SOME RUMINATIONS ABOUT THE INSIDE OF MY GUT. Well, after surgery (thank you all for your prayers and well-wishes) my recovery is continuing apace (though not with the alacrity that I demand). My powers of concentration, which admittedly have never been very great, are even less than normal, so not much serious writing is getting done. However, I have had a few thoughts. (Writers always have a few thoughts.) The first is that surgeons consider themselves to be artistes. To understand them, this must always remain in your mind. Artistes are not common folk. To deal with them as you would a technician (such as an allergist or dermatologist) is a serious mistake. I was dimly aware of this before, but modern technology has made it very apparent. I had two surgeries in October and in both of them the surgeons were anxious for me to see and truly appreciate their work. How frustrating it must be for an artiste if his or her work is totally covered with skin upon completion. But that is no longer an obstacle. My surgeon at Stanford gives each patient a video of the entire procedure to carry with you out of the hospital and in post-op asks whether you have viewed it. My surgeon in Fresno does not give you a video, but in post-op shows you a series of brilliant hi-def photos of your gut and takes you step by step through the work that he did, clearly expecting you to be impressed with his artistry. I displayed all due appreciation as I would standing with an artist in front of a painting on a wall. However, in this case his palate was my insides, which was a bit jarring. Now I can honestly say that in almost 69 years of life, I have never seen the inside of my abdomen before this week. Why was I a bit jarred? Weve all been in doctors offices where they have these poster-size color illustrations of the human anatomy. Theyre so clear, neat and clean and in soft, very attractive colors. But what is the reality? My gut looks like something you would find lying on a table drawing flies in a third-world meat market. I could imagine some sharp-eyed grandmother haggling over this low quality cut arguing that it wouldnt even make a decent stew. So the first harsh reality: Thats what I look like inside? Did I really think it would be like the doctors office illustration? Of course not. But somehow neither did I think that I would look like a walking slab of bloody beef. Surely my insides must mirror in some small way the incredible attractiveness of my exterior. On the outside I look nothing like I do on the inside (at least I hope I dont). Staring at my gut, the question arose, is this all we really are, skin bags of meat and blood and bone waddling through the world hugging and bumping into each other until finally we die and turn into rotting messes? Thats what many people believe. But then the surgeon kept talking. To me it looked like a meaningless slab of meat. But not to him. He explained every part (in gross detail). He showed me what had been wrong and exactly how he had fixed it. That mess of blood and meat and bone, what amazing complexity. How many years he had spent studying it, trying to understand how it all worked. For me that demanded a very personal and rational question. (Writers always have very personal and rational questions, especially screenwriters in the minor hell called development.) My gut-level question: Where did all of this come from? Is my gut just the result of random selection? The utter intricacy is nothing more than a kind of collective belch of blind mutation? Absolutely impossible!!! A week or two ago I posted a long list of hundreds of scientists from around the world who agree with that assessment specifically on a molecular level. But if my gut isnt the result of blind mutation, what is it? I have to admit that, staring into the bloody essence of me, the alternative is absolutely terrifying. The very idea that there could be a Being who created all of this, the overwhelming vastness of such an Intellect, is a crushing weight almost too frightening to contemplate. But wed better contemplate it. Because if there is even a possibility that such an Intellect is behind everything from the stars above to the blood vessels in my abdomen, it would be the most serious mistake of our lives to disregard that Ultimate Existence. And there is far more than a possibility. Why am I a Christian? A major reason is this: If such a Vast Intellect exists, there would be no way at all for me to understand He, She or It - no way, unless that Incredible Being decided to make contact with me. And therein is the message of Hope, that at a certain moment in history, this Being took on a bag of meat and blood and bone like I am, to show us who He is, to show us His Love, to suffer with us, to suffer for us, and, by doing so, to tell us who He always intended us to be. I havent watched the video of my sinus surgery at Stanford. I have a rather large nose and it would be like spelunking into a mucous-filled cavern. But that isnt the real reason I didnt watch it. I complained to the surgeon that there was no music or dialog. Im a screenwriter for pitys sake.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 19:25:38 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015