This morning I accompanied a friend to the doctor's office.  He had injured his wrist after a serious fall from his racing bicycle. I was worried about a severe injury, so I recommended this particular hand specialist.  In addition to his being well-published, this physician is thorough and has excellent rapport with patients. 

We looked at radiographs of the wrist and discussed the various ligaments which allow movement in three planes of motion while creating a structure stable enough to support body weight or use a screwdriver.  A miracle, indeed.  Medical researchers and surgeons have made numerous unsuccessful efforts at a wrist replacement.  Hip and knee replacements have been used with good results for about thirty years.   Sure, the scoring systems we use in our journal articles report "excellent" results.  And patients are satisfied for the most part.  Not "perfect."  Not "natural." Good.  Satisfied.  A little grade inflation never hurt anybody, did it? 

Why can't we come up with better solutions?  Why can't we prevent arthritis and injury to begin with? Why do the people we love die from cancer and other horrible things?  Don't we know enough?  Why can't we fix it?  We are scientists after all.

Or, more appropriately, we are only scientists.  People.  Human machines, just like everyone else. 

I was raised a Catholic.  Went through all of the sacraments, but I was never devout.  Aside from funerals, baptisms, weddings and other events, I have not attended a church service in years.  I'm not sure if my ideas would fit into a particular belief system.  Yogic philosophy and Buddhism hold the most intellectual appeal to me. 

Over the past six years, work in the medical field has only strengthened my belief in something much larger than us.  Debate rages between proponents of Darwinism and those of "intelligent design."  The latter theory holds that the advantages presumably conferred by eons of evolution were, in fact, designed into the system by our Creator.  Complex immune systems and opposable thumbs are gifts from God to "higher beings."

We science folks come in many religious flavors.  Many scientists reject outright the existence of a God.  Others are devoted Catholics.  Some have a vague theism, as I do. 

So who is right?  Does anyone need to be right?  What matters to me is that our world is made up of beings and natural phenomena which are designed beautifully, magically:

The Grand Canyon.

Simple explanation here:  the Colorado River used to be one MOTHER of a river and eroded out the Canyon to make it look the way it does today.  But why does it makes us feel the way we do when we look at it?  Why are the colors of the rocks and the river so beautiful that they defy words?

The Human Eye.

Surely this is one for the Darwinists.  Rods and cones.  The Central Nervous System branches out with a complex series of "on and off" switches to allow us to see in color and to fend off predators.  Then, why do our eyes come in colors?  Why do they all look a little bit different?  Why do I feel one thing when I look into the eyes of my adorable niece and feel something very different when I see fear in the eyes of a patient?  How do my friends know exactly what I am thinking by looking at my baby browns?

Shakespeare.

Okay, so a guy wrote (or maybe, did not write) a whole bunch of plays and poems and lots of people borrowed his ideas to create literature as we know it.  But why are the Bard's themes so universal?  Why do people from China to Bah'rin identify with The Tempest in the same way?  Why is Lear tragic to everyone? 

Mozart.

To some, music is simply a mathematical progression, organized in a variety of ways in order to be pleasing.  So how does W.A. Mozart manipulate our emotions so effectively with the addition or removal of a violin, or a pause?  Why is his Jupiter Symphony so evocative?  And why do so many composers and musical artists fail to move us as he does?

Lesson?

Someday we will be able to explain almost everything.  The human genetic code will have its Rosetta Stone.  The very essence of matter will be understood.   We will travel into space as easily as we drive to the grocery store.  Our curiosity strives to rid us of magic.  Hard science toils towards erasing our concept of God.  The challenge?  Hold on to it.  Enjoy it.  The magic of God, or whatever you choose to call it, is what makes life fun.  It's what give us the curiosity to learn.   It is what allows us to feel joy and wonder.  And I don't know if I would want to live in a world without those things.  Would you?

"So pryketh hem natur in hir corages,
That longen folk to goon on pilgrimages."  - G. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

I love The Oxford English Dictionary. Where else can one find almost every known meaning of a word? One undergraduate Shakespeare professor set our class to the task of examining the occurence of one word in one of the Bard's plays.

I choose the word "courage" in Macbeth. What I learn, besides how misogynistic the play is, is that the word "courage," is rooted to the Latin cor, which means "heart." In addition to its modern meaning of "strength in the face of pain or danger," the word has an older, lesser-known meaning:

"sexual lust or vigor."

Three times during Macbeth does the word occur, and only once does it mean what we, today would think it means. The other two occurences involve one challenge to Macbeth by Lady Macbeth:

"But screw your courage to the sticking place/and we'll not fail." - 1.VII

and yet another veiled challenge, after her husband has killed king Duncan:

"That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make's love known?" -2.III.

Lady Macbeth uses her sexuality as power over her husband. She also controls her husband through his need to be a sexual being.

How did our understanding of courage evolve from the meaning it apparently had during Shakespeare's time (his audience would have recognized its sexual meaning) to how we use it today? Is it merely coincidental that "courage" is viewed as a masculine quality? "He's got balls, rocks, huevos, cojones!"  The need to be viewed as the courageous man who can save the damsel in distress plays upon many a male ego today.

Women, too, play into this courage trap. Modern women appeal to the masculine sense of courage much as does the power-hungry Lady Macbeth. Too many women today play the role of the "broken" or "needy" woman, knowing that there are more than enough men available who want to save them. Most amazing is that there are always men who take the bait. And they are smart men, just as is Macbeth until he becomes consumed by his need to prove his vigor.

It's a delicate task for a man to prove his strength and a vigor without destroying himself. And it is, indeed, a challenge for a woman to accept strength and acknowledge a man's sexuality without being manipulative.

The answer? My inner Pollyanna tells me that it is love. In the context of love, there is no longer a need for the tug-o-war. And love is only a more advanced product of the cor, the heart.