PSALM OFFERING 7 OPUS 7
A prayer for all those denied health care.
Psalm Offering 7 Opus 7: A prayer for those denied healthcare. (c) 2017, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved. (music downloadable for purchase from Amazon and iTunes)
He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago. my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.” The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. (Lamentations 3: 4-6, 17-20)
And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. (Numbers 28: 8-9)
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. (Luke 10: 30-34)
They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?” And the man looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. (Mark 8: 22-25)
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2: 14-17)
REFLECTION: In Matthew 25, Jesus commands us to take care of the sick. Pope Francis has declared healthcare a basic human right. In many European nations, there is socialized medicine so that all people have healthcare. However, elsewhere throughout the world, including the United States up to the time of the Affordable Care Act, healthcare was a right bestowed only upon the rich. In underdeveloped nations without healthcare you died. In the United States if you were chronically ill, or had a disease such as cancer, you were denied healthcare or cut from healthcare by the HMO’s and you died. I witnessed my own sister, who bore for 25 years a chronic illness that eventually killed her, having to fight with her health insurance provider for the medical care she desperately needed. As imperfect as the Affordable Care Act is, we now find legislators passing legislation that will tear healthcare away from 24 million United States citizens. They are literally legislating death for the poor and many who are chronically ill, and returning healthcare as a right bestowed to only the very rich.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER: What do we think about the elimination of healthcare for the poor and the chronically ill and the deep cuts to Medicaid and Medicare? If we are for these draconian cuts to healthcare in our nation, how do we reconcile this to Jesus’ command that we take care of the sick? Am I willing to stand passively by as healthcare is taken from those most in need? Am I ready to advocate for those who are denied healthcare and work to change a healthcare system based on “for profit” to become a healthcare system “for everyone? How in my life do I care for those I know who are sick and chronically ill? Do I willingly spend time with those who are elderly and those who suffer from dementia? Am I willing to embrace and take care of a leper, a person with HIV, or people with communicable diseases? Do I show compassion and love to those suffering from cancer, heart disease, and stroke?
ABOUT THE MUSIC: This Psalm Offering is composed in 7/4 time. This music uses some of the characteristics of music from the Impressionistic period. Parallel V7 chords and a whole tone scale gives this music a certain uneasy ambiguity. Unlike melodies in duple or triple meter, 7/4 time lends a sense of unease to the music. The use of parallel V7 chords and the A melody based on those V7 chords tends to obscure a “home” or primary key area to the listener’s ear. It is almost like there is no place in the music where one can find rest, much like those afflicted with chronic illness. The B melody, totally based on the whole tone scale gives a “dreamlike” quality to the music. It reflects the medical limbo in which many of those who are ill find themselves. The A melody returns and moves to the Coda, ending the music without a tonal center. Perhaps, the unsettledness and lack of a tonal center best musically describes the plight of the medically uninsured.
