Archive for Social Health stuff

A greedy God

April 22, 2009 · Filed under Faith, Social Health stuff

I’ve been at soul survivor recently. This year was my 8th year in a row! It’s amazing to look back and see how things have changed personally, and also with the festival over those 8 years. So many big changes in my life have been due to a catalyst event or experience at Soul, so I have a lot of good and difficult memories associated with festivals past. It’s a bit shameful to admit that this year was my first year that I was not simply a passive receiver of all that went on. I helped out in Revive- one of the food venues. This in itself is significant.

I desperately desire to have the gift of hospitality and serving. I find it however, like pulling teeth that will not budge. Being in a situation where I am serving food and drinks, needing to be friendly to random strangers and friends alike as well as being under time pressure tends to cause a brain melting sensation. I involuntarily slow down all mentally functioning capabilties and seem to be able to focus solely on one small task at a time. Those who worked with me in Revive are probably having light bulbs go off in their head at this moment…as they’ve realised why it was I turned into a different person behind the kitchen bench! There was however one evening when I felt released a little bit from this paralysis, and went to the other extreme of dancing and singing in the kitchen while serving people. I haven’t had that much fun in a very long time! But yes…sadly for the majority of the time, hospitality is not something that comes easily to me no matter how much I crave to be good at it.

So, this year’s soul was very different to any other. I don’t regret at all helping out, but it did mean that I wasn’t able to participate as fully as I’m used to in the seminars and main sessions. In a funny way this took away some of the unconscious pressure I put on myself to have mega life changing realisations and experiences during the camp. Instead, I was there with a purpose and any subsequent personal experiences were just that…they were additional unexpected things. I was fortunate enough to be able to have some time off to get to two of Stephen Said’s seminars. If I’d known what I’d learn in one short hour each time I walked in I think I wouldn’t armed my head with padding for all the brain knocking-about I was going to receive.

I don’t want to give any of the glory that God deserves to some mere human being…but I must say just how much I really gelled with the respect the way this guy’s mind works. Coming from a health sociology background myself it was incredibly exciting to have someone explain some of the most taken for granted and mis-used Biblical texts from a sociopolitical viewpoint. It was just WOW. Passages I’d read hundreds of times took on completely new and fantastically relevant meanings! I spoke to a pastor at my church who I have tremendous respect for about these ideas, and asked him just where could I get the version of the Bible that Steve has?!!! As I suspected…it does take a few years of Bible college to get that sort of in depth knowledge, but I’m planning on starting with some good commentaries first to build my way up (I also currently don’t have the funds to launch into any sort of Bible college activities yet *sigh* but one day!). One thing this pastor from church told me was how as exciting as it can be to analyse the political context of every verse in the Bible, it is vital not to let this take away from the penetrating elements of God’s grace and mercy etc etc. Which I understand and respect. But to know that there is more than just that, and to know that I can actually marry my love of sociology with reading the Bible without fear of being condemned (I don’t know where this idea in my head came from…but it was there and I didn’t even know it) is a very freeing feeling!

So as well as the amazing intellectual stimulation I received in those two short hours at Soul, it also penetrated through to my heart a little. One thing that Steve said (haha…a pun over used I’m quite convinced…but haha worthy anyway), was that God doesn’t just want our sacrifice. He wants our obedience. Oh and how different are those two things!! Whoa that was a wake-up call. Another thing that was spoken about was how even though we are saved by faith and not by works, we will be judged by how we respond the widows, the orphans and the poor. Suddenly my ‘vocation’ becomes a lot more meaningful and purposeful. I study the impact of inequitable Government policies on single parents (some of whom are widows…but all of whom pretty much are in poverty), and to think that I could actually contribute my little ‘bit’ to the Kingdom of God through my work is a very exciting concept. This concept is certainly not new to me; one of the main reasons why I’m heading where I’m heading in my line of work is because I passionately feel that there is a need and an issue that I want to bring change to. However having the reminder couldn’t have come at a better time when I’ve been feeling pretty hopeless at what I’m doing for work. I still don’t feel good enough…and perhaps I never will. But knowing that I’m at least trying to be obedient to what God might want me to be doing is enough to keep me plodding through the dish-pig academic jobs for now.

All this has also given me some inspiration for a possible Phd. The very vague, out-there, potentially completely crazy idea that I could somehow combine this notion of the sociology of poverty in Jesus’ time to how it’s perceived/constructed today. It gives me shivers just to type that. Whether something so idealistic could ever be pulled off doesn’t particularly bother me so much at the moment though…as I’m content to be kicking little goals in this general direction for…well forever really.

I’ve realised as I finish this post that my title really has little to do with my content. But in a way…it’s simply representative of what God’s teaching me at the moment. That he’s greedy, and wants more from me than I’m ever willing to give him at any given time. But despite my pride, gluttony and selfishness…he still holds his hand out asking for more. And I love that about Him.

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Spoilt for choice?

September 4, 2008 · Filed under Social Health stuff, Uni stuff

I’m currently doing some data analysis of the interviews I conducted for my honours project. For a good few weeks I’d read through transcripts again and again thinking ‘this has nothing!’. I was so busy trying to look for abstract ideas and concepts that I could relate to my data that I skipped the vital step of simply grouping the main themes together. Obvious? Apparently not.

But anyway…I’ve hopped to and for the last few days I’ve been busy busy at my desk filling word documents with quotes relating to particular themes and ideas that I find interesting. And perhaps finally something has gone ‘a ha!’ in my head. Of course you have initial ‘a ha’s and then these get a bit clearer and might turn into a bit of a ‘yippeeee I’ve got it!!!!’…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet :p

The thing that disturbs me most is that while I sit here comfortably (well…relatively. Hours at a desk is not my idea of comfort) I’m putting under the microscope the vulnerabilities and deep feelings of these women who so desperately need to be given a break. For those of you who don’t know, I’m studying the influence of the Welfare to Work policy on low-income single mother’s food provision. And yeah…my little ‘a ha’ moment has developed as I repeatedly see the word ‘choice’ in the interviews. I brushed past it perhaps because it seemed mundane or ‘normal’. We all make choices everyday. Big deal. But the thing (and although it may seem simple and well ‘der’) that gets me is that low income single mothers are most certainly not spoilt for choice.

One woman said

‘Yeah, so like even though, say if I was partnered then maybe you may have to sacrifice money or something choosing not to work and not to send your child there (referring to after school care) but I feel like at least you have a choice. Rather than your basic income being cut off’.

The same woman said something that made my heart sink;

‘I do feel like I can’t parent the way I want to and I can’t parent my child the way she needs to be parented and the reason I can’t is because I’ve ended up a single parent really through no choice of my own like I didn’t say ‘right I want to be a single parent’!’

We trivialize choice everyday. Consumerist hype throws so many options in our face urging us to take all we can get while we can because you never know- tomorrow it might come in pink instead of just purple- and we just get used to it. It was difficult to take a step back and realise how much choice means to some of these women. For many of them this policy has forced them to give up hope of working at all for a good few years because they’ve felt like their only choice was to home school their child so that they could parent them in the way they wanted to without having all welfare just cut off.

*sigh*…there’s a lot more I could say on this issue. But my heart’s pumping a little faster from frustration and if I get further into this issue I might keep typing for a good few hours. I sure hope writing a thesis will be this easy to write!

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Bad Politics

September 2, 2008 · Filed under Social Health stuff, Uni stuff

I’m disappointed. Not sure if I’m more disappointed at my own naivety or just the state of affairs. One day I see myself working in academia. I realise many would roll their eyes, snigger or make some comment about ‘not living in reality’. Well I take all of those comments on board…but in my mind it’s still an important job- and ’somebody has to do it’. And if I happen to enjoy research then why not let it be me?! And it’s not that I feel super talented at researching in any respects…however throughout my uni life so far it seems to be one thing that gets me going and that I feel good enough at to possibly turn into a career one day.

So back to my disappointment. I spent 3 years in the Health faculty as an undergraduate and every time I took the lift up to the top level of the Health building where all the important people live I would feel this buzz and excitement and think ‘wow- maybe that’ll be me one day!’. But I’m afraid to say that now spending more time up on the top level doing my honours stuff I’ve found that scratching below the surface even just a millimetre reveals a whole lot of ugly :s. There is SO much politics between the academics, lecturers and researchers. It’s really disheartening to find that all these people devoting their working hours to improving the mental, physical and social health of our society just don’t seem to be able to get along because one person’s office is a square centimetre bigger than the person’s next door.

I would expect stereotypically that there would be back stabbing and mud slinging in professions like economics and business…as these just seem to be a little more cut-throat and competitive to me. But sadly I must’ve worn rose coloured glasses for a little too long. I’m a self-confessed idealist. And I honestly hope to remain that way. It was through sticking my neck out and suggesting ‘why don’t we go further up the food chain?’ in a community health centre and being laughed at and called an ‘idealistic student’ that I decided academia was my next option. I sure hope that one day if I do find myself a career in academia that I don’t get weighed down in silly politics…but I guess sometimes they’re unavoidable. *sigh*

I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom. My ‘hero’ in the health world- who happened to help me land my first job and get through uni alive- still lives on that top floor and I admire her for her integrity and transparency that I’ve witnessed so far (she’s also a pastor’s wife and has a life in her community ‘outside’ of academia- that’s gotta be admired!!). I hope that I can one day be even just a little like her.

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Lymphoids, fat cells and oh so many pills

August 27, 2008 · Filed under Random, Social Health stuff

I saw a Naturopath for the first time yesterday.

WOW.

It was full on! I found it hard to concentrate on all the explanations of what each organ in the body does and how certain types of food can hinder or support the processes of that organ. It was frustrating that so many technical words were used and when I did ask her to use ‘plain language’ she started giving me metaphors of ‘building your house on the sand or the rock’ and how ‘a river should be like an organism teeming with colour and life, with water so clear you can see through to the bottom. BUT! If you stick a factory up one end of the river then it gets polluted!’…I’m not too sure what I thought of her explanations.

She pricked my finger using one of those little things that you can use if you have diabetes. OUCH! “Mosquito bite” my left foot! The tip of my finger is still purple and bruised from the ordeal. She laughed at me because before she even started talking about what she was going to do I had my head turned away so that I wouldn’t be able to see what she did- or any blood for that matter. Well in a funny way I ended up seeing much more of my own blood than I’ve ever seen! She stuck it under a microscope and it came up on this big screen right in front of my face. At first all the cells were darting and swimming about but eventually they slowed down and she started to point out things about them. I admit as a self professed scardy-cat when it comes to anything blood related- it was rather interesting. Apparently all the cells should be roughly the same size- but I had a lot of little cells in amongst the normal cells and supposedly the little ones were starved of iron. I felt very sorry for the little dwarf cells trying to make their way around but the bigger ones just overwhelmed them.

It was a little disconcerting when her ‘mmm’s’ turned into ‘ohhh’s’. She was moving the picture around saying ‘these lymphoids are usually rare and hard to find- but you have an overabundance! They only appear when your body is fighting a virus or infection!’ Oh my poor little lymphoids…they were trying so hard! She then showed me some other little blobby looking things starting with ‘m’ that were supposed to be helping these lymphoids fight infection. I was less than impressed with their size and number! Although the worst thing she did was every so often she’d point out this little squiggle and say ‘fat cell’. Hmmmm….. :s

Anyway….after all this use of big words, shaming me about my diet and looking all too closely at my blood- the bill came.

WHOA.

I was told that we’d start ‘conservatively’ addressing my health needs and deficiencies. Apparently ‘conservative’ equals 3 bottles of pills for $90- which won’t last very long because I’m taking two of each everyday. What bothered me most about this is that it acts to exclude the already excluded. If people want to improve their health through better nutrition and supplements that can apparently be very beneficial, they’d have to be rather affluent to have any chance. It makes me question- is this because funding for natural health remedies is so low? Or are the prices unnecessarily high? All I know is that we have a problem when we start increasing health inequalities through class divisions. Hmm…so my story about a naturopathy consultation turns out to a little rant about health justice. Maybe now I’m in a better frame of mind to write some of that thesis…

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