623 ONE RECENT SUNDAY, I watched with great anticipation our area’s most scientifically oriented physician ascend the altar stairs to take communion. Would he demand from Father what he always demanded from me—doubleblinded evidence that he was receiving the body and blood of Christ? No, he simply took the bread and wine, crossed himself, and returned to his seat. Okay, I reasoned, my colleague was able to separate medicine from religion just like Descartes, but then I remembered the praying for the sick and infirmed. There was no way he would ever let this go unchecked; I knew I would soon hear his booming voice demanding scientifically based evidence for this practice. I was ready with citations from Matthews and Dossey. Again, however, he remained silent. Was this just one of those situations where Emerson’s “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” would apply, or was science suspended on Sundays? Over doughnuts when I asked, “Is there something outside the realm of science that has significance for medicine?,” my fellow communicant offered me nothing more than a smile appropriate for the altar boy I am sure he once was. Until 12 years ago, I, like my colleague, was able to divide my life into nice little compartments. My personal life was carefree and anecdotal, while in my medical practice I gave out only statistically significant information and provided only treatments that had been scrutinized with double-blinded studies. The obvious inconsistency never bothered me a bit. Then I got sick and became the patient. I went back to my alma mater, sure that this ivory tower of science would cure anything I had. Strings were pulled so I could see the department chair appropriate for my condition. He was a smug individual who acted as if he were doling out the secrets of life in 15-minute intervals. Unfortunately, the wizard had nothing for me, I was a waste of his time—I had something science could not help. At this point, all of my nice neat little compartments came tumbling down, everyday life spilled into science, and nothing has been the same since.1 With scientific accuracy of major university proportions, I was supposed to be dead 9 years ago, and with ultimate certainty, 6 years ago. I am a statistical aberrancy, but then so are you. By strict scientific criterion, all of life is anecdotal and insignificant. However, before you descend into the black pit of Sartre’s existentialism, let me offer some hope. I believe science is one of our greatest tools, but tool—not God—nonetheless. Science has limitations and flaws. Einstein, the poster boy for science, was very clear on this. Science is based on the premise one can make reproducible, independent observations; which is impossible according to Einstein because no two observers are actually observing the same thing. All things are relative to the observer.2 Where, then, does that leave a practice of medicine based solely on science? The great American writer Sherwood Anderson in his classic Winesburg, Ohio offers us direction. George Willard, one of the story’s main characters is suddenly confronted with the insignificance of life. “If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him. The countless figures of men who before his time have come