Once more with Aurelius

Something to ponder for the weekend from Marcus Aurelius:

Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses. This means that the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man's equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. Our loss, therefore, is limited to that one fleeting instant, since no one can lose what is already past, nor yet what is still to come--for how can he be deprived of what he does not possess? So two things should be borne in mind. First, that all the cycles of creation since the beginning of time exhibit the same recurring pattern, so that it can make no difference whether you watch the identical spectacle for a hundred years, or for two hundred, or for ever. Secondly, that when the longest-and the shortest-lived of us come to die, their loss is precisely equal. For the sole thing of which any man can be deprived is the present; since this is all he owns, and nobody can lose what is not his.

Doing Battle With Prayer.

Liberty Counsel has introduced a program encouraging their supporters to adopt a liberal. Among the liberals in need of prayer, with their own definition of why they need prayer, are: President Obama, Senator Snowe, Governor Schwarzennegger, Mayor Bloomberg, and the Unknown Liberal, to be selected by the pray-er. From their website (http://lc.org/media/9980/adopt_a_liberal.htm) they state: Please pray daily for the liberal(s) of your choice, so each can become a good influence on our Nation's culture. Prayer is powerful! It allows God to change the minds of those for whom we are praying. In fact, we fully expect that many of our adoptees will "graduate" from this prayer program with vivid testimonies of God having changed their lives and worldviews!

This follows Jim Wallis' call for his supporters to pray for Glenn Beck to change his mind on health care reform.

What do you think of using prayer in this highly public and politicized manner? Could this lead to public proclamations from one group or the other about which prayers were answered and, thus, showing which group God likes best? Or, do you think it is primarily a ploy by each group to pump up support from among their own faithful?

Maybe, we could pray for folks not to mis-use prayer?

My Prayer or No Prayer?

Last Friday, Muslims from across America gathered in Washington to pray. Quoting from a Washington Post story written by Jacqueline L. Salmon and William Wan,
The event, called "Islam on Capitol Hill," is designed to highlight how U.S. Muslims can coexist with their fellow Americans. Hassen Abdellah, the lead organizer of the event, called on people to come to the Capitol to "pray for peace and understanding between America and its Muslim community."

Now, what could be wrong with that? Evidently, a lot, at least according to many conservative Christians. Again, referencing the Post story,
But this week, some conservative Christians have called the event a threat to Christian values. In a statement, the Rev. Canon Julian Dobbs, leader of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America's Church and Islam Project, warned that the service is "part of a well-defined strategy to Islamize American society and replace the Bible with the Koran, the cross with the Islamic crescent and the church bells with the Athan [the Muslim call to prayer]."

Christian evangelist Lou Engle said the Friday event "is much more than a nice little Muslim gathering. It's an invocation of spiritual powers of an ideology" that "doesn't have the same set of values that our nation has had."

This criticism was in addition to forwarded e-mails bemoaning the loss of the "National Prayer Breakfast" and the mainline media support for the Muslim event.

Are we now to the point where only Christians can hold 'prayer meetings' to pray for our country or our leaders? If a Rabbi leads a prayer at the White House or at City Hall, is this part of a well-defined attempt to Judaize America? If the Dalai Lama prays for peace and understanding between Buddhists and Americans, is he trying to replace the Bible with the Dhammapada?

In a pluralistic society, and when last I looked America does not have an official state religion, we recognize that our citizens will be Muslim and Christian and Jewish and Biuddhist and Hindu and .... We also should recognize that each of our citizens has the right to pray within the framework of her or his religious tradition for our country, for our leaders, and for other citizens, even if they go to Washington to pray.

It really is about people.

In the maelstrom of rhetoric and protests, claims and counterclaims, assertions and refutations concerning the proposed health care reform, it seems one thing has been lost. People in our country live and die without adequate health care and health insurance and without the reasonable chance to get either.

60 Minutes has run stories of health care professionals who used to go to developing countries to give health care. Those health care professionals now run clinics in America because the need is so great here. News stories abound about the impact on health care costs for all Americans because of uninsured people seeking treatment in hospital ER's since that is the only option available to them. Other stories tell of people who lose coverage or are denied treatment options because of the dictates of the insurance companies.

This may all be theoretical to most of us because we may not know someone who has suffered in this way. On the Ethics Daily website (www.ethicsdaily.com), Jan Chapman tells the story of someone she knew, 25 y.o. Gaby Duffy who died. In Ms. Chapman's words:

Gaby saw her last sunset on May 9. She died in an Ottawa, Ill., hospital, where she'd taken herself after several days of high fever that she had tried to beat without the doctors she could not afford.

Gaby had no health insurance.

By the time she got to the Ottawa Regional Hospital and Healthcare Center on May 7, she had already lost the time needed to diagnosis and treat the fever. Tests were run to no good conclusion. On Saturday evening, after a good visit with her best friend, Gaby suffered an acute symptomatic seizure and died.

She was 25.

Would her survival been guaranteed if she had health insurance? Maybe not; we will never know. We do know she did not seek medical help until it was too late because she could not afford medical help because she had no coverage.

Should this happen in our country? Should young people and old people, children and senior adults, males and females, be denied medical help because they have no way to pay a doctor or their health coverage carrier - not a doctor - tells them they do not need a procedure or a medicine?

Do we have any responsibility for our sisters and brothers? Am I my sisters and brothers keeper?

News From The Fringe

Last week, the Federal Appeal Court in Richmond Virginia ruled that the protests conducted by the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas were protected speech accroding to the First Amendment. This case had originally been brought by the family of an American soldier killed in Iraq. The funeral was picketing by members of this church carrying placards that indicated their joy over the young man's death and their belief that his death was part of God's judgment on America.

A judge was quoted as saying: "Notwithstanding the distasteful and repugnant nature of the words being challenged in these proceedings, we are constrained to conclude that the defendants' signs and [what it has on its Web sites] are constitutionally protected," Circuit Court Judge Robert B. King wrote in the majority opinion.

This is the church that revels in its hate-filled rhetoric against homosexuals, those who do not condemn hmosexuals as they do, Jews, Catholics, and other Christians and ministers who do not preach as their minister, Fred Phelps, does. I was one of the ministers condemned by Rev. Phelps when I was in Kansas. I suspect I am still on their enemies list.

I had planned to share some of their rhetoric about the places they plan to picket from the website, but I could not bring myself to post the quotations. If you are interested, you can find it.

In their comments are the following observations:
** God hates the world.
** President Obama is the Anti-Christ and became president as part of God's judgment on America.
** President Obama will soon turn on the Jews and begin killing them.

While I recognize their constitutional rights to free speech, I still despair that someone spews forth so much hate in the name of God.