Monday. New Moon. I met Jesus this morning.
He was my first ride out this week. It was just the two of us. Yes, Jesus*.
He was carrying Stephen R. Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
“How is it going?” I asked, pointing to the book.
“Fine.” he said.
I told him I was recently looking for my copy so I could read it again.
“Have you been to the training?" he asked.
“No." I said. I don’t know why I didn’t ask about his experience of the training. We must have made a turn. Now I am curious what that’s about.
Otherwise we spoke generally of self-help and quality of life. I told him I’m working on a book. I have been polishing my opinions on this topic of course and added a little spit to the shine.
We spent a few minutes in front of his house before he got out of the shuttle. He has two boys and a girl and he has given considerable thought about the life-time cash from a part-time job versus the value of family time. He’s going with family time.
Karen was my next rider. She knows cancer drugs and cancer. She’s a pharmacological oncologist at a local hospital.
“I assume your job is to provide comfort and care to people recovering from cancer or moving into death. Can you talk to me about the intentional use of drugs to induce death?”
“Sure.”
"I have been curious about why botched state-sanctioned executions have been in the news lately. How is it that veterinarians do not take two hours to put a pet to sleep?” I asked.
Basically she said that we (the culture) do not consider that our pets are sentient and self-aware beings. We do not communicate with them at the verbal level. Or, more correctly, they do not do that with us. So, we allow our vets to induce a coma-like state and then a heart-stopping drug.
Apparently we need to be more humane to humans because apparently they/we know more about what’s going on. As if pets don’t. I did mention a couple books on plant consciousness. She might look them up. Here is another specific time that I wish I could take notes. Here I am, having private time, with a doctor that is conversant with death.
Anyway, it is possible that I do not have this drug thing exactly right even though I am writing now less than 12 hours after we met.
We also got on the quality-of-life issue, the miracle of the very breath itself, the distractions … And, she also, has been to two Steven Covey trainings, courtesy of the hospital. Another reason to hope that I meet her again.
We did not speak about her land of origin. I am pretty sure she did not grow up in America and western culture. I can’t believe I missed asking that particular question. Her car is in the body shop for this next week or so. Maybe we'll meet again.
Speaking of distractions; I met T again; mother of 3, a control operator at the power plant. She’d been a nuke controller in the military, which I imagined as;
“Navy?"
“Of course.”
I then get to chime in about my younger brother, the USS Shark, the USS Kitty Hawk … as if I knew anything about any of that … but still ….
And so, she, mother of three … here we are with endless questions and comments from the kids.
While there is a great deal of love around the miracle of life, one can easily imagine the distractions. There they are, in the back seat. "Mom. Mom. Mom?"
“To touch the soul of another human being
is to walk on holy ground.”
*Jesus? Yes, Jesus Lopez.
Further, there is a small Indian congregation here in the neighborhood. There was a birthday party recently in the front yard. For several days there were tents, tables and the vinyl party sign was up for days. It read: Happy Birthday, Krishna.
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