Category: Reflections on Life, Being Human, and Medicine

Reflections on a variety of topics. My hope is to stir your thinking and perhaps even give you things to talk about in regards to what it means to be human, about life in general, and often times on the practice of medicine.

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Being human Reflections on Life, Being Human, and Medicine

Coffee Cups

They are white china cups with a nice gold trim on them. They are from a coffee serving set. I keep them in my office at work. They mean a lot to me. And recently (last fall) I have been honored to have others appreciate what they mean. 

Let me explain.

I had wonderful grandparents growing up. Both sides were an important part of my life in their own unique ways. This story is about Grandma Hill. If I had to pick a couple of words to describe her, I think they would be “love” and “contentment.” As a child, I used to really enjoy visiting their house because you could feel their love whenever you went. The hardest part of visiting was when we had to leave. The rest of it always seemed just to be a joy.

My personal favorite place was their house on Dunbar Road. The mind pictures are imprinted on my brain. I can picture the kitchen. I remember the little plaque, “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get!”

As they aged, we lost Grandpa Hill. They were happy in the little house that they had later moved to. Grandma did ok after he was gone for quite a while. Sarah and I had the joy of picking her up one day and driving with her across state to a family get together. As we drove, she told us how happy she was in her home.  She said, “I don’t need very much. I am just happy puttering around my little house.” 

This was a great example to us of contentment. We don’t need a lot of things. We don’t actually end up happier with a bigger house or a lot more stuff in our house. We just need to appreciate what you have. Grandma Hill was good at that. She was happy to just be alone and able to enjoy her little house.

She had a lot of grandchildren. She used to give all of them presents. I don’t know how she kept up with it all, but she did. But as she got older and as she went through various illnesses it was not as easy for her to keep up with the gift giving. It must have also been a real strain on her budget to do so. But she was insistent on still getting something for all of us. One year she bought us a used coffee set from a yard sale. When we got it, I thought it was beautiful. I also didn’t know what I was going to do with it. It didn’t match our own dishes. It was fine china and not the sort that you would normally use on an every day basis. But I was immensely touched that she gave it to us. More than that I was thankful that she still was able to give us a gift. It was important to her and because of that it was important to me.

Then we went to Europe.

https://www.opcafegaan.be/leuven/cafe-leffe

When Sarah and I and the girls went to Europe for the first time, what coffee meant was changed in my mind. In Europe they did not have take-out coffee. They did not have paper cups and lids. That would have been offensive to them at that time. Coffee was an experience. It was something you did more than just something you drank. Coffee meant stopping and sitting down and relaxing. It would always be served in a nice cup often with a little cookie on the side. At 1stI struggled with this. In my busy American mind, I wanted to grab a cup and keep going. By the end of the trip I had learned the joys of coffee. I looked for the little cafes and looked forward to the experience. We would all stop, and we would just have coffee together. We would be forced to stop and rest and talk together. Often, we would replay our day and what we had enjoyed. But more than anything we would just stop. The night before we left to return to the US I insisted that we go to the city center and sit outside and have a coffee. It was not about drinking the coffee. It was about sitting at a table in a beautiful place and being there. It was about the moment.

When I came back home, I stopped at Starbucks on my way to work. I watched the person in front of me grab a Venti coffee and then dash out the door. The huge paper cup suddenly looked obscene and an insult to the coffee experience. I almost wanted to cry. I decided that morning that if I could ever drink coffee out of a real cup, that I was going to do.

And so, I went home and found the coffee service set from Grandma Hill. I brought it to my office so that I could experience coffee even at work. It is fun to offer people a cup of good coffee in a fine china coffee cup complete with the saucer underneath. Meetings don’t seem quite so rushed. It makes us feel a little bit more professional. We are not in panic mode. We are civilized. We can experience coffee. We can experience the moment.

The coffee cups and saucers in my office mean a lot of things to me. 

  1. Love: The love of a grandmother who showed it by giving gifts to all of her grandchildren. Even when the budget was tight, she found ways to show her love. In return I love those coffee cups.
  2. Contentment: They remind me of her joy in just being in her house. You don’t need a lot more than what you have. You are not happier with more. You just need to enjoy what you have. If you do this, then you can be content.
  3. Slow down: Coffee can and should be an experience more than just a drink. Whenever you get the chance, insist on a real cup. Hold it in your hands and sip from it. Slow down and taste it and enjoy it. If you are with someone else, talk to them. Put your phone down. Experience them. Truly have a cup of coffee. Don’t just drink it.

That is the story of the coffee cups.

Many of you are aware of the pins that were made up in support of me and my recovery from cancer surgery and treatment. For those that are not, they are an image of my coffee cups. This is immensely touching. It is overwhelming to see how people care about me. It also is important that people have noticed the importance of these cups to me.

What is the message for this blog?

  • Love. 
  • Contentment
  • Experience moments and others. Oh – and whenever you get the chance – insist on drinking your coffee slowly out of a really nice cup!
Categories
Being human Reflections on Life, Being Human, and Medicine Reflections on the Christian Life

Mediocrity! Mediocrity!

These were the words that the composer Antonio Salieri spoke as they wheeled him down the halls of the asylum in the end of the movie, “Amadeus.” 

To me the message hit with real power. There is something within us that longs for purpose, meaning and value. No one wants their life to be characterized by being bland or just existing. No one wants to be condemned with the criticism of being “mediocre.”

Whether the story of the movie is true or not, the concept rings true. Salieri was portrayed as viewing himself as the patron saint of the mediocre. He was in essence judging everyone. He was calling all the people around him, “mediocre.” He was calling all of us mediocre. He could do this because he had judged – or perhaps – had condemned – himself to the lot of the mediocre.

The movie shows Salieri promising himself to God if God would bless him with musical greatness. His world was music and composing. He wanted exceptional – heavenly – talent. He worked hard at it. 

But then he saw Mozart. 

In Mozart’s genius he saw the very essence and beauty of God. This drove him crazy. What he had sought after for so long was given to an irreverent Mozart. Mozart lacked the deep serious commitment to God that Salieri had made. And yet in this one that Salieri could not respect, he saw the very beauty and hand of God. 

Salieri fought against it. He in fact used Mozart’s passion for music to drive him to his death. He secretly pushed him to compose a requiem mass that in the end would be for Mozart’s own requiem. In spite of all Mozart achieved, he suffered a premature and untimely death at the age of 35.

This plot may not be entirely true. It makes for a fascinating movie. There have been many legends about how Mozart died, including one that said that Salieri poisoned him gradually with mercury. The movie picked up on this theme and amplified it. It played on the irony of Mozart continuing to work on his own funeral music while he was lying on his death bed.

But the concepts – or themes – do ring true.

Mediocrity! Mediocrity!

That is a fear. It is a fear that we will have lived our lives and have squandered them. That we will not have achieved anything meaningful. That our time here will have just been going through the motions of life and nothing more. That we will have spent our time running in circles doing nonsense. And then we are gone.

We give awards and honors and speeches. We do things to reassure each other that our lives have not been “mediocrity.”

We were created to be creative. We are meant to achieve. We are meant to do things of meaning and value. We should leave a legacy – not of money or things – but of value and meaning.

And so, we all may face at times the insecurity of Salieri. 

We may judge ourselves and our lives. We condemn what we do and what we have done to the level of the mediocre. It does not compare to others who we view as great. It perhaps does not compare to the myriad of dreams and aspirations that we held for ourselves when we were young. When we were young there were so many possibilities. The world was wide open, and we had so much that we could and would do. As we age, we fear that in old age we will represent little more than a patron saint of the mediocre – the bland and purposeless – the ordinary.

It is interesting to look within the movie at Salieri’s envy and resentment of Mozart. Salieri was achieving fame. But Salieri allowed himself to be destroyed by the greater genius of Mozart. Had he never known Mozart he might have been happy. But having seen the greatness of another he would never be satisfied with his own talent. 


It went beyond this. He viewed it as a frustration – or perhaps a curse – or a disrespect of his prayers to God. Rather than God granting him the incredible talent he had asked for, He gave it to the irreverent Mozart. How dare God do this? If God would not answer first his humble request, then his earnest request, and then finally his demands, Salieri would instead then destroy the beauty God created.

How dare God not answer his prayer? Who does He think He is?

Uhhh. Well. God. That is who God thinks He is. 

He is the almighty creator of the universe. He is the one who created all things, and knows all things, and who has a beautiful plan of restoration and glory for His creation. 

He is the one who is to be worshiped and obeyed but also trusted. The world may not make sense as it is. And we have a choice. We can be driven crazy by it. Or we can submit and trust and be content in it.

Are you mediocre?

If you are willing to listen and obey and accept the role in this world that God has for you, you will in no way be mediocre. 

Imagine that the almighty creator of the universe loves you and not only has a plan but that He wants to allow you glory by being a part of His plan. The secret is that by humble submission to the plans of God you will achieve greatness far more than any who would seek it on their own.

Salieri felt that in not being blessed by God and then by opposing God he had become mediocre. That makes sense. But the opposite is entirely true. By accepting God and the place and the purposes and the roles that He has for you, you are or will be given amazing glory. 

For in the humble service of the Lord, the common becomes sacred. The help that you provide to a small child is no longer just what anyone would commonly do, it is a sacred calling. For the Lord can use your kindness to impact that child’s life and help them to achieve amazing things. The word of comfort to a friend is no longer some pop culture advice, but instead can be the ministry of God’s children to each other, blessed by His love and power.

Don’t be afraid to dream big in the Lord.

He might have great things in store for you to do.

Don’t also be so foolish as to disrespect what roles He has given you to do. From a heavenly perspective they may be so great – so beyond mediocre – that it will fill you up with wonder when all is made known.

The simple can become sacred. The smallest act may become the greatest achievement.

The movie hit me hard in 1984 when I saw it because it reflected a great truth in the error of Salieri. A fool is one who lives his life without wisdom. Salieri then was a fool who could not see the greatness and wonder that could have come from accepting God’s role for his life. A life lived in opposition to God does indeed result in mediocrity. I wanted to cry out to the figure on the movie screen. A life lived for the purposes that God has for you – no matter how simple it may look on the outside – is one of true greatness and glory.

Your life can be sacred. Your life can have immense meaning. It is not necessary to be in great positions or power. The one – the Almighty – with the greatest position and power has commissioned you to serve. Can you faithfully accept that service? In that nothing is mediocre. It is glory.