Yesterday, here in the hospital, there were no less than ten babies born down on the birth wing. How do I know this? Because this particular hospital does a stunning thing: every time a baby is born here, someone pushes a button somewhere and then "Lullaby And Goodnight" chimes in all over the hospital. You can hear it from your room; you can hear it when you're lying there in a hallway waiting for an x-ray; you can hear it on your way to the cafeteria. Usually, the song comes on once, perhaps twice in a given day. Never more than three times. That is, until yesterday. Ten times, from about 7:30 AM until 8 at night. I counted.
One of the therapists here deflated my wonder with a splash of cynicism. "I know why there are so many births," she says. "Tax deductions. The economy's pretty rough, you know."
How mean of her to bring me down to earth like that. But even if she's right, that parents ask for labor to be induced so that the child tax credit can be claimed for 2008, I'm choosing to focus on the wonder of so many births in so brief a time.
I'm also choosing to marvel at the idea of playing the Lullaby song throughout the hospital every time a new life takes its first gasp of air. Whose idea was that? How brilliant. I think about the nurse cleaning soiled bedsheets for the 6th time today, or the elderly patient who wonders if his broken hip will ever heal, or the ER doc who just lost a battle to save a life. They all hear the magical music at the same time. Do they notice? Does it lift their spirits, even just a little? How can it not?
I got some New Life news of my own yesterday: my doctor said I can start walking again, after four agonizing weeks-that-feels-like-years of calling this hospitally place my home and getting around in a chair on wheels. This is step one to going home, though that might still be a week or more away. But it is a step nonetheless. And I took that literal first step today and it felt difficult and painful and good and gravity-defying all at once. And if I didn't know better, I thought I heard Lullaby And Goodnight playing yet again. But this time it was only in my head.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
The Manger and the Cross
I don't usually pay much attention to art. Don't get me wrong--I like art and visiting art galleries, but when I see something about art in the paper or on the web, I usually gloss over it. Today was different. Today I read about a discovery at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts that struck me sideways like a gust of air.
Apparently there's a painting kept there at the MFA called "The Nativity" by a Renaissance painter named Jacopo Tintoretto. I've never heard of him and never seen the painting, but the article describes the work as very large, somewhat pedestrian and, truth be told, not very good. At least that's what the critics say. But recently, during a routine restoration of the painting, the staff there made a startling discovery. An x-ray revealed that Tintoretto had used this canvas before, and they found that lying beneath the images of Mary and the Baby Jesus and the shepherds and all the rest was a portion of an even larger painting that the artist never completed. I guess artists did this all the time (recycling canvas, perhaps?), but here's the rub: the painting underneath was of Jesus hanging on the cross. All you can see are his legs, but it's impossible to mistake it--that's the death of Jesus, hiding beneath his birth. (Click here if you want to glimpse a remarkable graphic of the two scenes.)
The article goes on to explain the nature of these things, that Tintoretto probably didn't like how he had done the crucifixion and just decided to paint over it like a schoolboy might write over a mistake on a math problem instead of using an eraser.
Perhaps.
But I think there's something deeper going on here. And I wonder if Tintoretto didn't do this on purpose, a clever transfiguration of canvas silently whispering to us from the 16th century. "Take a closer look," he seems to be saying. "Look beneath the peaceful manger and the light of the stable and see the very purpose of this birth. The crucifixion is why he came."
The wise men knew this of course; why else would one of the gifts be what amounts to ancient embalming fluid? But was Tintoretto picking up on this idea when he decided to reuse his canvas? We do not and cannot know. But I suspect he did.
It is tempting to forget, even now just two days before Christmas, that Jesus came to die. Too morbid, we say to ourselves, too sad and scary to think of this beautiful baby hanging on a cross. No, we'd rather stay focused on the baby even though we know his fate. Come to think of it, Santa is a safer option altogether.
So it turns out that the painting of the cross completes the painting of the manger, that the crucifixion lies in the shadow beneath the birth. Maybe Jacopo Tintoretto knew this all along.
Apparently there's a painting kept there at the MFA called "The Nativity" by a Renaissance painter named Jacopo Tintoretto. I've never heard of him and never seen the painting, but the article describes the work as very large, somewhat pedestrian and, truth be told, not very good. At least that's what the critics say. But recently, during a routine restoration of the painting, the staff there made a startling discovery. An x-ray revealed that Tintoretto had used this canvas before, and they found that lying beneath the images of Mary and the Baby Jesus and the shepherds and all the rest was a portion of an even larger painting that the artist never completed. I guess artists did this all the time (recycling canvas, perhaps?), but here's the rub: the painting underneath was of Jesus hanging on the cross. All you can see are his legs, but it's impossible to mistake it--that's the death of Jesus, hiding beneath his birth. (Click here if you want to glimpse a remarkable graphic of the two scenes.)
The article goes on to explain the nature of these things, that Tintoretto probably didn't like how he had done the crucifixion and just decided to paint over it like a schoolboy might write over a mistake on a math problem instead of using an eraser.
Perhaps.
But I think there's something deeper going on here. And I wonder if Tintoretto didn't do this on purpose, a clever transfiguration of canvas silently whispering to us from the 16th century. "Take a closer look," he seems to be saying. "Look beneath the peaceful manger and the light of the stable and see the very purpose of this birth. The crucifixion is why he came."
The wise men knew this of course; why else would one of the gifts be what amounts to ancient embalming fluid? But was Tintoretto picking up on this idea when he decided to reuse his canvas? We do not and cannot know. But I suspect he did.
It is tempting to forget, even now just two days before Christmas, that Jesus came to die. Too morbid, we say to ourselves, too sad and scary to think of this beautiful baby hanging on a cross. No, we'd rather stay focused on the baby even though we know his fate. Come to think of it, Santa is a safer option altogether.
So it turns out that the painting of the cross completes the painting of the manger, that the crucifixion lies in the shadow beneath the birth. Maybe Jacopo Tintoretto knew this all along.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Hospitality
It was many years ago now that I first noticed it, first saw that embedded within the word 'hospitality' was the word 'hospital.' At first I didn't get it. To me, these words were at polar opposites of the emotional spectrum. 'Hospitality' connotes something inviting, warm, with good friends all around and good food just over in the next room. 'Hospital,' largely because I had spent so much time in one growing up, conveys a sense of dread, pain, loneliness, stale-white brokenness, and of course bad food.
But then it hit me. The two words are intimately linked. They're not 2 sides of the same coin; they are both sides all at once. Hospitality in its purest form is what we extend to the broken, to the lonely, to those whose pain is bearable only in the company of others--in other words, to those we'd find in a hospital. And when we're sick or broken or in unbearable pain, where do we go? To a hospital, because that's the place we can be healed. So it turns out that the two words are connected because hospitality is in fact an act of healing. It took my breath away when I first saw this; it still does.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, seeing how today is Day 15 of my latest hospital stay. The other day a nurse, unprovoked, started telling me about her father who had been homeless and had recently died a broken and lonely man. And here she was, supposed to be binding up my wounds when hers seemed much deeper to me. But that's the funny thing about hospitality--the guest just as easily becomes the host when we are transparent with one another.
Jesus knew this well. Just before his birth, the world was waiting for the Messiah, holding its breath, even. And when he came so gently, so quietly, the world had little choice but to extend its hospitality to him (excepting, of course, for Herod). But in one of the great cosmic ironies, the guest was in fact the one through whom the world was made. And as the guest grew up, he slowly and without fanfare assumed the role of host. We were the ones who were desperate for hospitality, aching for healing, yearning to be made whole.
And Jesus invites us to the banquet still.
But then it hit me. The two words are intimately linked. They're not 2 sides of the same coin; they are both sides all at once. Hospitality in its purest form is what we extend to the broken, to the lonely, to those whose pain is bearable only in the company of others--in other words, to those we'd find in a hospital. And when we're sick or broken or in unbearable pain, where do we go? To a hospital, because that's the place we can be healed. So it turns out that the two words are connected because hospitality is in fact an act of healing. It took my breath away when I first saw this; it still does.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, seeing how today is Day 15 of my latest hospital stay. The other day a nurse, unprovoked, started telling me about her father who had been homeless and had recently died a broken and lonely man. And here she was, supposed to be binding up my wounds when hers seemed much deeper to me. But that's the funny thing about hospitality--the guest just as easily becomes the host when we are transparent with one another.
Jesus knew this well. Just before his birth, the world was waiting for the Messiah, holding its breath, even. And when he came so gently, so quietly, the world had little choice but to extend its hospitality to him (excepting, of course, for Herod). But in one of the great cosmic ironies, the guest was in fact the one through whom the world was made. And as the guest grew up, he slowly and without fanfare assumed the role of host. We were the ones who were desperate for hospitality, aching for healing, yearning to be made whole.
And Jesus invites us to the banquet still.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Waiting
I don't much like waiting. It feels useless, wasteful, unproductive. Waiting means being out of control, and I don't like that either. I suspect most people don't, and that's why we don't like waiting. I hear there are people you can rent to stand in lines for you so you don't have to wait. That's funny, but if I had the means I'd be tempted to do that too.
The other day here in the rehab ward my physical therapist and I had a conversation about the time it takes for broken bones to heal. She knows me well enough to know that I am impatient with my progress and I have a bent towards overdoing things, pushing myself, overtaxing my already levied body. "You've got to give it time," she said. "Can't you invent a pill to speed this up?" I said. She laughed. "Oh, if only I could," said she. And then this: "I'm pretty sure I could retire early."
That got me to thinking. What if we could speed the healing process? It would mean a lot less waiting, to be sure. But I suspect it would mean a lot less human contact as well, and we already suffer from too much isolation in the name of technology and progress and speed. Just yesterday I was out in the hall and saw a beautiful thing. One of the elderly patients here shimmied ever so slowly in her walker out of her room and over to the room across the hall. "Sandra?" she called from the door. "Oh, Julie!" came the reply. "How wonderful of you to come visit!"
What would happen if we invented a pill or a machine to speed the healing process? Certainly not a friendship like that, born on the wings of brokenness and nurtured in the nest of the time it takes to heal.
No, I don't much like waiting. But if I had a choice between waiting and loneliness, I'd choose waiting every time.
The other day here in the rehab ward my physical therapist and I had a conversation about the time it takes for broken bones to heal. She knows me well enough to know that I am impatient with my progress and I have a bent towards overdoing things, pushing myself, overtaxing my already levied body. "You've got to give it time," she said. "Can't you invent a pill to speed this up?" I said. She laughed. "Oh, if only I could," said she. And then this: "I'm pretty sure I could retire early."
That got me to thinking. What if we could speed the healing process? It would mean a lot less waiting, to be sure. But I suspect it would mean a lot less human contact as well, and we already suffer from too much isolation in the name of technology and progress and speed. Just yesterday I was out in the hall and saw a beautiful thing. One of the elderly patients here shimmied ever so slowly in her walker out of her room and over to the room across the hall. "Sandra?" she called from the door. "Oh, Julie!" came the reply. "How wonderful of you to come visit!"
What would happen if we invented a pill or a machine to speed the healing process? Certainly not a friendship like that, born on the wings of brokenness and nurtured in the nest of the time it takes to heal.
No, I don't much like waiting. But if I had a choice between waiting and loneliness, I'd choose waiting every time.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Advent
I begin this new blog from a rehab ward of a hospital. I fell recently and broke some bones in my foot and leg. And because of my disability, I can't use crutches. So it's rehab time for the next several weeks.
It strikes me that a hospital is a good place to be for Advent. You do a lot of waiting in hospitals--waiting for doctors and nurses and x-rays and blood tests and blood test results and food. And there's a lot of expectancy too--for good news or bad news or any news at all; for visitors to come or friends to call; for the blessed day you get to go home. Waiting and expectancy. Expectancy and waiting.
Isn't that what Advent is all about?
It occurs to me as I reflect on this that it's kind of like the whole world was a hospital in the millenia, centuries, decades, months, and weeks before the birth of Jesus. The earth was waiting. Longing, even. Wondering. Expecting. And the world was and still is filled with broken people. People like me and you and Aunt Sally and the neighbors down the street who seem so perfect.
Yes, we are waiting still. Waiting in this hospital called earth. Waiting for Jesus to make us whole.
It strikes me that a hospital is a good place to be for Advent. You do a lot of waiting in hospitals--waiting for doctors and nurses and x-rays and blood tests and blood test results and food. And there's a lot of expectancy too--for good news or bad news or any news at all; for visitors to come or friends to call; for the blessed day you get to go home. Waiting and expectancy. Expectancy and waiting.
Isn't that what Advent is all about?
It occurs to me as I reflect on this that it's kind of like the whole world was a hospital in the millenia, centuries, decades, months, and weeks before the birth of Jesus. The earth was waiting. Longing, even. Wondering. Expecting. And the world was and still is filled with broken people. People like me and you and Aunt Sally and the neighbors down the street who seem so perfect.
Yes, we are waiting still. Waiting in this hospital called earth. Waiting for Jesus to make us whole.
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