J.S.Bach | WEGGIEBOY'S BLOG by Doug Thomas

For reasons I can’t discern, my computer desk reminds me of the messiness of a life unexamined.

A bit too philosophical for something that, simply, is house cleaning deferred in favor of writing this post. (You aren’t at fault! I’d write it even no one read it!)

This is the Easter Season, and I need some time to reflect on the clutter that stands between living a life that brings glory to God or one that satisfies some temporal, trivial end. The Lenten season, for me, isn’t one of sacrificing chocolate treats for spiritual gain or giving up television for 40 days.

[At this point, most readers are thinking, “A holy roller! Dang! I read this for funny things about his cats, Andy and Dougy! There aren’t any cat photos or videos today, either! Rats!” That’s OK, too, but I remind you Andy is named after Saint Andrew, one of the apostles of Christ and patron saint of Scotland.]

I suppose my upbringing in the Presbyterian church may have something to do with my somewhat dour attitude toward observance of this most important holiday on the Christian calendar.

The way I find best to find expression of my faith and a sense of the true meaning of Easter is to listen once again to J.S. Bach’s “Saint Matthew Passion”. Think of it as soul cleaning. No bunnies need apply.

[The first one has subtitles, but a very tedious tempo I find too slow for my taste; the second has a better tempo, has a cleaner audio track, but lacks subtitles…!]

Listen if you have the time, or to as much as you have time for. Bach is balm for a life-torn soul or a soul looking for more meaning in Easter than Cadbury eggs, the Easter Bunny, and the emphemera of the secular observance of the holiday.

Americans with chronic illness know that the first concern of hospitals is less for you than “Do you have insurance?”

Doctors, nurses, food service, maintenace staff: All great in every hospital I’ve been in (five hospitals total).

In nearly every hospital I’ve been in, in every hospitalization, there is a moment when someone from the billing department asks you: “How do you plan to pay for this, do you have insurance?

Usually the question comes while you, bound to a gurney, are gasping for air or bleeding all over the floor.

I don’t exaggerate that much.

I learned fast, though, that you have to be aggressive with the money people. They, more significantly the system that created them and the focus on payment over patient, is what’s broke with the American health care system.

The system is broke.

August 27, 2009, a decades long champion of national health care died.

His public life, his true legacy, is that he stood up for the people least able to stand up for themselves. To people like me, with chronic illness, there is hope that the Obama administration, without him on the President’s side, will be able to create a humane and just health care act that works.

The politics of it are above me. I was touched by his death. I feel the loss.

If you feel the loss, too, please meditate, prayerfully, while listening to the video above.

Soli Deo gloria!

Ted Kennedy, Requiescat In Pace.