I don't know, but I think that this is how it is supposed to work

I do not enjoy getting labs done before visits to the doctor or visiting with my doctor at Salem Health. The guy who does my medications management and the women who work in that office are great, but I find dealing with even the most competent and friendly people at Salem Health stressful. Part of the problem for me is that Salem Health has either contracted with a security company or has directly hired security staff who I think take matters just a bit too far sometimes. Their jobs seem necessary these days, but their presence and how they handle incoming patients gives Salem Health the feeling of being more of a correctional facility and less of a healthcare facility. And as I consider the situation, it occurs to me that patients and staff are being set up by the system to be in opposition to one another. It's no wonder that my blood pressue is extremely high after I go through security, and no matter what blood pressure meds the doctor prescribes my numbers are going to be high so long as I feel as if I'm visiting a jail.

But today I over-reacted when the young Latine guy at the door did what he gets paid to do and gave the woman in front of me and me a hard time. I was just out of line in response to that. And it's the beginning of Lent. And I ask God every day in my prayers for repentence, reconciliation and the joys of God's salvation and to see Christ in others and to serve others and serve Christ. I wasn't just out of line when I went in, but when I left as well and had to get the Leatherman tool that I carry to be helpful to others back from the guard. What kind of hypocrite and sinner am I?

He's a young Latine guy trying to make a living and I'm a white retiree who looks and sounds like I'm part of the Trump demographic. We're in a tight hallway, there are other people in line, no one looks happy, and I just want to get in and get the lab work done and get out of there. I have plans to stop at a nearby greasy spoon and eat some down-home-bad-for-you food after all of this is done with. He is probably counting the minutes 'til quitting time. That wand that he's waving and the rent-a-cop vibe does nothing for me. My red neck and my attitude don't do anything for him. All of this is getting paid for by Salem Health, alleged to be a non-profit, taking my Medicare and insurance money, and probably bribes from Big Pharma as well, and then paying him less than a living wage and trying to convince me to take more meds than I need. We pay for insurance, not healthcare. He pays them with his uncompensated labor. 

Under better circumstances, then, that security guard and I would understand that we're both working-class people trying to get through our days and that both our lives would be so much better if we recognized that and acted in solidarity and love in encountering one another. But this was not a moment for that.

As I said, I went out of line with the guy with my attitude and with what I said and with my body language. 

I got through with the lab work, got my tool back, and headed for the car.

My soul just hurt. I don't like that hard and arrogant side of me. A few years back a friend called me out for it and questioned where it came from. I had no good response. He died a few days later without me being able to explain myself. It's a survival mechanism, but wouldn't I rather live and help others than be hard, survival-oriented, reactive and arrogant? 

I went to the greasy spoon and paid too much for a meal that would probably have tasted much better had I not had that ache in my soul.

I headed back to Salem Health and waited 'til the folks in line got into the office and I looked the guy in the eyes and apologized. I tried to explain where I was coming from, how I probably have some PTSD around be wanded, and how the system divides people and makes us opponents. That sounded to me as if I were making excuses so I took responsibility for what I did and asked if he and I were good, I asked his name, and I asked if he needed anything. We had a short and relatively human exchange given the circumstances. We both probably came off a little harder than we had to, but he forgave me. I didn't feel better when I left, but I felt as if he and I had done some of the hard work of being human beings living in an oppressive system during Lent.

The Lord can turn around a bad day, and does that for me most days. If the Lord can turn around a bad day, the Lord will also turn around a bad season or a misdirected life. Most Christians will tell you that if you pray to God then God will step in and work miracles for you. How many of my days begin with sadness and end with joy, and isn't that a taste of heaven right here and right now! Well and good, but what too few Christians will tell you is that we either have to climb over or take a 4340 steel blacksmith hammer to those racial, age, and gender barriers that are intentionally and systyemically constructed and that surmounting those barriers is also a great miracle. Maybe I didn't make it over the wall today, but I saw the potential for a miracle. Just seeing that possibility, being reminded of it, gave me a taste of heaven. I hope that it gave him that taste as well.  

I don't know, but I think that this is how it's supposed to work for some of us.    

       

Encouragement for our Muslim sisters and brothers (and others)

 

Where Our Dedication To Social Change Comes From

Stubborn beauty:

The need to investigate and understand the conditions that people live under and work with
every day without prejudice:

The understanding that we are called to freedom and that the tasks of liberation commit us to a long road and a message and work of salvation:

The knowledge that the solidarity of the oppressed, the poor, the working-class, and those who suffer under the present systems of oppression is faith in action and is necessary to all of us becoming our authentic and best selves. From solidarity, authenticity, transformation and repentance, and removing the systems of oppression enemies become cooperators and justice rules:

The knowledge that were fallible, that we need to study and work together, that we need to approach one another and the tasks of liberation with humility and purpose:

That we must speak honestly from our lived experiences and listen to others without interrupted or imposing ourselves and that whatever silences the oppressed is sinful. Compassion and solidarity are our ends and our means:

That if we believe in Christ's resurrection then we must believe in the resurrection of the oppressed and the triumph of a system of life (God's Kin-dom) over a system of death and the idolatry of putting profits and war over people and creation:  

Because we have a great cloud of witnesses urging us forward:

Because we are challenged to live better and more authentic lives and we can't do that by ourselves. We find ourselves in others and through others and we come to see the image of God in others through solidarity, humility, failures and the resolve to do better, taking action and winning, introspection and communal examination and worship, and starting over every day with what we have learned and alongside those who we are traveling with:

  

Special Sunday For United Methodist Church Faithful: Native American Ministries---And a good word from Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston of the Native American/Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church

But even if you don't attend a United Methodist Church you can support Native American communities with a commitment to social justice, humility and providing solidarity! We are all on the lands of indigenous peoples.

From the Native American/Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church:

"I feel my ancestors near me. I feel them standing close. I can hear their breathing. They are that present. And I know why they are here, even without asking. The ones who have gone before know what we are going through. They have walked this path of pain; they have made their share of sacrifice and courage. They have come to help us in our own time of struggle. They are here to add their strength to ours. So look up, whoever you are, look up and be hopeful. Your ancestors are reaching out to you, and perhaps without even knowing it: you have been reaching out to them."

---The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston

And...

"I live in the backyard of faith, the one I knew over seventy years ago. I am still there, among the fireflies and moths, running beneath the pale liquid of the moon, turning my memory to a watercolor, and my hope into a small dog who loved me. The warm air is wrapped around my skinny legs, the night sounds a symphony of crickets. I am still there, all these years later, in my heart and in my mind, innocent of what was to come, but already deep into what would last through it all. On warm summer evenings I still search for the source of the whisper I heard that night: the one that knew my name."

---The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston

And...

"If you listen very carefully, when the world around you seems silent, even if only for a moment, you can sometimes hear the sound of a single voice, singing softly. It is a mother singing to her child. Somewhere, far out there, on the other side of the world, a young woman has captured the whole meaning of life into one song, the one she is singing to the most precious thing in her life, the baby for whom she cares. Listen carefully with your heart, open you soul to hear it, even if only for an instant. For in that distant lullaby is the sum and center of all we hold sacred: the unconditional love of one human being for another."

---The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston

 

Blessed are they who...

 

An Assyrian Orthodox Priest Calls For Humility, Honesty, And Repentence In The Church

 

Humilty

Lord Jesus. Meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
— Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930)

Blessed are they...

 

Humility...

 

St. Mary of Egypt

 

Humility...

 

Pope Francis Reflects On Matthew 18:21-22 For Our Lenten Journey

Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” (Mt 18:21-22)

Jesus says that no prophet is accepted here because you have no need of one, you are too self-assured. The people whom Jesus had before him were so secure in their supposed “faith,” they were so secure in their observance of the commandments, that they had no need of any other form of salvation. This inner attitude reveals the tragedy of observing the commandments without faith: I am saved only because I go to synagogue every Sabbath, and because I seek to obey the commandments; and who is this to come and tell me that those who are marginalized, the leper and the widow, are better than I? Yet, take care because if you do not feel that you are on the margins, you will not be saved! This is humility, the path of humility: to feel so marginalized that one feels one’s need for the Lord’s salvation for it is he alone who saves and not our observance of the precepts.— Morning Meditation, 21 March 2017

Micah 6:8

 

Humility--Lenten Reflections

The following comes from the Catholic Near East Welfare Association Lenten Reflections and quotes Pope Francis:

Jesus spoke to the crowds and his disciples, saying, “Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Mt 23:10-12)

"God loves humility. God lifts up those who humble themselves; he lifts up those who serve. … Today, then, let us ask ourselves, each one of us in our heart: how am I doing with humility? Do I seek to be recognized by others, to affirm myself and to be praised, or do I think rather about serving? Do I know how to listen … or do I want only to speak and receive attention? Do I know how to take a step back, defuse quarrels and arguments, or do I always want to stand out? Let us think about these questions: how am I doing with humility?"