I find myself getting very hot under the collar over the healthcare reform debate in the US of A. What really gets to me is how misrepresented the Canadian and UK health systems are by those opposed to reform of the US system which includes a government sponsored element.

I have lived under both the UK and the US systems. In the US system I have had three different kinds of insurance and all have been at the higher level of coverage. Many of the comments I have heard show a lack of familiarity with the UK system. For example, there is a private healthcare system in the UK and you can buy into that just as you buy into the US system. In the UK doctors are contracted by the Health authority into the public system for as many hours as they chose and they can run a private system alongside that. If you are fortunate enough to be able to afford private care you can elect to do that in addition to what is provided under the National Health Service (NHS). UK healthcare is also free at the point of need. You are not required to make any payment at the time of treatment. Free, of course, is relative just like the lunch! Everyone pays a regular contribution to healthcare from their pay packets. Some additional charges for food, etc have been added in recent years. (The argument goes that if you were home you would be eating, etc anyway).

It’s a complicated and complex task to overhaul such a huge system. It takes real courage and commitment to those who cannot enter the system by the normal method (i.e. buy your way in!). There are clearly lots of interests that have a stake both in reform and the status quo.

What interests me is twofold. The first is the quite deliberate publication of mis-information, notable by senior senators and congress persons. They are, of course, politicians and so why would I not expect them to act as such! The answer is because I believe firmly in politics, by which I mean the way in which we live together and govern ourselves. What I am fearful of is party politics. I know only too well what happens to me when I find myself passionate about an issue and its outcome! What I see from party politics is what I most dislike in me. I want to rise about that and I want those who claim to govern on my behalf to do the same.

The issue of healthcare provision is far too important to leave to a party political debate because in the end the party politicians will win and those who need most to be aided by the society of which they are part simple slide further down the ladder.

I have noted watching and listening to so called “town hall debates” the fury and anger on the faces of many speakers from the floor. Many of them appear old enough to be Medicare recipients who will be least affected by the reforms. I sense that this misinformation around advanced directives is so violent just because that is the case. If you don’t review your advanced directive every 5 years with your doctor I believe that is irresponsible. If you don’t have an up to date directive and are kept alive in a vegetative state, or dispatched before your time, whose fault is that? Talk os euthanasia is party politicking.

What I sense is a great deal of fear around but I don’t understand where it comes from. I am aware that mush of our debating over such issues descends to fear when we can no longer engage in sensible debate.

Absence

To those of you who followed my blogs for a while - thank you. I hope they gave you some food for thought and perhaps expanded your thinking.

My memory failed me and I could not recall my user name - serious issue here - I tried all kinds of things. In a flash of inspiration I tried something else and bingo I am back again. Of course now I have to remember how it all works and then get my thoughts together.

I f you have been reading, thank you. I will be back soon.

My dog and prayer

I was reflecting recently on my 102 year old mother’s move to an assisted living facility. Until a short stay in hospital for a couple of months recently, she lived independently, though relying heavily on my sister, who lives nearby, for the last year or so. I was wondering what those now charged with her care might know of her earlier life. One of the things which popped into my mind was how, almost as early as I can remember, she taught me to pray.

That was prayer for a child, but it began a journey for me. I have tried a large number of different ways to pray, often called techniques. At different times, different ways were more or less satisfying - mostly less.

If you are content with how you pray and live within the paradigm of a God to whom you address yourself in thanksgiving or intercession, you probably shouldn’t read any further. I have no wish to turn anyone from what ‘works’ for them. . I do want to suggest that there are other ways to address the process we call prayer. A significant number of people have shared with me their discomfort with what they perceive is required of them in prayer.

The search for meaning, for a way to make sense of our lives, for a way to find a context in which, who we think, or feel, ourselves to be seems to be a universal search. Atheists and non-believers, if I read their writings aright, have a need for context too. I find it hard to imagine that anyone, other than those with significant psychological disturbance, can live without context and a belief system. We believe certain things about ourselves and our world and our relationship to that world, whether we set that in a religious context, or not.

I find myself no longer living with a paradigm of a God, distinct from the world, but who either chooses, or who can be persuaded by me, to take an active role in fulfilling my wants and needs. I don’t have a sense that that God might, if only I pray hard enough and long enough and with greater refining of my need, intervene on my behalf in some way. Nor can I pray to that God to alleviate hunger in the world, as if he were a heavenly farmer, or bring peace to the world, as if he were a super-negotiator, or cure my dog of his diabetes however much I might want that.

In fact my dog provides me with a good example of what I mean. Our West Highland White terrier is now 14 years old. He has been a wonderful dog and we have vested in him a great deal of affection. He is now diabetic, blind and hard of hearing. We dread the day when either he dies naturally, or we make the decision that, because he is in unnecessary and uncontrollable pain or distress, we should bring his life to a close. I cannot and would not pray for his recovery, no matter how painful his loss will be to us. I would like to think that there is a miracle out there, but I do not live as if there was.

I do pray about him and here is how it goes. In my times set aside for this activity, which could be called prayer, or reflection, or meditation, he will come to my mind. I will reflect on who he is and his present condition, the treatment we give to, or withhold from him. I will think about my wants for him and how they might intersect with his needs. I will recognize the responsibility we have undertaken for him. I will try to assess how my wants and his needs can be balanced – and I will remember that he is part of that holy thing we call creation. It is holy, because it is unique to us. He is holy because he is unique to us and a gift which we have received from that creation. From within this time of ‘prayer,’ I find myself renewed in my sense of responsibility for him and actively to give him the best care I can.

I apply that to ‘prayer’ for peace in our world. I do not expect what we call God to resolve that issue for me. Conflict comes from within me. I believe that there is evil, but I do not believe that it has existence outside sentient beings. Evil things happen and they have a human cause. (Consequent on this I do not believe in ‘the devil’ as an entity outside humanity. It is a metaphor for that evil within us which we really can’t, or won’t, own). So if I pray for peace, I know that it can only be achieved by my actions and those of others. If I want peace in the world I have to actively work for it in me, the communities to which I belong and the world of which I am a part. For me, that means working for that which precedes peace, justice. I do not believe that we can ever find peace until we have first created just dealing one with another.

The same would apply to other issues like hunger and sickness. If I am to ‘pray’ for those who are hungry, I must be active on their behalf, not just providing food, but working to end those practices, like unfair trading, which create the problem to begin with. I cannot pray for a God to feed them. These are issues of justice. For the sick, I may hold them in my heart and then visit with them, or provide support for them and those who take the responsibility for their care. I cannot pray for some miraculous cure, even though I may wish it.

I don’t know where I first heard or read a saying which goes something like, ‘Prayer changes me, not the things for which I pray.’

I have often reflected on the history of demons. It seems we can’t do without them. I suspect that it's because we need to find somewhere to place our more difficult feelings about our sense of our own ‘badness’. We mostly recognize that we are not perfect and we have to find somewhere to externalize those difficult feelings. If we are honest, we may find that some of the less positive feelings we have toward others are too difficult to manage internally.

As I look back on just the last century, we have had a whole series of demons that we have either created, or who have presented themselves to us for further enhancement.

Perhaps the most obvious demon from that period was Adolph Hitler. I wonder if, in him, all the worst feelings we have toward those different from us became focused and so safer for us. Safe, because by externalizing them into him, we did not have to recognize them in ourselves.

Perhaps that’s an extreme example for some, but there is a whole other long list. Currently the demon of South America is to be found in Venezuela. In the Middle East there is a fair choice from the faith of Islam to the leaders of Iran, to Hamas, to Al Qeida and, we can go back through the century to North Vietnam, North Korea, Russia, Cuba, China. You may have noticed that I have not mentioned names. I am sure you can do that for yourself. In how many of those places I have named have we found a really bad guy on whom to focus our fears, as well as that which we cannot resolve within us?

Why did this all surface for me again now?

It was that election we had recently in the USA. In the State of California a proposition on the ballot there outlawed gay marriage within the State. It came as a great surprise to me, as I had been led to believe that California was a ‘liberal’ State. How could this happen? I discovered that, in the analysis of the voting, the strong support of the black vote against the proposition is what made the difference. This is not any comment about one race being superior or inferior to another. It strikes me that here is a formerly, though some would say still, oppressed minority voting to oppress another.

It has been ever the case in history.

It seems we have a long way to go still in affirming the value of each other which is at the heart of the message of Jesus.

Resurrection?

Many years ago I read two books which described very similar events experienced by two different people. The first person was Brian Keenan and the second John McCarthy. Brian was a writer from Northern Ireland who was teaching at the American University in Beirut. John was a British journalist working in Lebanon for CNN. In April 1986 they were both kidnapped by extremists of Islamic Jihad and held captive until 1990 and 1991 respectively. They describe their experiences in separate books.

They were held under the most appalling circumstances and were regularly ill treated and tortured. For much of their captivity they were held in solitary confinement below ground often blindfolded in cells hardly bigger than their height and width. They were transported from place to place often strapped to the underside of vans and trucks. Both describe their experiences in terms of feeling buried alive and being entombed.

Brian currently teaches in Ireland and John is still a journalist.

I have wondered from time to time how I would deal with that kind of captivity. Assuming I survived the initial panic and fear of possible immanent death; that I did not go completely gaga from sensory deprivation; that I did not lose hope as the days dragged on into months and the months into years; would the scar tissue of such a time leave me in chronic pain for the remainder of my life?

Would anyone know, would anyone care, would anyone remember me? Would I have been worth remembering? Perhaps I don’t want to take the risk of finding out. Perhaps I would be more comfortable remaining hidden, slide back into my tomb and roll the stone - shut!

Thank God Jesus didn’t take the route to safety and death! Don’t get me wrong, he died but we claim that he is risen! How to explain that? Many folk understand these stories to be historical whilst others have difficulty with that and see them as metaphors pointing to truth. However you resolve that, the question is, What do the stories mean?

Jesus was born in a colony of the Roman Empire. He belonged to a class of people who were economically exploited, political oppressed, socially fragmented and ritually unclean within their faith. All conditions were maintain by the use of force and violence. Into this maelstrom came Jesus preaching a new kingdom, a new Empire. On what we call Palm Sunday, Jesus is portrayed riding into Jerusalem from the east on a donkey, while Pilate rode in from the west with a banner flying armored cohort of foot soldiers and cavalry. (After Dom Crossan in The Last Week). It was an acted parable by Jesus challenging the dominating power of Empire and the complicity of the religious establishment.

When we say in our recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, whatever translation we use, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven,” we are making a political, as well as a religious, statement. Jesus was making a statement about religious inclusion, political power sharing and economic equity. He had to go! The Jesus kingdom would mean the end of the Roman, Greek, Islamic, British, American Empires. Those worlds of domination would be at an end. He had to go! No human empire can tolerate political rebels. Execution was the punishment that fitted the crime. So it was, so it happened and by that very act control and dominance was restored. But no, the genie is out of the bottle! Or rather the prophet, the Son, the Savior, is out of the tomb.

For centuries, and you have been hearing it in the lectionary readings this year, the people of the Hebrews struggled for independence from one oppressor or another. Greeks, Romans, Persians, Assyrians, Egyptians ruled over them one after the other. Where was justice? When would their God punish the evil oppressors? One day! One day!

So Jesus was not plowing fallow land. There was an ever present hope of deliverance and the deliverer would be the incarnation of compassion and justice, which almost feel like strange bedfellows.

In one of the Eucharistic Prayers we say, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Notice not Christ has risen, as if it were some distant event in the past. Christ is risen. Jesus died as an historic event, Christ is risen as a present reality and will continue to be so, is what we are affirming. We say it as a present reality with future consequences.

But how? How is the Christ to be risen now? How is that justice and compassion to be seen in the Christ risen? In the Communion service we come to the altar to receive bread and wine. It is the bread of justice. It is the wine of compassion. We say, “You are what you eat.” If that is so, then YOU are the Christ. That’s how the Christ is risen! In the bread of justice in your life. In the wine of compassion in your living. You are the bread, you are the wine. Is that justice and compassion entombed in you, or will you let the stone be rolled away that your life may burst forth with the risen life of the Christ – become bread and wine –for the world.

Quote

A friend sent me this quote which appealed. I am afraid I don't know who the author is.

“When sinful, broken, hurting people are pleasantly surprised at how accepting we are and religious people are outraged at how accepting we are, there is a good chance that we are starting to live like Jesus.”
Bruxy Cavey

Brain Sex

I hesitated to add to the debate about sexual orientation. It didn’t last long. Two recent things lead me to express some feeling about it. The first is a recent personal experience and the second news of the invitations to the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops.

I need to go back a bit. It had never occurred to me that being homosexual was a ‘bad’ thing. I can recall that, even as a teen, I knew the difference between ‘hetro’ and ‘homo’ as well as between pedophilia and homosexuality. The school yard jokes were as ripe about that as the other sexual jokes of my teen years.

My theological training came through a religious community. During those years I experienced students and brethren developing and sustaining homosexual relationships. Although not part of my orientation, it seemed neither a ‘bad’ thing, nor an aberration. In a scientific sense it was ‘deviant’, but that had no moral overtones for me. It just meant that most folk I knew were 'hetro'! There was no moral judgment involved.

Later, as a priest involved in counseling in the UK, a number of opportunities came about to begin to understand the issues faced by men who were beginning to be able to explore more openly their orientation as homosexual men. It was very new to me this close up to their struggles. I do not remember who first suggested I read a particular book to help in my education, but I will ever be thankful to them.

The book was Brain Sex by Anne Moir Ph.D., and David Jessel. Anne was a PhD in genetics. Both had worked for the BBC. The book is still available at Amazon. I checked!

The purpose of the book was to explore what was then known in science about the development of sexual orientation as a function of the brain. The issue is complex and does not allow of brief treatment in a blog. It is a complex process involving chromosomal genetic inheritance and hormones or androgens, the main one being testosterone. One of the most interesting discoveries is that the embryo is genetically of female structure until the radical intervention of male testosterone brings about a male pattern. This is literally a mind altering process.

So any talk about homosexuality being “a lifestyle choice” is simply nonsense. It is as much nonsense as me ‘choosing’ to be heterosexual. I recognize that some folk do have issues about the physical expression of homosexual passion. I also recognize that, where so called “family values” are at their most tenuous, the clamor gets ever louder. Any lifestyle that needs defending at the expense of another is not worth defending in the first place.

I have recently been involved with a community in which prejudice against a person of homosexual orientation led to being locked out of a building. It was probably the most outrageous behavior I have come across in many years. In the process of trying to help those folk understand the issues, I was challenged with an appeal to Scriptural condemnation. In response I regurgitated research I had done some years ago demonstrating that in fact Scripture has nothing whatever to say on the subject, unless you chose deliberately to translate some passages using sexually loaded, but inaccurate, translation. (Anyone who wants to read that just needs to leave me a message with an e-mail address. All communications come to me before being published, so I can protect your privacy if you wish).

The second issue that got me riled up was reading today that Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, was not to receive a “full invitation” to attend the Lambeth Conference of all Anglican Bishops. The reason that he is not to receive such an invitation is that he is an openly gay man in a long term relationship. Some other Bishops have indicated that if he were to receive such an invitation they would absent themselves.

The behavior of the Archbishop and the dissenting Bishops is as outrageous as that of the community I refer to above. Such prejudice is unacceptable in a community that claims to be following the teachings of Jesus.