Health-care crisis
January 31, 2006
Today may be a rare teaching moment about the health-care crisis, I say with my usual unwarranted optimism. The medical mess is expected to be the focus of the President’s State of the Union address tonight, and the well-written article on the subject in this week’s Economist should help us parse the President’s words of remedy, be they desperate measures or mere band-aids.
America’s health-care crisis | Desperate measures | Economist.com
America’s health system is a monster. It is by far the world’s most expensive: the United States spent $1.9 trillion on health in 2004, or 16% of GDP, almost twice as much as the OECD average (see charts 1 and 2). Health care in America is not nearly as rooted in the private sector as people assume (one way or another, more than half the bill ends up being paid by the state). But it is the only rich country where a large chunk of health care is paid for by tax-subsidised employer-based insurance.
If the President calls strongly for reform of medicare, we may be justified in finding some hope in his words. On the other hand, if he talks mainly in terms of tax twiddling, we may rest assured that he is content to pass the problem on to future administrations and future generations of taxpayers. I’m afraid that my innate optimism is not quite strong enough to create much hope for the former.
At great risk of oversimplifying, I assert that until you and I are willing to enter into, or perhaps be shoved into, drastically different relationships with our doctors and dentists and clinics and hospitals - ones characterized by improved trust and communication between patient and provider, and divested of the economic distortions and disincentives invented by belt-way do-gooders, we can confidently expect much more of the same.
I’m afraid that I have no idea how this might come about, but you already knew that, didn’t you?
Dave, whose optimism seems to be waning.
Galatians 6:11-18
January 29, 2006
Final Instructions and Benediction
6:11 See what big letters I make as I write to you with my own hand!
6:12 Those who want to make a good showing in external matters are trying to force you to be circumcised. They do so only to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. 6:13 For those who are circumcised do not obey the law themselves, but they want you to be circumcised so that they can boast about your flesh. 6:14 But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 6:15 For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that matters is a new creation! 6:16 And all who will behave in accordance with this rule, peace and mercy be on them, and on the Israel of God.
6:17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.
6:18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.
In today’s passage, Paul wraps up his letter to the Christians in Galatia. He apparently had been dictating his letter to an amanuensis, and now he is ready to add a few words to the manuscript in his own hand. He quickly summarizes his teaching about Gentile Christians being told they must be circumcised: “Forget it!”
And in case anyone thinks that Paul hasn’t earned the right to teach them the Gospel, he reminds them that he has suffered to bring them his words of correction. His closing benediction: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters.” -sdg-
Anti-religious hysteria
January 28, 2006
The sub-title for this interesting essay is “It is the Anglo-American cultural elites’ insecurity about their own values that encourages their frenzied attacks on religion.”
spiked-essays | Essay | The curious rise of anti-religious hysteria
The intense and venomous attacks on the Disney-produced Narnia film are truly puzzling. The novelist Phillip Pullman has described CS Lewis’ original book as ‘one of the most ugly, poisonous things I have ever read’. With the zeal of a veteran cultural crusader Polly Toynbee of the UK Guardian cut straight to the chase: ‘Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion.’
Another snippet:
The sense of desperation with which some opportunist politicians are searching for moral values indicates what they really hate about the Narnia film: that Aslan is not on their side. Aslan possesses a superabundance of faith - something that the cultural and liberal elite conspicuously lack.
I think author Frank Furedi is on to something. Perhaps the greatest value of this essay, written by a secular humanist, is to help Christians stand tall in the face of attack. Read it.
Dave, appreciating fresh insight into the cultural wars.
Cod liver oil
January 27, 2006
I’m listening to public radio, and they are talking about the old motherly fetish of dosing kids with cod liver oil. How well I remember seeing Mom head for me with my daily tablespoon of cod liver oil, saying, “It’s g-o-o-d for you!” To five-year-olds Moms are by definition omniscient, so I gaped and swallowed with little grumbling. I don’t remember when she stopped that practice, but it probably was when I started school and started listening to my buddies.
Strangely enough, I didn’t find the oily after-taste very objectionable. I remember that I also rather liked mineral oil, a common, since discredited, dosage for a common childhood indisposition. My psychiatrist, if I had one, might find deep meaning in those acquired tastes, but I’m not going there.
Back to the radio report. It seems that tests now show that regularly ingested fish oil benefits cardiovascular health, and, who knows? my daily lubrication may have added to my allotted days, which may or may not turn out to be a blessing.
All of which leads my meandering thoughts to my own adult fetish: aerobic exercise. A cardiologist once told me that my body has been responding to my daily huffing and puffing by busily constructing “mini-bypasses” of my heart arteries. This frees me from having the usual symptoms of cardiac artery disease (a Good Thing), but when I finally have, as they so delicately put it, “my cardio-event,” it will likely be a dandy (which sounds like a Not-So-Good Thing).
I think it’s time to switch to Mozart, streaming my way via WCPE.org.
Dave, having a hard time directing his thoughts this cold morning.
Emergent church
January 26, 2006
I’ve been trying to get a handle on what characterizes the emergent church. It has been getting a lot of attention lately, or perhaps I have just recently discovered it.
Kruse Kronicle: The emergent church
I think an overarching theme in all the Emergent circles is that institution/structure in most of the Church have gone wrong. Institutional growth and preservation are driving mission rather than mission driving the institution. Some stay within the existing sturctures and work for reform. Others set up independent congregations with varying degrees of cooperation/hostility towards the broader church and others maintain that any thing beyond an informal network of disciples journeying together is a false imposition on the church.
I suspect that that is exactly what is going on, or at least it resonates with my experience in one PC(USA) congregation over the last thirty-eight years. It has become clear to me that the disconnect between local congregations and the higher governing bodies shows few signs of healing.
Healing may come from some unexpected quarters, like the New Wineskins Initiative, or God may just surprise us.
Or from “emerging churches.”
Dave, waiting and praying.
The hole in society
January 25, 2006
I have been reading The Future Does Not Compute, by Stephen L. Talbott, which is about the role of the computer in our lives. Written about ten years ago, his ideas still sound pretty fresh. Here is a quote from a chapter teasingly entitled, “Can We Transcend Computation.” Talking about what computation is not, the author says,
We can hardly expect the principle that “balances” logic and computation to be itself reducible to logic and computation. But all that, unfortunately, is itself a highly abstract statement. Let me substitute a metaphor: what I have attempted in this book is to outline the hole I find in society and myself, about which I can say, “That’s where meaning must lie. My meaningless gives shape to a void. By entering with a proper sensitivity into meaninglessness, I can begin to sense the dark hollow it enfolds. And in the darkness there begin to flicker the first, faint colors of meaning.”
Talbott sounds much like the tenth century B.C. preacher who wrote the biblical “Ecclesiastes.” After looking for what fills the void described above, the preacher despairs; “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher. All is vanity.” He finally decides that the only answer to his search for fulfilment is to,
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.
It’s interesting how life’s most pressing questions never change. This one was being asked by the ancient Jews thousands of years ago. The answer hasn’t changed, either.
Dave, sounding a tad preachy this morning.
Still better than the treadmill
January 25, 2006
Why is it that walking a measly mile on the treadmill takes forever but a couple of miles outdoors go by in a flash? Yesterday afternoon, I looked out the window and saw white fluffy clouds against a dark blue sky. “Self,” I said, “let’s go out and soak up some of that delightful sunshine.”
I quickly discovered that the 48-degree delightful sunshine was moving by at 30-40 miles per hour. The clouds were torn bits of cumulus being chased across the sky by a relentless WNW wind, and the St. Peter’s School flag was stiff as a board, trying to tear loose from a leaning flag pole. The last of the brown leaves from the pin oaks were raining down, racing in circles across the street and sidewalk. I hung on to my cap and leaned against the gale, wondering if any of the old Madison Park trees were getting ready to launch a limb my way.
It was great!
The wind roaring through the treetops also cleared some mental cobwebs away and gave me hope that spring is on the way. “It’s great to be alive,” I thought, and a split second later I lost my cap to a particularly viscious gust. “Don’t get too cocky,” another inner voice responded, “a blizzard is on the way.”
Well, I don’t know about that, but Inner Voice may have a point.
Dave, taken down a notch but happy, anyway.
Iran: Deja Vu All Over Again
January 24, 2006
I suspect that what is shaping up as a nuclear showdown with Iran is making a lot of people besides myself pretty darn nervous. The politically conservative Guardian WatchBlog has this to say:
Once again, we must deal with a defiant Middle Eastern dictatorship that everyone agrees is working on weapons of mass destruction, has declared us an enemy, oppresses its own people, supports terrorism and uses oil to prevent being called to account for any of it. Once again, the United Nations is talking tough, and every nation stands behind us — as long as we take no direct action. If we decide to do more than write stern letters and make speeches, you can bet that some of those who supposedly back us now will once again back away. And you can bet that it will be some of the same countries that do so. In the words of Yogi Berra, “It’s deja vu all over again.”
I hope those who have been bitterly critical of the U.S.’s intervention in Iraq will be able to constructively contribute to a solution to this quandary. I have noticed nothing from the liberal political wing to date, and the church has certainly not been making sense on the issue. Maybe this will be the time that the blogosphere will effect the balance of power in the country’s opinion-making.
Dave, listening, listening.
Not a Bad Time to Take Stock
January 23, 2006
As a conservative, I usually like to read Peggy Noonan. After observing the struggles the Democrats are having in getting their political act together, she offers some needed advice to The Republicans.
Republicans in Washington struggle with scandal and speak of reform, and reformation. They would better think of words like regain, refresh, rebuild. If they don’t, if Republicans don’t choose to lead well, and seriously, and with principle, they should ask themselves: Who will? Seriously: Who will?
How can anyone not be disillusioned, even sickened, by the grandstanding of many of our congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle? The Alito hearings were a case in point. I hope we are not seeing the first signs of the disintegration of our political system. If we are, I hope our grandchildren are made of sterner stuff than we are.
Dave, still hopeful in spite of the evidence.
Galatians 6:6-10
January 22, 2006
6:6 Now the one who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with the one who teaches it. 6:7 Do not be deceived. God will not be made a fool. For a person will reap what he sows, 6:8 because the person who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 6:9 So we must not grow weary in doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not give up. 6:10 So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the family of faith.
I’m not sure whether Paul is talking to the Bible teacher or the student. Perhaps both. As a sometime Bible teacher, I have often wondered if I was sowing good seed. As I have grown (I hope) in my understanding of the Bible, my identification of the themes of Scripture has also changed. On the eschatological axis I have shifted from nearer the pre-millenial end toward the post-millenial. Likewise, I started out in sympathy with Arminium thinking and ended up Calvinist. I take some comfort in the fact that neither are salvation issues, so perhaps the heretical content in my expositions has been minimal. I hope so.
I haven’t grown weary of the study and teaching of Scripture, and my love for the family of faith has not waned. For this I am grateful. Whether I am doing good or not I leave in God’s hands. -sdg-
