the old
man
sits alone
in the surfside café
and watches
through misted up windows
the young
together
under clear blue skies
twist and turn
as they ride
the crest of a wave
until
inevitably
and finally
they break
as he did too
now
unsteadily
he struggles
to slowly stand
his gnarled frame
shuffling towards
what his clouded vision
sees all too well
the way out
he told them, though it wasn’t true
that didn’t matter, now they knew
because the thing that had been said
was firmly stuck inside their head
though not the type that they should trust
believe him still they felt they must
forgetting that with such a liar
there’s often smoke without a fire
Over the last year, General Practice workload has increased to levels which are unmanageable, unsustainable and, on occasions, undoubtedly unsafe. Why is this? The reasons are undoubtedly many and varied but they do at least include the following.
1. The effects of Covid 19. Whilst a few patients continue to attend with delayed presentations of conditions that should have been dealt with a couple of years ago, far more significant is the fact that the pandemic has left many on long hospital waiting lists and who, as a result, find it necessary to visit their General Practice for interim help for conditions for which they require specialist care.
2. The underfunding over successive governments of an NHS which is now, as a consequence, on its knees but which, nonetheless, continues to be expected by everyone to be there whenever it is needed and able to provide all the care that is asked of it.
3. Increased patient numbers per GP because, despite government promises to the contrary, there has been a reduction in the total number of GPs nationally. Furthermore, in some areas, the closure of GP practices has seen the subsequent reallocation, often at short notice, of patients to neighbouring practices without the necessary additional staff being made available.
4. A surge in the number of those struggling with mental health problems often as a result of the measures taken to combat Covid 19. Social isolation has taken its toll on many, not least children and young people, as too has the economic hardship which now seems only likely to increase over the next year or two.
5. A negative media which has encouraged some to think that GPs are not doing their job properly and led many to demand more of us mistakenly imagining that we have the capacity to do so when in truth we do not.
6. Having been sold the lie that life should be without suffering, there are many who are now intolerant of even the most minor of problems and insist on treatment for things that in the past people would, perhaps, have accepted and put up with for longer. Add to this the fact that, as a consequence of our living in an ‘Amazon Prime’ culture where all our desires are guaranteed to be delivered free tomorrow, many find themselves unable to wait and so insist that their treatment must be ‘now’.
7. An inability of many to tolerate any degree of anxiety with a good number of those who now present to GP practices falling into that group of patients sometimes known as ‘the worried well’.
This last group I think is huge but it is the medical profession who must take much of the responsibility for their growing number. For it is not surprising that we have the worried well when, for years, we have told the well that they should worry. Neither is it surprising, then, that we find ourselves spending inordinate amounts of time dealing with those who are not ill at all.
So what we can do about it? Many of the problems mentioned are beyond our control and though we should still petition for a better NHS, continue to hold the government to account and endeavour to engage with the media to accurately describe the current crisis that we all now find ourselves facing, we need also to a accept that we can’t single handedly change the society in which we live.
What we can do though is rediscover what it is to be good doctors. So what is it that good doctors do?
Well, for a start, they care for patients. And irrespective of how strong the temptation may sometimes be to think otherwise, they remember that the patients are NOT the enemy!
We need to take up our posts once more and act as the gatekeepers of the NHS protecting hospitals from patients but, far more importantly, protecting our patients from hospitals. We need to stop being people pleasers, something I will find particularly hard, and seek to do what is right by our patients rather than that which is popular, telling them the truth rather than what they want to hear. We need to apply a little wisdom in our consultations and avoid falling into the trap of mindlessly following protocols and merely acting according to algorithms. And, instead of adding to the anxiety of our patients, we need to be prepared to carry some of their anxiety ourselves. Because taking on that responsibility is what being professional is all about.
And finally we need to remember what good doctors DON’T do. Good doctors don’t turn away those who are sick and no doctor should feel compelled to do so. To take such an action would be to play into the media’s narrative that we are reneging on our responsibilities as GPs, it would turn our patients against us and so lose their support which is so vital to us if we are to come out of this in one piece, and it would make the already difficult working lives of our receptionist even harder. And of course, rather than being gatekeepers to the hospital, it would make us those who had abandoned our post and left the gate wide open. To do so would be to dump on our friends and colleagues in secondary care who are themselves struggling every bit as much as we are.
So in short it would sadden me hugely if we were to ever cap the number of patients who could see us on any individual day, if we were ever to become a profession which refused to see those who came to us in genuine need and thus deny them the help which was most appropriately provided for them in primary care.
And whilst appreciating the reasons for taking such drastic measures, I hope that I’m not the only one who would be at least a little embarrassed to be associated with such a move if, as some are advocating, it were to be deemed necessary. I fully understand how difficult things are at present, but alternative solutions must be found. Because to be a part of such a profession would, for me at least, only worsen the situation by making my working life even less satisfying. For there is still a joy to be had in helping others in need, a pleasure that comes, not merely from miserably doing our duty and soullessly performing what is required of us, but that comes as a consequence of our being in the privileged position of being able to make a positive difference in the lives of so many.
And that is something we dare not lose.
Related posts:
To read ‘On Being Overwhelmed’ click here
To read ‘Bagpuss and the NHS’, click here
To read ‘Health – it’ll be the death of us. Is there institutional arrogance in the NHS?’, click here
To read ‘The NHS – the “S’” is for “Service”, not “Slave”’, click here
To click ‘Something to reflect on’, click here
To read ‘The Repair Shop’, click here
To read ‘The Medical Condition or Hannah Arendt is completely fine’, click here
To read ‘The Abolition of General Practice’, click here
To read ‘Blaming it on the Boogie’, click here
To read ‘On being crazy busy – a ticklish problem’, click here
To read ‘Too busy to be happy’, click here
To read ‘Contactless’, click here
To read ‘From A Distance’, click here
To read ‘General Practice – a sweet sorrow’, click here
To read ‘I’ll miss this when we’re gone’, click here
To read ‘The Reintroduction of GPs Anonymous’, click here
To read ‘Mr Benn – the GP’, click here
To read ‘A Bear called Paddington’, click here
To read ‘The Three Little GPs and the Big Bad Secretary of State for Health’, click here
To read ‘A Mission Impossible’, click here
To read ‘A Hard Year For Us All’, click here
“What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
Kate Atkinson, ‘Life After Life’
‘Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden’
From T.S. Eliot’s ‘Burnt Norton’
This week I have been watching ‘Life after Life’. Though, for me, it is was a flawed drama with a less than entirely satisfactory ending, the BBC series based on Kate Atkinson’s original novel does, nonetheless, present an interesting idea, one perhaps we have all at some time or another wished was true. What if, when we die, we had the chance to live our lives all over again, what if we were able to behave differently at key moments of our existence such that, as a result of acting better, the days that followed would run more smoothly for us and enable us to therefore avoid the pitfalls that in previous lifetimes we were made to endure?
Would we, I wonder, fare any better? Second time round, would we live a happier, more fulfilled, life? Or would we just find yet another of the infinite number of ways that are available to us to mess things up and so be forced to live an alternative but equally flawed existence complete with another, equally unsatisfactory, ending? And would we then be compelled to spend all eternity constantly working out our lives in an endlessly futile cycle, one in which we were always striving to do better, always hoping to somehow make everything all right?
Also this week I listened to the distress of a young woman. Not having benefited from the best efforts of those who have sought to help her with treatments of both the talking and pharmaceutical kind, she told me of her loneliness, her anxiety and her despair. She told me how she was tired and how she wanted it all to stop. And, without any sense of the melodramatic, she told me how she longed to die – more than that she told me how she needed to die if things were ever to get better. Because, for her, without any hope for the future, death seemed the only way to end the pain, the anguish that was hers as a result of existing in a world in which she felt she did not fit.
But, of course, were she to die, there would be no second chance for her. As for countless others before her, there would be no opportunity to live life differently. And though perhaps her distress would be over, that of those left behind, that of those who love her and already know what it is to sorrow over her sadness, would surely only increase.
So what is the answer? Is there an answer at all? Is my young woman right when she says it’s all just pointless?
I for one am not that nihilistic. And whilst I don’t have all the answers that I would like to have for those who struggle as this young woman does, I nonetheless refuse to believe that her struggle is without meaning, I refuse to believe that it has no purpose. And so, believing that suffering can be redemptive, believing it can even be the means by which suffering itself is ultimately brought to an end, I will, at least, continue to care and, in so doing, endeavour, as best I can, to know something of her distress, share a little of her sadness and bear with her the burden of her sorrow.
And though she may have given up hope, I will not. I will hope for her, continuing to believe what she cannot – that a better tomorrow is on its way. And this, not merely in some imagined parallel universe conjured up by the imaginations of those who cannot face the genuine awfulness that is all too often apparent in the one we already know. On the contrary, I will continue to hope for a better tomorrow for this beautiful yet broken world, a better tomorrow when, not only hers but all our tears will have been wiped away, suffering will be no more and each and every one of us will have found a place that we can call our home.
Because when that ‘life after life’ finally comes, all this ‘death before death’ can be forgotten.
And won’t that be wonderful?
Related blogs:
To read ‘General Practice – A Sweet Sorrow’, click here
To read ‘Eleanor Rigby is not at all fine’, click here
To read ‘Do you hear the people sing?’, click here
To read ‘An Audience with Grief’, click here
The following are explicitly Christian blogs:
To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read ‘Good Friday 2022’, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
To read ‘The World is not Enough’, click here
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
It was eight days after his resurrection that Jesus appeared to the disciple who is generally remembered, perhaps unfairly, as the one who was slow to believe that Jesus was indeed alive once more. But, despite the fact that ‘doubting’ Thomas is frequently given a bad press, I would like to say that I am genuinely grateful to him.
For the account that we read in John 20:26-29 reassures me that, despite those living in first century Jerusalem being just as unlikely to believe a story about a dead man coming back to life as those who are living today, so convincing was the evidence for the resurrection that, when presented with it, even a dyed in the wool sceptic like Thomas could not help but believe that the seemingly unbelievable had in fact taken place. And so, face to face with the risen Christ, an intellectually honest Thomas followed that evidence and rightly declared Jesus to be both his Lord and his God.
After Thomas believed the evidence that his eyes would not allow him to deny, Jesus said to him, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ In saying these words Jesus was referring to us. But the reason that we can believe without seeing is, partly, the result of Thomas not being able to believe until he did see.
John tells us that he wrote his gospel so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, by believing, we may have life in his name [John 20:31]. Our faith, therefore, is partly down to the fact that Thomas’ story was there to be recorded, a story of one who, initially doubtful, demanded the evidence that we all need if we are to have confidence that a faith placed in Jesus is a faith placed in one who can be wholly depended upon.
Confident then that He really is alive, may we, like Thomas, follow the evidence and, therefore, gladly recognise Jesus to be our Lord and our God too.
For, thanks in part to Thomas, we all have very good reason to do so!
Related blogs:
To read ‘Good Friday 2022’, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
To read, ‘The Resurrection – is it Rhubarb?’, click here
To read, ‘Real Love?’, click here
To read ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
It was January 2021 and Lady Penelope was taking tea in the drawing room of Creighton-Ward Mansion when her chauffeur, Parker, appeared at the door.
‘I’m sorry to bother you milady’ he began, ‘but the Secretary of State for Health is on the phone. He’s at some Downing Street party and wondering if you’d care to join him’.
‘Not him again,’ replied Lady Penelope striding over to where Parker was holding the phone. ‘When will that lecherous little man realise I don’t want to have anything to do with him. And, what’s more, to attend a social gathering in the present circumstances is completely wrong and whilst some in government may consider themselves above the law, this lady of the realm most certainly does not! Give me the phone Parker, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind’.
Lady Penelope took the phone from Parker and, before the caller could say a word, that’s exactly what she proceeded to do.
‘Mr Secretary of State’ she growled down the line, ‘you should be ashamed of yourself, partying whilst daily Covid deaths sore ever higher. You need to do something and do something quick. If you had any sense you’d be calling on those who can always be relied upon in an emergency. If I was you, I’d be calling on the new primary care wing of International Rescue.’
And with that Lady Penelope ended the call and threw herself down onto the chaise lounge that was situated by her side.
‘That’s the way to deal with men like that Parker. Now, if you would be so good as to bring me another pot of Earl Grey I’d be most awfully grateful. And, perhaps, a large measure of Talisker to accompany it. Speaking to people like that leave one somewhat in need of a restorative.’
*****
Meanwhile, far away on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific, Jeff Tracey was in a meeting with two of his five GP sons, the other three joining them via Zoom from International Rescue’s space station. Also present were other allied members of the organisation. They were all discussing what their response should be to the news they had recently received from Lady Penelope. In her role as special agent in London, she had discovered that their evil nemesis, ‘The Hood’, had managed to infiltrate British politics and subsequently risen to become Prime Minister. By employing his powers of hypnosis he had even managed to convince a large proportion of the electorate that he was both a competent and respectable national leader.
Their deliberations were interrupted when the phone on Jeff Tracey’s desk flashed red indicating that a distress call was being received. Picking up the phone and listening to the voice on the other end of the line, he echoed back the callers opening words.
‘You say you’ve had a wonderful idea?’ He said, his voice suggesting that he doubted that such a thing was possible. Covering the mouthpiece of the phone he indicated to the others that it was the Secretary of State for Health who was calling. He then continued the call, repeating key statements so as to convey to the gist of what was being said to everyone one else who was in the room. ‘No I didn’t see the announcement on the television this evening…a national vaccination programme to commence tomorrow you say…with jabs being made available in local centres right across the country.’
When at last the caller had finished speaking, Jeff paused for a moment, considering his reply.
‘Well you might have thought to speak to us before you made such an announcement to the general public. General Practice may well be ideally positioned and though the efforts of those who work within it are not infrequently superhuman, it remains the case that each and every person who makes up the primary care workforce, as well as those who work elsewhere in the NHS, are ordinary individuals whose willingness to help cannot, and must not, be taken for granted in this way. Even so, since International Rescue exists for the sole purpose of saving human life, we will do all we can to help. You can rely on us.’
Ending the call Jeff looked around the room and formulated his plan. First he gave instructions to his bespectacled lead scientist.
‘Brains, you and Tin Tin, must work alongside those infinitely resourceful and wonderfully capable practice managers and coordinate the implementation of the delivery of the vaccine.’
‘Just as you say, Mr Tracey. We’ll get on to it immediately’. Brains and his trusted assistant stood up and made their way to the door. Then Jeff Tracey turned to the two sons who were present with him in the room.
‘Scott, you take Thunderbird 1. I want you to be first on the ground overseeing the set up of vaccination centres across the country. Tap into the eagerness to help, not only of GPs but also of practice nurses, admin staff and receptionists and thus pull together a team capable of delivering the largest vaccination program in history. And Virgil, with Pod 6 packed full of vials of Pfizer, Modena and AZ vaccines, you are to take Thunderbird 2 and distribute them the length and breath of the UK. Have you got that boys.’
‘F.A.B. Father. Thunderbirds are Go!’
And so began the roll out of the highly effective national vaccination programme, the like of which the country had never seen before. Shy of publicity, and eager to keep their identity a secret, International Rescue members smiled inwardly to themselves as those in Government sought, perhaps, to take a little too much credit for what was actually achieved as a result of the tireless efforts of countless individuals. Still, it was enough for those involved to know that there’s was a job well done.
*****
A year or so later, a lone GP sat at his desk and waited for the lateral flow test that he had just taken to reveal it’s result. It had been another long day and as the last consultation had drawn to a close Dr Mungo had begun to feel slightly unwell. Perhaps he was just worn out given how impossible the job had become. Workload had never been so heavy and patient demand had never been so high. It was no surprise of course, given the ever lengthening list of those waiting for hospital treatment, the surge in patients suffering with poor mental health and a workforce crises that was resulting in the collapse of GP practices right across the country. Furthermore, GP morale, already at an all time low, was only being made worse by criticism in the press, a criticism, tacitly endorsed by some in government, that suggested that it was simply lazy and overpaid GPs who were responsible for the problems that the NHS was experiencing.
‘Oh that you could get an ambulance as quickly as the result of a Covid test’, Dr Mungo said to himself recalling how he’d had to wait three hours for an emergency response vehicle to arrive having called for one earlier in the day for a patient experiencing marked difficulty in breathing. ‘Well that’s me working from home for the next week or so.’ he sighed as the second red line appeared in the window of the plastic test that lay on the desk in front of him. He didn’t relish the prospect. It wasn’t only that his being away would put additional strain on the practice, it was also that he did so hate consulting remotely and not being able to see his patients face to face.
As he sat with his head in hands, he remembered something that an aristocratic friend of his had once said to him. Penny, as he had known her, had told him that, were he ever to find himself in dire need of help, there was a number he could call that would be sure to lead to him receiving the assistance he required. He’d kept a note of number she’d given him ever since and he now scrolled through his contacts desperate to make use of it. At last he found it. ‘Under I’, he said to himself smiling, ‘just as you’d expect.’
He entered the number into his phone and waited for what seemed like an age. Eventually a voice came onto the line.
‘Hello’ it said hesitantly. ‘Can I help?’
‘Is that ‘International Rescue?’ Dr Mungo asked, questioning for a moment if he might have misdialled given how uncertain the one who answered his call seemed.
‘Well it used to be’, came the reply. ‘I’m just the caretaker. Most of the others have gone now, what with all the changes we’ve had round here. It’s the funding you see. We used to get some government support but that all dried up, as a result of all the money that was wasted on the crippling expensive, not to mention disastrously ineffective, test and trace service, the budget for which was greater than that for the whole of primary care. And then there was the stress of it all. Scott left to take up a job stacking shelves in a local supermarket and Virgil eventually burnt out and joined the ranks of the long term sick, his precarious mental state evidenced by the fact that he began writing pastiches whose storylines were as stilted as the movements of the characters in a Gerry Anderson TV series of the 1960s. The Thunderbirds themselves have all been decommissioned and sold for scrap – except for Thunderbird 4 that is. Dr Gordon Tracey continues to offer a service as best he can but, without Thunderbird 2 to transport the yellow submersible, it isn’t always possible to reach people in as timely a fashion as he would like. Even so, I’m sure he’ll do what he can if you know someone who’s drowning.’
‘Oh I know a few of those’, Dr Mungo whispered in response, ‘but not in the way you’re thinking. I’m not sure your submarine will be of much help to them.’
And with a ‘Thanks anyway’ not dissimilar to those he’d heard from patients who had sometimes left his consulting room seemingly dissatisfied with what he’d been able to offer them, Dr Mungo said his goodbyes and ended the call.
‘Thunderbirds are go’ he thought to himself. Not any longer. Now it was more a case of ‘Thunderbirds are gone’.
And he wondered how long it would be before the same would be said of General Practices too.
Other GP related stories:
To read ‘Bagpuss and the NHS’, click here
To read ‘Mr Benn – the GP’, click here
To read ‘A Bear called Paddington’, click here
To read ‘The Three Little GPs and the Big Bad Secretary of State for Health’, click here
To read ‘Dr Wordle and the Mystery Diagnosis’, click here
To read ‘A Mission Impossible’, click here
To read ‘Jeeves and the Hormone Deficiency’, click here
To read the whole of ‘The Scrooge Chronicles’, click here
To read ‘The Happy Practice – A Cautionary Tale’, click here
To read ‘A Grimm Tale’, click here
To read ‘The General Practitioner – Endangered’, click here
Other related posts:
To read ‘On being Overwhelmed’, click here
To read ‘On Not Remotely Caring’, click here
To read ‘Vaccinating to Remain Susceptible’ click here
To read ‘Shot of Love’, click here
Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Happy, yet always sad.
It was true last year in times of pandemic.
And it’s true this year in times of war.
Trouble abounds.
Though Covid 19, for the time being at least, may be less on our minds than the events in Ukraine, what remains abundantly clear is that difficulties continue to surround us and make up part of all our lives. Even so, it is still the case that there are things for which we can be grateful, things that, though they do not nullify our ongoing distress, can nonetheless cause us to smile. Similarly, how ever good our lives may be at present, there remain those things that persist in pulling us down. The truth is that sadness and happiness coexist, neither one ever entirely absent, each simultaneously intensifying and diminishing the other. There is for all of us, pleasure in our sadness, heartbreak in our delight. I see it on the news, I see it in my patients, I see it in myself – genuine causes for sorrow sat alongside sources of real joy.
Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Happy, yet always sad.
Perhaps we cannot know what happiness really is without knowing the pain of sorrow and, for sorrow to be fully realised, perhaps it requires us to have had the experience of knowing what it is to be truly happy. If so, if we are to be happy, it must be alongside our sadness and we must not insist that all sorrow is gone before allowing ourselves to be happy any more than we should deny our sadness simply because there are things for which we can be happy.
Life is not black or white, it is a kaleidoscope of grey. Paradoxically we can be happy and sad at the same time. We can smile even as we cry.
Today is Good Friday – a day like no other, a day on which I find it helpful to ponder such things. For me it helps to make make life more meaningful, more understandable, more bearable. Perhaps it will for you too.
Because even the eternally happy God knows what it is to weep.
What follows is the same as I posted this time last year. I repeat myself for no other reason than what was true in days of pandemic, is still true in times of war.
I remain sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Happy, yet always sad.
One Maundy Thursday I wished a good friend of mine a happy Easter break. He hesitated however to return my good wishes because, he said, that he understood that Good Friday was a day for Christians like me to be miserable. It got me thinking to what extent he was he right.
Paul, writing in his second letter to the Corinthians, describes Christians as, ‘Sorrowful yet always rejoicing’ [2 Corinthians 6:10]. If such a paradoxical existence was the reality for Christians back in Paul’s day, it is surely no less true a reality for Christians living the 21st Century. ‘Good Friday’, the name we give today, is itself a paradox – for how can we apply the adjective ‘good’ to describe the day of Christ’s crucifixion? For sure, it is a day on which Christians should grieve over their sin and what it was that Jesus had to suffer in order to secure their redemption, but, at the same time, it is a day for rejoicing in the triumph of his sacrifice as we anticipate and remember his subsequent resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday.
‘Sorrowful yet always rejoicing’ – it was the experience of Paul and it was also the experience of Jesus himself. For he was himself ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’ [Isaiah 53:5]. Matthew recalls the words of Jesus to Peter, James and John, in the Garden of Gethsemane:
“My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” [Matthew 26:38].
And yet the writer to the Hebrews has it that Jesus, ‘for the joy that was set before him endured the cross’ [Hebrews 12:2].
Suffering, then, is not the end of joy – it can even be the passage to joy. Again this is not a contradiction – but it is a paradox! A paradox that the second thief, even as he was being crucified alongside Jesus, understood. There he was, in just about as bad a position as it is possible for a person to be in, minutes away from an excruciating death, when he, nonetheless, made his remarkable request:
‘Jesus,’, he said, ‘remember me when you come into your kingdom’ [Luke 23:42].
Like everybody else that day, the second thief saw Jesus suffering and dying on a cross. But unlike the religious rulers, the Roman soldiers and the other thief who was also being crucified that day, he didn’t see defeat. He continued to speak of Jesus as one who was coming into his kingdom. For him Jesus’ death didn’t mean an end to all the kingdom and salvation talk. Whilst all those others, those who mocked Jesus as they watched him die, were looking for a salvation FROM death, the second thief saw that the salvation Jesus was bringing about was a salvation THROUGH death.
Jesus’ death wasn’t the end of Christ kingdom, on the contrary, his death was its beginning.
This is a profound truth – one we do well to try and grasp some understanding of.
Far from a simple faith, the second thief’s faith was remarkable. And it is on account of his wonderful faith that we should not be surprised by Jesus when he responds to him with these words:
‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise’ [Luke 23:43].
Jesus saw in the second thief somebody who got it! Somebody who trusted the power of God despite seeing that which to unspiritual eyes was nothing but weakness. Somebody who saw victory where most saw only defeat. Somebody, indeed, who understood the paradox of Good Friday.
That suffering is not irredeemable,
That sorrow is not incompatible with joy,
That even the darkest nights can be followed by the brightest days.
‘Sorrowful yet always rejoicing’?
It was the experience of Paul. It was the experience of Jesus. It was the experience of the second thief. And it will be our experience too.
Some of us are sick? Some of us mourn the loss of loved ones? Some of us worry over our future? Some of us have experienced great tragedy in our lives – some recently, some longer ago but who nonetheless still feel the pain just as keenly as if it were yesterday.
There is indeed much today for us to be sorrowful over. Some Christian types can sometimes well meaningly suggest we should always be happy. ‘Smile’, they say, ‘Jesus loves you’. But though they are right to proclaim the truth that God really does love us, they are wrong to suggest that we should never be sad, for even the eternally happy God knows what it is to cry. [1 Timothy 1:11, Luke 22:62]. Even Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, his grief no less intense for knowing that he would soon bring him back to life. [John 11:35].
Perhaps, then, even God knows what it is to be sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
So it’s not wrong to be sad, it’s simply normal. The Bible never tells us to masochistically rejoice about our suffering. But it does tell us to rejoice in our suffering.
Because despite our sorrow – there is much to rejoice over! We truly are loved with an everlasting love, a love that transcends our current struggle, a love that means that we too can be sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
As we suffer we can rejoice because of the Gospel. The good news is that Good Friday was followed by Easter Day, that Jesus died for our sins, bearing the punishment we deserve, and that when he rose from the dead Jesus proved the sufficiency of his sacrifice. By it we are justified, counted righteous, declared to be ‘not guilty’.
Some of us grieve over our unrighteousness and can not even lift our eyes to heaven. We beat our breasts and cry out, ‘Have mercy on me, a sinner’ [Luke 18:13] But because of Jesus’ work on the cross on our behalf we are made right with God – regardless of our current situation.
Not because of our worth – but because of his grace.
Not because of what we do – but because of what he did.
Not because we are lovely – but because he is loving.
So, if you’re sorrowful today, remember you’re not alone, God weeps with you. And know that, because of Jesus, his life, death and resurrection, ‘Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.’ [Psalm 30:5].
It’s Good Friday – but Easter Sunday is coming. Because of what took place over those two days nearly 2000 years ago, we can know real forgiveness for all those sins that we so bitterly regret, no matter how great they are.
But if that were not enough to rejoice over this Eastertide, we can also look to the future with a certain hope. Suffering is all too real today but the day is coming when God ‘will wipe away every tear form [our] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things [will] have passed away.’ [Revelation 21:4]
‘So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal’. [2 Corinthians 4:16-18]
It’s Good Friday – but Easter Sunday is coming.
So may we all know happiness this Eastertide – even those of us who are sorrowful.
Especially those who are sorrowful.
Related blogs:
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
To read ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read ‘Covid -19. Does it suggest we really did have the experience but miss the meaning?’, click here. This is a slightly adapted version of “T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’.
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
Yesterday would have been my mother-in-law’s birthday. Almost two years on from her death we spent much of the day with my father-in-law. Flicking through old photographs I was reminded of how it’s not only the dead that are mourned – there are those who grieve for the good times that once were commonplace, for the laughing child who now no longer smiles, for the wasted years that will never be recovered. Later we had lunch in the restaurant of a garden centre where my mother-in law used to like to go for coffee. Sitting at what was once her favourite table, the memories again came back. But she didn’t. All we had were the memories – and the memories weren’t enough.
This week, for a great many, what there was, wasn’t enough.
For some, what they had in the bank wasn’t enough to pay for them to have sufficient heating.
For some, the protection afforded by the law wasn’t enough to stop them from being brutally murdered.
For some, the NHS wasn’t enough to cure them of their disease.
For some, their own sense of self wasn’t enough to get them out of bed in the morning.
For some, the combined force of NATO and the United Nations wasn’t enough to prevent them from becoming victims of the atrocities of war.
And for some, it was me who wasn’t enough. Not strong enough, not wise enough, not kind enough. Not for those who needed me to have been far more of all these things, not for those who discovered that I too wasn’t enough for them.
This week, in a world of grief, a world filled with so much sadness, so much pain and so much suffering, there have been those for whom the whole of the world wasn’t enough. And, for far too many, it won’t be enough next week either.
Because sooner or later, everyone needs more than the world has to give. More than we have to give.
No wonder then that sometimes work is hard. We are overwhelmed by what we can do, let alone by what we can’t. What we are asked to do each day doesn’t just seem impossible, impossible is what it all too often really is.
So let’s not be surprised when we are not enough, let’s not add to how difficult it is by being that unfair on ourselves. For there is no shame in being asked for more than we’ve got and only being able to give all that we have.
Three blogs which, in my head at least, make up a trilogy on the subject of burnout:
To read ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’, click here
To read ‘When the Jokes on You’, click here
To read ‘With great power…’, click here
And one blog on the dangers of perfectionism:
To read ‘Professor Ian Aird’ – A Time to Die?’, click here
A couple of stories about GP life:
To read ‘Mr Benn – the GP’, click here
To read ‘A Bear called Paddington’, click here
Other related posts:
To read ‘On being crazy busy – a ticklish problem’, click here
To read ‘Blaming it on the Boogie’, click here
To read ‘Health – it’ll be the death of us. Is there institutional arrogance in the NHS?’, click here
To read ‘Eleanor Rigby is not at all fine’, click here
To read ‘Hearing the grass grow’, click here
To read ‘The Repair Shop’, click here
To read ‘Gratitude and Regret’, click here
To read ‘An audience for grief’, click here
To read ‘Do you hear the people sing?’, click here
To read ‘General Practice – A Sweet Sorrow’, click here
And finally, a couple of explicitly Christian blogs to finish with:
To read ‘Rest Assured’, click here
To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read ‘Because the world is not enough’, a version of the above blog with a Christian twist, click here
alone today
she dies
a little more
.
a silent tear
now screams the fear
of her defeat
.
no more fight
no more rage against
the dying of the light
.
so alone
tonight she’ll die
just a little more
Related Blogs:
To read ‘together in line’, click here
To read ‘the wrong patient’, click here
To read ‘beaten’, click here
To read ‘Resting in Pieces’, click here
To read ‘Crushed’, click here
To read ‘Masked’, click here
To read ‘She’s The Patient You Don’t Know You Have’, click here
He’s older now – and frailer, his footsteps not so sure,
He lingers for a moment – outside the shut front door,
The house, his home of fifty years or more,
No longer his.
.
He hopes
It’s for the best,
He’s moving closer.
.
Reluctantly he takes the arm of one who’s standing near,
His failing health and frequent falls her ever present fear,
What if, with none his cries for help to hear,
He lay alone?
.
She feels
It’s for the best,
He’s moving closer.
.
The years have all too quickly passed, the months, the years, the days,
Her memories forever strong, his fading in the haze,
It won’t be long the parting of the ways,
They know too well.
.
Slipping away,
It’s for the best,
He’s moving closer.
For many this week, what there was, wasn’t enough.
For some, what they had in the bank wasn’t enough to pay for them to have sufficient heating.
For some, the protection afforded by the law wasn’t enough to stop them from being brutally murdered.
For some, the NHS wasn’t enough to cure them of their disease.
For some, their own sense of self wasn’t enough to get them out of bed in the morning.
For some, the combined force of NATO and the United Nations wasn’t enough to prevent them from becoming victims of the atrocities of war.
And for some, it was me who wasn’t enough. Not strong enough, not wise enough, not kind enough. Not for those who needed me to have been more of all these things, not for those who discovered that I too wasn’t good enough for them.
This week, in a world of grief, a world filled with so much sadness, so much pain, and so much suffering, there have been those for whom the whole world was not enough. And, for far too many, it won’t be enough next week either.
Life is hard – we are overwhelmed by what we can do, let alone by what we can’t. What is asked of us doesn’t just seem impossible – impossible is what it all too often really is. So then, let’s not be surprised when we are not enough because everyone sometimes needs more than the world has to give and there is no shame in being asked for more than we’ve got and only being able to give all that we have.
Even so, wouldn’t it be great if there was someone who was enough, someone who could do what we cannot?
Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, the day on which we remember how Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. As he travelled, cheered on by the people who welcomed him as their king, thousands of lambs were also being driven into the city in preparation for Passover, the Jewish festival that recalled how, back when they were enslaved in Egypt, the angel of death passed over those households where the blood of a lamb had been daubed on the doorposts of Jewish homes thus sparing the life of the eldest son within.
Like those lambs, Jesus too would soon be slaughtered. For five days later, on that first Good Friday, rejected by the people who had once rejoiced at his coming and now wearing only a crown of thorns, he would allow himself to be crucified. But unlike the blood of animals which was never enough to deal with sin and which was only ever meant to point towards this greater sacrifice, Jesus blood, shed for us on the cross, really is sufficient to take away our sin, secure God’s forgiveness and guarantee that, even though we all will one day die, those who trust him will, nonetheless, go on to live forever. And it is Jesus himself who assures us that this is true, the one who, as he raised Lazarus from the dead, declared himself to be the resurrection and the life [John 11:25], the one who, by his own resurrection, proved this was no idle claim. For as John the Baptist recognised some three years earlier, Jesus really is the true lamb of God, the one who really does take away the sin of the world [John 1:29].
This week, therefore, whatever your need, whatever the thorn in your flesh might be, know that God’s grace is sufficient for you [2 Corinthians 12:9]. Though the pain may yet linger, though the suffering may still continue on, there is a certain hope for a better tomorrow, a day when every tear will be wiped from our eyes and death shall be no more. [Revelation 21:4]
Because, for all those who, like me, know themselves not to be good enough, the good news is that, though we should all still try to make a positive difference in the lives of others, the final outcome does not ultimately depend on us. The genuinely good news, the gospel no less, is that Jesus is the one on whom we can depend. Being perfectly good, he alone is good enough.
And as we travel through Holy Week we can be sure that his cross, his blood, his mercy, grace, and deep deep love are more than good enough for us all.
Related blogs:
To read ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac – Law or Gospel?’ click here
To read ‘Water from a Rock’, click here
To read “Good Friday – 2021”, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
To read, ‘The Resurrection – is it just rhubarb?’, click here
To read ‘Don’t forget to be ordinary if you want to be happy’, click here
To read, ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read, ‘True Love?’, click here
To read, ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read, ‘Hope Comes From Believing The Promises Of God’, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
‘At the end of the day you’re another day older
And that’s all you can say for the life of the poor’
This week I went to see Wellington School’s production of Les Misérables. It was a genuinely magnificent show with some truly wonderful performances. All those involved are to be congratulated for their achievements.
But as I watched I couldn’t help thinking how those present were made up only of those who can and those who have. On stage there was no room for those who can not – for those who, never mind walking out to perform in front of a full house, find it difficult to leave their homes each morning and who struggle to make eye contact with their next door neighbour. And in the audience there was no room for those who have not, for those who, never mind the £10 ticket price, worry if they will be able to find another 50p for the electricity meter.
Les Misérables aren’t confined to 19th century France – they are very much part of 21st century Britain. They interact with us daily. Do you hear the people sing? I doubt it. And if you can, more than likely it’s a lament. For their distress isn’t a cue to pour out their souls by way of a plaintive melody. On the contrary, their genuine heartache, their real struggle and intense sadness is, at the end of the day, a prompt only for tears. And not theirs only.
One can’t help feeling that if we think we have it hard, others have it very much harder. And, with yesterday’s sharp rise in fuel prices and the rapidly increasing cost of living, one can only foresee that, for many, things are about to get very much worse.
Where I wonder will they turn?
If we think we are overwhelmed by the needs of others now, one can only imagine how much worse it’s soon going to become.
When tomorrow comes.
Even so, there is hope. Les Misérables is a story rich in Christian imagery and the musical finishes with these hopeful words:
‘Do you hear the people sing lost in the valley of the night? It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light. For the wretched of the earth there is a flame that never dies. Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.’
Because, at the end of the day, there is a day after tomorrow. And whilst, in the meantime, it doesn’t excuse a lack of compassion on our part, it is nonetheless good to know that there is a day coming when we ‘will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord, we will walk behind the ploughshare, we will put away the sword. The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward.’
Somewhere beyond the barricade, there really is a better world – one that I too long to see.
Perhaps, then, there is cause for singing after all.
Related posts:
To read ‘Eleanor Rigby is not at all fine’, click here
To read ‘Hearing the grass grow’, click here
To read ‘The Repair Shop’, click here
To read ‘Gratitude and Regret’, click here
To read ‘When the jokes on you’, click here
To read ‘An audience for grief’, click here
To read ‘Greneral Practice – A Sweet Sorrow’, click here
And some explicitly Christian posts:
To read ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read, ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read ‘Hope comes from believing the promises of God’, click here
We are now two years into the coronavirus pandemic and, although cases are increasing again currently, there is, perhaps, still a little light just about visible on the horizon. And perhaps there are some things we we can learn by looking back on the last 24 months.
1. It is possible to be content with less
Rather than constantly striving to gain more from this life, we would do well to be content to enjoy the gift of life we already have. We can eat drink and be merry, not merely because, with our death perhaps imminent, that is all there is, but rather because today we are alive, and there is food, drink and merriment to be enjoyed. We should be thankful for all that we have already been given and encourage our patients to be thankful too, especially those who seem unreasonably dissatisfied with their minor concerns. Discontent breeds unhappiness and causes us to waste too much time in pursuing the unattainable.
2. Much of this life is uncertain.
We do not know what tomorrow will bring, still less that which will occur next week, next month, next year. We are not the masters of our fate, nor that of those we love or indeed those for whom we care professionally. It is foolish to imagine or insist that we can control even our small corner of the world and, while not encouraging a careless disregard for the safety of others, it is foolish for us to try. Furthermore we should not be too surprised when the unexpected occurs, regardless of how unwelcome that occurrence might be.
3. There is much that we do not, and cannot, know.
And there is plenty that is not for us to ever know at all. With experts often in disagreement and governmental advice changing daily, it became clear that neither scientists nor politicians can be expected to guide us infallibly in how best to proceed. Since even science is not omniscient, wisdom dictates that we acknowledge how little we truly understand. We should neither arrogantly pretend that we invariably know best nor intolerantly criticise those who clearly don’t know either. Everyone makes mistakes and all of us are allowed to sometimes be wrong.
An unhealthy and excessive fear of death enslaves us. While it is perhaps only human to be anxious at the prospect of our death, only ever acting in ways that reduce our chances of dying serves only to make us less humane. Furthermore, submitting to another set of rules does not necessarily guarantee our safety, and there comes a point when our attempting to do so leaves us with no reason to remain alive, as we fail to live the life we have been given. Such a life would be nothing more than a living death.
4. Some people may be old but they’re no less human as a consequence.
In the early days of the vaccination programme, the joy of meeting and vaccinating those frail but affable and life-affirming individuals who found themselves most vulnerable to COVID-19, was a vivid reminder that older people count. They must not be disregarded, lost in the statistics which can too easily suggest that their death, on account of their multiple pathologies and advanced years, doesn’t matter. We mustn’t become immune to the sadness that surrounds death, no matter how inevitable it may be.
5. It’s not only the exceptional that are worthy of our care.
Remarkable though the achievements of Captain Tom were, the week he died another frail, older man died, also as a result of COVID-19. Few will know his name, only those who loved him for who he was. Many of them will, themselves, not have been fully aware of the ‘heroics’ of his life — how he worked to provide for his family, how, year after difficult year, he was there for his children, and how it was his habit to show kindness to those he lived alongside in the community where he made his home. His too, in its ordinariness, was a remarkable life. Similarly, the frail, older woman who, that same week, covered in a sea of blankets and confined to the chair in which she was wheeled to my vaccination station, was, despite her crumpled body, closed eyes and mute lips, no less worthy than her more able peers of her dose of vaccine, a shot of love.
It is good to herald the exceptional achievements of individuals, but we do, I think, need to be a little careful that in doing so we don’t lose sight of the value of the ordinary. Most of us will not achieve greatness in the eyes of the world, but our everyday contributions still make a significant difference to those among whom we live and work. Furthermore, as my vaccinated, older woman demonstrates, our value isn’t lost the moment we no longer contribute or achieve in the way we may once have done.
Life shouldn’t be competitive, a race to see who wins, rather it should be collaborative, ensuring we all get to the finish line in as fit a state as is possible. Constantly judging each other’s worth, on the basis of our achievements does none of us any good, burdening as it does the currently ‘successful’ with the need to maintain their lofty position while demonising and demoralising those who are deemed to have failed. We, and those with whom we live alongside, need to learn how to be kinder to one another, accepting each other and acknowledging our humanness. We need to stop insisting that we all must be more than we actually are and start, instead, to accept one another despite our being the flawed people we, inevitably, sometimes prove ourselves to be. Because we would all feel a lot more loved if we all became a lot more loving. [More on the nature of love from my own Christian perspective can be read here].
6. We must seek to keep what is vital from being lost.
As doctors, one way to think of our work is that of seeking to keep what is vital from being lost. But we are not up to such a task. We all fail, every day. There are some things we just can’t succeed at, no matter how hard we try. So, as we consult with our patients, perhaps we should sometimes cease from our constant striving to achieve those things which we cannot hope to succeed at and seek instead to remember together what it is that we are all a part of.
Leaving aside any religious convictions, there are those who believe that we live on after our death, as part of humankind’s continuous existence. It’s a comforting notion — but is it one that’s true? For, no matter how prettily we try to wrap it up, the ugly reality is that we do all die. Even so, perhaps there is something worth thinking about here. If we make our lives only about ourselves and what we can experience or achieve, all of what we are will indeed die with us. But if we are part of something bigger, something we gladly accept our being a part of, something vast that continues on beyond the few years of our existence, then there is a sense in which what we are does indeed continue after our death.
Sometimes we, as well as our patients, would do well to be encouraged to appreciate this bigger picture. Because sometimes, rather than looking in, it is better to look out, rather than looking down, it’s better to look up, and rather than looking forward, it’s better to look back.
Without denying the ugliness of death, we all need to remember the beauty of life. There are moments that we do indeed need to fix as they go past, moments that ground us in something bigger than the here and now, moments that will stop us from being lost in our own individual present and, perhaps, enable us to muster some hope for our future. Maybe it is the inability to do this that contributes to the tragedy of dementia, that cruel disease that vividly displays for us the importance of our need to remember. The fact is that we are not meant to live merely in the moment, we aren’t meant to live such lonely, disconnected lives.
7. We need to leave behind remote ways of consulting
Which brings me to my last point, our need to leave behind the remote way of consulting that has become our abnormally ‘new normal’. Back in the 1960, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist from the US, published the results of studies which showed an alarming willingness on the part of subjects to act against their conscience when told to do so by authority figures. Furthermore he demonstrated that individuals tended to act less compassionately towards those with whom they had less contact on account of them seemingly being less concerned about the welfare of those they could not see.
I wonder if this has something to say to those who have been encouraged to remain remote from our patients. Leaving aside the dangers of missing important diagnoses and the withholding of human contact from those who really would profit simply from sometimes seeing us, could it be that working remotely has adverse effects on us too? Might it be that the less contact we have with those for whom we are supposed to care leaves us less concerned about their welfare than we might otherwise have been? Might we too find ourselves just going through the motions? And if that is the case for us, might it also be the case for our patients who, on account of having less contact with us, end up less concerned about us and, as a result, less forgiving of us when things don’t go as well as they would like?
At the start of the pandemic we heard a lot about the so-called ‘new normal’ but there has been nothing normal about the virtual world we have been living and working in. We are all diminished by such a virtual existence. As restrictions continue to be lifted we mustn’t be tempted to hold on to our remote methods of consulting, or, at least, not too tightly. For though some problems may genuinely benefit from such an approach many do not. And even though some conditions can be managed perfectly safely over the phone, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t better dealt with face-to-face. I know for sure there have been occasions when I have made better, more humane, decisions as a result of seeing a patient I might otherwise have been tempted to manage from a distance.
Since, as Milgram’s experiments seem to suggest, remote care runs the risk of us not remotely caring, avoiding patient contact is detrimental for both patients and doctors alike. Furthermore, by working at arm’s length from our patients, we have allowed much of the satisfaction that the job once held to slip through our fingers. As restrictions begin to lift, rather than holding onto the remote consulting that some see as more efficient, I believe we should once again make face to face consultations with patients our normal working practice. By doing so, not only will we providing better care, but we also begin to grab back some of the job satisfaction that has been lost of late.
Three years ago, I wrote of my unease about how medicine was being encouraged to adopt more remote ways of delivering health care. [that article, entitled ‘Contactless’ can be read here.] I never imagined then that I would be practicing the way I have been forced to for much of the last two years, encouraged as I have been to avoid patient contact wherever possible. Such a remote existence must not be allowed to become the norm, not for medicine, nor, indeed, for any other area of our day-to-day lives. Because it’s simply not healthy.
Humans are social creatures. To fully live we need to have contact with one another, we need to touch. When lovers kiss, it’s more than just a sign of their love, it is an act of love too. And that’s important because more than simply knowing we’re loved, we need to feel it too.
We need to be present in each other’s lives. Life alone is hard and so, when it seems there is nothing one can do, to simply be there is of genuine value.
In ‘Out of Solitude’ Henri Nouwen wrote:
‘When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.’
Perhaps that is also the type of GP who cares. If Milgram’s experiments have anything at all to teach us, perhaps it is this: that it is not simply that those who care will draw close to those in difficulty but rather it is those who draw close to those in difficulty who will find themselves caring for others in ways that they wouldn’t otherwise have been able.
Over the coming months let’s look to leave social distancing behind — in all its forms. And let’s look to sit down with, and care for, each other once more. Because living a contactless life isn’t a remotely good idea. It would be shocking to think otherwise.
This article was published in the BJGP in March 2022 under the title ‘General Practice after Covid-19’. I have altered the title and the first paragraph in the light of the current increasing numbers of Covid-19 cases. It is an amalgam of blogs I’ve written over the last two years. The piece written three years ago and referred to above is entitled ‘Contactless’. It can be read here.
Posts from which the above is drawn:
To read ‘Vaccinating to remain susceptible’, click here
To read ‘Shot of Love’, click here
To read ‘The Repair Shop’, click here
To read ‘On not remotely caring’, click here
To read ‘The Dig’, cluck here
To read ‘The Ten Demandments’, click here
Some Covid related GP stories
To read ‘Scrooge in the time of Coronavirus’, click here
To read ‘A Bear called Paddington’, click here
To read ‘Mr Benn – the GP’, click here
Some ill advised attempts at poetry:
To read ‘I knew a man’, click here
To read ‘If’, click here
To read ‘Room enough’, click here
To read ‘Old hands’, click here
To read ‘A Hard Year for us All’, click here
Some other related, explicitly Christian, blogs:
To read ‘True Love?’, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read ‘Covid 19 – dies it suggest we really did have the experience but miss the meaning’, click here
To read ‘Some trust in chariots…’, click here
To read ‘But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope’, click here
The sun sinks low on Cornwall’s cape
The shadows shift and change their shape
Then stealing up the rocky shore –
What might the nighttime have in store?
Now far away ‘neath darker skies
A parent weeps – a baby dies
The unrelenting ursine plan
Of inhumanity to man
All those whose bombs wreak such despair
All those who kill with ne’er a care
Believe me when I say it’s true
There’ll be no victory for you
For if with tanks and guns you chose
To fight a war – you’ll surely lose
The weak who hate are not the kind
To find that love wins heart and mind
Take Mariupol, Odessa, Kyiv
Your aims you still will not achieve
As shadows shrink and sun ascends
We’ll see that this land never ends.
Related posts:
To read, ‘An audience with grief’, click here
To read, ‘Light in the Darkness’ click here
To read, ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’ click here
To read, ‘Jesus wept’, click here
To read ‘A Hand Held’, click here
To read, ‘A Promise Keeper’, click here
Other attempts at poetry.
To read ‘I knew a Man’, click here
To read ‘Room Enough’, click here
To read ‘Old Hand’, click here
To read ‘Beaten’, click here
To read ‘She’s The Patient You Don’t Know You Have’, click here
To read ‘She’s The Patient You Still Don’t Know You Have’, click here
To read ‘Together in Line’, click here
To read ‘Resting in Pieces’, click here
To read ‘Crushed’, click here
To read ‘Masked’, click here
To read ‘Patient’, click here
To read ‘Yesterday and Today’, click here
Sometimes the fun stops and life seems nothing short of impossible.
A week or so ago, hoping, in part, to find some respite from the dreadful news by which we are all currently being bombarded, I went to see ‘The Duke’, the new film starring Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren. It tells the true story of Kempton Bunton, the 60 year old taxi driver who, in 1961, stole Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. And what a wonderful escape it proved to be. Well almost – for, without spoiling anything for those yet to see it, the film didn’t entirely cause me to forget the events that, as I sat there in the darkness, tragically continued to unfold back outside in the real world. But although it didn’t go unnoticed, it wasn’t simply that the film portrayed a seemingly insignificant individual taking on the might of the establishment that got me thinking. What stood out for me was a single line of dialogue. From memory, it went something like this:
‘It’s hard to find an audience for plays that deal with grief’
The thing with grief is that too often we don’t want to hear about it. Sometimes, perhaps, we find it embarrassing, the awkwardness of not knowing what to say too uncomfortable. On other occasions it’s simply too painful to acknowledge just how awful things really are and we prefer instead to pretend that everything is totally fine and that the fun never stops. This is, to say the least, unfortunate because, for those who grieve, there is often a need to express the sadness that they are experiencing, to have it heard, and felt, by another. For those who mourn, to have their grief felt by someone other than themselves, reassures them that their pain is real, that their loss is important, that the events they have experienced matter, not just to them but also to the wider world.
But to express one’s sadness isn’t merely helpful for the one who grieves. To see the grief of another and share a little in their sadness helps we who, perhaps shedding a tear ourselves, are drawn a little closer to the one who suffers, making a connection with the one who grieves, a connection that, too often in this frequently contactless world, we fail to make. And this indication that we truly care is not only a sign of love, it is an act of love too – one that begins to change us inwardly such that we don’t simply feel the pain of another but are motivated to actually try and do something to help, something practical that might just make a difference.
Today then, perhaps more than ever before, we need to be an audience that deals with grief – the grief of others. We need to ‘weep with those who weep’. Rather than hiding away from what pains us, we need to expose ourselves to the genuinely awful reality of what pains others. We need to connect with those to whom we will never be introduced and allow ourselves to be moved to help, in whatever way we can, those who currently find themselves in such dire need. Ultimately it is that which will reveal us to be truly human, it is that which will ultimately distinguish us from those who, having no regard for others, are willing to destroy all that is beautiful, in pursuit of their own ugly agenda.
When life is nothing short of impossible, we need to somehow find the strength to carry on. When the fun stops, we must not. Because not everyone can escape from what they are currently being bombarded by – not, at least, by simply taking a trip to the cinema.
Our tears, of course, are not enough – they are but the start. It has been said that saving another’s life is rarely like it is in the movies, that rather than it being by pulling someone from a burning building, it can sometimes be achieved by a few kind words of support, a hug or a shoulder to cry on. Well I don’t doubt that that is true, but right now those things won’t be enough for the people of Ukraine. They need more, much more. More even than the money and essential items that are so wonderfully and so generously being donated by so many. Though we must all continue to show love and kindness by giving what we can, right now our fellow Europeans need someone who really can pull people out of burning buildings.
That said, it is not only those in the Ukraine that are suffering. Though Kyiv is only a mere 1500 miles from London, our work brings us daily into contact with those who struggle closer to home, those whose grief is not invalidated by the dreadful events elsewhere in the world. The young woman who, with no hope for the future, returns to her lonely flat with tears spilling down her cheeks, the man, suddenly and unexpectedly made a widower in his 50s who now can’t understand how it has all come to this, the parent anxious about the child who is sick in hospital and with whom she is not permitted to visit. Regardless of the immense suffering elsewhere in the world, these, and many like them, also need our care and concern. They too need their distress to be acknowledged, to be seen as real and significant. They too need our help. And so, having witnessed their suffering, having had it portrayed before us in our consulting rooms just as the suffering of those elsewhere has been portrayed before us on our TV screens, we must endeavour to share a little of their pain and, in so doing, allow ourselves to be moved to offer whatever help we can.
Our compassion must not be something deserved only by those who have lost the most.
Because grief is not a competition to be won.
This is an adapted version of a blog entitled ‘Weeping with those who weep’. To read the original, and more explicitly Christian, version, please click here
Related posts:
To read, ‘Hearing the grass grow’, click here
To read, ‘Contactless’, click here
To read ‘Eleanor Rigby is not at all fine’, click here
To read, ‘General Practice – a sweet sorrow’, click here
To read, ‘On not remotely caring’, click here
To read ‘Vaccinating to remain susceptible, click here
To read, ‘From a distance’, click here
And the following related blogs are explicitly Christian in content:
To read, ‘Light in the Darkness’ click here
To read, ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read, ‘A Promise Keeper’, click here
To read, ‘Jesus wept’, click here
To read ‘A Hand Held’, click here
To read, ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read, ‘I’ll miss this when we’re gone – extended theological version’, click here
To read ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read ‘Hope comes from believing the promises of God’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
Some years ago, whilst out on a walk, one of my children announced that they were lost. This was on account of said child not having a clue as to where they were. But the individual in question was wrong – they weren’t lost because the one who held their hand, [me], knew exactly where they were.
I knew the way home.
Perhaps you can’t see a way through all that’s going on just now. But be assured – you’re not lost because the one who holds your hand knows exactly where you are and, even in these particularly difficult days, that same loving Heavenly Father will ensure that we will all eventually make it safely home.
The one who really does know the end from the beginning holds us still.
‘I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ [Isaiah 46:9-10]
Related posts:
To read, ‘A Promise Keeper’, click here
To read, ‘Jesus wept’, click here
To read, ‘Light in the Darkness’ click here
To read, ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read, ‘I’ll miss this when we’re gone – extended theological version’, click here
To read ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read, ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read ‘Hope comes from believing the promises of God’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read, ‘True Love?’, click here
To read, ‘The Resurrection – is it just rhubarb?’, click here
To read, ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read, ‘Hope Comes From Believing The Promises Of God’, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
To read “Good Friday – 2021”, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’.
So said Lord Acton and there is no doubt some truth in his words. But it’s not just those who, for example, have at their disposal the second largest military in the world who need to be careful – we all are sometimes prone to abuse the power we have even if that which we posses is considerably smaller. Likewise, though few of us will have reneged on assurances given that we would not invade a neighbouring country or failed to keep to previously agreed humanitarian ceasefires, we too are not always as good as we should be at keeping our promises. Perhaps then it is no surprise that lately we have grown all too accustomed to those in authority breaking their promises and we could, perhaps, be forgiven for wondering if we should ever trust anyone who holds a position of power.
I am confident though that there is at least one who we can take at his word.
God is working his purposes out as year succeeds to year – including this year, irrespective of how abnormal and unexpected the world is in increasingly becoming.
God frequently works outside expected norms. What could be more unexpected, what could be more abnormal, than his saving of wretched sinners through the death of his son on a cruel Roman cross?
But Christ crucified, though it appears, on the face of it, to be foolishness, it is in fact the power of God and the wisdom of God. [1 Corinthians 1:14). We need to remember that we are surprised by God only to the extent that we have a wrong idea of who he is. The problem lies with us. It is we who are abnormal, we who are, because of our sinfulness, prone to act in ways contrary to how we should.
We too easily forget about grace and mercy. God never surprises himself by the way he acts. Thousands of years before it happened the death of the Messiah was prophesied as the means by which he would one day save sinners.
That a gracious and merciful God should keep his promises should not be something that surprises us. Even so, there will be those who will ask, ‘What evidence is there that God will, in the future, deliver on all the promises he has made in the past? How can we be sure?’
This is a valid question and one that is important for us to be able to answer since it asks why we should have faith in God. Christian faith is all about believing that what God says is true, trusting that, however improbable it may sometimes seem, God is in control and what he says will happen will one day come to pass. If we cannot answer how we can be sure that he will keep his promises, ours is a blind faith, one that is not based on solid foundations.
Peter urges us to be ‘prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks [us] for a reason for the hope that is in [us]’ [1 Peter 3:15]. Since ‘faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’ [Hebrews 11:1], if we are to have any assurance at all, it is important that we have solid reasons for our faith especially when what we can see seems only to be that things are going badly wrong.
So, in no particular order, here are some of my reasons why we can trust God.
1. Past record. When God has made promises in the past he has kept them. He promised as far back as the garden of Eden that one day a Messiah would come who would bruise Satan’s head even as his own heel was bruised [Genesis 3:15]. This promise was kept in the coming of Jesus Christ. And throughout the Old Testament there are countless other promises made in the form of prophecies about Jesus. These include that he would be born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem, that he would be betrayed by a friend and sold for thirty pieces of silver, that he would be struck and spat upon, pierced through the hands, feet and side, that not one of his bones would be broken, that lots would be cast for his clothing and that he would be resurrected on the third day. The fact that all these promises were kept assures us that we have good reason to believe that we can trust that God will keep all of his many other promises.
2. God’s nature. Because God is by nature good and true, it is impossible to think of anything more certain than his word. It is not possible for the God who defines what is true to lie, or the God who defines what is good to break a promise. ‘For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul’ [Hebrews 6:13-19a]
3. God is omnipotent, all powerful, and as such, unlike us he never makes a promise he is unable to fulfil because of any limitation in himself. The answer to the rhetorical question of Genesis 18:14, ‘Is anything too hard for the LORD?’ is a categorical No!’. Likewise God is omniscient, all knowing, and so, unlike us, he never makes a promise without fully appreciating all that there is to know and thus is never surprised by circumstances which might prevent him acting in the way he has said he will.
4. God is God and there is no other, He is God and there is is none like him. He declares ‘the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ [Isaiah 46:10]. There is therefore a sense in which, when he makes a promise, God is declaring what will one day be and, since he says these things from the position of someone who already knows all that the future holds, his promises are utterly dependable.
5. God’s word creates what it commands. His word is powerful. When God said ‘Let there be light’ there was light. He spoke and what he spoke came into existence. When Jesus said to the storm ‘Be still’ the storm was stilled, when he said to Lazarus, ‘Come out’ the dead man came out. Creation has no option to obey what God demands. If God speaks it happens, therefore if God speaks his words are bound to come true.
6. Ultimately we can trust God’s promises because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. For ‘he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?’ [Romans 8:32]. The God who can raise from the dead the one whom he sent to die for us is revealed to be a powerful God of love, one who can be trusted to fulfil all the wonderful promises he has made to us because he is good enough and strong enough to do so. All God’s promises ‘find their “Yes” in Jesus Christ’ [1 Corinthians 1:20]. His promises are therefore sure for ‘the word of God is not bound’ [2 Timothy 2:8], not even by any limitations in ourselves for even ‘if we are faithless, he remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself.’ [2 Timothy 2:13].
There are no doubt many other evidences that our God will deliver on his promises but these are at least a few that can give us great confidence, even in a time of war, that he will not fail to bring about what he says he will.
We can indeed look forward with eager expectation to the time when the great promise of the gospel will be fulfilled. As the old hymn puts it well, ‘God is working his purposes out as year succeeds to year’, and were we to sing it now we could do so confidently for, since it is based on another of God’s promises [Habakkuk 2:14]. For it is undoubtedly true that ‘nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be, when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.’
Personally I can’t wait.
Related Posts:
To read ‘A Hand Held’, click here
To read, ‘Jesus wept’, click here
To read, ‘Light in the Darkness’ click here
To read, ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read, ‘I’ll miss this when we’re gone – extended theological version’, click here
To read ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read, ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read ‘Hope comes from believing the promises of God’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read, ‘True Love?’, click here
To read, ‘The Resurrection – is it just rhubarb?’, click here
To read, ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read, ‘Hope Comes From Believing The Promises Of God’, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
To read “Good Friday – 2021”, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
In the face of death, and in the midst of sadness, ‘Jesus wept’.
John 11:35 is famous for being the shortest verse in the Bible and yet the two words ‘Jesus wept’ contain so much that is helpful as daily we hear of far too many who are suffering so badly. Here are just three things we can learn.
1. Jesus is somebody who cares. He wept not only for the death of his friend Lazarus but also as a result of the sadness his loss had caused all those who loved him.
Jesus weeps with those who weep’ [Romans 12:15]. It’s good to know that our God is not a remote deity who lacks compassion but rather one who is a loving Heavenly Father who comes alongside us in our sadness, one who shares in our sorrow. I believe Jesus still weeps today. Whilst it may be that, in this time of war, he knows a particular grief for the people of Ukraine, Jesus’ tears remain every bit as much for all those who, regardless of where they find themselves, know what it is to experience deep sadness.
They are not a sign of his being weak. Rather they are a sign of the strength of his love.
2. And neither are our tears a sign of our being weak. Jesus’ tears reassure us that it’s right for us to weep, that real tears are an appropriate response to real sadness, that Christianity isn’t a religion of the stiff upper lip in which grief is dismissed with insensitive assertions that ‘all things work together for good’ [Romans 8:28] even though that remains gloriously true for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:13 Paul writes to his readers in order that they ‘may not grieve as others do who have no hope.’ With these words he makes it clear that we should indeed grieve but that we should remain hopeful even as we do so.
As Jesus stood outside the tomb in which Lazarus lay, his tears were no less real for knowing that he would soon raise his friend back to life. He still grieved – but not as one who had no hope. As the conflict in the Ukraine continues and the death toll climbs we too should weep, but we too can do so in hope, confident that there are better days ahead.
3. Jesus’ tears didn’t stop him loving those for whom he wept. As Jesus wept, not only did he know that he would raise Lazarus from the dead, he also knew that he too would himself soon die too. And he knew that his raising of Lazarus from the dead would be the act which would provoke those who opposed him so vehemently to start making their plans to put him to death. [John 11:53].
Their hardness of heart must surely have saddened Jesus further, adding to his tears. Even so, he didn’t flinch from his purpose, the reason for which he came into the world. Such is the strength of the man who was, and is, God, that he set his face towards Calvary in order that he might bear the punishment for our sin. For there on the cross, dying in our place, he dealt with the horror of sin and thereby secured our salvation and guaranteed that, in time, all death and all sadness would one day be brought to an end.
‘The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.’ [1 Timothy 1:15].
Jesus knew that the cost of raising Lazarus to life would be his own death. But it wasn’t just the cost of raising Lazarus to life that was paid for on the day that Jesus was crucified. Jesus’ death was the price that was paid to guarantee our resurrection too.
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” [John 11:25]. This is wonderfully true, and it is believing this that will enable us to grieve hopefully, sustaining us, not only when those we love die but as we approach our own death too.
Regardless then of how we die, whether it be at the hand of a microbe or a man, whether it be the result of old age or an accident, the consequence of conflict or cancer, there will still be a place for tears – our own, those who love us and, if John 11:35 teaches us anything, those of Jesus too.
But those tears will come to an end – because Jesus wept that we might know eternal joy, because he died that we might have everlasting life.
Until then, however, we cannot allow ourselves to either wallow in our tears or be content that they are in themselves enough. Rather our sadness for the plight of others must motivate us to act, we must seek to do that to which we are called, namely to love our neighbour as ourselves.
The task is, of course, too great for any of us and at times we will no doubt find ourselves simply overwhelmed by the needs of others. But there is no shame in being asked for more than you have and only being able to give all that you can. As those pictures of pushchairs left for Ukrainian refugees at a Polish railway station remind us, though it’s unlikely that any of us will change the world today, we can still make a world of difference to somebody who needs our help whether they be Ukrainian or someone we know who is closer to home.
No act of kindness then is too small to be of value. Let’s not imagine otherwise. And let’s continue to cry out to the one whose help we all so baldly need, to the God who is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think [Ephesians 3:20].
And let us take some comfort from the fact that, when it feels like the weight of the world is on our shoulders, it is God who still holds the whole world in his hands.
The title image uses a photo of a piece of street art seen on a street in Cardiff.
Related Posts:
To read, ‘Light in the Darkness’ click here
To read, ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read, ‘I’ll miss this when we’re gone – extended theological version’, click here
To read ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read, ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read ‘Hope comes from believing the promises of God’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read, ‘True Love?’, click here
To read, ‘The Resurrection – is it just rhubarb?’, click here
To read, ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read, ‘Hope Comes From Believing The Promises Of God’, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
To read “Good Friday – 2021”, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
One evening this week we had a power cut. The lights went out and we were left in darkness. We hunted down a candle and lit it and, as the darkness immediately shrunk back from around it’s flickering flame, I was reminded once again of how differently light and darkness behave.
I love how, whilst darkness is dispelled by the switching on of a light, the opposite is not true – the light can’t be dispelled by the switching on of the dark. Though darkness may surround the light, the light is never snuffed out. Darkness, on the other hand, retreats from wherever the light shines.
Light always triumphs over darkness.
‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’ [John 1:5]
I think the same is true for love and hate. No matter how intense the hatred, love always triumphs over it. Though it is true that hatred may not simply flee from love in the way that darkness flees from light, and though hate may actually intensify its efforts in the face of love’s persistence, we can nonetheless remain confident that, come what may, love will always win.
Because love never dies.
Except perhaps once.
When the Light was put out and darkness was over the whole land [Mark 15:33].
But even then, love didn’t stay dead.
The power came back on.
‘God raised [Jesus] up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.’ [Acts 2:24].
No matter how dark it is today, there are brighter days ahead.
Related posts:
To read, ‘True Love?’, click here
To read, ‘The Resurrection – is it just rhubarb?’, click here
To read, ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read, ‘Hope Comes From Believing The Promises Of God’, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
To read “Good Friday – 2021”, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
Amongst the many ways we can, and must, respond to the war in Ukraine, there is one we cannot afford to neglect. Irrespective of how long we might spend worrying about what Putin might do, we need to spend still more time considering what God might do – and, indeed, what he has already done. If we fail to do so we are liable to find our souls downcast, overwhelmed by fear and devoid of hope.
For we make a mistake if we imagine that it is Putin who has the power to ultimately determine the future.
Make no mistake, regardless of the forces that may be at his disposal, the one whose actions are motivated by hate is not strong. On the contrary, such a one is weak – pathetically so. It is those whose actions are motivated by love that are strong.
Shortly before he practiced what he preached, Jesus said, ‘Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.’ [John 15:13].
Already this past week, out of love for their country, their people and their families, too many have already made this ultimate sacrifice. They deserve our utmost respect and, those whom they loved and who now find themselves left behind, our utmost, support – tangible as well as emotional, practical as well as prayerful. Nonetheless, as we join those who mourn their loss, we can still hope in the infinite power of God, the greater power of his love and the paradoxical yet everlasting power of the cross.
‘Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.’
[Psalm 43:5]
Related posts
To read, ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read ‘Covid -19. Does it suggest we really did have the experience but miss the meaning?’, click here. This is a slightly adapted version of “T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’.
To read, ‘But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope’, click here
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
To read “Good Friday – 2021”, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
To read “True Love?”, click here
Sometimes the fun stops and life seems nothing short of impossible.
So this week, hoping, in part, to find some respite from the dreadful news by which we are all currently being bombarded, I went to see ‘The Duke’, the new film starring Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren. It tells the true story of Kempton Bunton, the 60 year old taxi driver who, in 1961, stole Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. And what a wonderful escape it proved to be. Well almost – for, without spoiling anything for those yet to see it, the film didn’t entirely cause me to forget the events that, as I sat there in the darkness, tragically continued to unfold back outside in the real world. But although it didn’t go unnoticed, it wasn’t simply that the film portrayed a seemingly insignificant individual taking on the might of the establishment that got me thinking. What stood out for me was a single line of dialogue. From memory, it went something like this:
‘It’s hard to find an audience for plays that deal with grief’
The thing with grief is that too often we don’t want to hear about it. Sometimes, perhaps, we find it embarrassing, the awkwardness of not knowing what to say too uncomfortable. On other occasions it’s simply too painful to acknowledge just how awful things really are and we prefer instead to pretend that everything is totally fine and that the fun never stops. This is, to say the least, unfortunate because, for those who grieve, there is often a need to express the sadness that they are experiencing, to have it heard, and felt, by another. For those who mourn, to have their grief felt by someone other than themselves, reassures them that their pain is real, that their loss is important, that the events they have experienced matter, not just to them but also to the wider world.
But to express one’s sadness isn’t merely helpful for the one who grieves. To see the grief of another and share a little in their sadness helps we who, perhaps shedding a tear ourselves, are drawn a little closer to the one who suffers, making a connection with the one who grieves, a connection that, too often in this frequently contactless world, we fail to make. And this indication that we truly care is not only a sign of love, it is an act of love too – one that begins to change us inwardly such that we don’t simply feel the pain of another but are motivated to actually try and do something to help, something practical that might just make a difference.
This week then, perhaps more than ever before, we need to be an audience that deals with grief – the grief of others. We need to ‘weep with those who weep’ [Romans 12:15]. Rather than hiding away from what pains us, we need to expose ourselves to the genuinely awful reality of what pains others. We need to connect with those to whom we will never be introduced and allow ourselves to be moved to help, in whatever way we can, those who currently find themselves in such dire need. Ultimately it is that which will reveal us to be truly human, it is that which will ultimately distinguish us from those who, having no regard for others, are willing to destroy all that is beautiful, in pursuit of their own ugly agenda.
When life is nothing short of impossible, we need to somehow find the strength to carry on. When the fun stops, we must not. Because not everyone can escape from what they are currently being bombarded by – not, at least, by simply taking a trip to the cinema.
Our tears, of course, are not enough – they are but the start. It has been said that saving another’s life is rarely like it is in the movies, that rather than it being by pulling someone from a burning building, it can sometimes be achieved by a few kind words of support, a hug or a shoulder to cry on. Well I don’t doubt that that is true, but right now those things won’t be enough for the people of Ukraine. They need more, much more. More even than the money and essential items that are so wonderfully and so generously being donated by so many. Though we must all continue to show love and kindness by giving what we can, right now our fellow Europeans need someone who really can pull people out of burning buildings. More than even that, far too many already need someone who can raise them from the dead.
I believe there is such a one.
So, for the time being, even as we seek to love those we have never met and show kindness to those we do not know, as well as thus standing with the people of Ukraine, we will weep with them too – our own desperate and bitter tears. But as we grieve, I believe we need not do so as those who have no hope [1 Thessalonians 4:13]. For, because of Jesus Christ, the one who, having risen from the dead himself, really can raise others, because of the one who, sooner or later, we all will one day need, we can be confident that, though weeping may tarry for the night time, joy comes with the morning [Psalm 30:5]. Rest assured, a time is most surely on its way when all that now troubles us, both far away and closer to home, will be over – a day when our mourning will have turned to dancing, [Psalm 30:11], a day when we will rejoice with those who rejoice [Romans 12:15], and a day when every tear will have been wiped from our eyes and death shall be no more. [Revelation 21:4].
Oh that we might soon awake and salute that happy morn.
Here’s a link to another hymn I’ve been listening to of late. Perhaps you’ll find it as helpful to listen to its words as I have.
Related posts:
To read, ‘Light in the Darkness’ click here
To read, ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read, ‘A Promise Keeper’, click here
To read, ‘Jesus wept’, click here
To read ‘A Hand Held’, click here
To read, ‘Contactless’, click here
To read, ‘Hearing the grass grow’, click here
To read, ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read, ‘General Practice – a sweet sorrow’, click here
To read, ‘On not remotely caring’, click here
To read ‘Vaccinating to remain susceptible, click here
To read, ‘From a distance’, click here
To read, ‘I’ll miss this when we’re gone – extended theological version’, click here
To read ‘Rest assured’, click here
To read ‘Hope comes from believing the promises of God’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
Dr Phil Hammond once said: ‘For 90% of symptoms you’re better of with a dog than a doctor’. He pointed out that dogs are an antidote to loneliness and a lack of exercise and that they give encouraging licks, which GPs are generally reluctant to do.
So, by way of experiment, and to see if the recruiting of a canine workforce might be the answer to the current shortage of General Practitioners, this week we employed Barney as a locum in our practice.
This may have been a mistake as it seems it’s true what they say. Now over 14 years old it has indeed proved impossible for him to learn any new tricks. Here he is seen insisting that my card was the Jack of Hearts when it was in fact the Queen of Spades.
And you should have seen the mess he made of cutting my wife in two!
Despite his unpromising interview however, such was our desperation to find somebody to help with the clinical workload, we nonetheless went ahead and offered him eight sessions a week. Here he is getting home after his first day on call – as you can see, he’s already cream crackered, just like the rest of us.
Unlike his previous job though, it turns out that a penchant for daytime torpidity, a propensity for covering the living room floor with unwanted hair, and a particularly appealing pair of dark brown eyes doesn’t make up the sufficiently broad skill set required for working as a GP.
Furthermore, the previously agreed remuneration of an additional Bonio and a handful of doggy chocs is no longer considered sufficient reward for his labours which, to be fair, isn’t too surprising seeing as we made him do Advanced Access.
He tells me he won’t be back in next week so the search for a solution to the shortfall in primary care clinicians goes on.
Anyone know if hamsters can take blood?
Related Canine Blogs:
To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Deserted Medical Centre’, click here
To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here
To read ‘A Not So Shaggy Dog Story’, click here
To read ‘A Farewell to “Barns”’, click here
To read ‘A Dog Called Hector’ click here
To read ‘On approaching one’s sell by date’ click here
Yesterday, under clear blue skies, I went for walk. As I strolled across green fields all was quiet, the silence only broken by the sound of my footsteps, the birds singing in the trees and the hum of a light aircraft overhead. I was conscious of how different things were for so many of my fellow Europeans whose lives are so very different, characterised as they now are by the sound of explosions as Russian forces advance on cities throughout the country they have long called home. No wonder I cannot sleep tonight – It’s hard to lie comfortably in your bed when you know that others remain anxiously awake, terrified that they and their children will be dead by morning.
Most of you who know me will be aware that I am a Christian. Perhaps some of you are asking yourselves, if the God I say I believe in exists, why doesn’t He do something to stop the violence – why doesn’t He stay Putin’s hand? It is, of course, a fair question, one to which I have a simple answer: I don’t know. There will, no doubt, be those who say that this war is a sign that we are now living in the last days and there is a sense in which I believe that they are right since the Bible speaks of the last days beginning some 2000 years or so ago. But whether we are now seeing them drawing to an end or whether they will continue on for another 2000, 20,000 or 200,000 years, I for one, do not know.
It would seem then that there is much that I do not know. And there is. Furthermore there is much that I do not understand and much that I wish was different to how it is. Even so, there are some things that I do know, there are some things about which I believe we can be certain.
1. God is still in control. Nearly 3000 years ago King Uzziah died, and the future seemed very uncertain for the people of Israel. Isaiah, however, saw beyond the immediate political uncertainty. ‘In the year that King Uzziah [he] saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. [Isaiah 6:1]. Here is a picture of a God who is utterly in command. I believe he still is today. In the year that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, God remains on the throne.
2. What Putin means for evil, God means for good – irrespective of how unable we are to see or even imagine what that good might be [Genesis 50:20]. God has a habit of working in mysterious ways and though it may sometimes grieve him to do so, we shouldn’t perhaps be too surprised if, on occasions, He is want to operate outside our way of thinking. It is after all He who is God, not us. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are [His] ways higher than [our] ways and [his] thoughts than [our] thoughts’ [Isaiah 55:9]. When Jesus was crucified most who looked on saw nothing but defeat. How, they thought, can a dead Messiah save anyone? And yet there was one, the second thief who hung on a neighbouring cross, who saw that the bleeding, dying man next to him remained a King, and what’s more, one who, far from defeated was, even through his death, securing a victory that would last for all time. Similarly then, God can, and will, bring something genuinely good out of what is currently, self evidently, so dreadfully bad.
3. ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’ [James 4:6]. Make no mistake God is against all that Putin is currently trying to achieve even if he is currently allowing him to continue his violent assault on the Ukraine people. Further more, ‘The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble’ [Psalm 9:9], ‘The LORD works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed’ [Psalm 103:6]. Even if it takes longer than we would like, we can be sure that ultimately Putin will be defeated, righteousness will prevail and love will triumph over all that is evil.
4. God is with those who suffer. Even though there will be those who, even today, walk through the valley of the shadow of death, they need fear no evil, for God is with them, his rod and his staff will comfort them [Psalm 23:4]. God has promised to never leave us of forsake us and not even death can separate us from the love of God. [Romans 8:38-39].
Now don’t make a mistake. I am not offering here a platitudinous ‘Smile, Jesus loves you‘ to the people of Ukraine and suggesting that those facing such terrifying days should simply cheer up and not worry. On the contrary, Though it is most certainly true that Jesus does indeed love those caught up in the conflict, I fear that their suffering will be huge, their sorrow intense, and their anguish all too real. Even so I believe that there is yet hope, and a certain hope at that, because there is a God of love who cares for those who are currently being so dreadfully afflicted.
And neither am I suggesting that we in the West should simply ‘Let go and let God’. A high regard for God’s sovereignty does not mean we should stand back and look on from a distance, comforting ourselves by imagining we have no role to play ourselves. Just as my believing that God has set the day of my death does not mean that I no longer need to look both ways when I cross the road, so too my belief that God is in control of the situation in Ukraine does not mean that I should not act to help where I can. And help we all most certainly can. We can both petition and support world leaders as they seek to undertake the near impossible job of trying to decide what best can be done to help those being attacked. Many of us will be able to offer financial support for the huge humanitarian aid effort that will no doubt be made to help those in need and some of us may even be in a position to offer physical help to those refugees who will perhaps end up on our doorsteps. And all of us can pray, really pray – to the God who is really there and who really does care.
I am of course very well aware that it is easy to write this from a distance, that it is easier sometimes to believe things theoretically than it is to do so in practice. But I hope and pray that I will both believe and count on all this being true when my time comes to die, be that comfortably in my bed at a ripe old age, or as a violent consequence of an escalation of the war that we are now seeing in its infancy in Ukraine.
For tonight though my heart breaks for the people of Ukraine, the news reports coming out of that great nation move me to tears. And so until an opportunity affords itself for me to help in perhaps more tangible ways, my prayers are for the men, women and children whose future appears so uncertain tonight.
Please do join me.
Here is a link to a hymn I have been listening to of late. It is a comfort to me that its words remain as true today as they ever have been, both for the people of Ukraine and for me. Perhaps you might like to sing it along to it too.
Related posts:
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read ‘Covid -19. Does it suggest we really did have the experience but miss the meaning?’, click here. This is a slightly adapted version of “T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’.
To read, ‘But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope’, click here
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
To read “Good Friday – 2021”, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
To read “True Love?”, click here
At my GP practice this week we received another email from our local hospital asking that, if at all possible, we avoided admitting those patients that in normal circumstances we would consider needed inpatient care. Such communications are always somewhat irksome since they seem to suggest that sometimes, simply for the fun of it, we want to expose our patients to the dubious pleasure of hospital food. Even so, one could understand, on this occasion at least, why the email had been sent since it was clear that our hardworking hospital colleagues were clearly experiencing unprecedented demand for, as it was being sent, there were 30 patients in the A&E department requiring admission for whom no bed was available.
But it wasn’t just the hospital that was struggling because, as that email was being received at our practice, the on call Doctor was himself overwhelmed as he tried to single-handedly deal with over 80 urgent individual patient contacts on a single day, proving, as he did so, that, once again, it is not GP access that is the problem but GP capacity.
On Wednesday evening I took refuge in the comforting surroundings of ‘The Repair Shop’. Those of you who watch the BBC television series will know what a brilliant program it is, showcasing as it does, the wonderful skills of a number of master craftsmen and women as each week they restore to life various cherished possessions that have long since seen better days. As I watched it this week I couldn’t help but wonder how different things would be if ‘The Repair Shop’ was part of the NHS as it now is. Because, for all its fantastic efforts, the NHS is daily becoming a more and more frenetic place to work and, this week of all weeks, nobody working on its frontline is finding life a breeze.
So…
This week in the repair shop:
The owner of a treasured timepiece arrives at ‘The Repair Shop’ and is shocked to discover that, after waiting three years to see him, clock restorer Steve isn’t on hand to help. Informed that horological services are no longer available locally she is told that she will have to make a 200 mile round trip to have her chronometer looked at elsewhere.
An antique camera is restored by Brenton but, in order for its handle to be attended to, its disappointed owners are told that they will have to return home and see their local photographic dealer who, they are assured, will be happy to organise the necessary separate referral for them to see leather expert Susie.
Dom tries to repair an old battered bicycle but has to abandon the attempt when his sand blaster breaks down and he is therefore unable to remove its many years of accumulated rust. Ironically, Dom can’t tell the two-wheeler’s heartbroken owner when the sand blaster might be repaired and has to explain to him that he’ll simply have to wait a while longer.
Amanda is off with Covid and Julie, having been in close contact with her, is self isolating pending the result of her own PCR test. Consequently ceramic conservator Kirsten, despite her limited expertise in the area, takes over a soft toy repair and upsets a child when she inadvertently stitches back on the head of a thread bear teddy the wrong way round. Later, upset and distracted by what she’s done and swamped by her own escalating workload, Kirsten has to rush to get things done and consequently drops a priceless Ming vase.
Overwhelmed by unprecedented demand for his furniture repairs, Will is no longer able to cope. Not wanting his colleagues to witness his tears, he crawls under his workbench and is seen sat on the floor rocking back and forth with his head in his hands. Subsequently he joins Lucia who is already on long term sick leave as a result of work related stress. The two are heard considering taking early retirement.
As the queue of cars outside ‘The Repair Shop’ grows ever longer, with each vehicle containing another broken family heirloom in need of urgent care, Jay’s attention is drawn to a newspaper report suggesting that the craftspeople are themselves responsible for the the long waiting times currently being experienced by clients. Staff morale sinks lower still when BBC head office sends out an edict demanding that all employees in the barn reflect on their lackadaisical attitude towards their work. The diktat also inform them that from now on they will all be required to double their current levels of productivity .
But, of course, none of this would ever happen at ‘The Repair Shop’.
Perhaps that’s why I so enjoy watching it.
Perhaps that’s why I find it so uplifting.
Perhaps that’s why I would so love to work there.
Because everything at ‘The Repair Shop’ is just a little less painful.
Related Posts:
To read ‘The Repair Shop’, another, more positive, blog comparing Medicine with the television programme, click here
To read ‘Brian and Stumpy Visit the Repair Shop’, a episode of the TV programme with a cricket theme, click here
To read ‘The Dig – it’s well worth it’, click here
To read ‘Hearing the grass grow’, click here
To read ‘The Three Little GPs and the Big Bad Secretary of State for Health’, click here
To read ‘Mr Benn – the GP’, click here
To read ‘A GP called Paddington’, click here
To read ‘On Being Crazy Busy – A Ticklish Problem’, click here
To read ‘Reintroducing GPs Anonymous’, click here
To read ‘On Call Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down’, click here
Dr Wordle picked up the phone and dialled the number of his next patient. After only a few rings his call was answered and a woman’s voice announced herself as Miss Tina Fied.
‘Hello Tina, it’s Dr Wordle here. I’m ringing with the results of your tests.’
‘Oh Dr Wordle, I was hoping you’d call. I haven’t been able to stop trying to work out what my symptoms could be caused by’.
‘Was there anything you were particularly concerned it might be?’
‘Well Doctor, I’m probably being silly but I was worried I might have cancer.’
‘Cancer!’, exclaimed Dr Wordle, ‘don’t be ridiculous Tina. How could you possibly have cancer? Cancer has six letters. Don’t you know I only deal with illnesses which have just five letters in their name. So try again – have a wild guess at what might be the problem.’
Tina was a little taken aback and took a few seconds to think of a condition with the requisite number of letters in its title.
‘Piles?’, she hesitantly offered as an answer, not with any real expectation of being right.
‘Well that was a wild guess’, laughed Dr Wordle. ‘You could hardly be more wrong. That said, and although haemorrhoids are rarely the cause of a new continuous cough, you have got one letter right. There is an ‘I’ in your diagnosis, but it’s not your condition’s second letter. Have another go.’
Miss Fied was beginning to get a little irritated by Dr Wordle and asked him if he couldn’t simply tell her what she was suffering from.
‘Simply tell you? Absolutely not! Where would be the fun in that? Do please have another guess.’
Tina racked her brain for what seemed like forever desperately trying to come up with any five lettered illness that might cause her to cough. Suddenly she had a flash of inspiration.
‘Croup’, she said excitedly, confident that the conundrum had finally been solved.
‘Obviously not’, replied Dr Wordle pointing out rather dismissively that there was no ‘I’ in ‘croup’. ‘But’, he added, sounding a little disappointed as he did so, you have nonetheless been somewhat lucky with your guess for I can reveal to you that your illness does indeed begin with a ‘C’ and that it also has an ‘O’ in it though it’s not its third letter’.
Tina scratched her head again and thought hard for a disease with five letters that began with ‘C’ and contained both an ‘O’ and an ‘I’. For a moment she considered Covid but she couldn’t see how her cough could possibly be Covid. And since she had tested negative on a lateral flow test that morning she quickly dismissed the idea.
‘Colic?’, she offered tentatively, knowing inwardly how unsatisfactory her answer was. Anxiously she awaited Dr Wordle’s response.
‘Close – but no cigar’ Dr Wordle countered. ‘In my book colic is more a symptom than a disease but even so I can tell you that, as well as the initial ‘C’ you now have the ‘O’ and the ‘I’ in the right place. But I’m afraid there is no ‘L’ and only the one ‘C’ in the disease you’re looking for’.
‘You really are most irritating Dr Wordle! Must we continue playing this silly game. Is this really how they teach you to break bad news these days?’
‘I’m afraid it is Miss Fied, I’m afraid it is. And if I have anything to do with it everything will soon be Wordle-fied!. It’s already begun of course. Take our world leaders. There’s Biden and Putin and of course there’s Boris. You see what I’m saying? So come on Tina, you must guess again.’
Now totally exasperated by the situation, and despite having previously discounted it as a possibility, Miss T. Fied found herself blurting out the only answer that remained open to her.
‘Covid’, she announced resignedly, ‘Have I got Covid?’
‘Congratulations, Tina, you have indeed. Now all that’s left for you to do is to tell all your friends and family that, despite it taking you a while, you’ve finally got it. After that you’ll find that none of them want anything to do with you for a while. Now, is there anything else I can do for you today?’.
‘No thank you, Dr Wordle, I don’t think there is. But if I ever find myself suffering from polio, mumps or worms I’ll be sure to get in touch.’
‘You make sure you do! Goodbye then Miss Fied. I’m sure we’ll speak again soon’
‘I don’t doubt it, Dr Wordle, perhaps even tomorrow. But until then ‘Goodbye’ to you too.’
Other GP related stories:
To read ‘Mr Benn – the GP’, click here
To read ‘A Bear called Paddington’, click here
To read ‘The Three Little GPs and the Big Bad Secretary of State for Health’, click here
To read ‘A Mission Impossible’, click here
To read ‘Jeeves and the Hormone Deficiency’, click here
To read the whole of ‘The Scrooge Chronicles’, click here
To read ‘The Happy Practice – A Cautionary Tale’, click here
To read ‘A Grimm Tale’, click here
Some musings 