skip to main |
skip to sidebar
(Medical text illustration of Constantine the African examining patients' urine specimens, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
(This post originally appeared in Daily Episcopalian on November 30, 2011)
"The purpose of the Morbidity and Mortality (M and M) Conference is to provide a safe venue for physicians in all levels of training to identify areas of improvement, and promote professionalism, with ethical integrity and transparency by use of a case study. The conference assesses all aspects of the care given to the patient, as well as provides feedback in quality improvement. The M and M Conference also provides a forum to to foster a climate of openness and discussion about medical errors.
"This conference also promotes leadership, research, and scholarly activity, and is a learning opportunity for clinical medical students and residents to assess their own core clinical competencies."
--Sample description of Morbidity and Mortality Conference from a large teaching hospital
One of the most vulnerable--and revealing--experiences I was exposed to in medical school and residency was the Morbidity and Mortality Conference, affectionately called "M and M." In medical schools, these are often held in large lecture halls and are quite well attended. Pathologists and radiologists can never escape them, as it's almost certain there will be radiology images, as well as gross and microscopic pathology, from the various diagnoses the "patient of the month" accumulated. I particularly remember Surgery M and M. It was held in the Surgery conference room, and there was one seat that was solely for the use of the Chief of Surgery--no one sat in that seat if he was absent, reminiscent of the Bishop's Chair on the chancel. Woe betide some unfortunate new medical student or intern who inadvertently plopped his or her behind in that seat!
In this conference, no stone is left unturned, and the physician presenting the case (often a senior resident) is very much on the spot and feeling quite drained at the end. Every lab is scrutinized, every physical finding cogitated upon, and every possible outcome change at every step in the patient's care is analyzed. The cases presented were not stories of modern medical miracles--they were almost certainly cases where the patient eventually died or ended up with some terrible outcome. But each step of the way, everyone involved with the care of that patient asks himself or herself two hard questions--"What would I have done differently if I had it to do over again at this point in the story of this patient?" and "How would it have changed the course of this patient or this patient's quality of life?"
Really, mostly, in M and M, we find that the outcome probably wouldn't have changed much for this patient--only the path to the outcome--but reflecting upon it might change something for the next patient. We do, however, find the humbling truth that we sometimes either delayed a diagnosis and cost the patient some degree of quality of life, or rushed to obtain a diagnosis in a frail patient that created a faster downward spiral in the patient's course. I still remember a very poignant day when I saw the Chief of Surgery (yep, the same one who sat in the special chair) give a big sigh and exhale, "You know, I should never have taken him to surgery that day. I was wrong." In the formative years of my training, M and M conference was a secular form of Ignatian spirituality--the examination of both conscience and of consciousness. Had I followed the norm of best practice for my specialty? Was I even aware what was developing at the time it was evolving? It was also striking to me that this needed to happen in a community setting--only going home and thinking about the cases on my own would not have been as beneficial. Revealing our vulnerability to a group engendered a sense of accountability to the patient.
In short, it's about asking ourselves what we did wrong even when we are pretty sure what ultimately happened was right.
Advent is a good season for doing that, and in a different way than in Lent/Easter. Lent, for me, tends to be with a steeper cycle, with deeper mood swings--much as how the mood of the disciples must have been during the reception of Jesus to Jerusalem, followed by the trial, the passion, and the crucifixion--followed by the most sudden and unexpected emotions that must have accompanied the Resurrection. Advent is gentler for me--steady upward movement from deep darkness, and the birth of new things inside us occurring without much pomp or fanfare. It's a good time to quietly ask the hard questions about our conscience and our consciousness in the dark spots in our lives. It's a time to believe that the things being made new in us are being knit together with all the marvelous detail of the tiny fingernails and toenails on a newborn.
It can also be a time to address the topic of reconciliation. The December holidays are often a time when families can either rise to a new level of understanding of one another, or sink to the depths of their dysfunction. It's a time for looking back at the things that had bad outcomes, and asking those same questions we always asked in M and M--"What would I do differently if I had it to do over again?" "How would I do it differently the next time a similar situation happened?" "How aware was I at the time?" "How can I be more aware next time?"
Advent seems to be a time that it's easier to ask these questions in the light of quiet hope and expectation, without all the tumult of Lent. It's the season for feeling quiet growth in the deep darkness, and understanding just how temporary the things that disquiet us really are--just as pregnant women endure the kicking, the indigestion caused by an active fetus, and the constant trips to the bathroom as their bladders get crowded out. Pregnant women know these things won't last forever.
The beauty of M and M conference is it occurs at a time remote enough from when the events take place, the team can look back at it with more clarity and objectivity, and look forward with hope and anticipation. What things will emerge from our dark spaces this Advent that we can look back at a little more objectively, and then look forward with the same hope and anticipation?
(Plaster fig leaf commissioned for Queen Victoria to be used for covering statues with genitalia, courtesy of Wikipedia through the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. When the Queen or other female dignitaries visited museums, this leaf was hung with hooks on the genitalia of statues that the Queen would have found offensive.)
( Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, November 29, 2011)
Readings for November 29, 2011:
Psalms 5, 6 (morning)
Psalms 10, 100 (evening)
Amos 3:1-11
2 Peter 1:12-21
Matthew 21:12-22
My Texan friends have a saying that describes people who are showy but without substance--"All hat, no cattle." We are shown two examples of "All hat, no cattle" in our readings today. Matthew's Gospel includes the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree that has plenty of leaves but no figs. Our reading in Amos describes a whole cornucopia of show but no substance--roaring lions with no prey, snares with no birds, blowing trumpets with no fearful citizens. (That last one reminds me of all the times the local tornado siren goes off in a clear blue sky--so much so that, when we really did have a tornado in 2009, we all asked ourselves, "Is this for real?")
The Gospel reading is of particular interest, given the imagery of the fig leaf. The people who would have heard this story in Matthew's day were accustomed to fig trees being used as metaphors of Israel, but they would also have recalled that fig leaves would have been used for covering nakedness in Genesis. The expectation is that there's something worth being covered by the leaves--in this case the fruit of the fig tree--but there's nothing there.
It brings up an interesting possibility. Traditionally, when commentaries discuss this story, the tree is described as being barren. But in that flip-flop way of the Hebrew tradition, is this a story less about the barrenness of the fig tree, and more about it covering absolutely nothing with its showy leaves?
Figs are from the botanical family Ficus, and the leaves can be up to ten inches long and seven inches across. They can display hints of purple and brown, as well as green, when the leaves mature. They are also easy to propagate via vegetative methods (methods other than planting seeds.) When one wants to grow starts from a Ficus, one merely has to bend over a green branch, scratch the bark at the end of the branch to expose the inner green bark, and keep the branch tied down. In a couple of weeks, roots will form. Cut the proximal end of the branch off the trunk and--ta-da!--a new sapling is ready to plant. Fig trees are "fecund" in this manner even when they are not bearing fruit.
In both the Matthew and Mark versions of this story, I've always been a little irritated at Jesus for cursing a tree that was unfortunate enough to not bear fruit. (There's probably a special irritation there for those of us who never had children.) Honestly, a Jesus who would curse something for being barren kind of creeps me out. We all have some form of barrenness in ourselves.
However, when we think about this as an "All hat, no cattle" story, it begins to make more sense. From the time of Genesis on, God has been shown as never being too thrilled with humankind's attempt to cover our various forms of nakedness, as if God didn't know that already. It's precisely when we are in the throes of our vulnerablities--when we are displaying our various forms of psychological nakedness, economic nakedness, and spiritual nakedness that God can most work with us and build a loving relationship with us.
So what if we're barren in some way? Sometimes, I think we're not so much called to bear fruit as we are called to proliferate vegetatively. The trick is, though, that to proliferate vegetatively, we have to allow our branches to be bent over, and, in time, be cut from our stem. It requires sacrificial giving.
All the covering up we do in our lives simply wastes time and obfuscates the root problems in ourselves. We waste time providing ourselves with cover for our fragile egos when we should be using that time more wisely in the act of listening for divine guidance and sharing branches of ourselves to grow roots and be removed to thrive elsewhere. Truly, that's a curse.
(Statue of Hope in the foyer of the Paris Opera House, by Louis-Amile Durandelle, 1875, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
(This post originally appeared in Episcopal Café's Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, November 27, 2011)
Readings for the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011:
Psalms 146, 147 (Morning)
Psalms 111, 112, 113 (Evening)
Amos 1:1-5, 13-28
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Luke 21:5-19
Historically, the theme of the first week of Advent is "hope," but our readings today present a rather mixed bag of hope and despair. Although our Psalms are lavish with praise for the goodness of God's provisions to the righteous, our reading from Amos describes atrocities committed by Israel's neighbors, including the ripping of unborn children from pregnant women in Gilead. Our Epistle reading in 1 Thessalonians describes a state of being spiritually asleep and unaware, yet birth occurring, along with its requisite labor pains. Finally, today's Gospel is filled with images of war and persecution to the point of death, yet paradoxically concludes with, "But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."
In the Northern Hemisphere, even nature seems to display this paradox of the first week of Advent. We are entering into a season of pregnant expectation, the "New Year" of the liturgical calendar, yet all the signs of Nature feel like we are hurtling headlong into a frigid darkness. Many of us are getting up to go to work in the dark, and driving home in the dark. Some of us are dealing with the irritants of winter again, such as scraping windshields and failing at predicting what clothes to wear for the day. What light we see--the strobe-like blinkings of artificial Christmas decorations luring us to elbow our way through the throngs of people shopping on Black Friday--seems insincere and false.
Frankly, it's the time of year it seems the better plan is to close down, tune out, lie down in our beds, turn out the lights, and languish in the inertia of depression. Yet Paul urges us in today's Epistle to stay awake and reminds us that we are not children of darkness by nature, but children of light.
It's exactly when we need to ponder hope more than ever, because, you see, everything I've come to understand about Advent has taught me that Christianity is all about its upside-down-ness compared to conventional logic. Logic tells us that people can't be raised from the dead. Logic tells us that the universe started all compressed and is constantly moving to a more random state. Logic tells us that the birth of a child of locally uncertain parentage in a dirty stable has no power whatsoever to change the world. Yet how many of us, at one time or another in our lives, have cried so hard and long that suddenly the warmth of true release has overtaken us? How many of us have had some horrible work day where we've failed miserably at something, been demoted or canned, and the smile of a child has given us bravery to start again tomorrow? How many of us have experienced some huge emotional blowout with a loved one and had our pets snuggle next to us, and we feel our anger dissipate? I'm betting if we could all sit together and tell our stories, we have them.
Sometimes I think we miss the boat a little bit on Advent. We tend to think of Advent solely from the Christological perspective and tend to forget its power to illustrate another piece of the Trinity--the Holy Spirit's power of creating hope from the ashes of despair, and its role of guiding us from darkness to light. It sounds odd, but without despair, there would be no need of hope. If we had no need of hope, we would have no need of a Savior--and if we had no need of a Savior, we would have no need of God. It's the darkness and the broken-ness of the world, I believe, that creates the substrate for hope to even exist.
A good image we might want to carry into Advent is the classic image used in statuary for hope as a human allegorical figure. Although sculptors generally depict her a beautiful woman of reproductive age (capable of giving birth,) she often has a rather mournful visage. Yet she points upward. She is often depicted as leaning against an anchor, and that anchor also has a vague cross shape. Sometimes we see her wearing a chain around her neck--a broken chain--having escaped the bonds of sin and death.
Today, the church year begins anew--as do we, in this ever-repeating cycle that is a journey best related in our Eucharistic Prayer B--"out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life." May we lean against the anchor of the Cross and feel the free end of the broken chain around our necks as we begin to embrace the mystery of this Advent season.
(CT scan of bullous emphysema from the American College of Roentgenology's teaching slides)
Isaiah 65:17-25:
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord— and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
I have had an interesting week and a half or so. My mom, who has very severe emphysema, has been hospitalized with pneumonia. Her CT on a good day looks a lot like the one I posted from a teaching file above. Lungs are supposed to look more or less "spongy" on CT; people with the bullous form of this disease look like they have a few Ziploc bags stuffed in their chest. They exist trying to breathe with only a fraction of the lung power most of us have. My mom has existed for roughly a decade with lungs like this that worsen every time she gets pneumonia, lungs that collapse almost every time anyone puts a needle in her chest to drain off the fluid--even the most skilled physician can't help but pop one of those fragile bullous air spaces. Every time I am shown her CT, the rational, thinking physician in me says to myself, "How in the world is she even alive with lungs like that?"
Well, the answer to that, I think, is a combination of 24/7 high flow oxygen, a bunch of steroids, stubbornness, and a lot of prayer.
But there will be a place where this thin tightrope she walks upon collapses, and that's just a fact--but none of us know where and when that place will be.
It's hard to watch someone with emphysema struggle to breathe, but that's just a reminder to me how hard it must be to BE the person struggling to breathe. It's a double whammy--being unable to breathe makes any of us anxious, but being anxious makes the person with emphysema even more hypoxic and scared--then their oxygen saturation plummets further. It's a terrible cycle of fear and hypoxia.
Yes, she was a long-time smoker. But I become more and more irritated at people who get all haughty and judgmental about her smoking history. I am the first to tell you, nagging your loved ones does not work. I really don't care how anyone personally feels about "what she did to herself," because no one--NO ONE--has done anything so awful they "deserve" to live like this. My suggestion is "Go tell someone in whom it might make a difference," to those people.
But her lungs are a very stark reminder to me that, although I truly believe in a God who is constantly making all things new, her CT is one of the things that will NOT be made new in her lifetime or mine.
Our bodies, are, indeed, finite. Every day we live on this planet as adults, even on the best day, we lose a few brain cells. Every day our biological cellular mechanisms age a little more, and those little "clock genes" in our cells change a ribosome or a protein that brings us all just a fraction of an inch closer to the day we simply shut down, provided nothing else gets us first.
All we can do, when it comes to this life, is to do what we can, today, and trust that God makes all things new.
I had a great Thanksgiving Day springing Mom from the hospital to eat turkey dinner with friends, and she did too, and for me, those are glimpses for how even in a disease that constantly puts death before our eyes, there is life. Things ARE being made new--just not always the specific things we want, and on our time frame.
This is another of those places where I don't get the appeal of "the new atheism." Oddly, the fact those folks don't claim to believe in God don't bother me. Their insistence to belittle religion annoys me, but I sort of shrug and figure, "Well, God knows folks of all religions have belittled atheists for millennia, we probably have it coming to us a bit." I think what bugs me about them is that so many of them seem to lack any frame of reference for hope. If they have an "evangelism," it is that they seem dead set on dragging those with hope into this black hole of hopelessness. I don't have a problem with happy atheists; just unhappy ones--just as I have a problem with unhappy judgmental Christians. The happiest atheists I know have this thing that seems to be a "cosmic hope" for lack of a better term--kind of a Star Trek form of hope--that human accomplishment will continue to bring us to a better place. It's easy for me to live in their world of cosmic hope, because it doesn't exclude my theological world.
I always find it interesting that the most common barb thrown by the "unhappy atheists" is always along the lines of trying to distill Christianity or any religion down to "where you end up when you die," when I would tell you that is the part that is rarely on my mind. I'm far more interested in Christianity teaching me how to live.
I don't know what's in store with Mom's illness; nor does she. What she wants to think about how this all ends for her and beyond, is her business. I'm happy to help with linking her to the spiritual support she needs and standing aside. Too much of the distortion in my family hinged on other people's self-esteem in the family being tied to my accomplishments. People deserve their own self-esteem. Meanwhile, I think I'll choose to live this time over the holidays moment by moment, day by day, in the hope that all things are made new, and glad I am not in charge of the itinerary!
(Icon of Clement of Rome courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, November 23, 2011)
Readings for the feast day of Clement, Bishop of Rome, November 23:
Psalm 78:3-7
1 Chronicles 23:28-32
2 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 6:37-45
"Our Apostles knew also, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strife over the dignity of the Bishop's office."
--from Clement of Rome's Epistle to the Corinthians
My bishop likes to joke that bishops are given two rubber stamps to use in the performance of their ecclesiastical duties in forming priests and deacons--one says, "Has a problem with authority," and the other says, "Has a regional accent."
I don't know if Clement of Rome had to use the latter, but he certainly had to use the former in the first century of the church. "Has a problem with authority" probably reared its head a week after the early church was born--I have no doubt it was the one of the oldest problems in the church and continues to be so today.
In Clement's case, a younger group of members of the church in Corinth had deposed the clergy unilaterally, without Clement's authority to do so. Clement had to put on his Big Bishop Boxer Shorts and tell the church in Corinth, "Uh, that's not how we do things around here." His Epistle to the Corinthians affirmed the ecclesiastical hierarchy and was read, not only to the church in Corinth, but to many congregations in the early church. It affirmed a framework of authority that we still use in various denominations, including the Episcopal Church.
"Authority" is a tricky business in the Christian community. There's a fine line between using authority and being authoritarian--a very fine line, and often subject to interpretation. This is a difficult balance, at times, when we are talking about a church full of lay people who see their authority as "from God" and don't always see as clear a set of rules regarding the ecclesiastical church, co-mingled with clergy who carry an additional definition of "obedience." Clergy, by virtue of Holy Orders, vow to obey the Bishop and live in accordance with the canons of the church; all of us, lay and ordained, by virtue of our Baptismal Covenant, enter into a covenant as sacred as marriage that we will engage in relationship with God, Christ, and each other.
In other words, it's too simplistic to see it in dualistic terms--which, unfortunately, is how most people see it. Lay people, in times of congregational strife, pull out the "I only have to answer to God--not you," card, and clergy sometimes hide behind shadows of the Bishop's coat tails or the church's canonical coat tails to push their own agenda, hoping the congregation is not savvy about the rules. I've seen parishioners claim the authority of "Jesus the rule-breaker vs. the Pharisees" in their quest to butt heads with a bishop's decision. I've also seen clergy attempt to play the same card.
It's a tricky dance. Are we, at times, called to question or resist authority? I believe we are. That calling, however doesn't come with a hall pass. The consequences of such a decision may ultimately end up being to figuratively die in a ditch--or literally die on a cross. Sadly, some of us are called to make that kind of a decision with God's help.
Today's readings give insight into our understanding of "informed consent" in such decisions--understanding the obligations of those chosen to attend to the temple, understanding the rules and obligations of right living as Christians, leaving judgment to God, and finally, our duty to tell the stories of these struggles. They bring up another "A" word--accountability.
It's been my experience and observation that mostly, authority steps in when there's been a breach in accountability somewhere--and once authority steps in, we run the risk of human judgment vs. God's judgment. It's safe to say we humans don't do it so well. Humans make mistakes from time to time--sometimes serious ones, which also have their own set of consequences.
All Christians are accountable to all of humanity, and this, I believe, is our highest calling in being accountable to God. Perhaps if each of us spent more time being earnest about our exercising accountability, we'd have less cause to confront authority and less desire to exert it.
(Photo of C.S. Lewis courtesy of Wikipedia)
(This post originally written for Speaking to the Soul, November 22, 2011)
Readings for the feast day of Clive Staples Lewis, November 22:
Psalm 139:1-9
Proverbs 23:15-18
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 16:7-15:
Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
--John 16:7-15 (NRSV)
Here's my confession: Really, I've never cared much for C.S. Lewis' work. I read The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy because I was friends with the geeky fantasy and sci-fi kids, but I thought Tolkien and Ray Bradbury were far better. I never thought his Christian apologetics held much water (and frankly, in that era of the late 70's I got tired of every hippy-dippy evangelical quoting him--Evangelicals quoting Anglicans? Made no sense.) I just kind of wrinkled up my nose at his trilemma as a false dilemma. But there's one thing on which C.S. Lewis and I are two peas in a pod--the notion that conversion to Christianity is the first step in a very long journey, not an end unto itself.
"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night," Lewis wrote, in Surprised by Joy, "feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."
I totally understand what the feeling of being a "dejected and reluctant convert" is like. I spent 20+ years outside the door of any church, convinced that I was, indeed a Christian, but one incredibly unwelcome in the church because of what I believed at the time to be heretical thoughts. Those thoughts included notions of our own slice of the Incarnation residing within us, inclusivity in a way most churches were not (and many still not) ready to accept, and my own formidable stack of doubts despite asserting I was, indeed, a Christian.
Yet, when I returned in my new incarnation of "Me, as a Christian," it was almost like being a precocious child in a new school. It was clear I had plenty of knowledge and "book learning," but I needed a LOT of formation. I had to reconcile "The way I used to understand God and rejected," with "The way I am now beginning to understand God and can accept." I could totally identify with Lewis' own statement about the beginning of this journey of conversion.
John's words echo this--"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."
When any of us first begin to "get serious about God," that feeling of not understanding, or of doubt, seems wrong somehow. "They're going to think I'm a heretic if I say I think this," was a constant thought for me early on. But it's important to understand it is not the end of the world with our relationship with God if we admit things like, "Ok, I am not so sure what the Resurrection really was or really means," or "I just don't really buy everything about the Nicene Creed." I don't think when we consciously begin life anew as an earnest follower of Christ, we will have all revealed to us as if we were struck by lightning. I think we grow into it, slowly. (Sometimes, so incredibly slow we think we are going backward.)
The totality of how we become part of the kingdom in the "now" is hard to swallow when all we think we are doing in the beginning is hedging our bets for a slot in Heaven. We are not ready for the power revealed in the partaking of the Sacraments. We're not awake to the possibility that prayer is so much more than petitioning God in a dance where hopefully, our wishes are granted--that instead, being called into prayer is to be called into a deep and dangerous proposition. If we start listening to what God's will is for each of us, we will quickly discover we've been sent to do some rather unnerving work, and that we will be gnawed upon to get off our duffs and do something about it. We find that being sent deeply into our prayer places requires being lashed to the deck of a raft sent into the rapids.
At the beginning of this journey, we would not be able to bear these things if we knew they were coming. It takes time. The life of C.S. Lewis reminds us that there is no end point to learning in faith--that it is, indeed, a life-long pilgrimage. Even when we thought we were wandering around outside the church, we could never have borne the thought that our "time away" was not really time away at all--instead, it was ongoing formation.
(Illuminated manuscript depicting the martyrdom of Edmund, King of Anglia, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
(This post originally appeared in Speaking to the Soul, Nov. 21, 2011)
Readings for the feast day of Edmund, King of East Anglia and Martyr, November 21, 2011:
Psalm 21
2 Samuel 1:17-27
1 Peter 3:14-18
Matthew 10:16-22
O God of ineffable mercy, you gave grace and fortitude to blessed Edmund the king to triumph over the enemy of his people by nobly dying for your Name: Bestow on us your servants the shield of faith with which we can withstand the assaults of our ancient enemy; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Edmund was an early king of East Anglia, which is in what we now know as England. Although most of what we know about him is myth and legend, the one thing we are told in vivid detail is his gruesome death at the hands of the Danes.
The Wikipedia description is what really caught my eye. Granted, some of this is rather legendary, and there's certainly a distinct attempt to connect this story with the Passion of Christ, but the short version goes like this:
The Danes had invaded England in 870, led by the brothers Hinguar and Hubba, and it appears their particular specialty was looting and plundering churches. When they get to East Anglia, they offer to cut a deal with Edmund, which really wasn't much of a deal. They'd give him a chunk of the loot if he'd admit the Danes were superior, forbid the practice of Christianity, and continue on as a figurehead ruler to keep the peace in the area.
Some sources say that Edmund's own bishops bailed on him and told him to accept the terms. But Edmund said no, he would not forsake Christ, which, of course, made the Danes furious. So they proceeded to torture and kill him--first beating him with cudgels, and then tying him to a tree and shooting him so full of arrows, as the account by Abbo of Fleury relates, "until he was all covered with their missiles as with bristles of a hedgehog." Even then he would not renounce Christ, so Hinguar ordered him beheaded. Edmond called to Christ throughout the beheading.
Now, the historical concept is to look at this in terms of his bravery and faith, but I became intrigued at the way Sam Portaro looked at this story in his book, "Brightest and Best." A more modern way to look at this story is to back up and see missed opportunity and a chance at reconciliation. Pig-headedly sticking up for our Christian faith at the point of a lance (or a gun) hasn't really gotten us too far in history--the Crusades being a major case in point--and in societies where church and state were intertwined, the dominant religion becomes an oppressive force, not a healing force.
But it was that image of Edmund being
covered with so many arrows he looked like a hedgehog (or, in my mind, a
porcupine) that stuck with me--mostly because my own life experience has been that every time I take my ego out on a limb and try to make people see "I'm right," I also end up covered with a slew of metaphorical arrows. Putting my ego on a pedestal usually only results in having a band of folks dead set on knocking me off.
Also, it's been my experience that, once covered with arrows, trying to reconcile with the other party starts looking like two porcupines mating. The two parties walk around each other with a cautious shyness, each afraid of the other's prickly barbs, both desiring to be closer, but not knowing how in the world to accomplish it without being stuck themselves.
So rather than see this tale as an account of Christian bravery, what changes when we see it as a reminder of our own pig-headedness? More importantly, where are the places we need to begin the prickly dance of reconciliation?
