Power, Politics and Healing

They sent some Pharisees and followers of Herod to bait him, hoping to catch him saying something incriminating. They came up and said, "Teacher, we know you have integrity, that you are indifferent to public opinion, don't pander to your students, and teach the way of God accurately. Tell us: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

He knew it was a trick question, and said, "Why are you playing these games with me? Bring me a coin and let me look at it." They handed him one.

   "This engraving—who does it look like? And whose name is on it?"

   "Caesar," they said.

 Jesus said, "Give Caesar what is his, and give God what is his."

   Their mouths hung open, speechless.

                                                                           Mark 12: 13-17 (The Message)

God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful: wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.  

All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.

                                       1 Corinthians 12: 4-11 (The Message)

In a recent reports from Bahrain, physicians and nurses are being jailed for treating protesters in that country who have been participants in the “Arab Spring” protests - CNN Report and AMA request.  

The responses are arguments for “medical neutrality” of physicians and nurses in responding to any injured persons in times of violence.   Others have made the case for a social contract between medicine and society.*  It would appear that both of these arguments  have failed in Bahrain.

I have previously argued that the “telos” of healing agents does not include sponsoring state agendas even when the goals are laudable (December 24, 2010).   It seems even more obvious that the “telos” of Christian healing agents does not include torture and the denial of  care to the injured even if they have opposed the state’s agenda.  What should we do?

This brings me to modern Christian voices that opposed the state. The most instructive for me is  the writing of Alan Paton in his novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, and the challenge to the church in responding to apartheid in South Africa.  The book addresses the issue of racial violence in the struggle for justice.   The good news, despite the acquiescence of the church, is that God was at work to change an underlying evil.  I particularly love the last scene in the movie version of that book when in the face of death, Fundisi (James Earl Jones) goes to the beautiful mountains of South Africa to pray.  

As healing agents we need to look to the example of Jesus for models of response to the demands of the state.  Like Fundisi, we need to pray to the God of Abraham for relief to those who suffer for their practice of acts of healing and believe that God will be at work. 

Marvin

*Moreno, JD (2003) In the Wake of Terror: Medicine and Morality, MIT Press.

 Cruess SR. Professionalism and medicine's social contract with society.  Clinical Orthopaedics & Related Research.  449:170-6, 2006 Aug.

Minds, Bodies, Machines and Souls

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.  

                                                                                     Genesis 2:7 KJV

da Vinci’s Last Supper

In the course of their meal, having taken and blessed the bread, he broke it and gave it to them. Then he said, Take, this is my body.  Mark 14:22 The Message

Western thought has struggled to integrate our minds and bodies.  Leonardo da Vinci became the personification of this integration as inventor and artist.  Now, we have come to a new depth of integration of machines, bodies and our minds.  The recent PBS Newshour looked at bionic research and we are confronted with some amazing responses to disability and limb loss - Bionic Bodies

How can we understand the implications of what we make and how it alters who we are?  Two recent and different responses give some important answers.

Ann Patchett in her recent novel, State of Wonder,  explores unintended consequences of fertility research in the Amazon.  It is a complicated story that tells a cautious tale of acting on our abilities to make new compounds.  

Allen Verhey in his recent book, Nature and Altering It, addresses the underlying assumptions about who we are in relationship to the the science and technology that have changed our worlds.   He uncovers the mythos that surround the ethos of our scientific endeavors.

The question then is not so much whether we make new tools and use them, it is more about the unintended results and how we become the “machines” that we make.  There are many examples and some with names like “da Vinci".

My summary is that our science and technology are not what is at stake, but our souls.  What we make and our bodies are not who we are.  So now, the task is too find ways of asking more hard questions about a world that we are creating and the bodies that we are altering.  

Marvin

Our Healing

How beautiful on the mountains 

   are the feet of the messenger bringing good news,

Breaking the news that all's well, 

   proclaiming good times, announcing salvation, 

   telling Zion, "Your God reigns!"    

Isaiah 52:7 The Message

He came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. 

Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written, 

   God's Spirit is on me; 

      he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, 

   Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, 

   To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, "This is God's year to act!"

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. 

Every eye in the place was on him, intent. 

Then he started in, 

"You've just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place."

 All who were there, watching and listening, were surprised at how well he spoke. But they also said, "Isn't this Joseph's son, the one we've known since he was a youngster?"

He answered, "I suppose you're going to quote the proverb, 'Doctor, go heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in Capernaum.

                                                                   Luke 4:16-27 The Message

Most of the time our worlds get categorized into dichotomies...doctor/patient, teacher/student, nurse/patient, clergy/laity, us/them, etc.  These categories often carry with them a delusion of immunity and power.  The biblical story is that we are not immune and do not have the power.   Our healing is not distinct from those we serve.

We are vulnerable and sometimes we need to be at two different places at once...”providing care” and being “cared for”.   We know that sometimes we don’t have places to be “cared for” or we don’t  make use of the ones that are available.

One place to be “equipped” - to be a part of the suffering world - is the church.  It is a place where we can hear the “larger” stories of faith.  For Christians, the church has not only been a refuge but a community that believes that it has other responses to a suffering world.  The components can be prayer, meditation, singing, study and maybe even potluck suppers.   That is the wisdom for us as we read the visions of Isaiah and Jesus reading Isaiah in the “meeting place”.

There are many styles of response by churches*.  For some churches, “our healing” is part of its missional goal.   They focus on “equipping”  healing agents and sending them into a world of suffering.  This reality is named  “salvation” and for others “redeemed”, but what ever the word it is the basis of “Our Healing”. 


Marvin

*Dunlap, S. J. (2009). Caring Cultures: How Congregations Respond to the Sick. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press.

Healing, HeLa and Heaven

"And that's not all. You will have complete and free access to God's kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven.”  Matthew 16:19 (The Message)

Rebecca Skloot, the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks provides us with a long and wonderful story of healing that confronts the technology of cellular biology and the immortal  “HeLa” cell line.   This story identifies some surprising heros....an invisible patient, her family, a daughter who becomes a mother to the author and a researcher.

What I learned is that relationships and art are key ingredients to healing.  Chistoph Lengauer’s beautiful photo of the HeLa cells that previously have only been sources of pain; becomes a wonderful focus of communication and respect.   For scientists the art of the science maybe the best way to communicate when words and jargon only confuse and frustrate.  But art at its best must find meaning in the relationships with the communicants.  

By the art of storytelling, Rebecca Skloot, digs deep into the fractured relationships with a pilgrim’s persistence.   What is critical is that she is part of the healing story without diminishing the integrity of the others.   She becomes loved and through that love is able to hear and learn some remarkable truths.  

We are left with many unanswered questions at the end of this book.  I think the complicated questions of property and product will best be addressed by using the lessons previously learned.   We will need guidance and wisdom that may come from the patients and the community we serve; not just the voices of those who are the experts.

So what about the “heaven” part?...maybe that reality is when “the good” persists or as the title suggests is “immortal”.   We certainly know that when “the bad” persists it is “hell”.   So we can rejoice in the title, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” as a “the good” that persists, a little bit of heaven here on earth.   Thanks for the life of Henrietta Lacks and the good that persists in her ongoing contribution to healing.

Marvin


For more information:   http://www.RebeccaSkloot.com

Good Courage and Healing

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.

(King James Version)

Be brave. Be strong. Don't give up.
Expect God to get here soon.

Psalm 31:24(The Message)

In a recent book,  The Heart and the Fist: The education of a Humanitarian, the making of a Navy SEAL,  Eric Greitens connects two virtues, courage and compassion.  He states, “Without courage compassion falters, and that without compassion, courage has no direction”.  The most impressive part of the book is how he lives his beliefs through the work of his organization, “The Mission Continues”.  He writes about his time in Rwanda and reflects on a machete wound scar of a young girl states, "the world requires of us-of every one of us-that we be both good and strong in order to love and protect.”

Another recent book Love Wins:  A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Rob Bell argues that there is another understanding of evil and that God’s love and specifically Christ’s love wins when confronting evil and suffering.   He also describes being in Rwanda (p. 70) with its visual artifacts of evil and is able to state, “God has been looking for partners ...(who) centered their hopes in God...the God who gives new spirits and new hearts and new futures.“

What I think both views come to is the reality of healing!   Both would agree that “good does overcome evil” but the source and process to the healing is seemingly different.  Eric sees it in discipline and dedication of the men and women he has met and studied.  Rob Bell sees it as gift from God that once accepted allows us a new vision of the world.

I give thanks for the healing agents, Rob Bell and Eric Greitens, who remind us of the importance of courage and love both as virtues and verbs!  God is at work in the lives and leadership of these men.  Thanks be to God!

Marvin

Faithful Minds

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

          Romans 12:2(NIV)

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.

          Luke 10:27(NIV) 

About a year ago, I read the book, Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality, by Barbara Bradley Hagerty.  What seems undeniable is that there are important neurologic markers of religious experience whatever your faith perspective.  What seems to be difficult is how this biology relates to the larger realities of our lives of faith.  More specifically, the studies look at individuals and not what happens between individuals.

Recently, I have had some challenging medical experiences.  What seems real to me is that the care and illness seems resonant with the larger stories of our Christian faith.   An “Easter Baby” is not resurrection, but it is a wonderful celebration of life in a world of death and suffering. 

This idea of spiritual resonance is not a new idea*.  It means that we see a new meaning in the facts of the care.  This is the narrative reality that we seek...how the facts fit together not just for the healing agent but how it can be understood by those who suffer.   It means that we need to be able to connect to those larger stories.   It means that we need to renew our minds and see that new reality.   It means that loving our neighbor is connecting with their stories as well as the larger redemptive story of faith, hope and love.

*A wonderful essay from Azusa Pacific University, “Love as Resonant Communication”, expands this theme of resonance.  Check it out. 

http://www.christianleadershipalliance.org/?resonantcom

Marvin

The Mystery of Healing

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)

Bernini's The Ecstasy St. Teresa^*

In this season of Lent, we are confronted with the reality of death and the promise of healing.  How do we understand those realities?   Sometimes the answers are found in some unusual locations. 

In his epic novel, Cutting for Stone,  Abraham Verghese uses the vision of St. Teresa of Avila as a metaphor for the life and death of the Sister Mary Joseph Praise.  The story of maternal deaths is one that has occupied a large part of my professional life.   There are few harder questions than the causes and prevention of maternal death.  For me, the answer is summarized in the Latin phrase, “Mortui vivos docent” – “Let the dead teach the living”.   My focus has been on prevention and causes; but as Dr. Verghese implies there are important spiritual dimensions.  

St. Teresa of Avila’s impact is primarily related to her mystical visions and spiritual ecstasy.  We see this in the statue of Bernini that combines the apparent opposites of “piercing” with healing.  This is certainly a metaphor for the art of surgical healing; but what about death and healing?   Can we somehow see healing and death in the same story and statue?  Dr. Verghese makes that case in his novel!

I have previously seen this tragedy primarily from the perspective of the death of a mother and not as the reality of the orphans.   When in Africa, orphanages are a reality of lost generations of parents that have occupied the attention of religious organizations and NGOs.   The good news of  Dr. Verghese’s novel is the witness of foster parents.    So maybe the ecstasy that we can experience is found in that difficult but profound act of being a “parent”.   I think that is a lesson for the living!

“True religion is care for the widows and orphans”

“With God everything is possible”

*http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/~chelsea/pages/stTeresaVision.htm