The Good, and health care policy

About a year ago, we discussed the topic "goodness" or the "Good", at our Heart of Medicine community of doctors' meeting. I brought the story of Joseph of the many-colored coat from the Hebrew scriptures. It seems very compelling to me that when his brothers go to Egypt to beg for grain during the years of famine, and Joseph has become the head magistrate to purvey the grain, the brothers try to apologize for their brutal treatment of him as a boy. And Joseph says "Never mind. What you intended for evil, God used for good. Because now I am here, and can help you and my father in the time of need." To me that is one of the best stories about what is "good"-- because it points to what is beyond the ken of the humans in the immediate story-- the possibility of some new good that can be brought from the most disastrous occurrence. And that somehow, the Divine Mystery does not allow full destruction-- some new creation or good can come from whatever may seem evil or bad to us at a particular time or place, or from a particular viewpoint. The Hebrew scriptures say reassuringly, at the end of each of the passages on creation, that "God saw it, and it was good." The idea of human sin is a corollary to this idea of good. When we "miss the mark" it may be that we aimed wrong, or the trajectory of the action we intended went off-center. But it may have been with good intentions; and somehow, as we judge between good and bad, we need to take that into account. It is helpful for me to think about these distinctions as the nation brings this debate to a vote. So many people have tried so hard to move the work of reform and increased social justice, and help to the poor and sick, forward. I am praying it will pass. But even if it does not pass, God will find a way to bring some new good out of something that seems to me totally bad. It is the lot of humans not to have that divine insight into the future and all its possibilities-- and makes it important and possible to have both faith and hope!