We're all familiar with the scene. The serious seeker climbing the Tibetan mountaintop to meet the great guru to learn from his wisdom. Saints, sinners and the Beatles have all done it. Now may I suggest you and I can do it too. But without the tough climb...!
The quiet wisdom you seek resides in several large building complexes only a few miles from home. Any one of our city hospitals. Inside is the entire breadth and depth of life. From birth to disease to rehabilitation to death. The hundreds of white and grey gowned people therein are all part of the great drama. They stand at the ready to assist as we travel our destined human trajectory.
Forget the glistening post-natal cubicles, MRIs, radiology guns, and surgical instruments. They're merely the occasional tools used during the great drama. What counts most here is what cannot most be seen here. The skills...the experience... the compassion behind the busy hands, gloves, and masks. These are what help bring us into life, back into health, or at the end into the Big Sleep. While outside these buildings athletes, celebrities, pundits and politicians prattle on about what is important...these few inside here are the great companions along this sudden back-road to our travels.
What I'm saying -- from a good deal of experience inside these secular monasteries -- is that once you're inside one it clears your head and heart of an awful lot of trivia from the outside. Inside here very little is trivial. Perhaps a birth! a cure! a death! If ever you're going to get in touch with what makes your life make sense, it won't be at Wrigley Field! Soldier Fields! the Chicago Theatre! or even the Field Museum!
They're about our entertainment. Hospitals are about our existence. So, please, a little more respect for the place we most hate to think about.
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