would definitely argue in their favour. That there is no direct connection via sealing ordinance is irrelevant.
very nicely done. thank you
This was profoundly beautiful and true.
We have drifted so far in the church that our perception of God has lurched back to the iron age. Thank you so much for reminding us that in experiences like the one you described, our finest moments of love and compassion, we glimpse who God really is, and how he really treats us.
Beautiful. Thank you.
This is phenomenal stuff. Lots of though-provoking material. Thank you.
“Is only the pain allowed by our physical bodies strong enough to seal our spirits together?”
Part of me is very afraid that this is true.
It’s not enough that we have Satanists in Church now we’ve got the SNOWFLAKES!
This meant a lot. I’m so glad you shared it with us.
Beautiful. Thank you so much.
Truly, this has transformed my heart. It is an answer to earnest prayers. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing your beautiful visions with those of us who are struggling to see the light right now. (Like me.)
Also, please be my PCP.
Beautiful, beautiful. Brava.
This speaks deeply to me. Thank you.
This was wonderful. I have a son who is also a heroin addict. For many years I prayed that I could be the heroin addict and he could be free of his addiction. I guess it doesn’t work that way.
He is now almost 2 years into recovery, and things feel almost normal again, but your writing brought it all back in vivid color.