Fascinating Book, Gray Matter

Here I go again, doing a totally non-knitting post.  Warning.

I've mentioned books before, but generally restrain myself because I read several books a week, and a steady diet of book reviews would be so dull for y'all.  Besides, it's not like I'm Ms. Literature - I read a lot of books just for fun, for instance, before this, I read a murder mystery with folks being killed and buried in the basement of a creepy old house.

This week I read (if you consider listening to part of the book on my Kindle as I drive and do housework, and reading part of the book, "reading") Gray Matter by Joel Kilpatrick and David Levy, and it's worth a posting.  I highly recommend  this book!

Dr. Levy is a neurosurgeon, and the book is about the experiences he has had since he decided to incorporate praying for his patients into his surgical routines.

I've never had a doctor pray for me - have you?  Sometimes, it would sure be nice. I pray for the medical people I've encounter quite a bit.  They don't know I'm praying for them, but what can one think about when a dentist is working in your mouth, or a nurse is trying to hit a vein, or you're lying in a loud MRI machine?  I read somewhere to pray for the people who work on you, and doing that makes me feel better and hopefully blesses them.  I also like to pray (silently) for hairdressers (and probably I'm also praying that they won't wreck my hair).  That's all silent prayer.

Dr. Levy prays WITH people.  Out loud.  He has learned to do this gently, asking permission, and praying very simple prayers.  We can all learn to pray with people, and I hope I develop much more of a habit of offering to pray when appropriate.

I was fascinated by Gray Matter.  I know there are marvelous blessings from a rich prayer life, but I find a lot of books about prayer boring.  I chose this Christian book thinking it was more about medicine and the human brain and less about prayer.

The medical stories were absolutely gripping, so it was a fast read, like watching a medical drama.  However, after finishing it several days ago, Dr. Levy's book has me thinking about prayer, especially about how praying with people creates such unity and comfort.

It was also very interesting to read about what a surgeon's life is like.  I have a young friend (whom I've known since she was tiny) well on her way to being a neurosurgeon, and I kept thinking about her.  Someday she'll be spending hours and hours at a time trying not to damage delicate structures while she does an intricate repair.  Someday she'll be working on people, knowing that no matter how carefully she works, a patient could end up crippled or dead from one of these high-risk procedures.

This book also has thought-provoking stories that explore the importance of mental, spiritual and emotional well-being on physical health, for instance, the importance of being forgiving, or not  living in anger and bitterness, and how sick emotions lead to sick bodies.