Emergency Room

No long ago I spent about an hour in a suburban Kansas City  emergency room where we had taken Tammy to be treated for a cut to her head after she had fallen.  Two years ago I spent a several hours in a Chattanooga emergency room while my daughter was treated for a broken wrist. Observing the staff and the people in the emergency room was an illuminating experience.  Here are some reflections on that experience:

I was forced to watch a bad TV program I didn't want to watch.  The TV was blaring (making it too distracting to read or pray) and eyes were glued to the sordid and overdrawn drama of "Gray's Anatomy" -- an episode where they were treating a patient with a bomb in his chest.  Other people were watching it so I couldn't change it.  I've changed the channels before in situations like this, but you have to be the only one present to do it.  Why doesn't the staff pay some attention to what garbage is on the tube?  Couldn't some of this stuff be harmful to the viewers.  After all, kids were in the emergency room and this show was replete with adult situations and sexually suggestive scenes.  I know I wouldn't want my grandchildren watching such drivel.

It seems like many of the people who come into the ER are the dregs of the earth.  A young, tattooed, and ear-ringed woman with two young men who wore their baseball caps backward at all times and places.  A man who is told he can't go back to the treatment room, but waits for the door to open and sneaks in. Another young woman, obviously having already been treated an now waiting for a ride; attractive except for her missing teeth, using a wheelchair as a seat (she was also very capable of walking), talking on her Playboy logo cell phone and telling people how she had put some other people in their place.

An obviously pregnant woman comes to the desk.  She asks if there is where she needs to check in because she thinks it's time to give birth.  Staff asks how far along are you and then tells her that she belongs on the other side of the building.  "You can drive around or we can have them come get you."  What kind of an option is that?  She is about to have a baby, she is in a hospital, why not offer her care rather than suggestions.

A young man, part of the staff, seemed to spend all of his time either sitting behind a desk and directing people to the next desk -- even if they had to wait in line -- and occasionally walking up and down the halls, doing what, if anything, was indiscernible.

Are all emergency rooms like this? I suspect this is not unusual. What will it be like with Obamacare?


Makes me want to pray for the soon return of Christ. Maranatha!

On Business Travel

After 30 years of business travel I find myself disliking it more and more.  I still enjoy travel for fun and recreation but even that can get to be a hassle.  I find airports to be crowded, noisy, and uncomfortable. No wonder so many business travelers resort to waiting for flights in a drinking establishment.  Airplanes today are uncomfortable and noisy.  First class is somewhat better, even bearable, but not really all that "First" class anymore as the service is less attentive than formerly.  Again, many prescribe a few drinks to ease the pain.

Not only is the travel a hassle, but I do not like being away from my family, my home, and the comfort of established routine.  While it is not exotic or exciting, the homely routine fosters peace and a sense of well-being.

Then there are the meetings.  Some are valuable and interesting, but there is always an abundance of "fluff" and pure baloney.  Too much of meeting time is wasted with materials and communications that could be disseminated in other ways.  Send me material to read, send me a powerpoint presentation, host a computer or video conference -- but don't make me travel to a meeting!

Personal Fulfillment

Personal fulfillment has become a euphemism for pleasure.  Our culture is obsessed with the material and the pleasurable.  We have such material abundance that we quickly do away with the spiritual.  Or, is it that our material abundance quashes / submerges / overcomes the spiritual in our lives.  We are are comfortable.  We are fed, we are clothed, we are warmly housed so that only when faced with the most serious of crises do we even think about God.

We might say that we believe in God.  Even that we trust him and know that we owe our existence to him.  But, do we really trust him?  We seem to have no need to rely on him any longer because of our material wealth.  Does this just push God into the corner of our lives, retrieved at our convenience and only when we are at our last resort?

Has this not also infected our churches?  What do we go to church for?  Why do we belong to a church?  Do we go to truly worship an awesome and fearful God who holds our lives in the palm of his hand?  Or do we go to be "fed," to be entertained, to be amused, to have a pleasurable experience.  Not that true worship cannot be a pleasurable experience, but our personal pleasure is not the aim or purpose of true worship. Too often we go to worship for what we can receive or get out of the experience, rather than for what we can offer to God, a "sacrifice of praise."