Blood
Last night, we watched the film Black Hawk Down.In one scene, a sergeant walks through a field hospital just as an artery sprays a geyser of blood onto the floor. He stares at the pooled blood, grabs a sheet, drops to his knees. He begins mopping. (Of course, you can't really mop blood with a dry sheet; he mostly succeeds in smearing it around the floor.)
It is a desperate act that cannot make a difference.
Instantly, I am transported to the surgical ICU where I worked as a trauma chaplain nearly 10 years ago. The taste and smell of blood fill my nose, my mouth, my sinuses. I swallow hard to keep from gagging. My wife does not notice.
Our bodies carry memories--images, tastes, smells, emotions. In the midst of the everyday, we can be transported in an instant. We are created with this possibility; it is a part of our embodiment.
I am sitting in my rocking chair, watching a movie. But somewhere in my brain I am squatting in a pool of blood beside the head of a Mexican immigrant, saying the Lord's Prayer in Spanish.
Within seconds, all I can do is murmur, over and over, "Padre nuestro, Padre nuestro, Padre nuestro."
A desperate act that cannot make a difference?
He had arrived at work early that morning, the first to show up. He climbed into a giant tree chipper; he wanted to clean it before the others arrived. Responsible guy.
The next person who arrived thought he was alone. He decided to warm up the machine for his co-workers. He switched it on without looking inside.
The patient is hamburger. No matter how quickly the docs pump blood into his body, it oozes out like water from an oversaturated sponge, soaking the sheets, dripping from the bed, pooling on the floor. We are wading in the stuff.
My eyes make desperate appeals to the unit manager. This body cannot be saved; we are exhausting the hospital's blood supply; the precious stuff coagulates like jelly at the edges of the iron-rich pool. "Stop," I say. "Just stop."
The medical students insist on continuing. Surgeons believe they are gods.
By the time the patient's family and friends arrive, the floor is clean. Dry, white sheets have been placed on the bed. I have stripped off the bloody gown that covered my clothes, the booties that were pulled over my shoes. I have scrubbed the soles of my shoes in a surgical sink.
But I cannot eliminate the smell of blood from my nose or the chanted rhythm of "Padre nuestro, Padre nuestro, Padre nuestro" from my mind.
The doctors knew him as a problem to be solved. I will soon know him as brother, son, lover, friend, a man who left the world with a stranger's voice intoning the prayer he learned from his abuela: "Padre nuestro . . . ."
But there is remembrance of a different sort, too.
This morning I will say the Lord's Prayer in church, just as I did the morning after this bloodbath. I will chew the bread that is Christ's body. I will swallow the wine that is Christ's blood. I will feel it burn in the pit of my empty stomach.
I will pray: "Bless the Lord, O my soul! And all that is within me, bless God's holy name!"
Kneeling in the pew, I will close my eyes and see this patient: the curve of his cheek, the noble arc of his nose, the stubble on his chin.
And I will claim the blessing of apocatastasis,* cosmic reconciliation, for both of us, for all of us.
*Apocatastasis is the theological doctrine of the ultimate reconciliation of good and evil. It is based on the Biblical passage in 1 Corinthians 15:28, and was extensively preached in the eastern church by St. Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century. It was formally condemned by the Synod of Constantinople in 543. There have been diverse attempts to revive the idea over the centuries. What apocatastasis means: 1) Restoration, re-establishment, renovation 2) Return to a previous condition 3) Return to the same apparent position, completion of a period of revolution. (From this groovy site.)
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Sunday, July 09, 2006