Whenever a tragic loss occurs, you can either resist or yield......Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life. -Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

An awakening has been in the works for some time now. My first glimpse of deep spirituality was in high school. In the midst of teenage depression I somehow found my way to an evangelical Baptist church. I was raised in a home very skeptical of organized religion, so church was an odd place for me to flee. I was saved and baptized. Dunking in the holy water, head to toe, Southern Baptist style. There I sensed for the first time a spiritual connection. In fact one day during a call to the alter (which can last upwards of 20 min) I felt that God spoke to me. I had a clear vision of what I was to do, my purpose in life. Healer.

Then the preacher gave genital herpes to my Sunday school teacher, and the affair became the scandal that split the church. It seemed that perhaps my parents were right all along. You really cannot trust those holy-roller types.

In med school crisis in the mission to become healer led me back to church. This time a campus Lutheran Student Center. I thought Luther was on to something, the act of believing is the way to salvation, sans the guilt. Met my husband there. Believed I was again on the right track.

My dear brother had an awakening of his own. Realization that he was born gay, and strength to live his life congruent to his true identity. Never was there a moment that I (or our God avoiding parents) hesitated to stand with him. Inner conversations with God asking why did he make him this way? Why do the leaders of His church not see God's creation of homosexuals to be as beautiful and wondrous as the creation of any living thing? Couldn't much sit through a church service after that.

There were still moments. Discovering the perfect words to comfort a patient. Connecting with another human being deeply, without words. Predicting a reality with intuition, sensing beyond the physical. These moments I still believed to be divine. But where/what was God?

Blogging about my exile to the periphery. No longer able to connect with myself in the role of triathlete, superstar cardiologist, mother. Reading this New Earth book is interesting because Tolle teaches about an inner consciousness. He draws connections to the the world's religions. He suggests that setbacks like my year of illness is a common way that people connect with this spiritual force.

Suddenly "Turn it over to God" has different meaning for me.

The View, a rusted railing

My mom likes to watch The View when she is home from work. Last week Colin Powell was a special guest to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr's life. I do not follow the show, but am familiar with sound bites that periodically seep out into the general media chronicling their more heated discussions.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck in trouble. This time for making the statement, "Well black men were given the right to vote before women." She was quickly and respectfully corrected by Whoopi Goldberg, then the producers cut to commercial. Admittedly confused about the issue I looked into it, what was the deal? Constitutional amendments in order, Blacks then women. Civil Rights fight in the 1960's long after suffrage for women. So I am a white girl who learned American history in a Northern blue state... and I am still confused.

Government gives blacks right to vote following Civil War. Following Lincoln's assassination Andrew Johnson allowed the former Confederate States to create local laws to limit voting rights for Blacks. Congress confirmed the 14th amendment, but then had to dispatch the Union Army to the south to enforce it. Military districts saw to it that black men were registered, and nearly all black men were a part of political organizations. In 1867 more blacks than whites were registered to vote in the south, and former slaves are participating in local government.

The undoing of this progress? President Hayes in 1876 removed the troops, the Ku Klux Klan took over. A generation of hatred and violence. Suffrage for women happens in 1920, but not until the 1960's does the Civil Rights Era begin.

(My source: http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/myth_9.htm)

The weekend before my surgery my husband and I drove down to Memphis for the weekend. It was a perfectly timed get-a-way. We stayed at the Peabody, followed the ducks into the lobby, rested at the spa, rode the trolley downtown and danced late in the clubs on Beale Street.

Saturday afternoon we set out for the Civil Rights Museum. As we turned from the main road we were confused, because the address we expected to find it stood an old Motel. Aluminum siding in teal and white, an old neon sign that was no longer lit. As we approached we noticed antique cars from the 1960's parked outside, only at that point did we realize our surprise. The Civil Rights Museum was built inside the Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered.

The main entrance was a few feet away, and over the next two hours we wandered through the museum. The history of slave trade, civil war, WWI, industrialization/North migration, School De-segregation, Rosa Parks, Walk on Washington, Memphis Sanitary Worker's Strike.... eventually leading us back to MLK. The final exhibit could only be approached in a single file line. I followed a few young people ahead of me, and again paused in reverence as I stood inside the hotel room MLK slept the night before his death. Outside the window was the balcony. On the rusted railing was a wreath of flowers.

Thoughts?