The United Universal Medical Center

Preface to an Obituary

 

i

I am a regular at a hospital.  I’ve been going for years.  My parents began taking me as a baby.  Now that I am grown and off on my own I still find myself going quite often.  I was diagnosed with a severe illness while young in life but thankfully took the treatment and recovered.  I think once you survive a life-threatening illness the hospital becomes a permanent fixture in your life.  

There are a number of people who frequent my hospital.  Some go because they are sick and want treatment.  Others go because they found support groups that provide a sense of community and belonging.  Still others go simply because they grew up going and it developed into a hard-wired habit, like going to Luby’s for Sunday lunch.  All who walk thru the hospital door are welcome.  All are treated with love and tenderness by the hospital staff.  

There are other hospitals in the area, but I am most familiar and comfortable with the UMC.  Years ago, my grandfather worked as a doctor at the hospital.  My grandmother served at his side as a nurse.  My dad and his siblings were born there; my brothers and I were all born there too.  As odd as this might seem to say about a hospital, my family’s roots are embedded so firmly in the UMC it is hard to contemplate going anywhere else.

From its inception the UMC has clung to an undeniable truth: diagnosing the illness is but the first step of many on the road to a recovered life.  Of course, any true hospital will work to both diagnose and cure the illness, but doctors at the UMC have understood that long term health depends on persistent, intentional intervention.  That is, after a patient recovers from the illness, UMC doctors prescribe vitamins and exercise, volunteering at the hospital, and participation in support groups to protect against lethargy and relapse. 

Not too long ago I noticed something strange at the UMC.  It appeared severely ill people staggered through the hospital’s halls, but doctors did not work to diagnose or treat their illnesses.  In fact, from what I could tell, the doctors seemed oblivious to the diseases now running rampant in the hospital.  The interactions between doctors and patients confused me.  The interactions appeared compassionate yet vacuous.  The sick were provided hugs and smiles but were then left to die and neither the patients nor the doctors seemed to care.

 

ii

I met my best friend at the UMC.  Right from the start we were like peas in a pod.  Well, we were more like peas that freakishly mutated and looked nothing alike. Though most people claimed we were as indistinguishable as identical twins, the truth was we were as different as we were alike.  I played defender on our soccer team; he played forward.  I pounded the drums in the marching band; he wailed on a trumpet.  While we both enjoyed volunteering at the hospital, he relished the relationships he formed with the sick; I found my purpose handing out vitamins that fought against their illnesses.  Through the differences we found a bond in our unfailing love for our families, our traditions, and the hospital that brought us to life.  Without question we were better people because of each other.  Our bond was greater than friendship; we were family.

Sadly, time changed us, or more rightly, it changed my friend.  While I held tight to the fundamentals of the UMC regimen, my friend played fast and loose with them.  He traded exercise for meditation, support groups for happy hours, but most importantly, he either diluted the vitamins or mixed them with homeopathic additives.  The initial changes did not seem that drastic, but they accumulated.  The changes did not occur over night; the path was long and winding.  But as the years passed by, it became evident we were no longer peas in a pod.  Time drove us apart. 

I hate admitting this but I think my friend spent more time at the UMC and volunteered more often than I did. While I love the UMC and enjoy spending time there, my attention has often focused elsewhere.  And though the foundation on which I built my recovered life owes its forming to the UMC, I have not given back as much as it has given me.  Quite the contrary, I have neglected it.  So it should be no surprise my friend has had a greater influence on the UMC than I have.

When he was young, describing my friend required using only one word: love.  Sacrificing for others and compassion for the desperate and destitute defined his character.  As time rolled on and my friend changed, I wondered if a balance had been lost.  A few years ago I caught him in an affair with a married woman.  When I challenged him on the travesty, he shot off, “Love is what love is.  She desperately needed to feel loved and adored, so I gave that to her.”  “But what about her husband?”, I protested.  To which he declared, “If her husband truly loved her, he would understand.” My stomach turned with the insanity.  Should not love know constraints? 

Not too long ago I caught a wicked chill upon greeting my friend.  Something was terribly off.  At first, I could not tell if it was the result of the life changes he had made, or if it was something far more nefarious.  My eyes unraveled the quandary.  An unsteady gate, vacant eyes, disconnected smile, I feared he had fallen severely ill. 

 

iii

A reasonable person can certainly challenge “you are not a trained doctor, so how do you know if someone is severely ill?”  The answer is quite simple, really.  Though I may not know the exact illness affecting a person, recognizing its symptoms can be as easy as recognizing the symptoms of sadness.  Suffering contorts, hollows, decimates.  It invades the eyes, the posture, the soul. It conquers in totality.    The suffering of the severely ill, regardless of cause, is a symptom very easy to read.  Of course, having spent time walking hand in hand with death has also informed my senses.  The cold, empty touch of death is unmistakable, unshakable, and is known intimately by anyone who has suffered his embrace.

My concern for the sick led me to reflect on my time at the UMC.  I wondered, how long had there been suffering with no healing?  In the UMC’s infancy, hospitals the world over envied it for its ability to heal the sick.  Over time the healings slowed, but I did not think they had stopped completely.  I scoured my memories but could not remember the last time we celebrated a sick person’s healing. 

Something had changed at the UMC.  As I walked the hospital’s halls the distraught eyes of the sick still pierced my heart.  I knew a lack of healings could not be blamed on a deficit of opportunity.  I caught a glimpse of the dark truth, a radical new perspective, when I stumbled into a presentation given to new UMC volunteers.  The doctors still promoted the cure but not necessarily as a treatment.  It was something different, something less.  Treatment, for some inexplicable reason, had been deemed unnecessary.

I began to focus my thinking on the doctors at the UMC.  Kindness and compassion flowed effortlessly from their hearts. Patients beamed with happiness upon every encounter with a physician. Yet, the word “treatment” never passed the doctor’s lips.  Lost was the heavy, concerned brow worn by doctors as they informed patients of their dire need for treatment to combat their illness.  As much love as the doctors gave their patients, the doctors would not stop the tragic, inevitable creep of death. 

Thoughts of the suffering sick consumed my mind.  So many, so close to the cure, yet they are left in their sickness to deteriorate and die.  Why?  What vile mantra had infected the ministers of healing such that the sick were deemed “fine”, and the cure found “deficient”.  I determined to find an answer. 

 

iv

I met with my doctor and hoped he would shed light on my observations.  He admitted the UMC had changed and that the doctor’s approach to patients had also changed.  He said UMC doctors learned over time their patient’s suffering diminished remarkably when provided heavy doses of love. From this epiphany UMC doctors came to understand patients were not really sick; they were just deficient of love.  I believed my doctor’s concern for his patients to be sincere, but something did not sit right with me.  Love was essential, I knew, but it could not be everything, could it?  I was soon overcome with the desire for a second opinion. 

I sought a doctor I had not seen in years.  I met him at the UMC in my youth but over time, lost touch.  I found him serving at another hospital.  It did not take long to dive into the details of my concern.  Dr. Martin affirmed many of my thoughts and observations.  Particularly, he focused on my belief that love is but one essential ingredient to healing.  “Love is why we treat the patient; it is not the treatment,” he said.  Dr. Martin stated unequivocally, “the illness must be treated if healing is to occur.”  He then left me with a prediction and a challenge. 

Over the years I have learned that to truly understand an argument, one must listen to a rebuttal to the argument, and then, at a bare minimum, listen to the rebuttal to the rebuttal.  I went back to my doctor and asked him about diagnosing and treating severe illnesses.  He expounded on his previous statements, “Patients are not really sick, and by calling them sick, we are making their suffering worse.”  He said it was critical that I understood this reality. “There is nothing to diagnose. And treatment,” he said, “was really spreading hate.”  My doctor’s response to my questions nauseated my heart.

In my youth, I was sick; my condition terminal. UMC doctors informed me my only hope for healing rested in the treatment.  All these years later, I wondered, were they wrong?  Was I never sick?  Or maybe, am I still sick?  No, I know I was sick. The pain of death stalked me night and day.  No one can convince me that was an illusion.  And contrary to current enlightened UMC theory, my life overflowed with love, so my suffering could not be blamed on a “deficiency of love”. What’s more, I no longer suffer death’s cold grip.  The treatment, I accepted, healed me.

What does this change to the UMC mean?  What should I make of a hospital that refuses to provide treatment to the sick and then calls the lack of treatment love?  I thought I had love in my heart, but it is not this.  A part of me wanted to fight against the insanity, but who am I?  I am not a doctor.  I am not trained in any way to help here.  All I had were the gut feelings that something had gone terribly wrong at the hospital.  Is it possible for a hospital to become sick?

 

v.

Years of apathy and hollow visits blinded me to a terrible truth.  Attending a UMC all-hands meeting opened my eyes to the chaos ripping through the UMC halls.  A group of doctors, nurses, and volunteers (a select few who still offered treatment to the sick) disagreed with the direction the administration was taking the hospital.  The group had determined to redirect the UMC back to its roots.  Administrators called the meeting to discuss the discontent and align the splinter group with the current direction of the hospital.  The UMC had fallen into a civil war. 

Some beliefs cannot be reconciled.  The meeting turned into a series of meetings.  The meetings morphed into a game of bureaucratic chess.  Each side fought relentlessly for the ideals they held dear, but neither side approached victory.  Finally, the game of chess devolved into a game of Tic-Tac-Toe.  The Administration refused to change direction, so the splinter group decided to leave the UMC.  Love means different things to different people, I guess.

Every war consumes innocent victims; the UMC could not avoid this tragic truth.  Over the years, the UMC produced countless tiny branch clinics that served blue haired widows and flirty widowers.  While some of these patrons had taken the treatment, recovered and become volunteers, others were terminally ill but still held out hope they might brave the treatment before it was too late.  Oblivious to the war, or the split, the clinic patrons were unaware the clinic stopped offering treatment altogether.  The sick were simply left to die and were given no alternative.

Last week, fate summoned me for a reckoning.  I made the mistake of sharing a few wonderful vitamins with a sickly fellow with hollow eyes and labored breath.   Having witnessed the exchange and become irrevocably incensed, my old friend confronted me and accused me of committing a hateful act.  A day later, my doctor confronted me and scolded me for my hate.  As the week progressed, it came to be that I could not walk the hospital’s halls without nurses and volunteers hurling scowls of contempt at me.  How could I be accused of hate?  I shared the vitamins out of love.  Facing the reality of Dr. Martin’s prediction and challenge sickened my soul.

Anguish and my wife’s desire to soak me in tub of warm nostalgia drew us to Luby’s.  She seemed ambivalent to the decision before us but concerned for me.  Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes, fried okra, and a chocolate pie soothed my spirit and numbed me to the decision I fretted making.  Three bites into my chicken, my wife asked me to pass the salt.  My empty gaze fell into focus on the salt.  The typical clear shaker wore the typical shiny top; the top reflected my distorted image.  Transfixed by the salt, I swallowed my bite and lowered my chicken breast to my plate…but then all I could do was stare. 

 

Psalm 89:14

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.

 

Romans 3:9-20

9What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

11there is no one who understands;

there is no one who seeks God.

12All have turned away,

they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good,

not even one.” ^b

13“Their throats are open graves;

their tongues practice deceit.” ^c

“The poison of vipers is on their lips.” ^d

14“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” ^e

15“Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16ruin and misery mark their ways,

17and the way of peace they do not know.” ^f

18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” ^g

19Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

 

Acts 2:29-41

“Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. 32God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. 33Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. 34For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,

“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord:

“Sit at my right hand

35until I make your enemies

a footstool for your feet.” ’ ^f

36“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

37When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

38Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

40With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

 

Psalm 89 ^a

A maskil ^b of Ethan the Ezrahite.

1I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever;

with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known

through all generations.

2I will declare that your love stands firm forever,

that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself.

3You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one,

I have sworn to David my servant,

4‘I will establish your line forever

and make your throne firm through all generations.’ ” ^c

5The heavens praise your wonders, Lord,

your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones.

6For who in the skies above can compare with the Lord?

Who is like the Lord among the heavenly beings?

7In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared;

he is more awesome than all who surround him.

8Who is like you, Lord God Almighty?

You, Lord, are mighty, and your faithfulness surrounds you.

9You rule over the surging sea;

when its waves mount up, you still them.

10You crushed Rahab like one of the slain;

with your strong arm you scattered your enemies.

11The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth;

you founded the world and all that is in it.

12You created the north and the south;

Tabor and Hermon sing for joy at your name.

13Your arm is endowed with power;

your hand is strong, your right hand exalted.

14Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne;

love and faithfulness go before you.

15Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you,

who walk in the light of your presence, Lord.

16They rejoice in your name all day long;

they celebrate your righteousness.

17For you are their glory and strength,

and by your favor you exalt our horn. ^d

18Indeed, our shield ^e belongs to the Lord,

our king to the Holy One of Israel.

19Once you spoke in a vision,

to your faithful people you said:

“I have bestowed strength on a warrior;

I have raised up a young man from among the people.

20I have found David my servant;

with my sacred oil I have anointed him.

21My hand will sustain him;

surely my arm will strengthen him.

22The enemy will not get the better of him;

the wicked will not oppress him.

23I will crush his foes before him

and strike down his adversaries.

24My faithful love will be with him,

and through my name his horn ^f will be exalted.

25I will set his hand over the sea,

his right hand over the rivers.

26He will call out to me, ‘You are my Father,

my God, the Rock my Savior.’

27And I will appoint him to be my firstborn,

the most exalted of the kings of the earth.

28I will maintain my love to him forever,

and my covenant with him will never fail.

29I will establish his line forever,

his throne as long as the heavens endure.

30“If his sons forsake my law

and do not follow my statutes,

31if they violate my decrees

and fail to keep my commands,

32I will punish their sin with the rod,

their iniquity with flogging;

33but I will not take my love from him,

nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.

34I will not violate my covenant

or alter what my lips have uttered.

35Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness—

and I will not lie to David—

36that his line will continue forever

and his throne endure before me like the sun;

37it will be established forever like the moon,

the faithful witness in the sky.”

38But you have rejected, you have spurned,

you have been very angry with your anointed one.

39You have renounced the covenant with your servant

and have defiled his crown in the dust.

40You have broken through all his walls

and reduced his strongholds to ruins.

41All who pass by have plundered him;

he has become the scorn of his neighbors.

42You have exalted the right hand of his foes;

you have made all his enemies rejoice.

43Indeed, you have turned back the edge of his sword

and have not supported him in battle.

44You have put an end to his splendor

and cast his throne to the ground.

45You have cut short the days of his youth;

you have covered him with a mantle of shame.

46How long, Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?

How long will your wrath burn like fire?

47Remember how fleeting is my life.

For what futility you have created all humanity!

48Who can live and not see death,

or who can escape the power of the grave?

49Lord, where is your former great love,

which in your faithfulness you swore to David?

50Remember, Lord, how your servant has ^g been mocked,

how I bear in my heart the taunts of all the nations,

51the taunts with which your enemies, Lord, have mocked,

with which they have mocked every step of your anointed one.

52Praise be to the Lord forever!

Amen and Amen.