A Clean Bill of Health
post from the blog, Catching Light, by Muriel Schmid
I am coming out of a medical leave and a cancer scare. I am among the lucky ones: after all the necessary tests, my tumors were declared benign and my healing process didn’t require anything else but patience and rest. I am very thankful for that!
While sharing the results of my surgery with friends, family, and colleagues, I heard many times the English expression a clean bill of health, an expression that I had not heard so much in the past. And it got me thinking…
A Clean Bill of Health by Muriel Schmid in Catching Light
I am coming out of a medical leave and a cancer scare. I am among the lucky ones: after all the necessary tests, my tumors were declared benign and my healing process didn’t require anything else but patience and rest. I am very thankful for that!
While sharing the results of my surgery with friends, family, and colleagues, I heard many times the English expression a clean bill of health, an expression that I had not heard so much in the past. And it got me thinking…
Historically, a clean bill of health refers to an official document issued to the captain of a ship by the authorities of his port of departure indicating that the ship is clear of infectious disease. The document allows the ship to dock at its port of arrival without being imposed any quarantine. In that context, a clean bill of health means that one ship can, literally, sail through and reach its destination without any delay.
It is funny that the English language has extended the usage of this expression to one’s body. You are declared clean, safe, not contagious, free of disease like a ship would be… It is strange, when you think of it, that the English language is using an old expression related to maritime transportation to talk about a healthy body. And, in the opposite case, it means that someone is unclean, unsafe, automatically contagious… How would it sound to tell someone you have a dirty bill of health? What would it communicate to this person?I just finished the book by Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason. She taks about her life and the disruption that the diagnosis of Stage IV colon cancer brought to it. She first shared her story in an op-ed published by the New York Times; following this publication, she received a flow of emails and letters from readers, many who wanted to explain away her cancer. In her book, she struggles with all those often-not-so-generous explanations and what they reveal of our need for meaning and our fear of death.“Fairness is one of the most compelling claims of the American Dream, a vision of success propelled by hard work, determination, and maybe the occasional pair of bootstraps. Wherever I have lin North America, I have been sold a story about an unlimited horizon and the personal characteristics that are required to waltz toward it. It is the language of entitlements. It is the careful math of deserving… In this world, I deserve what I get. I earn my keep and keep my share. In a world of fair, nothing clung to can ever slip away.” (pp. 7-8)
I am coming out of a medical leave and a cancer scare. I am among the lucky ones: after all the necessary tests, my tumors were declared benign and my healing process didn’t require anything else but patience and rest. I am very thankful for that!
While sharing the results of my surgery with friends, family, and colleagues, I heard many times the English expression a clean bill of health, an expression that I had not heard so much in the past. And it got me thinking…
A Clean Bill of Health by Muriel Schmid in Catching Light
I am coming out of a medical leave and a cancer scare. I am among the lucky ones: after all the necessary tests, my tumors were declared benign and my healing process didn’t require anything else but patience and rest. I am very thankful for that!
While sharing the results of my surgery with friends, family, and colleagues, I heard many times the English expression a clean bill of health, an expression that I had not heard so much in the past. And it got me thinking…
Historically, a clean bill of health refers to an official document issued to the captain of a ship by the authorities of his port of departure indicating that the ship is clear of infectious disease. The document allows the ship to dock at its port of arrival without being imposed any quarantine. In that context, a clean bill of health means that one ship can, literally, sail through and reach its destination without any delay.
It is funny that the English language has extended the usage of this expression to one’s body. You are declared clean, safe, not contagious, free of disease like a ship would be… It is strange, when you think of it, that the English language is using an old expression related to maritime transportation to talk about a healthy body. And, in the opposite case, it means that someone is unclean, unsafe, automatically contagious… How would it sound to tell someone you have a dirty bill of health? What would it communicate to this person?I just finished the book by Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason. She taks about her life and the disruption that the diagnosis of Stage IV colon cancer brought to it. She first shared her story in an op-ed published by the New York Times; following this publication, she received a flow of emails and letters from readers, many who wanted to explain away her cancer. In her book, she struggles with all those often-not-so-generous explanations and what they reveal of our need for meaning and our fear of death.“Fairness is one of the most compelling claims of the American Dream, a vision of success propelled by hard work, determination, and maybe the occasional pair of bootstraps. Wherever I have lin North America, I have been sold a story about an unlimited horizon and the personal characteristics that are required to waltz toward it. It is the language of entitlements. It is the careful math of deserving… In this world, I deserve what I get. I earn my keep and keep my share. In a world of fair, nothing clung to can ever slip away.” (pp. 7-8)
The underlying implication when someone is sick, is that the person deserves her illness; something went wrong and it is her fault. There are many opposites for the adjective clean: unclean, dirty, filthy, corrupt, stained, polluted… unvirtuous! All of them somehow play on an idea of merit. The association between health and virtue is not unique to the American Dream however, it belongs to an old story. We are in dire need of making sense of suffering and death; the notion of merit is the most common way to do so and our Judeo-Christian tradition where disease and sin often go hand in hand, has deeply influenced our thinking. The New Testament reports several stories of Jesus healing the sick; some of them, like the healing of the blind man in John 9 or the healing of the paralyzed man in Mark 2, allude to the relationship between sin and sickness. Meanwhile, many texts in the Hebrew bible suggest a link between both as well.
We are left today with a peculiar English expression, a clean bill of health, that indirectly captures the history of a long quest for meaning and the desire to explain, maybe too quickly, without necessarily thinking about it, the cause of suffering, diseases, and sickness. Written around 500 BCE, the Book of Job is the first text in our Judeo-Christian tradition to tackle the absurdity of suffering and refuses, to the bitter end, to see in it God’s punishment; he exclaims: I am clean in God’s eyes (Job 11:4).
At the end of her book, Kate Bowler suggests silence in the face of someone’s suffering: “The truth is that no one knows what to say. It’s awkward. Pain is awkward. Tragedy is awkward. People’s weird, suffering bodies are awkward.” (p. 175) Just the opposite of Job’s friends!
It turns out, I am lucky and I did receive a clean bill of health. It got me thinking…Read the rest of the blog post here.
“Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold” (Mt 24:12)
In his message for our Lenten season, Pope Francis invites us all to reach beyond the bounds of the Catholic Church “...men and women of good will, who are open to hearing God’s voice. Perhaps, like ourselves, you are disturbed by the spread of iniquity in the world, you are concerned about the chill that paralyzes hearts and actions, and you see a weakening in our sense of being members of the one human family. Join us, then, in raising our plea to God, in fasting, and in offering whatever you can to our brothers and sisters in need!”
In a similar spirit, all of JFM’s JustMatters programs are designed to move participants to actions in the face of today’s iniquities. Each one of them offers ways to dialogue and pray together around issues such as poverty and hunger, violence and guns, migration and refugees, prison reform and prisoners’ rights, islamophobia and interfaith dialogue. Visit our page and register now to bring one of those conversations to your community this Lent!
Question of the Month!
JustFaith Ministries is discussing possible topics for our 2019 JustMatters modules.
What topics do you think we should address in 2019?
Record Your Answer Here
Will your employer match your gift to JustFaith Ministries?
Many companies have matching gift programs that support causes that are important to their employees by matching donations.
You donate. They match. Double the impact!
Donate to JustFaith Ministries today!
Take Action for Peace in Israel/Palestineshared by our partners at Maryknoll
In the latest issue of our newsletter NewsNotes, we invite Nora Carmi, a Palestinian Christian and international respected peacemaker living in East Jerusalem, to share her views on President Trump’s decision to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. embassy there by the end of May.
Read “Palestinian peacemaker on U.S. embassy move,” by Nora Carmi.
Nora also writes about Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian teenager who was arrested by Israeli soldiers at her home in December. Ahed was taken into custody and charged with several offenses including assault related to her interaction with an armed Israeli soldier who entered her family’s property on December 15. Like other Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank, Ahed is subject to Israeli military law under which, as human rights groups have documented, they routinely experience ill treatment.
Take action: Ask Congress to protect Palestinian children’s human rights.
Click on the link to ask your congressional representative to support H.R. 4391, a bill to prevent U.S. tax dollars from paying for human rights violations against Palestinian children in Israeli military detention.
We are left today with a peculiar English expression, a clean bill of health, that indirectly captures the history of a long quest for meaning and the desire to explain, maybe too quickly, without necessarily thinking about it, the cause of suffering, diseases, and sickness. Written around 500 BCE, the Book of Job is the first text in our Judeo-Christian tradition to tackle the absurdity of suffering and refuses, to the bitter end, to see in it God’s punishment; he exclaims: I am clean in God’s eyes (Job 11:4).
At the end of her book, Kate Bowler suggests silence in the face of someone’s suffering: “The truth is that no one knows what to say. It’s awkward. Pain is awkward. Tragedy is awkward. People’s weird, suffering bodies are awkward.” (p. 175) Just the opposite of Job’s friends!
It turns out, I am lucky and I did receive a clean bill of health. It got me thinking…Read the rest of the blog post here.
In his message for our Lenten season, Pope Francis invites us all to reach beyond the bounds of the Catholic Church “...men and women of good will, who are open to hearing God’s voice. Perhaps, like ourselves, you are disturbed by the spread of iniquity in the world, you are concerned about the chill that paralyzes hearts and actions, and you see a weakening in our sense of being members of the one human family. Join us, then, in raising our plea to God, in fasting, and in offering whatever you can to our brothers and sisters in need!”
In a similar spirit, all of JFM’s JustMatters programs are designed to move participants to actions in the face of today’s iniquities. Each one of them offers ways to dialogue and pray together around issues such as poverty and hunger, violence and guns, migration and refugees, prison reform and prisoners’ rights, islamophobia and interfaith dialogue. Visit our page and register now to bring one of those conversations to your community this Lent!
JustFaith Ministries is discussing possible topics for our 2019 JustMatters modules.
What topics do you think we should address in 2019?
Record Your Answer Here
Many companies have matching gift programs that support causes that are important to their employees by matching donations.
You donate. They match. Double the impact!
Donate to JustFaith Ministries today!
Take Action for Peace in Israel/Palestineshared by our partners at Maryknoll
Read “Palestinian peacemaker on U.S. embassy move,” by Nora Carmi.
Nora also writes about Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian teenager who was arrested by Israeli soldiers at her home in December. Ahed was taken into custody and charged with several offenses including assault related to her interaction with an armed Israeli soldier who entered her family’s property on December 15. Like other Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank, Ahed is subject to Israeli military law under which, as human rights groups have documented, they routinely experience ill treatment.
Take action: Ask Congress to protect Palestinian children’s human rights.
Click on the link to ask your congressional representative to support H.R. 4391, a bill to prevent U.S. tax dollars from paying for human rights violations against Palestinian children in Israeli military detention.
shared by our partners at Bread for the World
Black Panther: 'What can a country full of farmers offer the world?' by Angelique Walker-Smith, Senior Associate for Pan-African and Orthodox Church Engagement at Bread for the World
The recently released movie, Black Panther, based on the popular comic book series is a story about political will and resources for all. Unlike popular negative stereotypes and imagery of African nations, the portrayal of Wakanda uplifts the dignity and imagery of African peoples throughout the African diaspora. In a recent interview, Lupita Nyong'o, one of the film’s stars, said that "Black Panther’s Wakanda is Africa if it had never been colonized."
Read more at Bread Newsletter: March 2018 | Bread for the World
Upcoming JFM Graduate Immersions with Maryknoll
BOLIVIA, August 9 – 19, 2018
Deadline for signups: April 9, 2018
EL SALVADOR, November 30 – December 9, 2018
Deadline for signups: July 30, 2018
See flyer for more details.
JustFaith Ministries Seeks Executive Director
This year, JustFaith Ministries will be transitioning to new leadership that will move the organization forward in dynamic new ways. We are grateful to Jane Walsh for her five years of service as our Executive Director. She will leave JFM in late summer to join the staff of a local homeless shelter. The Board of Directors is seeking qualified applicants for Executive Director. Read more about the position, the application, and review the job description below.
ED Job Announcement
ED Job Description
For more JustFaith Ministries stories, visit our blogs:
Catching Light: a blog by Muriel Schmid, Director of Programs
Mosaic: a blog by Cory Lockhart
Still in the Storm: a blog by Joe Grant
In the Storm Still: a companion blog by Joe Grant
JustFaith Ministries is a nonprofit organization that forms, informs, and transforms people of faith by offering programs and resources that sustain them in their compassionate commitment to build a more just and peaceful world.
Black Panther: 'What can a country full of farmers offer the world?' by Angelique Walker-Smith, Senior Associate for Pan-African and Orthodox Church Engagement at Bread for the World
The recently released movie, Black Panther, based on the popular comic book series is a story about political will and resources for all. Unlike popular negative stereotypes and imagery of African nations, the portrayal of Wakanda uplifts the dignity and imagery of African peoples throughout the African diaspora. In a recent interview, Lupita Nyong'o, one of the film’s stars, said that "Black Panther’s Wakanda is Africa if it had never been colonized."
Read more at Bread Newsletter: March 2018 | Bread for the World
BOLIVIA, August 9 – 19, 2018
Deadline for signups: April 9, 2018
EL SALVADOR, November 30 – December 9, 2018
Deadline for signups: July 30, 2018
See flyer for more details.
JustFaith Ministries Seeks Executive Director
This year, JustFaith Ministries will be transitioning to new leadership that will move the organization forward in dynamic new ways. We are grateful to Jane Walsh for her five years of service as our Executive Director. She will leave JFM in late summer to join the staff of a local homeless shelter. The Board of Directors is seeking qualified applicants for Executive Director. Read more about the position, the application, and review the job description below.
ED Job Announcement
ED Job Description
For more JustFaith Ministries stories, visit our blogs:
Mosaic: a blog by Cory Lockhart
Still in the Storm: a blog by Joe Grant
In the Storm Still: a companion blog by Joe Grant
JustFaith Ministries is a nonprofit organization that forms, informs, and transforms people of faith by offering programs and resources that sustain them in their compassionate commitment to build a more just and peaceful world.
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