Fragment -- #48

[1/1997] ‘Democracy’ has essentially (i.e., in vision/aim) to do with an egalitarian way of being together in which individuals and community are in harmony. Being together in a democratic way (or approximating it) depends on grasping/practicing an enriching integration of individual freedom and individual restraint. In United States history, our experiment with democracy (formally launched with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution) began with two critical and profound deficits -– i.e., (1) slavery and (2) an inferior/vulnerable status for women and children. Tremendous energy, resources, and time have been expended and continue to be expended to minimize, to resolve, to overcome the consequences of these two deficits. In order to do so, ‘individual freedom’ has had to be so accentuated that ‘individual restraint’ by comparison remains much less developed as a cultural/social value or responsibility.

‘Holistic’ and classical education (i.e., education that nurtures students into informed, discerning, courageous, self-disciplined, empathetic citizens) is a sine qua non for ‘democracy’ to thrive. In the United States experiment with democracy, efforts to expand/establish ‘holistic’ and classical education have met with limited and uneven success due (1) in part to chronic inequalities (e.g., economic, ethnic, gender) that reflect disagreements re the criteria for full/free participation in the society and (2) in part to the difficulties associated with challenging/removing the place of ‘religion’ (with its pre-modern and non-democratic traditions) as the presumed tutor for society.

A ‘non-religious’ interpretation of Jewish scripture and Christian scripture is necessary in order for the vision and experiment of ‘democracy’ to be pursued. ‘Democracy’ – which emphasizes and is anchored by individual freedom/autonomy/accountability, the rejection of any monarchy/nobility, the necessity of public education, a confident view of human beings’ ethical/spiritual capacity, . . . -- is both absent from and in radical (i.e., to the root) conflict with Jewish scripture and Christian scripture and with traditional/orthodox (T/O) theologies of the ‘religious’ sphere.

Fragment -- #47

[12/1996] ‘Spirituality’ has to do with drawing on thoughts, experiences, and resources that nurture, examine, and encourage (i.e., ‘re’courage) one’s integrity, self, Geist, humanness (including vocabulary, ‘temple’ experiences, symbols, recollections, forgiveness, . . .).

[Note: I started using Geist after discovering the word in German language courses and then in German philosophical and theological literature. Given the ‘religious’ baggage attached to the ‘spirit/ual/ity’ word cluster, my references to Geist represent an attempt to signal that my thoughts about ‘spirit/ual/ity’ lack that ‘religious’ baggage.]

Fragment -- #46

[12/1996] What phrases best describe the approach to spirituality and ethics I am following? ‘Non-religious’ is in many ways still the most useful description, though this word tends to highlight only one dimension. Other possibilities include -- (1) ‘secular’, (2) ‘tested’, (3) the ‘night’ metaphor, (4) the ‘fog’ metaphor, (5) the ‘wilderness’ metaphor, (7) some use of ‘integrity’. A common concern with any description is the tendency to imply judgment on other approaches.

[Note: Some might use ‘night’, ‘fog’, ‘wilderness’ as metaphors when the referenced experience is slight/transient rather than intense/enduring. Walking through woods or rough terrain on a night with moonlight is quite different from doing so on a night without moonlight. Driving in fog can be patchy and a nuisance or dense and treacherous. A wilderness experience can be a day trip or long/far enough from routines to radically change one’s life. I only use these metaphors in reference to intense/enduring experience ‘with the world face to face’.]

Fragment -- #45

[11/1996] My experience/relationship with Dr. Korones (1985 to the present) has contributed substantially and essentially to my surrender of an approved place/function within the ‘religious’ sphere. Dr. Korones was the one person with whom I could be unconditionally/uncautiously present during the existentially difficult and draining years leading to my first wife death (1987) after a fourteen year battle with multiple sclerosis. How could I remain loyal to this ‘friendship in the singular’ with Dr. Korones and, at the same time, be associated with approaches to spirituality and ethics sanctioned by/within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm/sphere that implicitly devalue, dismiss, or attack Dr. Korones’ spirituality and integrity because he is Jewish and not Christian?

Fragment -- #44

[11/1996] An analogy -- remodeling our Vermont house turned out to be so extensive that the term ‘remodel’ in the end failed to describe adequately the effort/experience.

Fragment -- #43

[11/1996] Can words and the ideas/concepts they reflect die? I would say ‘yes’ when one has a full/enduring ‘wilderness’ experience. ‘Wilderness’ here is a metaphor for existential tests that break down the paradigms of societal spheres. I feel obliged to maintain my integrity while being open indiscriminately to life possibilities/experiences, to share this way of being with my wife and daughters unconditionally, and -- in an experimental/didactic way -- to prompt/encourage others who are looking toward this way of being. I agree with the nihilist re the irreversible death of (virtually?) all attempts at ‘God’ language. However, I do not agree that the nihilist has the final/last word. One cannot be fully ‘home’ in a ‘wilderness’ experience without discovering and living ‘wholly’ because the compartmentalization and fragmentation of societal spheres fail in a ‘wilderness’ existence, because a ‘wilderness’ existence cannot be endured except ‘in whole’. I am disappointed with liberal theologies since Schleiermacher in that liberal theologies do/did not establish a face-to-face presence with ‘the world’, but instead continue/d to rethink ethics, spirituality, theology within the ‘religious’ sphere. Liberal theologies thus are limited in at least two ways – i.e., (1) in the expectation that a culled out/down theological revision of outdated ‘religious’ thought/language leads to fully engaging ‘the world’ (a modern form of a ‘religious a priori’) and (2) in remaining within the traditional/orthodox ‘religious’ paradigm/sphere, claiming to belong there.

Fragment -- #42

[10/1996] A reality that transcends the human Geist is essentially beyond language, forms, institutions. I would argue that symbols re such a transcending reality (1) must serve to awaken an experience of awe (past or present) and (2) should arise from within the experience of those sharing in that to which the symbol points and which the symbol opens. Corollaries are (1) that such language, forms, and institutions should be permitted to fade/die as well as to be born and (2) that no competitiveness should occur about such symbols. As examples of such symbols, see Bonhoeffer’s references to the gift of Barth’s cigar and to ‘the parcel’ in his prison letters.

Fragment -- #41

[8/1996] As I try to explain to others this ‘non-religious’ and ‘with the world face to face’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am following, I find myself wondering how (un)common it is for me to have had this combination of experiences: (1) doctoral level training/work in theology and history, (2) extensive international travel/exposure, (3) prolonged experience with chronic/debilitating disease, end-of-life decisions, death of a spouse, (4) professional work outside the ‘religious’ sphere.

Fragment -- #40

[6/1996] ‘Integrity’ is measured by how one thinks/acts with individuals who have been met through indiscriminately living the human experience ‘with the world face to face’.

Fragment -- #39

[6/96] The story/play Job (specifically the dialogue sections and the 42:7 assessment) and the essay Ecclesiastes (minus the last paragraph, which I consider added a later editor to take the edge off the essay) have become, for me, the windows into Jewish Scripture and Christian Scripture.

[2005 Note: the Job 42:7 text reads (Peterson translation) – After God had finished addressing Job, he turned to Eliphaz the Temanite and said, “I’ve had it with you and your two friends. I’m fed up! You haven’t been honest either with me or about me – not the way my friend Job has.” Without the series of exchanges between the prologue and epilogue, this statement has no logical place in the story. So the statement should not be treated as part of the epilogue that, together with the prologue, forms the ‘happily ever after’ short version of the story/play. I think the composer surprises the audience with the implied task of searching back through the extended story/play asking, “What did Job say about ‘God’ that the composer thinks is right?”]

[2005 Note: I started giving Ecclesiastes careful attention during my Louisville years (1976-79) when I saw the similarities with modern existential writings. I remember concluding that Ecclesiastes stands alone in Jewish Scripture and Christian Scripture in requiring so little commentary to be accessible to a modern reader. When I began teaching a systematic theology graduate course (1981), the format I chose was to imagine a series of conversations between ‘Jesus’ and the author of Ecclesiastes. For many years, I read Ecclesiastes as the personal statement of Koheleth (the speaker in the essay). More recently, I have come to regard Koheleth as a literary device created by the essay’s anonymous author. I see Koheleth as similar to a court fool – i.e., a character who gives rather blunt analyses that those challenged can easily dismiss. Another analogy is Shostakovich’s precarious position before Stalin. Distinguishing Koheleth from the author of the essay aligns well with the tenuous place of the essay in the canon of Jewish Scripture and accounts for the outlandish/clownish statements attributed to Koheleth in the essay (e.g., Koheleth’s excessive claims to know more than anyone else before him and to be the best student by far there had ever been).]

Fragment -- #38

[6/1996] The task of interpretation has essentially to do with interpreting life experiences. Which/whose life experiences count?

Fragment -- #37

[6/1996] One way my life is anchored is by the question – “When I am present as a ‘guest’ within the ‘religious’ sphere, how do I avoid compromising or discrediting my attempt to be genuinely present with the K-Bar-B kids, with the cocaine-abusing mothers in Miami, with the victims of chronic illness, with the Appalachia poor?” In other words, I want who I am and what I dare to say among these marginalized individuals to determine who I am and what I dare to say in societal spheres (including but not limited to the ‘religious’ sphere). I have not found this resolve very often within the ‘religious’ sphere. I have found considerable resistance to my suggesting that this resolve be adapted to what it means to be a physician.

Fragment -- #36

[9/1995] Today I was walking across Claiborne Street to my office at the medical school (a narrow ‘closet’ with no windows, the only option on the Ob/Gyn Department’s main hallway) when I passed policemen walking three kids around the corner. The kids – who looked to be 12-14 years old – were handcuffed. The last of the three kids and I locked eyes for a few seconds. My oldest daughters turned thirteen a few weeks ago.

Fragment -- #35

[8/1895] “He was a god-damned saint” – the comment of a friend of a former undercover policeman who (the latter) had left the police force to set up a sheltering ‘ranch’ for abused kids on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain (i.e., the K-Bar-B Ranch). He died at age forty-nine of a heart attack.

Fragment -- #34

[8/1995] Reflections on ‘engaged silence’ as a way to describe a ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics:

Why ‘silence’? Because of the quietness and the limited energy true of wilderness existence (a metaphor that focuses on surviving, conserving, listening, observing, testing, . . .). Because sheer presence and action have a message. Because my inherited language (especially ‘religious’ language) had died.

Silence is inseparable from the ‘wilderness’/‘outer line’ life toward which the ‘religious’ sphere is hollow and has learned to avoid. The language eventually/gradually emerging out of the silence for me is radically different from my inherited language (especially ‘religious’ language). The price would simply have been too great to learn to live with the emptiness within the ‘religious’ sphere. Silence now results whenever I am within the ‘religious’ sphere in that ‘non-religious’ language is not understood within the ‘religious’ sphere. Is there no audience for writing about this new language?

Why ‘engaged’? I had to go on living/choosing even as my inherited language (especially ‘religious’ language) was dying. What held were the ideas/language of integrity, gratitude, vulnerability. This tension – ‘engaged silence’ -- was compounded by my role (gradually developing 1979-87, rapidly developing 1987 forward) as an observer/speaker/interpreter within the medical education and practice spheres. As my first wife’s incapacity became total and her death neared, my range of social motion and life shrank to very little more than that one relationship. What if I had not been in so constant a position to state/test what I thought as my teaching position – i.e., graduate professor with seminars in the history of theology, spirituality classics, philosophy of religion, ethics, human suffering, . . . -- permitted?

Fragment -- #33

[7/1995] ‘Community’ is a gift – i.e., ‘community’ happens, is given, results from the way a life is lived. In order words, such ‘community’ cannot be created.

[October 2005 addendum: The 1995 date for this comment about ‘community’ is significant. I was by then completely inside the medical education/practice sphere. I was discovering that ‘community’ is given or happens when one concentrates on being ‘with the world face to face’, on initiating/gesturing ‘community’ toward individuals without the expectation of reciprocity.]

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #14

Reflections from Journal Entries

Now for another set of ten reflections. These reflections have been selected/adapted from journal entries written during our years in New Orleans (January 1995-November 1997).

36 [5/1995] My move conceptually and relationally out of the ‘religious’ sphere (the roots of this move reaching back at least to the early-1980s) was completed with our 1992 move to Vermont. Crossing the threshold from ‘religious’ to ‘non-religious’ has been very difficult to explain even to my closest acquaintances within the ‘religious’ sphere. The parallel with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s hesitancy re explaining his covert resistance decisions and actions after 1939 to his Confessing Church associates (especially his Finkenwalde Seminary students) is one of the many reasons his 1939-45 experience (as traced/interpreted in his Ethics, in his December 1942 ‘After Ten Years’ essay, and in his Letters and Papers from Prison) has been pivotal for me since the mid-1970s.

37 [6/1995] Becoming conceptually and in other ways truly ‘outside’ the ‘religious’ sphere, I find the self-consciousness and the insincerity so widespread in that sphere increasingly evident and, as one previously invested there, disturbing. I am troubled by the investment of time, money, attention to buildings, needless duplications, and other ‘high maintenance’ traits of ‘religion’.

[Note: Can this self-consciousness and insincerity be seen from inside the ‘religious’ sphere? My experience and observation still lead me to answer, “To some degree, but not clearly/thoroughly”. I am reminded of the inability of the ‘religious’ leaders, as depicted in the Synoptic Gospels, to see the self-consciousness and insincerity ‘Jesus’ saw in the ‘religion’ of his day. ‘Religion’ – in denominational and congregational forms -- discourages radical (i.e., critical, into the root) questioning, does not value seeing its reflection from ‘outside’, capitalizes on the members’ investment ‘inside’ (e.g., time, resources, friendships, networks, traditions/routines, . . . the accumulation of which makes it increasingly difficult to risk being candid). Inside the ‘religious’ sphere, critical insight increases along the radius to the unorthodox/heretical outer edge of the ‘religious’ sphere. I am admitting in this 1995 journal entry that, though long anxious about the self-consciousness and insincerity characteristic of ‘religion’, I had not seen as clearly/thoroughly ‘inside’ as ‘outside’. I thought I saw more clearly/thoroughly when ‘inside’ than was the case.]

38 [7/1995] I have been thinking about the observation the philosophically educated (USC PhD, as I recall) ‘Toymaker’ in Norwich, VT, made during our last in the series of meetings for coffee and conversation we enjoyed while I lived in Vermont – i.e., “Doug, I think your work within the medical sphere would be considered subversive”. I have come to realize his assessment is accurate.

39 [6/1996] I have been thinking recently of ‘religion’ as analogous to physics’ black hole (i.e., the force pulling inward is so great that even light cannot escape a black hole and what falls into a black hole is distorted/crushed). Becoming ‘religionless’ has to do with breaking out of and away from the ‘religious’ black hole. (Note Hawking’s idea that a few particles do escape from black holes). Continuing this analogy, the necessary resolve/energy to break out and away from the ‘religious’ black hole may come from: (1) ‘religious’ abuse, (2) exposure to the crooked and tragic in the human story in such magnitude that ‘religious’ denials or explanations/justifications for the crooked and tragic collapse (e.g., Ecclesiastes), (3) more immediate/personal experience of tragedy, offense, . . . in such magnitude that integrity is radically challenged (e.g., the extended story/play Job).

40 [6/1996] My use of the term ‘religion’ relates most immediately to the organized/institutionalized ‘religious’ sphere. I would not/do not hesitate to extend the term’s interpretive use to the medical, business, education, political, sports, entertainment, arts, . . . societal spheres. Therefore, to become ‘religionless’ does not mean simply moving one’s place/alignment from the institutionalized ‘religious’ sphere into another societal sphere. Instead, ‘religionless’ has to do with a spiritual death and with an essence/way of being defined by (1) ‘wilderness’ and (2) by genuine/vulnerable ‘community’ with those who are (why are they?) by existential lot outside societal spheres (including but not limited to the organized ‘religious’ sphere). One without the other would be incomplete.

41 [6/1996] Options for relating to ‘the world’ that fall short: (1) being ‘religious’ and withdrawn from ‘the world’, (2) being ‘religious’ and in but not engaged with ‘the world’, (3) being ‘religious’ and selectively engaged with ‘the world’, (4) being ‘religionless’ and withdrawn from ‘the world’, (5) being ‘religionless’ and in but not engaged with ‘the world’, (6) being ‘religionless’ and selectively engaged with ‘the world’.

42 [6/1996] Breaking free from ‘religious’ controls, ‘religious’ filters, ‘religious’ interpretations is leading for me to a radical (i.e., into the root) ‘re-languaging’ experience.

The experience of becoming ‘religionless’ is severe, prolonged. The subtle vestiges of ‘religion’ must be found and laid aside. To do so is to go through a spiritual death/void. Why go through such? By the late 1980s, I had become convinced it is not possible to radically (i.e., to the root) consider or to pursue irreversibly a ‘religionless’ spirituality and ethics while remaining positioned within the ‘religious’ sphere. Instead, the experience of becoming in life and thought ‘religionless’ is as radical as is suggested by the analogy of completely resetting a computer’s defaults.

[Note: I had in mind in this journal entry the vocabulary, grammar, idiom, non-verbal, nuancing complexities associated with fluency in the use of a language. The language for interpreting life experiences I learned from birth still seemed credible within the 1950s rural, American, pre-modern, fundamentalist perception of ‘the world’ into which I was born. Pivotal experiences and exposure to new information eventually forced questions I could not avoid/ignore -- questions about what counted as ‘the world’ (i.e., the ‘reality’ before/against which ideas are tested) and questions about the credibility of the ‘religious’ language for interpreting life experiences I had learned from birth. The choices at the proverbial ‘fork’ became clear. I either had to recoil from pivotal experiences and new information in order to (attempt to) recover/protect as much confidence as possible in the language most familiar to me. Or I had to embrace/pursue pivotal experiences and new information, knowing the language most familiar to me would fail. I chose to venture time and again down the latter path, each time a bit further, until finally coming to the point/realization that I could only go on by not going back. The ‘religious’ language for interpreting life experiences I had learned from birth became rusty as I concentrated on the discovery (and, to some degree, the creation) of a language for spirituality and ethics that anticipates with enthusiasm pivotal experiences and new information.]

43 [6/1996] The ‘religionless’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am following focuses on the ‘displaced’ (unplaced? misplaced? replaced?) who are thereby outside societal spheres.

44 [7/1996] The ‘religionless’ approach to faith I am following engages (1) faith and doubt, (2) faith and reason, (3) faith and failure, (4) faith and parenting, (5) faith and community.

[Note: The influence of Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith is evident in this journal entry. Though never inspired by his less than honorable life story, I continue – thirty years after my first reading of Dynamics of Faith – to find Tillich’s analysis of ‘faith’ thought provoking. ‘Faith’ for me has to do with the ideas on which I stake my life day to day, the ideas implied in my actions, the ideas that hold when face to face with the breadth/depth of suffering so widespread among human beings. The telephone pole climbers I watched as a child at my father’s side (he was a group manager for the phone company) remain my most vivid symbol of trust. After ‘walking’ to the top of the tall utility pole to get to the phone lines in need of repair, the lineman would turn loose of and lean away from the pole with all his weight pressing against the leather work belt looped around the pole. Secure and hands free, he did his work. Reflection on my dissertation is also evident in this journal entry. I studied the impact becoming a churchman – first a priest and soon after a bishop – had on Augustine’s exercise of critical reasoning. I was sobered by the conclusion I drew – i.e., that the exercise/purpose of his critical reasoning became increasingly polemic as he had to defend the ‘religious’ institution/constituency he represented/led.]

45 [10/2005] I found the phrase ‘with the world face to face’ during one of my early readings of Dietrich’s prison correspondence. As Christmas 1943 neared, Dietrich prepared a few prayers for his fellow prisoners at Tegel Prison. One prayer recalled the words from a Paul Gerhardt (1606-76) hymn --

Every Christian in his place should be brave and free, with the world face to face.
Though death strikes, his spirit should persevere, without fear calm and good.
For death cannot destroy, but from grief brings relief and opens gates to joy.
Closed the door of bitter pain, bright the way where we may all heaven gain.

I do not recall that Dietrich used the phrase ‘with the world face to face’ as I do, but I see the resolve to be ‘with the world face to face’ (1) in the determination he expressed in his prison letters to stay focused on ‘the outer line’ rather than turn to ‘the inner line’ piety of the broken Confessing Church, (2) in the prison reflections he shared with Eberhard on ‘the world come of age’, (3) in his last words before being executed.

I was privileged to be invited to Eberhard’s 90th birthday celebration (August 1999). The celebration was conducted in the Godesberg Castle a few kilometers south of Bonn. There were @150 invited guests present. Immediate and extended family members constituted the largest group. There were also numerous individuals from across Germany with whom Eberhard had worked during his churchman years. One former Finkenwalde student – Albrecht Schonherr – was present. Several university professors were present (including one who, I was told, opposed Eberhard’s efforts to make Dietrich’s life and work accessible).

I did not know anyone present for the birthday celebration other than Eberhard and Renate. I happened to sit at a table with two very interesting couples – (1) a theology professor and his wife from Wuppertal, both educated in the 1950s along post-war Confessing Church lines (she with enthusiastic appreciation for Dietrich’s prison letters, he as a student of Barth and Moltmann before being exposed to Dietrich through Eberhard); and (2) a couple in their mid-70s (he a recently retired architect who was a seventeen-year-old soldier conscripted at the war’s end and who studied architecture in Berlin between 1947 and 1951).

Renate introduced to the gathering each person present. During a break in the program, I asked her what she had said about me (as I could not keep up with her German comments to the audience). Drawing from our many conversations and letters, she had first described my discovering the imprisoned Dietrich early in the course of my first wife’s losing battle with multiple sclerosis. She had then told the audience, “Douglas lives in the United States like Bonhoeffer, a theologian to the world.”

Renate could not have chosen a more affirming and humbling way to introduce me. During subsequent conversations at the table during dinner, both couples asked me, “What does it mean to ‘live as Bonhoeffer’? to be ‘a theologian to the world’?” My response then -- as would be the case now -- began with the resolve to be ‘with the world face to face’. This resolve is the cornerstone of the approach to spirituality and ethics I have been tracking since 1992 in journal entries. No idea or action is for me more basic, more centering.

Fragment -- #32

[7/1995] Here at LSU and Charity Hospital, one of the most disturbing sights for me day after day is when I walk by and glance into a windowless square building (through a slightly opened door) where orange-clothed criminals are milling around – shackled and under guard -- waiting to have medical examinations.

Fragment -- #31

Fragment -- #31
[7/1995] I have been thinking about the observation a philosophically educated (USC PhD, as I recall) ‘Toymaker’ in Norwich, VT, made during our last in the series of meetings for coffee and conversation we enjoyed while I lived in Vermont – i.e., “Doug, I think your work within the medical sphere would be considered subversive”. I have come to realize his assessment is accurate.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #13

Reflections from Journal Entries

Now for another set of reflections selected/adapted from journal entries written during my Vermont years (1992-95).

31 Being ‘religionless’ means: (1) being past the point of return to the ‘religious sphere’, (2) not being able to get home to the ‘religious sphere’ by supper time, (3) experiencing a spiritual death, (4) facing the death of the language, securities, confidences, . . . offered/promised by ‘religion’, (5) suffering the diminishment/loss of ties (e.g., family, friends, . . .), (6) surrendering the professional, financial, employment securities associated with ‘religion’. I think such transformation was not yet complete for Koheleth in Ecclesiastes, or for the ‘scrapheap’ Job at the end of the story/play, or for Bonhoeffer by the end of his prison correspondence.

32 A ‘religious’ view of being human builds off of and centers on human weakness (which leads to timidity, false pride, a cultish co-dependency). A ‘non-religious’ view of being human builds off of and centers on human strength.

33 Core theses of a ‘non-religious’ spirituality and ethics -- (1) Give expecting nothing in return. (2) Repentance is the clearest witness to the vision about which ‘Jesus’ spoke. The point here is that a ‘community’ deeply conscious that living with integrity ‘face to face with the world’ falls short of the life together envisioned in a Sermon on the Mount text retains its humility and protects the ethical challenge inherent in the vision. (3) ‘Community’ precedes ‘conversion’. The point here is that being ‘face to face with the world’ means living as if in ‘community’ with individuals one does not yet know and who may be adversarial. The motive behind these gestures of ‘community’ is not conditional or calculated (e.g., evangelistic). (4) A ‘community’ engages its mission when dispersed. (5) Every individual has infinite worth. (6) Failure is an inevitable and essential component of a well-lived life.

[Note: I have learned that such traits are difficult for physicians to maintain in the medical education/practice sphere. ‘Give expecting nothing in return’ cuts across the grain of budget accountability as well as widespread profit seeking. The enculturation that begins with medical school hardly fosters humility. Risk-management counsels caution with strangers. With the clinic or the hospital analogous to the cathedral/church building, physicians engage their mission far more often ‘in house’ than in dispersion. Living out the conviction that ‘every individual has infinite worth’ must be tested by disposition toward the most difficult patients (e.g., patients who are not compliant, not grateful, offensive, adversarial) and workers lower in the hierarchy (e.g., students, nurses, front desk staff, sanitation workers).]

34 How closely does a ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics correlate with Frankl’s analysis of the search for meaning within such nihilistic realities as Auschwitz?

35 References to ‘transition of power’ and ‘Clinton takes command’ raise questions about the meaning of ‘power’ for the ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am pursuing.