“Thoughts on Health Care and Dialog”
A woman speaks out at a Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania rally in Philadelphia. In short the rally was held to voice opposition against some passage of legislation that would drawback or eliminate funding to vital programs and services that people with disabilities need to make their lives less difficult than it already is.
The thing is I happen to agree with the DRN on the issues they were talking about at this rally, but looking at this picture a few things come to mind:
1. It is vital that we as a group of people adopt a way of thinking that moves beyond our own self interests and our own ideas of fairness and start to move towards an attitude of generosity, duty, and empathy for each other. If you have been watching or attending any of the horrible “town hall” meetings regarding our current health care system, we have very good cause to feel discouraged and mortified at the tone of these so called dialogs. It’s not so much dialogs as horribly misguided and unproductive shouting matches.
Which brings me to the second thought this photo made me think about.
2. We all know (some of us more than others) what it’s like to feel we are not being heard and the deep instinctive urge to shout and lash out and demand attention. We live in a society and world where certain types of disabilities carry a greater weight of consequence than other disabilities. Clearly, the woman shouting into the megaphone and the woman behind her (both of whom are wheelchair bound) have a disability that is a great deal more acute than say, my horrible vision (without my glasses I can’t see anything more than 6 inches from me but with them I have perfect vision). Yet, the only reason society considers me much less “disabled” than these women is simply because technological advances in vision are currently far more superior than those of spine or nerve technology.
I say all this to express a few more things.
Firstly, I wish we lived in a society where we don’t feel the need to shout at each other to feel like we are being listened to. I wish we respected each other enough to sit calmly and express our views with clear and honest facts and actually open our minds to be altered when we hear an idea that is better than our own.
Secondly, we need to remember that not being troubled by certain disadvantages, be it medical, economical, spiritual, racial, political or what have you shouldn’t cause us to feel less obligated to truly listen and try to understand the views and situations of those who are and vice versa.
God knows all of this is extremely difficult to do. At times I am no less close minded than some of the crazy people having these shouting matches over health care these days. Nonetheless, it is imperative that we all dig deeper into those very good and difficult places inside ourselves and extend a hand of hospitality, generosity, graces and honesty during these important discussions. Until we work towards those loftier goals, our conversations and debates will always only be noise and nothing more.
Lastly, as a person of faith it is hard for me not to weigh in on the topic of health care in this country. The reason I mention my faith as a Christian is because it is my belief that the issue of health care for all citizens of our country should not only be a policy decision, but also a moral one. Faith aside, it ought to be a bit of an embarrassment to all of us, that we, arguably one of the most prosperous nations in the world, continues to live with a health care system that fails to provide for millions of it’s citizens. How we go about providing care for all of our citizens I am trusting people who are far smarter than me to help figure out, but I am of the mind that such a system is needed.
And as Christians we profess a deep desire to show love, kindness, generosity, mercy, grace at all costs—even if that cost is our very own comfort and well being. Lord knows this is one of the most difficult things any of us has to carry out (I certainly do not relish the idea of being uncomfortable). Yet, we who profess to follow Christ need to rise up to the calling and start to deeply consider the implications of asking the question, raised by a man names Shane Claiborne (the founder of the Philadelphia based ngo, The Simple Way), “what would our world look like if we read the Bible and what Jesus said and actually believe he meant what he said?”
I’m not saying anything new or revelatory. I’m simply reminding us that we need to be better to and for each other.
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