Lemon Study

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the Prof noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, ' Do you know how to catch wild pigs?'

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke.

"You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it, and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again, and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that, and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, and you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly, the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops(CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, free medical, etc., while we continually lose our freedoms - just a little at a time.


I don't know about you, but just reading these words gives me an unconfortable feeling, because as bad as it is now, it is getting worse, and who knows what the coming election will bring? No matter how hard I try, or how positive I try to be, I just cannot believe in the great change that the current presidential candidates, and those endorsing them, are trying to convince us is possible if only he or she is elected. All I can feel--with all that they are promising-- is that any change is going to be for the worse rather than for the better. Maybe, it's because I'm just a pessimist, always expecting the worst--but maybe it is a 'gut-feeling' which is very seldom ever wrong. None of the presidential candidates are miracle workers--this much I know for sure.

Maybe we would all do well to remember that there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.

~Thomas Jefferson

Whatever

I've been under the weather for a few days, and I know I've been a little lazy about blogging, but I'm still thinking of everyone.

It was nothing serious, just a pretty high fever and chills, and a couple of days in bed--but honestly folks, I felt like I might have to head out to the ER! However, with a lot of loving care, and pampering, from my husband, I'm feeling almost good as new.

Just so you know, he is never happy that I balk about seeking medical help, but I know that you know--if you've read some of my posts--why I am never too eager to do that, and mostly just tough it out, if I can.

While I'm trying to find something really good to blog about, and while hospitals and medical stuff is on my mind, I thought I'd share the following essay with you. It's actually from a radio broadcast in Indiana. It gave me a smile, or two--I hope it will do the same for you.

Humor in the Hospital
When I tell people that I’m a hospital chaplain, the person often makes a face and says, “Oh, that must be depressing.” But there’s a lot more going on in hospitals than pain and suffering. In fact, if your eyes and ears are open, even the darkest situations can provide a bit of needed comic relief.
I first noticed this phenomenon years ago with a family in the intensive care waiting room. Crises bring out the best or the worst of families, and this one was not functioning well. Shouting, threats, blaming each other for old issues. Even the television was blaring away, demanding my attention. The show? Family Feud.
Sometimes humor sails through the hospital room like a sparrow, easy to miss. I was leading a somber prayer with family in one room when a little boy leaned his head around the bed and stuck his tongue out at me . . . causing me to forget not only the patient’s name, but how the rest of the Lord’s Prayer went. Other times the humor emerges slowly, as with the elderly patient I was having a normal conversation with until I asked where she lived. “Wisconsin,” she said. “Oh,” I replied. “Are you visiting this area? “No, silly,” she said. “I’m right out on Faber’s farm. You know where that is.” “Faber’s farm? I said. “Oh sure you do, its right here,” she said. Then she reached under her sheet and said, “Are you ready?” “Ready for what?” I hesitated. “I’m ready to give you my urine sample now.” I called the nurse.
Marriage relations can be a source of mirth in the hospital. Like the woman from the trailer park explaining why her husband was having chest pains. “Aw, he’s just mad ‘cause I brought home more ferrets,” she said. Then her cell phone rang. “Hello?” she answered. “No. This is Janie. I’m talking to the doctor. What? It’s Janie,” she repeated into the phone. “J.R.’s wife. No, this is his real wife.” Another time, a woman had me paged to her husband’s bedside, stat. When I arrived, she said, “Oh good. He’ll tell you how he wants to die, and I’m going down to get a salad.”
Race relations can have its lighter side, in the hospital. One Caucasian man had foolishly been smoking while using an aerosol can of black spray paint. The can exploded causing minor facial burns. When I pulled back the curtain of the ER double room, I found the white man on a gurney with a very black painted face. The patient on the other gurney? A black teenager. The white man with the black face rolled his eyeballs up at me and said, “My face hurts.” The teenager just held up a hand and said, “I don’t even wanna know.”
Even cancer is no match for a sharp wit in the hospital. My friend Stacy is a breast cancer survivor. She introduced me to a group of attractive women having coffee after their weekly cancer support group and yoga class. “So, what did you think of them?” she asked me later as we walked down the hall. “Great people,” I said. “Yes,” she replied, “and not a boob at that whole table.”
Humor and faith are always essential partners, but especially in the hospital. One wise nurse shared with me that she has just two very short prayers each day. In the morning, she prays, “Whatever.” In the evening her prayer is, “Oh well.”
As I leave the hospital this evening I meet a neighbor coming in. “Oh hi,” she says, “do you work here?” “Yes, I’m a hospital chaplain.” “Ew,” she grimaced. “That must be depressing.”
I just smile. “Whatever.”
Broadcast by Jeff Nixa on December 08, 2006