Sun in the City

So today I am in between night shifts at the hospital and could only sleep through half the day, woke up and found it to be the most beautiful day outside in Detroit.  I just had to be a part of it, as Maria from Sound of Music would say.  Unfortunately for me I had a flat tire on my bike, so like the industrious person I am I decided to fix it myself.  I have the kit, went to a presentation once on how to do it and have successfully done it before.  So I went about my marry way fixing my flat, and I found the hole and everything.  Once that was done off I went, down through Corktown toward the Joe, past Cobo and onto the Riverwalk with Detroiters of all shapes and sizes and colors.  It was not until I arrived about 4 miles from my house at the north end of the Riverwalk, on my way to Belle Isle that I realized my tire was loosing air, slowly, but losing air.
Luckily I was near a gas station with an air pump, but wait it was 50cents in quarters and I only had one quarter, but the nice young man pumping gas was willing to trade--actually he just gave me a quarter and said don't worry about it.  Thanks young sir!  So I put in my 50 cents and then realized--road bike attachments don't work with car air pump attachments.  So I was really in a bind.
I was sitting there thinking of a conversation I had with one of my attending physicians about a patient who had no coping mechanisms to get herself out of a bind.  She had asked the patient if she knew how to get a bus schedule, and the patient didn't and couldn't come up with a hypothetical solution for if she were to be stranded somewhere.  So here I was, my chance to prove myself and my coping mechanisms and of course it is on a day when Carl is out of town and I have to work in four hours.  So.  I laid out my options.
I could call a cab, but as I was looking at yelp reviews that were not so flattering I thought to myself, I have friends, I know people...surely I can find someone to come pick me up.  As I was sitting there figuring out my situation another nice Detroiter lady asked if I needed change for the air machine, "I'm set, thanks" I said.
Phone a friend.  I called my good friend Ang who has been sick in bed all week but was willing to come out for a poor stranded soul.  The first person I called and they agreed to come pick me up!  And while I was waiting another man on his bike (with the appropriate tire attachments) came to fill up with air.  He offered me the rest of the time on the air but I told him my attachment dilema.  Thanks anyway, though.
So all in all I made it home.  Thanks to Ang.  But I think I have learned a lesson in pride, don't be to proud of your work that you go testing it to the limit before doing a trial run.  And also, don't be to proud not to ask for help when you need it because more often than not if you give good people the opportunity they will take care of you and do the right thing.  Thanks to all the nice folks here in the City of Detroit.  That is why I love this City.

God opening up your life.

For Palm Sunday Carl and I spent our worship Sunday at the Core at Rochester UMC.  Jon Reynolds inspired me to think a bit about life and living faithfully.

I'm a pretty competitive person, I don't know if you know that but I .  Put my brother and I in a room with a stack of board games and you will figure it out before long just how competitive I am.  So when I was sick and I had a subpar doctor I thought to myself, man...I could do better than this guy!  Seriously.  That's how I decided as a late sophomore early junior year student that I was being called into medicine.   It was my competitive streak that told me I could do it but it was God that told me how I would do it.

It is interesting how God works in our lives because as much as I'd love it to be all happy and fuzzy it turns out God has a different idea of what my life should look like than I do.  I'll be the first to admit, I'm pretty selfish.  And I like nice things.  I like vacations to far of lands, I like Patagonia fleeces, I like Zingermans deli, I like shoes.  I like expensive things sometimes and so I have had to rethink those desires and selfish wants.  And sometimes I give in, but sometimes God strengthens me enough to overcome those desires.  One of those moments was when I decided to go into family medicine.  I have been told by multiple rich physicians that I won't make any money in family but I think that money that I won't be making is all relative.  I won't be making what they are used to but I am sure I won't ever go hungry or be out on the cold.  

This lent I have been practicing a certain type of self deprivation which is tough in this day and age.  We get plenty of free lunches And as I see it there on the table I think instead of how I could eat it and enjoy it, I think who else could benefit from it.  As I go hungry by choice, others don't have one.  So I take my serving to the guy begging on the corner by my street.

And I live in a place where intentionally that is near to me so I can continue to be reminded and not isolate myself too much that I forget that others are hungry and I can help them by giving them one meal of mine, I will live without that meal,  but others may live too.  

So in all, God calls me to live uncomfortably.  Because if you get too comfortable it leads you to forget too much of what others  need or don't have.  God calls us to live in harms way.  So that we may be the armour of the homeless and the bed of the weary.  Don't forget to give yourself up so that others may live.  

Rant

So I need to go on a rant here for a while.  We were discussing political views due to some unfriendly comments on Facebook and made earlier this week by a parishioner of a church we visited and it has been making me somewhat frustrated (*understatement).  The comment about a free store needing to have assurances that people weren't "abusing" the store or "going from store to store" for personal gain was one thing.  Then the Facebook comment about how due to her tax increases in her paycheck she was going to have to put a picture of the "ghetto family she was supporting" on her fridge; now that was just sh*tty.

Do people not realize that the largest group of those benefiting from you taxes is grandma and grandpa, not "ghetto families."  Or the defense budget and how war budgeting isn't even calculated into the federal pie chart because the damn pie chart would look too ridiculous because we spend so much money on war?  But the thing that this person likes to focus on is that she is supporting some "ghetto family" somewhere.

Well, I'm appalled at her language but also WHAT IS WRONG WITH SUPPORTING PEOPLE THAT NEED HELP?  And yes, there will always be those who abuse the system, BUT THAT IS NOT THE MAJORITY.  And DON'T BLAME/PUNISH THE VICTIMS. And also in case you were wondering, Medicaid spending is decreasing for the most part, not increasing...so most of that money you see coming out of your paycheck is going due to our mismanagement of the federal budget for years and our continued military presence in multiple countries.  Do we forget how people cut corners and recycled every last little piece of metal during the world wars due to rationing and other programs to help save money?

And do people forget that they benefit from their OWN taxes?  Like public schools, or ROADS to drive on, or social security, or that if they lost everything including their job and didn't have anyone in the family to lean on THEY COULD APPLY FOR THESE PROGRAMS TOO?  Honestly.  There is no dignity in having to ask for help, even beg for help....but without programs like these, returning from the brink of poverty and starvation would be even more impossible.

I just want to say I appreciate the woman I met who was thankful for medicaid because she had been a middle class housewife all her life until suddenly her husband left her and her two kids for another woman and she had not been working for over 20 years and so obtaining a job was difficult for her?  But this would never happen to you right?  You are immune to the perils of poverty and so therefore you can continue to judge the poor people who have no where else to turn than the governmental programs that were put in place to support them.  Since you can just move back in with mom and dad and continue playing your Xbox360 or ipad while others struggle to try and get a job in a volatile job market that doesn't hire people based on 1. not having a permanent address 2. based on being named a name that sounds "too black" or "too ghetto" or 3. you've been out of the business for too long or 4. you don't have any experience (but how can I get experience if no one will hire me?)  

I am sorry for this awful rant but I get frustrated especially when folks think they are somehow better or different than the poor, because you are not.  You are just the same, you were just born into a privilege that they were not.  So shut your mouth.