Tuesday, December 27, 2005 at 1:01am
A wonderful hospital
It seems that Jesus knew the importance of community. He sought fraternity to form community. He called the well and the ill to a fraternal relationship.
But maybe (as opponents say) "community" is nothing more than an abstract term with no real substance behind it. Those who speak of community are not practical and are part of a very slim minority; relationships are phony and people cannot wait to turn against one another.
My family and I had the pleasure of visiting a hospital with an ill family member. Unlike other hospitals that deal with overcrowding and a skeletal staff that has little time to aid in the healing of the person behind the symptoms, this facility had the privilege of offering a familial environment for its residents and also for its caregivers. Seeing that group of persons reminded us of the importance of individuals. We reflected on how individuals had shaped and continue to shape us through their unique and creative ways of living.
Everyone in that hospital lived fraternally. Care was received/given from a care-giver. Gifts of kindness were received from a giver (a patient). Words such as "patient", "nurse", and "doctor" existed. Nevertheless, any one individual administered care or gifts, and any one individual received care or gifts. I could not distinguish between the "ill" and the "well". For example, a person had given the gift of care to another person and I did not know who the resident was and who the non-resident was.
Not deriding other hospitals, but a hospital that sanctions relationships fosters a marvelous situation. More hospitals should follow suit. In addition to helping those directly affiliated with the facility, we must consider the positive, indirect benefits of having such beacons in the community. These havens of light and life affect us individuals in countless known and unknown ways. Who knows, that positive person in your life may know someone who knows someone who knows someone that had a positive experience with an individual who was connected with the aforementioned hospital in some way.
At times we, in our gated communities, had felt as cogs in a great machine — there to produce some sort of illusive product. We had misunderstood Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 where he spoke of being one in the anointed Jesus.
We were one, indeed. We were a fraternity of individuals and that collection of people at the hospital we should have called community. My family and I had believed that we were set-apart or special, fortunate, isolated — nay different. But in visiting the hospital we realized we were not born to live a life outside community.
Community is formed through fraternal relationships that deepen with the joys and the distresses in our lives. I have seen with my own eyes that community is a reality.
Still, if ideas of fraternal relationships are ancient, obsolete notions from black and white movies, the first century, or the Neolithic age, then it would seem that society is only waiting for death. In that case, how unfortunate all things living are that waste their time on useless jargon.
Yet, what or who survives in complete isolation without the effects of others' actions? The answer is "no one." Not one individual lives her life in a total vacuum. Hermits and monks, for example, have a contact or a group whom they depend on for some good or service such as prayer. (The effects of prayer have been scientifically catalogued and documented.)
To date, it is too soon to tell what impression the hospital made on the member of my family. The healing process has only just begun. But according to other patients and care-givers their, the hospital is highly regarded as a place for the fostering of healing and the returning of a sense of worth to the ill.
No one wants to be ill, but I have gotten the sense that if illness occurs, then an environment where individual's worth is favored, and fraternity is venerated, will be a much sought after environment.
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Quinton Jefferson, a graduate student at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio is working towards his Masters in Theology. He is a member of a Roman Catholic Church and is a member of its choir. Quinton's email is {email Quinton_Marques@yahoo.com}Quinton_Marques@yahoo.com{/email}. ©copyright 2005 by Quinton Jefferson.
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UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum is a big tent for all expressions
of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any.
All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are
not necessarily shared by UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum.
But maybe (as opponents say) "community" is nothing more than an abstract term with no real substance behind it. Those who speak of community are not practical and are part of a very slim minority; relationships are phony and people cannot wait to turn against one another.
My family and I had the pleasure of visiting a hospital with an ill family member. Unlike other hospitals that deal with overcrowding and a skeletal staff that has little time to aid in the healing of the person behind the symptoms, this facility had the privilege of offering a familial environment for its residents and also for its caregivers. Seeing that group of persons reminded us of the importance of individuals. We reflected on how individuals had shaped and continue to shape us through their unique and creative ways of living.
Everyone in that hospital lived fraternally. Care was received/given from a care-giver. Gifts of kindness were received from a giver (a patient). Words such as "patient", "nurse", and "doctor" existed. Nevertheless, any one individual administered care or gifts, and any one individual received care or gifts. I could not distinguish between the "ill" and the "well". For example, a person had given the gift of care to another person and I did not know who the resident was and who the non-resident was.
Not deriding other hospitals, but a hospital that sanctions relationships fosters a marvelous situation. More hospitals should follow suit. In addition to helping those directly affiliated with the facility, we must consider the positive, indirect benefits of having such beacons in the community. These havens of light and life affect us individuals in countless known and unknown ways. Who knows, that positive person in your life may know someone who knows someone who knows someone that had a positive experience with an individual who was connected with the aforementioned hospital in some way.
At times we, in our gated communities, had felt as cogs in a great machine — there to produce some sort of illusive product. We had misunderstood Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 where he spoke of being one in the anointed Jesus.
We were one, indeed. We were a fraternity of individuals and that collection of people at the hospital we should have called community. My family and I had believed that we were set-apart or special, fortunate, isolated — nay different. But in visiting the hospital we realized we were not born to live a life outside community.
Community is formed through fraternal relationships that deepen with the joys and the distresses in our lives. I have seen with my own eyes that community is a reality.
Still, if ideas of fraternal relationships are ancient, obsolete notions from black and white movies, the first century, or the Neolithic age, then it would seem that society is only waiting for death. In that case, how unfortunate all things living are that waste their time on useless jargon.
Yet, what or who survives in complete isolation without the effects of others' actions? The answer is "no one." Not one individual lives her life in a total vacuum. Hermits and monks, for example, have a contact or a group whom they depend on for some good or service such as prayer. (The effects of prayer have been scientifically catalogued and documented.)
To date, it is too soon to tell what impression the hospital made on the member of my family. The healing process has only just begun. But according to other patients and care-givers their, the hospital is highly regarded as a place for the fostering of healing and the returning of a sense of worth to the ill.
No one wants to be ill, but I have gotten the sense that if illness occurs, then an environment where individual's worth is favored, and fraternity is venerated, will be a much sought after environment.
———
Quinton Jefferson, a graduate student at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio is working towards his Masters in Theology. He is a member of a Roman Catholic Church and is a member of its choir. Quinton's email is {email Quinton_Marques@yahoo.com}Quinton_Marques@yahoo.com{/email}. ©copyright 2005 by Quinton Jefferson.
UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum is a big tent for all expressions
of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any.
All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are
not necessarily shared by UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum.