People who would burn the physical church are people who have had the people of the church, of many churches, over and over and over, value the church building more than they value them. It's one thing to feel unseen, unheard and unwanted in the church. It's another to then hear that church worshiping its building, pastoral staff, and the church itself in a sick idolatry. C.S. Lewis described this thing that I guess I'm seeing in "The Four Loves." When he described friend-love, he described a love that always has to exclude something. If a church cultivates that kind of friend-love which always excludes someone (he says it so much better than I do), then perhaps it is not the world that will burn down such churches, but unbalanced christians who have been hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt.
Meeting in houses and tents, Chinas church flourished. Europe, when it built big cathedrals, lost its faith. This country is building bigger and bigger churches. Do you see our faith getting stronger, as our churches get bigger, or weaker?
I would never burn down my church. Burning down the church would set a bad example for my nieces and nephews. It would make me a weight that they had to carry for the rest of their lives, more than I already am. And besides, if I got caught I'd get sent to jail. I went to jail once. I was there for a couple days because I couldn't afford bail money. Jail, for me, was hell. It was noisy. I couldn't be alone. There were too many loud personalities in conflict. It was like living at home. I'd rather die.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Going it alone
I'm not sure how much I'll be posting. I'm having to drop the internet until I get my finances straightened out. I'm going to be doing a lot of journaling. If I get access to the internet, say at the library or something, I'll maybe post some of the work I'll be doing while I'm not watching TV (had to let the cable TV go too) or messing around on the internet. I'm gonna try to really do some internal work on myself, take charge of my own recovery, instead of just drifting along from church to therapist to family and round and round and round, listening to whoever is speaking, not really sure who to believe, not at all sure I trust any of them. Well, forget that, I have a ton of really good books and workbooks, some Christian and some secular, that I have barely even begun. I've always wanted to teach these books, because I've thought that that's what it would take to get me to engage with them. Well, that's not gonna happen for very good reason. You can't teach what you haven't yet learned. They can talk about "facilitating" until they're blue in the face, but it really comes down to teaching. I wanna get my walk to start looking quite a bit more like my talk.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Part D Fiasco
GREENSPAN FOR PRESIDENT
When Republicans suggested Medicare Prescription Drug coverage, I applauded. Generally, I'm into smaller government. But, that hit below my high ideals, right around the area of my pocketbook. I've been trying to figure out how to make Medicare Part D work for me for a couple of days now. I just don't think it's going to.
I'll get into specifics in a minute, but before I lose you, I want to compare Medicare Part D to the whole managed care fiasco. My mom works with managed care. She says the whole thing is just a mess. To control a few fat cat doctors, we created a whole layer of fat cat bureaucracy to carry more and more money out of the whole system, causing the cost of everything to go up. Then, all the doctors and all the hospitals had to hire more personnel to deal with all the forms that this fat cat bureaucracy wanted filled out in triplicate. And the personnel that had to be hired, unfortunately had to be paid pretty well, because the resulting mess requires a MENSA candidate to figure out. Okay, now don't forget, managed care was supposed to SAVE us money, right. Well, have we done the same thing with Medicare prescription drugs, replaced a system that wasn't wonderful, with a whole lot of mid-level bureaucrats who we're going to pay to solve the problem. I just have a bad feeling that the bureaucracy is going to cost us more than the problem was costing us.
I'm on disability for a condition that causes me a lot of anxiety. I have been taking 1 mg of clonazepam (generic Klonopin) every night for a while. None of the plans in this area offer generic Klonopin or Ativan or Xanax (high anxiety meds I could maybe substitute for the Klonopin) So, Medicare Part D means I'm going to have to go off my narcotic unless I can appeal and get it covered. I think I can get my other three drugs for about $76/month. Maybe that doesn't sound like too much to you, but it's about the same as I've been paying . . . except I'll be getting one less drug.
I always assumed that when Congress funded prescriptions for Medicare recipients, they'd seriously cut funding for pharmaceutical companies. If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the funding was given with the understanding that while most of it would of course be used for research, the companies would also offer programs to give complementary medications to the poor. I've been getting free Wellbutrin from Glaxo-Wellcome for years. Wellbutrin is an enormously expensive little drug. I was pretty thankful. It's totally unique. There's nothing else that you can substitute for it. Now, I may have to switch to the generic version. To me, it just doesn't seem to work the same. I'll try it again, though.
I was thinking: What is congress going to do about drug company funding? There are a lot of indigent people who are not on Medicaid or Medicare . . . the working poor, in a way the most unlucky of all. I think Glaxo-Wellcome has thought of this. I have been noticing commercials saying how much they need that research money. Ya know, I wish Alan Greenspan would run for president. I think he's about the only one I'd trust to see the long view.
When Republicans suggested Medicare Prescription Drug coverage, I applauded. Generally, I'm into smaller government. But, that hit below my high ideals, right around the area of my pocketbook. I've been trying to figure out how to make Medicare Part D work for me for a couple of days now. I just don't think it's going to.
I'll get into specifics in a minute, but before I lose you, I want to compare Medicare Part D to the whole managed care fiasco. My mom works with managed care. She says the whole thing is just a mess. To control a few fat cat doctors, we created a whole layer of fat cat bureaucracy to carry more and more money out of the whole system, causing the cost of everything to go up. Then, all the doctors and all the hospitals had to hire more personnel to deal with all the forms that this fat cat bureaucracy wanted filled out in triplicate. And the personnel that had to be hired, unfortunately had to be paid pretty well, because the resulting mess requires a MENSA candidate to figure out. Okay, now don't forget, managed care was supposed to SAVE us money, right. Well, have we done the same thing with Medicare prescription drugs, replaced a system that wasn't wonderful, with a whole lot of mid-level bureaucrats who we're going to pay to solve the problem. I just have a bad feeling that the bureaucracy is going to cost us more than the problem was costing us.
I'm on disability for a condition that causes me a lot of anxiety. I have been taking 1 mg of clonazepam (generic Klonopin) every night for a while. None of the plans in this area offer generic Klonopin or Ativan or Xanax (high anxiety meds I could maybe substitute for the Klonopin) So, Medicare Part D means I'm going to have to go off my narcotic unless I can appeal and get it covered. I think I can get my other three drugs for about $76/month. Maybe that doesn't sound like too much to you, but it's about the same as I've been paying . . . except I'll be getting one less drug.
I always assumed that when Congress funded prescriptions for Medicare recipients, they'd seriously cut funding for pharmaceutical companies. If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the funding was given with the understanding that while most of it would of course be used for research, the companies would also offer programs to give complementary medications to the poor. I've been getting free Wellbutrin from Glaxo-Wellcome for years. Wellbutrin is an enormously expensive little drug. I was pretty thankful. It's totally unique. There's nothing else that you can substitute for it. Now, I may have to switch to the generic version. To me, it just doesn't seem to work the same. I'll try it again, though.
I was thinking: What is congress going to do about drug company funding? There are a lot of indigent people who are not on Medicaid or Medicare . . . the working poor, in a way the most unlucky of all. I think Glaxo-Wellcome has thought of this. I have been noticing commercials saying how much they need that research money. Ya know, I wish Alan Greenspan would run for president. I think he's about the only one I'd trust to see the long view.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
"House" & "Fight Club"
I just finished watching the first season of "House," a favorite show of mine. I had recently read an online editorial criticizing that show and several others that are favorites of mine for being kind of antisocial, of setting a bad example for people. In each of the shows this guy criticized, the characters mentioned had some pretty negative characteristics. He was right about that. But, "House" and a movie that he criticized, "Fight Club" have something in common. They say some pretty interesting things, things that are true. I got to thinking, what is it about "House" that I like. I think I've got it. In a day of information overload and political correctness, when everone is encouraged to be positive because we think we'll all kill each other off if we don't encourage everyone to play nicely, Dr. House dares to say the negative things that need to be said. After a day of saying positive, politically correct half truths to people that we really don't care for, we come home and turn on "House," where he does what we wish we could do, just tell people the plain, honest truth.
Fight Club is another show (a movie this time) that this columnist criticized. It did the same thing in a way. It said some things that we wanted to hear somebody say, because those things seem true. "Your father left you. . . . Did you ever think that God hates you?" says Tyler Durdan. The things he says ring so true with me, part of me is afraid those things might be true. Tyler teaches an unloved, unwanted generation to take control of its own destiny, in the most horrible way. I would never do the things, any of them, that he advocated. But, I am that generation. That's why I like that movie. It doesn't pat me on the head and reassure me that I'm loved. I'm tired of being patted on the head, as though I was a dog being petted. I have eyes of my own. People can keep telling me that I'm all wrong about everything until kingdom come, but I'm not blind. I wish I was. I can't stop seeing. Christians hate me because, as my therapist would say, I'm one of those people who just won't stop pointing out that there's an elephant in the living room. "Yeah, we know, we know. Hush, now." "Well, . . . Aren't we gonna do something about it?"
Fight Club is another show (a movie this time) that this columnist criticized. It did the same thing in a way. It said some things that we wanted to hear somebody say, because those things seem true. "Your father left you. . . . Did you ever think that God hates you?" says Tyler Durdan. The things he says ring so true with me, part of me is afraid those things might be true. Tyler teaches an unloved, unwanted generation to take control of its own destiny, in the most horrible way. I would never do the things, any of them, that he advocated. But, I am that generation. That's why I like that movie. It doesn't pat me on the head and reassure me that I'm loved. I'm tired of being patted on the head, as though I was a dog being petted. I have eyes of my own. People can keep telling me that I'm all wrong about everything until kingdom come, but I'm not blind. I wish I was. I can't stop seeing. Christians hate me because, as my therapist would say, I'm one of those people who just won't stop pointing out that there's an elephant in the living room. "Yeah, we know, we know. Hush, now." "Well, . . . Aren't we gonna do something about it?"
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