Happy Friday, friends,
Humility, they say, comes with age. And, I would add, when it comes it’s wearing rubber gloves.
This truth was borne upon me this week as I went for my more-or-less triennial physical exam, which yielded mixed results.
It involved meeting my new doctor, my third in as many recent visits — the local practice can’t seem to hold on to them.
I liked her at sight, she being a well-upholstered lady who 10 years ago I would have considered to be of advanced years but I now would call “early middle age.”
For sure, I thought, she wouldn’t hector me about my diet like that earnest young stick figure who preceded her, and wouldn’t be as unreasonable about my (much-reduced) smoking habits as the sneaker-wearing gym bro before her.
Like I say, mixed results.
Since my last visit I have apparently crossed some demographic Rubicons and now merit far more scrutiny than I did before.
As a result, blood samples are now taken from me at the level of what I’d call “sacrificial giving,” to be scoured for something called “PSAs.” And my cholesterol levels are no longer treated as amusing trivia.
The doctor did inject a touch of humor by remarking that conducting my inaugural prostate exam would be “a little much for a first date” and could wait until next time, though I stopped laughing when I noticed her nail extensions, I can tell you.
There is, at a basic human level, something humbling, not to say humiliating, to being stood naked on a stool and picked over for signs of defect and weakness, while receiving a critical assessment of your lifestyle and reminders about your own mortality.
And, having as I do a young child, I can no longer meet these subjects with cavalier attempts at gallows humor. I left the doctor’s office if not penitent, exactly, then at least reflective.
The feeling of having your frailty fully put in front of you, and in front of another, is instructive, though, and is a good spiritual as much as physical discipline. It is true that I so often consider as trivial things which are in fact serious — mortal even. And it is useful to be reminded that, exposed in the unforgiving fluorescent light of a proper examination, there is little about myself worth boasting of.
Walking humbly is not a natural posture for me, but it should be. I expect it will become more so after that exam.
Anyway, here’s the news.
The News
Congo’s bishops this week tried to bring together divided politicians to discuss how to end a resurgent conflict in the east of the country.
Our new Kinshasa-based correspondent Antoine Lokongo reports this week that, following a Feb. 3 meeting with President Félix Tshisekedi, the bishops are not meeting leaders and stakeholders of various kinds across the DRC, following the occupation of the eastern city of Goma by Rwandan troops backing a Tutsi rebel movement known as M23.
Fr. José Mpundu, a Kinshasa priest, told The Pillar that he at least does “not expect from this…
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