In the
Sermon on the Mount was it not recorded that Jesus said, “Blessed are
the creators of forms for with their paperwork the sick will be healed.”?
Did Gandhi
ever stop his weaving of his own clothes, shaving his own hair, eating the
minimum to stay alive, going to prison, to write reports for funding so that
the Indian people would resist the English?
Did Martin
Luther King, Jr., call on the Black people of the South to march on Washington
by making sure that form A-159 was filled out in black ink, signed, dated, and
notarized?
I think not,
and while I sit here writing this blog I am postponing all the paperwork
that I need to complete to start the process of healing the sick,
calling people to give to the poor, and reporting on how money was spent and
what good was done…so more can be done (and more paperwork created)...literally.
With all
these forms, letters, and reports which feel like the bane of my existence… I am so
tired. More times than not paperwork is
one of the necessary boredoms of my life and I lose sight of what is important…people. I can get so bogged down in working at the
computer that I forget and lose my way.
And if I am truly honest many times I use paperwork to buffer me to the
pain of others and I get lost in the comfort of the forms.
Yesterday
talking to Josefa, our clinic administrator, and Jorge, our radiologist, I asked
if they knew what hospital would the volunteer cardiologist coming in October work in because I needed to write a letter for him to use to request pacemakers. He is planning to surgically install donated
pacemakers as a volunteer.
Jorge said
that his wife knew two people who have been waiting on a list to get pacemakers
for a long time…and it became more real to me…not just a letter to be written
but a letter offering life.
People,
faces, hope, life that is what I need and sometimes even the paperwork will get
me there. Now to write that letter… -Kathleen
