No God, No Balance

I am ashamed to admit that the notes for this posting have been sitting on my desk for weeks, since I first wrote them this summer. Instead of posting them, I have spent my time wrestling with a veritable mountain of philosophical and theological texts, and attempting to achieve a balance in my life with a new job, school, and social life. At long last, now that the semester is nearly half over, I am somewhat caught up in my studies and have a few minutes to share my thoughts from the summer. I apologize in advance for the length and the somewhat rambling and disconnected nature of this piece of writing.

Before I begin, I will note that in the following description and critique, in no way do I intend to criticize either the hospital, which is indeed a good one, or any of my former coworkers. The people with whom I worked were good at what they did, and in themselves were good people, striving to be compassionate and giving the best care possible. Nor do I criticize science, technology, or medicine which has the potential to bring so much good, or even the legitimate need for the existence of ICUs. Rather, my criticism is directed towards the modern secular and medical mentalities which are so pervasive and which I found beginning to infect myself.

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I lay there in the studio above the barn, listening to the noises that drifted up. The early morning sunlight streamed gently through the open windows. I could hear an occasional bleat from below me, and the rustling of noses and cloven hooves in hay. A solitary tractor rumbled through a distant vineyard, already early at work. A breeze rustled softly through the trees. Eventually I heard the clinking of a milk bucket, and the creak of gates opening and closing as my brother began the twice daily ritual of milking the goats. Later on a hammer sounded in the shop below, evidence no doubt, of some ingenious project in the works. Humble, simple, comforting noises, so different from the rush and roar of the city. There is no place like home.

As I lay there in relative solitude with only the few sounds to accompany me, I felt the stress melt from my spirit and I reflected on my experience of the past few months. It was, without exaggeration, a terribly trying and one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Why? I wondered. There was such a stark contrast between the big city and the job I had left behind and the humble, quiet county within which I temporarily rested. What is it that made the difference? Sapped of energy, and feeling physically and emotionally broken, I felt as if I were recovering from a long illness. What was this long illness? Stress, one of the great killers of our society. And what caused this illness? The myriad of factors contributing to the downfall of society, the separation of man from God and man from himself.

Imagine, a small unit, relatively speaking: fourteen rooms in a U-shape around the manager’s office, storage rooms, a break room, and a desk for the unit secretary with locked doors at either end of the U. The outside world was barely visible through the small windows in each room, and one was fortunate if any sunlight managed to filter through at all. Rather, for twenty-four hours a day this enclosed space was lit by artificial yellow light. Each room was crowded with a bed, a patient, a mess of equipment and wires, and often friends and family members. In the pathway that remained one found, like an obstacle course, supply carts of all sorts, chairs, equipment, rolling computers, med dispensers, and … people. Within this small space milled eight nurses, managers, a unit secretary, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, flocks of physicians young and old, family members, and various and sundry technicians, housekeepers, and so forth, many of them with some sort of equipment in tow. And at a speed that made my head spin, everybody was moving, working, and … talking. Of the fourteen TVs, the majority were on and audible, but different stations. Monitors and IV pumps, were in every room, ventilators, and multiple other forms of modern medical equipment, each with a unique beep and a frequency of alarming added to the din. One had to keep one’s eye on both patients and monitors at all times in order to intervene instantaneously. If something was missed, someone could die. If equipment malfunctioned, someone could die. If a mistake was made, someone could die. Constant work, constant movement, constant noise, and no way to escape for twelve to fourteen hours. It seemed an inhuman place. In addition to the culture shock and insomnia that I was already experiencing, for me, this spelled major sensory overload.

Not only was this a place of intense and constant noise and activity, it was a place of intensity in every way imaginable. It was after all, an ICU. Of course the intensity of thought and knowledge that goes into patient care and the intensity of focus and skill required by the healthcare team goes without saying. Yet, in a unit where the sickest in the hospital are tended and death is often expected and frequently occurs, it was also a place of emotional intensity. Patients (if they are not comatose) and family members were sleep deprived, exhausted, anxious, frightened, sometimes angry, and confused. They struggled to cope with a world and a language of which they understand next to nothing in order to make gargantuan decisions while the life of their loved one hung in the balance. Sometimes emotions ran high towards the nurses and doctors, the hospital, or even the patient and each other as strength ebbed and miscommunications occurred. Occasionally the unit was filled with the wails and sobs of family when a patient had just passed. The healthcare team worked, and worked, and worked with the best of technology and skill to keep a patient alive and bring healing, yet often it failed and one was left with a sense of emptiness, failure, and a resounding question of “WHY??”

Even more subtle, yet no less intense, was the spiritual warfare. In a place where lives teetered on the brink of eternity, the spiritual powers battled to gain custody of souls. Only after several months did I understand from whence came these heavy temptations against faith, hope, and charity. As a faithful Catholic and one who tried to pray for my patients, I was part of that battle and a target for the evil one. Yet, with a crazy schedule, fourteen to sixteen hour days, and major sleep deprivation already on board, my prayer life was far less than optimal and I did not have the resources to cope with the demands of the job, let alone the spiritual demands that were made of me. No wonder I began to crack.

In an ICU in a level one trauma center, an institution with over six thousand employees, I encountered both the epitome of modern medicine and the intensity and sleeplessness of the city. There, where there was the finest of technology and medical skill, people remained completely ignorant of the war that took place around them. Rather, medical practice was viewed and conducted with the same lens that modern society has developed. Patients are reduced to a diagnosis and room number. “The (insert diagnosis) in room (number)…” is a commonly heard phrase tossed among medical professionals to refer to their patients. I am certainly guilty of this. With the seemingly innumerable specializations in the medical field, human beings are pulled apart, analyzed, and reduced to organs, systems, and body parts capable of being manipulated. One doesn’t look at a patient and see a whole human being, a beautiful, unique and irreplaceable individual, dearly beloved by God. Rather, one sees a heart, kidneys, lungs, neurological system, etc, each of which may or may not be functioning properly, and which may eventually be used to replace someone else’s malfunctioning organ. Physicians did try to respect the wishes of patients and their families, yet without God’s guiding grace, major decisions become sticky subjects and it becomes a slippery slope. There was a drastic imbalance between prolonging some lives as long as absolutely possible with whatever means necessary, and on the other hand, treating others with a seeming disregard as if they had no value, based on “quality of life” and whether or not there was any family who desired them to live. Human life ends up being treated with the same consumerist mentality that is so characteristic of American society: something to be possessed and used as one wishes, or tossed when it no longer serves one’s end.

In society at large, and in modern medicine in particular, there is a denial of humanity. How can we heal the human person if we do not recognize what is human? The human being is not merely a sum of parts nor created for manipulation! A human being is far more than he or she can produce or how much pleasure he or she can experience or bring to others. Just because this person’s quality of life will not be what we would want for ourselves, does this make it valueless for the person whose life it is? Does it mean that this person is not fulfilling the life God intended for them? I do realize, that these are very tough questions to answer. But the most basic and essential question remains: where is the recognition of human dignity and the sacredness of human life? Without this, where is the purpose and meaning of our work and existence? Science and medicine, or any discipline for that matter, have no meaning apart from this answer.

Although for the most part, the doctors, nurses, and other members of the healthcare team, genuinely cared for patients and did their best to treat them with compassion and care, as a secular institution, one thing was lacking: God and His guiding hand. Without Him, it has become impossible to recognize the rhythm with which we were created. It is impossible to walk that straight and narrow path and achieve that healthy – and holy – rhythm and balance with which He created us. It has become impossible to recognize our own humanity. People no longer know who we are, where we come from, or where we are going. Rather, with the same mentality that permeates and is destroying modern secular society, it is prone to error and excess and to forget the heart of the matter, namely the origin, end, and purpose human person, and hence our dignity.

Although I learned much during my time at that hospital, it left me with little time and energy for pondering anything except wondering why I felt so terrible. Push, push, push. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Noise, noise, noise. It is an endless pursuit of work, activities, pleasure, an endless rat race that is never fulfilled. To what purpose?? I kept asking myself. So we can acquire more gadgets to provide more time so we can get more pleasure? So we can work ourselves to death? Does this really satisfy? Does this really fulfill who we are meant to be? I found city life totally separated from that rhythm and so difficult to find that balance. There is no silence, no solitude. Where is our relationship with God? Where are our relationships with each other? Where is our connection with the earth, with our roots? I found that this hustle and bustle and noise – the media are the worst culprits - create a barrier and destroys one’s openness to God, not to mention each other. It is in the silence, in the still, small voice that He speaks. Prayer is so essential for the health of the soul because God is the source of life. Yet, when this rat race is the mode of being, even when one goes to a silent place, that noise and activity remain in one’s mind and heart and makes prayer impossible. It takes time for that silence to sink in and for prayer to take root. It must be a way of life.

At home I once again participated, although briefly, in a simpler, slower, more humane way of life, more conducive to contemplation and interpersonal relationships. I realized just how fragile the human being is (particularly me), and how profoundly necessary silence and stillness, both visual and auditory, are in order to be healthy, happy, and holy. In the life which I had suddenly just left, I realized that some of the crucial elements which were lacking my life and in the world, and which therefore had caused my ill health, were rhythm, harmony, and balance, not to mention the God who created them and therefore makes them possible.

Most of you are familiar with the way in which I grew up: out in the woods, taking care of a garden and a myriad of animals, homeschooling and actively involved in the life and liturgy of the Church. In short, our lives were profoundly linked to the God-made cycles and rhythms of life so evident in the natural world. Lying there in the loft, listening to the animal sounds beneath me, I realized that the animals and nature have no choice but to simply be as God created them. They simply have one mode of being. Trees sprout leaves, produce their fruit, and eventually the leaves fall off and die. The goats have their babies, milk for a set number of months, then dry up. The cycle begins all over again. Eating, sleeping, giving birth, dying. The planet earth itself has its cycle, rotating so many times on its axis at a certain speed and circling the sun at a certain distance, producing spring, summer, fall, and winter. This rhythm is programmed into all living things. Vegetation knows when to grow and produce. Birds know when to build nests and when to fly south for the winter. They have no need or desire to be other than they are or apart from this rhythm, and to try to make them so is detrimental. Farm life is rhythmic by its very nature.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. What gain has the worker from his toil?” (Eccl. 3:1-9).

Yet, what about humans?? We are different from animals, it is true, but since we possess biological bodies, we too are part of the natural world. Since the spiritual, mental, and psychological components of our beings are united with the biological, they too participate in the rhythm with which we were created. In the beginning, God created the earth and said “It is good” (Gen 1). There was an original harmony. The Church knows this and in her wisdom, the cycle of the liturgical calendar reflects that of nature. However, this rhythm and harmony was destroyed by the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve. As the only biological creatures with intellect and free will, human beings are the only ones (aside from the fallen angels) capable sin and of departing from this rhythm.

Not everyone was created for country life or to work on a homestead, I do realize, and just living the country is no guarantee of participating in this rhythm. It must be an active participation. When I first moved to this crazy city which never sleeps, I was in a state of severe shock at the constant movement and noise and the intensity with which everything seemed to take place all around me. I was told that people get used to it. I wondered, do they really? People live, yes, but do they thrive? I can hardly say. I do know, however, that when my life was severed from this rhythm, it was destructive. Incapable of much thought, incapable of prayer, incapable of relationship, I felt that there was hardly any life left in me.

When I began to work with the Little Sisters of the Poor, once again I experienced a stark contrast. There where prayer occurs at regular intervals every day and the mind of the Church, the love of God, and love of our residents and one another is kept at the forefront of our minds, I find it to be a peaceful and happy place. There is a balance, a rhythm, a harmony (despite the confusion and occasional crankiness of the residents), and genuine love. Human life is treated as sacred, something to be guarded, cared for and treasured, yet at the same time, there is the recognition that it will one day – in God’s time - end. No one finds the need for fancy treatments, yet every need is tended to with the utmost care. Nor, is there even a thought of ending life prematurely. One lives the life and rhythm that God has given.

This essay barely begins to touch on the problems that plague modern medicine and society, which, despite the intellectual and technological “triumphs” and achievements, have become utterly broken. Despite the fact that my first six months of DC life were so detrimental and that it has taken me three months to physically recover, in no way do I regret it. In fact, I am profoundly grateful for the experience because it has provided me with an experience and perspective that I will continue to reflect and draw upon as I continue my studies on the human person and ethics. I don’t have the answers to all the questions which these reflections pose to my mind. In fact this over-long posting is merely a poor attempt to begin to grapple with some of them. However, one thing I do know, that despite whatever achievements modernity has managed to produce and whatever triumphs it thinks it has attained, it is not possible to be fully human, fully ourselves, to be whole and happy, without God since He is the one who created us the way we are. When we are severed from God, we are severed from our own humanity.