Where is God in This?

Encounter

As riot police moved in to stop migrants from entering the Channel Tunnel at Calais, a young Eritrean man said “God has seen me through the Sahara; he will not abandon me now”.

Where is God in this?

Clearly, the Eritrean understood God to have accompanied him thus far, and his faith was well supported in Scripture, for Psalm 107:4-8 says:

Some wondered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in;

Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.

He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in.

Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love.

However, the activity of the riot police may have indicated that the man’s faith at this last stage was misplaced; and I was certainly left wondering what the Christian response should be in England when we pray to the same God who saw that man safely through the desert.

Nonetheless, within one week, in the UK:

 - ½ million people signed a petition requiring the UK government to ‘Accept more asylum seekers and increase support for refugee migrants in the UK’ (when only 100,000 needed for a parliamentary debate); and c.f. only 71,000 signed a petition against more activity.

- the Government expanded the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme from 1,000 people per year to 20,000 within this parliament.

- the Government pledged a further £100 million to the £900million in humanitarian aid

- the British public donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to charities aiding the migrants

- The Scottish government pledged £1m.

- hundreds of people gathered at a ‘refugees welcome’ demonstration in Oxford.

- the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke out quoting Leviticus 19:34, saying we must…

Break down barriers, to welcome the stranger and love them as ourselves.

All of which suggested to me that the Holy Spirit was certainly at work and was indeed providing a Christian response to the crisis.

Hence, the answer to the question as to where is God in this? Is that I would suggest God is at work through us in providing aid to that man and his country-folk, in keeping with St Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where in chapter 2:13, he writes…

            For it is God who is at work in you…

St Luke

The following is the text of my eulogy delivered at a Eucharist at the Parish Church of St Mary, Barton on Humber, on the Feast Day of St Luke, the 18^th October 2014.

Today is the Feast Day of St Luke, and I consider it an honour and a privilege to have been asked to say a few words about the life and work of the man whose memory we now celebrate and for whose life we herewith give thanks.

That said, to some extent, Luke is, in historical terms, an enigma. We know relatively little about him as a person, and what we do know is gleaned from the writings of third parties or teased from the writings purported to be by Luke himself.

It is widely believed that he was born of Greek parents in the city of Antioch, Syria c.1 AD; Syria then being part of the Roman Empire.

·        It is understood that Luke was a physician, as evidenced by the writing of St Paul and, as such, can probably take the title of the first Christian doctor.

·        We know that he was most certainly a disciple of St Paul; accompanying him for large parts of his journeys and was with St Paul near to the time of Paul’s death in Rome.

·        And we understand from early church historians that Luke was unmarried, without children, and died at the age of 84yrs, c. 84 AD; possibly as a martyr.

But Luke was much more than that potted bibliography. Once again, it is early historians who give us the sense that he had an ‘exceptional degree of holiness’, and was revered as a saint within the first few centuries AD. What is more, whilst the original texts were written anonymously, there is considerable evidence to indicate that the third and longest of the major Gospels of the Bible was written by St Luke, and that he was also the author of the Acts of the Apostles. His desire for anonymity is therefore a remarkable indication of his modesty, bearing in mind that together, St Luke’s Gospel (telling us of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ) and the Acts of the Apostles (giving us the early history of the Christian Church) compose almost 25% of the New Testament. It is because of these writings that Luke is known as one of the four Evangelists, whose work ‘proclaimed the good news – the gospel of Jesus’; and it is from St Luke’s Gospel, and only from his Gospel, that we receive some of our most loved stories, such as The Good Samaritan and The Prodigal Son.

And it doesn’t end there, for Luke was also:

·         An artist – who, it is claimed, painted some 600 icons as well as paintings of Mary with Jesus as a baby.

·         And he was a poet – for his work has led directly to such beautiful works as the Nunc dimittis.

So, what relevance does the life of St Luke have for us over two thousand years later? What message does he give to us that is as important in the 21^st century as it was in earliest years of the Christian church?

Obviously, he tells us of the life of Christ and indeed about St Paul. However, there is much about the life and character of Luke himself that can still teach us a great deal in today’s world.

First, through the style of his writing, we know that Luke, as an educated man, did not look down on artisans, for his writing reminds us that those involved in manual work are equally worthy of our respect; prompting us to be mindful that all men and women are equal.

Secondly, St Luke, the evangelist, physician, writer, theologian, poet, artist, and historian – St Luke the polymath - should remind us that we all have multiple gifts bestowed upon us by God, and that, by using Luke as our exemplar, we should make use of all our individual gifts to further God’s work in the service of human kind and to assist in the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thirdly, he reminds us that to be whole persons, we must take care to heal both the body and the soul, and that such healing cannot come about through science and medicine alone, but in combination with the many arts, and not least of all, theology. One of his most famous lines is from Luke 19:10, where he writes ‘For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost’.  From his life’s work, I suggest that the phrase could equally be applied to St. Luke himself, whom St Paul may well have called an Anam Cara, or Soul Friend; a doctor of the soul who, if he were alive today, would probably be known as a spiritual director.

St Luke is symbolised by a winged ox or bull – figures of strength, sacrifice and service - and in recognition that St Luke sacrificed himself and his life in following Christ. Today we give thanks for his life and work; a life that should remind us that all Christians, even in the 21^st Century, are called upon to do likewise, living and working our lives in the name of Christ; and for which, the emulation of St Luke is a good starting point. For, although we are not all called to be physicians, we can all be healers in a troubled world.

Amen.

A Poem for the 100th Anniversary of the Outbreak of World War One

The Remembrance Day Parade

As he walked up to the rostrum,
silence round him fell;
and whilst he gazed upon the steadfast ranks,
emotive lines began to tell.

Too many lives were lost before today:
young men and women – yesterday's youth.
They were the cheques we drew to pay
for the blinded search for fallacious truth.

You are the inspired; the fortunate few
who have lived through to this day;
the ones who now must tell the world
to find a better way.

It is the charge of those who live
beyond vanquished dreams of many men,
to find the strength to forgive;
to learn and love as best you can.

And in so doing, let us ensure
a sense of remembrance, not of rage -
may this quietude beyond the war
turn pugnacious soldier to reflective sage.

Thus, he stood upon the rostrum as
the silence round him fell,
and gazed upon the steadfast ranks
of those returned from hell.

© Copyright Dr Robert M Jaggs-Fowler 2008

Thought for the Day

'I think I am in my last days but it doesn't really matter because I have had such a beautiful life.

And life is beautiful, love is beautiful, nature and music are beautiful. Everything we experience is a gift, a present we should cherish and pass on to those we love.'

Alice Herz-Sommer (2014)

(Concert pianist and oldest Holocaust survivor, who died aged 110 years).

Thought for the Day

"You do not need to do anything; you do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You do not even need to listen; just wait. You do not even need to wait; just become still, quiet and solitary and the world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet." -- Franz Kafka

Speaking of Honest Matters

An early seventeenth century proverb informs us that, for practical as well as moral reasons, honesty is the best policy. Oliver Cromwell, when writing to the High Sheriff of Suffolk, Sir William Spring, in 1643, remarked that ‘a few honest men are better than numbers’. In 1814, Jane Austen recognised the difficulties of positions of power when she was writing her novel, Mansfield Park, remarking that ‘we do not look in great cities for our best morality’. Yet only with the pursuit of honesty in public life as well as in private, can one hope to achieve the safe haven spoken of by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius when he said ‘nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul’. Today, the Oxford English Dictionary informs us that ‘honesty’ is being ‘free of deceit; truthful and sincere; simple and unpretentious; genuine and straightforward’.

Why is it then, with over two thousand years wherein leaders in a variety of fields have recognised that being honest is an imperative of life, do we find ourselves confronted by newspaper headlines informing us that honesty appears to be the last moral value adhered to within the NHS? In the past few weeks we have seen a number of these, not least those proclaiming ‘Rotten NHS culture led to cover-ups’, followed by discussions of ‘institutional secrecy’, ‘NHS scandals’ and regulators ‘suppressing evidence of failures’. The Secretary of State for Health, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, was even moved to make a speech in which he demanded a ‘new culture of openness, transparency and accountability’, whilst also recognising that ‘the best motivated people do make mistakes’.

That latter comment is important, for the pursuit of honesty is not the same, and should never be the same, as the pursuit of litigation for negligence. In an honest workplace, with every person sincerely striving for the common good, negligence should be a rare beast that raises its head. Honesty underpins the act of doing the right thing at the right time and then being clear about what it was that was done; even if, with the value of  hindsight, matters could have been done in a better way.

In the same speech as that mentioned above, Jeremy Hunt went on to state that the success of a new culture of openness and transparency ‘will depend on the right incentives and consequences’, citing the need for greater powers for the regulatory bodies such as the Care Quality Commission (CQC). However, regulation and regulators are not the answer; they have never been the answer. Regulators are merely ‘the dust-carts that follow the Lord Mayor's Show of life’ as the NHS commentator Roy Lilley recently put it. They tell us what went wrong in the past; they do not give us reassurance that all is well in the present.

No; it is not more regulation that we need. What we need is for those working in the NHS (and politics, and any other facet of public life) to be honest. For only on the solid bedrock of honesty, do we have the capability of building the necessary facets of a valued and enduring society.

First published in the Scunthorpe Telegraph, 4 July 2013

© Copyright Robert M Jaggs-Fowler 2013

Fancy Doing Something for Nothing?

The American Psychological Association’s Psychology and Ageing Journal may not be the preferred bedtime reading for many people in North Lincolnshire. However, this month it contains an article that we all ought to be aware of. According to researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University (I know, but we won’t let the name distract us), the process of volunteering is helpful in bringing about a reduction in blood pressure.  Now, when was the last time you volunteered to do something for nothing? The employed might retort that they work for nothing for the first five months of the year (Tax Freedom Day being somewhere around the middle of May in the UK), but I am assuming that doesn’t count, otherwise we wouldn’t have such a high demand for blood pressure pills in this country.

High blood pressure is a major risk factor in heart disease, strokes and kidney disease, so it is worth taking seriously. The American research suggests that positive lifestyle factors such as volunteering can have a major impact on blood pressure through the chemical processes that bring about the ‘feel good factor’. To benefit, a person has to perform voluntary work for at least 200 hours per year.

Of course, one’s blood pressure isn’t the only thing to benefit from volunteering. Volunteering also helps to build a caring society, reduces social exclusion, makes an economic impact (adding £4.8 billion to the UK’s finances), opens up social networks, brings interesting and exciting new experiences, improves personal skills, enhances personal development, and improves employment and career prospects. From a medical perspective, stress levels are also often reduced, which may be part of the way in which volunteering reduces blood pressure. So, all in all, it is a good thing to do.

Meanwhile, in other areas of this week’s medical press, we learn that the Department of Health has decided that there is no evidence to support the concept that GPs are not capable of working in General Practice until their 68^th birthday. Ironically, the same report acknowledges that the same GPs may not be motivated to work that long. Motivation is a multifaceted beast, but it has a lot to do with job satisfaction, manageable workloads, and not feeling exhausted before getting to lunchtime (in itself a vague concept these days). Even more ironically, on the same day the above report was published, other reports highlighted (as though it wasn’t already clear) that General Practice is at breaking point and cannot be looked to in order to solve the country’s A&E crisis.

Nonetheless, that didn’t stop NHS England suggesting that GPs should provide 24/7 ‘decision support’ (whatever that means) to tackle the out of hours problems. Neither did a national lack of GPs stop the Care Quality Commission announcing that it would close GP practices that didn’t stay open long enough to satisfy patient demand. I may be losing the plot here, but will someone please explain to me how that solves the problem? Even as I write, I can feel my blood pressure rising. Perhaps a quick spot of voluntary work will help? Now, I wonder whether emptying the dishwasher and putting the rubbish out, before Mrs J-F tells me to do it, will count towards my 200 hours per year target?

First published in the Scunthorpe Telegraph, 27 June 2013

© Copyright Robert M Jaggs-Fowler 2013 

What do you want?

I recently had a go a cutting my throat. Needless to say, it wasn’t a clean sweep, otherwise I would not now be writing this column. Either that or I would be making a small post-mortem fortune in describing the true goings on from the ‘other side’. My wife immediately suspected that I had been listening to Mahler’s 5^th Symphony; for me, a wonderful work with an unfathomable depth of emotion to it. For my wife, it represents a morose person about to commit suicide. It is interesting how music affects people in different ways. However, the truth is that I was not listening to Mahler.

Neither was I contemplating whether to interview the young doctor who put in his curriculum vitae that his hobby was listening to ‘vintage rock’. It was the word ‘vintage’ that stopped me in my tracks (sorry; for those who still have LPs stored in the loft, I couldn’t resist that pun); as he then went on to explain that the term ‘vintage’ meant music from the 60s. As I was born in 1960, it was a new experience to be considered by implication as ‘vintage’.

No, the truth of the matter was that my razor head fell apart; giving the blade a new found freedom that heretofore it had only dreamt of. The result was a one inch gash a little too close to my left carotid artery for comfort. Fortunately, I survived the auto-mutilation and can now devote some time to contemplating how I wish to continue keeping well and live an independent life in North Lincolnshire. Which is all a very long-winded way of bringing me to the point of this week’s subject.

North Lincolnshire’s Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is, since April 2013, the organisation responsible for buying health services. The CCG is now keen to know your views; views that will help to inform how services are developed within our county. The question being asked is ‘what needs to happen so that you and yours feel confident about keeping well and living an independent life to the full?’ The CCG is keen for people of all ages to contribute to this learning process. What would make a difference for you and your family? How do we need to develop health and social services to help and support your aims and needs?

There are two ways in which you can become involved with this important survey. The first is to simply go on-line and complete a survey here, giving us the opportunity to see how you see life. The second is to attend a public meeting on Thursday 27 June 2013 between 9.30 – 14.30 at the Wortley House Hotel, Rowland Road, Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire DN16 1SU. The organisers say that the event will be ‘fun, inspiring and you will learn a lot’.

Finally, if you want to learn more about public health inequalities and what people die of in your area, enter your postcode into the Longer Lives website and see how we compare to other areas: http://longerlives.phe.org.uk/. Fortunately, self-beheadings do not seem to feature for my street, so I may be okay for a while longer.

First published in the Scunthorpe Telegraph, 20 June 2013

© Copyright Robert M Jaggs-Fowler 2013       

Gallantry and the Ungallant

My faith in human nature has been partially restored this past fortnight by the myriad of telephone calls by worried patients wishing to express their concern that we live in such an uncaring world that a GP could be left stranded by the roadside whilst half his local community simply drove past without bothering to enquire as to his well-being. Many have gone to great lengths to reassure me that they did not pass me by on that fateful day; and furthermore, to emphasise that, if they had seen me, they would most certainly have stopped to give assistance. Such an outpouring of goodwill is gratefully received; so much so that, contrary to data protection laws, I have made a note of your contact details and will ensure that you all receive a daily printout of my future travel plans.

Not that I am likely to need you, thanks to an enterprising local business couple who have devised the ultimate emergency aid for doctors. Kindly presenting me with the prototype at the start of a recent consultation, the aid consists of a protective cardboard storage tube in which is housed a rolled-up warning sign. On green paper (green for medical and no doubt also fluorescent in headlights – clever people these entrepreneurs), the sign boldly proclaims ‘STOP! THE DOCTOR’S CAR IS NOT WELL!’ Thank you. I shall most certainly display it next time I breakdown; if only to assist my aforementioned telephone rescue brigade in finding me.

Sadly, the same gushing sentiments cannot be written about my declining faith in the medico-political world. If the incessant public bashing of doctors in particular and healthcare professionals in general was not sufficient, a Conservative health minister has now got to the nub of the problem. The difficulties of the NHS have nothing to do with decades of political interference and mismanagement, underfunding, inadequately resourced training, mindless bureaucratic targets, and burnt-out GPs. No, the problem has been staring us in the face all the time. It is the fault of women; or to be more precise, female GPs. At least it is according to Ms Anna Soubry MP. Why? Because women want to mix a working life with caring for their families, and thus wish to work part-time; thereby putting a strain on the NHS. Her outdated and derogatory comments understandably caused outrage amongst the medical profession and feminist movements alike, and did nothing to bolster the failing reputation of politicians. With women making up over 55% of today’s medical students, the future of general practice is as a female profession. In itself, that is not necessarily a bad thing; after all, are we not told by anthropologists that women are biologically geared to be more caring in nature than men? If that is the case, I know which sex I would wish to be sorting out my multiple pathologies of old age. No, Ms Soubry, the problem is not the women, but the failure of Westminster to recognise the changing face of the world’s working patterns, and to ensure that more doctors are trained in order to facilitate part-time working, flexible-working, and job-sharing. Paraphrasing the words of Henry II, who will rid me of these turbulent politicians? Perhaps my new-found band of ‘community vigilantes’ could help?

First published in the Scunthorpe Telegraph, 13 June 2013

© Copyright Robert M Jaggs-Fowler 2013

A Pilgrimage on Life's Odyssey

If life is the greatest journey of all, then last week I went on one small pilgrimage within my life’s odyssey. Of course, a pilgrimage is usually thought of as a religious undertaking; the process of travelling for religious reasons to somewhere held to be sacred. My pilgrimage was not truly a religious one, but more spiritual in nature; meaning the seeking of something or somewhere that elevates my sense of well-being.

There are several such places I can rely on for spiritual sustenance. One of these is nearer to home; being the entire North Yorkshire Dales. I have often joked that, during the week, my body can be found working in North Lincolnshire whilst my soul is freely roaming around the Yorkshire Dales. When time allows, I don walking boots and a back pack and stride into the dales where, with a sigh of pleasure and a great sense of freedom, my soul re-joins my body and I am once again as one with the world around me.

If that seems a trifle odd, you may then find it hard to believe that a small portion of my soul also lives in the remote and deserted mountain village of Vouni in Cyprus. With a chequered history that includes being a centre for EOKA (the National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters, who fought a campaign for the end of British rule of Cyprus) the village was down to a population of about 136 in 2001. Most of the old stone houses are now empty, abandoned and crumbling; with the cobbled streets echoing to little more than the occasional footsteps of the inquisitive traveller.

However, despite its past, there is one stone house that held my attention when I first stumbled across it a few years ago. Tucked away in a narrow side street, it stands as a detached sentinel, waiting. Lizards have been its only inhabitants for some years; the paint on its shutters is peeling, and the doors are held fast by rusty bolts. A balcony adorns the first floor at the front, appearing to stay in place more by an act of levitation than any means of construction; whilst a rambling bougainvillea entwines the whole in its rose-red petals. It is a potential haven just waiting for a writer or artist; its empty rooms echoing to the sound of chatter and untold stories amidst filtered beams of sunlight. I was smitten at first sight; so much so that a small portion of my soul was left there, recumbent in the shade of its courtyard.

We all need places of retreat, where we can recharge our batteries. However, we do not need to own them to experience their life-enhancing power. Neither do we always need to travel far; it may be somewhere very close to home that works for you. For the sake of physical and mental health, it is important to find that place, or those places in your life, and to tap into their revitalising power from time to time.

First published in the Scunthorpe Telegraph, 30 May 2013

© Copyright Robert M Jaggs-Fowler 2013

Who is my Neighbour?

Last week I related the experience of having dropped my Smart car into a pothole, only to find that, when it re-emerged, it didn’t work anymore. I likened the process of contacting the RAC and the subsequent service received, along with the aftercare by the local council, to that of a patient seeking medical assistance. What I didn’t describe was the distinct lack of Good Samaritans on the B1218 at 1pm on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.

For those who are not regular readers, my moribund car had drifted to a halt on the Barton to Brigg road, just before the B1206 turn-off for Barrow and the A15 intersection. It is a fast road and not the sort of place a sane person would normally park. However, over the course of three hours, despite the fact that over one hundred assorted cars, vans, lorries and tractors passed by, not one person paused to find out if I was okay, or offer assistance.

Now, it is true that many did look in my direction, and several had to stop behind me before being able to pass by, so it is not the case that they didn’t see me. It is also true to say that many will have recognised me; I certainly recognised them as local people. No doubt they all had their reasons for not stopping (perhaps some used it as retribution for not being able to get an appointment at the surgery). However, one thing is for certain, they couldn’t have concluded that seeing a local GP sitting on a crash-barrier in the middle of nowhere, with his car at a strange angle and partially obstructing the road, was a normal activity in the early afternoon, midweek. Unless they thought I was merely taking the opportunity of the sunshine and topping up my vitamin D level; though I can think of safer ways.

The episode raised an interesting question for me in respect to how we see each other in the 21^st century. The Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer reminds me that ‘My duty towards my Neighbour is to love him as myself, and do to all men, as I would they should do unto me.’ It is a direct reflection of both the Bible’s Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18) and the New Testament (St Matthew 22:38). My question is, if we cannot extend such exhortations to those within our own community, what chance is there for our neighbours in today’s so called ‘global village’? The Good Samaritan helped a stranger because he saw his need. If we cannot help someone who is not a stranger but well known to us, how can we counter the vast needs we see in other parts of our country and the wider world?

Maybe those who passed me by perceived the truth that I was essentially okay. However, I suspect that many were too busy, too distracted, or just too indifferent to even think about asking. What, then, does my breakdown tell us about our true ability to meaningfully respond to our neighbours in the wider world?

First published in the Scunthorpe Telegraph, 23 May 2013

© Copyright Robert M Jaggs-Fowler 2013