Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, described his random bouncing back and forth from past to future as being "unstuck in time."
April 20 marks my half way point here (my flight from Philadelphia was March 20, and our return flight from Nairobi is May 20), and I too am beginning to feel unstuck in time, although in a different sense. For me, every day is so intense with new (and often emotionally draining) experiences, that time has a very different quality here. Events of yesterday (was it only yesterday I gave Grand Rounds at the district hospital?) seem like a week ago; events of last week (was it only last week that Liz arrived?) seem like a month ago; and at times my life in Lancaster seems very distant indeed, as though I have been here for much longer than a month.
[ Interrupted for an emergency cesarean section]
People say that "time flies when you are having fun", but it has never seemed that way to me. My experience is that when life is at its fullest and most intense, time somehow slows down, or at least takes on a different quality. Thomas Kelly, in his essay The Eternal Now, talks about living simultaneously in two dimensions, the temporal and the eternal. And Jesus alludes to "life more abundant". Perhaps both of these get at what I am truing to describe.
At any rate, it is good that I am here... Today my colleague Dr. Serrem was taken to surgery, for an emergency appendectomy (done by the outside surgeon). So, life promises to be even more intense while he recuperates.
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4-23 Hi, Tom and Liz. Thanks for creating this blog. It lets me feel close to the experiences you are having. In some ways it sounds like trial by fire; in another way, a real opportunity to be God's hands and feet. I will be holding you both in the Light.
ReplyDeleteI have been in touch with Helen by phone a fair bit this week. Wednesday she wasn't feeling too well so she didn't feel up to having me visit. She said her side hurt; it was something she'd had before and what helped was rest. Today she sounded better. She is going to get a check by the nurse practitioner anyway this afternoon, which sounds smart. She is certainly an easy person to talk to.
We are having beautiful April days here, cool in the 50s and 60s, a bit of rain yesterday and some scattered rain due for most of the next six days. Things are greening up.
Thanks for your Easter message, Tom. That really spoke to me. Love to you both. Rachel