Vocation vs. livelihood and my research lab postulancy

I moved to my new home at the start of May (in the midst of exam week) and have enjoyed hearing the reassuring hum of the nearby trains, making their daily circuits.

May and June rushed by as the end of spring semester flowed into a fast-paced summer session. I enjoyed moving to stay in the home of older friends whose children are off to college/work and visiting the homes of those with whom I attend church to help out with spring home projects (I was also grateful for their generosity in supporting my impending service trip to Jamaica). Constructing and teaching a five-week introductory organic chemistry workshop for a small group of undergraduate pre-health professional students reminded me how much I missed tutoring/mentoring and made me wonder if teaching might someday become more than a summer job. I was eager to begin my studies in the program of Gerontology with a course in Geropharmacology (I think the geriatric world has enchanted me!). Visiting a national leader on health literacy (especially oral health), I was challenged to consider a career in Public Health Dentistry as an academic. Returning for a second summer to work in the microbiology lab, I evaluated my long-term fitness for scientific research. Attending pathology class every morning with my dental classmates, I wondered how my current involvements might channel together in the coming years. These experiences have prompted the following two rabbit trails of thought.

I enjoyed visiting the University of Maryland School of Public Health at the start of June. I was surprised to pass a campus farm while searching for the right building...I think this school is on to something!

I joined some friends for a cookout in Ashland. Rooster, the grazing horse, was very friendly and gracious in allowing us to share his space for our fire.

Vocation vs. livelihood

One of my older friends often says that youth is the time in which one must discern where to go, with whom, and how. In trying to perceive what the majority of my adult life might entail, I’ve wondered about the difference between vocation (a calling: finding or putting meaning into one’s career) and livelihood (simply doing a job well in exchange for life’s necessities). Are these mutually exclusive from each other, depending on your given stratum of opportunity? Or is one of them a mythical illusion? In my naivety, I stubbornly cling to the existence of a vocation; I refuse to accept the idea of spending almost every day of my life doing something meaningless. In striving to recognize my special niche, I speculate whether my vocation will be a balance (simultaneous involvement in a blended assortment of my interests), a progression (focusing on one interest and transitioning through others over time), or a coincidence of the two. It would be nice to pursue my current involvements with these realities unveiled, but Soren Kierkegaard aptly noted: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must it must be lived forward.”

Across the street from the emergency room and the dental school is an enclosed garden that suggests a 'getaway' feel from the rest of the busy medical campus.

Postulancy in a microbiology research lab

When I found myself scanning images in the dark microscopy room late at night and dozing off between scans the next morning, I recalled researchers’ comments about the sleep they didn’t get due to grant deadlines and speaking arrangements. When leaving the lab with a heavy feeling akin to guilt from the uncertainty of adding cells to a certain plate (knowing that the next day’s growth would reveal the omission), I wondered about a spiritual devotion that may come with scientific research. Hearing investigators talk about “elegant experiments” and doing “pure science,” I came to the realization (which might exist at least in part) that scientific research is a form of asceticism, a form of post-modern monasticism. Knowing that there is a process for entering a monastery, I investigated the various levels of belonging and was able to draw some parallels (I hope that I am reporting accurate information on this process). A layperson can enter a monastery for several weeks as an observer, where he/she might learn about what life there is like. If interest in monastic life emerges, one can become a postulant for several months, trying out a life committed to monasticism. If not scared off by the work and traditions of monastic life, one commits to life in the monastery as a novice, doing much of the work but also being involved in prayer/study. After some time of being an exceptional novice, group discernment may promote one to become a junior, who spends less time working and more time in prayer/study and leading others at the monastery.

It’s not surprising that any organized group (including a research lab) should follow a similar structure. I found myself relating to the position of postulant, investing myself in the lab more than an observer but not quite committing as a novice. It was telling for me to recognize being bogged down in the techniques and procedures of doing science. Perhaps because of all my other involvements, I did not often sit down to study my results and seek out what they might mean for the theory of science. The Principle Investigator of the lab, on the other hand, is very familiar with every lab member's project but only takes up the pipette to do wet lab work once in a while. Being a proponent of active discipling after Jesus, I strive to connect my actions with my beliefs, but see that I’ve not done exactly that in the research lab (focusing more on the techniques while neglecting to appreciate the theoretical essence of science). I was privileged to hear Dr. Peter Dawson speak almost a week ago at a dental conference and appreciated the contrast he made between success and significance/purpose. I am grateful for my “postulancy” in the research lab but will allow others that are able to bring significance and purpose to successful lab work to continue the important work while I continue pursuing my passions elsewhere.

Clouds move in on a stormy Thursday afternoon. With tornado warnings, an organic chemistry workshop was canceled for the evening but microscope image analysis proceeded on the ninth floor of a medical school research building. The Children's Hospital construction site must have collected a lot of water during the storm.

I purchased a mandolin several weeks ago and aim to gain proficiency during the remaining month of my summer break. I look forward to serving in Jamaica for two weeks starting this Saturday and will eagerly report on the trip as well as a cycling/camping tour in New York. I'll be returning to a fall semester at the dental school before I know it!

It was very comforting to return to the Valley after completing my Part I National Dental Board Exam. The city of Harrisonburg continues to blossom in diversity of people, something I've missed while living in Richmond.

Why Gerodontics? (aka Geriatric Dentistry)

...down at the James River pipeline walk with a visiting cousin

Finding candy and Russian Easter bread ('Paskha' or Пасха) in my mailbox after a long school day and cold ride home was very pleasant. I have such a sweet (literally) mom : )

Long-awaited signs of spring...

It has been a year since I returned from Latin America. Where did I expect to be at this point?…maybe I hadn't made too many specific goals for myself. I was glad to be starting a new phase in my life, excited to welcome all the new experiences that moving to Richmond and starting dental school entailed. I definitely agree that I can trace some of my current passions and realities to that internship, but I'm not sure that I could have predicted how each individual experience would contribute to my current aspirations.

Arriving in Lexington a bit early, I stopped by the town's (NHSC Scholar-eligible!) Community Health Center.  They recently received a grant to transition from a free clinic to a sliding-scale, self-sustaining health center and have employed a retired dentist for two years until they can recruit a full-time dentist; they will also start a school dental outreach program in August 2013. During the State Science Fair at VMI, for which I served as a student judge with the Virginia Dental Association (VDA), I met the dental director of this health center (who practices privately and reported visiting some of his home-bound elderly patients, which are a major and growing population in Lexington). My enthusiasm for the center's advancements and my eager questions were welcomed and a visit may be arranged for later in the summer. Perhaps they might be able to use my public health-leaning energies in three years : )

A frosty football field on the VMI campus on the morning of the State Science Fair....

Jeremy Jordan (D2), me (D1), Dr. Timothy Russell (director of the VDA Science Fair awards), and Brian Mahoney (D3)...part of the VDA judging panel.

In looking back at my progression after returning from Latin America more specifically, I am amazed at how my interest in geriatric dentistry (and the elderly, overall) has developed throughout the year. I can't credit just once source for this inspiration but am convinced that every brief exposure has added to the still-assembling puzzle.

Last week, on the same day that I was accepted into the Gerontology graduate program at the VCU School of Allied Health, my older sister (an RN, wife, and mom of two toddlers) received notice of her acceptance into the JMU/SU Midwifery Program. When she prepared for her interview the previous week, she reflected to me that her decision to pursue midwifery was partly inspired by her pre-teen discussion about my mother's experience with the iatrogenic (clinician-caused) death of her firstborn son (the ethical, medical, and social problems with how the situation was handled). This made me wonder if my developing passion for the elderly emerged in part from incompletely understanding or experiencing my grandfather's struggle with Alzheimer's Disease. Partly because my family lived far from our grandparents and because I was young when he died, his condition and how it affected the family became a mystery to me, especially in my teenage years. I found myself trying to uncover these questions in college, choosing to write a senior ethics capstone paper on genetic engineering and human enhancement and interviewing my aunts and grandmother about their role as his care-takers for a paper exploring Attachment Theory (changes in attachment patterns that occur during the progression of Alzheimer's Disease for the affected individual and their families). In biochemistry, I gravitated towards choosing to present an article on amyloid plaques (prevalent in Alzheimer's Disease brain tissue). In all these endeavors, I found myself seeking the benefit of experiencing such a condition (reconnecting with those that were hard to connect with, fully being a part of your genetic lineage and embracing your own heritage, and experiencing an intense form of the universal disease of aging: increased inflammation load with decreased antioxidant capacities). Perhaps I will continue these explorations as I pursue training in Gerontology or they will serve as an avenue into something else (more dental-related?!).

I seemed to pack away these undergraduate interests when I traveled to Latin America and discovered a fascination for public health. Although I had worked mostly with children in schools and adults in villages, I was deeply impacted by visiting a Catholic "asylum" for abandoned elderly and handicapped individuals in Peru (see April 2012 posts A and B). Upon returning to the States, I was disappointed not to be able to initiate or plug into a dental education outreach program in elementary schools (...it seems that more qualifications are necessary here than in Latin America to attempt to do good). Participating in all the Mission of Mercy Projects that the dental school offered, becoming Community Service Chair for my class, and even visiting University of North Carolina at Greensboro's School of Public Health open house (to investigate what pursuing the community based research-laden Doctor of Public Health degree entailed), I wondered how my DDS training fit into the big picture that seemed to be dominated by interest in public health. Resolving that a concrete skill in dental surgery would always be useful in the grand scheme of 'helping people' in any way, I tried to focus more than half-heartedly on my dental studies.

Over Thanksgiving Break, I carpooled with an EMU classmate who was in her first year pursuing MD/MPH training at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Exchanging perceptions about the first year of health professional school and the transition from undergraduate pre-health education into our programs, my classmate told of her experience as a nursing home CNA prior to being admitted into medical school. She commented on the lack of attention to oral healthcare amongst the caregivers and the struggle of offering oral hygiene to some residents. I told her about encountering The Lucy Corr Village free dental clinic in the Fall 2012 VDA Journal (a Chester, VA nursing home had recently opened up an in-facility, two-chair clinic in which residents could receive cleanings and treatments; the center also hoped to educate caregivers on the importance of daily oral care). This conversation stayed with me over the holiday weekend and was revisited on our return to Richmond. It became evident to me that children were not the only ones unable to adequately access oral healthcare services; furthermore, programs shedding light on and addressing such problems for the elderly were far more scarce than those existing for children. By the end of the semester, I had visited the Lucy Corr and was put in touch with a board member of the VHCA/Virginia Health Care Association (a state network for long-term care facilities) to investigate the possibility of combining my NHSC service commitment with addressing the need for improving oral health in institutionalized (as well as independent) elderly. I also sought out possible residency/fellowship programs for training in geriatric dentistry/gerodontics. This made my fantasy public health training and career path a little muddy : /

Beginning the semester with more visits to the Lucy Corr and meeting with the VHCA, I consulted with any experienced dentist/faculty that promised an ounce of compassion for the elderly as to the history, realistic needs, and possibilities of a career in public health-oriented geriatric dentistry. After sitting in on a VDA Public Health Education committee meeting as a student representative (where I met Dr. Timothy Russell and was invited to participate in the State Science Fair at VMI), I was able to interact with several public health dentists, VDA board members, and the dean of our dental school during a networking luncheon. I was encouraged by the dean to start a geriatric study club at the school (as our curriculum does not specifically address geriatric dental care). My interest was eagerly received by a VDA board member who anticipated that he could 'count on me to be part of the VDA's next steps in this critical field.' Also, I eagerly participated in an MCV pilot study in which a medical student and I visited a senior mentor (residing in a retirement community) for several weeks to interact with her and get an idea of what it means to age. The hope is that this is an effective way to introduce first year professional students to gerontology in an interprofessional setting. Perhaps the experience will become a part of each MCV campus school's curriculum in the future. Now that this topic is on my radar, I recognize many dental or medical-related journals/articles currently being published address the 'looming baby-boomers,' the oral-systemic health link, and interprofessional education and collaboration in practice (especially important in meeting geriatric needs). Enrolling in the Gerontology program at VCU, I hope to gain a bio-psycho-social perspective on aging so that I might better navigate the non-dental aspects of providing dental care to the elderly. I had hoped to offer an interventional study to several nursing homes in the Valley this summer (evaluate plaque, educate/motivate for oral hygiene improvement) but am finding that there is quite some resistance from various fronts (administration, residents, caregivers, a few from every group involved) to such a project. Witnessing how attempted educational workshops/training sessions at the Lucy Corr (an established clinic!) are easily avoided and ignored, my desire for this summer is to simply interact with elderly and their caregivers to better understand the how's and why's before trying to intervene. Is this the 'roots-up' approach that I was so excited to encounter during my Latin America internship?!

In my dental school application, I quoted Einstein, who said that "once we accept our limits, we go beyond them" (I encountered the quote on the syllabus of a self-guided Calculus course that I did the summer when I applied to dental school). In the personal statement, I admitted that as an immigrant child, I was faced with a dilemma when I realized that I was significantly different from my peers and might not ever completely assimilate: I had to choose between being inferior or extraordinary. Thus, my life has seemed to take the pattern of defining, meeting, and often exceeding my limits (exemplified by my perseverant entrance into the second-grade advanced reading group, becoming a conflict manager in 5th grade, and entering my first college course at age 15). Thinking that I'd almost 'arrived' when beginning dental school (on my way to a settled career in dentistry), I must have found it natural and subconsciously necessary to seek out the next limit. Gerodontics may provide exactly that! Working with the elderly provides a challenge (interprofessional collaboration and treatment of a bio-psycho-socially complex individual), an avenue for enacting justice and providing a needed service (something that has also become an organic and essential part of my life), as well as a place where I can offer compassion, honor, and an earnestly caring and most-humanely humble connection with another human being. I've made quite a few elderly friends and find interacting with them more satisfying than with some of my younger friends; perhaps this is like enjoying the taste a ripened fruit rather than a tart one. When so many take for granted what our geriatric population has to offer, I don't want to miss out on all the fun!

...So that's where I've wandered so far : ) Perhaps this is why there aren't too many 20-year old dental students--Most folks are smart enough to figure things out before they begin a graduate degree. However, I am convinced that one opportunity opens up into the next (life as a journey where we lay down stepping stones and connect dots, "Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge"--last post from February 2012). I look forward to reflecting in the future on where this new stepping stone will project me from here.

Alya, me, and Tayyaba represented the D1 class in the Molar Roller Bike Ride that occurred during the dental school's reunion weekend 

...Riding alongside the James River with some dental classmates and colleagues

An EMU senior photography major's project showed '100 Pictures, 100 Stories' of women of all ages, each commenting on what they enjoy most about being their age. I was most interested in the above half of the exhibit : )

EMU: "A Christian university like no other" The morning rain forced us inside the gym for the ceremony (a graduating class of just over 400 makes that possible...) but things calmed down in the afternoon so that graduates, families, and friends could mingle on the parking lots and lawns.

Another exciting recent occurrence is the publication of an article to which I contributed as a dental 'professional' (student). Titled Health disparities among highly vulnerable populations in the United States: a call ot action for medical and oral health care. I have been very fortunate to become involved with the Inter Health Professions Alliance on the MCV campus and will likely serve as the student group's president during the coming school year. Along with continuing the monthly Kroger Outreach blood pressure screenings, offering Educate Then Advocate instructional sessions for all health professions students, and reaching out to pre-health undergraduate students, the group hopes to implement an oral health focus in light of the oral-systemic health link that has recently been emphasized. This summer, in partnership with the IHPA's overseeing office, I've agreed to lead a 5-week Introduction to Organic Chemistry workshop for pre-health undergraduate students that are involved in MCV's acceleration program. Needless to continue, this is an exciting group in which to be involved.

You might be able to see the little worm on the lower right hanging from a thread of som sort (perhaps if you click to enlarge the photo). These guys have been hanging around during the past few weeks from nearly every tree. They've kept me alert while cycling and I've learned to dodge them from afar. I nearly swallowed one when smiling a couple of days ago...I am reminded of my friend mocking me for subconsciously smiling during our track meet races in middle school 

It's been fun to avoid studying for tomorrow's physiology final by taking notes en route, but I come to a close, lest I neglect to value in practice (ie, tomorrow's exam) the current opportunities that I have been provided with.

Visiting San Salvador during spring break

February flew by with the demands of dental school and I was refreshed at the start of March by joining a group of professional health students and clinicians for a service trip in San Salvador, El Salvador. Pictures tell some of the story:

My Father's House International, the orphanage that we came to support, works to reconcile separated families while lovingly caring for children before the process is complete.

Dr. Ed Read, one of our group leaders points out the area in which we are serving while we drive back to the hotel after the first day of clinic.

Another one of our leaders guides an elderly lady towards the triage table. 

Medical consults under the tents.

Physical therapy exercises

A great dental experience for all!

Dental corner of the beach-side clinic

Holding down a toddler for anterior extractions is no fun. I bet his mom felt the same way.

I really enjoyed praying with each patient on this trip...it's not something that I'd done on other service trips

These sisters posed in front of a church across the street from the town hall in which we held a clinic

Ed (MD) and Debby (RN) Read are the Christian Medical and Dental Association student group leaders on the MCV campus.  It has been such a blessing to get to know them and be involved in the group since starting dental school.

I'm looking forward to Easter weekend and hope you enjoy it also. Nearly one more month and I'll have completed my first year of dental school! That feels like an accomplishment, considering that we've lost 4 classmates so far...but it also is a joyous and frightening reality check for the fact that I will be a practicing dentist in just over three short years!

San Luis, Mexico and a new semester

Yes, it says "beef and pork tacos" in white on that small building.

The church building reflects the rising sun in a small neighborhood of the city of San Luis, Mexico.

Rows and rows of salad greens, cabbage, cotton and other cash crops...

The day after finishing fall semester exams, I traveled to San Luis, Mexico to visit several schools and churches with oral health workshops and tooth brushes/paste. I enjoyed my 9-day trip (except spending a long night and morning of Christmas Eve in the Pheonix airport) and spent the holidays with family in the Valley. Returning to a new (second) semester, I felt a new sense of belonging in my green scrubs, among 93 other first year dental students. I've enjoyed getting involved in several legislative/lobbying days with the Virginia Dental Association and the Virginia Oral Health Coalition. It is inspiring to meet dental and non-dental professionals who are passionate about educating politicians about the realities of oral health care and the requests of the profession to better meet the needs of various populations. During exam week and during the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to visit a long-term care facility (aka nursing home) dental clinic and am continuing to explore gerodontology. Realizing the great need for increased access to oral health care for the elderly population (and acknowledging that the baby boomer population may require a bulk of time from my generation of dental professionals), I am excited to start a geriatric dentistry study club at the dental school (our first meeting will be next week!). I am also ecstatic about getting involved in an Inter Health Professionals Alliance at VCU, which runs a monthly "Kroger outreach and health screening" session at a local grocery store (serving undergraduate college students as well as the surrounding residents of all ages, many of whom are uninsured). Hereafter, the group would like to focus their efforts around oral health, linking it to systemic health. That gives a public health-attracted dental student like me another avenue of distraction (and then I ask myself why I'm not getting straight A's in dental school...). In any case, I become giddy to imagine how I might blend my interests in public health with dental clinical skills and the perceived needs of the geriatric population.

I think we left nearly 400 tooth brushes/pastes at this school. The kids loved the cars and princess handles of the brushes. I hope they remember what S. mutans does in their mouths and reach for their gifted hygiene supplies.

Many enjoyed brushing, touching, or looking at Carlos' (Charlie's) huge teeth. They were all convinced the crocodile's dentition was real.

I attended a 'worship and music leaders retreat' several weeks ago, the theme of which was hospitality. Among other interactions and messages, it was intriguing to hear from a Benedictine Abbot from Minnesota talk about their tradition and monastery's norms regarding accepting guests/visitors. Below is a poem that I found when later thinking about the topic.

During an evening outing to Rumorosa, a high elevation settlement near Mexicali, Mexico, we took refuge from a heavy rainstorm in a schoolbus that was transformed into a cabin by the parents of the pastor's wife. 

While we waited for the rain to subside, we tried to warm up the poorly-insulated school bus with this nifty stove. A nearby tienda (shop) sold us some sausage, tortillas and cheese for a great meal.

The pastor's mom and niece sell furniture that the pastor's brother makes out of pallets. He stains the wood with a diluted mixture of pen ink and finishes the furniture with candle wax. I hope to make some of my own furniture someday, too...via creative measures such as these : )

Hospitality

I asked Love to help me
greet the stranger in myself.
I knew how to open my door to the world
and greet everyone out there as friend
but I didn’t have any kind of welcome
for the impoverished one within.
She was the weakness I couldn’t acknowledge.
She was the pain I didn’t allow.
She was the leper I’d tried to cast out the city,
the one who cried at night in lonely places.
I thought that if I let her in
she’d cause me no end of trouble, and I was afraid.

But Love helped me to prepare a feast.
We set the table, Love and I,
and then I did it,
I invited my stranger.
‘Answer the door,’ said Love.
‘You have nothing to fear.’

She came in slowly.

I put my arms around her
and embraced her in her rags
and we wept together for years of separation.
I sat my stranger at the head of the table,
gave her the best of food and wine
and, claiming her as my own,
began to introduce her to my friends.
‘But who shall I say she is?’
I whispered to Love.
‘I can’t call her a stranger now.’
Love smiled and said, ‘Don’t you know?
She is the Christ.’

Joy Cowley
Aotearoa New Zealand

My cousin and I visited an art museum in DC on New Year's Eve.

The first and second year dental classes collected toys for tots before Christmas (I'm community service co-chair of my class this year).

Some of my classmates posed for a mock representation of our 'injection day,' when we practiced two injection techniques on each other. My eyelid and nose were only numb until lunch time : /

 Upon returning to Richmond, I was asked to write about my short experience in Mexico for a church newsletter. I decided to reflect on what these kinds of trips mean for me spiritually. Below is the entry:

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Cor 13:12 (NIV)

Whenever I am away from home, I have found that I learn about my usual surroundings and myself more than if I were actually there. Interacting with people that are different than me, living in circumstances that are different than those in which I live, becomes like gazing into a mirror, trying to discern the image of God that I ought to see. I am able to look at my reflection with greater clarity when aided by the contrast that cross-cultural encounter offers. My short 9-day trip to San Luis, Mexico allowed for such ‘mirror-gazing,’ two reflections from which I will share.

In a book that I’d brought along and read at the start of my trip, Leonard Dow proposes the idea of the “professionalization of poverty” as a concept for the praise-worthy task of choosing to live simply (as opposed to making do with what you have).¹ While eating two simple but hearty meals a day with the Mexican pastoral missionary family, traveling by bus and on foot to neighboring cities, and washing my clothes in an outdoor water basin (a pila), I wondered how I loved God and my neighbor in my daily activities and how I might make adjustments to do so more directly without “professionalizing” the gesture.

It was an honor to be a guest in the home of the pastor’s mother for a night, watching her cook beans over an outdoor fire and roll out dozens of tortillas for the day. While surveying the family pictures, wedding portraits, and art hanging on the walls, I encountered a plaque showing one of the siblings uniformed and armed, while kneeling on a field; to the right of his picture was a letter of gratitude to his mother. When inquiring of the pastor whether the church considered themselves pacifists, it was explained to me that Mexico was a peace-loving country, the military of which spends its time in the mountains chasing the drug traffickers as they grow their crops, and that supporting the military as a church was how we are to “submit to our governing authorities,” as Paul instructs us to do in his Epistle to the Romans. When I struggled to explain without sounding threatening that I wasn’t sure that taking anyone’s life for any reason was fulfilling God’s will, I wondered if maybe my perspective might be called “professionalized pacifism.” I exist in a country and social network in which I can claim my right to free speech or religion (among other privileges) and where I do not feel a constant threat to my life. Many would say that this is as a result of the country’s strong militant action. From this comfortable peak (to which I might deny militant credit), is it too easy for me to ignore the complex history of violence in other lands and demand a perspective that is outside of what experience has taught those groups to believe? Perhaps a heavy dose of compassion is necessary in keeping us earnest in our longing for peace.

Visiting numerous groups of children in schools and churches, I hoped my oral health lessons and toothbrush/paste-gifting were received as a sincere desire for their well being rather than just another donation from the local church or the US. Nonetheless, I am grateful to have had yet another opportunity to visit people in their homes in San Luis, Mexico. Karen Armstrong writes, “Unknowing remains an essential part of the human condition. Religion is at its best when it helps us to ask questions and holds us in a state of wonder—and arguably at its worst when it tries to answer them authoritatively and dogmatically.”² I am hopeful that while each of us walks our paths of faith we take time to interact with those that may seem to be on a slightly different path. In considering our differences, perhaps exchanging the gift of contrast, we might more clearly see the reflection of God’s image in us as a diverse family of believers, awaiting the day when we will all see God face to face and share our one and true faith eternally.

¹ Longacre DJ. 2010. Living More With Less. (pg 47)

² Armstrong K. 2010. Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. (pg 118)

Last Friday, I acquired a flat tire six blocks from the school. When I left lab for the day, snow had already coated the streets. I changed my back inner tube and started the slushy way home. When a train decided to cross Brook Rd, I stopped to snap a picture of the adventurous evening. [Yes, that is a 'horse crossing' sign in the background--who knew there would be a stable across from the metal recycling center in the city!]

An evening stroll down Wentbridge Rd on what could have been Richmond's blizzard of the season.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

The dental school is only several blocks from the capital building, yet I rarely  make the intent to visit. Joining several lobbyist groups makes me realize that "we the people" are the government and are welcome and necessary in those walls.

...So there's plenty going on to keep things interesting. Asking a professor to comment on the statistic that says dentistry is the profession with the highest suicide rate, he said it's important to keep changing and moving--to keep things from getting stale...I might be on the right track.

First semester of dental school winds down

At the start of November, the street in my neighborhood boasted vibrant fall colors....now the trees stand bare.

The sun sets into the Appomattox River as we await initiation into the dental service fraternity, Delta Sigma Delta.

November has flown by with several weeks of intermittent exams and clinical competencies and in anticipation for Thanksgiving break. At the start of the month, I enjoyed taking a weekend road trip with one of my classmates, her sister and their three dogs and cat to Leola/Lancaster, PA. During a dental class Thanksgiving potluck and at an initiation for the dental service fraternity, Delta Sigma Delta, I continued to get to know some of my classmates a bit better. All in all, I think I am feeling very much at home in Richmond and at the dental school...so much so that it felt funny to visit my parents during the holiday break. I don’t quite return ‘home’ when I visit them because they had recently moved into a new house; nonetheless, I can still recall my childhood norms when I am there. Adapting to different norms in Richmond, I’ve wondered if my experience is similar to that of the Israelites returning from exile in Babylon to ‘their forefathers’ land.’ The song below prompted these musings:

By the waters of Babylon

Where we sat down

And there we wept

When we remembered Zion

For the wicked carried us away, captivity

Required of us a song.

How can we sing our holy song

In a strange land?

So let the words our my mouth

And the meditations of my heart

Be acceptable unto you,

O God.

Text: Jamaican traditional

Music: Jamaican traditional

(Song cited from : Sing the Journey—Hymnal: a Worship Book Supplement 1. 2005)

After I had first heard the song and tried to repeat it mindlessly, I found myself replacing ‘meditations’ in the last stanza with ‘hesitations.’ Coincidence or not, it seems that both meditations and hesitations are a necessary part of exile, both of which should be held to a certain standard.

Beyond the bare corn fields faithfully stands the slope of Massanutten Mountain, a small part of the Shenandoah Valley.

It's a bit hard to visualize the mountains beyond all the infrastructure around my parents' neighborhood,  but the sunrise is spectacular, nonetheless.

As the whole world seems to have done during the past several weeks, I’ve begun to think about Christmas. In this activity, I encountered the below song and thought it related nicely to the above discussion about thoughts, hesitations and exile.

Firstborn of Mary, provocative preacher, itinerant teacher, outsider’s choice;

Jesus inspires and disarms and confuses whomever he chooses to hear his voice!

Text: John L. Bell

Music: John L. Bell

(Song cited from : Sing the Story—Hymnal: a Worship Book Supplement 2. 2007)

...Challenging, isn’t it? As I continue to explore my surroundings (location and people) and think about how they affect me, I hope to extend some hospitality both to those around me and myself:

Hospitality

I asked Love to help me
greet the stranger in myself.
I knew how to open my door to the world
and greet everyone out there as friend
but I didn’t have any kind of welcome
for the impoverished one within.
She was the weakness I couldn’t acknowledge.
She was the pain I didn’t allow.
She was the leper I’d tried to cast out the city,
the one who cried at night in lonely places.
I thought that if I let her in
she’d cause me no end of trouble, and I was afraid.

But Love helped me to prepare a feast.
We set the table, Love and I,
and then I did it,
I invited my stranger.
‘Answer the door,’ said Love.
‘You have nothing to fear.’

She came in slowly.

I put my arms around her
and embraced her in her rags
and we wept together for years of separation.
I sat my stranger at the head of the table,
gave her the best of food and wine
and, claiming her as my own,
began to introduce her to my friends.
‘But who shall I say she is?’
I whispered to Love.
‘I can’t call her a stranger now.’
Love smiled and said, ‘Don’t you know?
She is the Christ.’

Joy Cowley
Aotearoa New Zealand

We saw our first patient this month (for periodontal probings) and above was our last dental anatomy carving competency. The blue wax is my attempt to recreate a mandibular molar per the acrylic model.

As the remaining two weeks of the semester wind down, I look forward to revisiting San Luis, Mexico. I had gone with a church youth group two years ago to organize a Christmas program for children in the neighborhood. My childhood home church continues to sponsor the church-building and children’s activities in the area, but I hope to make an early trip (before the Christmas program) with some toothbrushes and paste : ) The local pastor and I will visit several churches in the area to hold oral health workshops for children and adolescents (though I hope parents will also tune in). I am excited to rejuvenate my Peruvian charla (lesson) on oral health and hope that I am able to explore possibilities for future oral health projects, perhaps partnering with local dentists.

Celebrating my second decade in Richmond, my new and bittersweet home

A quaint downtown railroad crossing in Greensboro, NC.

I visited a public health open house at University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Department of Community Health Education. I enjoyed walking through the city's downtown streets and then meeting the public health program's faculty and exploring the exciting public health opportunities that the future might hold. 

I followed the mysterious bubbles in the street to this shop.

Harsh realities of city life offer opportunities for optimism...

After the six armed robberies on a Monday evening in early October and the stabbing on Tuesday night (on/near the MCV campus), I was a bit discouraged about learning to appreciate life in Richmond (and envisioning an extended future here). As I cycled to school the following morning, I saw a man bending over to open up a flattened paper bag from BurgerKing. I’m not sure if he was looking for food or drugs, but my heart ached for the brokenness in whatever systems are involved that cause people to be so violent and unjust to one another. Richmond is proving to be hard to love as a home. However, similar themes are near and dear to any location...Later that day, my sister told me of a childhood friend couple that was processing a divorce because the husband had been seeing other women for at least a year while his wife busied herself with their toddler son and a college education. Although he had not reacted with any remorse, she was being blamed for ‘causing’ the situation in which her husband had an affair. Instead of support and sympathy, she received judgment. How unfortunate it is that we hurt not only those we’ve never met (homeless/criminals on the street) but also those who are nearest to us (family)?

Later that week, I attended a lecture by Rev. Ben Campbell, an Episcopalian priest, who analyzes such a situation in his book, Richmond’s Unhealed History. He suggests that there is a deeply moral and spiritual problem at play in the city: one of denial and hypocrisy. From the time that the first settlers erected a cross in the name of their English king until today, liberty has been juxtaposed with the bondage of others, just as more recent urban development entailed enclosing the city’s development complexes with six-lane highways that served the suburban middle class. All the while, Rev. Campbell explains, the repression of people creates bondage of denial and fear in the oppressor. We are not able to step into the future as a city (or even as authorities of a city) with hope if we are not willing to face the foundational brokenness on which this city has been built. Although I yearn to eventually relocate to a location that is small enough that I can influence these mutually exclusive ‘tiers of existence,’ I appreciated Rev. Campbell’s optimism in advocating to end “discrimination by transportation” by extending the public transportation down the main streets several miles to allow access to 80% of the jobs in the city (as opposed to the current 25% of jobs that are available via public transit).

I visited my parents for an early birthday celebration. My niece and nephew are growing too quickly!

It's great to get help blowing out your birthday candles from enthusiastic family members!

I accompanied my sister for a fall photo session before the storm (Hurricane Sandy) removed most of autumn's glory. The gang studies a flower-petal-filled fountain.

Yes, this is the fountain to which I was referring.

I only ride on the highways and the interstate on the weekends when I go shopping or to worship services but enjoy, even if only at these rare instances, keeping something edible in my car to offer to those that stand at the exits with signs like “need a little help” and “homeless and hungry,” among others. Many of the individuals’ faces speak much more accurately than the signs...others seem to have lost any expressive consciousness that would appropriate their cause. The times that I am fortunate to have something in my passenger seat to offer and a person to receive it, I have marveled at these people. Some explain that while most people think the homeless are dirty people, they shower daily by warming up water with a gas hot plate under the bridge (their residence). Others spill out an emotionless synopsis of their situation, how they became unemployed/homeless, to what violence they are subjected by their spouse/significant other or what they are doing to try to move from their situation. It has been most insightful and touching to hear the recipient say that they will share what I’ve given with “my girl-friend who’s standing across the street” or when I watch them walk off with my gift to a fellow vagrant (I use this descriptive term carefully and respectfully). I have heard of the homeless being very familiar with each other, often knowing each others’ bench or bridge, but I’ve never before witnessed such care extended by such needy. Not often observing similar acts of care in ‘the more fortunate circles,’ I feel honored to enter such a community, even if momentarily on the extending end. On the occasions that I pass one of these folks close to my home without something to offer, I resolve to return to the same place after fetching something from the house. More often than not, I return to a vacant bucket or a lonely cardboard sign on the ground, disappointed that my desire to help was not effected in time. In these cases, I’ve compared these evanescent beggars with angels, disappearing out of sight when I’ve not seized the initial opportunity to offer what I’ve set aside. Using a recently gifted (and growing) potato bread starter to bake sourdough bread, I realize that the two-loaf recipe is not at all inconvenient for this single Richmond-dweller. I hope to develop a tradition of Saturday morning bread-baking with the pleasant thought in mind that I may cross paths with someone who might welcome my extra loaf. I hope this habit will allow me to continually consider my discomfort with the realities of crime and poverty while still remaining optimistic towards each individual that appears on the side of my road.

Classes at VCU were canceled on Monday due to the storm...but it would be too much to ask Lyubov to stay put. I traveled back to Harrisonburg to finalize the purchase of my new interstate sidekick, a Nissan Versa.

As I headed back home on Monday afternoon, the scenic overlook between Waynesboro and Charlottesville still boasted Appalachian beauty, despite the dense fog that Hurricane Sandy brought.

This song challenges me to embrace bittersweet life in Richmond:

Jesus Christ is waiting, waiting in the streets;
no one is his neighbor, all alone he eats.
Listen, Lord Jesus, I am lonely too.
Make me friend or stranger, fit to wait on you.

Jesus Christ is raging, raging in the streets,
where injustice spirals and real hope retreats.
Listen, Lord Jesus, I am angry too.
In the kingdom's causes let me rage with you.

Jesus Christ is healing, healing in the streets;
curing those who suffer, touching those he greets.
Listen, Lord Jesus, I have pity too.
Let my care be active, healing just like you.

Jesus Christ is dancing, dancing in the streets,
where each sign of hatred he, with love, defeats.
Listen, Lord Jesus, I should triumph too.
Where good conquers evil let me dance with you.

Jesus Christ is calling, calling in the streets,
"Who will join my journey? I will guide their feet."
Listen, Lord Jesus, let my fears be few.
Walk one step before me; I will follow you.

Text: John L. Bell and Graham Maule
Music: French traditional; harmonized by James E Clemens (2001)
(Song cited from Sing the Journey--Hymnal: a Worship Book Supplement 1. 2005.)


It's hard to believe that I've completed twenty years of life today. I've easily accepted the fact; now it's only a matter of recognizing what that means for tomorrow and beyond.

Hope you're staying warm during these last chilly and moist days of October : )