my non-Christmas spirit and the obligatory yet unplanned end-of-the-year post.

the obligatory year-end post but not really

this post was not planned and anyway this year i am not doing anything obligatory for Christmas.

no planned Christmas light shows, concerts, eve, gifts or carols.

i have read (or at least saved in my read-later list-which rarely gets read, like all of yours if you're honest) all of the reminiscent introspective melancholic end-of-2014 posts that showed up in my news feed. and even then, the competitive spirit of writing one of my own did not kick in.

partly because of my work schedule, obviously the rookie always gets to work Christmas, which is expected. expected is always less traumatic.
partly because of practical reasons like computers bought as gifts because they were needed two weeks ago, florida trips being planned and payed for before Christmas when the tickets were cheap. come to think of it, i could have wrapped all that and put it under a tree and abided by the spirit of the season.
so as i am writing this, i realize that the truth is maybe i really am not in the spirit of the season. the slumber of the competitive spirit may just be the 8th criterion in the DSM IV of depression.

the spirit of the season. i have done the lights and the gifts and the carols before, simultaneously listening to sermons and podcasts telling me that this is not what the season is about. and i nodded, and agreed and still planned outings and took part in the obligatory fun. not putting it down, i mean it was fun and i felt i belonged to the world around me. and i sure hope to do it again next year or next decade, whatever.

but his year God made me stop. MADE me. and gave me His spirit.

see i believe he talks to each one of us, if we listen. and he talks differently to each. depending on how we are wired. elementary my dear watson, right, he has done the wiring. not so easy to believe though.

i am not good at following rules and making wise decisions and He knows that. i am not good at changing my way of life because i agree with a commandment, even if it convicts me. essentially i am not good at repenting and obeying. He has to make me. He has to speak firmly in my ear and He knows it.
in fact He knew this about me before i realized it. He knew this about me even as i was patting my self proudly on the back for "getting" this whole repentance-obedience-submission deal down. i thought i had nailed it.

until i faintly asked him to speak. half desiring it or maybe even less that half. really i just wanted my plans to work out if possible, but by then i didn't have the stamina to make it happen. and those of you who know me, know it takes a lot to run out the stamina.

i asked Him to speak because of the fog in my eyes and the tumult in my ears and the tears in my head. as my plans were crumbling down and i had no more desires to hide in, no more plans to build on, and no more directions to build a reputation towards.
God waited for me to erect all my castles on the sand, waited until all the rejections were delivered and the disappointments exploded, waited until all the coffee was drunk and my head was pounding, until all my adrenaline had run out and my body was exhausted and my eyes were tearful yet defiant. waited until a child ( that i was babysitting) was screaming at the top of her lungs, inconsolable and terrifying, to break all my pedestals and the fences i didn't know i had built, and made me talk to him.

in arabic no less, because in that state who can think in multiple languages. in arabic because its the language of the scared and disappointed child in me, and the language of the angry rebel. not just talking but singing in arabic because it sounds even more sarcastic and irreverent and insubordinate. and also because He knew it would also calm the screaming baby and put her back to sleep.
hopefully someone is laughing by now because really, it was a pretty ridiculous situation. yet so finely orchestrated.

and there started my week of just throwing myself into His arms and His word and memorizing experiencing His presence and reading and enjoying Him and missing Him and running back. really not trying to sound holy here, all of the above have been on my to-do list but never really got done.
because i and we profess to know that He will be there when everything crumbles and that sounds great, but really we are hoping nothing crumbles and we can just stash Him as a very expensive insurance contract in some dusty drawer.

Jesus was born for our sins, but really, the social calendar of Christmas is not an ideal time to ask for sin to be revealed. not when you have all these cards to address. the immeasurable gift of God is what is to be revered but surely, after i'm done with all my social activities to put me in the spirit of the season. that was me, and i suppose will probably be me again, but even if i will just realize it just this one time, i am thankful for this revelation of destructive and blind irony.

and because He delights in giving gifts, because He knows that there is no gift bigger and more enjoyable than Himself but yet He knows that i still doubt and ask questions, He has pointed my attention to everything else He's doing and letting me be a part of.

like the kids that i took care of at church last year who randomly run to me with love and a smile and a hug when i thought that they had no clue who i was, and that serving these two hours a week at church really didn't matter all that much.
like the letter from a patient who i took care of at 11 pm on a weekend, the memory of whom had drowned beneath my fatigue and sleep deprivation, and complaints of a difficult schedule.
like friends expressing that they felt loved and cared for, when i figured that i had just written another antibiotic prescription, no big deal.

so this year has been a roller coaster of jobs and graduations and travel and athletic feats and deepening friendships and mended relationships. mountains that seemed insurmountable until He got me through and the landscape looked beautiful from the other side. trust that wavered when the next hill was in sight. sour relationships and disappointed hopes and wasted time in my book.

what if another lesson for me was to measure time not by the achievement of the end result that i had planned, but by what God has shown me about Him on the way. what if the whole point of failed relationships was to strengthen mine to Him.

i have heard him whisper in my ear and i even wondered why he doesn't try to sound clearer. elementary again, but God has been screaming in the world and in my heart for years. i am thankful that the sound fog lifts a little year after year. i am thankful that i am looking forward to hearing him clearly, His voice and not the echo that my sinful heart blocks and deforms.

this has been so far the most real Christmas season, spirit, joy and peace that i have experienced. i will look forward to the plaza lights and a wrapped gifts next year but this year, i feel i've caught a glimpse of real.joy. which still feels funny considering the actual practical debacle of some circumstances.

and this post that i was not planning to write just had to be written, as a testimony to the immeasurable love, the faithfulness, the strength, the delicate planning, the power, the kindness, the tenderness, the presence of God this year, that just exploded this Christmas in the firework of an intricately weaved plan. that is but a mere glimpse of the glimpse of the glimpse of His plan, from everlasting to everlasting. 

the Great Fears: the culture of texting and crashing patients.

the culture of texting and chatting. i'm not quite old enough not to claim it as my generation but as the rebellious continent-confused nostalgic francophone Lebanese, i never quite claimed it or enjoyed it.

to be truthful, texting does appeal to me as a means of conversation, avoiding all the necessary polite tournures de phrases before addressing the issue you just wasted seven minutes of your life introducing. i find it hard to relate, empathize and love over the phone so: straight to the point and saving precious minutes here and there, minutes used to knock down other essential items on the to-do list.

saving time, using time, sparing time, for the sake of…? what am i doing with all this time? worrying about time. do i know that i sound crazy? yes, but this is how most of the great philosophical debates and spiritual revelations probably started in history. at least this is how they start for me.

they sound even crazier when God sits me down to type them, or hand write them for the sake of further time saving 

when i was still using a computer that required ten minutes in its two step start up: turn on. three minutes later: hard disk not found. press hard on turn off button. wait two minutes. turn back on. your system shut down unexpectedly, would u like to proceed. yes. 

it was the system of deliberate un-expectation. 

just like waving the image of the man you like out of your brain to trick the Lord who made your brain into giving you what you're not really asking for. because the dark twisted portion of your brain believes that God is whitholding what you want. but i digress.

in the days of the old metal square that believed itself a computer, the typing the beginnings of my great spiritual debates was done with two thumbs on the instantly gratifying screen of an iphone.

all that to say that i fully enjoy the benefits of introverted conversation through  the veil of technology. never through a computer screen surprisingly, but i haven’t had enough time yet over the past six years that this specific symptom has manifested, to elucidate that non-inclination.

back to the main doleances and the intended topic of this post.

perhaps it is my french-nurtured-endless-sentences-with minimal-punctuation-and-twelve-jumbled-thoughts-literrary leanings.

i do not understand, tolerate or forgive multiple small texts sent in a chat-type fashion, in a systematic morse-like pressing of send, like that poor soul you see in catastrophic movies, pushing on his small beeping button, sweating his brain off, in an attempt to save humanity, through the frantic pressing and beeping.

it must be the stuff torture devices are made of. and it makes me almost cry of frustration as i hear more beeping  drilling into my soul in the five seconds it takes me to reach the phone in my tiny (but extremely well-decorated) apartment.

perhaps it is the most commonly unimportant topics usually addressed in chatting-qui-se-veut-texting, i thought. maybe i should address the selfishness in my heart for wanting to love people on my own terms, in my own time, and only on topics that i deem worthy. maybe it has nothing to do with the beeping.

but really if they.were.just.written.in.one.paragraph.

read in one sitting.

one continuous thought.

one nice large blue rectangle on my screen rather that ever appearing new bubbles, making the screen flicker, my brain startle and my heart sink ever so sligthly

and only.one.beep.

yes, i DO have tried changing the ringtone, thank you very much for the suggestion. maybe the same musical note, if repeated so very often, would have driven even Haendel to eradicate it from his Hallelujah all together.

maybe if changed to a traditional ring, the way God and Alexander Graham Bell intended it. #fail

maybe its an undiagnosed lack of affection for specific people communicating. tried and tested. most are deeply cherished face-to-face. or when they send a appropriately sized cyber-communiqué. so it's not the people, it's the bip.

i pray to be someone who loves people, who is quick to repent and willing to serve.

but i really do.bip.not.bip.believe.bip. that the intellectual trauma and the emotional breakdown caused by.bip.the.bip.incessant.bip.beeping. bip.of.bip.multiple.bip.small.bip.texts. is a heart issue.

en passant on the heart issue: if life-giving communication was meant to mimic the heart beat of life, we would have all been speaking in one.word.sentences.like.the.robots.with.the.nasal.voices.in.eighties.movies.

one of the godly women i look up to whole-hearteldly hates group messages. and she loves Jesus. there you go. justification through the spiritual mentor. Jesus never had to deal with group sms and the incessant exasperating bip. nothing to learn there so i'll take the next best example to follow.

 (Although we could arguably analogize that the most certain interruptions of his frequently irritating disciples to the dreaded bip. which disciples he didn’t turn off with a mighty smack of his hand. have i ever mentioned how thankful I am for the faithfully recorded irksomeness of the same disciples who were loved and sent to make similar disciples of all nations? but I digress again)

my inner therapist truly believes this is related to The Great Fear.

Of Getting Paged, that is, about a Crashing Patient.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while standing in line with other sleep-deprived people-studying-to-help-people, in the cafeteria twelve floors below, for the first meal in 10.5 hours, trying to grab the last stale salad before the grumpy lady at the cashier’s station decrees closing time.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while on an excruciating elevator ride with a bored- and confused about disease and death in a fallen world- child pushing every floor button.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while returning the last six pages of the last minute and the half.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while trying to softly communicate your medical point of view on a landline, all your senses helplessly witnessing the sinister beeping and the flashing arrows of multiplying unreturned calls grow increasingly bright and terrifying on the tiny pager screen.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while trying to phonecall a hello to your mother 3000 miles away (preaching to yourself that an eight hour time difference makes being awake at 3:49 am allright), pretending to call her to check on her while truthfully really just needing to hear a friendly loving voice on your seemingly eternal terrifying cold and eerie night.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while wrapped in a plastic sterile tent, because the hospital only carries extra-large sterile gowns, trying to focus on sticking a two millimeter wide vein in someone’s father’s neck through your blurry eyes and scratched eyeglasses.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while running in a reception-free hallway trying to return a page from ten minutes ago on your cell phone, while the terrifying beeping continues on the machine of death strapped on your waist, its radiations dangerously close to your ovaries-the kind of thoughts that penetrate your exhausted brain at 3:52 in the morning.

and to alleviate the drama and terror of the above descriptions for non-medical personal, The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while trying to empty your twelve-hour-full bladder while simultaneously-and precariously- trying to hydrate for the first time in said hours.

if The Great Fear is the root trauma behind the trauma of the texting bip, la boucle est bouclée and brings us to the explosive knot in the vicious circle.

why don’t i just silence my phone. and stop complaining, and wasting analytical power and people's time. 

because The Great Fear is above all missing a text about someone crashing. in my life that is. because buried in the midst of all the blue bubbles and important-but delayable-topics may be a truly emergent message. unlikely you say, but not in my conditioned brain. not in the volatile middle east. (cf:explosive 3 lines above). not in a hospital's operating room for a last chance to say goodbye.

i know what you're feeling

balancing two encyclopedias on its head,  realism walks ungracefully the dangerous line over the pit of fire, between objectivity and cynicism. i'm not sure i understand this self proclaimed statement myself. pin now, think later.

anyway.
just came back from Lebanon, an impromptu "vacation" that i spent helping out my mom. all dusty scraps of paper and invaluable antique items from a hoarder family inclusive. which explains the twenty day delay in writing a new post. i wonder if i'll ever run out of excuses?

a little-too-sweet taste in your soul of artificial self satisfaction when you've made someone happy.

all that was done out of love for someone who loves you back, cannot help but nudge a question of would-i-do-it-for-someone-i-care-just-slightly-less-about than my neat schedule of the day: my own personal charity, proceeds benefiting my social life, fitness goals and checklist of tv series to catch up on.
are you tired of hearing about my schedule? so am i. defaut de fabrication, deformation professionelle, obsession maladive et j'en passe! my ego always insults my id in french, its just something we do.
 
along with scheduling with a hand of steel, objectivity regarding palliative care is another feature that i thought was an attained goal of my profession (eternal medical trainee that is) 
they have really nothing to do with each other, but it makes for a nice transition, don't you think?

i've found myself drawn to, gifted at, and comfortable, at heart, with palliative care discussions with patients and families since early residency. my head somewhere is uncomfortable with this comfort and attempting to analyze its roots.

is it exposure to familial deaths so early on in life? i remember being surprised in college at a friend's unfamiliarity with death when her grandmother passed away. my bittersweet feeling of superiority, of 'death maturity'. i had all those feelings down, from the guilt, to the anger denying the grief, to where my spot in the line of condolences was.

is it the opportunity for blunt honesty that i crave (and i know they crave it too, after days of polite exchanges of hopeful uncertainties).  in discussions where most people don't want to be the ones saying these three raw words, the ones that answer all the unspoken doubts, the ones that liberate from excruciatingly unrealistic hope, three words can bring the liberation of answers, of closure, and let the light shine on comfort, on relieving pain, on bigger and everlasting hope.

i've bonded with daughters and prayed with wives and hugged mothers after the decision to relieve pain has been made. i've helped them make the right decision of selfless love in the face of certain odds. i've even answered the miracle question-nothing is impossible to God, He can still heal, what if we withdraw before He does. yes He can, and if this be His mighty plan, then no ventilator that i disconnect or no morphine that i order can ruin His healing plan. God's schedule will not be hindered by a timeline that i ordain in my icu kingdom.

and yet, i found myself become the patient's family, wonder if the outcome is certain beyond a shadow of a doubt, rationalize and minimize the amount of pain she was in, ask myself for a horrible second if i was deciding her fate to give myself some rest, so i could sleep again, so i would stop being terrified of what would happen and how she would die. i heard the guilty thoughts of betraying her trust, of playing god, of not searching for other solutions.
i've believed them for one brief second of "patient family" time. seconds that flipped the coin so i would truly know the fleeting thoughts in a daughter's head, after i've said my three words.

for the record i am talking about a cat. who was sick and not eating and still loving you with her (one)big green eye (under her likely heent tumor).for those of you who are or have been a pet's human, you will understand with no apologies needed.

i'm thankful for my teenage grief because i can understand theirs, i'm thankful for the years of training for giving me the ability to objectively recognize pain and certain outcomes, i'm thankful for the doubts because they convicted my intolerance of love's desperate what-ifs.
the agonizing few days' journey on a cat's palliative care blood stained couch made me a better doctor. God does really redeems everything, if you listen.