My View From the Hospital Window by Bob Kaufman

I have a Bachelor of Science in physics with a minor in math from an accredited university.  I hold a certificate of aeronautical rating from the United States Air Force, which, if it isn't the best pilot training institution in the world, it is second only to the United States Navy. I have my own opinion on that, but that’s another story.  I proudly wore the coveted wings on my uniform for five years. I hold a Master of Business Administration degree.  And, I earned an advanced doctorate degree in the life of Bob Kaufman.  All of that qualifies me to talk about little else than myself, and absolutely nobody else should feel compelled to listen.  I suspect, however, that some of my experience, understanding, and beliefs about life might find a friendly audience in one or two other folks.

This morning, July 26, 2012,(1) I gazed out the window of the sixth floor of my sweetheart's hospital room, where she lay suffering from a serious traffic accident that happened three days earlier.  I noticed the intricate arrangement of pipes, conduits, and other mechanical devices on the roof of one of the lower sections of the hospital.  The scene presented all the tell-tale signs of intelligent, man-made design: straight lines, consistent curves, right angles, and such - those geometric shapes you rarely see, if ever, in nature.

Near the horizon, this side of Mummy Mountain in Phoenix/Scottsdale, a crane was in motion, moving other objects with lines, consistent curves, and right angles in the construction of some other object of intelligent design.  Without a doubt, the buildings I observed could not have arrived at their present form without forethought and effort of intelligent creatures.  Although the complex arrangement of the pipes and conduits caused me to wonder if sufficient forethought had been given to the project and if a simpler arrangement might have been possible.  It looked more like a house that had been designed and built, and then the owner realized something else was needed, something he had not anticipated in the beginning.  So, an addition was made, and then another, and another, and another.... 

In the process of earning that BS degree over forty years ago, I was exposed briefly to a very new field of study called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR).(2) Yesterday, a very skilled and knowledgeable surgeon shared with me images captured by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Those images showing an interactive, three-dimensional view of my wife's broken rib cage, are the evolution of over forty years of study and practice applied to the then infantile field of NMR.

Last night I viewed a short section of a video featuring another knowledgeable and wise person discussing the intricate system that transmits sound waves to the human brain.  With vibrations so small as to be dwarfed by the dimensions of an atom, the ear drum, first in line in that intricate system, transmits those waves to the brain.  From this, if everything is functioning as designed, we can hear the velvet sounds of a cello in an orchestra playing a masterful composition, and we can distinguish that sound from the cry of a newborn baby, constructed, by the way, in only nine month’s time. I can ramble on aloud, and if you have heard my voice before, you can distinguish it from the thousands of others you have heard. Truly it is a remarkable system, part of that larger conglomerate of systems we call human.

If I recall correctly, before my BS, the commonly held astronomical belief was that the universe was static.  Sometime after that, something exploded with a bang and the universe began to move.  But there wasn't enough energy in that explosion to keep things moving apart forever and scientists said eventually it all would implode and maybe start all over again.  No one knows for certain what was going on before the bang, what caused it in the first place, and what will happen when everything collapses.  That last question is irrelevant now because, I think, the current theory is that everything is accelerating away from everything else and there is insufficient force at work to bring it all back together.  Eventually, if man doesn't fall victim to some other catastrophe, when he gazes into the heavens at night, he will see only black because the stars and galaxies will have moved so far away that their light will no longer reach the earth.  I have no idea what the theory is about the moon in this scenario, so maybe there will still be romance and horror stories about what happens to some people when the moon is full.

I am subject to correction on that last paragraph because, for the past forty years, my study of science has been limited to things I have seen on the likes of the Discovery Channel. And, I wrote all of that from my memory which is getting weaker as I write.  Finally, it could happen that future scientists will learn something new that will change the current theories, whatever they really are.

So, as I write, Doctor Hu is performing surgery (he pronounced it "hue" like having to do with color, not "who" like the fictional British TV character who travels the universe in a telephone booth). His dedication to the science of medicine gives me a good deal of comfort and a great deal of gratitude. He is working to repair my sweetheart's ribs so that they will move without causing great pain, so that her chest will expand sufficiently to cause air to reach the lower limits of her lung, so that it will function properly and not become diseased further, thus allowing her to rise from her bed of pain to continue to live, love, and bless the lives of everyone who is fortunate to cross her path.

All of this is to say that my nearly sixty-four years of earning all the credentials, outlined earlier, convince me that there is no way that all of this is an accident of nature and not an act of design and construction by someone very intelligent.  I do not dispute the bang theory.  I simply do not know, but certainly would like to know more about how it all happened.   Some will call this blind faith.  I don't care about that.  I do not, and never will accept the notion that mankind evolved from a single-cell in some primordial soup somewhere millions of years ago when the right combination of protein molecules and energy happened to come together in a collision in time and space.  The cello convinces me otherwise. Although, surprisingly, that description fits how each individual was and is created, but the time required for that process is measured only in months.  Equally unacceptable to me is the idea that over eons of time these cells learned by endless trial and error how to form themselves into all the systems necessary for sustaining the myriad of organisms that inhabit this universe.

I love the 1994 movie IQ, with Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan and Walter Matthau playing the part of Albert Einstein.  I know it's a chick flick.  So what? At one point, Einstein and a few of his old cronies are walking with Edward Walters, a simple garage mechanic with a fascination for science, played by Robbins.  One of the old scientists asks Edward if he thinks they will ever discover intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.  He responded, "They're still looking for intelligent life here on earth."

For a few minutes today, I observed two men working at one of the junction boxes on a rooftop below my window. From the 6th floor they looked like nano-probes moving about affecting repairs.  Obviously, they were working to ensure the hospital systems continue to work properly.  I will concede that there really is intelligent life on earth, citing as evidence those systems the "mano-probes" were repairing.  Such mechanical systems, placed on the roof by design and human effort, not by accident, pale in comparison to the complex and marvelous systems of the mano-probes themselves. Simple logic, another of the attributes of intelligence, tells me that to believe intelligent man created the hospital but man himself is an accident of nature, is silly.

The famous British astronomer, Sir Arthur Eddington, said "the more we know about the universe, the less it looks like a great machine and the more it looks like a great thought."(3) I accept that thought without reservation.

The surgery was a success.  I think Dr. Hu is more artist than scientist. Now we are hoping that these repairs will allow her body to heal itself. Time will tell. Meanwhile we continue to pray for her recovery.

You may wish to view a beautifully produced video entitled "Our Divine Creator". It captures my views precisely: Our Divine Creator

(1) July 26 has become an important date on my calendar. On July 26, 1971, Lt. William J. Stone, my Undergraduate Pilot Training classmate was killed in a crash in the Superstition Mountains. On the same day as this story, July 26, 2012, as I was driving home on the 101 freeway, I received a call from my high school classmate Frank Buerger. He informed me that our classmate and good friend Pete Thill had passed away earlier that day.

(2) Not wishing to draw too much attention to my obsessive compulsiveness, I must say “nuclear” is properly pronounced nu-CLE-ar, not nu-CU-lar ... but that's another story.

(3) Quoted by John Lewis, former Professor of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona, and MIT. Note: My cursory research indicates this quote actually may be paraphrased from a quote by Sir James Jeans: “The stream of human knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality. The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter. We are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of this realm.” — Sir James Jeans, (1877-1946), English physicist, astronomer, and mathematician, The Mysterious Universe (1930), 137.

I've Seen That Smile Somewhere Before by Bob Kaufman

Claire Johnson Senior Picture, 1967

Once, long ago, before I was young - indeed, even before time, I knew her and loved her!

Then, as I was about to leave that existence, Mother assured me: "Everything will be alright."

It was as if she was sending me off to my first day of school.

I imagine she licked her fingers, as mothers do, and slicked my hair, tugged at my belt to straighten my shirt. She looked, and looked once more to be certain I had my sack lunch in hand. Then, perceiving my reticence, she scooted me out the door before I could object.

So, I departed, as we all did one by one, into The Great Agon. 1

     "Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
     seeking to find the old familiar faces", Charles Lamb wrote. 2

The Old Familiar Faces by Charles Lamb

That idea resonates with me.

It seemed part of my very soul when I first heard it not long ago.
I felt something expand within.
It was as the sound of angelic harmony – triads, and more complex chords, I have often heard, especially when the MCO women sing in three or four, or even more parts.

It is like an “arrival” chord. One that just feels right – that moment of anticipated resolution in the music, following a dramatic, suspenseful crescendo. I have felt similar beauties before - fulfillment of the promise that truth shall "distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven." 3

Suddenly, I wished I had read more in the previous seven decades of my life. If I had, that truth might have drifted my way long before now.

"Where had I seen them, those familiar faces?", I thought.
"Certainly not here.”
“I have sought them as long as I can remember - since I was very young - even before that."

Their familiarity precedes time.

"If not here, then where?" I asked aloud.
(My thoughts, alone, could not contain that question.)

Spring 1968

Not the first, but my most memorable moment finding a familiar face, was the instant hers passed before mine, slightly lower, as five foot four is to just under six feet, not eighteen inches away, as close as two people can be within a single doorway without grazing against one another. I felt the faint breeze on my forearm as she passed by - all too quickly it seemed. Absent was the discomfort of a violation of personal space! Indeed, this was a most-welcome intrusion.

Though more than half a century ago, the image of that moment is unfaded.

Even if I close my eyes really tight, clench my fists, and think really hard, I cannot recall another familiar-face moment as vivid as that one, although, there have been many, many more.

Curious. Most have involved music, I think, but that's another story.
Or maybe it is this one.
My mind is yet unsettled on that point.

Spring 1968, Merrill Hall

Orson F. Whitney wrote: "More than once on hearing a noble sentiment expressed though unable to recall that I’d ever heard of it until then, I found myself in sympathy with it, and felt as if I had always known it. The same is true with some strains of music; they are like echoes of eternity. I do not assert pre-acquaintance in all such cases, but as one thought suggests another, these queries arise in the mind." 4

We Lived With God

Perhaps that is why I have found many familiar faces while engaged in singing music that also has a familiar echo. It is more than simple coincidence.

Wordsworth wrote:
    "Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

    Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
    And, even with something of a mother's mind,
    And no unworthy aim,
    The homely nurse doth all she can
    To make her foster-child, her inmate, Man,
    Forget the glories he hath known,
    And that imperial palace whence he came." 5

W.W. Gibson wrote of ... "fresh moments that live again in remembrance - unfaded."

Living "again in remembrance" seems to imply a sense of deja-vu, but the passing of that angel before my eyes did not produce such a feeling. Deja vu is near complete forgetfulness...but not quite. Then, when it quietly, almost imperceptibly, drifts back into your consciousness, you feel you've been there before, but you cannot quite account for when or where.

No.
That wasn't it.

The feeling I had, as my heart leapt within, was complete remembrance and reunion. Unawares, I had been searching for her all along, but didn’t know where she had gone! Then I felt, just for an instant, that mother must have added, probably as an afterthought, as she gently kissed my forehead: "Don't worry. You will find her.”

Suddenly, there she was!
Unannounced!
Such an entrance should have been preceded by great pomp and circumstance!

Spring 1968, Together at Last

I was tongue-tied. 6
I tried but couldn't speak.
I didn't even know her name!

"Wie heißen?" (Literally, "How are you called?" – She always liked when I spoke German. I haven’t done it much in the eons since that September – 1967.)
The perfect greeting realized only now, half a century too late!
(Perhaps that eight-month gap between that moment and our first formal date might have been eliminated. Oh, but then, without the suspension, the “arrival” cannot be as sweet!)

Claire and Kristi, Summer 1970

Not quite a year later, on a warm summer afternoon - as we sat in the shade of the pine trees on the lawn where I once played imaginary baseball games on my knees, bouncing a soft ball against the sidewalk and fireplace at my childhood home - we talked of love and learned that we both had wished that the other would have come and sat nearby so we could talk. But she went to one side of the room, and I to the other. Gladly the distance of that separation would eventually disappear.

How could I not know her name? Earth might cause one to forget his former palatial home, but the face of eternal love is indelible! I have always had difficulty putting names to faces and remembering them for very long. I guess it’s just me.

     “I [had] seen that smile somewhere before.
     “Sometime.
     “Who can be certain when?
     “But, if I knew [her] then, it's strange I can't remember.
     “Feelings come so very strong, like we’ve known each other oh so long! 7

The Circle of Our Love

Helene Cardona wrote: 8

     To Kitty, Who Loved the Sea and Somerset Maugham

    For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
    it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
    ―E.E. Cummings

     The angel who smells of my childhood
     My mother, piano and oboe
     Whose face the icon reflects
     Auburn hair like a Modigliani
     Eyes the color of rain
     Light caught by surprise
     Whose presence the absence reveals
     Whose laughter burns snow
     Whose warm breath I breathed
     This morning as I woke
     The scent of gardenias whispering
     I never left you

Truly, she never left me!

Either we knew each other in a pre-mortal realm or I am a hopeless romantic.

I prefer both. 9



Footnotes:

1 According to Wikipedia, Agon is an ancient Greek term for a conflict, struggle or contest. This could be a contest in athletics, in chariot or horse racing, or in music or literature at a public festival in ancient Greece. Agon is the word-forming element in 'agony', explaining the concept of agon(y) in tragedy by its fundamental characters, the protagonist and antagonist.

Wikipedia definition of agon 

2 “The Old Familiar Faces”, by Charles Lamb
3 Doctrine and Covenants 121:45
4 Quoted in "Jesus of Nazareth" Vol. 2, by Truman Madsen
5 “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”, by William Wordsworth - 1770-1850]
6 Like the young man in “Montage from How Sweet It Is”
"Then I knew that you knew that I knew that....
(This song became ours that bright and wonderful spring of 1968...but that's another story.)

7 “The Circle of our Love”, from “Saturday’s Warrior”, by Douglass Stewart and Lex de Azevedo
8 “Life in Suspension / La Vie Suspendue”m by Helene Cardona
9 O My Father, text: Eliza R. Snow, 1804-1887, verse 3:
      I had learned to call thee Father,
      Thru thy Spirit from on high,
      But, until the key of knowledge was restored,
      I knew not why.
      In the heav'ns are parents single?
      No, the thought makes reason stare!
      Truth is reason; truth eternal
      Tells me I've a mother there.