Lessons from Medicine

Just as there are few cures in medicine, in spite of all that is known about biology and disease, there are even fewer cures or quick fixes in the domain of the body politic. We work with the world as we find it and as we inhabit it, realizing that our understanding of events and our ability to shape outcomes are always limited, sometimes humblingly so. But, as we have discovered in medicine, that does not mean that profound healing cannot take place if the situation is met in ways that embrace the full spectrum of inner and outer resources for working even a bit more selflessly and orthogonally with what is, with things as they are, especially in the domain of the human mind and heart. The same is possible for the body politic. It too can be approached from a perspective of healing and transformation rather than merely fixing and curing, especially when the fixes can be potentially damaging to the patient and to the very potential for healing. …