I am writing this as a broken man with a broken family (one daughter far away currently). But through this broken-ness I have received peace and direction and healing. I do not claim to be a prophet, but I cannot ignore several items that have been placed before me this week.
We indeed face a time when it is easier to just be. We seem to be comfortable with our current ways of patient care, teaching, and other forms of service. When conditions worsen or are recognized as needing change, it seems that we face as many obstacles from those within family medicine as opposed to external forces. Passionate pleas for change in our clinic, association, or department functions are met with
Well this is a nice documentation of our problems (with referrals, with rural needs, with re-allocation, etc.), but this is no more likely than the last few efforts to bring about the needed change.
My first reflection keeps coming back to me month after month.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one insists on trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." from G.B. Shaw in The Revolutionist's Handbook
Have we indeed become too reasonable. Have we settled for comfort with the majority rather than the energy of being on the edge. As Mark Twain said,
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."
Family practice leaders would readily admit that we have gained acceptance. Some are uncomfortable with it. For some it has been a long struggle, but do they encourage continued needed changes? Others may not have experienced this struggle. Are they comfortable with the status quo? This is not only health care service, it is in the education of our students, and it is in our parenting challenges.
Perhaps there is a common basis for this comfort with the majority, and it involves the spiritual realm. The United States is now one of the top 3 countries in terms of numbers of missionaries received as well as total unchurched population. Missionaries that leave the U.S. to go overseas to developing nations commonly express regret with having to come back to the U.S. to a spiritually bankrupt society. One missionary that experienced an explosion of church growth and activity in Zimbabwe has to be comfortable with small successes in France of about one new church a year. We are just not as involved with schools, churches, and kids in a meaningful way and we are suffering the consequences.
Many would point out the extravagant distractions of this current life, the multiple liberties that we have taken for personal freedom pleasure seeking, but previous authors have countered these thoughts. Oswald Chambers in his classic, My Utmost for His Highest (1935), entry for April 24: "Worldliness is not that trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success is measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live."
People often attend churches based on convenience. Churches accommodate by informing, entertaining, and servicing their members, rather than the members serving God.
Many talk about cycles of families, or generations. Abraham knew God and obeyed. Isaac was less active, and Jacob was distant. Joseph was tested and knew God and obeyed, and the cycle repeats throughout history in spiritual and human experience.
What should we be as clinicians, as researchers, as teachers, as fathers, as mothers, as neighbors or sons or daughters or witnesses? Should we pattern ourselves after others? Perhaps after those who came before us, or those we admire?
We cannot know unless we hear from God directly. The final reflection comes from David Wilkerson, pastor of Times Square Church (author of The Cross and the Switchblade), from his 4/19/99 pulpit series.
"You see, Israel was living off the experience of their pastor and teacher, Moses. They had no faith of their own. And when God removed Moses from their midst, they backslid within forty days! The same thing happens with many Christians today. When they hear God's word preached, they eagerly pledge to obey it with all their hearts. But in reality, they're living off someone else's experience - tapes, pastors, seminars - and they have no deep experience of their own with Christ. Beloved, you cannot get God's true revelation from someone else?. His word has to work its way into your heart, until it becomes a living experience!" (c/o World Challenge P.O. Box 260 Lindale TX 75771 texas@worldchallenge.org)
May God be with you in your journey and not allow you to become too comfortable.
Robert C. Bowman, M.D.