Paradigm shifts (groan, how uninspiring...)

Running on the theme that's been running through school lately, I realize there are "eras" that come and go. I am also aware, to a certain extent, at how powerful culture is at dictating our actions and functions in the world. At various points in different "eras", I've revisited that concept... I think I'm coming to a breakthrough of yet another "era" of culturality, and how one moves in (or, really, through, or beyond) that... I think that might be a good thing... The trappings of culture sometimes become just that: a trap... I cannot advocate for homogeneity, but neither can I endorse or accept cultural values that are simply wrong... I think the breakthrough might be that I don't have to explain or rationalize wrong cultural values so that I can make sense of the world, that I can begin to rationalize the actions of others, but that it's OK to state that they are wrong, they are broken, they need fixing, and not to have to apologize or rationalize that...

The Plague of the 21st Century?

I suspect I shall probably end up writing some more about this topic at other times, seeing as it's so huge, and I would've written sooner, but I've been swamped lately.
I started doing some volunteer clinical work at one of the major HIV/AIDS clinics in Toronto, to get my hands wet again. It's surprising at how much has changed, even over the span of my relatively short career. I feel like a bit of a medical student again, as I no longer remember (well, mainly cause they didn't exist at the time) medications and treatment regimens.
I am also surprised (though I really shouldn't be, as I knew it as 'fact' in my head) at the profile of the people that I meet: old (even very old, with new diagnoses in their 70s) and young, gay and straight, white and non-white, married and not, immigrant and Canadian-born, drug users or clean. I am further astonished at how relatively well, even downright healthy, HIV carriers look here in Canada. I had kind of forgotten that people no longer really die of AIDS here anymore, as I still remember vividly people dying of AIDS in front of me in Africa.
I think it's that last statement that strikes me most. Some patients are able to body-build here and get good nutrition, so you would not recognize the face of HIV walking the streets of Toronto. It is a far cry from the gaunt, emaciated, lethargic half-corpses that die lying on some mattress in an African hospital hallway... that's the injustice that cries out for me...

Ask, and it shall be given unto you

OK, so yesterday we're praying that my folks are safe overseas, and guess what happens today? An EARTHQUAKE, for crying out loud! What the....?
Though, to be honest, I think that's humbling: What a silly, greedy, selfish thing to ask, that my folks stay SAFE. Safety is highly over-rated. I suppose I should rather be asking that they would be kept under His shadow, and that should be enough for me, even if they do fall into a large volcanic crater due to the sheer force of the tectonic plates shifting and melt in the piping hot lava bursting up in the clefts.... :P

There's Nothing to fear but Fear Itself...

One of the things that really bugs me about myself (amongst the many things) is fear. Which stymies me: how can I dare be afraid when One has told me, "It is I! Do not be afraid!". But it's crazy at how much stuff I'm afraid of; really, it's crazy how much stuff we're all afraid of, at the end of the day, isn't it?

As Charlie Brown would say....

AAAAUUUUGGGGHHH!!!!! Snow!!!! And it fell on my nose and eyelashes!

Whoever dies with the most toys.... dies...

It's been a while since I've read something truly jaw-dropping... but this week, the newspapers have been writing about how doctors make soooo much money.... and certainly, looking at the numbers, I was SHOCKED!... apparently, 224 family doctors in our province (now, to be fair, there are several tens of thousands, if not in the hundreds of thousands of family physicians in Ontario, so it IS a very small minority, and, also to be fair, every other category of physician makes wayyyy more than the average family doc) made an average of $627,000 last year. Each! I had to do some calculations in my head.... for me to earn that much in a year, I'd have to work about 21-22 days a WEEK! Full time! With overtime! It completely boggled my mind how it was even humanly possible to earn that much as a family doctor...
Which brings it back to the money issue... I think, inevitably, the gift of giving is one that almost automatically belongs to me, and I have (usually, and hopefully, very infrequently) few problems with that issue... but sometimes I find it's hard with the added expectation that that comes with... that people come to me, directly or indirectly, with their hand open, with excellent reasons and pitches, as to why I have to help fill that hand...
Now, to be sure, all the excellent people and organizations that I am supporting are well deserving and are wise stewards in what they are given, and they all participate fruitfully in what they do. Blessings on all of that. But it seems strange to be stuck with the assumption that I'm an eternal fount of cash flow, perhaps even forgetting that I have other gifts and skills that also can be used and developed and nutured...
Yes, yes, I also hear the detractors out there saying, oh poor you, sucks to be you with so much money.... I even know which ones you'd be...

Here we go again...

Oh dear, when it rains, it pours. So, another one of my women comes in this morning, with a week to go, and I am afraid to tell her I think her baby's dead. Send her to the hospital, where instead, they can tell her so, and prove it to her by showing her the heart's no longer beating (was desperately hoping, hoping, hoping, I was wrong... though I knew I wasn't...).
This, of course, gets no easier (see posting from February 22nd, 2006)... I suspect I will be the one to deliver her, as I'm conveniently in the hospital this weekend. Which I suppose is appropriate; I diagnosed death, I should bring it to completion.

R.I.P.

For f&$#'s sake, I am tired of women (and men, actually) being under the impression that having a baby is this lovely, safe thing, all perfume and roses, 'cause that's just a bunch of shit, really.
I've had many patients die on me before, but this is MY first. My OWN patient that I was taking care of, who I'd been following during her pregnancy. Died over the weekend, and, due to some communication snafus, I only found out about this morning, since I'd stopped by the hospital. I cried and cried and cried in my car on the way to the clinic.
Cause she didn't have to die. Oh dear God. Baby's got no mommy now. Fuck this; I am so tired of people thinking it's all lovely, to be pregnant and all, that they pay no mind to the matter that pregnancy and childbirth are some of the most dangerous undertakings a woman can take...

There's no taste like home...

Remember those old Foodland Ontario commercials from when we were kids? At any rate, I spent some time with a family I know who are apple farmers and was helping them bring in the harvest from among their 17,000 trees (them's a lot of apples)... it's quite something, fruit harvesting. Much more labour intensive then you'd imagine, as each apple has to be individually hand picked from the tree, being careful not to damage the tree, so it can produce again next year, carefully looking over the whole fruit to see if it's 'supermarket grade' or not (you keep the 'non-perfect looking' apples for personal use, which ends up being quite a few of them), and then accumulating them in your bag so that you don't bang them up too hard, so that they cease being supermarket grade. This is on top of a spring of re-grafting and preparing the ground and a whole summer of pruning and carefully tending the orchard every single day (except Sunday). Throw on top of that those terrible storms we had in August (causing one to lose 600 trees for harvest), and what do you get? A lousy 50 cents a kg of apples. And that's in a good year. I think that's appalling. For a whole year's worth of work.
This highlights the general difficulties farmers in our country have. Being undercut by the Chinese (BTW, most of the apple juice sold in Canada is actually from Chinese apples.. Boo!, not our own, not even the USA's), and other imports makes it hard for our farmers to compete. ("But they're so cheap, buying apples from New Zealand..." I hear people saying, "Why should I pay $1.30/lb of Ontario apples when I can buy them for $0.90/lb from NZ or Chile???") I mean, other people have talked about carbon emissions as part of the equation as well (can you imagine having to fly several tonnes of apples all the way from New Zealand?), as well as the freshness factor (again, can you imagine having to fly several tonnes of apples all the way from New Zealand?).
I brought some of the 'seconds' apples to some friends yesterday, and even they could admit the apples were delicious... but of course: They were picked within 24 hours, and only about 80 km away from where they stood....
I'm encouraging us, as much as possible, to support our farmers and to think about food consumption patterns (what a big surprise that that's the big conclusion I come to :P )...

Happy Christmas (War is Over)

I've been mulling over the thoughts of pacifism and, I guess, un-pacifism over the past week.
In the space of less than two days: A discussion about why pacifism is the 'right' way of thinking about engagement in world affairs, the example of Dirk Willems, the discussion over rice rolls of why engagement of oppressors in a Ghandi/Martin Luther King Jr. type manner is the only truly effective method of ceasing strife and promoting shalom. Followed by a rally to support UN resolutions to send troops into the Sudan (OK, so those resolutions have been there for over a year now, but still...)... ironic in that many many many young, impressionable student-types were there, raising their fists in the air and yelling at the appropriate times without thinking, "Hey, troops means warfare means possible (gasp!) Western casualties means possibly people I know means possibly (oh my!) me"... despite Sen Dallaire's skirting around the issue that involvement in Darfur would require sacrifice, would require manpower and troops, would require Western deaths (despite the fact that we have already let half a million Darfurians die, but that's another matter, I suppose some would say)... again, discussing this over herbal tea afterwards, the realization that perhaps pacifism is an easy stance to take in the West, that perhaps when God demands that we defend the defenceless, He means it, that perhaps the assumption that we hold that the corpses in the West hold more value than corpses in the developing world (which we prove over and over again... see Somalia, see Rwanda, see Vietnam, see the teetering in Iraq and Afghanistan...) prevents us from really administering justice. That perhaps pacifism tries to split that 'mean, Old Testament YHWH' from the 'gracious and merciful Jesus', which denies God His dignity, His wrath and His righteousness... That perhaps fear, and categorization of others as "them", and us as "we" makes it easier for "us" to shun the other... This was furthermore followed the same day with the centrality of Jesus, and then, the next day, a discussion with a mission-minded friend about how we poorly prioritize our lives (I owe a huge, long-deferred debt of respect and admiration to this man... yeah, you know who you are...)
Which brings up a larger question: many who think globally consider themselves "global citizens" (sometimes, in my moments of conceit, I would like to think that of myself as well), though it brings back the question: Do we truly consider ourselves fellow brothers with those in the South, in the East? Is it as easy to, say, pay some more taxes to help out more Canadians or volunteer at a local soup kitchen, as it is to actually go and help those who actually starve and are tortured? It shakes me to the core when we, as sophisticated, urban, educated professionals, consider ourselves so enlightened, so engaged, so politically savvy, yet, like the mandarins, sit with our hands folded and nod our heads ever so slightly to demonstrate that we care, that we want to make a difference, while the rice paddy farmers starve and die....

Sanctus, sanctus

I am thinking that somehow I'm gradually becoming the patron saint of teenage pregnancies of Brampton. Which is so weird, as I'm trying very hard to find something redemptive in that. But it's quite difficult, looking down the barrel of what the future holds for BOTH children (mom and babe inclusive). I suppose also that there is some cosmic irony in there too, which I find amusing, but it still does not bode well for the future of our nation...

Thinking about Noam Chomsky, oddly...

One of the things that I do when I meet new patients is to ask them their ethnicity. Not only is that important in helping delineate certain diseases that they may be more susceptible to, but also, I'm just interested in knowing where people are from, or how they identify themselves. And it's quite wonderful: I have people in my practice spanning the globe, from Jamaica, Trinidad, Mexico, El Salvador, Ghana, Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, The Phillipines, France, Romania... it's quite something. There are several things that I find very interesting (or disturbing, depending on how I look at it on any given day). One is, Newfoundlanders see themselves as a distinct ethnic group, which always makes me smile. Secondly, I find that white people, unless they are recent immigrants themselves, don't understand the concept of ethnicity. Most of them look at me blankly, always asking me to clarify what I just said. When they understand, they tell me that they are 'Canadian'. When I push further, ie. Do you have Scottish/English/Irish/German blood in you? most have no idea, and insist that they are 'Canadian', and nothing more.
This makes me ponder: Canadian in what way? Are us hypenated Canadians less Canadian because of that? Do 'Canadians' consider us less Canadian than they are, then, by extension? Do the 'ethnics' hold on too tightly to their culture? Do the white people not hold tightly enough?
The lines around nationalistic pride do need to be watched carefully, that being said. Nationalism, at its extreme, whether your adopted or inherited nation, certainly is very dangerous. To find full identity in where the 'motherland' is is also a dangerous thing. It certainly contributes to a feeling of 'us' vs. 'them'.
Is there perhaps a middle ground? To segregate, to differentiate, to exclude or include based on some conception of where 'you' are from, being different from my roots, is problematic. However, to blankly not recognize them either, to gloss over and deny the variant nuances, denies the richness of who we, as people, are...

FFT

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees,
takes off his shoes - The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

(Thanks Bob!)

FFT

That God does not exist, I cannot deny. That my whole being cries out for God, I cannot forget.
-Jean Paul Sartre

...how it gently lifts me...

One of the wonderful qualities of the people of God is the tangibility of their prayers. Some prayers feel like gossamer wings, some feel like shields of steel, others feel like shafts of light coming through the clouds, some like strong towers... Even others feel like wailings in the night, others shake like belly-dancers, and others leap over buildings in a single bound... It is humbling; humbling to hear, humbling to sense, humbling to know.
I hope, in some small way, that my prayers are heard in the Most High, even if they are made of styrofoam, or are the size of a sandcastle... to become a true prayer warrior, to be a regular sender and recipient of knee-mail (thanks Q), is, I think, a tremendous goal... now praying that I might have the fortitude to take that as my own...

Big, bouncy baby boy!

Hooray! Hooray! A chunky-monkey boogaloo! At 8lbs 6oz! Hooray! Love you all!!!

Excuse me, but are you Sook-Yin Lee?

I have always failed to understand the interest, verging on obsession, in celebrities (that being said, when I get holed up in the middle of Bruce County in a snowstorm, I like flipping through old issues of People as much as the next person).
Case in point, as we are currently in the TIFF. Admittedly, I was wearing Shiz's earrings, with my hair flipped and sunglasses on, but come on now! That doesn't mean that I automatically am someone famous.... walked into the Bay/Bloor Indigo, and was stopped SIX times in less than ten minutes by sales clerks in the store... when the heck do you get offered any help in an Indigo? Asking if I wanted help, was I sure, did I want something to drink (???what??).... I was thinking to myself that perhaps they were all blind or something, as I didn't have a little puppy dog sticking out of my purse, and my shirt, though linen, was kind of wrinkly... oh well, I suppose it's nice to think that I was vaguely fashionable on a Toronto weekend...

Things that make you go 'hm'...

Is it just me, or is there something contradictory about how Jack Layton wants Canada to have troops in Lebanon, but wants our troops out of Afghanistan? The way that our troops have been labelled 'terrorists' by the NDP (now since retracted)? The way that our soldiers fight to defend something that they believe in, yet we want to suppress their valour and bravery? That Canadians get all hyper that five of our guys die, but hardly bat an eyelash when hundreds of 'them' do? I find it very strange, that even with the all the discussion, all the rhetoric, even all the warnings from Romeo Dallaire, we, the elite who can comfortably sit at home and criticize, without even having all the facts, can simply make sweeping statements about who and who should not die. Which mainly draws the lines around 'we' should not die, and 'they' can simply go f*#^ themselves...

... and crisp apple strudel...

Things I am quite enjoying lately (not that I haven't before, just that I've been particularly enamoured of some foods of late): Fair Trade mint chocolate, apple crumble yogurt, pesto made with ingredients from my backyard, goat cheese, artichoke and asiago dip, hand-picked berries, portobello mushrooms, Ontario lamb from the farm next door to the dining room (super yum!), Tina's apple pie with apples from her orchard, fresh Ontario corn and peaches.... yum....

FFT

If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength being small;
if you hold back from rescuing those taken away to death, those who go staggering to the slaughter;
if you say, "Look, we did not know this" - does not He who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not He who keeps watch over your soul know it? And will He not repay all according to their deeds?
Proverbs 24: 10-12