I just got home from the experience of 5 hours of small-town American healthcare, watching my wife work her way through nurse practitioners, X-ray techs, X-rays and cat scans after her car was hit from the rear by an uninsured driver.
When we first moved to this little town, a neighbor recommended the clinic we go to. It's run by a religious organization. All of the doctors are missionaries who base here but travel to the underdeveloped world to heal the sick and spread the word of the Lord.
In the waiting rooms I sat in yesterday, I saw loops of Doctor Gupta explaining lung cancer, Wolf Blitzer reporting on the Iranian riots, and a painting of Jesus, guiding the hand of a surgeon. I thought the painting was the most interesting. I couldn't help imagining different versions of it and variations on its theme.
Maybe we could add Moses and Mohammed to the painting. Show Jesus and the other prophets -- peace be unto them -- jostling one another and arguing about how to guide the doctor's hand.
Or, we could show them guiding other hands. The bombadier's hand as he drops bombs on Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima or Dresden. Or the executioner's hand as he tightens a noose, lights a fire or slits a throat. How about a guiding hand at the gas chambers and ovens?
It must be comforting to believe that every slip of the knife is God's will.
