This weekend I went to the beach (which is what we say in Texas, instead of “the shore”). Specifically, we went to North Padre Island so I could give a talk at the Texas Medical Association meeting, but we added a couple of days onto the trip so we could bird.
And boy did we “bird”…
I was introduced to birding by my parents as a child, but my spouse has become immersed in this world and has been a welcome guide and companion as I dipped my toes back into the waters (a pretty good metaphor since a lot of what we saw on this trip were shore birds).
If you are someone who has a high pressure job (like all the healers I know) and very little time (ditto), this may seem like a crazy suggestion… but there are three good reasons you should learn to bird (and then do it):
It’s healing.
What incredible beauty is around us and what a great way birding is to be present to it.
Photo by Mary Brandt
It erases differences.
I am absolutely certain that the people around us had many contradictory views of politics, religions, and all the other points of friction in our society. But none of that mattered. We shared the paths, showed each other birds hidden in the shrubs, and grinned together (a lot).
Photo by Mary Brandt
It reminds me of making a diagnosis.
Identifying a bird is a lot like making a diagnosis in medicine, except when it isn’t. I’m pondering the difference between diagnosis, identification, and discernment (more to follow on that after I think a bit more – i.e. in Part 2 of this post next week).
Photo by Mary Brandt
To make a “diagnosis” as a birder you use field marks, which are a lot like symptoms in medicine – the things you notice and consider before you make a diagnosis. In the case of the bird in the photo above… a bright blue bill with a black tip, a dark eye with a white ring, a slightly brownish long neck, a bluish tint to the head and body, a whitish tuft on the back of the high neck (we would say postero-superior in medicine), and the beautiful fluffy feathers hanging down from the back.
All of which adds up to a Tricolor heron in breeding plumage.
You don’t have to become a “bird nerd” (an accepted and even appreciated term in the community) to bird, but it’s worth learning to pay even a little attention to the birds around us, because it will get you outside, provide you with the dopamine surge you get with any hide and seek game (when you find the treasure), and surprise you with joy.
It’s hard to overstate how incredible this app is… even if you only use it every once in a while (and even if you have no plans to become a birder), you need to have this on your phone.
Borrow a pair, find a used pair, start with a cheaper pair, but be prepared to upgrade – you’ll need to have a decent pair of binoculars at some point.
Based on this review I ended up buying the Athlon Midas 8×24 binoculars, which I love. This particular set of binoculars seems to go on sale fairly regularly for WAY less than their list price, so shop around if these are the ones you decide to get.
Photo by Mary Brandt
“may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secret to living”
We don’t know the dates of Jesus’ birth or the events of his ministry. But there is one date we do know. Because what we call The Last Supper was a Passover seder… and that meant the moon was full, because in Jewish law, Passover always starts on the 15th day of the lunar month of Nisan, which is (in our hemisphere) the first full moon of Spring.
The Last Supper took place under a full moon.
The moon was full as Jesus prayed in the garden that night.
The moon was full as Roman soldiers took him away.
The moon was full when he was crucified.
And the moon still looked full three days later when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”
Peter and John ran with her back to the tomb and confirmed… the body of Jesus was gone.
Peter and John went to find the other disciples.
Mary stayed at the tomb… and wept.
Until…. two angels and then the risen Christ appeared and gently asked her why she was weeping.
Mary saw with her own eyes what humans had never seen before.
She ran to tell the disciples who, understandably, were besides themselves. Think about it – the man they loved and followed had been murdered. Angels had appeared? Jesus was raised from the dead? And all of this while Roman soldiers were looking for them to kill them.
The disciples were terrified. They didn’t witness the crucifixion. They were so afraid they fled to where they had last seen Jesus, the room where they had been together the night before … and they locked the door.
And then, even though the door was locked… Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Having said this, the savior showed them the marks of crucifixion.
The disciples saw with their own eyes what humans had never seen before.
They locked the door to protect themselves. In many translations of the Bible it says they locked the doors “for fear of the Jews” and it’s very, very important to understand the harm this translation has done. This text is used by many to support antisemitism, which is not only an abomination, it’s not the correct reading of the text. The disciples weren’t hiding from “the Jews”, they were hiding from those who wielded the power of oppression, those who had just executed their Messiah… Roman soldiers carrying out the orders of the empire and religious authorities who were profiting by their association with that power.
There was one disciple who wasn’t in the locked room, who didn’t see what the other disciples saw. We don’t know why Thomas wasn’t there, or why, after he was told what happened, he seemed to reject what his friends said. They told him they had seen Jesus, that they had seen the wounds – and Thomas responded, ”I’ll never believe it without putting my finger in the nail marks and my hand into the spear wound.”
This verse, the verse where Thomas says he needs to feel Christ’s wounds to believe, is often used to teach us that when it comes to our faith doubt is somehow a sign of weakness…but I don’t think that’s what this text is teaching us.
Because the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, it’s certainty.
Certainty is what leads us to become religious leaders who align themselves with the empire.
Certainty teaches us that there are “others” who deserve less, who are less, and who even deserve to die.
Certainty closes us off from wonder, and awe, and the miraculous.
The gospel lesson for today isn’t about doubt… These words teach us that it’s not only ok to ask questions, it’s holy. We are supposed to wonder about our faith and our church, to question what others say. Peter Abelard, an important medieval theologian, said “By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiry we come to truth.”
Or, as others have put it “Sincere inquiry leads to sincere faith.”
“By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiry we come to truth.”
peter abelard
Ten days ago I went to my in-law’s home to celebrate Passover. Once again, I was struck by the symbols of the Passover seder…a lamb shank, an egg, the green herbs of spring…symbols that are echoed in the celebration of Easter.
Before I married into a Jewish family, I was like almost every Christian I know… I didn’t understand Passover, what it means, how it is celebrated. I didn’t know that the Last Supper was a Passover seder. And, I didn’t know that for the first three centuries of the church the followers of Jesus broke bread, drank wine, and celebrated Christ’s resurrection under the full moon of Passover.
For three centuries the celebration of the liberation of all people through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was added to the celebration of the liberation of Jewish slaves in Egypt.
It wasn’t until the Council of Nicea in the year 325 that this officially changed. Emperor Constatine directed the church to break from Jewish tradition and the Jewish calendar. The Christian celebration of Passover (what we call Easter in English) was moved from the lunar Jewish calendar to the Gregorian calendar and to a Sunday… Specifically the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the Spring Equinox.
That’s why Christians all over the world still use the word “Passover” for what we call Easter. In the Greek of the Bible and modern Greek it’s Pascha. … in French it’s Pacques, in Spanish it’s Pascua.
So how did we end up with “Easter” instead of “Passover”?
The Venerable Bede, a famous 7th century monk, was the first to describe how this happened: “Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated as ‘Paschal month,’ and which was once called after a goddess of theirs [Germanic peoples] named Eostre, in whose honor feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate the Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance” (De Temporum Ratione).
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t learn this in Sunday school.
The idea that we might be part of a thread of God’s plan that connects us directly to a Jewish ritual, a Germanic spring Goddess, and the moon weren’t part of the story of the very white, very American, mainstream Protestant tradition I grew up in.
But I find incredible solace and even inspiration in the fact that as a follower of Christ, I am part of a story that is deep, and rich, and connected to all of creation, all of my ancestors, and the history of my faith. I delight in knowing that the creator of every molecule in the universe needed our ancestors to be part of that story, part of these connections… and that God still needs us to hold onto that thread, to help co-create and write new stories to heal the world and bring forth shalom, the kindom of God.
I find incredible solace and even inspiration in the fact that as a follower of Christ, I am part of a story that is deep, and rich, and connected to all of creation, all of my ancestors, and the history of my faith.
Two days ago, the astronauts safely splashed down in the Pacific ocean as they returned home from their voyage to the moon.
On Easter morning, Victor Glover shared this message as the crew of Artemis II approached the moon…
“When I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us, who were created, you have this amazing place, this spaceship. You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth. But you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos…In all of this emptiness — this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe — you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist (in) together.” I think as we go into Easter Sunday thinking about all the cultures all around the world —whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not — this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are and that we are the same thing. And that we got to get through this together.”
“On a good, calm day it is hard to know what to make of photos that show, in no uncertain terms, that every single thing you will ever and could ever know is simultaneously galactically insignificant and unspeakably beautiful and precious. Today, the world held its breath waiting for the 8 p.m. eastern deadline Trump set for Iran to agree to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. If his terms weren’t met, he posted this morning, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”… And yet at the very same moment, four flesh-and-blood human beings are hundreds of thousands of miles away taking pictures of our delicate little world. Their mission and their photos remind us of something else entirely—of a yearning to learn, to explore, and to band together to become something greater than the sum of our parts.”
Hildegard de Bingen, who lived in the early 12th century, was an astounding polymath, theologian, and visionary. I’ve recently rediscovered her “mandalas”, designs meant to open our eyes to new ways of seeing…
“The [mandalas] were thought to be as strong or stronger than the words themselves. There is a gestalt immediacy, what Hindu’s refer to as darshan, meaning the simultaneous act of seeing and being seen by a deity.”
The astronauts hugging each other after naming a crater after Reid Wiseman’s late wife Carroll. Link to the video
“Unlike happiness, joy can live alongside sadness, boredom, fear, or despair. It expands our capacity to hold contradictory truths at the same time—and because we know joy, we recover a strange, steady confidence that life is still worth loving, even when it hurts.”
This is the text of the sermon I was to give today. Like many churches in the path of this weekend’s severe winter storm, we cancelled our in-person services to keep each other safe.
The text for these thoughts is Matthew 4:12-23, and, in particular, these verses:
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishers. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
The video at the end is meant to be played as an integral part of the sermon.
When Jesus spoke these words roughly 2000 years ago, he didn’t say them in English. I know that’s obvious, but it bears repeating. Jesus spoke Aramaic with his family and friends. He was able to read Hebrew, which was the language of the temple, and he spoke Greek, which was the common language of the Roman Empire (which is why the gospels were written in Greek). When the gospel according to Matthew was written, “akoloutheō” (ah-ko-loo-THEH-oh) was the word used for “follow”.
Akoloutheo is also the root of the English word “acolyte”. That association may help us understand what Jesus actually meant when he said “Follow me” because an acolyte is “a person who attends or assists a leader”. Its modern use is mostly related to the church; Acolytes are the people you see every Sunday preparing the communion table, lighting the candles, and carrying the cross.
In other words, when Jesus said “follow me” to his first disciples, it wasn’t a metaphor. It meant “walk with me, assist me, attend to me”. This sense of “hands-on” following is also present in the English word “follow”. In Old English the meaning of the word “follow” was to “accompany”. The word most likely evolved from the proto-Germanic word *full-gan, or “full-going”.
Understanding this etymology helps us with today’s reading. Because if “following” Jesus means to accompany him, to be “full-going”, to be completely invested, it’s asking for something more than most of us learned growing up in church. Because following Jesus is not just about “giving your life to Christ”, it’s about walking into the world led by a radical way of being that completely upends powers and principalities. It’s about full-on, hands-on, joy-filled discipleship to bring the kindom of God to earth as it is in heaven.
Of course they dropped their nets and left everything behind.
When Jesus said “follow me”, he was clearly instructing Simon, Andrew, James, and John to travel with him towards the kindom of God… But it also meant they could walk away from oppression.
Fishermen in the first century Rome weren’t what we think of today. They didn’t own their boats – and they didn’t own the fish they caught. Both their boats and the fish they caught belonged to the Emperor of Rome. When they hauled in their nets, the biggest fish went to high ranking Romans. Any remaining fish that could be sold were sold to make money for Rome. As a result, fishermen in first century Rome were as low in the social order as tax collectors. They were just collecting fish for Rome instead of coins.
Of course they dropped their nets and left everything behind.
They assisted him, attended to him, learned from him as he “went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
Word spread quickly. Crowds began to gather.
People then, like now, were hungry for good news, sick of being oppressed and frightened, desperate to be healed. They lined roads to welcome him and sat in crowds gathered to hear his teaching. They offered places for Jesus and his disciples to stay and provided them food.
It’s actually not that hard to imagine…because right now, in our country, there are crowds gathering to hear similar good news, crowds lining streets and gathering in schools and in churches to hear profound teaching on how to bring peace into our lives and the world.
For those who might not be aware, a group of Buddhist monks who live in Fort Worth left their home in October on a Walk for Peace. They are walking 2300 miles from Fort Worth to Washington DC… not to protest but to carry a simple message, one that resonates with the teachings of Christ – Peace is within each of us, a peace that passes all understanding… a peace that can heal the world.
The following is the text of a sermon preached on December 28, 2025 at Bering Church.
Last week I had a conversation with Diane and Calvin about preaching from the lectionary. During that conversation, Diane said something important that stuck with me: “Preaching from the lectionary makes you read the parts of scripture that are hard…the parts you don’t really want to deal with.”
Advent, the season of waiting for the Light, ended on Christmas Eve as we retold the nativity story. We woke up the next morning to the wonderful chaos of the Christmas celebration… and we are still celebrating Christmas. Today is the 3rd day of Christmastide (otherwise known as the 12 days of Christmas), the season that lets us dive deeply into the miracle of Christ’s birth, the gift of God putting on skin to come live with us and within us.
The 3rd day of Christmas is also Childermas in the calendar of the church, the “children’s mass”. We don’t celebrate feast days the way our siblings in the Catholic church do, but they are reflected in our lectionary… and so today, our gospel lesson is about the Slaughter of the Innocents.
It seems a little on the nose that the Sunday I was asked to preach the text is about Herod ordering the murder of every boy in Jerusalem under 2 years of age.
Because, as a pediatric surgeon, I have personally witnessed the slaughter of children.
I have heard the anguished cries of their parents.
I know exactly what Rachel’s weeping sounded like…
You don’t have to be a pediatric surgeon working in an urban hospital to witness the slaughter of children today.
The news is filled with images and stories of children dying from bombings in Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, and so many other places…Children dying from starvation and disease because food and medicine are being deliberately withheld…Children dying from gunshot wounds on beaches and in our cities.
It’s understandable that we just want to look away…to protect our tender hearts from this horror, from this darkness.
What do you do with a Christmas text about something this horrible? And why is this part of the Christmas story?
Today’s text reminds us that in the midst of Christmas lights, presents, and celebrations… there was, is, and will always be darkness in the world. But it doesn’t stop there. I think it also provides some guidance on what to do…how we are to bring light into the darkness.
Lament
Jesus wept.
It’s not only the shortest verse in the Bible, it’s a directive for those of us who have chosen to follow Jesus. Like Rachel, like the mothers in Bethlehem, in the face of unthinkable tragedy, it’s not only ok that we mourn, it is important that we lament, that we embody our sorrow… that we weep, tear our clothes, cover ourselves with ashes.
Like Rachel and the mothers in Bethlehem, we need to let our hearts be broken by that which breaks the heart of God.
Be angry
Profound sorrow is often accompanied by anger, even if we try to (or have been taught to) suppress it. Rebecca Solnit, who is one of my favorite philosophers and activists, quotes Rev. Dr. Renita J Weems who teaches that “rage is a form of prayer”. It’s a form of prayer because rage is not primarily about the anger, it’s about the love and care that underlies that anger.
So don’t worry if you feel rage with your sorrow… it’s holy.
Watch for the way opening
Today’s scripture lessons start by teaching us that in the face of unbearable sorrow we are to lament, weep, and even shake our fists at God in anger. But then, we need to let go, we need to “put our trust in YHWH’s unfailing love.” (from another of today’s readings, Isaiah 63:7-9)
When I say “let go”, let me be clear. I’m not talking about letting go of the grief – I’m talking about transforming it in a way that allows us to “watch for the way opening” as the Quakers say.
The mothers in our story never stopped grieving. Each of them had waves of grief that were unrelenting, waves of grief that tumbled them in the surf of sorrow and then threw them to the ground. But as time went on they began to realize, like everyone who has experienced this kind of intense grief, that although the waves never stop, they begin to decrease in intensity and frequency. In the midst of grief there are moments where we can finally stand up without being knocked down… and in those moments sorrow can be transformed.
Joseph must have felt sorrow, too… along with tremendous anger. His fiancee became pregnant, but not by him. He had to obey a ruthless tyrant and take Mary to Jerusalem so Herod could know how many people to tax. And then, when they got there, it was so crowded there was no place to stay…
And, yet…
Joseph got up.
Not once, not twice, but three times.
He had three different dreams and each time the same thing happened…
He had a dream not to divorce Mary… and “Joseph got up and did as the angel of God directed.”
He had a dream to escape with Mary and Jesus to Egypt… and “Joseph got up, awakened Jesus and Mary, and they left that night for Egypt.”
He had a dream to return to Israel with Jesus after the death of Herod… and “Joseph got up, awakened Jesus and Mary, and they returned to the land of Israel.”
The word in Greek that is translated as “dream” in Matthew is specific for a dream that is a clear message sent by God. This word is used only 21 times in the Bible, and only 6 times in the New Testament… all in the Gospel according to Matthew.
We believe that God is still speaking to us in dreams, events, conversations, natural beauty, art, poetry, imagination… Sometimes it’s with a loud voice…urgent messages like the ones Joseph heard, but more often it’s a whisper, words that enter our awareness like a sacred secret. As John C. Dorheur, pastor and former President of the UCC explains “Sacred moments and new truth and inspired wisdom can come to us along many pathways. Some moments of insight are approached through disciplines we cultivate for that very purpose. Other epiphanies come utterly by surprise, the product less of our cultivation than of some unexpected inspiration that the universe conspires to create.
So I return to the questions I started with…
What do you do with a Christmas text about something this horrible? And why is this part of the Christmas story?
Today’s gospel reading reminds us that darkness has always been and will always be present in the world, that there are times that it will drop us to our knees in grief or fear. But it also gives us a glimpse about how to move through that darkness, to remember that Light was born into the world, a Light that shines in the darkness, a Light that darkness cannot overcome. (John 1:5).
We are to bear witness.
When faced with unbearable tragedy, when we find ourselves in the throes of darkness, we are to bear witness, to not look away. As painful as it is, we are to let our hearts be broken by that which breaks the heart of God.
Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack, a crack in everything that’s how the light gets in.
We are to lament (and not be surprised if we are angry).
We are to embody our sorrow and feel rage at the injustice… honest emotions, felt deeply.
We are to trust.
Having faced the darkness, felt deep sorrow and anger, we then need to let go. We can’t let sorrow and anger consume us. Through faith we watch for moments that let us begin to transform our sorrow and our anger, looking for the Light that is able to shine through our brokenness …and then we are to take that Light into the world to do what Love would have us do.
May we be open to the many ways that God is still speaking – in our dreams, in the actions and words of angels among us, in quiet whispers and gentle touch, in birdsong and sunrise.
In the dark, in times of sorrow, fear, and anger may we watch for the way opening.
And then, like Joseph, may we listen, get up, and obey.
Amen
Sermons are meant to be heard, more than read. If you want to listen, you can find this sermon here (The sermon starts at 18:43).
If you don’t know about the amazing Kate Bowler… you’re welcome! Her take on the “secret of life” (yup, for real) is one of the best I’ve ever heard. (Click on the image to hear it)
“Tiny plastic pellets called nurdles – each about the size of a lentil – are washing up on Texas beaches in alarming quantities. These pre-production plastics are the raw material used to make everyday items like bags and bottles. But when they spill during manufacturing or transport, they escape into the environment, becoming one of the most widespread sources of microplastic pollution.”
This is a scary situation I knew nothing about. These little pieces of plastic “act like tiny sponges, absorbing toxic chemicals such as pesticides and heavy metals”. So it’s not just that we take in microplastics by eating fish that have confused these objects with food, we also consume the poisons the nurdles have absorbed.
A reminder that forest bathing is wonderful (and so easy)
I spent some time yesterday in a park near my home and, while there, decided to try the Japanese practice of shinrin yoku, known in English as “forest bathing.” (Which is therapeutically known as sylvotherapy!)
It’s a practice that involves all five senses, one by one, intentionally…
Listening to sounds, birds, insects, wind in the leaves
Touching the ground, the trees, and the leaves.
Smelling flowers, plants, the dirt
Seeing plants, birds, animals, clouds..
Tasting by breathing through your mouth
If you work in a hospital or another building, a small green area or a single tree will suffice.
We have powerful tools on our digital phones, particularly in medicine. But the relationship with our phones is complicated…and not always beneficial.
The first time I ever came across the word alexithymia was in this New York Times opinion piece about digital phones by Steven Barrie-Anthony. As a physician, I love learning new clinical words with Greek roots – in this case “a” for not, “lexis” for words, and “thymos” which means “feeling” or “spiritedness”. Alexithymia (a word invented in 1970 by psychotherapists), is also known as “emotional blindness”, and means not being able to recognize your emotions.
Dr. Barrie-Anthony noted that the “vast majority” of his patients were experiencing an “alexithymic fog” due to the “gravitational pull” from their phones and social media, a condition that affected “the most important aspects of who they are, their relationships with others and how they move through the world.”
Do we really have agency when we get pulled in by the gravitational force of our phones? For our non-work related time, we pick the app…but then we fall into the dopamine feedback loop of whatever game we’re playing, or algorithms that are foundational to social media.
I think it matters more that I’ve realized, and not for the reasons I thought:
Being used by the tools of the digital world is different from using them as tools because it separates us from our authentic emotions.
“One constant I’ve found is how technology brings a kind of alexithymic fog — alexithymia being the condition of having difficulty identifying or being able to express one’s emotions. This isn’t universal, and the emotions we’re pushing away aren’t always the same. But it happens in a startlingly consistent way.”
To tackle the problems of technology we have to return to our emotional lives for their own sake, and not always leap to doing or changing or fixing. This is the only viable pathway if we are to remain in touch with our humanness and to preserve love, empathy, emotional and spiritual richness, and the capacity to create art and music that reflect our inner lives.
I have yet to experience awe in the digital world.
“When medieval Christians gathered in cathedrals, the soaring architecture and stained glass were designed to lift their thoughts toward the divine. The shared narrative included an image of the good life that directed one to love their neighbor as oneself. Today’s digital architectures are designed with a different purpose – to keep our attention firmly earthbound, focused on consuming content and generating data. The “infinite scroll” isn’t just a design feature; it’s a spiritual technology that trains us to value quantity over quality, novelty over depth, reaction over reflection.”
The Fractal Foundation describes a fractal as ““a never-ending pattern that repeats itself in different scales. This property is ‘self-similarity’”. These repeated patterns are found in the “roughness” of nature and the structure of our bodies, creating an order which is thought to be the subconscious reason we have such deep emotional responses to the beauty of nature.
Human beings are fascinated with the symmetry and beauty of fractals despite (or perhaps because) they are mathematically incredibly complex. Benoit Mandelbrot, a mathematician and polymath, coined the term “fractal” while working to understand the “roughness and self-similarity” in nature. Well, actually, his first work was looking at the “wild randomness” of the stock market… but as he explained, his formal work at IBM for 35 years allowed him to ask deeper questions.
“Dramatically referred to as “the fingerprint of life,” their repetition of patterns across multiple scales forms the basic building blocks of many of nature’s patterns ranging from clouds, trees, and mountains through to our brains, blood vessels, and lungs.”
Most of us haven’t heard of fractals… but knowing about them allows us to see the world and our studies in medicine through (literally) a different lens. How cool is that?
I’ve always thought we missed a great opportunity in medicine for collective nouns… A flow of urologists? A clot of hematologists? …😂
Day Light Savings Time. It’s easier for your body clock to adjust when flying east to west through time zones which is why it is easier to adjust to the “fall back” to standard time that we just experienced. There are lots of theories about how daylight savings time got started and why. It’s also known that a) it’s better for us to not go back and forth between daylight savings and standard time and b) if we have to pick one or the other, standard time is the one to choose.
Eco Divina. Lectio divina is a powerful tool for meditation and/or prayer, a four step practice that uses the words of a text (usually a sacred text) to lead you to insight and inspiration. (If you haven’t ever tried it, here are some great instructions. Although these instructions refer to the Bible, any text, from sacred writings to poetry can be used. I had heard of visio divino, where art serves the same purpose… but eco divina was new to me (at least by that name). Like sitting with words, or with images, eco divina is sitting deeply with something in the natural world in a way that reminds you of the beauty of creation (and your part in it).
The moon. Make sure you go outside tonight and look at the moon. It’s a supermoon and worthy of a little “eco divina” (aka awe).
I love this app to know when the moon rises and sets (and in which direction).
The best hospital signage I’ve ever seen.
I was recently part of a survey team that visited Savannah Children’s Hospital and I have to share how patients and families find their way in their hospital!
There is a “tree” in the entrance that defines the color scheme for the entire hospital (green = surgery, brown = diagnostic imaging, blue = ER/ICUs…etc ). There are also symbols associated with each color.
(the family gave me permission to take this photo)
Then you follow the path!
Every corridor has tiles that confirm you are still going in the right direction based on the colors.
We often forget that 21% of adults in the US are illiterate, which means they won’t be able to read signs pointing them to different areas in the hospital (or any building for that matter). In addition to being incredibly effective, this attention to design is also an act of kindness.
Still thinking about Game 7 of the World Series…
I have never seen a game like it and probably never will again…
