Public Health Crisis

Missing in much of the public debate in America about the health care system is the alarming lack of public health professionals. In a report by the American Schools of Public Health in 2008, 23% of the public health workforce (around 110,000 professionals) are due to retire before the end of 2012. This decrease in these necessary but below-the-radar people results in Health Department closures and restriction of needed services for those persons at risk and in need. What is our country doing about this and why has it taken so long to identify this need? Just yesterday, the Obama Administration announced approximately $50 million in funding for 37 training programs and the CDC to promote Public Health as a viable career option to health professionals. This will not be an immediate fix, but it does go a long way to stem the tide of ever falling numbers of people who's job it is to look out after our communal health. Now, it should not be that these folks are the only ones to look after the health needs of the community. However, they are the folks with the training and education to help mobilize the communal resources in effective and efficient ways to achieve better health for all. This week, find a public health professional and say thank you! In spite of the Republican rhetoric to the contrary, raise this new initiative up and say thank you to the Obama Admininstration for funding these programs. Finally, look to your local Public Health Department and ask how you might help out. I've joined our local Medical Reserve Corps, you might do the same, or offer your expertise as a volunteer in another meaningful way. Communal health is everyone's responsibility - don't shirk yours anymore. Peace for the journey, Dan

Relational Poverty

I was struck this morning by a phrase from an interview in the August 22nd Christian Century magazine. The interviewee is a young Mennonite pastor who was reflecting on what it means to be a Mennonite. His answer reflected on how difficult it is to be in community nowadays and specifically how "...I find it helpful to remember that our church has been called to share God's love in a mission context of significant material prosperity and relational poverty...." He hit it right on the head, didn't he?! We in America, and really in the developed world, live very affluent and individualistic lives. We're seduced by the corporate marketing machine to buy whatever we want (whether we need it or not) and to pursue our own salvation while ignoring the "other" or simply writing a check to salve our guilty souls. The relational poverty piece is hitting home again right now as I deal with adult behaviors (of just a small number of adults) that wish to follow their own theology rather than the teaching and polity of The United Methodist Church. They are working through subterfuge and inuendo to try and alter the current operating philosophy which is holding them accoutable for less than optimal Christian behavior. They are so impoverished in their ability to relate to the larger community of faith (both our church and the larger UMC) that they are finding themselves on an island with a growing chasm of separation. They want to return to the way things have always been - even though the leadership and congregation have moved on from this worldview. I honestly don't know if they will continue to attend - and I'm struggling with my own frustration with them and the desire to just see them leave which will end this issue. Relational poverty is exhibited in just that frustration. We're called to love enemy and neighbor as self. The inability to relate well to those challenging situations comes directly from my still evolving spiritual self that has not been completely transformed. When I haven't taken care of my own spiritual self, and have let myself become weary (physically and spiritually) then I can not deal with the other in a loving way. This week, seek to recharge your spiritual battery and bank account so that you can engage in matters like this from a place of spiritual affluence. It will make all the difference. Peace for the journey, Dan

Real Gratitude

I was reading "Naked Spirituality" by Brian D. McLaren this morning as part of my daily devotional. From it came a new Hebrew word "dayenu". Dayenu is used in a special song of thanksgiving and gratitude during the Passover Seder meal. The song has 15 stanzas and details 15 special gifts from G-d to the Hebrew people. Dayenu means "that would have been enough". Thus, when the Jews remember the release from captivity from Egypt they sing, "Dayenu! (that would have been enough)". However, G-d continued to bless G-d's people and after each gift/miracle the people remember it by singing "Dayenu!". It struck me how little we think about the daily gifts of such a gracious and loving G-d. It also struck me about the bounty of the gifts that G-d bestows each and every day. I found myself saying, G-d has given me all the days up until now...Dayenu!. G-d has given me a loving and faithful wife...Dayenu! G-d has gifted me with skills to be a pharmacist...Dayenu! It creates in me a feeling of real gratitude that is different from feeling good about all the blessings in my life. By acknowledging that each gift in and of itself would have been enough of a blessing for the whole of my life, I acknowledge that I am truly blessed beyond my ability to comprehend - and certainly beyond any ability on my part to have earned. That's the great part of grace...I do nothing to earn the gifts that G-d bestows. It is a truly humbling experience to have discovered dayenu. This week, I invite you to explore the concept of dayenu - that would have been enough - in your own life and the lives of those around you. I suspect that the same feeling of being overwhelmed and really grateful will surround you, as it has me. At least, I pray that this will be true for you. Peace for the journey, Dan

Mission Critical

It's interesting and enlightening to spend time with High Schoolers who are not your own. I'm on mission this week with said teens from my church. I find that time spent with these developing people makes me understand my own teens a bit better and also to have some great hope for our future. From a health standpoint, as I look at these kids, they are all in pretty good shape, they are interested in helping others (we're in far western Maryland) who are much less fortunate than they are, and they are able and willing to leave technology behind for a week to do this event. I find myself wondering why we can't do this with more kids more often - and whether this is the key to our survival as a species? Children are exposed constantly to inputs that are secular and humanistic; it is the way of the world. It's multi-tasking and faster answers to inane questions. It's all about new and better and costlier and have's versus have nots. Yet, at times like mission trips, the better sides of themselves which are unplugged from the chatter come out. What a blessing it is! They can talk and interact and do all the things that we wonder if they've lost. All the bemoaning of a "lost generation" is overblown, at least as I look at the young people in my church. The problem, not all of the young people that are on the rolls at my church come to mission or to Youth Group. How to increase engagement and participation? How to make it more interesting than the noise of the world? How to show the world what is happening and how it can happen? The mission is critical in saving our young people. Mission work and caring for others does in fact change the world. Thanks be to G-d! Peace for the journey, Dan

Compassionate Courage

My family and I had to say good-bye to our beloved yellow Labrador Max on Monday. Max was 8 years old and had developed lymphoma. Over the course of the last 4 months he had started with terrible diarrhea that we treated conservatively, hoping that it was inflammatory bowel disease and not cancer. The end came swiftly when he stopped eating on Friday. We took him to the Vet and after a few hours of evaluation, the news came that he was terminal and did we wish to treat or to euthanize? He was so weak and was suffering, so we decided the latter. All were there to say final good-byes and to love him into the next phase of his life. It struck me once again, given my 20+ years in human intensive care practice, how much more humane our approach to death is in animals than in our fellow humans. Granted, lymphoma in dogs is not curable and my knowledge of the downsides of chemotherapy limits my desire to use those chemicals, but we have the ability to end suffering in a very loving way. In my experience of thousands of human deaths, it is rare to see decision makers be able to make the some kind of compassionately courageous decision that we did for our beloved pet. To be clear, I'm not an advocate for physician-assisted suicide or human euthanasia, however, the whole decision making process around end-of-life needs to be re-evaluated in light of the reality that death is a part of life. Of all the humans that have ever lived, none of them was immortal - something to remember. I'm helping my children (16 and almost 19) work through their grief and their questions around euthanasia. I'm attempting to aid them as they come to grips with the moral and ethical issues surrounding ending the life of a living creature. My sons have been raised in the church and understand the sanctity of life...my younger son asked if we had killed Max. It's a great question and one that led into a moral and ethical discussion of what happened and our intent to ease suffering in the face of certain death rather than a desire to kill. I wish that those discussions could happen in the same way for humans with their healthcare professionals. Too often I have witnessed a lack of courage when it comes to discussions of death from both patients/families and healthcare decision makers. Hospice and Palliative Care show us the way. In future blog posts I will explore this vital service and hopefully dispel some mythology surrounding it. If you haven't done an Advanced Directive or similar instrument; if you haven't discussed what you'd like at the end of your life, now's the time to do those things. We only have today - no guarantees of tomorrow. Peace for the journey, Dan