"I define hope as distinct from optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishing. It references reality at every turn and reveres truth. It lives open eyed and whole heartedly with the darkness that is woven ineluctably into the light of life and seems to overcome it. Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual memory.
It's a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be."
Krista Tippett
"If you numb the hard things, you're also numbing the chance to feel all the expansion and the growth and the beauty."
Ruthie Lindsay
Masks can't hide our pained eyes when a newborn is intubated for a rare, unfortunate infection that leaves their brain barely functioning. Lab coats don't shield our hearts when a patient is admitted, in the next room, after an attempted suicide.
I've learned that working in a hospital requires not only the brains to provide the highest quality treatment, but also the lungs to breathe life-giving words to hurting people, the backbone to bear the reality of life’s fragility, and the heart to stay, serve, and relentlessly pursue the mission of leaving others better than when you found them.
The rhythm of masking up, pumping in, charting, and bracing ourselves for unexpected trauma around the clock isn't sustained on caffeine alone. Caring for others is a matter of commitment, not a condition of our circumstances.
For most people, stress is an invitation to be inwardly preoccupied. For very few, it’s an opportunity to look out for others. In my sinking, on the days when I ran from unit to unit like a headless chicken, I was met with grace in various forms - a chair pulled up for me to sit in, an elbow bump reminding me to not work too hard, an attending's raw honesty that they didn't have an answer, a handwritten note of encouragement on my computer at the end of the day, eyes that saw more in me than I do looking in the mirror, and steadfast availability to lend a hand and pull me up - no matter what.
No one goes unscathed after repeated confrontations with the unfair cards life deals to vulnerable people. But there's something that makes the people around me show up tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.
I don't know what leads them back. I just know that for me, as real as pain is, the Servant King stripped it of its destructive power. I can fight the daily battles on my knees with my palms facing up. Though I offer very little, I am confident that working with an awareness of His presence guarantees meaning, even if my eyes don't witness the impact.
My heart, though free to lament, grieve, and ache, is also utterly and completely unfettered because of the One who chained Himself to Calvary's tree.
Happy Easter. It is finished - He is risen, indeed.
"Every drop of blood tingled in the children's bodies, and the deepest, wildest voice they had ever heard was saying: 'Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.'"
Aslan (The Magician's Nephew, C.S. Lewis)
"A new power is let loose in the world, the power to remake what was broken, to heal what was diseased, to restore what was lost... New creation has begun; and its motivating power is love...The old creation lives by pride and retribution: I stand up for myself, and if someone gets in my way I try to get even. We've been there, done that, and got the scars to prove it.
Now there is a completely different way to live, a way of love and reconciliation and healing and hope. It's a way nobody's ever tried before, a way that is as unthinkable to most human beings and societies as - well, as resurrection itself...[Easter] speaks of a life that is neither ghostly nor unreal, but solid and definite and practical. The Easter stories come at the end of the four gospels, but they are not about an 'end.' They are about a beginning. The beginning of God's new world. The beginning of the kingdom. God is now in charge, on earth as in heaven. And God's 'being-in-charge' is focused on Jesus himself being king and Lord. The title on the cross was true after all. The resurrection proves it."
N.T. Wright (Simply Jesus)
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| 102 white flowers for each COVID-19 patient who passed away. 923 blue flowers for each COVID-19 patient who was discharged. |
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