Remembering Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

This past weekend, my mentor and friend, who was a giant in the field of medicine, in finding meaning and understanding of the complexities of true service, and in increasing compassionate care, passed away. Dr. Rachel Remen MD was the author of two best-sellers; books which are read all over the world now, which are about healing and wholeness: Kitchen Table Wisdom, and My Grandfather’s Blessings. Her undergraduate degree was in philosophy, and her grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi. She practiced pediatrics, and later, care for the physicians who were burning out under the stresses of conventional medicine. She founded a group of doctors called “the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness: it became the Remen ISHI, ( RISHI)”, when she retired. Her work continued at Wright State School of Medicine, as well as in Medical Schools across the country and even abroad. The program for physicians-in-training was called The Healer’s Art. I loved being part of the group of teachers for this course at the California North State School of Medicine in Oak Grove, outside Sacramento. 

Rachel was like a redwood tree; strong and wise, resilient and creative, and she raised up a whole forest of saplings surrounding her and her work, doctors who understood and cared deeply about the healing work we were doing. It was one of the greatest privileges of my life, to be her friend, and part of the circle of doctors in ISHI. In many ways, her modeling helped me resist the burn-out many of my colleagues experienced. I will miss her forever, but I am glad that there are videos, recordings and wonderful memories, as well as the other friends who knew and loved her. Today one of my friends sent me a podcast from On Being, with Krista Tippett, in which Rachel reflects on “how we live with loss”. I never tire of hearing her speak with that soft voice, and that incisive, amazing mind. 

And this is the link to Vivek Murthy visiting with Rachel, at Commonweal. https://youtu.be/Yql6mpvEaB0?si=JM_3jllCRpiOqBTT

YOUTUBE.COM

Can We All Become Healers? / Rachel Naomi Remen and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy

I wanted to protect her from what she did not want from us, which was that adulation which came so naturally to her “fans”. She wanted to have simple friendships, and for us not to hang on her every word. She was realistic about the difficulties of trying to get the Healer’s Art into the medical curriculum, and she enjoyed the admiration, but to her friends she also just needed time to be quiet and reflective. The interview with Vivek Murthy is very good at showing her real balance and humility.

She really believed in the Kitchen Table as the best place for conversations. She believed in sharing from the heart and with an open mind. That is why it is in the title of her first book, which is one parable after another, about healing– from the doctor side, and from the patient side, because she knew both very deeply. One funny story I have is about her cats. I got her a birthday bouquet of silk flowers from the dollar store, a few years ago. It was inexpensive, colorful and a bit fun– pink polka dots on a white jug. She liked to be frugal when she shopped, although she had many beautiful things and lovely jewelry. SO I knew she would be amused, when most of her friends gave her expensive presents. ( Her birthday was around Valentine’s Day. ). She had two big cats, Main coon cats, and Max was ginger-colored. He was a mystical cat. Her whole house was built as a place where the cats could be entertained. Max loved those silk flowers! He would jump up on the counter in the kitchen in the morning, and sniff the flowers, as if they were real. He would seem to enjoy some hidden magical perfume. He would be in meditative awareness, sitting there, enjoying those silk flowers. We would laugh, to see him! It never ceased to please her, that my silly and inexpensive gift was something Max loved!

“BE happy anyway” is a great motto. It is resilience incarnate. Do not let anyone take away your ability to love and grow, and in general, the feeling of being happy will be like a bluebird on your shoulder. Rachel was radical, surgical, in her ability to strip away sentimentalism. When she talked about the rage she had as a young medical student with Crohn’s disease, she always said the rage was how the life force refused to let her give up. She spoke about colleagues who diminished her into a victim, thinking she couldn’t possibly be a contributing doctor, much less the head of a Department at Stanford, with the disease she lived with. She was fierce. She also had a courageous role model in her mother, who was a social worker in the slums of NY. And her grandfather made her know that there is a great BEING holding her in life, not a wimpy wisp of a spirit. Even as a small child, she got that gut-deep sense of the immensity of that power. Her grandfather stood outside the nursery, when she was a preemie in an incubator, and prayed for her, and knew that strength, and believed in that power for her, too. We don’t often feel that kind of awe, but her grandfather gave her that “ground of being”.

She helped me so much, not to feel like an alien in the work we were doing.

I really loved and admired her so deeply, and felt helped to become stronger, through the 30 years of our friendship and being in ISHI. It is fascinating to me that today is the feast of St. Clare. It is a synchronicity of overlapping women mystics teaching me/us. So simple, yet so rare, so focused, like a shaft of light. Clare said to hold up before us the mirror of Christ, to be able to understand the immense gifts of the soul. Rachel also was holding that mirror, of the presence of the divine, in the way it heals and strengthens the soul. She never used off-putting language, and she often referred to it as what makes us human. But it was always soul work. And invariably, one felt better after spending time with her.

We can’t even imagine the blocks she surmounted. I once asked her about her training as a concert pianist at Juilliard, and said I have never heard her play, and she did not have a piano in her house. She obviously had such a musical mind! She told me that they started judging more and more and more critically, every note she played, until she didn’t love the music anymore. And that she quit. She said “Martina, don’t be sad about this. If it hadn’t happened to me in musical training, I wouldn’t have recognized it when it started happening in medical training.” The insight had to come from lived experience of the subtle and careful bullying and perfectionism. The sad thing is that she was a student of Suzuki as a child, and wanted to play the violin, but the “experts” told her women weren’t great violinists, she should study piano. Even then, imagine!

Sexual Misconduct

Sexual Misconduct



“Sexual misconduct and sexual assault are not mistakes. Those are choices that hurt and harm women. A mistake is something that wasn’t intended to happen”.  A choice to act in a reprehensible, immoral or illegal way is something for which one should take responsibility, and make legal amends.



J.S.


Exactly.


One does not need to overcome ones biological aversion and natural emotional boundaries when one makes a mistake.


It is an extraordinary act of bad will to commit a violation against another person.


Thank you for your clarity on this



Martina Nicholson


We have to admit this has been going on for thousands of years. IT was tolerated, and hidden in secrecy. Women and children, and some men, were violated. It probably has happened to 1 in 3 people. It was part of the social fabric of life. But at some point in modern times, we began to see that women’s lives matter. We began to understand what rape does, psychologically. We have begun to understand PTSD and lasting trauma, which cripples people for life. Women are not cattle or sheep. Women have souls and deserve to be respected. Children too, deserve to be protected from violations. CONSENT is the main issue. We need to get these predatory men, who before were operating on instinct and acting like predators, to be willing to court the women, and get consent for intimate contact. When good men realize this is important, and do not put up with other men violating women and children, and acting without consent in relationships, we will finally have graduated to the next level of socially being human. Both rape and pedophilia are the biggest traumatic sources of psychological disturbance in people’s lives. Incest is even harder to overcome, because it is violation by a family member who should have been trustworthy. Many times it is also associated with alcoholism and/or drug use, and it destroys lives and families. The recidivism of pedophilia is staggering. The number of violations in an average lifespan of a pedophile is in the thousands. The average number of crimes is 117. We are lucky to have good support groups now for this. RAINN is one. And SAPREA is another, who are trying to help people get past the scarring psychological trauma.


Martina Nicholson


The good news is, from the RAINN data, that 95% of the behavior can be removed by education and training about consent, as part of communicating desire for intimacy. This is wonderful news. It means we can help people grow into mature human beings, who can learn to communicate, and to order their emotional lives in a healthier way. Please help teach, share, educate, inform, raise curiosity and willingness to learn. This is the most interesting thing that has happened in human behavior for thousands of years. We can become more mature human beings!


RAINN

is an excellent source of information about this problem. There are many resources now.

Discussing CONSENT with young people, especially parent-to-children conversations, but also in schools and churches, and in other groups, is very important.







Nonviolence and Jesus, Easter Reflection

The past few weeks I have spent thinking and praying about nonviolence, and especially this weekend, which in Catholicism is called the Triduum. This is the time between Holy Thursday, with the Last Supper, Friday with the Crucifixion of Jesus, Saturday with the older title of “the harrowing of hell”, and Easter Sunday, the day of the Resurrection, and Mary Magdalene’s meeting of the Risen Jesus outside the tomb,. We urgently need a cease-fire, to limit the damage being caused by this terrible and ill-conceived war, which is both illegal and immoral. The Pope has made it very clear that there is no “just war” criteria to give it, it is simply an act of aggression and cruelty in the ongoing power plays for political dominance. As a country, we have abandoned our friends and courted our enemies, and allowed the belligerent voices to outnumber the voices of the peacemakers. Through the 20th century, from the Russian revolution to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was expanding awareness that we have to curb our violence. We were able to get every nation to sign the UN Declaration of Human Rights. This was a true miracle. The question always was, is it possible for humans to become nonviolent? Is it built into our consciousness that we will always lash out when we don’t get our way? Can we begin to be meek and humble of heart? Yes, there have been saints and martyrs, but they are rare. We hardly want to take them seriously or follow them, their heroism seems too unnatural to many people, and most of us are cowards, when it comes to what they endured. Ghandi said that the strongest model of nonviolence is Jesus. He said everyone in the world knows this except the Christians. He went to the cross, without condemning his murderers, without answering Pilate, without rebutting the Sanhedrin. He was an innocent victim, in a complicated act of consent, as He said he was giving his life for us. He said He was going to the Father, and that he had always done the Father’s will. And that He wanted to enfold all of us in that Father’s love. For many of us, he is the Lamb of God, for the Passover. God told the Jews in Egypt that they must celebrate the liberation from being slaves in Egypt, in the Exodus story, by having an innocent lamb slaughtered for the Passover meal, and putting the blood on the doorway, so their children would not be slain by the final plague God was sending to make the Egyptians let the Jewish people go. By giving us Himself, as bread and wine transubstantiated, Jesus substituted His own being for the lamb; for that which can help us not continue blood sacrifices, and the cycle of unforgiven sins piling on to scapegoat after scapegoat. At Passover, the Temple was filled with butchery, and blood ran down from the altars in rivulets. What could undo this ongoing ritual of killing in order to please God? What could create a clean heart in us, and renew our hope and faith, and give us the joy of forgiveness?Fr John Dear was a Jesuit, and he is around my age, and has been talking and writing about nonviolence since I was in college. He is very, very articulate about Jesus being the model of nonviolence, and Forgiveness being the answer to our constant need for “doing better next time.” The pathway to this self-discipline is not easy, it requires self-transcending effort. As we see that Jesus is trying to fold us into His life and love of the Father, we begin to understand the unfathomable mercy of God. The depth of God’s love is the proof that nonviolence is what we need to practice with each other. This means we need to be patient, and to try to forgive, and to ask for forgiveness. First of all, we have to recognize we NEED forgiveness, each of us, and that God is offering it to us! We have been in a slow movement toward understanding this need for nonviolence, toward recognizing that there is something very special about pouring out your life for others. Not being selfish, but aligning our will with God’s will. Recognizing that loving our neighbors is how we show God our love of God. It is how to be joyful, how to abundantly show the fruits of the spirit in our lives. It is a very practical path. It starts with “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The Quakers have been practicing this for over 200 years, and are also very good at it. They understand that they must listen to the still small voice of God in their consciences, and align their will with the will of God. We are also in a time in interfaith dialogue when we see the saintly people in other faith traditions doing the same thing; exhorting us all to nonviolence, to being peacemakers, as a response to God’s loving us. We are beginning to form coalitions of people who earnestly want to solve problems without war. To find ways to make peace. This demands self-discipline, and a recognition that we don’t always know what is good for us— we need to try to do the will of the Father. It means really listening and sharing, and recognizing what others in our communities need. Many of us have come to understand that war takes away needed resources which could help all humans live a better life. I have a bumper sticker which says “Peace begins when the hungry are fed.” I added “Send food, not bombs”. When we try to meet the needs of others, instead of “getting our own way”, peace results. In our own country we are spending so much money on the military-industrial complex, and it is our hard-earned wages which are the source of that tax money. The money is supposed to help the government keep us safe. Many of us know that bombing people does not make us safer, it increases the hatred and suffering and agony for at least another generation or two. We are sliding into WWIII. Pope Leo has been crying out for a cease-fire. He is begging for diplomacy, for actual conversations and problem-solving. I think this is a good example of WWJD. We need to beat the swords into ploughshares, we need to retire the whole nuclear arms race, we need to help our neighbors also have clean air and water, food, healthy land and honest work, schools and medical care. Maybe this cannot come to be in my lifetime, which is now short. But there is a verse in the Torah which I love, about Tikkun Olam: “You are not required to finish the work, but neither are you permitted to abandon the effort.” Our job as humans now is to build communities and international relationships which help bring about lasting peace, with love and respect and community well-being. We will have frictions and difficult problems, but if we keep our “eyes on the prize” and try to “bend the arc toward justice,” our grandchildren or great-grandchildren may live in a a world at peace, not in a dictatorship, but in freedom and cooperative efforts. And meanwhile, we all must keep trying to align our will with the will of that benevolent source of all life, which will not let us fall into despair, which forgives us, which pours out mercy beyond all telling. As Elizabeth Johnson has said, no words can adequately encompass that Being, but all language we use is like pointing a finger at the moon. We use images and symbols to describe that source. And God knows every language and hears every prayer. God knows our hearts. And Jesus said “Come, follow me.” He met them in Galilee after the Resurrection. They found him cooking breakfast on the beach. He never chastised them for scattering and hiding, when he was being crucified. He said “Come and eat.”

Some thoughts on sex trafficking

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.  When someone ignores this, thinking you are just a body, detachable from spirit like a shadow, you demean the core sacred center of the life of this person, a multifaceted human being.  Making them into a thing.  Disposable, like kleenex.  To take  lovemaking and turn it into a crass use of someone’s body, often not even to give pleasure, and certainly not intending that this person receive tenderness, compassion, or love,  but simply to exercise power over them, ensnared like a trapped animal, is extremely destructive. Often it is exacerbated by even more  violence and cruelty.  For many of us, it would instinctively be better to be murdered than raped.  Rape incurs deep shame, feeling abased.  It never goes away.  The scars last for decades, even in healthy relationships; sexual abuse suddenly may rear its ugly roots of torment and emotional scarring.   The body remembers, and shrivels down into fear and wanting to find safety, even after successful therapy.   As a gynecologist, I have known this, I have seen it in women even into their 70s and 80s.  

To sell a person into slavery is a terrible thing.  To sell them to do manual labor, dangerous and unrecompensed work,  is hard enough;  but to make their body feel so abused and their personhood so corrupted, is soul-destroying. 

The Epstein sex-trafficking ring lasted for 30 years.  There were at least a thousand identified victims.  Many have told their stories in court, and won their cases.  The majority of women who were used by this ring came from Eastern European countries.  That is probably how the tracks got covered for so long.  The monetary value of that ring was 1.5 BILLION dollars.  In early reports, it was said that 1.1 billion came from Trump.  I don’t have the attribution to that, but maybe this week, when Congressman Ro Khanna allows the victims to tell their stories to Congress and  the public, we will get more details about the way the money was hidden.  But this is not just about money.  It is about a long-standing practice of abuse of children and women, and we need to have good men and women rise up and share OUTRAGE, and promise to tighten the laws, to not let it happen again.  And to bring the perpetrators to justice.  Certainly not to allow access to children;  girls and young women, but also young men.  Jesus had heavy words to say about those who hurt children (Matthew 18:6).  For those who want our country’s ethics to be based in Christian thinking, it is worth pondering that.  

Martina Nicholson, MD

retired gynecologist

Rerum Novarum

In the wake of Trump’s attack on Harvard and the 25% of the students who are foreign:

this is what Pope Leo XIII said in Rrum Novarum, the Catholic Social Justice critique of the Industrial Revolution:

“Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, addressed the social issues arising from the Industrial Revolution, primarily focusing on the relationship between labor and capital. Five key points include: the need for a just wage, the right of workers to organize, the importance of private property, the role of the state in protecting the common good, and the moral responsibilities of both employers and employees. “

This is an important critique of both capitalism and communism.

A just wage is what Bernie Sanders and many others have been fighting for for decades. The rights of workers to organize, to have representation with big business through unions, is another big point, which Joe Biden consistently pointed to as a major contributor to the 40 hour week, and protections against dangers in the work place, and in protection of retirement for workers.

The right of private property is a caution against communism, or state-mandated control of everything.

The role of the state in protecting the common good is a direct flag to our Constitution, to consider the needs of the people in the country, not just the big employers, or corporations.

Moral responsibility of both the employers and employees gives us the necessity of working together for “best practices” and the best working relationships.

Our government needs to stay on course between the two extremes of capitalism and communism. After WW2, Europe made great headway with Democratic Socialism, which is also an attempt to provide for the general welfare, to buffer the costs of medical care, the housing costs, the retirement needs of the elderly, the needs of families raising children, the needs to have a well-educated workforce, and to have good laws which protect the peace and well-being of the people in the society.

Recently Paul Krugman again recommended that we have appropriate taxation of corporations and billionaires, to help fund the needs for meeting the common good, in our time. Instead of passing a massive tax cut for them, we should be increasing it. After WW2, in the Eisenhower years, the tax rate for the top bracket was 90%!. This money helped make America great. We need to put a reasonable tax burden on the corporations, and on the billionaires. This will help us meet the needs of our people over this century. We CAN be moderate in this way– helping make our nation great, as we also provide for the vulnerable in meaningful ways. It gives me great hope that Pope Leo XIV, our new American pope, decided to use the name Leo, perhaps pointing to this great insightful “middle way” of his predecessor with the same name. We need to support Harvard, and all institutions of higher learning, and we need to protect due process of law. We need to help working families to be able to raise healthy children. And we also need to recognize that these goals do not exclude human spirituality and love of God.

Today, beware the Ides of March

I have been really absorbed in substack, the Contrarian, and various thinkers who are educated people. I have really enjoyed and learned from Paul Krugman’s posts, and Robert Reich. And my favorite is Andrew Weissmann. I have enjoyed the posts by Robert Hubbell, also. People who are deeply cultured, and well-informed, and who think clearly and carefully about each issue. Every day I read Heather Cox Richardson first. Context is so important!

I am really worried about the government shut-down. It closely follows the model of Hitler’s destruction of the Weimar Republic in Germany. I believe DT wants to destroy the government and set up a dictatorship. I do not understand why the Republican Congressional reps are trying to give away their power to help him do this. I am grateful for the lawyers and judges who are trying to uphold the law. I am appalled at the hubris of a president who shutters the State Department, and destroys the attempt at diplomatic relations and attempts to eliminate diplomats, as well as judges and heads of agencies. The brutality of the coup and the blitzkrieg with which it has been enabled, is really terrifying. I cannot see how we are going to get past the Ides of March, but I am sending a postcard to the occupant of the White House. I am praying. Perhaps that is the most important thing I am doing, besides letters and posts and emails to the Congressional reps, just to pray for our country, for the courageous men and women of honor who are trying to uphold the rule of law. For those who are trying to protect the Constitution from the wrecking ball of Musk and his people, and DT. May God help us, and somehow, help us to preserve the nation.