In His Book, Mortal Lessons: Notes On The Art Of ...  PRO

In his book, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery, Dr. Richard Selzer tells a true story that reflects God’s love for the unlovely. "I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twinge of facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. . . . to remove a tumor in her check, I had to cut the little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and tough each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks. "Will my mouth always be like this?" she asks.

"Yes," I say, "it will because the nerve was cut." She nods and is silent. but the young man smiles.

"I...

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