CK's Journal

Last weekend I taught what I think will be my last class. The class was in a dome at a psytrance gathering in an East Texas forest… I got to the venue at dusk on a very overcast and cold Friday, set up my camp – which was simple as I was sleeping on a pad in the back of my RAV4 – and checked in with Kitty and Jessica at the main stage. Went for a walk in the woods and met up with Annie.

The music started around 8pm and was scheduled to stop Sunday around 11am. I hung out some by the dance floor with Kitty and at the chill dome where Kristina and Fritz were working on the deco. I turned in early to work on my presentation and listen to the music and all the shiny happy people talking and laughing at campsites near mine. It’s hard to sleep with the music pounding and having to get up pretty often to piss. I slept sound for awhile and awoke for good about 5:30. I stayed in the car for an hour or so having coffee, listening to the music, then breakfast (almond butter sandwich and apple). I got to the dance floor about 7:30 and did some little-tiny dancing at the back of the floor. I hung out with Jimi and Angela and Sean. The usual good scene. Finally it was 11:30 and time for the class.

The topic was psychedelic healing in PTSD and at the end of life. I taught from the perspective of, we’ve all been enlightened, even if just for a few hours, and therefore we should… reach beyond ourselves, live fully, reach out to others, those sorts of things. We discussed the mechanics and underlying process of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and I contrasted that with my experiences treating people with PTSD with SSRIs. Most people in the class have had experience with psychedelics and MDMA – and some were having an experience at that moment. It was a relaxed and intense class, very open, good response and discussion. Sweet interactions afterwards. By the end of the class there were 18-20 people there. Interactions before, during, and after the class were very affirming for me.

After class and hanging out in the dome, I walked back to the main stage, where I spent a few moments with Tyson and David Brown who was getting ready for his set. Then back to the car and away, stopping at the gate to talk with Keith and Amber. Home at four, tired, feeling good.

A lot has happened in the last few months, and at the same time, I realize that Jean and I are both tired after the last “trying” year. I’ll write about some of these events in no particular order.

Jean has six pieces in a major show (Off the Wall: American Art to Wear) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We went to the opening – a true gathering of her tribe. The work of Jean and her friends and colleagues from Pratt like Janet, Marika, and Sharron was seminal in the art to wear movement. This was the biggest show they have had – a great honor for them and for Julie, the collector and gallery owner whose collection comprised the show. There were artist and family gatherings around the opening. It was a beautiful and affirming celebration and I met some of Jean’s family and colleagues who I hadn’t previously known.

Jean and I, Janet and Peter, and Marika and Tom stayed together in an AirBnB in a transitional Philadelphia neighborhood. It wasn’t a great place, but was okay – until I got sick (GI) the night before we left. It was a long night. Jean and I took a train from Philadelphia to New York City. That journey is a blur to me, except I know at one point I was in a wheelchair. When we got to Penn Station in NYC we walked up to the street to catch a cab to Grand Central Station from whence we would catch a train to up-state New York to visit Jean’s sister. Unfortunately for us, the Veteran’s Day parade was blocking all cross-town traffic, so back down (and up and back down) we went to catch a subway to Grand Central. Our stuff got really heavy by the time we got through the right turnstiles, but we made it to Grand Central. Security guy told me I couldn’t sit on the floor. Oh Lord, trudge trudge. Finally on the train for a two hour trip and there we were on a cold, windy platform in small town New York. Sue pulled up less than a minute after we arrived and away we went to her and John’s farm. That night Jean got sick with same thing I had. We were sleeping in a loft with a chamber pot. I couldn’t make this stuff up. Jean moved downstairs to a couch. After two nights we split to go to NYC to spend a night in a hotel before moving on to Jean’s niece’s Hoboken brownstone. We slept in Anne’s bedroom on the third floor trudge trudge up some mighty steep stairs.

The high point for me was a meal with Arthur at our favorite Hoboken restaurant – La Isla, a Cuban place with everyone stuffed into counter and tables, coats and hats. I remember when the “Marielitos” came from Cuba – another very interesting group of refugees to resettle. Finally we were on the plane

to Dallas. After a couple of days in Dallas, Jean was ready to go back to Berkeley (she had not fully recovered quickly) and away she went, while I stayed in Dallas to go to the previously described gathering. Tomorrow I’m headed back to Berkeley. Whew! What a trip!

Something I neglected to write about several months ago was that we went to Montana to spend time with Jean’s friends, Jim and Chris from long ago in Wyoming. We stayed in a cabin (the “fishing shack”) on their property on Flathead Lake. Courtney was there, too, staying across the road, past the orchard.

We spent several days in Glacier National Park – at last!

David is teaching full-time at UC Berkeley School of Law. My son, the professor! For me, this means far fewer trains to San Francisco for lunch with David. Instead of 7 bus to downtown Berkeley, BART to The City, and MUNI to the Castro to meet up for lunch. Now, it’s 7 bus to downtown and then walk across campus to David’s office. My whole life I’ve loved being around universities. And here I am, on one of the world’s greatest campuses. I like to walk through the Physical Sciences building. My peeps.

I had lunch with David’s friend, Chris. He told me about his family, his work, and he told me that I had been a positive influence in his childhood and a role model in his adult life as a husband and father. That was another deeply appreciated affirmation.

Jean and I have a new custom: most mornings one of us lies on our back between the other’s legs, with head on the other’s chest. Then it’s 15 minutes of shoulder, neck, and head massage.

Morning has broken…

One of the lines from one of the songs of our life: “…for I will never grow so old again.” Reflecting on this profound thought that I will never grow so old as I was in those terrible dark days of grief.

This bold leap into openness when we each said, “I’ll love again.”

Reality is, one of us will die first, leaving the other alone. We’ve both been left before. We know the pain. Intimately. If I’m the one left behind, I know I’ll never have another love like what I’ve had with Leslie and with you, Jean. And if I pass first, I know what I’m saying is generally true for you. The fact of love is comfort to me – that love exists in the universe. The fact of having loved and been loved. I am fulfilled.

I’ll be exhausted again. In pain again. Sad again. Alone again. But never so old, so desolate again. Soaring high on love. What a life.

I’ve turned inward these past few months. Heart issues take up psychic and physical energy. I wore a mini-Holter monitor for several weeks and my suspicions of occasional episodes of arrhythmia were correct. So I have paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, which is barely in the same universe as persistent AF, such as Jean had. I also have an aortic aneurysm, but it’s small and stable and asymptomatic. Still, it gets my attention. I’m on all the right meds, several of which tend to cause a decrease in energy. Those meds + age + the exertions of the last year lead to decreased energy for me. I am, nevertheless, doing very well.

Our relationship brings great joy to both of us… passion, excitement, adventure, comfort, succor,

rest. These are the days of the endless summer. Now it seems my heart may take me Onward, To My Noble Death. I had long expected I would die from cancer, now it seems that heart disease will be the more likely cause of death. In a sense I welcomed that one last battle. There is also the thing of last things to say, last chances for healing, and so on. But sudden it may be. I’m comforted by my ongoing effort to stay current: living as fully as possible, nothing left unsaid, no forgivenesses pending, all those things.

Other sort of side issues include: since the Marine Corps, I have operated as if I have no limits (obviously, there have been situations in which I couldn’t keep going – my knee giving out 2/3 of the way down the Grand Canyon comes to mind). Now, pushing myself physically has resulted in AF several times, so take it easy, sit down, take a rest. Also, I can’t take ibuprofen or other NSAIDs because I’m taking an anticoagulant drug. This matters because I have some pains and NSAIDs are more effective than acetaminophen.

Somewhere along the line in these months, Jean had another cardioversion. Chinh came in to do the anesthesia – such comfort to Jean (and me). He gave her the propofol and said, “Jean. Jean.” Her eyelids twitched, so he gave her a little more. “Jean, Jean.” No response. “Okay,” he says, stepping back. “She’s under.” A resident pushed the button to give her the shock. She bounced and her heart went back into rhythm. RRR ever since.

We were in Dallas and drove by where Leslie and I worked during the Cambodian years 1980-1985. The apartment buildings are being torn down. So many memories. Faces, sounds, smells, tears, strength, real struggles.

We drove to Coloma to visit Jean’s friend, Lisa, who had a two week artist’s residency at a gallery there. We had dinner with Lisa in Coloma and then drove to a cabin in the Sierra foothills on the American River (as it turns out, ½ mile from where gold was first discovered in 1849). The second day, PG&E cut the power to that part of California because of fire hazard. It was cold and dark and we had a good time. We ate breakfast in the warmest place around – the car, packed up and took off.

We went to a big wedding on a farm in Sonoma. It was great fun, good food, lots of nice people. Afterward we went to Hobe and Jennifer’s home, hidden away among the hills and trees near Point Reyes. In the morning I could hear something rustling around outside. It was bats – countless bats – darting every which way, coming home to roost under the eaves after a long night of catching bugs! Breakfast at the table in the kitchen/living room. A little banjo music. Good times.

We drove up the coast near Jenner to spend the night with Kristina and Fritz. Jean and I slept on a futon on the floor of the living room. In the morning I was fixing coffee looking into the living room at Jean and Kristina came into the room and got in bed with Jean to snuggle. Sweet.

We went with Courtney to a Fiber Shed event on a farm somewhere in Sonoma. Almost everyone there was involved in some way with natural fibers – weavers, flax farmers, shepherds (really), and so on. with great (and in some cases, weird) food, good music, and at the end, Deep Magic from Dancing Earth, an indigenous dance troop. This was the first time I ever was truly turned on by dancing. I don’t know how to describe it except to say it was really real, really intense, and very beautiful. We were inspired to go to another Dancing Earth performance with Susan a few weeks later in the Mission (occupied Ohlone territory). Soooo San Francisco: BART from Berkeley to Mission and 24^th, hanging out at Café Le Boheme, walking up the sidewalk for a pipe, serious opening ceremony, deep dancing.

All my life I am grateful for these days of Deep Magic.

 

I gave this song to Jean. It’s by the Incredible String Band and is a very good description of what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone like Jean.

Worlds They Rise and Fall

Worlds they rise and fall within her eyes
She gives the eagle wings
To fly her skies
Upon her breath the four worlds live and die
and sometimes
Its all I can do is bow to her

But when the moon is misty through the trees
Right now she says I want to be
Your girl, your little girl

Stars they rise and fade, around her dance
For her the steep is climbed
The gulf is spanned
She lives, she lives, the bards sing, around her stand
and sometimes
Its all I can do is bow to her

But when the moon is misty through the trees
Right now she says I want to be
Your girl, your little girl.

——————

Written as part of the invitation to a psychedelic trance gathering put on by Atrium Obscurum, the crew I’ve worked with for about 8 years

Sacrificing what we are for what we can be at Tribal Tejas.

Along a narrow country road, turn off on a one lane dirt road, through trees, into a meadow, and in the meadow, a shelter where some nice people (people just like you and me!) will talk with you about leave no trace and what to do if things get intense. You pay a small fee for two nights of camping with your tribe and non-stop music from Friday night to Sunday morning.

Drive on down the road into the forest, up hill and down dale, past more meadows… starting to see tents in the forest now, other people walking along, look, there’s a dome, people working, people laughing, people in love and you can tell that they too are brothers and sisters.

Welcome to Paradise! Sisters and Brothers, Welcome!

Shortly after sunset Friday there will be an opening ceremony, to which all are invited. We will give thanks for this beautiful land, for those who were here before (Caddo and Cherokee Indians), for the presence in our lives of those we love, for those we love and who are no longer here. We will give thanks for those who worked to make this gathering happen, for those who create and give to us the music, for those who traveled long distances to be here, for every single person at this gathering. Giving thanks for the forest, for the sky, for life, for love, for hope, for ecstasy, for peace, for nothing less than the opportunity for rebirth. Everyone is invited to bring something meaningful to place on the altar in the front of the dance floor.

The ceremony shifts into its next phase, the part where music fills the air, the trees, the meadows; the part where the dance is ecstatic and we begin to connect, riding the music, whirling, stomping (Oh yeah, it’s Tribal alright!), lifting up our arms, our hearts, our love, our vulnerabilities, our sadness, our joy, our very selves. Lights sparkling, people talking, dancing into the dark, hugging, swaying, skipping, flow artists flowing… The darkness is good and it’s safe and if you need a hand someone will help you.

First time travelers: as you can see, these gatherings are not about going to hear some music. They are transformational gatherings, where we’re all involved in making it happen, i.e., co-creating – and in every case, working toward a higher vibe, a higher experience, a tranceformation for everyone.

Join us! Bring your self, your being, your pain, your hope, your gratitude, and your respect for life and the lives of those who no longer here. Join us in lifting up the Native Americans whose land this once was, lifting up the Ghost dancers, the Shamans of the past, and yes, lifting up ourselves and our Sisters and Brothers.

———————

Shaman bands

I was listening to a concert performance of Daughter, a song by Pearl Jam (Rock and roll will forever stand!). It’s a grim song, about a girl with learning difficulties who is abused. It ends with the words, “the shades go down…” And then there is a shift into a different direction with the words, “It’s okay, it’s okay” back and forth between the singer and the audience and some very raw guitar work building, building. “This my chance. This is my voice. This is my life. This is my hope!” After my involvement with Jonathan’s Place (where children go when they’ve been removed from their families in Dallas County) and after patients and others confiding that these and other bad things have happened to them, I experience this song on a profound level.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” I get it that it may never be all the way okay, but sometimes it is okay. “This is my voice.” Light in times of darkness. “This is my life!” Hope when there isn’t any. “This is my hope!” “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

And I started thinking about bands that are more than entertaining.

Or can be much more than entertaining. Or are sometimes more. Bands that can be transcendent and can lift one’s consciousness.

Shaman Bands (for me)

Grateful Dead

Incredible String Band

Beatles

Van Morrison

Bob Dylan

Pearl Jam

——————–

These days

Every day I open my computer with dread for the appalling thing(s) of the day. Actually, I check in on CNN, Google News, NYT, Fox, and others several times/day. I see mass shootings. Third-rate sycophant nominated for a critically important security job (Ratcliffe for DNI). Senate delays for gun control legislation. Racist presidential rally (“shoot them – haha”). The resurgence of white nationalism. Lies upon lies. Bullying. The grossest trivialities in the highest office (the President of the United States feuding with TV personalities). And on and on.

And almost every day, there are appalling things and I have the constant consciousness that whatever moral fiber the US had is slipping away fast. This corrupt and treasonous “King of Debt” is bankrupting America. Everything and every person he touches becomes dirty.

I don’t have a conclusion or answer. It’s just what’s happening.

—————–

Some of the qualities I admire in people (not inclusive)

Brave

Honorable

Honest

Kind

Walking The Path

Competent

Productive

Loyal

Respectful

Aware

Modest

Consistent

———————–

We were dozing in bed and Jean asked, “Do you want a spoon?” Thinking she was dreaming about offering me a spoon, I said, “No thank you.” Later I asked her what she was dreaming about and she said, “I wasn’t dreaming.

I was asking if you wanted to spoon.” Doh!

 

 

Sometime around 1982, when Leslie and I were working as volunteers in the Cambodian refugee neighborhood in Dallas, one of the families we were involved with asked us to look in on a new family. The new family lived in one of the one-bedroom upstairs corner apartments at 4400 San Jacinto. There was a mother and father and two children. They had almost nothing. The weather was cold and they had a couple of blankets and a few cooking things and a little rice. The father was sick. It was desperate.

We got them some blankets and warm clothes and food and medical care and so on. We started taking the father to Parkland Hospital, but his illness was not treatable and all they really did was track his last months. Maybe 6-12 months(?) later he was having a bad day and I took him to the Parkland ER. He was on a gurney in one of the ER halls. I had to leave for a while and when I came back a little while later he had passed.

When I called his completely uninvolved sponsor to get money for his funeral, the director said, “We can go maybe $200.” I didn’t give the appropriate response (…) and went and got the money. I recall that the city wanted his body to be taken away quickly, but we wouldn’t let them take him and there was a ceremony in the apartment with the body present. Neighbors and others got the money together for necessary services and he was buried or maybe cremated at Sparkman-Hillcrest.

His daughter, Sue did well in school and so did his son until he had a health event that left him severely impaired. His daughter met a young American man, Jimmie. He had come from a difficult background, but then so had she, in a different way. They married and as time passed, they each showed themselves to be people of great quality… true… decent… caring… and competent in their work and in their family. In time we saw less of one another.

In December 2015 I got a call from Jimmie. He wanted me to come talk with Keo, a Cambodian woman who had grown up with Sue and who had actually lived with Leslie and me for a few months when David was a baby. Keo was now in the hospital with advanced breast cancer. The idea was that I would convince her to have the cancer treated as one of the doctors involved in her care wanted. She wanted no part of it and the fact was, treatment was a very long shot with certain concomitant suffering.

I supported Keo in her wishes and Jimmie was graceful in accepting her decision. He and Sue were involved in Keo’s last days, as was I. When I gave the eulogy at Keo’s funeral I named Jimmie, Sue, and Sue’s Mom as true stalwarts in her last weeks.

About a year ago, Jimmie was diagnosed with a glioblastoma. Today, he passed away in the VITAS inpatient hospice unit. I think he was in his early 40s. Well done, good and faithful servant.

The old crew passing: Leslie, Sang Van, Khuon Voeuth, Keo, Phana, Jimmie.

——————

When you find out who you are 
(From The Incredible String Band)

When you find out who you are
Beautiful beyond your dreams

Change the world by the things you say
By the things you Love

Oh how many shining hearts
With love have guided me

We used to speak of that ocean deep
How little words can say

It’s better now to ask your friend
What makes him sad today

Make your own dreams come true
Make it come true

 

(Random thoughts and random photos.)

For many years my Mom invited a former neighbor for Christmas dinner. She was very old and for several reasons had not aged well. One year I went to her apartment in a retirement home to bring her to my Mom’s home. I was kind of standing around inside, waiting, and I saw an old-timey photograph of a beautiful young woman – one of those old kind of sepia, soft edges photos and she was so beautiful. I asked, “Effie, who was that?” “Oh honey,” she said. “That’s me.”

____________

When I was working in hospice I would approach my patients from the perspective of first, any pressing problems or issues and second, as more than the person lying there in bed, so sick, dying. I would think of my patients as people with a lifetime of experiences – a little girl in first grade; a teenager, falling in love; a young man going off to war; a wife, a husband, a parent, a grandparent, a widow; someone who knew happiness, disappointment, love, loss, grief, just all the fullness and experiences of our lives. And then kind of loop that around to include in the now.

Sing our songs. We all want to sing our songs.

Given some openings and the ability, people would talk about their lives, how they met their spouse, their courtship, their children, their regrets, their hopes, their dreams realized and unrealized. Sometimes even their hopes for their (very short) future. Oh, I’ve heard some love stories!

What do people hope for at the end of life? First and foremost, people hope to be healed – and when there is no hope to heal the body, they/we hope for our hearts to be healed. For relationships to be healed. To be with loved ones. Sometimes there are words unspoken that need to be spoken. And it’s not always words of love and not always words of forgiveness. Because healing requires the truth – good and bad – the truth. We want to sing our song of our life.

And in the end, we can forgive ourselves.

__________________

Someone Jean had been in a relationship with long ago died last week. Fell down dead. Like Jean’s husband had. It hit her pretty hard. What a time of life this is! We’re all pretty much at the edge. Let’s enjoy it while we can.

Here’s to our youth, our hopes and dreams, and to our future.

__________________

Leslie and I were in a car with some other people, pretty crowded, on about a one hour drive. For no apparent reason she was being hostile toward a man in the car. He wasn’t someone I particularly cared for, but I thought she was being a little extreme, putting the Evil Eye on him, truly. Later I asked her what was going on and she told me she didn’t like the man. I asked her if she had to be so overt. I remember that she just looked at me.

Some years later I learned that that man had repeatedly molested someone I knew when she was a little girl. I learned it from the person he had molested. Leslie did not know about this – but she knew something and it wasn’t good.

He broke the little girl. She was broken her entire life. You broke her, God-damn you.

_________________

Through Facebook I’m in touch with a high school friend, Tim. We played golf together, went to the same parties, dated two girls (Claire and Martha) together from another school, and after high school we both went into the Marine Corps. The last time we talked we discovered that we had each had a spiritual awakening and had both ended up doing related work – he in substance abuse counseling and I in nursing.

And now Tim is posting photos of the Florida beach/ocean where he lives and I’m posting photos of the San Francisco Bay where I live – sunrises and sunsets coast to coast.

_________________

What a fierce time of life this is. To some, we probably look like just more old people. That’s what we are, except no just to it. We loved, we love, we fought in wars, we stopped wars, we danced beneath the diamond sky, we were/we are beautiful, we were/we are hot, we created/we create, we took risks, we grieved; and we’re in challenging places and times. We’re close to death or worse. No one gets out alive. See us love, see us touching,

see us slow-walking across the street, see us in our beauty at the end of life.

Van Morrison: And we’ll walk down the Avenue again; And we’ll walk down the avenue and we’ll smile; And we’ll say, “Baby, ain’t it all worthwhile.”

Proverbs 31:25:

She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future.

It has been a remarkable few weeks: LaHonda/Santa Cruz Mountains, Mendocino, Orr Hot Springs, Bolinas, Berkeley, and now Big Sur…

Big Sur: Highway 1 follows the coast, past Santa Cruz, past Monterey, past Carmel-by-the-Sea, into the whole of Big Sur, past where David’s ashes were placed at Esalen, past where we cried as we first drove this road together three years ago, where the mighty Pacific Ocean stretches across 1000s of miles to Asia, turn off on an unmarked road, through a gate and follow a dirt road into a canyon in the Ventana Wilderness and in a few miles a pull-off. We park and walk across a wood foot-bridge up a path to a traditional wood Haida cabin on a knoll in the redwoods and here are the people we’ll spend the next few days with.

Hang out at the table cut many years ago from a huge redwood, then walk down the hill and carry our things along a narrow rocky path beside the rushing water and tiny orchids growing alongside the path and into the clearing where our sleeping platform awaits. We set up our bed – pads, air mattress, sleeping bag with sheet and fleece inside, pillows (Oh, we’ll sleep in style). All under the stars, eight paces from the river.

There is no electricity and no wifi – it’s a digital cleanse for us with no electronically transmitted information, music, or anything else as long as we’re here. But there is hot water and up the hill a white ceramic throne waits among the trees.

Time standing still. Talking, art, life, cherries, wine, cheese, herb, the wind in the trees and sometimes sunlight filtering through and high above we can see the fog moving in. In an incredible happenstance, one of our hosts, Steve was in Vietnam at almost exactly the same place and time as I… along la Rue Sans Joie (the Street Without Joy – named by French Legionnaires), where Bernard Fall was killed in 1967, where many from both sides died, and now here we are in this redwood forest. Everyone here has lost a loved one – parent at a young age or spouse. We don’t talk much of

the pain, but those who passed on are very much with us.

A family gathering in the glade where the dining table sits (thank you for including us!), a teacher, a healer, an artist, an environmentalist, a gardener, a grower, a calm center, a child, a black lab. Then to a campfire, cobbler, s’mores, then slowly along the rocky path to our bed.

The first night we slept soooo well, so warm, tangled up in soft and love and in the morning I walked up the hill and made coffee for Jean and me and Susan was there, making coffee for Steve and herself. Our joyful job. Back down the hill with coffee to the bed, talking, seeing, hearing, feeling. We talked of places so good for sleeping. For me, this place, the Temple, home on Reiger, my campsite at timberline in Maroon Bells going in to the Four Pass Loop, Dragon Hostel in Hong Kong, Big Bend in a sleet storm, Ana Lisa Hedstrom’s studio on a cold, rainy night.

Breakfast was the usual fruit and yogurt and bread, coffee, talking. Steve’s family left, so it was just four of us. We walked ¼ mile up a path to the “common cabin” (shared with two other families, neither of whom were there) and Jean showered while Susan and I walked along an old trail deeper into the forest where redwood sorrel was like soft green cushions

growing out of 1000 year old mulch. The forest was still, beautiful, and Susan is a quiet, careful walker. We talked of beauty and life. After we walked I stayed behind at the common cabin and showered…

——————

Sing the first three lines with me:

I’ve got a feeling
A feeling deep inside
Oh yeah

He walked on the soft ground around to the front of the cabin and stood naked on the deck, lifting up his arms and soul to the redwoods to the sky to the fog to the sun to the river running by. Give thanks.

Sorrowing for his country, for the moral collapse of what was once humanity’s greatest hope.

Where now lies are virtue and Jesus is whored out to the gods of greed.

———————

A still afternoon, easy, comfortable. Dinner, campfire. Back along the rocky path to our sleeping bag. And in a perfect summary of our life together, Jean woke me up about 3 am and said, “It’s getting wet” – the fog so heavy and right here we could actually feel the tiny droplets of water kind of stinging our faces. Pull the ground cover tarp up over us and burrow down deeper in the sleeping bag. Warm, dry, except a little damp around our heads. Friends, it truly doesn’t get any better.

In the morning we all packed up and headed out – Steve and Susan to the beautiful valley and home where they live and Jean and I to the magic of Berkeley. Along the way we stopped at Nepenthe, high above the Pacific, then on to the Promise of Berkeley and our happy home.

As I write, this text comes in from Jean: “Stuck in traffic. Big demonstration/anti-Trump kids in cages protest.” The Promise of Berkeley!

Agape is the Christian concept of selfless, unconditional love. It is a three syllable word pronounced ah-GAH-peh. The Agape Clinic manifested the reality of that love beginning in the early 1980s. Photo: outreach in a community garden

From 1983-2000 I was running a “Community Care” health program (not connected to Agape) that included district health services in a refugee community and barrio, primary care provided by volunteer physicians in a police “storefront” and a church, and immunizations through the county health department. District health originated in the UK and to us basically meant that we took responsibility for the health of people is a defined “district” in Old East Dallas. This was under the aegis of first, Texas Woman’s University and later Baylor University School of Nursing and through cooperative relationships with other organizations such as Parkland Hospital, East Dallas Health Center, Dallas Police Department, Church Health Ministries, and other organizations. The students were central to providing all aspects of community and family and individual care. Semester after semester they did a brilliant job in the hard work of delivering quality health care and practicing loving kindness, justice and mercy in the slums.

Leslie Kemp started working with the students and me around 1995. Her role initially was social work and organizing the business aspects of our efforts. Photo: With Megan and Joe – outstanding students

A series of circumstances led to us losing our clinic space in the fall of 2000, so in effect we were “homeless.” I talked to Dale McEowen, one of the people involved with the Agape Clinic, about sharing Agape’s space in Grace United Methodist Church. The following was written shortly after the conversation with Dale:

Dale said, “I’ve suggested several times that you come over here.” I said, “I believe you – I never heard it or I just wasn’t ready.” I remember we had all our medicine in 2-3 drawers of the big brown filing cabinet and when I told Bobbie (the clinic founder and medical director) that we’d keep ours in there she said, “no, just put it in with ours.” They had 100s of times more medications than we, so it was an extraordinarily generous thing for her to say. As he had done several times before, Martin Hironaga helped move the clinic.

When we moved into Agape I felt like we’d come home.

When we started at Agape, the clinic was open one day/week on Saturdays for primary medical care and childhood immunizations. At first our presence added a second day of services and outreach and follow-up to care. Later, we were able to further expand services. For the students and me the association with Agape meant that we had a home with far more resources and an opportunity to serve more people in more ways than previously. Photo left: patients waiting to get in to the clinic.

There was good energy/ synergy between the original Agape Clinic people and the new people and resources. I started writing grant proposals – later, Leslie wrote proposals and hosted foundation visitors – and the clinic received funding from a number of foundations (Communities, Clements, Aetna, Bob Smith, First Presbyterian, Dallas Women’s Foundation, AMA Foundation, Lakewood Service League, and others), as well as churches (notably Highland Park United Methodist and First Presbyterian), and individuals. Through this wonderful energy the Agape Clinic evolved into a comprehensive community health provider with four days of services each week provided by volunteers, paid staff, and students. Services included:

• Primary care for acute illness provided by physicians, nurse practitioners, and medical and NP students (the foundational care from the beginning of Agape). Photo: in the pharmacy (volunteer RN/former student, nurse practitioner, physician)
• Specialty care, including psychiatry, dermatology, gynecology, pediatrics, and asthma and immunology also provided by physicians and nurse practitioners with expertise in their respective fields.
• Treatment, teaching, and follow-up for patients with chronic illness delivered as above except teaching and follow-up were through nursing students. Among community clinics in the North Texas area, care for patients with chronic illness was unique to Agape and the follow-up (home visits for assessment and teaching) was unique among community clinics everywhere.
• Medicine provided in-house through donations, samples, and from Blessings International, a missions supply group.
• Social work provided by the Agape social worker (Leslie), promotoras (lay health promoters, primarily Lupe Springer and Nora Avila), Diane from UTA, and students in social work and nursing.
• Spiritual care given by volunteer clergy, Common Grace Ministries, promotoras, and students.
• Community education provided by nursing and social work students in cooperation with promotoras.
• Health screening delivered on a daily basis in the clinic by students,and in health screening events supported by the Komen Foundation, Parkland, Dallas County Health Department, DISD, and other organizations.
• Vaccinations were for many years available on Saturdays in the Dallas area only at Agape through the work of Betty Lou Gary and her volunteer crew. Weekday vaccinations were provided by the County Health Department and students. Photo above: volunteer helping a patient with hospital bill. Photo below: The door into the exam room area. Larry, a massage therapist giving massage to a patient. He came every week.
• Special projects such as Creaciones de Fe (Creations of Faith, a support and community education group for Latin women) and the Jonathan’s Place effort, in which we provided intake physical exams and treatment of illnesses for children who had been removed from their families and placed in a shelter for abused and neglected children. Creaciones ran about five years under the guidance of Lupe and the Jonathan’s Place effort lasted about 1½ years (average ~7 children/week).
• Immigrant health was foundational at Agape and was expanded to include refugee communities, including Middle Eastern (especially Kurds), East African, Burmese, Cambodian, and others. The Dallas County Health Department, Parkland, Baylor, and UT Arlington were central to refugee health at Agape.
• Service learning site with students from Baylor, UTSW Medical School, UTA. TWU, and others.

Paid staff included a clinic director, promotoras, and nurse practitioners. We were seriously services-oriented, strong on fundraising, and light on administration. Photo: exam.

Leslie Kemp was the original clinic social worker. Her philosophy of care was to always solve the problem and never simply refer patients elsewhere. She made home visits as needed and she also ran the front desk, inviting each person who came into the clinic to sit down next to her (vs. the patient standing in front of her desk or sitting across the desk) as she completed intake/registration, and identified problems that were not readily apparent. She always had 1-2 students working with her/learning from her in the clinic. As time passed she took on more administrative work and eventually began working as clinic director. The director position was a sacrifice for Leslie as she far preferred working directly with patients and families. She began working with foundations and writing grant proposals along with administrative work and still seeing patients. When Leslie left the clinic she left behind a lean services-oriented organization in which everyone saw patients. We had an excellent reputation in the community (among healthcare providers, foundations, other organizations, and patients and families) and a large funding surplus. Photo: Leslie on the phone, with Maria and Luvia, the translator and her baby, the patient, and in the foreground Roxanne and Lupe.

At Agape we served the uninsured, the working poor, the people who process the chicken we eat, who mow our lawns, who clean our offices and hospital rooms – we served the people who cannot get Medicaid, who cannot access services at Parkland or Project Access or Homes or anywhere else. That service is our expression of the highest love we can be – Agape.

Afterward

Reflecting on the above, one thing that stands out is the collective nature of our work. I remember Meg Kaufman, the clinic psychiatrist saying something about “this collective” and I said, yeah, that’s right. We had so many volunteers and partners, each one doing their thing toward the common good.

How did this happen? Agape was a place (and a state of mind) in which people could spread their wings. This was due, first and foremost to Bobbie Baxter, the founder and Medical Director. She did quality work and was willing for others who did quality work to spread their wings. I was the same way. So was Leslie. We were unafraid; we were True Believers.

And, everything we did, we did for patients and community. And we knew what we were doing. And we abhorred meetings. As a consequence, people wanted to work there as volunteers, students, and community partners.

Following The Dream.

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Volunteers included high school students, lay people from the community, college students, retirees (including WWII vets!), doctors, nurses, social workers, former patients, chaplains, and others.

Community partners I can think of are Jonathan’s Place, DISD, Dallas Police, Common Grace Ministries, Baylor University, University of Texas, Texas Woman’s University, UT Southwestern Medical School, Dallas Concilio, Highland Park UMC, HPUMC Cornerstone Congregation, Grace UMC, First Presbyterian, Dallas Women’s Foundation, Dallas County Medical Society, LabCorps, SMU, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas County Health Department, Parkland Hospital, and quite a few foundations and individual donors.

All working cooperatively, collectively to heal the sick.