Dear one,
Remarkable … truly remarkable! This morning, as I experienced an outpatient procedure, I found myself marveling: all about me were bright, well-educated, caring individuals working together, using their skills and expertise, in order that my needs might be well-met. Likewise, all about me were clean, tile floors; curtains for privacy and a just-heated blanket; and of course, the monitors, the drip IVs, and the lines of fluid coupled together, each with its shut-off valve. And I marveled: Who thought to put these together? Whence the resources, and what the transport?
Would that I could describe for you the room in which my particular procedure occurred, but I cannot. After no more than two minutes in that room—I heard that a nearby lake is being stocked with trout—I was gone … somewhere … and returned to a room very like Room #6, my preop room.
Now, you might wonder: Stan, what did you expect? and so you might rightly ask, for in truth, what I experienced this morning is normative for most if not not all Americans. Ah, but what I experienced is not normative for many billions who live upon planet earth. Without question, I know that the two shelves in our home, upon which rest our medicines, contain more palliatives and/or remedies than the various, well-stocked medical clinics I have observed in Bangladesh, Malawi, and Uganda.
For those of us, who have been privileged to travel to regions south of us: Haiti, Honduras, or Brazil; or to realms southeast of us: Cameroon, Sri Lanka, or Borneo, we often return more keenly aware of what we have and of what they have not. However, hopefully that awareness moves us to pray and act and act and pray, knowing that whatever we do will not solve all of the world’s problems, or even those few of which we are aware, and yet, knowing that the good we encourage will undo the evils that exist. Hopefully we do not return assured of our benefits, but rather better enabled to care for the least of our Lord’s brothers and sisters.
Moreover, as I think of the least, and as I think of the present season, surely Mary and Joseph numbered among the least—even as the pastors I have met in Uganda care for the weary couples, the ostracized mothers, the Joseph and Marys of their villages. If I can encourage and equip those pastors, then thankfully they in their turn can encourage those I cannot—and far better than I could.
Blessed,
Stan