The Renegade Doc Comments

There are changes coming in my extended family and hence in my own as well.  My 91 year old father-in-law, the family patriarch, has become seriously demented and has been difficult for my 90-year-old mother-in-law to care for over the last while.  Finally the children have stepped in and are seeing that they both get the care they need and deserve.  So today my wife and I went to visit and talk with staff at the nursing home where he will be living in early May and also to visit the residential center where she will be living.  For them it means the breaking up of home for the last time and living apart, the first time in nearly 67 years.

As I walked the halls of these nursing facilities, both of which are doing a fine job of attempting to care for our elderly loved ones, I had an interesting mix of emotion and revelation come, deep in my core.  It reminded me of my years living in the dorm at college:  hallways with doors to rooms and little else seen;  occasional lounge to sit and read a magazine or chat with fellow residents;  laundry facilities at one end with the sign to limit use to certain hours for the sake of your neighbors.

But the real kicker came with the revelation that this time graduation was not a leaving of these halls to go on to a hopefully full and productive life, but graduation from here was the end of that same life which was so looked forward to in the earlier experience.

Now, as a Jesus-follower, I know that going on from here is to a better place.  Nonetheless, it hit me right in the gut that…..

MOST OF US SPEND OUR TIME ON THE PLANET IN PREPARATION TO DIE AND NOT TO  BLOW THE SOCKS OFF OF LIFE!

It struck me that I have been guilty of exactly that.  I have spent my time, energy and focus being sure to ‘get it right’ and playing safe and, until fairly recently, not asking what I am here to do, what really floats my boat, what ‘makes me hum’ as I like to put it.

So the question gets personal: Why am I wasting my time doing a job that is not who I am, helping someone else make their money while not providing all that my family needs, not doing what Father put me on this planet to do,  not helping others in the way I know I could?

Time is short.  Time to start figuring it out.  Time to get out of “safe” and into “go”.

Then I come home and got into the last chapter of Bernie Siegel’s “Love, Medicine & Miracles” in which he talks about dying and completing unfinished tasks and living and choosing when our time here is done.  Wow.  He also makes the statement, taken from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, that decisions made by reason are made to satisfy others, decisions made by our intuition make us feel good even when they are thought to be crazy, and that when we become authentic we don’t care what others think of us anyway.

So it is crazy that from my background of medicine and massage therapy, with a strong conservative Christian belief system, that I now believe that my purpose here is to offer people a place to come where they can get totally – spiritually, emotionally and physically – naked as a way to quickly and profoundly HEAL.  It is even absurd for me to think that in doing so, all the walls that we put up over the years to protect ourselves from grief and pain and disappointment and abuse of all types and poor body image and low self-esteem will come down when people come to a safe, warm, nurturing environment and start peeling all the layers.  It is unimaginable that my Renegade mind thinks that God created us naked and unashamed for a reason – that we are our most real and most powerful selves when we are the most vulnerable and open and not ashamed to be who we are.  Satan and evil and disobedience may have messed it up but Jesus came and restored and opened the way back to communion with God and vulnerability and unashamedness.  It is crazy and absurd and unimaginable to think all that – except I know and have experienced the truth of it all.  Peeling all my many and high and well-protected layers has brought me life and health and healing, and has opened me up to myself and to my Loving Father God.

It is crazy because my friends and acquaintances will think I have become a dirty old man and the culture will think I am a sex fiend.  Neither of course is true; those attitudes are born from within those who think them and are a parroting of what they have been taught.  Becoming that open is about growing and healing; sex and evil and exploitation and lust are not even in the picture.  Nonetheless, it will be an uphill battle.  But that is OK; Growing and Healing is an uphill battle.

So, bottom line, when it is my turn to live in those sterile halls on that last stop before passing on to the other side, I want to be able to say that I gave it my all, took the risk, headed toward whom and what I was here to be and do.  I want to be a “liver”, not just a “dier”.

What do you need to risk?  Where do you need to get crazy?  Let’s go!

Love & Blessings,

Dr Jon
St Charles, MO