For treatment I must to the doctor go.
There answers cut open my heart like knives,
And a fount of forgiveness freely I may imbibe.
But often when ill feelings have found their source—
My misplaced trust and self-reliance, of course—,
I recoil at the image in this illuminating mirror
And assign this diagnosis to another who’s near.
“Perhaps that’s why they're so hostile to me—
Selfishness and fear prevent them from being free.
And I with their posts simply cannot agree.
They too must need insight for errors to see.”
They too must need insight for errors to see.”
“Maybe I can play doctor on their soul with this light,
And charge not a penny for my wise insight,
Just the acknowledgement and esteem I deserve
For diagnosis and operation on what I observe.”
Thus I, by my scruples, decode then their own
Neglecting that heart where insight's been shown:
The heart I call mine that leapt off that table
After doctor’s incision this "vision" enabled.
“The Lord won't etherize his patients,” devils say,
“Nor tie them down for the operation each day.
So lure them off before treatment commences,
And they to each other will be quite senseless.”
“Lure them with the gore that they see in each other,
With fault-finding, a past time aimed at a brother.
Seduce them out the door with a tantalizing mystery,
To find blame elsewhere but call it authenticity.”
Then “STOP!” says a voice, a helper inside.
And I cease roving and look back wide-eyed.
My wounds leave a trail to where the doctor still stands
In the operating room with my blood on his hands.
Must I with cut flesh to the table thus crawl,
When I have no heart but my own to overhaul?
And nodding to the doctor for him to proceed,
He'll operate simultaneously upon all in need.
I’ll know not what he'll find in family and friends,
In the souls of this Body waiting to be cleansed.
Yet their blood with mine mingles in this joint operation
As we lay side by side in this, our salvation.
But if I flee the ward again and meet you in the halls,
Let's not wield plastic scalpels or push each other 'gainst the walls.
Let’s smile sheepishly and with courage understand
That we go best under the knife when we go hand in hand.
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