Surgical Incompetence

Every now and then a real life story confronts us with enormously difficult moral dilemmas. After ruining the lives of many women through surgical incompetence and mistakes, a gynaecologist lost his license to practice in the city of Vancouver. Later he was re-employed in a non-clinical role within the Canadian Health Service. Understandably former patients have reacted with incredulity and anger. Women are appalled that he should be allowed back in any capacity.

Meanwhile the former gynaecologist himself says he is full of remorse for what he did. He is ashamed of his horrific incompetency and has apologised publicly and will continue to repeat the apology. He still believes that he has something to give, not in clinical medicine, but elsewhere in the field. Yet to place him completely outside his chosen field is, he believes, to treat him with fewer rights than a convicted prisoner. Is he to be forever condemned?

It is fascinating how words normally associated with religion appear in everyday discourse. In this case words like shame, remorse, apology and the implicit idea of forgiveness are all present. But look at the complexity in it all. There are women whose lives have been ruined. They are real victims who need to be heard and supported in their struggle to be survivors.

On the other hand here is the person responsible for the horrors; now remorseful, ashamed, humiliated, apologetic, feeling that he is not being allowed to make amends. Is forgiveness possible? How much remorse would he need to show and what amends would he need to make, to be forgiven?

It can be very easy to talk about forgiveness and also very easy to speak of condemnation. Both reactions may be ways of avoiding hard choices, tough decisions, inner moral struggles.

The victims/survivors cannot forget. There is a journey to be made deep into their personal anguish, and the emotional loss of self-esteem. Feelings of destructive anger including vengeance need to be named and confronted. For the perpetrator there is denial to overcome, the humiliation of public apology and the paralysis of guilt and worthlessness to be faced.

There is the struggle to make amends, which is appropriate. For both there may even be the pain of a face-to-face encounter.

But how else does everyone avoid being a prisoner of the past? It is a hard-nosed, core Christian insight that there is no forgiveness without justice and no justice without forgiveness. But is that precisely what Christ would expect of us? Is it clearly and unequivocally what He would do?

How difficult is it for us to forgive without reservation, accept the scars we carry, and in God's light, move on?

For some, it's impossible. For others, it's a destination.

Lord God, grant us the insight to feel the suffering of others and the wisdom to understand. We place ourselves before You as your faithful servants, and pray that we may be grateful for the gifts we have received from Your grace. Amen

Posted for Fr Bill

How to Care for the Dying

I'm Only Dying

When We Think God Doesn't Listen

Excess Baggage

Ever broken up with a girlfriend or boy-friend under less than the best of terms, vowing never to see one another again, only to run into the ex years later and not quite know what to say and how to respond? You both may still have wounds of hurt. And if you were the sole instigator, you may have grown in wisdom but still bear more than a few seeds of guilt.

Each of us carries baggage from earlier parts of our life journeys. Not only our physical bodies, but our spirits can bear wounds, some self-inflicted, others the result of misunderstandings or just pure bad luck. And there are those who suffer from the deliberate actions of those who wish us malice. These can be heavy burdens to bear, and too often they present sizeable barriers to our ability to move forward in our journeys. How can we ever be free?

How can we be done with the hurtful parts of our past? Those are questions we all ask eventually, and intuitively we know the answer. Jesus wants to take our hands and share His healing and His strength with us. We have only to give Him our hands, but they have to be open, not shut and holding tightly onto our old baggage.

Before you ask for His healing and His freedom, first check your hands. If they’re still full and still closed, you’ve left no room for Him and your prayer will go unanswered. Because it is no prayer at all.

Forgiving Lord, create in us a clean heart and restore our joy in living. Cleanse us that we may always be living examples to those who have hurt us. Grant them the same peace that we ask for ourselves. In Your name we pray. Amen

Take heart daughter your faith has healed you. Matthew 9:22

Thank You Sarah!

Music is A Gift From God

When Traditions Become Weights

How Good A Neighbour Are You?

Most adults and, indeed, most of their children know the story of the Good Samaritan. And most of us would have a ready answer to the question, ‘According to Jesus, who is my neighbour?’ Our answer would be simple and clear: ‘Everybody,’ and our answer would be right. But that doesn't close the matter. There’s a further question: Is our right answer surface knowledge or dynamic knowledge? Is it strictly correct information, or does it actually affect and determine the way we live?

That’s the crucial question for us all, and it can be phrased in another way: How Christian are we, in fact? Does Jesus’ teaching determine our priorities, our lifestyle, the way we do business, the way we treat one another, our willingness to forgive, and our readiness to help? It’s a chilling thought to remember that Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were all baptised Christians who knew their prayers by heart.

So how Christian are you really? Check the patterns of your daily choices, and you’ll know right away. The patterns never lie.

It's Life Jim, But Not As We Know It

When Traditions Become Weights

Anger

As Jesus showed us by His own life, true love takes many shapes. But we are blind to too many of them. We feel comfortable with the Jesus who cured the lepers, gave sight to the blind, healed the crippled, and brought the dead back to life. We feel at ease with the Jesus who gathered the little children around Him and blessed them, and we are comforted by the Jesus who forgave the most notorious sinners over and over again. We like the kindness that Jesus shows to His mother, in changing the water into wine at the wedding feast, just because she asked. And we’re touched by His tenderness to her as He hung upon the cross.

But there is another side of Jesus that makes us want to avert our eyes, because we don’t exactly know what to do with it. And that is the angry Jesus, we see, casting the chiselling moneychangers out of the temple, or denouncing the hypocrisy of the religious leaders who were no leaders at all, or reprimanding Peter who wants Him to take the easy way out and run away.

We have learned to be afraid of all anger and to make no distinction between its good and bad varieties. Jesus made that distinction clear for us. Bad anger contains hate and wishes another person harm. Good anger is always aimed at behaviours not persons. It hates the sin but not the sinner. Indeed, good anger can be for the good of those who are in the wrong, because it can wake them up - if they’re willing to listen.

Anger is a powerful tool and it can be misused so easily, but so can our inclinations toward passivity even in the face of great evils. Hate the sin, but love the sinner, and you’ll never go awry.

Thank You Sarah!