The following is an excerpt from an essay written during World War II by Dorothy Sayers, an English author from the early 20th century.  Sayers’ words challenge us to consider our relationship to our work and the powerful impact our posture toward work can have on not only our individual lives but on our life together as a community.

“It may well seem to you – as it does to some of my acquaintances – that I have a sort of obsession about this business of the right attitude to work.  But I do insist upon it, because it seems to me that what becomes of civilization after this war is going to depend enormously on our being able to effect this revolution in our ideas about work.  Unless we do change our whole way of thought about work, I do not think we shall ever escape from the appalling squirrel-cage of economic confusion in which we have been madly turning for the last three centuries or so, the cage in which we landed ourselves by acquiescing in a social system based upon Envy and Avarice.  A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand.

It is interesting to consider for a moment how our outlook has been forcibly changed for us in the last twelve months by the brutal presence of war…Do you realize how we have had to alter our whole scale of values, now that we are no longer urged to consume but to conserve?  We have been forced back to the social morals of our great-grandparents…When paper is scarce we must – or we should – think whether what we have to say is worth saying before writing or printing it.  When our life depends on the land, we have to pay in short commons for destroying its fertility by neglect or over-cropping…We have had to learn the bitter lesson that in all the world there are only two sources of real wealth: the fruit of the earth and the labor of men; and to estimate work – not by the money it brings to the producer, but by the worth of the thing that is made.

…The habit of thinking about work as something one does to make money is so ingrained in us that we can scarcely imagine what a revolutionary change it would be to think about it instead in terms of the work done.  It would mean taking the attitude of mind we reserve for our unpaid work – our hobbies, our leisure interests, the things we make and do for pleasure – and making that the standard of all our judgments about things and people.

We should ask of an enterprise, not ‘will it pay?’ but ‘is it good?’; of a man, not ‘what does he make?’ but ‘what is his work worth?’; of goods, not ‘can we induce people to buy them?’ but ‘are they useful things well made?’; of employment, not ‘how much a week?’ but ‘will it exercise my faculties to the utmost?’”

One of my goals for this spring is to get to know my neighbors.  After ten years of living in the midst of houses where people seem to disappear behind closed garage doors each night (myself included), I entertained the idea of moving to a new neighborhood.  In my mind, I’m envisioning a community of houses where people actually have conversations in their front yards or, better yet, sit on front porches.  Call me an idealist, but I long for this kind of community.  A commitment to actually knowing each other…slowing down long enough to do more than wave as we drive by…taking time to enjoy a meal together…engaging in the art of neighboring.

And then it hit me.  If I want neighbors, I actually need to BE a neighbor!  Moving to a new neighborhood will only relocate the problem!  And so I trotted down to Walgreen’s and bought a package of invitations and took the plunge – I invited my neighbors over for dinner.  Nothing big, nothing fancy.  I grilled the chicken and everyone brought a side.  I met neighbors who have lived on the street for 30 years and others who have moved in since I arrived.  Many of us had never actually met.  It was a wonderful evening.  And I sat there wondering – “why did it take me ten years to invite my neighbors over for dinner?”

Henri Nouwen, reflects on the gift of hospitality in his book Reaching Out as he describes his observations among students:

“Looking at hospitality as the creation of a free and friendly space where we can reach out to strangers and invite them to become our friends, it is clear that this can take place on many levels and in many relationships…While living and working with the students for two years, I started to wonder more and more if the students themselves were not hiding their great interpersonal talents.  During classroom conversations, at parties and in the context of counseling itself, I started not only to see but also to experience compassion, openness, real interest, a willingness to listen and speak, and many other gifts which seldom became manifest in the student community itself.  I suddenly realized that while many complained about loneliness, lack of community or an impersonal atmosphere and expressed a great desire for friendship, support and someone to share experiences with, only a few made their great healing talents visible and available to their fellow students.  Fear or a lack of confidence in their own human gift caused many to hide their most precious talents.”

How about you?  What stands in the way of you reaching out to be a neighbor to the people on your street…or the colleagues in your practice…or the fellow residents in your program…or your medical school classmates?  What is one step you can take toward creating a spirit of hospitality and neighborliness in your world today?  It may start with offering a smile to those you pass in the hallway, or stopping to ask how the person at the front desk is doing today, or trotting down to Walgreen’s to buy your own package of invitations.  Creating a spirit of hospitality can become a way of life – a posture of our hearts.  May it be so.

Whew. The envelopes are opened and the suspense is over. The question of where the medical school class of 2011 will go for their next stage of training is now public knowledge. Whether they got their first choice or another choice, the long, angst-filled process of applying, worrying, interviewing, worrying, ranking, worrying, waiting and worrying is over.

From the time students enter medical school, they are taught to worry about Match Day. Everything they do (or don’t do) is evaluated in light of whether it will help or hurt their chances for reading ‘I’m going to Mass General’ or ‘I’m headed to Stanford’ on Match Day.

There’s nothing wrong with heading to Mass General or Stanford, mind you. Or the University of Michigan or UCLA or Vanderbilt for that matter. The problem comes from the underlying assumptions and messages that are subtly (or not so subtly) communicated throughout the medical training process, which often define success in terms of outward achievement and securing a lifestyle that will most likely ensure (?) personal happiness.

What does it mean to live a successful life? Is ‘being happy’ a virtuous goal for this new generation of physicians to anchor their lives around? What’s the difference between practicing medicine and participating in the mysterious gift of healing? What would it mean to be catalysts for true reform within a healthcare system that is increasingly asked to eradicate suffering rather than faithfully care for those who are suffering? And, perhaps most importantly, where are today’s students invited to consider questions like this and to engage in conversation about the process of becoming a person, the most important part of becoming a good physician.

As I sat amidst the cheers and tears of this year’s Match Day experience, I couldn’t help but wonder what these students’ lives will be like this time next year. Will the glitter of today’s achievement provide comfort and peace for their souls in the midst of real life on the wards or personal anxieties and stress? Probably not. Will they have started the quest for the next gold prize on the treadmill of academic achievement? Perhaps. Will the suffering and pain they encounter lead them to ask thoughtful questions about life, success and the path of becoming a participant in the gift of healing? May it be so.

“[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all…rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.” -Frederich Buechner

What do you want to be when you grow up? This is the question we are asked from the time we are old enough to form words to speak a response. It is a question rooted in our American way of thinking about life. What do you want to be?

Several years ago, I left my work in financial planning to return to graduate school to complete a Master’s degree in Counseling. I wanted to be a counselor. But somewhere along the way I realized that more than being a counselor, I wanted to become a woman who is wholeheartedly engaged in living life and guiding others on their journey to become whoever they were dreamed into being to become.

The process of becoming is not nearly as clear-cut and linear as getting a degree or credential to be a counselor or a doctor or a teacher. Becoming is an inside-out job. Instead of the busy pace of acquiring skills and knowledge, becoming involves slowing down and connecting with the desires and values and hopes that are often buried underneath the load of duties and obligations and responsibilities. Becoming is a process…one that takes attention and intention if we are to grow a life that flourishes and is fruitful.

What about you? Who do you want to become? More than being a physician, what kind of woman do you want to be as you travel through each day? What are the seedling qualities you want to be nurturing and cultivating in the garden of your life? In the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, “To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.”