The Only Thing Constant is Change

It’s been over two weeks since the most tumultuous election I can remember in my lifetime - and many others’ lifetimes as well. There are a lot of people whose friendships are at risk because of this election. Many students and residents have shared with me their hopes, fears, and contentions with others, both felt and given. Public, sweeping polarization, and even demonization and “cancellation”, of the opposite side’s views, threaten to turn our peaceful democratic process upside down. When a member of Congress talks about making lists of anyone who ever supported President Trump and then “canceling” them https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/09/aoc-cancel-worked-for-trump-435293 like some modern form of “damnatio memoriae”, it says a lot about the terrible emotional upheaval and deep-woundedness of our country. When we threaten to take away the rights of someone else to express themselves in response to this deep-woundedness, we further what Alexis de Tocqueville, in his essays on the future of American democracy in the 1800s, called the “despotism of the majority” (Democracy in America, 1835), where the democratic majority rule, through the government, suppresses the beliefs and activities of political minorities. We have been in this ever-growing vortex now, sadly, for a long time, with no immediate respite in sight for anyone.

In healthcare, we see this “vortex” as well, starting to manifest in the way we are making sweeping healthcare decisions. The new administration has already announced some of those sweeping decisions, and as a result, we will see some small and not-so-small changes. Some will be good, and some will not. No one knows yet what exactly will happen. In the end, as Christians, regardless of the moral and ethical healthcare policy decisions governing bodies will make, we still have one mission, split into two important commandments, noted in Matthew 22:37-40:

Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (NKJV)

When Christians on both political sides bitterly oppose and openly question each other’s salvation over the issues and the election, it becomes clear just how difficult these commandments are to fulfill. That there seems to be no further conversation taking place other than this right now is also problematic. As Christians, particularly Christians in healthcare, we still have a job to do. That is, to continue to love the next person/patient/colleague we meet and render the care and love our profession requires to give them, regardless of where they come from politically, socially, culturally, ideologically, or anything else. In so doing, we allow ourselves to be used by God to be “peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9) and continue to be part of this country’s healing process. May God remind us of his two greatest commandments, and may those who read it, regardless of what you believe, be encouraged and challenged by it. I will discuss this more in the next few posts, but for now, let’s focus on the immediate tasks at hand - our studies, our patients, our relationships, and our need and longing, spoken or unspoken, for a God which is bigger than all these conflicts, who can heal our land and bring our hearts to true peace.

<><  <><  <><  <><  <><

David Kim, MD, MBA (Healthcare)

CEO, Beacon Christian Community Health Center
Staten Island, NY