Hippocrates, War and Women
The following is a "sermon" initially entitled
"Was Hippocrates a UU?" that I had been scheduled for some weeks
to present at the March 13, 2003 Sunday Worship Service for our local UU Church.
~ wlw
As the frenzy of "preparing the country for war" was reaching its peak,
fortelling the imminent invasion of Iraq by US forces, it was with relief
that I accepted Rev. Keller's offer to instead conduct last week's service. As a
result of a last minute cancellation I now find myself, here, on this first Sunday following
the invasion of Iraq. Thus much
is spoken virtually extemporaneously.
In these past too many weeks of endless negotiating for war by the representatives of all of the people of all of the world I have been reliving my personal journey to my current mind set as pacifist.
We last week joined in demonstrating shared wishes for peace and safety.
Now the war has begun and we are audience to miles of tanks and trucks rushing across barren desert and the bombs exploding in Baghdad last night eerily to the accompaniment of the Muslim call to prayer. We fear for our children brothers sisters and parents and the Iraqi civilians, half under the age of 16 yr.
My view is from the standpoint of a life as a hoped healer and a women. This complex of views is unique to me and I recognize that we are all undergoing rearrangement as we understand our own states of mind. There are and will be more diversity and permutations of perspectives opinions among us.
I know I have no direct line to a God (in spite of some among my profession rumoring to the contrary). I realize I can talk only of my personal search for peace.
Since I am a doctor and definitively not a "priest or pastor"
-- An instant of recall of Rev.
Keller's incredible message to us last week confirms that
without hesitation. -- I can speak with any authority only
about medical folks and as a woman.
I had earlier hoped to speak, supported by having done more research and review of the literature and -- perhaps at a level less personal and more objective --- something about the Hippocratic ethic which I believe to representative of the best of Humanism.
But to paraphrase, "The Times, They Have Changed."
As my heart and mind are pre-occupied with war and peacemaking; coming with freshness is the realization that on the field of virtually any conflict of any intensity and cause Chaplains, Medics, Nurses and Doctors and Women often Volunteers, in uniform and not, are
almost universally welcomed because intentions are trusted. When not, we all intuitively understand that something is terribly wrong.
I hope to explore some of the ways this trust and freshening of hope evolved.
For me personally the healing arts in the context of war is familiar and appropriate… And it is not unique to me.
Today context is enriched by this being the ending of Women's History Month and my attention moves to how much of and about which I learned from great women in my private and collegial life and also those of history.
speculated that
life has survived the conflicts of individual struggles for survival through a capacity
for "Sympathy" which he noted had developed before people. And I find this compelling.
Empathy is derived from observing, listening, understanding and suspending personal
striving and restraint of action. It is gaining an understanding of the other's
reasoning and the experiencing -- granted less intensely, -- of the other's emotions --
then reflecting and when action is called for, pursuing it with intention --- not
lashing out on impulse.
It is not sympathy (as is defined today). Sympathy is less profound and
more a result of projecting what one's imagined feelings would be in the situation
of the other. Thus there is invariably concert with the strivings of the other. --
Gained in intimacy with individuals their courage and drive to life in the face
of at times immeasurable anxiety, even physical mutilation and suffering
empathy brings an awareness of how much we share with all life and I think the divinity
of that life.
Sometimes the calls for empathy must be insistent.
And so very often it has been the granny or the nurse (women, our
traditional role as ministers to the disgusting and the suffering) or in the
"no man's land" of the trench or foxhole it may be the soldier who sat through the night holding parts of his buddy together who forces our attention to the beat of the human heart.
I invite a reading of The Oath with minds open to the notion that
this ethic comes not from some high throne of authority
with the power to coerce and punish, but from this listening observing and knowing.
Awareness.
The awareness of how alike we all are in our
strengths and vulnerability and interdependency. Even when the thinking of the other is "deranged" and frightening it can be understood.
Once there can awareness be easily reversed?
Can one ever again disrespect, hate or desire to
harm?
Does that sound a bit Unitarian Universalist? I am not much of a theologian and I leave it to you all to sort it out. I do think it sounds like the beginning of peacemaking.
I suspect in coming months and years there will be need for many
peacemakers.
I doubt many will disagree that there is always need for recognizable signs and symbols of hope.
Some of these symbols are material. Others come as individual
persons or as persons who by intent or accident become associated with human institutions with traditions of
non-judgemental compassion and acceptance. There will be no peace without them.
In my own life I came to accept how often simply my coming into the room of
a dying child brought some relief and hope for healing of pain and loneliness,
if not body. Every parent recognizes the importance of being with his/her child in
times of fear and pain and the powers of the touch, the kiss or even the "Band-Aid."
Showing up.
Accompanying these symbols whether as people or the Oath or a candle or as a painted crescent
or cross is a call to listen for and to hear a particular beat ..... and to understand.
The sound of the divine. That often is enough to heal and to make peace....
whether out there on the corner or on the Internet or on the land, places holding the beauty
of nature or fields turned turgid with hate and violence.
Often those who hear what is counter what the majority and reactions are not nice always; Crazy or unpatriotic or irreligious or perverted even "evil lefty liberal".
Peace making ain't for sissies but once we hear the beat what choice do we have?
It is the most difficult to "Show Up" when feeling helpless.
We can't forget that our symbols need to be seen by peacemakers and oppressed alike so we may feel less alone.--
W. Lorraine Watins. M.D.
©23 March 2003
+ Appeal to Womanhood
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts
Say firmly:
'We will not have grave questions decided by irrelevant agencies;
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.
We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.'
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes
Up with our own. It says 'Disarm! Disarm!
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war,
let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day
of counsel.
Let them meet, first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as the means whereby
the great human family can live in peace.
~ Julia Ward Howe
++ Oath of Hippocrates
I SWEAR by Apollo the physician -- and Aesculapius-- and health -- and all-heal
and all the gods and goddesses -- that according to my ability and judgment I will
keep this oath and this stipulation --to reckon him who taught me this art equally
dear to me as my parents --to share my substance with him -- and relieve his
necessities if required-- to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own
brothers --and to teach them this art -- if they wish to learn it -- without fee or
stipulation -- and that by precept -- lecture and every other mode of instruction-- I
will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons -- and those of my teachers--
and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine
-- but to none others.
I will follow that system of regimen which -- according to
my ability and judgment -- I consider for the benefit of my patients -- and abstain
from whatever is deleterious and mischievous -- I will give no deadly medicine to
anyone if asked --nor suggest any such counsel -- and in like manner I will not
give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.
With purity and with holiness I
will pass my life and practice my art -- I will not cut persons laboring under the
stone -- but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work.
Into whatever houses I enter -- I will go into them for the benefit of the sick -- and
will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption -- and further --
from the seduction of females or males-- of freemen or slaves.
Whatever -- in
connection with my professional practice -- or not in connection with it -- I see or
hear -- in the life of men -- which ought not to be spoken of abroad -- I will not
divulge-- as reckoning that all such should be kept secret -- while I continue to
keep this oath unviolated.
May it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of
the art --respected by all men -- in times-- but should I trespass and violate this
oath -- may the reverse be my lot.
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