Excuse for being there?

The way we introduce ourselves includes our purpose for being there (to distinguish between us and a bloke off the street).

For example, when I’m at work I introduce myself as “The student intern”. Or when I am in a hospital “I’m a medical student”.

Who do we belong to?

I often find myself explaining myself in relation to someone else

“I’m Fred’s daughter”

“I’m Dr Reed’s student”

“I’m John’s girlfriend”

On who’s authority?

Another way we might introduce ourselves is by explaining who sent us. For example, in the hospital, I might introduce myself as a medical student but then go on to say that “Dr Wright has sent me to ask you a few questions”

By doing this we are saying that someone more important has asked you to be there (and often by doing this we are deferring any blame away from ourselves

The way we introduce ourselves can point towards where we find our identity.

But what happens when our identity changes?

At the beginning of this academic year my identity changed. Not that I changed my name or had a make-over, but I could no longer introduce myself in one sentence using the BSMS mantra:

“Good afternoon, my name is Liz McClenaghan. I am a third year medical student from Brighton and Sussex Medical School.”

Now I take some explaining.

I am a medical student, though not currently, but I will be again next year. I am doing a post-grad course, but I have never graduated, and I wont graduate this summer either. I work for a Christian charity, but I’m actually a volunteer intern, so I don’t exactly class as a ‘worker’.

I found it really quite unsettling to realise that I couldn’t introduce myself the way I was used to.

However, knowing our true, eternal identity actually comes knowing who we are in Christ.

Why are we here, who do we belong to, who sent us?

Knowing who our Lord is… and from that, knowing why we are here who do we belong to and knowing exactly who sent us

We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 6:19-20

This conference brings Christian medical students from countries all over Eurasia to the UK for one week to gain teaching from UK experts in many areas, including Medical Ethics, Palliative Primary Care and Developing World Medicine, along with leadership and evangelism training. The hope is that the student will return to their country encouraged and envisioned in Christian medical ministry within their country, and able to give eternal benefit to other students in their Universities with the teaching they have received.

This year we had students from Syria, Hungary, Holland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Tajikistan and Russia for the pre-conference (with another three Hungarians and a doctor from Portugal joining us for the NSC)

During the week we spent time talking over important issues of Christian leadership, ethical issues in our day to day practice, and the importance of attending patients’ eternal lives as well as their physical bodies.

There were talks from John and Celia Wyatt, Bernard Palmer, Members of PRIME, local palliative care doctors, our international ministries team and many more!

Apart from being spiritually refreshing and equipping the week was also jammed full of fun! This was mainly thanks to the hospitality of those members who opened their homes to us in the evenings and helped with transporting from one side of London to the other.

For most of the students this was their first visit to the UK so, of course, there was a lot of sightseeing to be done! We toured round Westminster and along the Thames with a flurry of photography as we went. Another highlight of the week was Jay Smith’s Biblical Tour of the British Museum, and then we visited Burrswood Hospital. This is a Christian hospital where a ‘Bio-psycho-social-spiritual model’ is implemented. One of the moments which will stay with me forever was when the staff of Burrswood prayed for us and commissioned us in our future ministry as Christian Doctors.

I encourage you to join me in praying for them as Paul prayed for the Colossians:

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” 1 Colossians 1:9-13

And just to let you have a more detailed look at what went on I have included a video one of the attendees made about the week.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23904135-globe-spreads-the-word-of-god-all-788280-of-them-read-out-over-5-days.do

I like the idea of the Bible being read out to an audience, I really do, but I also don’t think this article presents the Bible fairly.

Describing the Bible as “one of the most significant pieces of world literature” and emphasising it’s “thrilling stories, glorious imagery and incredible language” really makes it sound like an excellent children’s’ book much on a par with Grimm Fairy-tales.

A more accurate description might emphasise that it is a well written history book, faithfully describing events which are also upheld by other historical records of the times. Perhaps mentioning that the surviving translations we use are actually more reliable to the original document than copies of Homer’s Iliad.

This article might also like to mention that it is claimed to be the word of the Creator, that describes the reason why this world is so corrupted, and shows that there is a solution, one that we cannot earn but is given freely to those who believe it. Most controversially perhaps it claims that God himself cared so much about us that he became a human, lived on this earth, worked miracles, claimed he was God, was brutally killed, and came back to life!

Churches read small sections in each service so that they can study it as a group, appreciating its significance and how it is still relevant in the society we live in today and learning how we can come back into relationship with God without striving to follow rules.

Due to these amazing claims, the Bible and Christianity surely deserves investigation and careful thought.

In the words of C.S.Lewis:

“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance.”

So, just another storybook? or the most controversial book ever written? One which needs careful thought perhaps?

What is important to realise is that whatever your worldview is, it will influence your decisions in life, and this becomes most evident in the life of a Doctor. We will be routinely making decisions which have much wider implications than ‘what shall I eat for breakfast?’

Any worldview should answer these questions: How do we know what we know? What is truth? What is right? How should we meet our goals? How is the world made up? Where are we heading?

A dominant worldview within Medicine and Science is Reductionism. A view glorified by Richard Dawkins and other members of ‘the Brights’. Reductionism is a world-view which sees “properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from one scientific domain (typically at higher levels of organization) can be deduced from or explained by the properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from another domain of science (typically one about lower levels of organization)” (Stanford dictionary of Philosophy).

As you can see, not all of the questions above can be answered by Reductionism. It is only concerned with what the cause of something is, not of the purpose of something. With regards to the question ‘Why did you cross the road?’ One (Teleological) response would be “to get to the other side.” Reductionism however would answer “Because I was pushed”. Reductionism is only concerned with looking back on the causality of an action and never forward to the ‘intent’ of an action. So while Reductionism seems very ‘enlightened’ it merely hides behind a barrier of science to congratulate itself on its own cleverness, pushing aside the other ‘big questions’ and passing them off as unimportant.

Another dominant worldview in our society is ‘Post-modernism’. This is where someone’s view is that ‘anything goes’ and ‘there is no such thing as absolute truth’. In my opinion this is sheer laziness. This is the path of least resistance. Someone ascribing to this is likely to encourage anybody to do anything they choose without questioning, even if they know it would be to their detriment. It in itself is also a self-refuting statement: if there is ‘no such thing as absolute truth’ how can that statement itself be true for everyone?

For an example of how this might be worked out in practice: Miss A, 19 year old student comes in requesting an abortion. As the Doctor I could answer this request without any questions because “Who am I to say that it is right or wrong”. “Whatever my views on abortion, I cannot impose them on someone else, therefore I should not question her decision.”

If I did this, exacting a postmodern worldview, I would be avoiding an opportunity to have a difficult, but necessary, conversation to ensure that the Miss A is not being coerced into this decision and is, in fact, making an informed decision. The end result may well be the same but surely the second option is the better way to really care for our patients?

These are just two of the most prevalent worldviews we encounter every day without realising it. What I would like to propose is that not enough of us take the time to think about our worldview. But by doing this we will not only clarify a lot of issues in our own mind, but also help you to understand those people who may be opposed to you… always remembering that this is just as likely to be a patient, than as a colleague, both now and in the future.

This includes travelling between Brighton, London, Lancashire (home), Edinburgh and Dundee.

This does NOT include visits by car to Wales (approx 200 miles), Momentum (approx 404 miles), and a visit to family in Northern Ireland by plane (approx 878 miles)

So since the end of July I have travelled (approximately) 6089 miles without leaving the UK.

Seeing as the UK is about 700 miles long this is quite an achievement in three and a half months.

I think I need a rest… so I’m travelling to Paris on Tues…typical.

Je swee desolay: Sorry, what?

Je nu comprandey pa: I didnt get that

Parley vu onglay: Can you speak in a English please?

As you can probably tell my French teachers simply LOVED me at school!

I mean, its all God’s word, but if I had to choose Ephesians 2 would be it. Mainly because I heard a sermon on it in church a day I REALLY needed to remember the Gospel, and it spurred me to action – what God’s word will always do if we let the Holy Spirit speak through it!

Read it, read it again, remember it’s truth forever.

Today we looked at Psalm 25. This is epic. It is stuffed full of meaty goodness.

I was particularly taken by verses 4- 5:

Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long.

The speaker challenged us to think about that verse… and then to come back to it at lunch time, asking ourselves “Is my hope still in God at this moment?”… And again after work, and again before bed.

It just made me realise how, even if I start my day right, I easily get distracted by life in general.

But coming back to that at lunchtime, and after work, and now before bed, has made me consciously place my hope in God my saviour throughout the day.

It is so very easy to get distracted by what we are doing, looking to our own strengths to help us cope, wishing and hoping for what we desire rather than praying about it, or getting disheartened when prayer seems unanswered.

But in God my Saviour I put my hope!

I have both failed an re-passed my OSCE. Revising for my resit was a really tough time, but I felt well supported and was thankful for all the love and support I got.

I left Brighton and moved to London for one year. Im living with 3 lovely girls: an atheist, a Hindu and a Sikh (… walked into a bar). I have lived there just over a week and have already managed to lock myself out.

I have started a new course to sandwich within my medical training (Bioethics MA) – The reading of which scared me at first glance but after reading the first sentence I got excited about it again.

I have been up mountains (Snowdon) and in the sea.

I have travelled from Brighton to Wigan North Western NINE times! Im beginning to hate travelling by train.

I have been very excited but also very scared about the year ahead. I frequently swing between the two within a few minutes of each other – typical.

I have started work as an intern at CMF HQ (www.cmf.org.uk) and had two days in the office so far. One very bad day, one very good day (Im hoping the good days will outweigh the bad in the future!)

I’ve camped in the rain, lived on peoples floors, been a squatter, slept in a caravan and been blessed with joyous hospitality of so many people.

So: Up and down times for me. I’ve blogged before about how our lives go up and down, but God is our eternal constant. This is SO true, and each day I have to remind myself of it! These last couple of months seem to have been an exaggerated example of that!

This year promises to be brilliant: A really interesting area of study, (hopefully) an awesome internship with CMF, loads of time to explore London, host people and go visit friends in exciting places! I occasionally have a wobble and forget why I chose to do this when I could be a year closer to qualifying, but I think this is particularly when I loose sight of Jesus being the anchor of my soul. I feel uprooted from what I’ve known before and that is uncomfortable – but my comfort should be in Christ alone, as nothing is as constant as he is.

Love it.

fail·ure

/ˈfeɪlyər/ Show Spelled[feyl-yer] Show IPA–noun

1. an act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; lack of success: His effort ended in failure. The campaign was a failure.

But Im getting on with it. Little by little. Ive moved in with some fellow re-sitters and Im trying to lift the others’ spirits. Each night Im organising a little surprise for them both. Tonight we are having face masks, tomorrow… well, they might read this before tomorrow which would spoil the surprise so Im not going to tell you!

Im just looking for small ways to serve them while we live and work together, something which Ive never really gone out of my way to do before, but something I hope to continue, and hope that it will lead to conversations about Jesus.

Resit updates will follow…