"Preventive
Measures"
By
Rev. Lee Rosenthal
Modern preventive medicine is an aid in promoting well-being, providing
a better quality of life, and the avoidance of sickness. But, can we
prevent old age or death?
When leaving for lunch one afternoon I noticed a long line of senior
citizens down the block from the temple near the elementary school.
Since I was coincidentally following a "share-a-ride" bus,
my initial thought upon seeing all the elderly people was that they
were preparing for some sort of an outing. But since the line stretched
down the entire block and around the corner, I realized they must have
actually been queuing for flu shots at the senior center.
When I was a youngster, I was afraid of "shots." I had to
be coaxed, bribed (with toys), or outright threatened in order to receive
my injections! I would even pray inside the car to which I had escaped,
hoping to avoid my fate, promising God that, "If only I don't have
to get this shot…..I'll really be a good boy from now on."
Catching cold or the flu as a child is part of growing up. It's like
getting the mumps or measles: everyone's supposed to get them. Actually
getting sick in the "good old days of our youth" really wasn't
so bad. We got to stay home from school. We would get "babied"
by our live-in maid called "mom," while sick in bed, and she
would even bring us games or comic books when returning from the grocery
store to stock up on ginger ale and cough syrup.
When old, however, coming down with the flu is a potentially life threatening
proposition. The elderly outside the senior care center seemed to know
and understand this, and for that reason were waiting patiently in the
long line for their flu shots. The news reported a couple of weeks earlier
that elsewhere one elderly person even died while waiting in the rain
to receive her preventive injection.
At the World Series a couple years ago, no "old folks" were
seen on television. Well, maybe literally one or two. They were probably
either sitting at home, no longer interested in venturing out to brave
the cold night air in order to watch a baseball game in a crowd, or
they were in bed on a hospital ward or watching the game on TV in their
retirement home lobby.
As we grow older and begin to notice the changes that aging brings,
we can't help but reflect on our more youthful days and compare these
times with how things are now. Like how thick and dark our hair used
to be. (I keep feeling guilty that my driver's license still lists my
hair color as "brown." I wonder if I should now have that
changed to "grey"…). Or when one doctor office visit a year
(at most) was always enough. Or how we could once upon a time remember
where we placed our eyeglasses before we crashed into the door.
In time we come to accept the changes as being inevitable and natural,
and we even learn to live with them, much as professional football players
learn to continue playing with their injuries. As we reach our 70s or
80s, we know that statistically we've reached the latter years of life.
We still feel relatively OK, but we are more aware that many people
die or have died at this age (or earlier). We still maintain our daily
routine, perhaps appreciating each day even more now, but in the back
of our mind (or maybe even in the forefront), is the thought that this
may be "all there is" to life.
And so we gauge how meaningful our life has been. Have we accomplished
what we set out to do so many years ago? And if not, have we made contributions
to society or gained in wisdom and insight that would compensate for
"not having saved the world?" Is there yet something we want
to fulfill before we die? Does our life seem complete enough that if
it should end here, we'd feel comfortable with that fact despite the
natural regrets we carry along the way?
After the death of a loved one, most of us feel that we have left something
undone in respect to our connection with the deceased, or that we wished
so-and-so could have lived long enough to see this-or-that come to fruition.
Of course, in a direct way we can no longer share something with a departed
loved one and have them reciprocate or acknowledge our sentiment as
they used to. Nor can they be directly aware of current events in our
lives. Yet, spiritually, if we are mindful of the open channel we all
have to everlasting Truth, then all that we think or say or do, is shared
with the innermost depth of consciousness wherein lies the eternal presence
of our loved ones.
The Pure Land is the grateful awareness within our hearts and minds
that we are forever embraced by the dynamic movement of Wisdom/Compassion,
never forsaken, never to be abandoned. The Pure Land is the realm in
which our departed loved ones reside. We can find it and them within
ourselves, each time we are called from the innermost depth of our hearts
and minds to utter their eternal name - Namo Amida Butsu.
