As children are in part symbol, so likewise are
parents. I remember mother telling me
when I was just this side of being a toddler, our family had recently been
moved to another church and both mother and dad were feeling discouraged. She said they were sitting in the parsonage
and heard me circling the house singing refrains of the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy.” This offered great encouragement to
them. In this case, I had become more
than child, I had become the fresh air that a child can represent. Likewise my parents became symbols. Not only did they stoke the necessary fires
of the home, they came to represent foremost the meaning of sacrificial love. Jesus
said, “I tell you the truth, unless you
change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven.” Anyone who has been
generously accepted into the love proffered by a child knows what Jesus is
getting at. So it is clear that while an individual is something upon which a
strict physiological description can be given, that same individual inescapably
for better or worse becomes a symbol of qualities good or ill. The inescapable role of mankind as a deriver of symbols is evidenced by his turning the energy engines of stars into abiding
symbols. A “black hole” is subsumed into
symbol almost from the moment it is identified.
I am reminded of Yeats phrase “How
can we know the dancer from the dance?”
Perhaps this is a doctor’s role—to abstract the purely physical aspects
of a patient. Not being a doctor, I
cannot know the challenges here, but surely even an emergency room physician
must face them.
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