“America! America! God mend thine every flaw,confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”
Katherine Lee Bates
This past Sunday, July 3rd, we had a patriotic hymn sing-along after church to celebrate a little early the 4th of July. One of my favorites is the music to Katherine Lee Bates’ poem, “America the Beautiful.” O beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain”. Bates wrote the hymn after she arrived in a prairie wagon on top of the 14,000-foot Pike’s Peak near Colorado Springs in the summer of 1893.
I connected to the poem and the hymn when I helped plan a pediatric radiology meeting at nearby Colorado Springs in 1994. I took a six-month sabbatical from Children’s Hospital to prepare for the international pediatric radiology meeting. I had much help from people worldwide, but I had a touch of what Parker Palmer calls “functional atheism,” believing I was the “only” one who needed to get most of the work done.
After a year of planning and everything was ready, I vividly remember sitting in a board meeting in May at the event hotel just before the conference began. I looked out of the adjacent large bay window and saw, to my horror, the beginning of the last snow of winter. I had planned in detail a multitude of outdoor activities that now would never see the light of day. I now keep this beautiful picture of snow on the tulips in front of the hotel to remind me how little I can control in life.
There was a multitude of other hiccups. We recorded speakers for a meeting video. One speaker did not like his recording and required us to redo his filming at least five times. I will always be indebted to Marilyn Goske, whom I had casually asked to watch over the videoing of the speakers. She patiently stayed with the speakers and missed the whole meeting to get this done. Another hiccup was our evening entertainment after dinner. We had scheduled the Air Force Academy Cadet Choir. Then without warning, they were called to maneuvers. Our meeting planner booked a local children’s chorus. I was embarrassed that this would be amateurish and poorly performed. But, as you might expect, they were some of the most charming, talented, and poised children performers I have ever seen. They ended their concert by going to individual members of this highly-educated, sophisticated audience and holding their hands and singing directly to them. We all gave them a standing ovation through our tears, remembering that the children we serve as physicians can teach us so much about life as “American the Beautiful.”
I also learned from this meeting that I am not in charge, and that God provides impressive people around me who will take over overwhelming situations. I especially learned after dinner that when a door unexpectantly closes, the next door that opens often is surprisingly magnificent. All of these principles are in the 12 steps, as well as our church’s scripture, tradition, and reason. I had learned all this from both directions, recovery and my church. I don’t know about you, but for me, I seem to need to relearn them almost every day. What a gift that God keeps giving us a new chance every day, one day at a time.
Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/
