Fragment -- #161

[December 2000 journal entry]

I have come to think in terms of a spectrum with ‘beautiful’ on one side of the spectrum’s middle threshold and ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ on the other side of the spectrum’s middle threshold. Four perspectives on life experiences can be distinguished, two on each side of the threshold. At the far end of the ‘beautiful’ side of the spectrum is the perspective that ‘beautiful’ life experiences are all that is real, with attention to or consideration of ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ life experiences totally eclipsed/avoided. Nearer the threshold on the ‘beautiful’ side of the spectrum is the perspective that ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ life experiences are seen/considered through ‘beautiful’ life experiences, with ‘beautiful’ life experiences being more primary/defining. At the far end of the ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ side of the spectrum is the perspective that ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ life experiences are all that is real, with attention to or consideration of ‘beautiful’ life experiences totally eclipsed/disregarded. Nearer the threshold on the ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ side of the spectrum is the perspective that ‘beautiful’ life experiences are seen through ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ life experiences, with ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ life experiences being more primary/defining. Perspectives on the ‘beautiful side of the threshold encompass all variations of ‘from above’ perspectives. Perspectives on the ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ side of the threshold encompass all variations of ‘from below’ perspectives. I think perspectives at/near either end of the spectrum miss or undervalue substantial life experiences. I think most ‘religious’ individuals and most societal spheres (including but not limited to the ‘religious’ sphere) cluster – in thought if not in experience – around/near the ‘beautiful’ end of the spectrum, with exceptions being nearer the threshold. I strive to live and see from a perspective near the threshold on the ‘ugly’/‘tragic’ side of the spectrum.

Fragment -- #160

[December 2000 journal entry]

From the beginning of my simultaneous educational and existential reconstruction in the early 1970s until the present, I have considered it essential to speak consistently in the increasingly diverse relationships and conversations in which I participate rather than attempt to keep these relationships and conversations separate/compartmentalized. Along the way, I have had to prioritize these relationships and conversations (e.g., the central and non-negotiable status of my friendship with Dr. Korones).

Fragment -- #159

[December 2000 journal entry]

To (re)enter societal spheres is to experience dissonance – existential, moral/ethical, spiritual, political, intellectual, . . . .

Fragment -- #158

[November 2000 journal entry]

What distinguishes an ‘authentic’ community?

1. Being penitent.
2. Being confessional with a strong rather than weak self-image.
3. Being socially engaged/invested in an honorable defeat.

Fragment -- #156

[September 2000 journal entry]

Hope for the Flowers is Trina Paulus’ tale about two caterpillars – Stripe and Yellow – has for many years been ‘canonical’ in our family discussions. The tale begins with Stripe doing what all caterpillars do. As soon as he is old enough, Stripe crawls with mounting excitement to the nearest caterpillar pillar. Those pillars -- rows and rows running to the horizon – seem to touch the clouds. Every caterpillar’s life goal? Make it to the top of one of those pillars. The method? Climb or be climbed. The rationale? No one knows or has time to think about that. Stripe quickly gets used to pushing and being pushed, to kicking and being kicked, to stepping on and being stepped on. There is no authentic communication. Only the outsides of the tangled caterpillars touch. From time to time, Stripe sees caterpillars falling to the ground below. At one point part way up the caterpillar pillar, he is muttering to himself -- “What’s at the top? Where are we going?” -- as he crawls over a little yellow caterpillar. Yellow gasps, “What did you say?” Stripe pauses. The more they talk, the less single-minded Stripe becomes. He wonders to himself, “How can I step on someone I’ve just talked to?” Stripe avoids Yellow as much as possible as they continue the climbing life, but one day she is blocking his only way up. He warns, “I guess it’s you or me”, and he steps squarely on her head. Something in the way Yellow looks at him makes Stripe feel awful about himself – “Can getting to the top be worth that?” He crawls off Yellow and whispers, “I’m sorry.” Yellow begins to cry. She suggests, “Let’s go down.” Stripe agrees. So they stop climbing, convinced there must be another way ‘up’. They decide to crawl down the pillar – a hard decision but the beginning of their search for another way of being. The remainder of the story tells how they pass through their existential cocoons into butterflies -- Yellow quickly and with little hesitation; Stripe eventually but only after being lured back for another aborted effort to climb to the top of a caterpillar pillar.

We have spoken often together as a family about how a single encounter forces Stripe to rethink carefully and radically his values, his goals, his habits . . . to rethink who he wants to be. Stripe and Yellow conclude their only option is to withdraw. We have discussed that it is not so simple for individuals who are resolved to care for the injured and ill, for individuals who are resolved to act consistently with a strong social conscience.

Fragment -- #154

[September 2000 journal entry]

My artist friend Dean recently described an experience that led me to think afresh about the way narratives form and are shared relative to the perspective of the storyteller. Very early one morning, Dean – in his pajamas and robe – let Lady (his black Lab) outside through the front door. Dean was standing on the front porch when he saw Lady dashing away from the house. Dean began shouting over and over, “Lady, you come here! Come here right now!” Then he noticed on the street in front of his house an older woman out for an early morning walk. She froze. Then she turned and fled. Dean had no chance then or later to correct her frightened interpretation. Dean’s narration and her narration of this shared experience are surely different.

Fragment -- #153

[September 2000 journal entry]

Variations to add to the ‘non-religious’ four-tier approach to ‘community’ I take: (1) in the ultimate and most radical experience of ‘community’ (i.e., initiating/demonstrating respect toward strangers and adversaries), strangers and adversaries who remain distant should be distinguished from those who respond favorably to the unconditional gestures of respect, (2) among the individuals found to be extending unconditional gestures of respect toward strangers and adversaries, those who choose to be near strangers and adversaries should be distinguished from those who had no such choice.

Fragment -- #152

[April 2006 journal entry]

2006 was our East TN Appalachia health center’s thirtieth year as a ‘community health center’. The community health center model for delivering medical care was devised in the 1960s as a tactic for fighting the ‘War On Poverty’ President Johnson on 16 March 1964 challenged the Congress to declare. This non-profit and community-led model for confronting the barriers poor/uninsured individuals face re access to primary medical care is one of three ‘War On Poverty’ initiatives still active. The other two – the Peace Corps and Head Start. I recently circulated among our medical, nursing, and administrative staff members a prayer I wrote many years ago about my awakening to the plight of those injured by poverty.

DISTURBED FROM PEACEFUL SLUMBER

O compassionate One, I shy from calling you ‘father’ now that my eyes and ears have opened to your other children – the abused, the displaced, the disabled, the destitute. I had no idea how many and how near are my sisters and brothers who scavenge garbage cans in search for food, who cannot (or need not) read the list of ingredients on food cans, who steal to survive, who wake each day to a violent ordeal. I had no idea how surely my closets, my refrigerator, my diet, my choices for work, my recreation, my morning shower, my education all settle any question about whether I am ‘rich’. I had no idea how entangled my lifestyle is with an economy that carelessly consumes the earth’s resources, that encourages selfish fantasies, that lures impoverished kids with ads holding out impossible dreams, that offers me an easy conscience by pointing to charitable gifts and taxes.

Why had I not noticed the family resemblance with these sisters and brothers of mine? Was it embarrassment? haste? fear? economic prejudice? ignorance of ancient Israel’s prophets? the ease with which I spiritualized ‘rich’ and ‘poor’?

I am without excuse. Endless blows dull these sisters and brothers of mine. I have added to the wind that has blown out the light in their eyes. I have only now realized that the task is not to make them materially rich, yet another form of slavery. No, the task is to make them free -- free to dream, to hope, to risk, to rest, to love, to choose.

May my conscience be disturbed by the loss of dignity ‘getting rich’ and ‘staying rich’ imposes.

May my self endure the teaching of ‘Jesus’ against self-serving values and habits.

May my lifestyle maximize the diversity of individuals who feel welcome in my home.

May my possessions be rid of any thing I value more than “one of the least of these”.

May my prayers express dis-ease with being materially rich.

May my witness encourage a way of being together in which “there is neither rich nor poor”.

Amen

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #130

[December 2000 journal entry]

It is naïve to suggest/expect that societal spheres (including but not limited to the ‘religious’ sphere) with conventional traits (e.g., property, debt, constituency, tradition, . . . ) can/will permit or encourage radical (i.e., to the root) inquiry/thinking.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #129

[December 2000 journal entry]

I must identify and root out all vestiges of ‘Santa’ language in my ‘God’ language. I feel in the position of the first kids at elementary school who know there is no ‘Santa’ – what do you do with this realization?

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #128

[December 2000 journal entry]

A ‘come of age’ approach to ethics and spirituality is incompatible with the ‘religious’ use of such terms as ‘lord’, ‘king’, ‘shepherd’, . . . .

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #127

[November 2000 journal entry]

In a recent conversation with a family therapist, she asked, “So do you just not talk about God?” I responded, “I am very hesitant to use ‘God’ language. My speaking rarely and cautiously about ‘God’ stands in sharp contrast to the casual use of ‘God’ language within the ‘religious’ sphere. I think there is an essential difference between saying ‘I am loving’ and saying ‘God is loving’. What I call the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm (which I defined for her) works/holds for individuals (1) who are ‘normal’, (2) who are distant from tragedy, (3) who face acute pain/suffering far more often than chronic pain/suffering, (4) who will not risk the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm’s offer of security.”

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #126

[November 2000 journal entry]

It seems ironic that it takes being radically (i.e., to the root) repositioned outside the ‘religious’ sphere in order (1) to see ‘religion’ for what it is and (2) to find/form an alternative approach to ethics and spirituality.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #125

[November 2000 journal entry]

Using a ‘religious’ method -- the sequence flows from the ‘God’ language characteristic of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm to a refusal to question the implications of such language to decisions re a way of being based on such language. Using my ‘non-religious’ method -- the sequence flows from reflection on the ‘more’ about being human to reflection on the sort of person to be to living consistently with that sort of being to a ‘God’ language (if any) that is guarded against idolatry and that has metaphorical meaning.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #124

[November 2000 journal entry]

The following quotation comes from an article in Nashville’s newspaper The Tennessean:

Sandy Phillips made an agreement with Brian Kelley when she first saw him just hours after his arrest in the killing of his 13-month-old daughter in August last year. Kelley told Phillips, a clinical psychologist at Cumberland Mental Health Service, that he had suffocated his daughter Erin on instructions from God as a way to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, who would arrive by sundown. “I said we would certainly see each other tomorrow – in heaven if he was correct or in the Wilson County jail if he was wrong,” Phillips told a jury yesterday in Kelley’s first-degree murder trial. Phillips was one of a line of mental health experts who testified yesterday that Kelley was anything but sane when he suffocated his daughter shortly after midnight on August 15, one day from his own birthday. . . . Kelley may have known that killing was illegal, but he was compelled by his delusion that God had instructed him to kill his child as an Old Testament-style sacrifice -- Farooque (another expert witness, DB) and the other experts testified. “He didn’t think what he did was wrong,” Farooque testified. “He was not able to appreciate the wrongfulness of the act.” . . . Martell (another expert witness, DB) said he came to the same conclusion as his local colleagues – that Kelley had suffered a psychotic breakdown. “It is a disorder that will continue to plague him the rest of his life,” Martell testified.

How does the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm not lead to the end to which Kelley went? On what basis would teachers/preachers within the ‘religious’ sphere – especially those toward the fundamentalist end of the theological spectrum – who uncritically exalt the Abraham and Isaac story referenced in the article as an example of ‘faith’ oppose Kelley’s thought and action without undermining the T/O paradigm itself?

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #123

[October 2000 journal entry]

Might ‘God’ be in a way analogous to ‘time’, ‘gravity’, ideas, . . ?

‘the ethical dimensions of patient care’ -- #48

CONCLUSION

Adding to patient care the responsibility of assessing patients’ spiritual wellbeing increases the likelihood that caregivers will often be in a position to share their beliefs and values with patients. Healthcare professionals who interpret the responsibility to assess their patients’ spiritual wellbeing as liberty to look for opportunities to impress their own beliefs and values on patients risk failing to respect or to be truly present with their patients. Pressing their beliefs and values may lead them to prejudge the spiritual wellbeing of patients whose beliefs and values differ from their own. Their attention span may narrow. Their diagnosis and/or management may be adversely influenced. Also, considerable diversity regarding ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’ is usually found among the numerous professionals involved in a patient’s care. Liberty to impress one’s own beliefs and values on patients would not be restricted to the attending physician. Instead, all the professionals involved in a patient’s care -- including consultants, residents, medical students, nurses, social services personnel, et al -- could assume the same liberty, thus potentially putting patients in confusing as well as insecure situations. In order to guard against disrespecting patients and weakening their trust, caregivers should limit the way they share their beliefs and values with patients to discussions (1) they would summarize in the patient’s chart and (2) the medical team would consider part of the patient’s care.