"Into every house..."

"In every house where I come,
I will enter only for the good of others..."
- Hippocrates

Why are you
here?

She asks from behind
the veiled
mask of
suspicious
distrust,
and fear of judgment...

Are you here to tell me
what I should be
doing,
thinking,
handling
differently...or better?

If you are....

But,
I am not.

I am not
here to tell her
what I think she
has forgotten to remember,
to suggest
a tack that
I might take,
a text I might turn to,
a treatment to begin,
or someone
to call....

I am here to
"do no harm..."

I am here for the
"good of others..."

I am here to
advocate...

for her.

I bring with me no opinions,
no judgment,
no "if only you'd have..."
suggestions of
what she could have done.

I can only know those
things for myself.

I am here to
help,
as support,
to offer a hand,
a common humanity...
to be tenderly solicitous,
ineffably kind,
pitifully patient,
to lead with my heart....

always with my heart...
not a trial,
a theory,
my research,
a dogma,
a system,
a second opinion,
a book, or a
regime....

Those things may be what
she
later
asks me to
bring to the bedside...but
my love is not
conditional
on what she decides, and only if
it matches my own
beliefs

in fact,
her choices are none of my
business...

my business is
to love...

I am here to
"do only good..."

and so,

"here i stand,
I can do no otherwise;
so help me God..."

here I stand,
on her threshhold
hoping she
will trust the purity of my
motives...

I am here to serve...

I have no
conditions of service,
no rigid outline
of what I will...or will not do

I am listening

and right now,
I simply know,
I must "do no harm"

For the wisdom
it takes to know what
that will look like...each moment...
I pray....