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Sunday Morning (68): What about the Kidney?
So, what about the kidney?
Recently I became interested in my kidneys. I was never before. I think this is, because the kidney is one of my “silent” organs. Some organs in the body I can clearly notice. I feel and hear my lungs when air rushes in and out, I feel my heart beating in my chest and veins and I can make this visible even on my little fitness watch. My stomach incidentally produces sounds or can be painful when too full or empty, or when acid reflux happens – then I also feel my esophagus hurt. And even the intestines can be felt and heard.
But other organs do not present themselves at all, unless something is seriously wrong. The liver and the spleen are examples of this. And the kidneys as well. They only present themselves to the eyes and nose and ears indirectly by the excretion they produce. Unless, as said, when something is seriously wrong. This is what happened to me recently when one of my kidneys produced a so called kidney stone, which is a crystalline formation that can descend in and sometimes block the ureter, causing a hell of a lot of pain. Now my kidney was not silent anymore, nor was I.
So, hence my sudden interest in this organ, and I started searching in my area’s of interest to see if the kidney can be found there as an object.
Physically of course, the kidney can be found in the body. Being one of the organs, there is a lot of knowledge to be found about the kidney in medical science. But since I am not a physician, my attention is directed more towards the realms of philosophy (including religion), art and mysticism. So I started searching. Where do the kidneys appear in these realms, and how?
It turns out that the kidneys are not a very popular subject at all. Yes, there is a world kidney day (WKD), every second Thursday in March, to raise awareness of the importance of kidneys and to reduce frequency and impact of kidney disease.
But there are for instance almost no jokes about kidneys. At least, not very good ones. There are so called Urologist jokes, but they are not to be repeated here because of profanities, or they are of a rather poor sort of humor (“when you have a kidney stone, urine trouble”).
In music, kidneys are not to be found either. They are not sung about, and no composer has ever dedicated his hearts feelings to this organ.
And kidneys are not subject of meaningful popular aphorism or sayings – at least, I couldn’t find them. So, where are they?
I will report about more results of my search later. For now, I can tell you that the kidney is mentioned in the bible quite a lot for different reasons and there is a connection with Michelangelo.
Have a fluid Sunday.
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