Roads, Schools, and Health Care

The presidential election campaign for 2012 appears to be in full swing despite the election being almost a year and a half away. Health care looks to be one of the issues.

Just over six years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. Because I’ve been blessed with good health insurance, regular checkups are paid for, and the cancer was caught early. My treatment was a simple operation to remove the cancerous tissue, but I did not have to undergo radiation. I thank God that I have had a blessed six years with no recurring cancer.

This is not a plea for a particular political party’s health proposal. I only wish, after my experience, that all had the medical blessings that I do. I think of Jesus, who healed all who came to him in faith. He was touched by physical suffering, as his followers have been ever since. Healing was a gift given to some of the early followers. Medieval monastery hospices ministered to the sick. Many of today’s modern hospitals were begun by Christian groups.

Reasonable health care also might be seen as an investment. We make investments in roads and bridges and other infrastructure that we all use, regardless of how much we pay in taxes, because we know our economy functions better with such infrastructure. We invest in our schools and educational systems for the same reason. Public education is open to all Americans no matter how much their families pay in taxes because we believe an educated population is necessary for an effective and productive democracy.

Our country will better function if our citizens enjoy good health. Access to prevention-based health care leads to less illness, less expense, and less stress on families. Done correctly, it is an investment.

 

Finding Community on a Bus

Finding Community on a Bus

I read a news article a while back about a popular bus route in the city of Seattle. Passengers, the article said, enjoy the mix of nationalities and languages and the diversity of those riding with them on that particular bus.

We encourage the use of mass transit, of getting people out of their cars, by appeals to environmentalism and the greater good. How would the appeal of community play?

The car is the ultimate expression of our individuality. In the process, we’ve lost much of our togetherness. As home foreclosures, job layoffs, and a generally depressed economy cut into our resources to buy the latest automobile, perhaps the local bus may become a symbol of finding community again.

 

Texting and Sharing

“I’d rather leave text messages. It’s quicker than talking to someone on the phone,” the young woman told me. Text messages are appropriate in certain situations. They’re like the old family bulletin board, a way to offer fast updates on location and plans.

In addition, social media like Facebook allow a quick way to keep up with friends. They also can act as instant idea exchanges.

The problem with these communication tools is their misuse. Compare today’s social media explosion with the beginning of the television age. Television allowed in-home entertainment. Some said when TV first appeared that it might bring families closer together as they watched programs in the family living room. It brought educational material to young children. It created instant news and the twenty-four hour news cycle.

On the other hand, television when overused encourages obesity and the couch potato syndrome. Used as a baby sitter, it may bring unsuitable material to children and replace valuable interaction between the child and adults. Politics risks being ruled by the slick sound byte rather than the thoughtful weighing of opinions.

Social media becomes harmful if it completely replaces face-to-face interaction. It’s like watching the movie rather than reading the book. A movie can be powerful but seldom can it bring all the nuances, ideas, and character development of a book. I doubt that sharing one’s thoughts with a friend in the same physical space can be replicated, even with the marvels of Skype.

 

Science and Will

Science is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.

Science gave us antibiotics. We use them to vanquish horrible diseases and save lives. We overuse them and create superbugs.

Scientific advances gave us the automobile, which allows us undreamed of independence. It also leads to increased isolation of the elderly, the young, the handicapped, and the poor, who have less access to automobiles.

Science deals with physical processes. What we do with those physical processes and the decisions we make that lead to good or evil are determined by our morality, by our faith in what we cannot always prove.

Some would say that education and reason are the tools for deciding what is right. But none of us has perfect knowledge. At some point along the continuum, we have to jump off into faith.

And even the best of us react first in our own interest if what we value is threatened. All of us act unreasonably at times as far as the common good is concerned.

We often know what we should do. What we lack is the will to do it. Some process other than the material has to transform our will and give us the ability not just to know right, but to do it.

Love more than any other force I know has the power to transform the will to act for the good of all, not just for ourselves.

 

The Tolling Bell

The latest headlines tell of yet another weather-related tragedy. Over a hundred people were killed by a tornado in Joplin, Missouri. We feel sorrow for the affected individuals and families, as we felt for the victims of tornadoes in Alabama and other states a few weeks ago.

When those earlier storms missed the people of Joplin, surely no one would have blamed them for experiencing relief, but now this second wave of fierce tornadoes has hit their city.

At the moment, I’m sitting in my “safe” home in the Pacific Northwest. So far this year, our main complaint is the cold, rainy spring. But I know disaster could strike here, too. In a moment or two, nature could unleash tragedy: earthquake, tsunami, or perhaps a volcanic eruption.

What’s the message for us when we read of tragedy in another part of the country or the world? The message is that those people are us. Because one day it will be us, if not in some natural catastrophe, then a personal one. No one who lives an average life escapes “storms.”

We help victims with prayers, money, and  other resources as we are able and as appropriate. More than this, we understand our own vulnerability and are inspired to live our short span of life as unselfishly as possible.

The poet and priest, John Donne, wrote:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

 

Them and Us

President Obama gave a major speech on U.S. foreign policy this past week. He chose the U.S. State Department as the location for the address, because the State Department is headquarters for our country’s relationships with foreign countries. Our diplomats (Foreign Service officers) carry out our policies in well-known places like Baghdad, London, and Tokyo. They also serve the United States in cities and towns like Peshawar, Skopje, Ulan Bator, Djibouti, and Bridgetown.

Several protagonists in my stories work as Foreign Service officers. I have learned to introduce their jobs slowly, because few Americans, I have found, have any idea what diplomats do.

In my own fourteen-year stint as a Foreign Service officer, mostly in the Middle East, I issued passports to U.S. citizens living there, documented their children as American citizens, and interviewed foreigners who wanted to visit, study, work, or immigrate to the United States to determine their eligibility.

When an American citizen in my district died, usually in an accident but sometimes as a victim of a terrorist attack, I notified the family in the States and documented the death. If appropriate, we arranged for sending the body back to the U.S.

I visited American children living with a foreign parent from whom the absent American parent (usually the mother) was divorced. I reported on the child’s well being and development to the absent parent. We worked to secure visitation rights for the American parent to that child.

I visited U.S. citizens detained in foreign prisons, then updated the families in the States on their condition and passed messages back and forth.

Other colleagues carried out different functions: political, economic, administrative, development, commercial, agricultural, and related tasks to advance U.S. interests.

Even with our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans appear to have little interest in other cultures and our dealings with them. Unfortunately, such ignorance may lead to tragedies like September 11, 2001.

 

When the Olive Tree Fails

What are black swans? No, not the movie and not the waterbird. The term “black swan” is the current buzzword for those catastrophes that occur once in a lifetime, or once in a hundred years, or once in a thousand years or maybe even for the first time ever.

Black swans cannot be predicted in any definite sense. They can be natural like the earthquake in Japan or the recent Southeast tornadoes or the Mississippi floods. They can be economic like the Great Recession that began in 2008. They can include violent solar storms on the sun which may interfere with electric grids on the earth.

After a black swan event, the lives of those affected may change drastically. Such a catastrophe can change whole countries, as the earthquake did in Japan.

Some believe that efforts to avoid the natural rhythm of ups and downs make the inevitable event more catastrophic than it would have been. Flooding from the Mississippi River is supposed to occur fairly regularly, these people say. To attempt to prevent all flooding on the great river only assures that eventually a massive flood will sweep away even the flood controls.

The attempt to prevent all forest fires only means that a huge conflagration eventually will destroy a larger area than would many smaller fires.

Attempting to prevent all business collapses only leads to larger business collapses in the future, so the thinking goes.

I don’t have the expertise to judge these ideas, but I do wonder if we have come to believe that nothing bad is ever supposed to happen. We are never supposed to suffer, never supposed to be depressed, never supposed to be denied our wishes. We have difficulty accepting conditions like unhappiness, old age, death.

To accept that we are finite and vulnerable surely is a mark of wisdom. Spending our resources to fight winnable battles is worthwhile. To think we can conquer all misfortune with material wealth, however, is absurd. Better to invest in our spiritual lives and in our relationships with our families, friends, and communities. These will be of value when the next black swan visits.

 

Life and Death and Grace

I recently was hospitalized for knee surgery. It is almost always successful. As a writer, however, I am gifted or cursed with an imagination.

Suppose they damage my brain with too much anesthesia? Suppose I’m cut off from oxygen too long? Suppose they slip while cutting whatever they have to do to fix the knee? And so on.

The hardest is the point of no return. The anesthesiologist has politely explained exactly what will happen. He appears to be competent, but what do I know? I tell my husband goodbye. They wheel me down the hall. I remind myself that friends and loved ones are praying for me. I try to develop one of the characters in my latest novel in progress to keep my mind off what I have chosen to do. Then I fall off the cliff.

The next minute, as it seems to me, I’m waking up. They are cheerily asking me questions. I appear to be alive and in my right mind. My leg is still there, swathed in bandages.

Later, wheeled to my room, greeted by my husband, who tells me everything went splendidly, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I thank God that I have access to competent physicians and to health insurance that means the access is affordable.

I am grateful for God’s gift of life. Yet, I ponder, as one is wont to do when confronted by unmerited grace, on both death and life, how one is more certain than the other, when we consider our life spans.

One day the operation won’t be successful or one night I shall go to bed and not wake up or I will be in an accident or my health will finally decline into death. When my time comes, I do not want extraordinary measures. In other words, while I rejoice today in my “new” life, I also know that death will be the final result of having been born.

Yes, as a Christian, I believe I shall live eternally but confrontation with my mortality in this life still sobers. God has given me a gift, a gift to be used, not squandered or buried in fear. Used as the good servants did in the parable of the talents, in risk and joy. The time is short.

 

The Cult of Death

Osama bin Laden’s obituary was featured in The Economist this past week. The article mentioned bin Laden’s famous dictum outlining the fundamental difference between his followers and Americans. Americans love life but his followers love death, he said. Apparently he believed this love of death would defeat those who love life.

Are those who love death stronger than those who love life? The signature act of death worshipers is the suicide bomber. Is this activist a type of courageous martyr, who also makes unwilling martyrs of those innocents he or she kills?

Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist, survived a Nazi concentration camp. Like the victim of a suicide bomber, he suffered because of a fanatic’s belief that his life was not of value. Frankl learned much from his concentration camp suffering, but he wrote in his classic Man’s Search For Meaning: “But let me make it perfectly clear that in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning … To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”

Jesus did not wish to suffer on the cross. He did so because of love, because he wanted others to live. To die so that others may enjoy better lives, it seems to me, is the only reason to choose death. To love not only our life but the life of our neighbor is the beginning of the strength that defeats evil.

 

The Right to Persuade Versus Intolerance

The doorbell rings. Two women want to discuss a religion you are not interested in. You tell them no thanks and shut the door.

You notice that you have lost weight on your new diet. You plan to tell your slightly overweight friend about the diet. She might like to try it, too.

You open the mail. A letter from your bank outlines a service you do not want. You toss it in the trash.

You read an article about two schools of thought concerning a new treatment for skin cancer. It will require more testing and rigorous debate as to which has the best cure rate, least side effects, and so on.

You read another article about Bhutan, an Asian nation in the eastern Himalaya mountains, predominantly Buddhist. Bhutan’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but conversion is unlawful. Buddhism is, for many, a part of their country’s culture. Bhutan’s Christians have sought clarification. Bhutan’s Prime Minister Jigmi Yoser Thinley states his opposition to religious conversion: “It’s the worst form of intolerance. And it divides families and societies.”

When do we have the right to attempt the persuasion of someone to a set of convictions that are meaningful to us? And to what degree should we persuade? Or should we ever persuade?

Is it intolerant to believe, as in one of the above examples, that one cancer treatment may be better than another and to lobby for that practice?

Attempts to persuade range from political and religious arguments to medical debates and ads for commercial products. Some are hardly life altering, but some are. Some can be proved by the scientific method, and some can’t.

Our Constitution gives this country’s citizens the right to freedom of speech and of religion. A few use these freedoms in ways that we abhor, but diverse views are a necessary part of growth and advancement. Cultures become static if debate and change are forbidden. Political ads may annoy us but few of us would choose to live in Syria or other countries where opposing views that question the regime are not allowed. Persuasion becomes intolerance when the persuader fails to respect another’s opinions or the person’s right to choose or to be left alone if they wish.

Of course, opening a culture to possible change is risky. Could Christianity threaten our American way of life—discouraging rampant consumerism, for example—if genuinely practiced?

 

Mourning Osama Bin Ladin

I mourn Osama Bin Ladin. Not his death but his life. He wanted to purify the religion, we are told, of his native Saudi Arabia. He thought ideas brought into his country by Western nations were corrupting it. What an awful path he took in his attempt to carry out what in itself could have led to serious discussion and change within his country.

He could have chosen persuasion and a vocation as a peaceful spiritual leader, something like Gandhi. He could have reasoned and debated to bring changes. He could have kept open his own life to spiritual growth and change and listened to others with different opinions.

Instead, like too many people who desire change, he thought he had the right to kill people to bring about those changes. He wasn’t able to understand the rights of others to choose or to understand that no man, however close to God he thinks he may be, is God.

Perhaps humility is the first choice of those who would change others.

 

Feminism—Islamic Style

Isobel Coleman, in an article in the Foreign Service Journal, writes about Islamic feminists. In countries like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, these women attempt to show that a reasoned approach to their religion, Islam, can open up possibilities for women and girls in conservative Muslim-majority countries.
http://www.afsa.org/FSJ/0411/index.html#/28/

Sometimes these women shy away from the term “feminist” because of the cultural Western baggage such a label carries. Whereas Western feminists generally have ignored religion, Islamic feminists tend to use their religion. They bring to their religious leaders passages in Islam’s Quran and suggest new interpretations. They see their religious inheritance as an ally.

One wonders how different the “cultural wars” in our society would have been if those who have sought change (often needed change) in the past few decades had begun with our religious inheritance instead of discarding it.

They might have dwelt on Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (NRSV) For starters.

 

Not Your Grandmother’s Church


The Seattle Times recently posted an article in their weekly magazine, Pacific Northwest, titled “Artistic & Religious.” The article highlighted groups where “creative Christians are taking down the walls between faith and art.” Some gather in coffee houses and pubs, others in private houses.

We hear predictions that Christianity will be dead within a generation. Groups such as these in Seattle and other places indicate that Christians are finding new ways to express their faith, not dying away. This pattern has persisted since the first gentile Christian churches grew out of gatherings of Jewish Christian believers.

Christians are, as Jesus said, in the world but not of it. In other words, we are exiles, refugees of a sort (a theme of this blog). The constant task for our communities is to engage with the changing world, not stagnate within yesterday’s structures.

We all know that a world of Facebook and twitter requires us to incorporate new technology. Even more, we must relate to an America in which the fastest growing religious preference is “no preference.” By contrast, Christianity grows rapidly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Christianity is indeed a world religion, as it has never been before. We must learn the vocabulary of today’s world, of both America and the countries beyond our borders.

Meditation on a Saturday before Easter

Theologians may debate the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice. For me, love is the only force that overcomes evil. Jesus’ willingness to die for us is the love that defeats evil. Love is the action that evil cannot answer.

In the sacrifice of himself, God throws out the challenge for evil’s ultimate defeat.

As we live out that love and compassion, we strike back as part of God’s army against evil.

Recharge

The geography and times in which I live can leave me tongue-tied in the expression of my faith. As readers of this blog know, I live in the Pacific Northwest. Its coffee house milieu is a setting for militant relativism. Speaking within it requires one to learn a new vocabulary. In addition, several friends carry remnants of a childhood religion that bordered on the abusive. Religious phrases that are meaningful to me remind them of intolerance and hurt.

The need to reset my spiritual compass is one reason I attend writers’ conferences that cater to Christian writers. This week I attended such a conference. As in similar professional gatherings, I networked with other writers, agents, and editors and attended seminars on writing. However, this one, set among California redwoods, recharged my batteries and connected me with my center.

On Palm Sunday morning the compass discovered its lost direction. As we sang about love and redemption, I wept as the divine touched me and restraints loosed for a season.

The Danger of Daydreams

Be careful what you dream about, what you wish for.

Once I had a good job as a computer programmer with a large company. The company reimbursed its employees for courses taken toward a college degree. What an opportunity, I thought, to advance my career. The career bored me, but perhaps advancement toward a higher position would vanquish the boredom.

Probably the company had in mind that those studying for degrees would earn them in computer science or business. I dutifully checked out computer and business courses in a local university catalog. Then I made a mistake.

What would I study if I studied what I really wanted to? It seemed innocent enough, thumbing through that catalog. I stopped at the section on geography and examined the courses—maps, other countries and cultures, and the ways different peoples on the globe interact. Before I knew it, temptation sucked me in.

When school began, I enrolled to earn a master’s degree in geography.

“Why are you studying that? What are you going to do with it?” people asked me.

“I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I just like it.”

After the school awarded me my degree, I flipped through a newspaper one day. A career columnist wrote about something called the U. S Foreign Service. The Foreign Service, I learned, was the name of the diplomatic corps of the State Department, the diplomats who serve in embassies and consulates all over the world.

A long shot. But, hey, I can dream, can’t I? So I applied, filled out reams of forms, took the exams, and met other requirements. (The State Department now has a website, making the process easier)

Somehow, (God was in it, I believe) I ended up as a consular officer in the U.S. Foreign Service, serving in places I’d only dreamed of visiting. And changing jobs and countries before I got bored. And continuing to learn in language courses and country studies. And witnessing some momentous events in history. I went to areas of the world I had prepared for without knowing it by studying those areas in my geography classes.

That dreaming’ll get you in trouble. Your heart may take over.

 

Creation of a Villain

Not long ago I entered the “Clash of the Titles,” a contest which matches passages from recent novels to determine the best fictional devices. Events have ranged from the best romantic scene to the best hook to pull readers into the novel. My particular contest called for the best “character description of an antagonist.”

I quoted a passage about Antun, the antagonist from my novel Singing in Babylon. In explaining how Antun developed in the story, I said he wasn’t anyone I actually knew but someone I would both fear and loathe.

Yet, as Antun’s character grows in the story, we learn that his brother was mistreated and killed a few years before. Antun lived to exact revenge. Like many “villains,” he had suffered a wrong. What made Antun a villain and not a hero is that he chose to react to the wrong by committing more wrongs.

As Jesus indicated in the Sermon on the Mount, to treat someone well who treats you well is no great feat.To overcome hurt, even to love the one who does ill to you is the badge of only a few and exemplifies what Jesus both taught and lived out.

 

Christianity’s Success: A Problem?

C.S. Lewis mentioned in his autobiography, Surprised By Joy, how his early life at a “vile” boarding school prepared him for real life. It taught him, he said, to live by hope. At school, hope of the holidays sustained him. During holidays, however, the knowledge that even the best of vacations must end, prepared him for not accepting present situations, even favorable ones, at face value.

Dark times can include seeds of victory and success may hint of struggles to come.

When Christianity at first was rejected by religious leaders and persecuted by secular ones, it grew mightily. When finally it found success and even power as it joined with worldly governments, it suffered from schisms and disharmony. Then Muslims conquered much of the lands that had spawned Christianity. Turks overthrew the last of the Byzantine Empire, and a reduced Christianity was left to the backwaters of a primitive Europe.

Christian leaders developed, and the new printing press spread their ideas. Christianity prospered, increasing the faith of many and bringing deeper understanding. Then adherents of various religious movements tied it to political alliances. Their actions contributed to a lessening of Christian influence and to the rationalism of the eighteenth century in the Western world.

Christianity revived in the nineteenth century and became even more influential, leading directly or indirectly to the abolishment of slavery, the improvement of women’s status, and various programs to alleviate the sufferings of the poor.

It was popular to be a Christian, and Christianity was carried to vast reaches of the world as Europe and America, the “West,” became dominant.

Now we are inheritors of that time and are surprised to find that Christianity has lost its primary position in the West. In truth, Christianity is always carried out by a remnant living within the world. When the influence of that remnant is great, Christian principles weave into our laws and our ways of life. Success, however, brings the temptation to ally with Caesar and Mammon— power and wealth. That alliance may injure us. We must again earn the right to be taken seriously.

 

Easter Under the Radar

I regularly check lists of writers’ conferences. One, I noticed recently, takes place on Easter weekend. Apparently Easter is no longer relevant to many Americans, just another weekend.

Then I remembered when I lived in Muslim-majority countries. Easter passed pretty much unobserved there, too. During my first Easter in such a country, a broadcast from an Easter service in another part of the world inspired me before I left for the day’s work (the weekends there were Thursday and Friday, not Saturday and Sunday). I felt kinship with the early Christians.

The pastor of my childhood church used to say he should wish Merry Christmas as well as Happy Easter to the congregation. So many on Easter, he said, only came on that Sunday, so he would not see them for a full year.

When Easter was a more or less national celebration, the day was coopted by the Easter bunny and chocolate eggs and spring fashions. Perhaps it is well that we have fewer “cultural” Christians on Easter now and that our present society limits the celebration of that wondrous event to those who actually ponder its meaning.

 

Logic and Feeding Multitudes

We can’t even predict the weather accurately beyond a few days. The logical world we know as manageable by our current knowledge—math, physics, and so on—represents only a tiny part of the universe, according to something called chaos theory.

But chaos, so I understand, is not really chaos. It’s part of an order we don’t yet understand, like how to predict the weather.

That’s the way I look at Jesus’ teachings. They sometimes seem against our known wisdom. Giving up to have. Serving instead of accumulating. Putting our trust in what we cannot see rather than in this world’s material objects.

I see Jesus’ miracles in a new way, like the feeding of the five thousand. The disciples studied the crowd and wondered how they were going to feed the people, far from homes and fast food restaurants.

Jesus asked them what they should do.

They answered within the context of the world they knew. The money they had wouldn’t buy what they needed, even if they could find something to buy. They had the lunch a small boy had offered, but how ridiculous to think that could do anything.

Jesus had something else in mind. No one went away hungry.

Surely God knows of powers and systems, of universes and infinities for which we have no inkling.