In the Court of the Gentiles: An Ignatian Contemplation

This Lent the RūacH creative worship committee at our church is experimenting with the spiritual discipline known as Ignatian Contemplation or “imaginative prayer.” Popularized by the Jesuit theologian Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), this method of praying transforms two-dimensional  words on a page into vivid scenes using all the senses, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit and of human imagination. Each week a volunteer writes a passage based on the lectionary Scripture reading and then leads the congregation in a guided meditation. If you’re curious, click here for ashort video introduction. 

Below is the Ignatian Contemplation I wrote for this Sunday. I had to do a bit of research in the architecture of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in order to place myself in the scene and describe it correctly. Below is one of the better illustrations I found. In the upper part you can see the open Court of the Gentiles--this is where the money-changers and animal-venders set up shop until (and probably after) Jesus chased them out. In the lower part the line indicating this part of the Court of Gentiles is pointing incorrectly, as it crosses the 4 to 5-foot wall called the sorek (or soreq) beyond which non-Jews could not pass on pain of death. Other illustrations put the wall closer to or farther from the central complex. Either way, this artificial division between God and the peoples of the world is a recurring theme in the New Testament, and I tried to capture some of that in my passage.

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Today’s Scripture text comes from the Gospel of John, chapter twelve, verses 20-33, when Jesus predicts his death. Rather than hearing those words from the lectern, we will pray them imaginatively together. At this time you are invited to prepare yourself for the meditation by clearing your mind or by reading the text as printed in your bulletin.

Jesus Predicts His Death (John 12:20-33, NIV)
20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.  

In imaginative prayer, we attempt to enter a scene from the Gospel--to put ourselves in that time and place through the use of our imaginations.  You are invited to close your eyes and allow your imagination to see the events and live the experience as it is recast in words.

Jerusalem is such a bustling place—especially with Passover in just a few days. Like so many others, you have come to the temple to worship. But being Greek, you must not venture beyond the Court of the Gentiles to the inner courtyard. Yesterday a member of your party pointed out to you the warning inscription in Greek and Latin on the balustrade: “No stranger is to enter within the partition wall and enclosure around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will be responsible to himself for his ensuing death.” Since you can’t watch the sacrifices inside, you would like to see the one they call Jesus—a great teacher and healer who brought a man back to life!—but he is nowhere to be found.

Warning inscription from the Temple, unearthed by French archaeologist
Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau (1846-1923) in 1871. This block of limestone is 22"x33", and the letters were originally painted in red.

Someone mentions they know a man who is related to a neighbor of one of Jesus’ disciples, Philip from Bethsaida. Inquiries are made. After a while a man with a Galilean accent comes up and introduces himself as Philip. The leader of your group asks, “Could you introduce us to the Rabbi?” Philip hems and haws and then excuses himself to find Andrew. After a much longer while, the two men return. Jesus is with them.

There are so many questions: “What are you doing in Jerusalem? How long will you stay here? Can you heal my brother back home? What do non-Jews have to do to be saved?” By now a crowd has recognized Jesus, and they jostle all around you. You try not to get distracted from what Jesus is saying, something about seeds dying and wheat growing, loving your life and losing it, but hating your life and keeping it. You wish the crowd would quiet down so you could concentrate on the riddles.

Jesus Walks in the Portico of Solomon (1886-1896), an opaque watercolor by
French painter James Tissot (1863-1902). What is also called "Solomon's Porch" runs across the lower left in the Temple illustration above; it was entered by the Golden Gate.

Jesus seems to be praying now, when suddenly you hear a terrible loud sound that comes from all around and reverberates in your chest. “What was that?” shouts someone. “It was thunder,” explains one. “No, an angel,” says another. “It said, ‘God’s name is glorified,’” replies a third. A murmur ripples through the throng of people, but Jesus appears unperturbed. He announces that the powers of the world will fall and he will rise. “I will draw all people to myself,” he says. “All people?” you ask yourself. Even Gentiles? Can you go where he is going?

Here ends the scene. However the time of imaginative prayer is not complete. You are invited to take time this coming week to reenter the scene. Look inside yourself, the onlooker, and consider what your emotions might have been. Do you love God as much as your love your earthly life? Is abundant life sufficient reward for a lifetime of servitude? Was the sound thunder, or was it God’s voice? What does it take to get your attention? Does “all” mean “all”? Whatever you are feeling, share it with God in prayer this week, and be open to hear God’s words as they come back to you.

Throwback Thursday: The Nurse is God

This week I rotated through the Labor & Delivery floor of the hospital. I worked nights (6pm-6am). By coincidence, my paternal grandmother--who spent many years as a psychiatric night nurse--sent me a card with a clipping she found among her files from the 1981 edition of PRN, the monthly newsletter of Doctors Hospital (Dallas, TX). It's good for a chuckle. Gram signed the card, "If you can't be the nurse and be God, then may you be the 'Chief of Staff'. Go for it!"

The Medical Team

The Chief of Staff
He leaps tall buildings in a single bound, is more powerful than two locomotives, is faster than a speeding bullet, walks on water, and gives policy to God.

The Staff Physician
He leaps short buildings in a single bound, is more powerful than a switch engine, is just as fast as a speeding bullet, walks on water if the sea is calm, and talks with God.

The Resident
He leaps short buildings with a spring board and favorable winds, is as powerful as a switch engine, is almost as fast as a speeding bullet, walks on water in a swimming pool, talks with God if a special request approved.

The Intern
He clears a small hut, loses a race with a locomotive, can fire a speeding bullet, and is occasionally addressed by God.

The Medical Student
He runs into small buildings, recognizes locomotives two times out of three, frequently wets himself with a water pistol, dog paddles in water, and mumbles mostly to animals.

The Nurse
She lifts tall buildings to walk under them, kicks locomotives off the track, catches speeding bullets with her teeth, and freezes water with a single glance. SHE IS GOD.

What Medical School Looks Like IX

Sometimes medical school looks like something out of a horror film. Those are pig feet for practicing suture techniques on something that won't squeal before they let us stitch up actual patients.

Another technical skill I've started to learn is musculoskeletal ultrasound.

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Cooking with cumin

For dinner this week I decided to try a new recipe: Curried Lentil and Spinach Soup. I got it years ago from Epicurious. (Does anyone still use that site?) Here is my version:

Ingredients: • 2 tablespoons olive oil • 1 1/2 cups chopped onion • 1 cup chopped celery • 1 cup chopped peeled carrots • 3 garlic cloves, minced • 1 tablespoon curry powder (preferably Madras-style) • 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger • 1 teaspoon ground cumin • 1 bay leaf • 1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper • 8 cups (or more) water • 1 16-ounce bag dried lentils (about 2 1/2 cups) • 1 6-ounce bag baby spinach leaves  • 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add next 4 ingredients (onion, celery, carrots, cloves); sauté until golden, about 10 minutes. Stir in curry powder, ginger, cumin, bay leaf, and dried crushed red pepper. Add water and dried lentils; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered until lentils are tender, adding more water by 1/2 cupfuls to thin soup, if desired, about 25 minutes. Season soup with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Chill soup uncovered until cold, then cover and keep refrigerated. Rewarm soup over medium heat, thinning with water if desired before serving.) Ladle soup into bowls. Top each serving with a spoonful of yogurt and a handful of baby spinach.

Personalized place mats and candle by niece KH (Cincinnati, OH).

His and Hers beaded napkin rings by KF (Dresden, GER). Not sold in stores.

I went ahead and used both the curry powder and red pepper (in my case Turkish chili powder). The yogurt and spinach thicken the soup and temper some of the spiciness. I think the recipe could use a little tweaking: I found the lentils undercooked and the vegetables overcooked. Next time I will add the carrot and celery toward the end of the process, after the lentils have mostly softened. And I will add more cumin. You can always add more cumin. Pairs well with crusty bread + spread for you vegans, or crackers and cheese for you vegetarians. I imagine you could go carnivorous with the addition of some sausage.

The Second City for the second time

AAAhhh, what baby faces!

For our first wedding anniversary, Dear Husband and I took a trip to Chicago. We recreated parts of our Denver honeymoon, visiting an art gallery and a botanical garden. We also got all dolled up for dinner at a fancy steak house and a show by The Second City. Most of the comedians you have heard of (and a great many beside) have come through this sketch and improv group. They may be famous, but they're still a casual comedy club, and the guy who took our tickets teased us that we had increased the style quotient considerably that night.

This past weekend I got to hear The Second City's traveling group. No, I haven't traded in DH for another model! A friend of ours ended up with an extra ticket, and I'm sure either of us would have been more than happy to go, but DH had a gig with his band that night. So AS and I had dinner downtown with a church group and then walked over to join the very long line to get into the theater. The place was sold out, though half a row next to me was empty--maybe the snow kept them away? That's a pity, because this "B team" really brought down the house. We were particularly impressed by their ability to make up song lyrics on the spot.

Should have used the flash.

As a sign of the times, perhaps, they opened and closed the show with skits involving gay (male) relationships (and a sketch in the middle involved a gay teen who sings). One improv ended up with a lesbian relationship, but we hope in the future they will be considered suitable subjects for scripted scenes. You can imagine the kind of awkward dialogue between a stereotypical guns-, sports- and alcohol-loving, school-flubbing older brother and his younger brother's stylish (male) prom date. What happens when it's an older sister and her younger sister's (female) date? Or, what do they say if we drop the trope of suave homosexual and knuckle-dragger heterosexual? The gay scenes in the show involved two teens and a gay wedding. Where are the jokes from gay couples who have been committed for decades? Is there a genre of gay nursing home jokes? DH thinks I'm asking too much of a bunch of 20- and 30-somethings, but maybe the tropes will change with the times.

Other favorite skits involved whale singing and a glass of water, a reporter asking a football player increasingly probing questions about his simple faith that God had blessed him with a touchdown, and a local car dealership with one of those dancing fabric "men" whose arms wave in the wind. It was a fun night, and I laughed so hard I gave myself a headache. Great comedy: it hurts so good.

This year, love is...

"You are totes adorbs." ~Shakespeare

Dear Husband and I had a long-distance relationship the four years I was in college and then the first year of graduate school. The February of my junior year, he surprised me by flying out so we could celebrate Valentine's Day together. (I remember, because I had to leave my MCAT class early on Saturday morning to see him off to the airport.) The other years we celebrated over Spring Break. He called it "Eastern Orthodox Valentine's Day," because Orthodox Christmas and Easter fall later than their Western Christian equivalents. It's a made-up holiday, another excuse for showing each other our love and appreciation, so why not celebrate on the day(s) that work with our schedules?

This year, love is a slow-motion celebration. I had call on Valentine's Day, so DH decided to surprise me with roses, a card, and dinner out a week early--for what he called "Southern Orthodox Valentine's Day." He must have thought I needed a pick-me-up after a difficult week of in-patient pediatric medicine--and he was right. Unfortunately, we discovered that night that our favorite locally owed Thai restaurant has apparently closed. Why else would it be dark at 6:30pm on a Friday night and the phone number disconnected? It's not the first "ethnic" restaurant that has closed in that strip mall; apparently Americana and Italiana do better in this corner of town. So we drove halfway across town to the locally owned Mediterranean restaurant, where we stuffed ourselves with lovely pita and cucumber-tomato salads and brought home enough leftovers for another full meal.

The next night, Dear Husband (a musician) and I (an academic) had tickets to the premiere run of a new play about a musician (Beethoven) and an academic (a fictionalized musicologist from the University who develops ALS). I am afraid I found the script, the set design, and the directing almost but not quite good enough. It doesn't help that I watched Wit over Winter Break, which does academic-discovers-herself-through-illness with more mature humor and philosophizing, or that at least half of the action of this play takes place in Bonn with jokes about how Germans don't have a sense of humor. If you can suspend your disbelief about the marginally competent nurse-boyfriend being able to take a several-months vacation from his hospital job to accompany the defiant-but-really-grieving daughter-girlfriend to care for her workaholic-mother--and if you can ignore the constant refrain of "Master, Master" erupting from the lips of Igor--I mean Anton Schindler, "friend of Beethoven"--you might cry when the pianist plays and the cast sings the "Kyrie" from Beethoven's "Missa solemnis." After that high point, the playwright couldn't leave well enough alone, so there two more scenes that try to tug at your heartstrings, but I felt as if that emotion had been played out by then. Nevertheless, I am glad the company took the risk on a new work, and that we attended.

On Valentine's Day, after I had completed my clinical duties, DH and I attended a presentation about the rest of medical school, taking board exams, and applying to/matching at a residency program. It's an anxiety-inducing revelation that drove my Peds TA and her husband straight to the liquor store last year. We went out to lunch instead, where I anchored my Hot Toddy with a black bean and onion ring burger as big as my face. I promise I'm smiling behind all that. Aren't I?

This year, we did all the expected things to celebrate Valentine's Day, albeit not on the same recognized day on the calendar. They were nice, out-of-the-ordinary things to do for each other, though I wonder if in a year they will mean as much as me cleaning out the cat box and taking out the trash and recycling on a freezing-cold night so DH didn't have to. Or as touched as I was when DH picked out a loaf of whole-grain German Dark Wheat bread with No High Fructose Corn Syrup and 6g Dietary Fiber, since my favorite grocery store closed and I ran out of the local organic bread I had been storing in the freezer. This time next year I will be finalizing my Match rank-order list for residency. I wonder what "love" will mean then?

Rememberlutions, Part 1 of 2

This year, instead of making New Year's resolutions, I'm making "rememberlutions." Rather than promising myself I'm going to clean up my language or spend less time on facebook (ha!), only to fail miserably in record time, the only thing I have to do is write down every good thing I do or that happens to me in 2015. During our Meet N Greet meeting at the start of the spring semester, the members of Grad Study got down and dirty with fabric, ribbon, glitter, patterned scotch tape, and a hot glue gun to decorate old jars. Many people personalized their jars with goofy faces; I went more abstract (below).

There are a few things I'm hoping to be able to put in my jar (like getting my first journal article published), the rest will be surprises. As it is, I've deposited the first slip of paper: Getting an O for Outstanding in Family Medicine, my last rotation in the fall semester. By the end of the year I may have forgotten that it took 6 weeks to get that grade; but I'll remember what it was!

Click here to see what went into my jar.