March Newsletter Article

Beloved in Christ,

Stepping away from our series on worship to give you some snapshots of things going on at St. Petri that deserve some extra attention.

Campus Ministry News - December 2010

Every semester we send out a newsletter reporting on the semester at Lutheran Campus Ministry.  This year has been particularly...tumultuous, and writing this fall's newsletter article has been difficult for me.  This morning I finally forced myself to sit down and put it on paper. 

2009: The Year in Review via RevGalBlogPals

Having left the charger to the MacBook behind while on holiday this week, I'm only four days behind on thinking about 2009 in review. Well, thinking publicly, that is. It was a crazy year, for sure.

It's not much of a stretch to say that there are times I resonate quite strongly with this song from Mary Poppins, which currently resides at the top of Alanna's Disney hit parade:



It would be lovely to live like this. But, alas, like Mr. Banks, my life is not so simple. In fact, upon reflection, the year more properly resembles this:



You know, minus the dead Nazis and such. Also, I didn't get shot. But it was definitely more crazy than predictable.

Last Friday's Friday Five at RevGals was about 2009 moving into 2010. Here's my answers.

1. What will you gladly leave behind in 2009?
Two children in diapers. Ainsley is mostly potty-trained at this point, with just nights to go, and she's doing great. I can't tell you how happy I am to be minimizing my daily contact with poo.

2. What is the biggest challenge of 2010 for you?
Living more purposefully. As any regular reader of this blog has noted, posting has become less frequent and of a lower quality, and that's been a snapshot of the year in real life as well. I make no resolutions for 2010 other than this: to live more in the place I am, in the moments around me, and to refine my use of Facebook et al so that it becomes a tool for connecting and not a crutch for living.

3. Is there anything that you simply need to hand to God and say "all will be well, for you are with me"?
Our financial situation. There's a strong possibility that Beloved's call as Family and Youth Ministry Director at our congregation will be terminated in May because right now the deficit between the 2009 budget and projected 2010 giving is so large it's impossible to ignore. We are making changes in our lives to prepare for the worst while hoping things work out for the best.

4. If you could only achieve one thing in 2010 what would it be?
Get my eating and exercise under control and weigh 200 lbs by the end of the year (I'm currently hovering between 225 and 230). Thankfully, I managed to hold off the holiday bulge, but I didn't lose anything, either. I want to be a sub-4:00 marathoner, and that's not going to happen unless I get serious about losing the weight and hitting the pavement. Plus, Jack has turned into a great running partner and I want to continue that bonding time with him.

5. Post a picture, poem or song that sums up your prayer for the year ahead....
You've seen it here before, but it's worth hearing again: "Steady On" by our favorite singers, Storyhill:



I might add that getting to a Storyhill concert in 2010 would be pretty sweet, too.

Grace & peace,
Scott

Universal Health Care: Let's Be Honest, Shall We?

Yesterday's mail edition of Newsweek featured this cover article by Sen. Edward Kennedy. If you're not a subscriber, it's worth a look anyway.

Our elected officials are engaged in a very acrimonious debate on health care, health insurance and the future of American medicine at the moment. President Obama wants something on the table prior to the August recess, while some are suggesting we shouldn't rush things.

For me, one troubling aspect of the entire debate is the way terms get thrown around with little care for how they are defined. The words "medical," "care," "health" and "insurance" seem to be interchangeable, while they actually describe very different things depending on how they are paired and how they are used. "Health Care" and "Health Insurance" are two very different things: the first describes an actual interaction with a medical professional, while the second describes a company or government program whereby the professional is guaranteed compensation for services provided, and the patient generally bears a portion of the cost in addition to a base premium surrendered monthly, quarterly or annually. You can see the problem when the two start getting tossed around as if they are the same thing.

In a professional sense, I'm fairly un-qualified to weigh in on this issue. I'm certainly not a businessman, nor am I a health care professional. What little mental health care I'm qualified to provide falls under the umbrella of spiritual care: the nano-second I sense that we might be drifting into illness, I refer to a qualified professional, as I am NOT a mental health counselor. In an ethical sense, however, we are all qualified to weigh in, as we, the American people, are the ones who are and will be affected by the ongoing discussion of medicine in America. And I dare say that those of us who serve in the pastoral office are called to be advocates when we feel ethically driven toward a certain point of view.

So, it seems to me that as a country we have one basic choice in front of us. The time has come for a decision about medicine in America: is it primarily a for-profit business or a social service? We are rapidly approaching the point when we will no longer be allowed to waffle between the two extremes, and for me, at least, the decision is obvious: medical care is a social service that must be guaranteed to all Americans. Period.

I'm not saying this is going to be easy. But when an estimated 47 million people can't get medical care for real illness and medical problems, easy has long since left the barn. To my mind, we have an ethical imperative to guarantee reasonable access to affordable medical services, and I, for one, am willing to do my part to see that it happens.

Taxes will need to be raised. That's a given. Medical profits will be cut. Also a given. Insurance companies may find themselves competing against the government. Some insurance companies might go bankrupt. We'll need to transition out of employer-based insurance, which was a bad idea from the start and has only become worse with time. All of these are real repercussions of shifting the model from profit-bearing to service-providing, and it might be bad before it gets better.

But the alternative is worse, in my opinion. Some estimate that 55 million Americans will be without health insurance in the very near future if we do nothing. That, to me, is an unconscionably high percentage of the American population with no hope of cure when illness strikes. That's 55 million Americans who can't get their infant daughters to the doctor when they have an ear infection, like our Alanna had last month. That's 55 million Americans who can't find respite from back pain, as I have this summer. That's 55 million Americans who can't escape the clutches of depression, as I have over the past three years. Can we really think this is the better solution?

The total cost of the medical care required for the births of our daughters, Ainsley and Alanna, was in the neighborhood of $32,000. That's approximately 90% of my yearly cash salary. Health insurance covered most of the cost for us - what are the options for mothers who don't have insurance?

The time has come for a renovation of American medicine. No renovation comes without sacrifice, struggle, and moments when the damage done seems to outweigh the possible end result. But the present situation is a house of cards teetering on the verge of collapse. We have an ethical and moral imperative to do better for our society - let's speak the truth and get it done.

Grace & peace,
Scott

Give Us This Day...

die Van ist kaput.

When we pulled into our parking spot at Ponca State Park last Thursday, we were all excited for a three day cabin stay with my entire family. When I backed the van up to move it closer to our particular cabin, the large puddle of transmission fluid that was revealed indicated we would soon be enjoying something of a change in plans as far as driving goes.

We limped back to Ames on a replacement quart of fluid and dropped off the van at the shop yesterday morning. The verdict? Leaky torque converter. The expense? $1400. At least, that's the estimate. Wow. As Bing said in White Christmas: "It's somewhere between 'Ouch' and 'Boing.'" Wow.

These things happen, of course. But the peculiar thing is how and when they happen. Beloved and I have been discussing what to do with our extra money this month. See, I am paid every other Friday, which means that two months out of the calendar year contain an 'extra' paycheck. July '09 is one of those months. In addition, I'm scheduled for several supply dates this summer, so I'll be pulling in some extra $$ there as well. We were trying to figure out how much to put toward debt retirement vs. some stuff we'd like to do in the house. Well, now we know where the extra money is going, don't we?

In the midst of these troubled times, I'm struck by the story of Israel in the wilderness. God provided enough manna for one day. Anyone who tried to gather more found it mealy and wormy by morning. We think in terms of scarcity: there's no way of knowing what tomorrow will bring, so we grab all we can for today. God thinks about things differently: what is meant to last will last, and what is meant to end will end, no matter what we might do about it.

It occurs to me that God might really care very little for the continuation of the institutions we think are so important. Churches who worship less than twenty people with endowments to maintain the building and cemetery? Seminaries who pour all their gifts into endowments while they pile the burden of today's education on the backs of their students? Companies who lay off workers while executive salaries continue to climb and widen the gap between labor and management? I'm not so certain a God who promises to provide daily bread, not monthly bread, thinks a lot of this type of stewardship.

It's one thing to be responsible in planning for the future. Beloved and I have far too much debt. If that weren't the case, this car repair wouldn't be the problem that it is. We're working on being free of what we owe to others, but it's going to take some time. Afterwards, though, we're going to have to work just as hard to remain free of our excess, assuming we ever get there. We all know about the farmer in the gospel of Luke who builds new granaries for all his excess - he dies that night and all that excess does him no good.

This week's lectionary texts deal with some of these institutional issues, also. Amos tells the people of the northern kingdom that they will not stand forever just because of who they are, that God is about to set them plumb (an image for justification), and that it will not be all lollipops and sunbeams when it happens. Herod hears about Jesus' ministry and is haunted by the thought that Jesus could be John the Baptizer resurrected - and we get the picture of a man haunted by the knowledge that all his wealth and power will amount to nothing in the end.

I remain convinced that God doesn't give a fart in a stiff wind for propping up institutions for their own sake. Our call to stewardship is both a call to recklessly trust that God will provide and a call to understand that debt and wealth can each be a burden and a barrier between ourselves and faith. So we'll go to the dealership tomorrow afternoon and unburden ourselves a bit, and hopefully our faith will be all the richer for it, even if our wallets will not.

Grace & peace,
Scott

The painting is "Daily Bread, Version 1" by Jim Gola