Tag: cynicism

  • Scum of the World

    I could hear the cussing from inside the room and noted the awkward glances of nearby nurses and staff who turned to look and gawk.  Even though I only sat a few feet outside the door, I ignored the increasingly loud litany of expletives and deliberately focused on the screen in front of me.  He was my patient and I was doing my…

  • Part 2: On Hope

    After a brutal series of Christmas shifts in the ER, I had finally come home for the holidays.  My mother and I were in the kitchen, talking like we used to.  We had seen and loved the new Les Miserables film, and so I brought up an interesting question from an interview with Samantha Barks,…

  • Part 1: On Cynicism

    I originally wrote the following passage for a Good Friday reflection in 2007, unknowingly done one week before the Virginia Tech shooting.  The intent in re-posting here is not to lessen the tragedy of what has just occurred in Connecticut, but to speak truth about how little has changed five years later.  Kyrie eleison. The…