Nature, Peace, Faith: Three Great Doctors

In honor of the participants to the 

Dr Arturo B Rotor Memorial Awards for Literature 

Nature, Peace, Faith

Three Great Doctors

Nature-doctor, guardian of the environment’s pristine beauty 

and bounty; Peace-doctor, emissary of unity and harmony; 

Faith-doctor, keeper of body-mind-spirit integrity.

 Dr Abe V Rotor

Nature, Peace, Faith - Three Great Doctors in acrylic by AVRotor, 2024

Nature, Peace, Faith

Three Great Doctors

Health of people, the greatest wealth of society, hangs on nature’s beauty and bounty, of man living in peace and harmony, with deep faith in the Almighty and humanity;   

Nature, Peace, Faith – they build a formidable triad, staked to the ground, firm and proud, for eons of time through ease and odd, in the benevolent hands of God; 

This is the world once called Paradise in bible story, where Nature, Peace, Faith, long reigned in glory, and man anointed in his own rationality, serving as steward as a sacred duty;   

A gift divine and singular over all creation, taking over creation itself with his own notion, in search of the Good Life through exploitation, pitting man against man, nation against nation. 

Yet man is asking God for more, as condition to obedience, defying the dictates of his conscience, at a crossroad in our Postmodern times.  Whom can we depend on, where is man in his finest hour?          

                                     I asked God for more

                                          

 I asked God for food, clothing and shelter

     and He showered me

these necessities I cannot live without -

     they are the Earth's bounty;

I settled down on fertile hills and valleys

     and multiplied freely.

 

I asked God for power to boost my strength,

     and He gave me energy;

I leveled the mountains, dammed the rivers

     and conquered the sea;

raped the forests, prairies, lakes and estuaries,

     a world I wanted to be.

 

I asked God if I can be God, too, all knowing

     with my technology;

broke the sacred code of life and of matter,

     changed the Great Story;

annihilated life unfit in my own design,

     and set my own destiny.

 

I asked God if He is but a creation of the mind,

     and rose from my knee;

probed space, rounding up the universe,

     aiming at immortality,

bolder than ever, searching for another home,

     and wanting to be free. 

      

Many a self-proclaimed soul rose to the throne, fame they sought in the “grandeur that was Rome,” and the “glory that was Greece” syndrome, In unending quest but found emptiness like foam.

Breakthroughs in science and technology the genius of man on the untrodden road to be happy and free; beauty he builds, and himself destroys beauty at rainbow’s end on a bended knee.   

Nature-doctor, guardian of the environment’s pristine beauty and bounty; Peace-doctor,  emissary of unity and harmony; Faith-doctor, sans fantasy, keeper of body-mind-spirit integrity; 

And man the disciple of Hippocrates, takes the helm of a great journey, with Matthew’s 25 compassion, carries on a sacred duty, with the dictum, “health of one is health of the world" in joy and piety;  

 

In Frankl's search for meaning, Schweitzer's mission, the "Lady with a Lamp" passion;

dedication of our own hero even in exile - these and other models, elevate the medical profession to a vocation. 

                     Four Attributes of Man

                   - Reflection and Meditation

 

It is I, Homo sapiens, the thinking man 

who changed the concept of creation,

Nature to serve man, 

master and guardian. 

 

It is I, Homo faber, the maker,

wilderness to tame, resources to harness,

untouched these are,

they go to waste.  

 

It is I, Homo ludens, the playing man,

forest to hunt, mountain to climb,

work and leisure to me

keep my sanity.

It is I, Homo spiritus, the praying man,

mysteries I submit, mistakes I atone,

I, too, have a heart that bleeds,

the essence of being human. ~

      

                Detail of painting, Nature, Peace, Faith

Painting & poem by the author dedicated to the Dr Arturo B Rotor 

Memorial Awards for Literature Foundation, and the Philippine 

College of Physicians, during the 3rd awarding ceremonies,

October 17, 2024 at UNILAB Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila.                                         

                                        

                                          "We must have something to cling to.
                                              Some things must not change.”

                                                          – Dr Arturo B Rotor

Arturo Belleza Rotor (June 7, 1907 – April 9, 1988) was a Filipino medical doctor, civil servant, musician, and writer. Rotor was born in the Philippines and attended the University of the Philippines. He graduated simultaneously from the Conservatory of Music and the College of Medicine. He trained further at John Hopkins University's medical school, publishing a paper on a rare form of hyperbilirubinaemia (jaundice) now known as "Rotor syndrome".

     During World War II, Rotor served as executive secretary of the Philippine Commonwealth government-in-exile under Manuel L. Quezon, the Philippine president in exile. In the immediate post-World War II period, he was appointed secretary of the Department of Health and Welfare. Later, Rotor was director of the University of the Philippines' Postgraduate School of Medicine and was a practicing physician until the early 1980s.

     Rotor was an internationally respected writer of fiction and non-fiction in English. He is widely considered among the best Filipino short story writers of the twentieth century. He was a charter member of the Philippine Book Guild; the guild's initial publication (1937) was Rotor's The Wound and the Scar, despite Rotor's protests that someone else's work should have been selected. In 1966, the Philippine government recognized his literary accomplishments by awarding him the Republic Cultural Heritage Award. Rotor's best-known literary works are The Wound and the Scar (1937), Confidentially, Doctor (1965), Selected Stories from the Wound and the Scar (1973), The Men Who Play God (1983), and the short stories "Dahong Palay" (1928) and "Zita" (1930). 

     He was an orchid fancier and breeder, a long-time member of the Philippine Orchid Society, and is the namesake of a Vanda orchid species (Vanda merillii var. rotorii).  Rotor shared an interest in orchids with his younger brother, Gavino B. Rotor, Jr. Gavino took this interest even further, receiving his Ph.D. from Cornell University on orchid biology and becoming an authority on orchid propagation. The orchid genus Rotorara is named after Gavino. Rotor was a highly accomplished musician and published music critic.

     Rotor died in 1988 due to cancer, and was survived by his wife Emma Unson, who taught college mathematics and physics. They had no children.

Reference: Arturo Belleza Rotor (Internet)