In the Land of Jason

      I took a break over the last several weeks from the blog. Just a few quick things to update you all on whats happened. The biggest news is that I did get a day shift position at my job. Wohooooo! No more 7pm-8am days starting the 12 of August. I’m so excited. I will really miss my coworkers and the time I get to spend with my patients at night. Part of the reason I needed to make the change is that I’m starting my practicum this fall two days a week on top of classes. Working nights would have been too difficult with 2 days of practicum and 2 days of class. I’ve also cut down my works days to only 2 a week. In more good news I discovered that one of my classes changed days, so I think I have only one day of classes this quarter (though nearly nine consective hours). I’m down to the final stretch. In just 9 months I’ll give birth to happy bouncing masters degree.

         I’m preparing to take the Progressive Critical Care Nurse exam in September. Its an optional certification for nurses but helps to affirm what you know and reach for a higher standard. I encourage any bed side nurses out there to look into certifiyin in your area of speciality. You know how different “real” nursing is from what we’re taught in school. From the practice test I took, this is based on the reality. I’ve learned quite a bit in preparation. After that I’ll be taking the cardiac medication certication as well. I figure its another way to review the more complicated meds and cardiac conditions ahead of my boards next fall.

    This past week I met with Stephanie, another nurse from St Elizabeth Hospital, about starting a group to talk, pray, and encourage medical missions. The medical community has so much to offer missions and yet so many of us don’t know how to use our skills. Hopefully we’ll get it going sometime in August.

        This week one of the guys that volunteered to preach at church was arrested. I’ve checked 3 different county jails and can’t find him. He’s not answering his cell and his car is gone. I’m guessing that he was arrested under a different English name. Its been a while since we’ve had a deportation at church and I hope that Javier is well. He has lived a difficult life and its been really amazing to see the transformation since his baptism a couple of years ago. Please keep him in your prayers.

       I went to see Transformers a few weeks ago and I was surprised at how strange it was. Action movies are never deep though they try to have some cute homiletic or message blended in. Towards the end of the movie in a pivatol moment the main character declares that he “believes” and that’s enough. Believes in what? That the transformers are going to magically fix everything? That everything's going to be OK because you believe? That all will be OK in the end just because you have Hope? Perhaps there was a bigger allegory in the movie about good vs evil. If there was one then it’s a pretty broken metaphor.

        There seems to be a broadening trend of elevating Hope, Faith, and Love in themselves. These words normally have a source or take an object or describe an action. If I believe that the airplane will fly because I have faith in the phsics of flight and engineers then it’s a rationale belief especially if I’ve flown before. If I sit in a car and declare that it should soon take flight and do so sincerely, people would quietly back away from me. Likewise love is more than an emotion but what we do. The mother that reads to her children nightly and forbids TV because she wants her children to be intelligent and caring is demonstrating love. The mother that declares her love for her children, yet does little to nurture them is only expressing a narcisissitc affection. During the election there was a famous depiction of President Obama with “Hope” printed below it. Suggesting that his push for change and reform was a source of Hope, an interviewer inquired of a few celebrities if this were true. In one case the celebrity answered to the affect that he was leary about stating that he actually found Hope in Obama but rather in the idea of Hope. This seemed bizarre to me at the time. It seems very appropriate to say that your political candidate offers you hope. Hope like Faith and Love has a source or an object, it moves and does things.

     Pop culture has moved in a direction that is divorcing these attributes from their sources. It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe. It doesn’t matter what gives you hope as long as you have it. It doesn’t matter what or who you love as long as you feel it. Back in a world that is full hurt and ugliness, a misplaced faith or hope is painful. Love that acts in self-interest isn’t love. Real love is intolerant of neglect, abuse, and narcissism. In Transformers, the character’s belief in the transformers produced that moment of cognitive dissonance for me because it seemed that the director expected me to believe that a toy was not only alive but worthy of my faith and also worthy of laying down my life. I doubt that director Michael Bay had any of this in mind when he filmed the movie, he just needed something "meaningful" to insert between explosions (which were awesome) and slow-mo running.

      Its not enough to believe in something. The object and source of our belief must rest in someone of substance. The divorcing of these words from the objects that gives them meaning leaves such an emptiness. Time and time again God has proved himself to me be to worthy of these affections and He provides the source for Hope in my life.

      May God bless you as you seek Him, JP