By Gary Gunderson
We humans are a broken and fragile lot. The only way we have spread from Africa into every hill and meadow on this spinning world is because we learned to help and heal each other. Other species are tougher and more savage. It’s often hard to remember amid world events that are often mean and chaotic, but humans thrive by kindness. We call those most profound and simple acts “humane.”
Doctors and nurses often tell of how they learned healing from the kindness of their moms. Sometimes we literally help each other find our way—through depression or across a confusing parking lot. Sometimes we heal over decades.
Each morning at 9, people representing every operating unit of Wake Forest Baptist Health gather to report on events, concerns and anything they need from the larger team. We often recite this prayer, one that is apropos for this edition of FaithHealth:
A Prayer for Healers
God of all life
And death
And every healing in between.
Our daily lesson is that you have made us fragile and incomplete
So we must help each other along the way.
Give us the simple confidence that we who are called healers
Are doing the best we can
For those that need us
As we run our tests
And clean the floors
And deliver the meds
And choose and guide the tools
(Including a kind touch)
To give life a chance.
May we be smart enough
And kind enough
this one day,
the only day we are in.
We know you make this possible.
Thank you for guiding us to find our life with each other.
Amen.
Quilt Art: Michael James, Creative Commons.
