In 2017, as he approached sixty, a dear friend decided to become a lawyer. In 2021 he emerged successful. One last "bar" remained between "lawyer" (one who knows law) & "attorney" (one who practices it.)
Today, I learned a new word. "Anneal" means: "To heat metal or glass and allow it to cool slowly, ...to remove internal stresses and toughen it." The context was Mark Twain's Mississippi River training to become a steamboat captain.
Law school heats the "metal" of every student. Preparation for the dreaded bar examination supposedly provides "slow cooling" (or more heat) to toughen lawyers before licensing.
On his first try at the the exam my friend fell six points short. Dismayed but not deterred he tried again. This time, he "missed" by two points.
He can definitely pass this damnable exam. He will try again, right?
His annealing may lead him the opposite way.
A truth emerged after his two trips through fire. "I'm more poet than prosecutor," he wrote. "...despite years of classroom exposure [I] did not develop the desire [to work in courtrooms.]"
My friend knows himself. His integrity, compassion & intelligence are profound. Yet, he ended his note quoting Ringo Starr, "Peace & Love."
After a career in courtrooms as an attorney & in hospitals as leader I can verify that courtrooms foster conflict not peace & host revenge more often than love.
Both arenas need my friend's tough & tender heart. So I wrote to him,"Courtrooms need you. You do not need them."
So it is with hospitals. Healing needs, but often fails to attract, caregivers that practice Radical Loving Care® so they can deliver that rare gift living beyond our struggles: Peace.
The path to that lit serenity requires no licensing.
-Erie Chapman
"Serenity's Light" - Erie Chapman, 2021
