What's your specialty?

It's foggy today. It feels appropriate to my state of mind. I had a client once, let's say her name was, oh, Elizabeth. She said, I would like my diagnosis to be *Elizabeth*  I told her: That works for me.  I feel the same way about my specialty. I figure it's kind of a priest thing.

I am often asked

What’s your specialty?

I am learning to say

I don’t have one.

Thirty plus years as a priest.

Sixty years of living.

No specialty because that

Might omit

This new person,

These new people,

Who just walked through

The door,

Perched themselves

On the sofa.

I have learned to say

Let’s see

If we can work together.

You are not a diagnosis

Anyway.

Let’s see.

Diagnosis

She says she would not want to diagnose people.  I tell her people are not their diagnosis, anyway. She is not convinced.  

I tell her

A diagnosis

Is only the beginning of things,

A place to start,

Certainly not

The place to end.

There is so much road to travel

So much to find and appreciate.

A diagnosis

Identifies a bump in that road

So we can then

Plow through it

Leap over it

Sidle around it.

A diagnosis

Is not the place

To stop.

A diagnosis

Is the place                                            

To begin again.