Skip to main content

Inspiration

A young man in Haiti watches as a pregnant woman suffering from malaria begins to have serious respiratory problems where she lies. The doctor tells her sister that the woman needs a blood transfusion, and that she will need money to get it in Port-au-Price. The young man, desperate to help, runs around the hospital and eventually gathers fifteen dollars to send with the sister.

It wasn't enough. The sister returned to say that she didn't have enough money for both the blood and for transportation. Despondent, the young man thereafter committed to raising money to buy blood-storage equipment, later to find that the hospital would charge for its use. "I'm going to build my own f_ing hospital," the young man remembers thinking. This he did, building a large complex in the midst of one of the poorest towns in all Haiti, Cange.*

Life work like this takes sacrifice, very personal sacrifice. Influenced by men like Rudolf Virchow and Latin American "liberation theology," this young man believed that medicine could solve social problems, that his purpose was to apply his knowledge of medicine and anthropology to the poorest of the poor. He was, it seems, a Harvard-educated Mother Theresa.

It makes you think about our own purposes here. Why are you here? Answer that, and you'll be able to determine your occupation in life. I'm of the belief that motives should come from a pure heart; but I also know that you can't always tell whether your motives are pure. Sometimes you act without fully knowing why and without fully knowing the consequences, but that's part of the excitement of life. Keep yourself mindful of your Creator, and let him teach you as you go.

*Kidder, Tracy. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World.New York: Random House, 2003.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...
Post a Comment
Read more

Comparison

Psychologists and others have studied ways in which we compare ourselves to each other. One man named Leon Festinger argued that we tend to compare ourselves to other people when we don’t know how good or bad we are at something (like football or playing the guitar). One way we do this is when we compare ourselves to those who are not as good as we are, to protect our self-esteem (called “downward social comparison;” example: we’re playing basketball and miss most of our shots, but we feel okay because a teammate wasn’t even given the ball). Another comparison we make is when we compare ourselves to others who are doing much better than we are (called “upward social comparison”). When we see others who appear to be doing better than we are, we can respond by trying to improve ourselves, or by trying to protect ourselves by telling ourselves it’s not that important. There was a study published in 1953 by Solomon Asch, who asked students to take part in a “vision test.” The par...
Post a Comment
Read more

Savior

This wasteland cold and dark runs free Its fearful creatures speak to me One fateful day one nudged my hand To set my eyes upon a tree He knew I could not understand For I was in his native land His signs became our common speech To lead me through the deadly sand Now stuck I saw him me beseech He could not lift me out to reach The firm foundation of a cave Outside the boundaries of this beach Withal, the beast became more brave To risk his own my life to save To carry me, its life it gave To carry me, its life it gave. This poem was inspired by Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." That poem, like this one, has four four-line stanzas of eight syllables per stanza. Its rhyme scheme is AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD.
Post a Comment
Read more