UCMHE calendar and blog

This Week at UCMHE & Blog

Monday: 11:30 AM Coffee with Fred at the Library: Who is Walter Brueggeman and why should I care he was here? Fred will talk about our responsibilities to be interpreters of the bible. Woohoo!
Tuesday: 5:30 PM Student Cabinet at Panera’s, 78th & Dodge
7:00 PM Peace Expo—student committee, MBSC (800 are anticipated on April 15. You can help by volunteering. Call me for details, and go to http://www.peaceexpo.org for info
8:00 PM Easter Egg dying party, 3rd floor MBSC; donating eggs to Habitat for Humanity
Wednesday noonish Hang out in the MBSC Food Court: Jump in Topics
Thursday 11AM-1PM MBSC Food Court, “What is hope and Where do we find it?”
2PM Peace with Justice JSAT planning session, Crimson Room, MBSC
Friday all day UMHE Campus Ministry Spring Meeting, Wayne State


Blog:

The question for March is, “what is hope” to be quickly followed by its corollary, “where do I find it?” I’ve been asking those questions and finding surprising answers.

Among UNO students, hope is often about being useful and finding community. Looking through the video being shot, there’s a bunch of folks who think hope is in the future, it’s something to be given, it’s energizing, it’s multi-cultural and never ending. The children we teach, the people we trust and the dreams we have, give it. It’s in the sense of community we build and the friends we have. Some have said hope is in God and Jesus.

I’ve been finding out a great deal about how hope is viewed on campus. I’ve asked the question in other places as well.

Friday midnight two weeks ago found me driving into the University hospital emergency room. Parking was hard to come by since police cruisers took half the spaces. Something was up! I checked in at the desk with my bleeding left index finger and thumb. I’d cut some flesh off with a utility knife on a home improvement project. As long as I kept pressure on the finger with a paper towel, the bleeding stopped. If I pulled the paper away and released the pressure, the bleeding became profuse. It seemed prudent to keep the pressure on.

In the emergency room waiting area were a number of people with a variety of issues. A young teen was in chains: wrist-to-wrist and ankle-to-ankle. She was probably either a runaway or a suicide, I’d guessed. Who knows? She was accompanied by an employee of a local youth correctional facility, who carried a walkie-talkie. The prisoner stared blankly at the floor, the ceiling, the walls and the world outside the window. Next to her were two young women. One had driven in her friend who had slipped and fallen with a tray of dirty dishes. There had been blood in that restaurant! She needed to be checked for glass shards that may have still resided in her arm. Next to them, in pain, was a woman, a nurse by profession, with gall bladder issues. She was periodically doubled over in pain. But she managed polite conversation.

A man periodically fell asleep with a cell phone in his ear. It sounded like he was trying to find someone to deliver something at 5:15 AM. He’d go to sleep, and be aroused like a shot when the phone rang. The ring tone was a jazz piece. More than a few times people with diabetes rolled up to the counter to speak with the attendant there. The triage nurse was called and she interviewed each about their medications and where they had taken them. An anorexic woman, maybe fifty years old, clipped down the corridor in startling steps.

I made my judgments about these people and more for about two hours before I saw a doctor. I was not at high risk.

Lidocaine was administered to my thumb and finger and the doc went to work efficiently and with a friendly manner. I pestered him with questions, philosophized about the state of religion and faith on campus, the value of mission trips, and the like. Finally, I popped the question, “What is faith and where do you find it?”

“I’ve never been asked that question before” he remarked, with a steady and penetrating gaze. “No, that’s a new one.” He was now cauterizing my finger, thinking the hot wire would stop the bleeding. On the fourth session, and with the help of the supervising physician, the bleeding subsided.

“I’ve been thinking about your question,” said my physician, with whom I’d grown chummy. I had all the confidence in the world in him.

“I don’t have a direct answer, but I’ll tell you this. I was at Creighton Medical School and a mentor doctor told me this and I’ve not forgotten it: ‘you have to forgive your patients before you can treat them.’ I think that’s true and that’s what I try to do. It seems to work.”

I thought about all the people in the waiting room. They had problems, and like me, most had caused their own issues. But they still needed treatment, and the way to start with their treatment was with forgiveness. I thought of all the people I’d developed opinions about in the waiting room. They probably didn’t deserve my judgmental attitude. They probably just needed to be treated by someone who cared. In this case, they were lucky if they saw my physician, because his treatment starts with forgiveness.

Jesus kept that attitude when he was with his disciples on his last night with them.

There’s hope in that.

--Fred