God's will vs. US Health Care

I read an interesting post from a nurse.

Who is your God?

She was commenting on a patient's reflection.

She said to me, "You know, I was so relieved when the doctor told me that these things just happen (her wound to her leg). It was the first time someone had told me that it was not God's will." Of course, my head snapped up at that one. At first, I was not sure she was serious, but one look at her face told me that she was indeed. As if she had done something, or misbehaved in a way that God disliked, and so created this wound on her leg?

I agree: I loathe the comments: "It's God's will." Or that certain groups deserve the 'punishment' that befalls them from ill-health or accidents. This is what shapes some minds: fear of progress and change. The Puritans, during the reign of Elizabeth I, wanted to remove all resemblance of Catholicism from the Church. So much harm has been done in the name of religion.


Some of the descendants of the early Calvinists and Puritans, who fled to New England, still hold fast to this notion. In the Calvinist scheme, God decided who would be saved or damned before the beginning of history. They fled during Cromwell's time, and resisted change. That incredible juggle of Catholicism and Protestantism. Separation of church and state is an issue in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, politics entered the picture when the Puritans sought to "purify" the English Anglican Church of its Catholic tendencies. Thousands of the early colonists came to America seeking religious and political freedom, only to want control over others in later years. Those who believed that God actually raised a celestial hand and carved the Bible in stone. This horrible belief of predestination seems to follow with the "Intelligent Design" theory, designed to fool the masses.

Rhetoric in the US continues to shape their policies: Reverend Cotton Mather’s prose epic, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), where he proclaims: “I WRITE the Wonders of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, flying from the Deprivation of Europe, to the American Strand.” This vision of a Christian American utopia was first expressed by John Winthrop in his writings in the 1630s and remains alive in many religious and political forms in the United States today. [For more on the Puritans, see: Puritanism and Predestination.]

Their influence grew, culminating in the English Civil War of the 1640s and the rule of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s. With the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, Puritanism went into eclipse in England, largely because the movement was identified with the upheaval and radicalism of the Civil War and Cromwell’s tyrannical government, a virtual military dictatorship. Many were killed in the name of kings and queens, as well as religion. Many stories were spun, even in that era, about murderous rampages requiring revenge.


Yes, in the past churchgoers were quick to assume and judge, but we know so much more now about natural laws and humanity. We can respect our fellow citizens and their rights to believe.



Bad things happen to good people. You drink and drive drunk and people die. God didn't pick them out. The sins of the fathers are not put on the children.

Families will pay the price, but it isn't the devil...You can sled at the speed of suicide, it is your choice.

The better questions: what can I learn from this?

And, What can I share with my fellow human beings to make change?

They say, too, to be careful of that for which one prays. This includes winning a championship. (Why would God intervene in such?!) I recall my late-ex-mother-in-law praying in the chapel two days before she died. She reported to me that her 'prayer didn't work'. After a lifetime of smoking, and roll-your-owns for many year, her lung cancer metastasized, spread through her lymph nodes and caused a quiet brain tumour that took her after an 11-week diagnosis. I was speechless.

Me, I prayed my parents would last long enough that we'd be able to retire in their home. Those you read my book know what happened there!

Many have prayed for universal health care, whilst others fight it tooth and nail, descendants of McCarthyists who fear communism! As if people working together for any socially acceptable goal, such as health care for those who cannot afford it, can be wrong.
The "Me Generation" is fighting these battles. I hope good sense prevails and people begin to believe that, "Yes. We Can!"