The Psychology of Salvation, Part 2: The Strangest Hospital

http://www.medicalpracticetrends.com/?attachment_id=44

Last week I promised to show why I believe that the ancient Hebrew sanctuary presents a healthy psychology of personal growth and salvation. Last week I wrote that Jesus’ religion is different from all the others because He allows us to feel the bitter gap between what we could have been and what we have instead become. The pain and hopelessness of that gap would be overwhelming, but He Himself spans it with His own perfect life and His willingness to cover our ragged souls with His spotless one. But the sanctuary goes on to show that we are not left dazzling on the outside and dismal on the inside. I have had a visceral reaction to the splendid and bizarre details of the sanctuary. I can share it best through a story. So let’s pretend…

It was a glorious Autumn day as I climbed the sheer rock wall. I had been told not to try this route because the rock was “rotten,” but I had tested the rock and found it to be good, so I moved ahead driving in one piton after another as I scaled the 200-foot cliff.

I was only about 75 feet up when I reached for a marginal handhold. My toes were gripping the scant irregularities they had found, and I really needed something better than the finger-hold that was available. Still, I was self-belayed, and I calculated that a fall, though unnerving, would be survivable. I was wrong.

As I lost my grip, I braced myself for the jerk of hitting the end of the rope. Instead, there was a terrifyingly impotent tug followed by continued free fall. This happened several more times as piton after piton exploded out of the aging rock. I landed hard and heard a snap. “I hope I didn’t break my arm… or leg!” It was more of an impulse than a thought.

The pain was so complete that I couldn’t tell where it was centered. I couldn’t begin to guess the location of the injuries. It felt like my heart and guts, even my jaw and throat had turned to sharp dry rock. And the pain!

My mind raced to understand what had happened. Through a veil of red, blinding pain I tried to make sense of “now.” I have never known such depths of remorse and the bitter wish to roll the clock back just 30 minutes. I wanted to be comfortable again, among friends, laughing as though this sort of thing never happens.

I don’t know how long I lay there. I do remember fazing in and out and finally some people talking and the sensation of being lifted, yet not sitting up or moving in anyway. I heard a siren and felt soul-shattering jolts until the ambulance arrived at the hospital.

As they wheeled me into the E. R. the dam broke. The tears I had not thought to cry splashed down my cheeks into my ears. The sense of hope and relief that we were at the hospital, that I was now in better hands than my own, that I could trust them to do whatever was needed; it all left me with the freedom to dissolve into a private jelly of remorse, terror, and hope.

A team of attendants carefully, inch by inch, transferred me from the gurney to a table. My eyes roved the faces for the clue I hoped not to see. The room swam, and then it was quiet. I was waiting. The pain was easing a bit due to drugs and I began a methodical inventory. There was no pain in my arms or legs and I desperately hoped that the numbness was due to the drugs. But when I tried to move them, there was nothing.

A kindly older doctor came and looked into my eyes. “You are seriously injured. Sadly, you will lose more than your arms and legs.” He saw the terrified question in my eyes and continued. “The human body cannot survive that kind of a fall. Your internal organs are shutting down.”

I couldn’t speak. Silent, too, was the wail that arose in my soul. Every horrible emotion swirled in my being. Mostly I hated myself for doing this to me. I cannot begin to describe the hell of self-loathing that suffocated me.

“Would you like to get better?” I couldn’t believe I had heard that. Was he nuts? He had just said I was going to die, hadn’t he? “Of course, I want to get better!” I wanted to scream.

I don’t know what happened, maybe I managed a slight nod, or perhaps he again correctly read my eyes. I remember one last gaze from that intensely interested face. I searched it to see if there was some evil humor or sadistic tic. No, he was focused on me, and with a new look of resolute purpose he strained as he pressed on my sides.

I heard it again, that horrible snap! His eyes rolled back and he drew in a sharp breath. Two attendants rushed to his side as he crumpled onto the gurney. “What on earth!” I cried, “Is he going to be alright? Is he having a heart attack?”

“No,” said another attendant as the two wheeled the doctor out of the room. “No, he’s taking your injury away.”

It was then that I realized I was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the examining table. The pain was gone, the drugged feeling was gone. I felt better than when I was packing for the climb. “This is weird,” I said. “I’d like to leave now, but… did he take my entire injury? I mean, is what was going to happen to me, happening to him?”

The attendant nodded “yes” and I saw tears running silently down his cheeks. The others in the room stood transfixed with their eyes on the door through which he had exited.

I sat letting it all soak in. No, it just couldn’t soak in. It was something I simply couldn't fathom. How could an injury… Why would a doctor…Who do I owe, and how much?

Suddenly my mind was overwhelmed by thoughts about the doctor and his unfinished life. What other patients relied on him? I thought of his intelligence, his years of training, all the good he could have still done. My life was a pretty poor trade for his. It hadn’t been fair. Why had he done it? The world had lost the better man.

I cried uncontrollably. I couldn’t help it. Miserable thoughts swirled in my mind, yet my heart was coming alive with a desire to have known this sudden hero. I sobbed for a long time, and when I finally quieted, the room was heavy with silence.

“Can I go now?” is all I could whisper. How could I face this medical staff after killing their doctor. Well, I hadn’t really killed him; he’s the one that chose… but if I hadn’t been so reckless, he wouldn’t have had to choose. It was confusing, but I didn’t want to face his gifted friends.

At this the others in the room turned to look at me. “What can I do?” I asked. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. Is there any way I can help?”

“No,” said the one who had been speaking to me. “No, let us clean you up. Your mortal wounds are gone, but there is much blood to clean up, and you need some new clothing.”

They walked me to a basin where they washed away all the blood, the lacerated flesh, the tattered clothing. It all washed off, and I stood there in new skin and new clothes. My heart was becoming lighter, and life looked better than it ever had.

“So is this where I go see the accountant?” I asked with a wry smile.

“No, there’s still more to do,” my attendant answered, and I was led out of the room into a hall. After a few turns I stood in front of a door. The attendant hesitated and looked at me. “Are you ready for this?”

“What’s going to happen?” I wondered aloud.

“You’re going to get a new set of eyes, but it won’t be easy on your heart.”

“I… well…” a tingle of anticipation and dread came bubbling to the surface as a searched for an answer. “Am I ready for this?” I thought. “Ready for what? They haven’t told me anything. New eyes?... Hard on my heart?… What’s going to happen?”

“Well,” I said cautiously, “You people seem to know what you are doing, and…” Suddenly a new thought hit me: “Hey! Wait a minute. Is this part of the treatment? Standard procedure? Is this what he would have wanted?” 

The attendant nodded. 

At my reference to the doctor, my tears welled up again. The attendant looked at me sharply and said, “You’re ready.”

As the door swung open, I saw into what looked like the doctor’s office. There was a desk with papers and charts and I wondered about his interrupted work. My throat choked at the thought of this intelligent, well-trained professional trading his life for mine. But then I saw a photograph by his computer screen, and my heart stood still.

It was a picture of me when I was only eight. I was holding a rope looking at a big boulder in the campground where we had spent a week that summer. “How on earth!?” I looked quizzically at the attendant who smiled and gestured to a bulletin board behind me. Tacked on at crazy angles were pictures of me as a baby, on my first day of school, when I bought my first car… And there were other pictures I don’t even want to remember. What kind of person would keep pictures of my horrible times, the shameful things I had done?

“He didn’t like them either,” said the attendant reading my thoughts, “but they were a part of the whole picture. He always was one for honesty. He loved you, not just the senior-portrait you.”

“If he knew me all this time, why did I never hear of him? And who was sending him all these pictures, anyway?”

“There are three reasons we came to this room,” said the attendant, “and answering those questions isn’t one of them.”

I saw a large photo album and began to look at pages of unfamiliar faces.

“He loved them all,” said the attendant. “If you look closely you’ll see that his family photos are all mixed in there with the others.”

“That’s fascinating,” I murmured, “Who was this guy?” And my heart ached with curiosity to see the world the way he did. What kind of person could love so many people and still give it all up for just one? It was beginning to make me question my own definition of love.

“Well,” said the attendant, “I see one purpose is being met. Here’s something to help with the next.” And with that he placed a very large three-ring binder in my hand. “This is what he wanted you to have.”

“He talked to you about me? About leaving stuff to me?” I asked in amazement. I thrilled at the thought of what might be between the covers of that great binder.

“Yes, he talked of you quite often, and I think he knew that today was the day. Just this morning he said, ‘Be sure he gets this. I want him to have it.’”

“Wow,” I said, running my hands reverently over the surface of the book. “Should I read it right now?”

“No. Don’t read it; digest it. Study it. Go over it again and again. Think about it. Talk about it. Keep coming back to it, because in it he’s giving you a piece of his mind.”

I smiled. That phrase had always sounded like a threat, and yet now there was nothing I wanted more than a piece of his mind… a great big piece of his fascinating, wonderful mind.

So I took the binder home with me. I have read it and reread it many times.

What’s in it? Nothing much, just a collection of stories and articles, poems and cartoons, a few recipes and a puzzle or two. But it is so him! The more I read and ponder, the more I think I am getting to know the real him. I can hear his voice. It comes back with increasing clarity as though I’m hearing him over and over, “You are seriously injured. Would you like to get better?” And my heart thrills with an exuberant “Yes!”

Have I been back to the hospital? I did go back once. Some of the faces in his photo album had begun to haunt me. I wanted to look into those faces again to see if I could see something that he had seen. I felt they might be a further clue as to his magnificence. Maybe if I could see them the way he saw them, then maybe I could see me the way he did. And maybe then I’d have acquired a bigger piece of his mind.

They gave me a few pages to study, and said something about the “third purpose.”

I’ve actually met some of the people in the photographs. It’s always a big thrill when I do, but all-in-all their just ordinary folks. The strange thing is that my heart goes out to them; like I’d known them long ago. I try to find ways to treat them well in his absence. I wonder what he would have done for them. After all, he collected their pictures, too. I wish I could give them the same gift he gave me. I even tell them about him, but that is usually met with blank stares. Few of them have any idea of who I’m talking about. Still, I know that they mattered to him, so they matter to me.

I went back to the hospital a second time, but the whole place was gone. It was eerie. There was a big empty lot surrounded by barbed wire and a couple security guards. It was a scary section of town. A few old timers thought they remembered a hospital “a-way back,” but it just wasn’t that long ago. I know it wasn’t. I feel like I’m in some kind of Twilight Zone. How could something so real, so personal, and so beneficial be so obscure? And what’s with them guarding an empty lot?

How do I feel about the doctor now? Well, I feel pretty guilty some times. When I think of my stupidity in climbing where I shouldn’t have, I know that my carelessness cost this world a great man. But then, honestly, I don’t know if this world would notice if he were still here. It’s all so… What? “How do I feel about him?” Ha! I love him! Pure and simple. And I think I know him better now than I know my own family.

Okay, you’ve stuck with me this far so let me tell you the craziest part of it all… and I know it’s a crazy story. It messes with my own mind. Sometimes even I doubt the whole thing. But I still have the binder and the photos. And pretty often I am washed with that same sense of horrible failing and that wonderful sense of his magnificent life being traded for mine. And I’m certain he wants me to celebrate what he did and not sit around grieving about how I have messed up. It's unfair, I know. I don't deserve that kind of joy, but there it is. He was so intensely for me, that the story ceases to be about me. It’s about his intensity. It's about him. He just never gives up.

The craziest part? Yes, I’m getting there. It’s this: I’m sure I’ll see him again. No, seriously. Sprinkled throughout that binder are little notes and poems and songs that hint of it. They're connecting more as I reread. A few say it outright. It may be hard to believe, but the more I come to feel his heart in that binder, the more I catch his quirky, playful side. Somehow, I think his death just can’t be the end of the story. I know he’s got something up his sleeve. Really. He’s even been showing up in my dreams, and I’m positive. Can’t wait!

Okay, now that your bones have grasped the sanctuary model, I’ll introduce it to your brains… next week.