The Very Best Question

Photography has many things about it that are important.  Light, subject, and composition all can make an image work, but focus is something very simple that if not present can make a good photo worthless.  Occasionally, the issue is that nothing is in focus.  More often though, the problem is that the focus is on the wrong thing.

Imagine a photo of a bride and groom standing in front of some pretty average trees.  The only problem is that couple is fuzzy and the landscaping is sharp as a tack.  You can even see a situation where the buttons on a man's shirt are nicely focused, but his face is kind of soft.

In life, it is even more important what is in focus.  We just can't focus on everything.  Dark clouds versus silver linings is the most obvious situation that comes to mind.  To focus on the darkness leaves me melancholic of spirit, while there generally is something good in every situation, if I just look hard enough.

Even more important is to focus on what God wants me to learn from a given situation.  This is difficulty.  Last summer, we vacationed in Chattanooga.  We were getting ready to leave the cottage where we were staying to go see the Tennessee Aquarium when I gunned the engine (not realizing I was in reverse) and backed up into the cottage, really messing up the back end of our mini van.

For the next several hours, I couldn't see anything except how I had messed up our vacation.  Darkness and distress just pounded my heart and mind.

Because, it was just a stupid thing on my part -- an accident.  I spent the next little while calling to find a body shop to repair the van and praying -- trying to discern what God wanted me to learn from this accident.

Maybe all I needed to learn from this situation was to pay attention better -- particularly to whether or not I am in drive or, reverse.  Or, maybe God wanted me to trust Him more, or listen to my wife better, or yield my fears to Him.  Or, maybe it is all of those things.

If I am honest, I can grow in all of these things -- a lot.  Just because I finished medical school eighteen years ago doesn't mean it is time for me to stop learning.

God is a teacher and He plans the lessons that I need.  So much better if I learn what He desires from them the first time.

This is the most important question to ask in every situation.  Not, "What Would Jesus Do?"  Although that is a fine question, but "What would God have me to learn?"  For, if I don't learn that lesson, I am bound to repeat it.  I can't move on, until I have completed this lesson.

This would be my focus, even in the darkest moments of life.  To learn the things God has for me to learn, even when the lessons are hard.  In this way and this way alone I can truly grow to be like Christ.

Measles

Measles is in the news right now.  An outbreak has hit California and dozens of people have gotten sick with it -- some sick enough to require hospitalization.

Into this fray have ridden pro and anti-vaccine advocates, explaining why vaccines would or wouldn't have helped prevent this outbreak.  I read a recent blog post by a Christian doctor detailing a story of a child under his care who died of measles and I have read other stories of children who have suffered terribly after vaccines.  I believe that all of these people are being honest, but there are other things to remember.

Temporality does not equal causality.

This is the sort of thing that leads to superstition.  A black cat walks across my path and then later in the day I have a bad accident.  Did it have anything to do with the cat?  Just because one event comes before another doesn't mean it caused the later event.

In the medical world it seems to be tougher to analyze the situation.  If I started coughing two days after I got a flu shot it is easy for me to believe that the flu shot gave me a cold.  But, maybe someone at Walmart coughed on me or, maybe I shook hands with someone who had a cold.  Most of the time when I get sick, I never know who was the generous soul who shared with me -- maybe a patient, maybe someone at church.  Identifying the cause is not as easy as remembering what happened right before I got sick.

Anecdotes are both the weakest and the strongest type of evidence.

People tell stories -- hopefully true stories -- about vaccines and plenty of other things in their life.  In many ways, these stories influence us the most because they hit home.  We can picture in our minds the sick child dying of measles or, the paralyzed nonverbal child, suffering because of an unneeded vaccine and our hearts melt in sympathy or, shake in anger.  And yet, these stories tell me nothing about the overall risks of a vaccine or the illness it is intended to fight.

Much more useful are statistics.  If I know that twenty-five percent of those who caught measles in the Disneyland measles out break have required hospitalization or, that the rate of serious complications with the MMR vaccine is 4 per 10,000 children vaccinated (mostly fever fits), although ten percent of children get fevers and joint aches after the shot, then I can compare risks and benefits of the vaccine and the illness.

Everything has risks and benefits.

If your doctor diagnoses you as having carotid artery blockages (narrowing in the arteries in your neck), he will send you to a surgeon who will then tell you that the risk of no surgery is a 20 percent chance of stroke over the next two years, while your risk of having surgery done is 2.5 percent chance of stroke or, infection.  I think in this setting, most people would elect to proceed with surgery, even understanding that there is a significant risk to the surgery.

In the same way, everything we do (or don't do) has a risk.  Taking any vitamin, supplement or, antibiotic contains within it a possibility of reaction to some ingredient in it.

The problem is that for the most part the risks of the activities we do every day are unknown.

With vaccines, they are clear and are published in numerous scientific papers for those who choose to know.

Choose wisely who you believe.

Everyone thinks they are an expert.  Unfortunately, in the internet age, everyone's voice is the same volume (usually shouting).  It is more important to have good data backing up opinions than to be an "expert" in the field.

The tendency is to look for views that mirror our own and to collect those, rather than investigating all possibilities.

Vaccination protects others.

There are plenty of people who cannot get vaccinated.  They have cancer and are receiving chemotherapy, or are immunosuppressed, or have a history of a serious reaction to a vaccine, or an allergy to the vaccine.  The way to protect them is to be certain that they don't get exposed to these illnesses. 

I believe the loving thing to protect these unvaccinated children and adults is to do my best to make sure that neither my children or me will be the vehicle by which they get exposed to a preventable illness.  There may be some risk to my children, but it is worth it.  My children have decent immune systems, they would probably do OK with many of these illnesses, but there are plenty of folks around who wouldn't.

Vaccines protect the "least of these" even more than they protect the strong in our society.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder.

The fact that most of us in the United States have never seen any of these once common illnesses makes us think that they were no big deal.  Yet, every one of these illnesses has a rate of serious complications.  Unfortunately, for viral infections like Measles, German Measles, and Mumps, there are no treatments, only supportive care.  A certain number of the cases, even in a developed country like the United States, will lead to long term problems like neurologic symptoms or, sterility.

Honestly, it isn't just the risk of serious illness that leads me to vaccinate my children, although those risks are real for unvaccinated children.  Even if my children didn't get seriously ill, the idea that they would have multiple week long illnesses throughout their childhood, during which they were miserable and I could do little to help them is something I would rather not experience.

In the end, I am sure I can do nothing to change the minds of those who are convinced that some vaccine company has paid me under the table, or brain washed me into mindless belief in vaccines.  I have looked at the statistics and they aren't even close.  The risks of vaccines (which are real) are far out weighed by the morbidity of these diseases.

That's why I recommend vaccinations.

That's why I vaccinate my children.

Making Supper

"Mom, I want to make supper tomorrow night!"  Anna announced. 

That was how it began.

After poring over cookbooks for a little while, with her mother helping her, Anna decided she would make a dish called Chicken Etti (at least that's what I think it is called), with Lima Beans on the side and followed by chocolate pudding.  A feast fit for a doctor and his wife, if I may say so.

Tuesday evening she was really excited as she put the pieces of chicken and the rice in a nine by sixteen pan, covered it with aluminum foil and put it in the oven.  Then she carefully beat up the chocolate pudding.

Then, she set the table, carefully choosing the right cups and plates for each person.

An hour and a half later, Elaine opened the oven door and took the pan out.  Anna was almost dancing with delight as Elaine lifted the covering from the top of the dish.

"Oh dear," Elaine said.  "It isn't done."

The chicken was still raw.  It turned out that the bottom coil on our oven had burned out.  The top was still working, but not giving out enough heat to cook the chicken -- at least not in an hour and a half.

"It's all spoiled!"  Anna wailed with tears in her eyes.

It is awfully easy to get discouraged when you work hard to try to do something good and then it just doesn't work out.  Galatians 6:9 says "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we don't give up."

So many times we spend time and give effort, only to have our actions flop, or be misinterpreted, or just not work out.  It is easy to think that it just isn't worth it to try to do good things in this world.

But it is.

Someday, we will reap the seed we have sown.  Far better that that seed should be full of good things than that it is the result of a self-centered life that does little good for anyone else.

Coconut Black Walnut Pound Cake

Elaine made a Coconut Black Walnut Pound Cake yesterday.  It was really good.  Maybe not so good if you don't like black walnuts, or coconut, but I thought it was phenomenal.

As I ate my first piece, I thought of all the time put into it.  Elaine spent quite a bit of time preparing and baking it, but before that, I had spent many minutes picking up black walnuts, peeling the hulls of them, and then cracking them.  I can't imagine that there is less than two hours of my time invested in this cake, making it (I suppose) one of the most expensive cakes I've ever eaten.

I don't really know why I spent so much time working with these bitter, meaty nuts -- maybe just because they were there.  Maybe because they were a challenge for me.  What a strange ingredient black walnuts are.  They aren't sweet, in fact, I think they taste kind of bitter and yet they taste really good in sweet things like fudge or, brownies or, pound cake. 

It is tempting to think that a life that is all sweet things would be perfect, but the reality is far from that.  It is difficult times, times filled with deep emotion, and moments of sorrow that draw us closer to God and help us to grow.  And God knows this and so His recipe for our lives includes not just sugar and spice and everything nice, but also sour and bitter things like black walnuts and rhubarb and coffee.

That is just what we need.

A recipe that is all sugar would be awful to eat and while a Coconut Pound Cake would be good, a Coconut Black Walnut Pound Cake is far better.

The Wrong Road!

"Dad, I don't see anything in front of us!"  Elliot said in a very concerned voice.

I looked over my shoulder to where my 3 year old son was residing in his car seat.  "It's a good thing there isn't anything in front of us, or we'd run into it," I said.

There was silence for a little while, maybe ten seconds, then Elliot piped up again:  "Dad, I don't think this is the right way to go.  Actually...  I think this is the wrong road!"

We were driving on country roads in Virginia, going to visit Elaine's uncle David.  "Elliot," I said.  "You don't even remember going to Virginia before.  You've never been to Uncle David's house.  How would you know?"

"I don't want to be on the wrong road!"  He wailed.

Hard to believe that a three year old could get worked up, particularly about directions, but he sure could.  Furthermore, Elliot was no GPS.  The roads he thought were the wrong roads were inevitably the right way to go.

As I look at this coming year, it is fresh and untravelled.  The paths within it are unknown to me.

I don't know what the future holds or, everything the next year holds, but I would rely on my God to choose the right paths for me to take.  For, He is trustworthy and far better than a GPS unit at getting me where I need to be -- at the right times, in the right way.