Sing

Call 911 and radios sing in your town. A call for help, a call to convene. Tones ring, volunteers come, help is given, things are set right. Over and over, every day.

The cycle of work is said to be an honorable thing. Whitman sang its praise in the time of Senators Fremont and Roscoe. Before the Civil War, the anthem was to occupy the occupations, be neither master nor servant, be all equal in our work.

Whitman never lived here, but neither did Fremont or Roscoe. No matter. We gather anyway. A fire department and ambulance corps in every town, volunteers ready for fast response.

So consider joining in. It’s a simple thing. Call and response, call and response. Tones sound, sirens sing. All honest work, honestly done.

Surrender

“Have you surrendered to Jesus?” That’s what the patient asked me in the back of the ambulance as I was taking her blood pressure on the way to the hospital.

Her medications were off-balance, and therefore so was she, although by the way she asked it I think her question was normal for her.

It made me think.

So many things call on us to surrender.

Our bodies demand surrender, with their hungers, aches and strict constraints.

Our professions ask us to surrender, to the chains of command that keep us together and to the rules and protocols that need to be obeyed.

And we’re called to surrender to our community and countryside, to the men who plow roads and the inevitability of the snow they will need to scrape away.

These things we need. They’re everything we’ve got. We need to trust, to give in, to free ourselves from the struggle for control.

“Not yet,” I replied to her. “But I hear the call.”