Faithful Philly Forum

This just in. Penn School of Nursing has found that nearly half (41%) of those in nursing or social work positions (presumably that is medical social workers) would NOT choose their profession should they have it to do over because they are experiencing feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, fatigued and a sense of powerlessness. This is being called “Moral distress”. They see the unfairness in the medical system in the distribution of resources (among other ethical andmoral issues.) There was a prayer request  at Church on Sunday for a young woman who has a painful cyst on her ovaries but who has no health insurance.  She is living on painkillers until she works enough days to qualify for coverage so she can schedule surgery. When it comes to health care there is much moral distress! How can this country of riches have 9.4 children without health insurance, especially when 90% of those live in working families. Marian Wright Edelman, founder and director of the Children’s Defense Fund, speaking at Penn this week on the occasion of the Martin Luther King celebrations said, “I had no idea how hard it would be to get this country to do what is right and moral for our chidren.” Moral distress indeed! We could use some shifts in its moral priorities.

It is now official that FOX and CBS will use sex to sell anything and will promote sexual content in shows (”In 2005, 70 percent of all television shows and 77 percent of prime-time shows contained sexual content.” according to Planned Parenthood.)  But, refuses to allow a condom commercial if the focus is on pregnancy prevention! Seems they will only allow such advertisments if it stresses health issues!

Now given the number of Viagra ads this is a most curious double standard. So the message of morality is men can and should be sexually potent and using pornography on tv is acceptable for primetime viewing but our “morality” won’t allow us to educate or promote anything to prevent pregnancy? This is wild! 

I just saw Sicko and found it funny and sad, provocative and enraging! It is a strong case for national health care. Just like we have a safety net for senior citizens with social security (unless Bush has his way and dismantles it) and a “socialized” free public library system, police force, fire protection, etc this would provide the safety net that other western countries already have in place. The highly successful programs in England, Canada, France are all documented in this film. So now President Bush has announced that he will veto a bipartisan US Senate plan to expand the health care coverage for children! Any thinking person would ask what has he got against the children? Sick ones at that? Why?         

Because according to his spokesperson, he suspects that people may drop their (read: expensive) coverage and “go on the government-subsidized program.” (NYTimes 7/15) In other words, this is an admission that they know people are desperate for health care, low cost health care. And since, we know that the cultural mandate of the elite is to give away nothing free, (unless it is to large corporations!), then he is against more money for the children!

   “And when you do it to the least of these my children, you have done it to me.”

West Philadelphia careens out of control this week with the violent behavior of some students wanting attention or wanting to express disrespect or rage at the organization. Yet, I sit here on an Ivy League campus and can’t find anyone who knows if anyone is teaching our college students conflict mediation and negotiation skills. (I think I might have found one professor. I am following up on that.) And when I ask “Who in the city is teaching children about how to address bullying and teaching peacemaking skills?” I can’t find anyone who knows of a curriculum or a program! I have located an incredible principal, Dr. Bob Lewis, who has taken one of the worst middle schools in the city, Shoemaker, and turned it around in one year. (It was highlighted by the Inquirer on Monday.) It would appear however that he has done it with his personality, enforcement of rules, support of good teachers, consistent discipline, and lots of praise. So I guess the next question is “Is anyone teaching other principals to do this?” And are there denominations or churches who are teaching peacemaking to the children? And, if not, why not??!!

Bev

This week we very quickly mobilized about 50 people on Penn’s campus to say “No” to additional troops in Iraq. We took our photo on the lawn by the mock tombstones and then went to eat our lunch. It is now on the website and we feel we have done our part by joining 1000 other groups who did the same thing. But what about the gun violence in our own streets? I think gathering for a photo is hardly going to address the problem of gangs, reduce the impact of the drug culture on crime, or save the babies who are simply in the way of the bullets of the assault weapons! I think that the former is a way we tell our congress to do what we want. But in the matter of violence, no one can really do that for us. It is our city. These are our streets how shall we take them back? How can we make this city safe for everyone? Where do we start? Or is the issue that we simply do something and it doesn’t matter what? Last sunday in worship we prayed a lot about those whose lives have been touched by violence. But what good is praying if we don’t do something to back it up ourselves? And just what would that be? The churches in the poorer neighborhoods are busy holding the hands of those who are suffering. They are the first line of defense in their caring for the victims’ families. What about the rest of us? We clearly are not doing our part because it shows no sign of stopping? Where would Jesus be? What to do? What to do?

Edited and submitted by permission of the author pastor Adan Mairena by Beverly Dale 

Yesterday we met for Bible Study - a grand number of 5. As you know I’m starting a church for the Presbytery, and if you know about starting churches the beginning is the toughest. We read Luke 1 up through Mary’s Magnificat. It was actually a funny time. One woman said “What’s up with this angel just running around telling people they’re going to have babies.” 

Another woman said, “Wow, Zachariah the priest didn’t believe and Mary did.” 

We laughed and shared other good news (one woman’s cancer is not progressing, a neighborhood girl doing well in college). Then we talked about when we spontaneously sing out in praise when something wonderful happens to us. 

One woman said, “I don’t have a job but I have my health, I don’t have money but I have family.” 

On the way home I was notified that one of the neighbors of a Bible Study participant -”Rosali” was shot last night. (The names are changed.) Next thing I know I’m in this family’s living room. It’s about 10pm and the mother is giving us the blow by blow. Her 17 year old daughter, Dolores, stepped off the train in Kensington. Someone walked up and shot her boyfriend in the head. His knees buckled and he collapsed. He’s dead. Dolores was shot. A bullet went through one cheek and came out the other. Miraculously it didn’t go through her tongue although it took out lots of teeth. 

She ran and dialed 911 then called home. He brother said he could barely understand her. A cop put her in the back of the car and drove her to the hospital. She’s in ICU and has surgery today. Her mother is happy she’s alive but now worries that Dolores will never look the same, won’t be able to talk for a while because her mouth will be wired, she’ll be eating out of a straw and hosed (it will go up her nose and down through the back of her nose.) Dolores’ mother is upset that the police comes around and is trying to force Dolores to talk and find out who shot her boyfriend. “She ran. She didn’t stop and look who shot him…wouldn’t you do the same?” She says she tells the cop. He answers, “I’ll be back.” The father is distant. The other daughter, around 14 is on the couch and their younger son is on the floor playing Madden football on the Sony Play Station. 

After saying that I’m here for her and to call me for whatever I ask if we could pray. She looks at me like saying “What? Pray? I don’t think so.” Others walk through the front door. I sense that maybe I overstepped my boundaries by asking if we could pray. I look at her and say, “Right now there’s a lot going on here, I’ll keep you and your family in prayer.” She gives me an appreciative look. As we are departing, she looks at me in a different way like saying, “Yes, let’s pray.” Rosali, says “Can we pray?” We hold hands and pray. Rosali, Dolores’ mother, her brother Jorge, her younger sister and me. We were in the living room and it was decorated and ready for Christmas. On the way out she says, “Christmas ain’t gonna be the same this year.” Maybe that’s what Advent is…waiting for people to stop getting shot like animals. 

I’m driving Rosali home and I ask “Is it always this way?” “Yes, my ex-boyfriend’s sister got shot because she was with the wrong person a couple of years ago…they were after him….luckily her baby lived, she was six months pregnant. She died.” 

My Advent day yesterday was about laughter and light immediately followed by tragedy and darkness. 

En Cristo, Adan Mairena 

“There is that of God in everyone.”  I heard this often during my sojourn living and working with Friends.  My own Quaker daughter said it best, I thought, when she said “At any time, with any person, you may be looking into the face of God – listening to God speak.”  What a different reality it would be if we paid attention to that idea; if we looked for that of God in the other.  It might prevent us from freezing people into categories of otherness, separating them from us.  It might prevent what I consider a growing and terrifying divide among and within religions…simply stopping for a moment to see  divinity within the other.  Maybe we wouldn’t drop bombs on people then; or blow each other up in such a variety of ways, knowing that we are once again killing God.  Each day we are offered a chance to see the light of divinity, the real presence of God among us … each day in our dealings with one another, in our actions, our choices, our policies.  Each day we create a world in which God is vibrantly present.  Or we choose to let Her die - again.

And the killing gets easier.  The most absurd thing I have witnessed in public policy recently is a refusal to limit the number of handguns that one can purchase per year in Pennsylvania.  Why do handguns even exist?  Why do we need any, let alone more than 12 per person per year?  We know where the guns end up. Killing children.  Killing those moments of divinity. Every day we create a world with or without the beauty of God present.

Some days it is best not to read the newspaper. How shall we be faithful in the context of a Congress who has voted that Habeas Corpus does not apply to some people? When we read of the Canadian citizen who was removed from LaGuardia, interrogated, assumed guilty by the US and sent to Jordan and Syria where he was subsequently tortured? When a lecturer at Penn tells us that 80% of the world’s infectious diseases comes from unsafe water and that the UN is not going to make its 2015 goal to reduce by 50% the number of people who don’t have access to safe water. Even a Penn professor in criminology is saying we need to be talking about the morality of the death penalty! Then a seriously disturbed father of three goes to a school and murders three little girls before commits suicide and we reel about trying to get our heads around that! Let’s not forget the fox in the chicken house who was supposed to be protecting exploited children who was himself  apparently sending illicit pornographic communication to young boys! And this just in, Condi did indeed get briefed by Tenet about an imminent attack and she dismissed it. And this is just the news today! How shall we be faithful today?? I think it might be best to say “One day at a time.” BD