More people need to post their political opinions on social media. There I said it.

I’ve heard many people say social media is not a good place to discuss politics, but I think they are mistaken.  I think social media is the place to discuss politics in the 21^st century.   Here I will make the case of #SocialMediaForSocialGood. 

Many of the great societies in history had iconic spots where people would meet to exchange ideas: the Greeks had the agora, the Romans had the forum, the French revolutionaries had their cafes.  With the creation of motorized transportation, our society has become considerably less centralized.  As a result, we’re losing the iconic meeting places of the past.  Yet despite this geographic distance, our ability to communicate has been preserved and enhanced by the Internet and other telecommunication technologies.  So while we’re more dispersed from physical gatherings, an exchange of ideas unprecedented in world history can now take place.  The Roman forum still exists, its just now virtual and you can participate while sitting on the toilet. 

Social media facilitates much of this communication, which comes in various forms.  Baby pictures, cat videos, listicles, cryptic messages about some people being haterz, those weird toy unboxing videos that kids love are all perfectly acceptable uses of social media.  It’s clear the world is a much better place now that a gif exists for every situation.  Yet if we argue, as I’ve heard many say, that political opinions do not belong amidst this raucous procession of human expression, I’m afraid we’ll lose something vital to the proper functioning of our democratic society.

Exchanging ideas is extremely important for society

This rowdy election season has surprised many people with just how diverse the United States is ideologically. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have unearthed angst from their political constituents that many people didn’t know existed, with the former driving ideology further left and the latter blowing up the established right.  Add in the combustible mix of global terrorism, racial inequality, economic hardship, etc., and it is clear there is a growing political divide straining our social fabric much like the tension on a trampoline’s springs when a rhinoceros jumps on it.  It doesn’t turn out well. For the trampoline at least. 

The only way forward, the only way to add strength to the springs, is to close the ideological gap by exchanging ideas. To discuss how to do that, let me first make the observation that much of our political disagreement surrounds the ideas of what is right and what is true. If you grant me this, we can discuss how social media helps us approach these issues. 

How a society decides what is right

One of the preeminent moral and political philosophers of the 20^th century, John Rawls, developed a process of moral evaluation known as reflective equilibrium to help us decide what is right.  A person comes to a moral conclusion by first considering what her moral judgment is telling her and then considering competing and affirming arguments for this view.  She has come to a state of equilibrium when this process of back-and-forth has resolved the inconsistencies in the competing claims or, if this is impossible, when she learns how to hold the opposing views in tension. 

Consider a thoughtful person deciding whether the United States should accept more Syrian refugees.  She sees the suffering of the Syrians and knows that life in the US could drastically improve their standard of living and her moral intuition tells her we should accept many refugees.  She encounters an opposing view that holds some of these people, even if a very small number, could be terrorists and one day murder Americans. She accepts this argument as true, there is no way to ever screen out every potential terrorist when accepting refugees.  So her choice is to reverse her moral stance and think that we should accept less or no refugees or she can hold the two ideas in tension, acknowledging the risks but keeping her moral conclusion the same. 

If you read that example and thought of supporting or counter arguments, then you’re continuing the process of reflective equilibrium for yourself.  If you tell her why her conclusion is wrong, then you’re now part of her reflective process.  In this view, evaluating competing and supporting claims is essential to deciding what is right.  If this truly is the way to arrive at moral conclusions, then you can see how social media can play an important role in moral judgments as it facilitates this back-and-forth between people with opposing views. So exchanging ideas over social media, if used correctly, is a powerful engine to move the process forward.

How a society decides what is true

A similar process holds true as we evaluate the second component of political disagreement, truth.  Knowing truth is very difficult.  Incredibly difficult.  Most of the time, when someone says, “I know this is true,” it is shorthand for “this idea is consistent with any fact, feeling, or other coherence mechanism I possess.” But does that make it true? It depends on the quality of his facts, feelings, or coherence mechanisms.

While we possess a variety of “truth-making” mechanisms such as logic, intuition, and sense perception, science has placed itself as the leader of this process.  Since the Enlightenment, the scientific method has proved itself the best way for us to establish facts about the natural world.  The process of science is to organize information into consistent ideas that we call facts and from these facts to establish truth, but this path to truth is not as straight as its description makes it sound.  We make discoveries through research then argue about the quality of the research, who funds it, how statistical methods were applied, and whether it fits or overturns established theory.  The process is a back-and-forth exchange, much like reflective equilibrium for morals.

The scientific process reflects our own thinking.  Each of us participates in this process of back-and-forth, comparing facts and ideas to decide what we believe to be true.  This is incredibly important in this election.  For both parties, it can seem like the other side has a loose relationship with the truth (whether its truer for one side or the other, this article will remain agnostic but it is worth noting the author believes this to be a question that can be answered through factual verification).  Through an exchange of ideas, we can better understand the facts that the opposition espouse.  If the facts are wrong, then a process of back-and-forth may demonstrate that.  If the facts are right, then we will be forced to modify our own views.  Like moral reflection, social media can be a powerful engine to propel societal discussion toward a better collective understanding of truth.

Through this discussion, I’ve proposed that while society has become geographically decentralized, it has gained an ability to exchange ideas that is unprecedented in world history.  At the same time, we’ve become ideologically and politically polarized with much of our disagreement swirling around what is right and what is true.  Social media can be used as a tool to facilitate the back-and-forth communication necessary to lessen the polarization. The examples of reflective equilibrium for moral conclusions and scientific debate for establishing facts demonstrate social media’s potential to close the political gap and provide clarity for many of our most jumbled issues. Social progress is an uphill journey.  Social media is a combustible force that can help propel society forward in the difficult road ahead. This is why we must use #SocialMediaForSocialGood.

Where to go from here

At this point I would bet many (or most) readers are thinking that while this sounds nice and possibly true in some academic utopian fantasy, in the real world it will never work.  I mean, have you ever read comments on YouTube?  It is well known that anonymity unmasks our inner trolls.  If social media is combustible, as I say, then could it blow up society instead? It’s possible. But social media is also not going away anytime soon.  After humanity discovered fire, we had to figure out how to make it work for us before it burned down our village.  Perhaps we are at a similar place with social media, we need to learn to harness its energy before it tears us further apart.  So next post I am going to propose rules for #SocialMediaForSocialGood that will help direct its energy into something constructive. 

To tread the next part in this series click here.

On Botswana

My first day in the pediatric cancer ward in Botswana was striking.  We have two rooms with multiple oncology patients in each room.  One room is designed for 6, the other is designed for 4; however, if there are not enough beds, then mattresses are flung on the floor wherever there’s a spot.  (So I suppose the true capacity of the rooms is the surface area of the floor divided by the surface area of a mattress…).  There are no labels to the beds, nor bracelets for patient ID, there are only names and landmarks (e.g. “Namueli under the Garfield poster”). The most striking aspect, I think, are the flies.  There are flies everywhere.  They crawl on the floors, they chill on the beds, and they land on the kids, even the cancer kids who are immunosuppressed! 

As this description of the unit illustrates, medicine is very, very different here in Botswana.  Resource availability, workflow, cultural practices, social interactions are all radically divergent from where and how I was trained. I find that these differences make the workday quite difficult. Cancer care is extremely complex.  Adequate resources are essential and the system needs to operate smoothly in order for treatment to proceed.  The deficiencies in the system tend to inhibit the progress of care. 

……

I feel that many times when I hear or talk about international medical missions, this is the kind of description I end up with - a laundry list of all the ways the system is not what we think it should be.  Yet while the difficulties here are many, our group is nevertheless providing ever-improving, high-quality care to the kids in our program.  We can do such good work because Botswana is an incredible country to work in.  It is true there are many difficulties to working here, but by developing a deep understanding of these difficulties, they can be overcome.  More importantly, we need to acknowledge that Botswana has many unique assets, which can be leveraged to unlock its potential.  To better understand healthcare delivery in Botswana, I want to go beyond the laundry list of complaints and explore its difficulties and its assets with the nuance and dignity that the country deserves.       

The Difficulties

            To discuss the difficulties of care let's use the example of the flies.  At first it seems ridiculous that there are flies in the hospital!  They pour in through the open windows in the unit. They are diarrhea vectors from hell and they all need to die a horrible death. It is frustrating to see them swarming the kids who have already been through so much.  Yet they persist in the unit because getting rid of them defies easy answers. 

Easy answer 1: Close the !@#$ windows!

            Nope: You’ll give the kids tuberculosis and you definitely don’t want to do that.  Botswana has one of the highest rates of TB per capita in the world at about 5 per 1000 people (http://www.aho.afro.who.int/profiles_information/index.php/Botswana:Analytical_summary_-_Tuberculosis) and all of those people love coming into the hospital to share the joy.  The hospital does not have any sort of central air conditioning and people are much more likely to contract it in enclosed environments with stagnant air.   So opening the windows and doors is the WHO-sanctioned poor-man’s version of environmental control (http://www.who.int/tb/publications/2006/tbhiv_infectioncontrol_addendum.pdf).  So easy answer 1 ended up with a bunch of tuberculosis infected cancer kids.  Go us.

Easy Answer 2: Buy air conditioning!  Then close the !@#$ windows!

            Nope: Are you kidding? The climate in Botswana is quite temperate most of the year, except for the very hot (but not humid!) summers, which can be relieved with fans. So most of the time central heating and air conditioning is a waste of money.  The hospital can do far more good for the patients by taking the money they would spend on air condition and instead buying vital supplies like antibiotics and chemotherapy.  AC is an incredible expense that outweighs the value of banishing the flies.  (At least we didn’t give the kids TB with this answer)

Easy Answer 3: Buy screens for the windows!

            Nope: Well actually, that’s not a terrible idea.  Except its already been tried and failed.  There are screens scattered on a few random windows throughout the unit, which is evidence of a past attempt at fly control.  I think the problem was that the windows were designed really terribly and it is very hard to open them with the screens on them, not impossible mind you, just more difficult.  The difficulty made people haphazard with how they handled the screens so they fell off over time.  It seems no one really cared to maintain them and put them back up.  This issue spirals into a really interesting discussion of organizational practices that perpetuate inefficient processes, for example facilities upkeep. I will not indulge in the discussion here, but suffice it to say we’ve identified a larger organizational deficiency of maintenance that neither I nor you are in a position to address at this particular moment.  So not a bad thought (by that I mean I don’t really have anything sarcastic to say it), but been there, done that. 

Easy Answer 4: Put up flytraps!

            No…Actually maybe: As it happens, I’ve made my own and am trying that as we speak.  I made homemade traps using coke bottles and sugar dissolved in water as an attractant (Youtube says it should work).  I have my reservations as to the efficacy of these contraptions, mainly because I’m not sure my sugar water is going to be attractive enough.  Flies seem to really like moldy fruit, rotting meat, or poop – none of which the hospital administration felt comfortable allowing me to hang in the rooms.  They also aren’t keen on using other types of chemicals or pesticides for understandable reasons. So sugar water it is! (If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them...) 

This analysis illustrates that many seemingly simple problems defy easy answers.  Granted, I’m experimenting with an easy answer right now, but I don’t have much confidence I will be successful.  The larger point is that the roots of many of the problems extend far into the larger structures of the organization where no one person can reach them.  These structures include the actual infrastructure of the facilities, the resources available to us, the organizational practices of communication, the workflow of laboratory tests and other processes, and longstanding cultural practices.  This list is certainly not unique to this hospital, I could tell exactly the same story (and probably worse ones) at any hospital in the United States. The point is that this list helps to identify the relevant domains that need to be engaged if we are to improve the quality of care we provide.  Building health systems defies easy answers.  Our analyses of systemic deficiencies have to be as complex and nuanced as the system that created them.

The Assets

            Botswana is a magnificent country with incredible prospects for continued development.  To truly provide high quality care in international settings, we have to understand and leverage the strengths of the system. To identity its specific assets, a nuanced and complex understanding of the historical, social and environmental milieu is essential.

            Botswana was a British colony until independence of 1966.  It is completely landlocked and has very few natural resources except for diamonds discovered shortly after independence.  At independence it was extremely poor with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of about $70 per year.  Over the next 35 years, Botswana would clock one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world at 7.7% peryear from 1966-99, which is phenomenal when compared to other “economic success stories” over the same period such as Hong Kong at 4.6% and Singapore at 6.2%.  As a result of this growth, Botswana is considered an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and boasts a GDP per capita of  $7315.   Researchers attribute this economic success to lack of interference from post-colonial powers such as Britain, strong democratic government institutions, the consistent enforcement of property rights, and political leaders that made reasonable economic decisions.  A striking result of this success has been the country’s stability.  It has never had a major war even though almost every other country in southern Africa has experience exceedingly violent conflicts – Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, DRC, Tanzania… the list goes on.

            This historical backdrop reveals many advantages that Botswana has when considering how to provide complex healthcare in this setting.  Its British roots made English one of the official languages of the country.  Its economic growth means that resources are more available than in many poorer countries.  Its strong government has provided a strong social safety net.  All people have access to health care either through paying for private-insurance or free government insurance.  Its lack of conflict means the population has avoided the catastrophic physical and mental consequences of war, allowing it to focus its priorities on expanding rather than rebuilding the health system. 

            Each of these assets can be leveraged to continue improving the healthcare system.  For example suppose we want to better educate nurses about caring for oncology patients. The task will be much easier, and therefore more feasible and impactful, because English is the common language in the hospital.  If we wanted to establish an outreach oncology clinic in a village 10 hours from the main hospital, that might be a feasible undertaking given the strength of the national health infrastructure and the presence of other outreach clinics already in the region.  Suppose want to work with the government to increase funding for cancer patients.  If there were warring factions vying for power or if corruption was too high, such discussions would be all but impossible.  These are just a few examples of Botswana’s assets at work. 

            Botswana’s most important asset of all is its people.  The people I have encountered here are beautiful.  There is a strong sense of community that is very evident in the hospital.  Mother’s are almost uniformly at the bedside 24/7.  When the odd kid comes in who’s parents are unable to accompany him, the rest of the mothers in the unit care for him as their own, even making sure baths are taken and clean pairs of clothes are available. Cancer care is a very long and grueling process, especially when you have to travel for 2 days every month to make it to the hospital, but families consistently make the journey and complete therapy (it is not unusual for many families to abandon therapy in the middle of it in many developing countries).   My Botswana co-workers are intelligent and hard working and represent a very promising future for the healthcare system.  The people I encounter in the town are uniformly friendly and willing to help out when I look hopelessly lost.  I’ve never once felt unsafe or any hint of aggression while walking through the city streets.  I’ve even noticed the men do not ogle at women nor make catcalls, but are rather respectful around them, which is a big deal if I ever returned with a family.  I don’t think I could honestly boast of this collection of social capital about any other developing (nor most developed) countries I have visited. 

            Basically, Botswana is amazing.  Its healthcare system certainly has its deficiencies, but all healthcare systems do, rich or poor. To address these deficiencies we need to honestly assess the system and avoid easy answers. More importantly, Botswana’s assets are exceptional.  With a rich history, impressive economic growth, sturdy social institutions, and lovely people that form the foundation of a strong society, Botswana is a success story that many people have never head of.  These attributes allow us from America to partner together with the people of Botswana to deliver high-quality cancer care to kids across the country. 

Movement 1: Medical Missions as an Act of Selfishness

 [Note: I was "lovingly" told that some of my posts were too long and I need to include a summary at the top.  So here you go.  Tldr: I'm serving sick children in Africa! I'm also a prideful jerk! Who can save me from my pride? Jesus! What does my tendency to pride mean for medical missions?!?....O_o]

            I’m currently in Botswana, Africa.  I will be working in a children’s cancer ward that my hospital in the United States has an international partnership with.  I’m incredibly excited because international Pediatric Hematology/Oncology is the trajectory of my professional career and I feel that this is the first step.  I am struck by the fact that 80% of children in rich countries are cured of their cancers; however, 80% of the pediatric cancers occur in low- and middle-income countries, where survival rates are often less than 25%.  Children die every day of preventable reasons and I would like to be part of fixing that disparity. 

            As excited as I am, I have a thought that has been weighing heavily on me lately.  I’m bothered by the reason why I want to do this.  Saving a child’s life from cancer is clearly good work to do, but what is my motivation for doing it?  Now I think motivations can be mixed and there can be many contributing reasons for a given action, but as I navigate the answer to this particular question, one motive stands out above the rest: I am selfish.  If I’m being honest I have to say that it is really important to me that it makes me feel good and, more importantly, look good to go serve cancer kids in Africa.  “Look at what I’ve given up! See how altruistic I am!” are unfortunately common thoughts that energize my actions. 

            Before we proceed I should offer a disclaimer.  Self-glorification is not the only reason that I want to help people.  I am genuinely animated by a desire to serve the Lord with my life, by an altruistic impulse to help people, and by a deep longing for justice.  I would even venture to say that these motivations are much stronger than my selfishness.  However, I’m wondering if this selfish motivation is like the proverbial poop in the brownie mix, a little bit ruins the whole batch.  It is this tendency to corruption of something good that I will explore. 

            So now that I’ve established I am, among other things, kind of a self-interested tool, I need to answer a few more questions for myself:  Is this selfishness a problem? What does it say about me? What does it mean for my work in medical missions? 

Is my selfishness a problem?

As I’ve already pointed out, saving kids from cancer is inherently a good thing.  I think very few people would argue against that.  So if the outcome is good, does the motivation matter? Since I’m betting there are other selfish people like me in the world, maybe doing good deeds should be made as self-glorifying as possible so as to maximize good deed doing.  One can argue the point, to which I would reply that it is an undeniable fact that our society values right motives.  If Batman fights crime because he enjoys violence, we wouldn’t find him much of a superhero.  If a politician expands access to healthcare because he is invested in the insurance company, we would cry fraud.  If an activist raises funds by lying about the impact of his charity, even if much of the money returns to the charity, we call him a disgrace.  These examples show that society values motivations in judging the goodness of an action even when the outcomes are good.

Beyond a societal definition of what is good, I value motivations because I am a Christian.  As a Christian, what I find to be good and right is defined by the very nature of God himself and his subsequent description of how we should follow his example.  In one of the most famous verses in the Bible, we have a strong description of God’s motivation in acting in the world in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.” Love motivated God to give his son, Jesus.  If God’s reason for giving his son was for 10% of our income or to create an army of evangelical Republicans, we would feel very differently about this God.  In God’s love, however, I have an example of right motivation.  Philippians 2:5-6 goes on to say, “…have the mindset of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Christians are called to have the mindset of Christ, who was motivated to serve through love.  So motivations matter to God and, therefore, ought to matter to me.

What does my selfishness say about me?

           

            Now that we’ve established a reason to value right motives, let’s explore what my selfishness says about me. To do this, I’ll walk through what happens when I perform a “selfless” act of service.  To illustrate selfless service in the Bible, Jesus washed his disciples feet after his last Passover meal and right before his arrest and subsequent execution.  Christians find this imagery, that the God of the universe would bend a knee to wash the dirtiest part of his peoples’ bodies, to be a beautiful expression of what it means to follow Christ.  Some groups of Christians will do this ritual as an act of worship to God from time to time.  While it makes for a pretty description, let’s see what it actually looks like when its my turn to wash someone’s feet:

            Alright, its time to whack these guys upside the head with Love. We’ll see what God wants to do through me being a stud.  

'Hey everyone, God says we are supposed to love and serve one another as Jesus loved and served us. To illustrate that point I’m going to wash all of your…’ (sick-nasty) ‘…feet.’ 

 Good speech, that really set a pensive tone.   I wish there was some epic music playing in the background, like I’m the main character of a movie – mental note for next time. Who first? Jeff just said something dumb and Nate is still snickering at him.  I’ll wash Jeff first to both give him a little love fist-bump and to heap some proverbial burning coals Nate’s way. Bwaha. Ok, somberly grab the water and then take off his sho- Oh shi….rrrroudofTURIN! That smell! Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react.  Hey I kind of hope the others smell that.  Ok slowly wash. Bleghh, is that a bunion? Hmm maybe nonchalantly angle the foot out so the others can see it better.  Perfect.  Look how much I am suffering! I wish I could capture this moment in Sepia tone. Embed a photographer - another mental note for next time.  What a good illustration of God’s love – high five, me! 

Although there is a heavy dose of facetiousness in the story, note the obsession with image and appearance.  Even while doing something selfless, there is a meta-narrative unfolding in my mind that is reframing the experience to be about me.  This reframing will direct my subsequent actions.  It is this corrupting feedback loop that turns an action into an exercise in pride.  The action may start well-intentioned and emanate from a genuine desire to benefit others, but as the corrupting thoughts occur, it slowly pulls the direction of my focus from others to myself.

The corrupting thought doesn’t necessarily have to be appearance.  It could be a motivation for a good feeling.   A common response to the question, “Why do you do the work you do?” is the answer, “It’s just so rewarding.”  A variety of interpretations are possible in that statement, but if I said it, I would probably mean that it makes me feel good to help people.   A degree of nuance is needed here to admit that the good feeling from helping others is itself not a bad thing (the same can be said for looking awesome while serving).  But it becomes a bad thing (i.e. a selfish thing) if that is my main motive for serving.  These corrupting thoughts can take many forms, from desire for material gain, to sex, to power, but they all have the final common pathway of self-serving motives.  In other words, pride.  

So here is what I’ve noticed about myself.  When I try to do something good, no matter how genuine, how well intentioned, there is a significant temptation to make it about myself instead of the object of my service.  I have a continual tendency to pride and self-exaltation, which are both grave sins in the Christian vernacular. Am I alone in this struggle? Thankfully no.  The Apostle Paul had something to say about the continual struggle with sin in Romans 7:21-25:

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at with work in me.  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

That’s me, a wretched man. I want to do good but I know that sinful pride is right beside me, or more accurately inside me.  It’s comforting to know that Paul struggled with similar feelings.    And truly, I think he’s describing a more universal struggle.  It is a basic fact of the human condition that no matter what we do, no matter how impressive our accomplishments, no matter how dirty we get serving the poor, no matter how much personal sacrifice, the corrupting influence of sin remains. For me, as I’ve already confessed, that corrupting influence is pride.  I am the most important thing in my life.  How do I escape a situation where the very problem is that I exist?

            Thankfully, God has provided an answer through Jesus.  I’ve found I cannot change how important I find myself to be.  But Christ provides a definitive, external answer to my internal cycle of corrupting self-love.  As the omnipotent, transcendental Creator, he posses an existence much greater than my own and, therefore, is a much greater object of worship than I am.  Through his sacrificial death on the cross, he provides a way to change my basic motivations by connecting me to God and teaching me what selfless love truly is.  Christ can redeem both the object of my desire and my motivations for obtaining it, from self-focused to Christ-centered.

            Though Christ offers such a beautiful redemption, I still struggle with sin.  I’m not perfect, nor will I ever be while I’m here on earth.  The Christian life is a process of learning to reflect Christ’s love more clearly.  Like a mirror, I cannot project my own light but rather I’m learning to more clearly project Christ’s.  So I will continue to serve.  Sometimes I will make it about myself.  Other times, and hopefully more and more frequently, I will genuinely say that I am serving with the mindset of Christ. 

What does this mean for International Medical Missions?

This framework is my foundation for a Christ-exalting, thoughtful and (hopefully) intelligent approach to international medical missions.  I must start with understanding my own state in the world, both wretched and hopeful, before I can focus outwardly on serving others.  In future posts, I hope to more explicitly connect these dots.  Stay tuned. 

Eulogy: Land that Drinks the Rain

[Author's Note: The subject of this meditation is a family friend and not a patient of mine.  I have received permission from his legal guardians to publish this post.]

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He saw too much hardship.  He died too young.  He was 7 years old, far too young for a funeral.  How can those he left behind process such a tragedy?  

It is customary at funerals to give a eulogy, a recounting of the life of the dearly departed.  The design of such a speech is to celebrate the deceased by memorializing the events if his time on earth. Through this narrative, we hope to illuminate the meaning of the loved one’s life.  But what if the deceased has felt so much pain and experienced so much evil, that it is hard to see the meaning through the suffering?  How do we see the good when it is wrapped in darkness? Perhaps this is the true purpose of a eulogy. By recounting the good despite the bad, perhaps we will find meaning of the young boy’s life:

“You were born into poverty and grew up in a broken home. You spent your early years lonely and afraid.  While you could not care for yourself, you had no one else to care for you. You were separated from your family and sent to a children’s home to find a better life.  As stability was within your grasp, cancer ripped it away.  You fought hard, enduring years of treatment, and you won many battles.  You even thought you had it beat, you thought it was gone, the doctors told you so, and yet the cancer returned, more vicious and deadly than before.  As the hopelessness grew, you soon found an army of friends, family, doctors, and nurses beside you. The struggle was fierce; you fought to the point of breaking.  You endured many things that kids your age should never have to endure.  Good news and the promise of victory again gave way to defeat.  The cancer again returned, and this time there was nothing we could do.  The cancer slowly took you from us, and now you are gone. 

                        Despite these trials, the good that we can recount about your life is plentiful.  I knew you briefly, but I quickly learned your smile could light up a room and your joy, when it shined through the pain, was as infectious as it was evident.  You were resilient, able to endure treatments designed to push your body to the brink of collapse.  You were obedient to your foster parents, always trusting in their guidance and ever respectful of their wishes.  You loved well and loved much, always thinking of the wellbeing of your friends and family.  You were imaginative, playful, and free spirited; it was very clear the cage your body had become could not adequately contain your lively soul. Moreover, you had a community around you that loved you dearly. You meant the world to your brothers and sisters, caretakers, and foster parents at the Home.  You were also always faithful to your God, believing in him to the very end for hope, strength, and salvation.  All of these examples illustrate the undeniable fact that while your body slowly deteriorated, your soul and your spirit were beautifully alive.   Those of us you left behind will forever cherish these memories of how you have impacted our lives…”

            …Is this where the eulogy ends? I have recounted the good of his life and assured him I will forever hold fond memories.  Is the meaning of his life the memories we shared? Yet I cannot keep the immense pain he have experienced from seeping into the spaces between the memories, dampening their color and obscuring their light.  I find myself, despite these good things, pressing my questions: Why so much suffering? What is the meaning of it all?

            There are those who see only the material world and declare there is no ultimate meaning.  Richard Dawkins expresses this sentiment when he says, “the universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference” (River Out of Eden, 1996). He believed that the material world is all there is to existence, so there was no more meaning than that which we can create within ourselves.  Such a view can offer someone nothing more than a recounting of a life’s events yielding a subjective assessment of its significance.  The value of a life is in the eye of the observer as he decides what the historical data of a life means.  As the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre declares, “One always dies too soon — or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life” (No Exit, 1944). 

So is my dear friend truly nothing other than the sum of the events of his life? What if it’s characterized by so much suffering as his was? Was it still worth living? There exist no scales on which I could begin to weigh such values, yet confined to the pitiless, indifferent world, this is exactly what we must do. So bounded by naturalism, significance cannot extend beyond an observer’s ability to evaluate a life.  As the remembrance of his existence passes, then so does his significance. We can exalt our finite importance as high as humanly possible, and yet in the end it cannot escape the gravitational pull of meaningless oblivion. Surely there is more to life than this. 

            For those of us who claim a relationship with a transcendental God, there is more. For if God exists beyond the natural world, and if he is a personal being with values and preferences, then anything that God values is imbued with a transcendental significance. Because of the nature of God, this significance is eternal, immutable, and infinite.  It is incomparable to any that we know in the natural world. While there is certainly some significance in human accomplishments and relationships, it is a finite, fluctuant, and temporally limited sort. If you look for this type of human significance juxtaposed against God’s infinity, it will be hard to see.

From this it follows that if God values us, then we have such a transcendental significance. But how are we to know if God values us? Earlier, I said that a eulogy is a speech of praise meant to articulate a person’s value.  The word “eulogy” comes from the Greek “eulogia”, which can mean either “praise; good or fine language” or “blessing”.  Note that our modern word for eulogy comes from the Greek word for blessing.  So a euology can be thought of as a final blessing for the dead. In the New Testament we find that God’s blessing, his eulogia, is directed towards us. 

Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.  Hebrews 6:7

           Much can be said of this verse about the nature of suffering and its relationship to a benevolent, omnipotent God, but I haven’t the space for adequate treatment in this meditation.  For our purposes, let us note that our lives are described as “land that drinks the rain”.   Now rain can either be good or evil, nourishing or destructive, depending on the context.  These rains are the events of our life.  As land cannot control the location or amount of rain that falls on it, so we too cannot control most of what comes to pass for us.  Thus exposed to the tumult of nature, we must endure the experience of reality as it comes, with the hope that something redemptive exists beyond the horizon of this land with its erosive forces.

            Beyond the horizon, we find God.  He promises to bless us, to articulate our significance through his own eulogia of us. What he asks of us is to produce a crop, in this context meaning knowledge, faith, and joy in Christ Jesus. Here we see our lives can have a transcendental significance to him.  The rain that falls may be an overwhelming flood.  Someone may experience only suffering in his life, and yet through God, he has eternal significance. Regardless of our subjective evaluation of our lives, we are significant because God has declared it to be so through his eternal, unchanging, and ultimate evaluation of us. 

            There is one final component of how God values us that must be mentioned.  He does not see us as though he were watching a comedic movie or a tragic play.  God is not a mere spectator of our lives.  He intimately understands us through Jesus Christ, who has experienced the full breadth of evil, pain, and suffering.  Christ himself drank the rain through his life, death and resurrection. So we can be confident that whatever our suffering, be it from pain, loneliness, cancer, rape, or torture, He who declares us eternally significant understands its cost because he paid it himself. 

            So for my young friend who suffered so much, who died, and who was faithful to his God to the end, let us see the significance of his life through God’s eulogia for him:

“He knows the overwhelming pain of your life because He was there.  Through the sleepless nights, the loneliness, the abandonment, He was there.  Through the diagnosis, the breaking of your body, the poisonous treatments, He was there.  Through the love of your family, the support of your friends, the joys of your life, He was there.  Through all of it, He was there because you are infinitely valuable to Him.  You are so much more than the sum of the events of your life. Your significance to Him extends beyond life, death or time and into eternity.  You have drunk the rain and now you may forever rest in His eternal delight.”