Redemption?

From Morguefile - edited

I came into the ER and it was not a pleasant place.  The waiting room was dirty and cramped, sick and hurting people were waiting.  The walls were marked up and broken, chairs stained and uncomfortable.

She had been waiting an hour - which happens in the best of Emergency Rooms, I know - but the staff was unfriendly and the triage was performed in plain view - and clear earshot - of everyone else in the waiting room.

And this kind of thing happens in the city, I guess, but this was a small town hospital where I would expect they would try to excel at the details - since clearly people with big problems are going to go to "real" hospitals, anyway.

But, really, this isn't a shot at this particular hospital.

It's about the choices we make.

I asked her husband, "Why here?  Why not the bigger hospital that's just a few minutes farther from your home?"

He explained that her doctor worked from this hospital.  But much more importantly for him - when he was young his family had a very bad experience at the other hospital - with near fatal consequences.  People could say what they wanted about the other hospital - ANY hospital was better.

Perception colors our reality.  Perception doesn't BECOME our reality - but it really does affect our reality which, in turn, can sort of become reality...for us, right?  So, no matter the accolades heaped on hospital B - could be voted the best hospital in the world by the AMA - husband's family had a very bad experience which will haunt them and hurt them for the rest of their lives.  So HUSBAND'S reality is...hospital B is a hospital not to be trusted, no matter what.

Same thing applies to churches.  To people.  To movies.  To everything in life.

If we let it.

Here's the thing, though.

Redemption.

How does hospital B redeem itself?  Well, for this family, maybe it doesn't.  But could it?  Should that be a possibility?

I think so.  I think it should be for everyone.

But especially for people.  Always for people.

We've been hurt.  And we have to figure out how to get past it - to get over it.  And I don't mean that in some calloused, dismissive way, either.  We have to work through it.  I watched an episode of Star Trek Enterprise* the other day and a Vulcan character had had some repressed emotions suddenly surface and she couldn't deal well with the fallout from the fact that she had committed a potentially questionable act and the captain said something like, "Not repressing our emotions means that we are able to deal with them and then move on with our lives."**

And dealing with our emotions means not writing anybody off - no matter what - no matter who - no matter where or when or why.









*Yeah, I'm a nerd with Netflix


**Still love that Star Trek is little morality plays, even in the post modern age