Priorities: First, Promote. But Also Preserve and Protect Public Education.

For those of us who lose the thread of conversations on Facebook, and because I believe these discussions apply to issues being faced by other communities outside the Intermountain Area, I am posting my response more permanently to the blog here. I will try, when time allows, to condense it further, but for now…

Many in our local area will recognize the relationships involved here. Our respect and admiration for Shannon Carnegie are tangibly demonstrated in the long and mutually beneficial relationship between The Glenburn Community Church and Small Wonders Preschool, including Shannon’s very well-regarded (and fun, even for the old pastor who gets invited to most of the more exciting events and experiments) curriculum.

Recently, as I will let Shannon’s words explain, a number of families have suggested that they would support an expansion of her business to include all elementary grades as well. Already, two previous private schools in the area stand vacant, one having closed shortly before we arrived fourteen years ago, and the other closing more recently. I mention this because it figures in what I have written below. At the end of this post, I will append Shannon’s Facebook post addressing this discussion so that you can read her take on the challenges faced by our public schools in general. First, here is my latest contribution to the discussion.

Profile Pic of Small Wonders Preschool of Fall River
An awesome and important resource to our community.

For the sake of focusing on a key question, let’s presume for the moment that I would stipulate two things. First, that the research demonstrates that the symptoms you list are directly attributable to the public education system and are applicable to children in the range of ages five to twelve. Second, that parents who have not invested in making improvements to their community’s local public schools would adjust their priorities, schedules, and budgets sufficiently to experiment with “an alternative to the status quo.” (In order to proceed, I’ll assume you accept these stipulations.)

What I consider to be the key question is still being left unaddressed, though. Do we choose to work together toward providing the best possible education for all of our community’s children, or do the relatively few who have the means to pursue alternatives choose to further diminish the available resources for the remaining majority of those children?

The Glenburn Community Church
Small Wonders Preschool of Fall River
meets in The Schoolhouse on our campus

I will accept, again for the moment, that no one intends these efforts to be a direct attack. But the results are clearly inflicting more than collateral damage. We agree that there is a need for improvement. But how does conscience allow any of us to push “others’ kids” further from such improvements so that “our kids” can be subjects of yet another experimental alternative?

And the damage is not limited to diminishing our schools’ attendance-based funding. Encouraging greater dissatisfaction with the efforts of our educators actively discourages the kind of investment many of us are making—and promoting as a worthy pursuit for others, especially those who are critical of what they perceive to be a static status quo. Even if this latest experiment also fails, the focus is again being shifted away from actively improving our schools to imagining that there could be a school that will

meet every expectation of every dissatisfied parent. If your conversations are like mine, you know that we face not just conflicting expectations, but many that are mutually exclusive.

Once, my favorite radio station.
But I had to stop listening to it.
("What's In It...For Me.")

The damage to the majority of our community’s children may not result from a direct attack. But please consider whether the collateral damage is conscionable. We profess, together, our respect and admiration for our educators. I also believe we can, together, refocus on how that respect and admiration should motivate more than verbal encouragement and occasional support. What if we sought to persuade more within our community to make an active investment in overcoming the challenges you’ve noted?

No one can overlook the limitations of any real school in any real community providing real education to real children from real families. But even if we accept the most impossible dreams of an imagined school, why should that idea require a resource-diminishing alternative? Imagine instead that the schools we have are being enhanced, augmented, complemented, and improved in order to benefit the whole of our community. Imagine joining those already at work to accomplish these goals, and add your ideas, energy, and supporters into those efforts.

The alternative is to harm the majority for the sake of benefitting a few. I oppose that. Instead, I propose that we envision (and work to embody, together, as some of us already do) our local schools as places where some of the improvements you suggest would help to provide the best possible education for all the children in our community.

Here is Shannon’s post, to which the above is my response.

To be honest and fair...over 6 of the past 7 years of teaching preschool, parents have come to me, asking me to extend what I do at Small Wonders Preschool, to the elementary school age. Essentially, what they are asking is for a choice, an alternative to what is currently offered. So finally, (last year) in response to that request, I wrote down what I thought the ideal school environment would be, one that if I'd had a choice, it's what I would have wanted my own children to attend. Last year, the idea was tossed around and discussed, parents loved it, but felt it was an overwhelming project to undertake. It is and the idea faded. This year, several new parents heard about the idea and wanted to pursue it. So once again, we are looking at it. I do not believe it's an "attack" on public schools. It's an offering of an alternative for parents. Parents are comparing the options of having almost total autonomy over the education of their children by forming a private school, or having a little bit of autonomy and still remain a public school by forming a charter school. I have tremendous respect and admiration for the teachers in both the Fall River and Burney elementary schools. It is the "system" that is driving this need for an alternative. Parents come to me saying they want more outside time, more hands-on activities, more art, more music, more science and less testing, less assessments, less homework, and less tired, cranky, frustrated children. When teachers are required to divide their days into so many minutes of math and so many minutes of language arts, there's a problem. When schools have to spend their money on new curriculum every year, because the publishing contract they bought into requires them too, there's a problem. When the curriculum focus changes every time we elect a new president and our children become guinea pigs to an untested requirement, there's a problem. When research shows a direct link to bullying and bad behaviour to excessive screen time and a lack of time in nature, at the same time that schools are pushing little kids to use computers and there's a smart board in every classroom and mis-behaving kids lose their recess time, there's a problem. When doctors are finding an increase in childhood myopia (nearsightedness) and are linking it to too much indoor time because inside a classroom a child is only looking at things between 6 inches and 30 feet under harsh lighting, and not enough outside time where a child would need to see beyond 30 feet and use all their senses at the same time, there's a problem. When research shows that children who learn to write in cursive retain more information than children who type on computers, while cursive is not taught or not continued and computer use in encouraged, there's a problem. When class sizes exceed a teachable level and add stress and pressure onto the teachers, there's a problem. I can go on forever, but I'll spare you. Rumor has it that there are over 50 children in the Intermountain Area who are not attending the local schools. Many are instead being homeschooled through homeshooling programs out of the area. Thus, between this increase in homeschooled children and the continued interest and request from parents for an alternative, it appears, that a choice is needed. So, yes, I am taking my ideas for an alternative to the status quo, and guiding parents to see if a choice is possible. Sorry to ruffle anyone's feathers, but there is always another side to every story. And I felt I needed to tell at least part of that side.

“Prioritize Public Schools!” – How Martin Niemöller would advise Bertrand Russell’s chicken.

"Why are they feeding us this?"

I want to tell you a different kind of chicken joke, followed by a more traditional chicken joke.

Joke the First

The first chicken joke expands on an analogy drawn by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. In chapter six of The Problems of Philosophy he discusses inductive reasoning—the idea that future events will continue a pattern we have observed in the past.

For example, because the sun has appeared each of the past 20,000+ mornings, I assume that it will appear yet again tomorrow. But however sure I am of that fact, Russell points out that there are limitations, even tragic limitations to my assumptions.

Bertrand Russell laughing at some joke or other.

To show these limitations he offers the observations of a particular chicken—about which I am about to make a rather gruesome joke, with apologies and the appropriate trigger-warnings to my chicken-raising sister, Dr. Rebecca Linger.

Our friend the chicken knows two things to be universally true. First, that every morning, the farmer appears and scatters feed before the assembled chickens. Second, that from time to time the farmer also appears again in the late afternoon and, from among the assembled chickens, she selects one, chops off its head, and eventually consumes its lifeless body.

But here is where our chicken friend’s inductive reasoning fails, according the Russell. The chicken’s observation each day of her life has been this: the farmer always selects some other chicken besides me. That has been true. And it will continue to be true…until the day on which it is no longer true.

Bertrand Russell’s chicken could use some advice from Pastor Martin Niemöller.

Niemöller was arrested in 1937 and held by Nazi officials in a series of prisons and concentration camps until 1945. Nevertheless, he is often criticized for having been slow to recognize the dangers posed to some of his fellow-citizens, then to his country, to the rest of Europe and, eventually, the nations engulfed in World War II. Yet, in retrospect, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum prominently quotes this version of his famous poem:

            First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

                        Because I was not a Socialist.

            Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

                        Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

            Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

                        Because I was not a Jew.

            Then they came for me—

                        and there was no one left to speak for me.

Now that you know these things, let me tell you the joke.

What would Martin Niemöller say to Bertrand Russell’s chicken? “Ask yourself, ‘How many chickens does the farmer have left before she gets to you?’”

Why Joke the First matters:

Do we find this first joke funny? Probably not. And if not, what does that say about who and where we are in the chicken’s story?

Martin Niemoller, laughing,
probably at some other joke.

For Russell (and Niemöller), the joke is clearly on the chicken (and Niemöller)—fat and happy until the hatchet falls. Russell’s chicken and Niemöller’s advice combine to represent a mindset I am observing among the opponents of public education, primarily in the immediate context of our local community. (A similar attack is being mounted at the highest levels of our federal government, and the publicity surrounding those efforts certainly emboldens the efforts here. But so long as public education remains largely controlled by local school boards, I intend to focus on the children of the Fall River Joint Unified School District.)

Why I Am This Passionate:

Let me digress for a moment to make full disclosure of my passions in this matter.

My family has been involved in public education since long before my birth. I have been involved as a volunteer and donor in many aspects of public education throughout my life. I am married to a public school teacher. I count many public school teachers among my friends. Even so, my wife and I considered carefully the expectations of some within our faith tradition that we would be educating our children in private, Christian institutions, if not homeschooling them. I have frequently considered what have been offered as the “options” and “alternatives” to public schools. These “choices” are routinely offered in opposition to perceived (and, I admit, actual) failings in our public schools. But after more than three decades of involvement in this dialogue, my hackles are raised by every advocate for homeschooling, every “alternative educational opportunity” that is offered, and even the ignorant denial of truancy’s detrimental effects on our children—both the individual truant and those children whose educational resources are diminished as a result of these others’ absence. (Schools are paid on the basis of their average daily attendance. Each child’s every absence literally costs the school money that otherwise would be invested in local public education.)

So, as some recommend that we further diminish the enrollment of our public schools, and with that lower enrollment comes the lower funding for even the most essential elements of education, I object and will oppose their efforts. They may be sufficiently funded and organized, and possibly even competent to focus on their own family to the exclusion of others’. But on behalf of those outside the small number who might reap better benefits from others’ costs, I would ask that we instead apply Niemoller’s lesson. Ask yourself, “How many more students can be subtracted from our public schools before there are not enough resources available to educate those who remain?”

Our past observations, that every day of our lives there has been public education, do not support the assumption that, no matter what we do to damage it, there will always be public education. In fact, there has not always been public education. In many places, there currently is not public education. But I am not only asking that we consider the survival of public education. I am asking that we turn our attentions away from the options and alternatives that diminish the education received by the majority of our community’s children. Instead, let us turn toward the improvements and support, or at least encouragements deserved by those whose lives are committed to providing the best possible public schools we can.

Tim Madigan, St John Fisher College

Joke the Second

Tim Madigan of St. John Fisher College wrote “Mr. Russell’s Chicken: A New Symbol for Philosophy” for The Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin. After considering various other philosophers’ probable responses, Madigan imagines that Dr. Russell is asked the most famous of chicken-joke questions. I am choosing to clean up the language for my audience. (Who knew that philosophers were allowed to cuss?!) But according to Madigan, to the question, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Russell would answer, “Because he finally understood induction, and got…away from the farmer!”

There is a reason that we chickens get to make decisions, locally and directly, about how we want to educate our children…together. As a community, do we need to invest in one another’s children in order to enhance our public schools? Yes, of course. But I would take it a step further.

Special Bonus: Joke the Third

Even those of us who have no school-aged children need to recognize the benefits we all receive by means of our public education system, especially through our local public schools. More than merely recognizing those benefits, we need to invest ourselves in making our schools the best they can possibly be. This means volunteering, donating, and fund-raising. But it also means supporting and encouraging those who chose a career in public education.

"Who built this road across my path?"

That decision to be professional educators means that they receive far lesser returns than others would, given the same investment in college and graduate school education. It has been said that no sane person enters a career in public education with expectations of lucrative salaries. Some teachers respond to that statement with this joke: “No sane person enters a career in public education. Period.” The fact is, sadly, that some have been so wounded in the opposition’s constant attacks on public education that their initial passion is a distant memory. Yet even for the most tired, jaded, and discouraged of my acquaintances, there clearly remains a love for and devotion to the children they serve. These educators deserve our support and encouragement. These children deserve our involvement and assistance.

Let’s Try This:

Rather than imagining the alternatives and options (which some of us may, in fact, be sufficiently privileged to pursue), what if we imagined—and acted upon—a vision of what our public schools could be, if we the public—fellow members of our local community—were to invest ourselves in all our community’s children?

In the Face of Fear: An Opportunity To Serve

This morning I was party to what I hope will prove to be the first of several important meetings. I helped to arrange the meeting for two primary reasons. First, we met in response to the great anxiety being expressed by a number of friends over the threats inherent in Tuesday night’s election results. Second, though, we met to discuss the encouragement I am seeing among others. Some within my circle of colleagues are already recognizing the need to address not only the anxieties but the very real dangers and damages those friends are experiencing. More importantly, they had some concrete ideas about how to do so.

Why I Am Concerned

Let me take care not to prophesy. Others’ visions of the future are more bleak than my own pessimism can manage, though not unrealistically so. I do believe it is highly likely that the successful portion of our American electorate will not receive what they have been promised. Worse, I also believe it to be entirely probable that several segments of our population are at risk of receiving exactly what has been threatened. But even in the age of instant information, I believe we are a long way from our own Kristallnacht and the Muslim equivalent of a Wannsee Conference.

In fact, the policy, legislative, and judicial changes of these next few years may or may not occur, and may or may not exacerbate the plight of those who are already oppressed, marginalized, and depersonalized. But they are already oppressed, marginalized, and depersonalized. And the dangers and damages they already face have not required even one executive order.

Consider the many who clearly imagine they will benefit when some portion of our society “takes America back” to whatever era it is they nostalgically prefer to our own. When this retrograde culture fails to materialize as fully as they would like, primarily in that it fails to benefit them as fully as they would like, they are likely to be even more angry than they have shown themselves to be. And they are already angry. The rise in hate crimes that has correlated with this past election season is alarming enough. Even if none of the actions that have been threatened are actually implemented on the federal level, at the personal level there is a perceived license for more direct aggression by misogynists, racists, homophobes, xenophobes, and whatever we call those who feel empowered to mock and bully persons with disabilities.

So, even if the difficulties faced by parts of our community do not precipitously deepen, it is impossible to imagine that they will appreciably improve over the next few months and years. Unless, that is, we choose to improve those circumstances ourselves.

What I Hope To Do

At the end of this morning’s meeting, I read from the notes I took, categorizing my observations. I felt the need to divide the messages I was hearing by considering what would best benefit two specific audiences.

The first audience comprises the victorious electorate celebrating their soon-to-be-crowned champion. As with many pastors this Sunday, and for scores of Sundays following, I have opportunity to preach to and teach some who number themselves among those triumphant supporters. I would seek to remind them that any benefits they imagine will shortly begin to arrive at their doorsteps come with a commensurate cost—not only paid from within the lives of others, but in the consequences of their own disregard for The Great Commandment (demonstrate your love for God by loving your neighbor—Matthew 22:34-40), inseparable as it is from The Great Commission (make disciples of all the nations—Matthew 28:18-20). This morning, I even used the Latin phrase, “status confessionis.” What this means is that we find ourselves at one of those unenviable points at which the Church must again remind herself of our responsibility to the integrity of the gospel—which must be proclaimed as much in our concrete behavior as in our claimed beliefs.

The second audience comprises those who recognize the credible threat to their safety embodied in the priorities and promises of this new and very different administration. They already perceive the scarcity of resources. They already endure the suspicions and accusations of their neighbors. They already recognize how vulnerable their basic necessities are to even minor socio-economic changes. And, whether or not the threats expressed ever materialize, they know that some will act out, in perceived impunity, the attitudes behind the speeches and sound-bites from which it has been impossible to escape over these past months.

For the benefit of this second audience, those who met this morning are engaging initially in some rapid-response research. In other words, we need some answers, but we need them yesterday.

What I Need To Know

Through our contacts (and their contacts as well) among the various segments of our Inter-Mountain Area’s communities, especially among those already involved in Community Service Organizations, Public-Assistance Agencies, and parish-oriented ministries, we are seeking two sets of information.

First, we want to develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of both the breadth and depth of the specific needs we are facing. These include the simplest necessities. For example, I was trained in crisis and trauma intervention to initially evaluate four basic needs: air, warmth, water, and food. Here in the Inter-Mountain Area, of course, we are blessed with the first and third of those resources in natural abundance. But many of our families can afford roughly three weeks of food per month. And warmth quickly becomes a relative term during several months each year. Beyond those necessities, access to healthcare, physical and mental, continues to be a problem. We must address the interpersonal issues of domestic violence, sexual assault, and the phobic tendency to bully anyone we find uncomfortably different from us. And remember that substance abuse, education and employment inequities, and the too-common experiences of prejudice and discrimination are only less visible because our society so successfully marginalizes those who endure them.

The second set of information involves the reason why many who read this will object that many of these needs are already being met. In fact, they are…for some, sometimes. But often, the needs of a few are being met by a few who have more than a few resources, and are yet unknown outside a relatively few in a small network of a few relationships. I do not want to overwhelm any one resource, of course. But I also recognize that there are many more resources available than are being utilized in the Inter-Mountain Area. Yet still, there are needs for which I am certain there are no resources currently available. Therefore, the second question, then, is this: What are the current resources available, and what are the gaps that need to be filled? It is that simple.

How You Can Help

If you know the answers to some of these questions, please answer them by emailing me: deathpastor@frontier.com. If you know of someone else who knows the answers to some of these questions, please forward them a link to this blog post.

For clarity’s sake, here are the questions:

1-What are the potentially unmet needs faced by the communities (and especially the oppressed, marginalized, and depersonalized) in the Inter-Mountain Area?

2-What are the potentially unknown resources available to the communities (and especially the oppressed, marginalized, and depersonalized) in the Inter-Mountain Area?

Thank you in advance for your assistance in determining both the needs and the resources of our communities.

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want, but If You Try Sometimes…” – Part Two: Some Thoughts on the Assets and Liabilities of Small-Church Spirituality (Part One Examined the Parallel Issues in Small-Town Medicine)

In part one, we explored some of the issues affecting the quality and availability of healthcare in low density population areas like the Intermountain Area of northern California. These include the following: (1) An inattention to detail that can result in patients receiving less than, other than, or simply none of the care they require to be restored to physical health. (2) The attraction of lower-priced alternatives to shopping locally for pharmacy services, leaving communities without the availability of occasionally necessary medications like antibiotics and other temporary symptom-relief measures. (3) The tendency of healthcare staff members to see patients more as a commodity that provides employees with job security, rather than being at least paying customers with distinct needs for quality service. (4) An amazing dedication displayed by individuals within the system whose thoughtfulness, creativity, persistence, and awareness of the human personhood of their patients manages to bring about the right results in the midst of an untrustworthy, and sometimes dangerously dysfunctional system.

As I suggested earlier, each of these traits finds a parallel in small-church spirituality, and I find a strong correlation to both the assets and liabilities they represent. Here are some thoughts about that.

The Lone-Ranger’s Ministry: Small-Church Spirituality and an Insufficient Focus

I am not the only solo pastor who sees the irony in being asked to devote twenty percent of our time to each of the six to ten elements of our position descriptions. Neither am I alone in feeling very alone when just one or two of the elements require our attention for a majority of the 168 hours we are allotted in a given week. The frequent result that costs us what little of that schedule would otherwise allow restful sleep is this: in our best-managed weeks, there are far many more details in need of attention than there is attention available to devote to them. Unless, of course, some of those essential details are effectively delegated. Ironically, it is by allowing others to participate in ministry responsibilities that provides greater growth and health in the body of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-16) But just as misfiled medical records can be deadly, local congregations, extended families, and individual human persons find their spiritual health declining for no other reason than they are missing certain basic elements necessary to barely sustaining, much less strengthening them.

One-Stop Shopping: Small-Church Spirituality and Mesmerizing Mega-Churches

For some, it is the occasional trek to a larger community and the larger churches to be found there. I cannot deny that there are several worship bands that perform far more professionally than any available in our remote rural area. The focus of a multi-staff church’s “teaching pastor” whose primary job description is to prepare and present sermons will almost always provide more polished preaching than the jack-of-all-trades general practitioner filling all pastoral roles in a small rural congregation. The economy of scale in larger religious organizations means that there are enough potential attendees to justify narrow, niche-marketed ministries to those with characteristics or affinities that guarantee that everyone else in their gatherings will be very much like them (and thus very likely to like them). But just as shopping elsewhere for routine medical services threatens to leave patients without the immediate and personalized care they will almost certainly require, a similar pattern befalls those in smaller churches and communities who find themselves in sudden need. Mega-Church pastors seldom make housecalls and hospital visits, even within the immediate neighborhood of their church’s location. Ministry to the bereaved, the substance-abuser, the traumatized, or even the recently engaged is most often requested of the pastors serving churches that are closest geographically, but who are not at all close relationally to those they have never seen in a Sunday morning pew. (And this viewpoint ignores entirely the impossibility of one-on-one ministry with pastors known only through their broadcast personality.)

Budding Beginners and Experienced Elders: Small-Church Spirituality and the Horrors of Hirelings

It is not, of course, only those in the pews (or not) whose habits are devastating to small churches. Those called to pastor in rural parishes, especially, tend to fall into two categories. First, chronologically speaking, are those with wet ink on their diplomas, degrees, licenses, or ordination papers. Denominations with insufficient multi-staff church positions for the newest, freshest, most inexperienced ministers use a variety of disparaging terms for both these pastors and the congregations they serve. Likewise, most of those younger pastors have heard not only the disparaging terms, but the pattern expected of them, if they are to survive long in the ranks of professional career pastors. But at the other end of the longevity spectrum, there are many pastors who have served for decades without retirement plans, sufficient wages to build-up savings accounts, or even the equity of home ownership as they have moved from parsonage to parsonage, or been consigned to a rotations of rentals by their lack of employment stability. Those well beyond retirement age can sometimes rely on their wisdom and experience to make up for a lack of energy, or a perceived lack of relevance to “today’s young families.” But both the “whippersnappers and fogeys” who fill many rural pulpits share one critical characteristic that dooms their congregations to constant recycling through the pastoral-search process. The shared trait is this: they will be moving on soon. Those in their first pastorate will soon be lured away to the next rung on the corporate career ladder. Those with decades of experience will soon be called home to Jesus, or at least away from effective ministry by some combination of infirmity, illness, or injury. In either case, and too many others in between, the focus is not on serving the congregation and community, but on the ongoing development of the minister, the growing needs of their family, the enticements of the next available opportunities, or their desire to comfortably finish their final chapter.

Exceptions to the Rule: Small-Church Spirituality and the Idealism of Interconnected Individuals

In part one, we celebrated individuals within the healthcare system who looked beyond their official job descriptions, their personal inconvenience, and “reasonably competent service” in order to focus on the needs of patients. Here, I want to acknowledge that my preference for small-church spirituality is based on similar observations. Where there are not seminary-trained specialists in narrow fields of ministry to specifically-segregated groups of consumers, there is a greater reliance on other resources. Among these, the Holy Spirit is most trustworthy. But a broader scripture knowledge is also in evidence, and quite helpful among those seeking what Jesus would have them to do…when there is not a staff member already assigned to the responsibilities in that area. Third, beyond the work of the Holy Spirit and the trustworthiness of scripture, there is the interrelated workings of members within the body of Christ that is necessitated by the utter lack of paid professionals on-scene in most circumstances. Last in this list, for several reasons, but still of great importance to the health and strength of small churches, especially in remote, rural, low density population areas, is the willingness of committed shepherds to stand firm and stay put, doing whatever is necessary to overcome the dangers and damage that accrues from the horrible rotation of hirelings that has destroyed not only individual congregations (the list of extinct churches in our area continues to grow) but devastated the testimony of the gospel.

So, to those members of the body of Christ who choose to attend, participate, and serve in the local communities to which God has called them, and to those pastors who resist the temptations to build careers rather than congregations: May God bless you by allowing you to see an effective fellowship in which every good thing in each of us is shared fully with all of us. (Philemon 6)

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want, but If You Try Sometimes…” – Part One: Some Thoughts on the Assets and Liabilities of Small-Town Medicine (Part Two Examines the Parallels to Small-Church Spirituality)

The allure is undeniable: larger communities with larger healthcare systems certainly appear to operate in a more professional and business-like manner than elsewhere. Likewise, the apparent benefits of churches with memberships larger than the entire population of the Fall River Valley seem unquestionable, at least for those who can afford the time and gas money to go where the band is more talented, the preacher is more polished, and the coffee bar better stocked. But while there are liabilities inherent in both small-town medicine and small-church spirituality, certain assets in each suggest that there may be important reasons to “shop local” for both your physical and spiritual care. The parallels I see in small-church spirituality will follow in part two. For now, here are my thoughts in support of patronizing the resources available in small-town medicine.

A Geographic Snapshot: Rural Medicine and the Time-Space Continuum

My wife and I work full-time. We also volunteer for a number of organizations (including our employers). We choose to invest in our community in a variety of ways, some of which take us to some of the more remote residences tucked away here in the mountains of northern California. As one result, our busy schedule and our commitment to “shop local” leads us to seek most of our routine health-care here in the communities of our low density population area. Amidst the 1200 square miles of The Intermountain Area, there are three clinics, spaced evenly apart along the highway that runs through the communities of Bieber, Fall River Mills, and Burney. There are even two pharmacies from which to choose, although these are less than a mile from each other at the southwestern end of the area in Burney. At times there has been a third, more centrally located in Fall River Mills very near the area’s only hospital. Sadly, those attracted by the “convenience” and “low-low-prices” of mail-order drug suppliers overlook a number of factors. Not only is there the inconvenience of a long drive to pick up their occasional antibiotics or other urgently-needed medications, but there are also the dangers inherent in circumventing our local pharmacists’ ability to compare multiple prescriptions for potential interactions.

A Sociological Snapshot: Rural Medicine and Being Our Brothers’ Keeper

These are the kinds of cost-benefit decisions we face in our community. What the British would say is “penny-wise and pound-foolish” translates here to more directly “biting the hand that heals you.” The declining availability of quality assets in our local community are not always a matter of mere convenience. Most in our area cannot afford the luxurious options enjoyed by wealthier community members. Certain leaders have noted that the presence of a hospital matters more to their property values than their healthcare decisions. (“People won’t move here if there isn’t a hospital. But if you can afford to move here, you can afford get your healthcare in Redding.”) One hospital board member has offered that he sees the facilities existing only for a very short list of urgently necessary services. The time and expense of pursuing care elsewhere, though, is nearly impossible for many who are less-mobile than our more affluent retirees. Whether due to time-consuming work schedules or the limitations of insufficient gas-money (or both), the majority of our residents in the Intermountain Area are dependent upon quality healthcare being provided through the single chain of clinics, the only hospital, or the two pharmacies located within just one mile of each other.

An Anthropological Snapshot: Rural Medicine and the Consequences of Inattention to Detail

Thankfully, so far, the quality of healthcare available is still amazingly high, especially when compared with the relatively low quantity of our private-pay population who choose to support them. Unfortunately, though, the strain is beginning to show. The internal matters of staffing and scheduling, no doubt, inflict great difficulties upon the dedicated individuals and teams who make possible the practice of medicine in our midst. My perspective here, however, is from that of the patient—the one who depends upon available medical assistance, accurate diagnosis, and accessible treatments, including the appropriate medications. Some recent experiences have highlighted distinct deficiencies in the system.

Twice now, in our immediate family, prescriptions have been written on the wrong forms, and once by personnel not legally permitted to do so. The most recent episode was compounded by neither local pharmacy having enough of the given medications available to fill two of three prescriptions. Further hindering the process of getting a sick patient to their home (half an hour away), the pharmacy that had a partial amount to fill one of the prescriptions had none of the patient’s information on file. Worse, in another half hour of computer and phone contacts, they eventually determined that they would be unsuccessful in securing payment from the patient’s insurance. Of course, then, the insurance company balked at reimbursing the full retail price that was paid “out-of-pocket.” But there seemed to be no alternative. After two trips to the clinic (having returned to get the properly formatted prescription), two to the first pharmacy (which found the prescription to be incorrectly written), and two to the second pharmacy (after confirming with the patient that they had no other insurance documentation with them), it was nearing closing time for all of the above. If there had not been a credit card handy, we may have failed to get the medications considered “essential” to the patient’s recovery.

These are not uncommon obstacles to our community’s pursuit of healthcare. Other patients have been hindered from health by even greater difficulties resulting from insufficient inventories. Some are dissuaded from seeking care by the confusing double-billing practice of both locally invoicing and simultaneously outsourcing the same charges to our hospital’s “not a collections-agency.” On occasion, overworked hospital personnel have failed to appreciate how easily patients overhear the staff’s crude and cruel comments about their diagnoses and treatments. And then, there are those times when it seems that other distractions take priority over the delivery of healthcare by the employees of our healthcare system. For example, one night, seeking to have blood drawn by the lab at the local hospital (as my physician had directed), I waited over an hour while my fever continued to rise (101.1 to 102.7) because the receptionist was unwilling to call the on-call laboratory tech. Only after an intervention by the health clinic’s on-call nurse were the doctor’s orders followed. To be fair, in defense of the receptionist’s otherwise inexcusable procrastination, there seemed to be ample reason for her anxiety, given the lab tech’s mood when eventually arriving to tend to a paying customer’s needs.

A Moral Snapshot: Rural Medicine and the Blessings of Personal Investment

And then, there’s Melissa, the Pharmacy Tech (labelled thus so as to differentiate her, as we did in our fan mail to the pharmacy’s corporate offices, from Melissa the cashier, who I’m sure is perfectly wonderful as well). After our first trip to the first pharmacy, trying to get the right medication for the correct prescription on the wrong form, we were back for our second visit to the clinic, to get the prescription corrected. Even before I arrived at the front desk of the clinic, Melissa was there beside me. After we had left the pharmacy, the pharmacist had pointed out to her that whether we had the prescription on the correct form or not…they didn’t have the medication in stock. So, Melissa called the clinic to intercept us, except that the receptionist was momentarily away from the desk, so the voice-mail kicked in, telling Melissa that the clinic was closed for the day. Because her car was parked in the opposite direction, she decided it was safer to simply run to the clinic, so that we did not find the closed, and return to Fall River Mills in despair.

And this is where Katelyn comes in. Granted, she was away from the desk momentarily. But I believe she’s not the one responsible for the wrong voice-mail message being loaded. In any case, she and Melissa consulted and confirmed that the medication that was available had already been tried and found ineffective. They then phoned the other pharmacy, sharing the phone to confirm that the competitor to Melissa’s employer had at least a partial supply for the patient’s need. But the partial supply would “use up” the full prescription, so yet a third prescription for the same medication needed to be written…and it was, thanks to Katelyn’s willingness to contact another healthcare professional with the credentials to make it happen.

To clarify my pessimistic perceptions for you: there can be a tendency to ignore our mutual responsibilities for one another, whether divided into the categories of staff and patients, or divided into those who must rely on local providers and those who can afford to seek healthcare elsewhere (which ironically includes some of those who accept the obligation to maintain the local resources for others). Those who seek their own convenience, sometimes to the point of refusing to inconvenience themselves for the sake of others, put the health and well-being of patients (“paying customers”) in jeopardy.

Despite my pessimism that suggests that dwindling attention will result in resources dwindling even further, my flickering hope is occasionally fanned into a few ember-fed sparks. It is not just Melissa and Katelyn, though they certainly served that purpose most recently. But there are still more than a mere handful who recognize the priorities of patients as the core commodity that will either sustain our healthcare system, or allow it to implode once it is hollowed by a continued decline in attention to the needs of those patients.

Which will it be? As promised, the same question applies to small-church spirituality as well, and we will turn to that application in the next post.

Donald Trump Makes Sense – How to understand the attractiveness of the most frightening presidential candidate in recent memory (which is saying quite a lot since he is most likely to be running against Hillary Clinton in November).

Brown shirt sold separately.

A friend I greatly respect recently posted his frustrations over watching what had been billed as a debate among presidential candidates. Instead, “everything seemed to be turned into a petty argument.” He singled out Donald Trump as “especially irritating—constantly saying the same things over and over in response to questions.” He specifically questioned Trump’s claims to be “a unifier” who “can work with people.”

In Trump’s defense, then, I would argue that these very traits are not only evident, but chief among the key principles on which Trump’s candidacy, attractiveness, and electability rest. In fact, Donald Trump may have the greatest potential of any current, former, or potential presidential candidate for unifying people in the United States of America. Here's why:

Trump Makes Sense Because of “How America Got Great in the First Place”

Don't polish too hard.
The plating's rather thin.

First, we must recognize the structures and systems that have made America great. Granted, some criticize that we were never so “great” as we remember being. But we are, indisputably, far better off than the vast majority of others elsewhere in our world. The United States' corporate-controlled socio-political system has raised standards of living to dizzying heights. When we recognize the structures and systems that have made this possible, we can more fully celebrate how our greatness has been accomplished, and how beneficial at least one term of a Trump presidency would be.

Without a Trump presidency, would our socio-political system still continue to improve our standard of living? Yes. The machine abides, whomever rides its gears. It is delusional to believe that any candidate could preserve our America and yet obstruct the structure’s steady process of marginalization, exploitation, oppression, and depersonalization. Previously, though, we were able to provide extraordinarily high standards of living and other benefits to U.S. citizens at the expense of "other resources" elsewhere in the world. By redefining others as relatively more or less human than others, we have built the largest consumer economy in the world, while simultaneously excusing the destruction of whole nations, cultures, and people groups as arguably unfortunate, but unquestionably necessary.

"Whose land are you on? Whose land am I on?
From California to the New York Island...."

Sadly, for many of us, the flow of resources from disenfranchised two-thirds world countries into our own is no longer as unimpeded as it once was. And so…

Trump Makes Sense Because of “How to Make America Great Again”

Second, then, we must also recognize that the world-wide playing field has been leveled. The biggest bully on the block finds that the proliferation of many lesser bullies is becoming insurmountable. This is a result of improved technology and industry now available elsewhere in the world, coupled with our own insatiable aspirations to ever-greater luxuries here at home. Thus, those "foreigners" and "third-world" resources we once successfully marginalized, exploited, oppressed and depersonalized have developed the capability to more effectively resist our efforts at pillaging the global village.

Just. One. Guess.

Compounding our difficulties, the ever-increasing expense of our expanding military investments has proven ineffective in completely curbing these others’ uncooperative attitudes. Worse, as we have lowered the quality (and quantity) of life elsewhere, we have inadvertently depleted others’ resources to the point that too little is now available for enhancing our lifestyles. Our ability to further deplete the scarcity of those in other countries is no longer a reliable means to supply the never-ending increase in our excesses.

Therefore, if the quality of living in America is to continue increasing, then the quantity of those who are allowed such quality must be reduced. Crude efforts like mass deportations, refugee rejection, and immigration prevention (so necessary, but still unlikely in a single term Trump presidency) would not be sufficient. To support the comfort and convenience of most (and the luxuries of a few), some of those remaining within our borders (including what some may persist in defining as “citizens”) will need to be uncomfortably inconvenienced through the reduction of their basic sustenance. Though some of these may still be willing and able to apply themselves to supporting our economy, they cannot be allowed to hinder the progress that can come only as we “decrease the surplus population” (to quote St. Ebenezer of Scrooge).

By my count, we're batting .125
on defending the defenseless.
(.100 if you count North America.)

Trump Makes Sense Because He Defines “What America Must Become”
So, yes, I have no doubts in the accuracy of Donald Trump’s claims. From what I have seen and heard, I cannot disagree: he does unify and can work with people. Remember, though, what we mean by “people.” The framers of the United States Constitution meant something less than you or I might when they referred to the benefits they believe should be available to "all men." Those whom they claimed were “created equal” did not, in fact, include me—despite my highly-esteemed status as a middle-aged uptight white guy. (I am not, it may surprise you to learn, a land-owner.) So, were we speaking of this two hundred years ago, Donald Trump’s claim would be true, despite the fact that he might find me impossible to work with.

So, upon our nation’s historic precedent, preserved and defended, despite our occasional decisions to “officially” include others among the ranks of human persons, Trump makes sense if we are to become More American for Fewer AmericansÔ.  At this stage in our nation’s development, we can only become More AmericanÔ by ensuring that with each passing year, month, week or day (however frequently we can fuel the trains and the ovens) we create a land of Fewer AmericansÔ. When “the people” unify by disqualifying those whom Donald Trump can not work with, as I have said, Trump makes sense.

Edmund Burke would agree also.

An Alternative to Consider (Especially Among My Theologically-Conservative Evangelical Tribe)

Or, we could consider all others as they truly are: human persons, equally created to bear the image and likeness of one God eternally existing in three persons. While not all of us will agree on the theological foundations of this belief, here is what I mean by this:  We are all indispensably interrelated to all of the one anothers of not only our nation but every other as well.

Of course, if I were to realize how commonly human I am, and that all you others are, too, then I might also find it necessary to “do unto others as I would have others do unto me.” Sadly, since that’s even less popular than I wish Donald Trump would be, we may soon find ourselves no longer in the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” but where we continue to make America More American for Fewer AmericansÔ.

Toward Building a Better Human Race: Two Key Prerequisites to Effective Eugenics

In a recent post to his blog, “Uncommon God, Common Good,” Paul Louis Metzger asks in the title “Should Ethics Be ‘Biologicized’? What Might that Mean for Eugenics?” It’s a good question. But even for those of us who understand that ethics involves determining what is good or bad and what our moral obligations are, grasping the idea that they could be “biologicized” would require a careful reading of Dr. Metzger’s post (which I recommend, and it can be found here). For now, I hope only to discuss, as briefly as possible, the challenges posed by eugenics, especially with regard to my particular ministry context.

“Eugenics” is a term coined in 1883 to describe (according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary—Eleventh Edition) the “science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed.” In some instances, as with Germany in the late-1930s and early-1940s, eugenics sought to improve the human race as noted in Webster’s definition: by controlling who was allowed to procreate with whom. This selective breeding was enforced by prohibiting intermarriage between various groups in order to maintain purity in the traits identified as belonging to the Aryan race.

Others more recently have identified as eugenics a practice of unnatural selection subsequent to mating, but prior to the birth of a child. It is becoming more common to abort pregnancies when particular traits are identified as potentially diminishing the quality of the child’s (or parent’s) life. The range of factors seen as being sufficient to warrant these actions include not only what some call “birth defects,” but also the selective elimination intended to provide a couple with either a male or female child as they prefer.

In my ministry context, however, what is more often discussed is not the question of significantly improving the quality of life in the coming generations. Among hospice personnel, we face challenges from those who would define what constitutes an insufficient quality of life in members of the current generation. We do not tend to identify this as eugenics, though, even though the proponents of pre-emptively ended the lives of human persons intend to elevate us to a “good race” (with eu = Greek for good, and genea = Greek for race or generation), at least for those of us with sufficient “quality of life” to survive. Instead, those promoting the removal of living human persons claim to be motivated by a vision for euthanasia: ensuring a good death for those adjudged to be living a bad life.

Whether ostensibly prohibiting procreation by outlawing certain marriages, or preempting pregnancy’s natural outcome by killing unborn human persons, or prematurely ending the lives of the infirm, ill, injured, or otherwise disenfranchised, there are two key prerequisites to enacting effective eugenics outside the ethical considerations that constrain science to be practiced for the common good.

First, we would have to accept the dangerous optimism of democratically-governed science. We would have to believe that the majority of voting citizens were well-informed enough to look beyond the corporately-sponsored marketing messages and exercise some control over otherwise unabated experimentation. Only then could we do as Metzger’s subject, Dr. Edward O. Wilson recommends and remove ethics “temporarily from the hands of philosophers” to be “biologicized.” Eugenics necessitates that we allow those who can (or are willing to try) to do as they wish, without interference from society’s professional thinkers, but still under the influence of our nation’s diminishing ranks of voters.

"They told us to just sit back and watch what happens."

Second, for eugenics to be enacted effectively, we would have to continue to promote the fantasy that love and hate are merely emotional conditions and thus uncontrollable responses for which we bear no personal responsibility or obligation. That way, when we find that we do not have a fond sense of affection toward total strangers who would be eliminated from society, we can excuse our hateful acts of willful indifference as having just as little effect as our sentimentality would. Somehow we would have to allow our hatred to still remain an action, while our love became an even greater illusion. But we have managed it so far.

What would be the results of this unrestrained experimentation and willful indifference toward others? Eugenics seeks the elimination of those unfit to reproduce, or whose mothers are unwilling to nurture them until birth, or all of us who will eventually be in a position to continue usurping resources from the healthier members of the population. If more effectively pursued than is currently the case, then we would be left with an ever-increasing percentage of society for whom anything less than robust health, strength, wealth, and youth would put them at risk. But since that last category ebbs-away from each of us even now, perhaps we might want to steer a better course while there are still enough of us to object to eugenics.