Thursday, September 28, 2006

Deeper problems

Lately, I’ve started to become a crazed fan of the TV show House M.D. On each episode, Dr. House and his team of surgeons treat patients who are inflicted with some disease or ailment (rest assured, I won’t be able to pronounce it).

Each case follows the same premise: the surgeons start off by identifying each of the symptoms that the patient exhibits. From there, they toss around possible diagnoses about the patient's condition. Eventually, they run tests, analyze their findings, and narrow their diagnoses down to just one. Incidentally, it never seems to be the real issue. There always seems to be something deeper that was missed; something that hasn't been accounted for.

So the doctors are forced to delve a little further to get at the source of the problem. They run even more tests, they probe even deeper, perform medical inquiries on the patient's parents, siblings, environments, homes, etc. They investigate everything they can to make sure that they get it right.

I think that this show's premise can easily juxtapose our lives and how we respond to sin. If you think about it, the biggest reason why folks can't seem to be "cured" from their sins is because we don't deal with the deep issues. We only focus on the things that are right in our face; the things on the surface. Sure that guy is mean. But have you ever asked why he's like that? Sure that woman is an alchoholic. But have you ever asked why she's like that? Sure that young person is disrespectful, full of attitude, and sexually promiscuous. But have you ever asked why (s)he was like that?

The sad truth is: We respond to sins (both ours and others) like House and the other doctors deal with their patients. We examine the problems that a person has, lists the possible diagnoses, and then we give them the type of treatment that we think they need. What we don't seem to understand is that we're not fixing the problem; we're only warding it off. The sin is not defeated. The person is not cured.

I suspect that most people are only willing to confront the things that appear on the outside; while being completely unwilling to attack the issues that are buried deep inside. We look at the symptoms that are external; the actions, the words, the expressions. But how often do we search deeply to discover the internal symptoms? How often to we examine the deeply internal, indelible existent of sin?

Given all the "sick" people of the world, I suspect not very often.

I think that we don't dig as deeply as we should becuase we're scared. We're scared of what we'll find. We're scared of being exposed as being sick ourselves. We're scared of releasing whatever it is that causes us to sin in the first place. We're scared of change. To be honest, I really can't tell for sure why we don't explore the deeper recesses of ourselves. But I do know that we don't.

But, the fact remains: if we expect to be cured, we must be willing to go into the deep, dark abyss that is our soul and to fight whatever monsters we find there. Otherwise we really haven't built up an immune system strong enough to fight our sicknesses. The same sins will keep manifesting themselves in us. We'll never find healing.

I don't know about you, but I don't wanna be a frequent guest star on House for more than one episode...

- ACL

6 "Insiders" spoke their mind. Join in...:

Greeneyes said...

Andre~ My Greeneyed Handsome man

Great slant on this post , I love the show your RE: to," House ", Makes you think and medicine is to me is as your math to you !:}
I thought I was the only one watching , nice to have company LOL

This view/slant comparing is dead on and a smart one , we should never judge people anyway but human nature is human nature . The reason behind someones personality/mood may be an issue from the past or a current one , a conditioning of life etc we are all different , even those who grew up in the same household see things differently as they are experiencing the same moment . Sickness , hardships ,harshness of others etc all sculpt the human reaction in life . We just need to as a society learn to be kinder and more compassionate .

Greeneyes
Ps have a great weekend Andre~ dont work to hard , Cabin for me , ahHHHH the country mouse goes into DEEp woods . Have fun City mouse , will wonder about what your doing while I am around the fire ,under the sky LOL

have a great one LOL

Anonymous said...

Has it ever occured to you that maybe we don't investigate too much because Jesus told us not judge anybody?

Yasser Rahman said...

Ironic..I was just having this conversation with my mum earlier today... We keep telling our security guy not to get drunk..We realised only today that he gets drunk cause he isnt able to afford his kids school fees :S Mum's given him a little raise, lets see if that was the actual problem :)

Then again, that Anonymous comment makes some sense and is making me feel a tad bit guilty :/

Anonymous said...

House rocks!!!!!!!!!!

Omar Epps is fine! Hugh Laurie is sexy, in a cynical sort of way. Yea House!!!!

Oh yeah, great topic, Andre.

I said it before and I'll say it again....you should be a writer. Make sure you give me a shout out! :)

Andre said...

@ Greeny: I think one of the things that makes the show so great is that I don't know a THING about medicine! :)

Good points you raised in your comments. I think it's so easy to get lost in a person's direct actions that we fail to look at the behind-the-scences things you mentioned that shape out a person's life. But, knowing a person is more than knowing what's in their outer shell.

Hope you had fun this weekend. Lucky dog!

@ anonymous: I'm sure you're referring to Matthew 7:1 where Jesus tells us "Judge not lest ye be judged". Sadly, this verse is OFTEN taken out of context by folks who hate the idea of somebody pointing out their sins.

I remember once when I was calling out a certain 43rd President of the United States and one a lady at my church (one of his supporters) told me that I can't judge anybody else. Uh...why the hell not?!

If you read all the verses subsequent to Matthew 7:1, you will clearly see that we are allowed to judge AFTER we first judge OURSELVES. No where did Jesus make a blanket statement against judgment. He simply pointed out an important RULE for judging. Simply put: we can judge. But we can't do so hypocritically.

The fact is: the word "judge" (and the many derivations of the word) are found all over the Bible. In fact, there is an entire Book named "Judges", which was written specifically about at a time when God raised up judges to lead His people.

I think that God actually EXPECTS us to judge. How else can we know what is and isn't sin? How else can you reconcile the explicit statement that Paul made when he said: "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man." (see I Corinthians 2:15)?

Sorry for the lengthy response, but I just wanted to add context to your question.

@ Yasser: It's good to see that you and mother got down to the real MEAT of the situation before you took action.

By the way, I wouldn't beat up on yourself too much for being critical; as long as it's not HYPO-critical...

@ Kel: Thanks for putting me on to the show a while ago. Between Nip Tuck (seasons 1 and 2) and House, you have a good eye for interesting television programming.

Kel = Andrea. Is that a good enough "shout out"?! Ha!

DobyD said...

This post was great. I was thinking along these lines the other day as well. Great post.