doctor's life support

4th September: Nothing Held Back

And Peter said, 'Lo, we have left our homes and followed you'. Luke 18:28

As an anatomist I have had good reason to be grateful for the public-spirited individuals who offer their bodies for the advancement of science. Many different shapes and sizes of cadavers have passed through my hands in the past quarter-century, but one stands out as the most remarkable. It was the body of a female, so tiny as to occupy only about two-thirds of the length of the seven-foot dissecting table. She was positively diminutive in every respect -- dwarf-like in all dimensions. I felt compelled to trace back her record. There had to be an interesting story!

It transpired that she had been a nun in a very exclusive French-Canadian order resembling the Sisters of Silence. She had spent her entire life with this most servile group, doing the unpleasant menial chores of housekeeping for all the other sisters of the Order -- scrubbing, laundering, cleaning and sweeping -- never speaking or communicating with another living soul. She had devoted her entire life, every minute of it, to her God and to working lovingly for her fellow Christians. And now here she was. She had given freely her last meagre earthly possession for the good of her fellows.

The thought of her utter selflessness still sends shivers down my spine, although the encounter happened almost 15 years ago. It makes me contemplate a verse from the famous old Church of Scotland Communion Hymn, When I survey the wondrous cross (I can even hear the music -- the tune Rockingham). The verse reads:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Isaac Watts

Further reading: Mt 19:23-30.

ASW