There are two types of questions to ask, Paul Farmer once said. Those that are meant to end a conversation, and those that are meant to start one.
I am currently reading a book called "The Golden Ratio" which tracks the ratio phi through various architectural, artistic, and naturalistic happenings in nature. I admit that I am not reading the book very quickly, but nonetheless it has gotten me thinking about numbers and ways in which we can use them in our lives.
This vague thinking of numbers has very quickly gotten my mind to C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite authors. Lewis writes that true repentance to God means returning to the point in our lives before sin. In other words, we must get to that moment before the sin, otherwise we are simply going on in our lives without addressing that fatal moment. He uses the analogy that if we are writing out a mathematical problem and somewhere along the way have made an error, the only way to get the final correct answer is to re-check our work and correct that problem. Simply going on - even if we make no more mistakes - will only ever lead us to the wrong answer in the end.
This all, to me, sounds a lot like osteopathic medicine. Treating the whole patient, as osteopaths do, necessitates not only addressing the illness at hand, but also asking ourselves why that illness is there in the first place. Simply carrying on - even if we treat the patient perfectly - may only be masking something much deeper.
I am currently working in an urban health center in west Philadelphia. And with every patient I treat I ask myself "what is really going on here?" Is there something much deeper that is bringing these patients to me? I know the answer must be yes, but I can't yet put a label on it. Paul Farmer might refer to this as "structural violence" -- an otherwise preventable violence (in this case TB, an STD, malnutrition, diabetes) that is the direct result of the structure of a conscious society. Now the question is not so much "what is going on that these people present so to me"" but rather "what are we doing as a society that makes these people present so to me?" and "Is there a way to stop it?"
I admit I don't know the answer. But I know it's an important question to ask. Let the conversation begin!
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