When I was young, maybe 8 years old, I would run through the mountains. My heart racing, jumping off rocks and stumps. Each leap I would sail through the air, the ground only a small delay until the next time I could sail again. At night the sunset would sing a lullaby in purples and orange and the shadows would lean hard away from its song until the world was all in shadow. Then the moon would be so bright I could still see the shadows, now tucked under their object, the world blanketed in a blue glow like watching the world through freshly made jello. My world was magic. My life was magic. My home was a place of pure magic.

After the death of my mom, it was like the sun stopped singing. Shadows would flee in terror from the sun. Each day a hide and seek, they would hate the light. Now cloaked in darkness the moon was not so bright. The world seemed cloaked in black panic, a suffocating dullness like right before you lose consciousness when you dangle from the ground.

Her death taught me that nothing was permanent, and this profoundly shook me. Knowing my life would eventually end, I endeavored to help others. I always believed that the ripples of my life could only be realized in the lives of others, so the urgency of life and death motivated me to sacrifice my life on the cross of selflessness.  I would be a martyr to my own needs and wants, wrapped in a spiral of self-hate for not being the son I should have been. A few years of longing for a sense of meaning, I discovered that God could do things I couldn't. He could create in me what I could never find or build or buy. Purpose. A purpose that I would leave more then my footprints in the sands of time. I had hoped that the church would give me a path to accomplish that.

The Christian faith has been in a time of turmoil. Its morals and intentions seem perverted by contemporary intellectual and political prostitution. The Church has acted like its members and the world are another group to market to. As if we consumers are just another heard to send to market. This autofagy is better executed by bacteria who seek to evolve and not just multiply. This revolving door of yesterday's ideas remixed for yesterday's problems always felt outdated and insensitive. Today has problems of its own. It seemed to me strangely outdated for a God who Is and Was and Will ever by to have a church that is so timid and resistant to current affairs and issues.  I grew passionate to make a difference today for a better tomorrow. I found a place to be present and make a difference when I found medicine.

I have held an officer's shattered leg in steady hands even as my heart rattled from his wife’s screaming in the hall.  I have pushed on a chest so small only 2 fingers could fit, her head nodding with every rapid push like she was being punched in a fight, or listening to her favorite music. I have splinted a boys arm from his first skateboard accident, heard the first heartbeat of a mothers first baby, and watched a child molester come back to life. I chose medicine because here, there is magic. And every day I feel like I am sailing through the air, and the ground is only a small delay to the next time I can sail again. The miracle of life is made clear in my work every day. The magic of small moments are magnified a hundred times over.  When a man becomes a father, a wife becomes a widow, a kidney patient becomes a transplant patient, or a death becomes a donor; these are defining moments in people's lives and I get to see them every day. Tragedy and triumph both leave their mark, and the beauty of life is in both the light and the dark. Instead of being an usher for a church, I am a nurse for a hospital. What better way to help people than to stand beside them when they say goodbye for the last time. What better way to love people than to give them antibiotics and fluids and pressors to save them from sepsis. What better way live then extend a hand to the homeless and share a meal that they didn't have to beg or steal. I love Jesus just fine, and it's no wonder he lived a life of service to others.  This is where the magic lives.