It has again been a long time and much has happened since my last installment (though I'm not sure something as infrequent as my posts can even be called "installments" which denotes some degree of regularity). Regardless, the catharsis that writing provides has prompted me to sit down and plug away at an update. I wonder sometimes if part of why writing in a "journal" (these posts are as close as I get) is so strongly encouraged is because it provides a medium for calming and healing turbulent emotions and thoughts…it's an interesting thought...
Anyway, let me first reiterate one of the big changes in my life: I am no longer a Wisconsin resident…
Part of me was ready for this change (the part of me that hates being cold all the time in particular. Also the part of me that enjoys the excitement of newness!) Having said that however, a part of me got left in that frozen northern tundra…I made some of those rare friends -- you know the type -- the ones you will still feel close to even after months/years of not seeing them. The ones who seem to glow with goodness and yet don't realize it (part of what contributes to their glowing, I'm sure). The ones who, no matter how much you try and tell them, will never really "get" how much they influenced you….those kind of friends! For four years they helped fill gaps that I am just now beginning to understand a little better. My years in Wisconsin remind me of my years as a missionary because both were far away from family and things that felt familiar. Both were times of "concentrated life and learning" (I don't know how to phrase it any better) that felt like 10 or 20 years of normal life experience crammed into 2 or 4 years respectively. And both were periods that in retrospect I can look back on and find strength in…
In late June after a wonderful visit from my parents, grandparents and Lance and after finishing a forensic pathology rotation I hit the road in my trusty Subaru -- that I have aptly named "Rocinante" after the horse in Don Quixote (I think it is a particularly fitting name since to the world's view Rocinante was a ramshackle glue-factory animal but Don Quixote saw him as a brave and valiant stallion who stalwartly took him around on his somewhat misguided quests to fight windmills and the such…I think it is just a name that fits…) Anyway, my brave little car and I hit the road for south Texas! Along the road I got to spend a night in Nauvoo, a night in Tulsa with some relatives and a night in Dallas with friends! Upon arrival I immediately set to work moving my stuff in, finding my way around and starting residency!
I began July 1st on a Neurosurgery rotation. I had a fair amount of anxiety about being so brand new and starting on something like neurosurgery but with the exception of one very long, tense night working to keep a patient alive (we were successful by the way) it was a really nice rotation and I learned a lot. August and now September have been a geriatrics rotation which have also been nice and allowed some quick weekend trips up to Utah to see and meet people. Next month will be on the acute inpatient rehab unit which will be very applicable to my future career (despite having the reputation of really long arduous hours). I look forward to things that are heading down the residency pipeline!
Now, as I mentioned above, the major reason I started writing this post after so long of a break is for the cathartic effect writing has on me. Somehow taking the time to organize my thoughts enough to write them down has a therapeutic effect on me and helps me to solidify certain concepts or ideas in my mind in a way nothing else does. With that said, I'm about to get a lot more somber, so for anyone who is not in the mood for somber feel free to stop now and watch this hilarious video of the funniest dog of all time! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LzMAXqu8qU)
Sometimes I like to picture what I call the "mental shelf". In my mind I imagine an empty room with a shelf attached to one wall. On this shelf are a variety of strange objects of different shapes, sizes, colors, ages, etc. Each of these objects represents an idea that I just don't really understand. From time to time I will go in this room and take one of the objects off the shelf, brush away the dust and examine it. This is akin to thinking about an idea or topic that I don't really understand for a while. Most commonly I am forced to place the object back on the shelf, no better understood than when I picked the item up and I leave it to be revisited at some future day. Occasionally however, when I am turning this object over and over in my hands a spark of understanding comes to me and when I put the object back on the shelf I understand it just a tiny bit better than when I started. Over the months and years these sparks accumulate and my understanding morphs over time. I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand these topics but I am confident that my understanding today is better developed than it was last week and it will be better developed next week than it is now if I keep visiting the objects on the shelf and spend time mulling them over. I do find that these "objects" (aka: thoughts or ideas) are generally among the big tough ones that don't have easy answers and if they do have answers they are probably different for every person...
Anyway, one of these "objects" that I have been visiting from time to time in my thoughts over the last year or so has been the idea of how Christ can mend that which is broken. At first I didn't even think of it in exactly those words or terms, but over time I have come to understand that the things I was thinking about could be boiled down to the idea of Christ's power to mend that which is broken. What I have come to understand is that each of us at any given moment have a part of us that feel broken. This feeling can be because of a loss we have suffered, or from loneliness, or depression, or from frustration at our circumstances or from feeling we have been betrayed or had our trust broken. It can come when we seem to fall into the same stupid sins over and over again. It can come in matters of family, friends, work (or lack thereof) and relationships. It can certainly come in matters of dating and the heart…I think we all have these parts of us that feel fractured and broken and we wonder if they will ever be able to be fixed…
Growing up and well into my adult years I would hear the phrase "Christ understands your pain and sorrows because he felt them all" or something along those lines, and for a long time I didn't fully understand how that was important. I believed it and felt that it was true. I just didn't understand how that was helpful. Frankly, it made me feel bad because I was miserable and why would I want anyone to feel the same way I did, even if it was the Son of God? It wasn't until I was well into what is generally considered "adulthood" (debatable in my case, I know) that I finally came to understand why it was important that Christ felt all the same pains I feel. What I realized is that the phrase I heard growing up is incomplete. It is the first half of an idea, but it is not the whole idea. If I were to rewrite the phrase it would go something like this: "Christ understands your pain because he felt it too, and that is important because he descended below these things and then overcame them, and now he can show you the way out!"
Elder Holland gave a talk in the April 2006 conference that has become one of my favorites. In it he said this:
"The Savior reminds us that He has “graven [us] upon the palms of [His] hands.” Considering the incomprehensible cost of the Crucifixion and Atonement, I promise you He is not going to turn His back on us now. When He says to the poor in spirit, “Come unto me,” He means He knows the way out and He knows the way up. He knows it because He has walked it. He knows the way because He is the way."
Now, I'm not saying that healing the parts of us that are broken will be a painless process, and I'm not saying it happens overnight. Just like setting and casting a broken bone is painful, and healing takes time; pulling our broken pieces together can hurt and will likely not happen on our timetable. What I believe however, is that healing can come. Whether it is my heart that is broken or my trust or my confidence, these things can be healed through the power of Christ's atonement.
The details are not important but I have had opportunity to put this mending power to the test in recent weeks probably as rigorously as I have ever had need of it. It has been hard and painful, and I'd be lying if I said that I felt completely repaired. I have some relatively good moments and I have some not as good moments. My heart and emotions often still feel like they are in shattered little pieces. But what I find comfort in is the knowledge that things can get better if I allow Christ's atonement to work in my life. Another "mental shelf" idea that relates is the idea of exactly what the atonement does for us and how to make it active in our lives. I have gone on quite long enough and I will not delve into these topics other than to say that I have learned that the atonement is not only for cleansing of sin (it is for that, certainly) but it does more. Among other things It "binds up the brokenhearted" (Isaiah 61:1) and we make it active in our life when we are obedient to commandments and when we live covenants we have made.
I think it is part of the mortal experience to always have some part of us that feels broken -- I think that is part of what "opposition in all things" means -- but I think that when we are yolked to Christ, those broken parts don't stay broken. They are repaired and made stronger than they were to begin with. I think this is part of what Christ meant when he said he would make weak things become strong unto us (Ether 12:27). The repaired/strengthened parts will always be replaced with new broken pieces but as we continue to yolk ourselves to Christ those parts will be repaired and strengthened and the whole repeating cycle results in a new and stronger and more Christ-like person! Admittedly, some breaks take longer to heal than others, but I think that is part of why the Atonement needed to be infinite! Because no matter how bad the break is, no matter how large a part of us is broken, and no matter how feeble and inadequate our best attempts may be; the atonement will fill in where we fall short, it will repair the broken piece no matter how large it is!
Anyway, I'm going to quit rambling now. I feel bad for making anyone strong enough to have read all the way to then end here be a part of my self-therapy session…sorry!
Best wishes to everyone and I hope to catch up sometime soon!
-Eric
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