For Church Magazine, November 2020

You might remember Terry Waite, adviser to a former Archbishop of Canterbury, who was captured and kept in solitary confinement for over three years in Lebanon. He speaks with some authority about how to survive in difficult times. 

He has in no uncertain terms told us to stop being so pathetically wuss (my words not his) about dealing with the privations arising from efforts to stop the spread of covid. We should stop moaning and be constructive about organising our lives. We could read more, be creative, use technology to chat to people. However bad we think it might be, it has to get a lot worse before it compares with being on your own in a Beirut shithole for years. In short, we should take responsibility for ourselves and not expect someone else to come along and sort us out.

Amen, amen.

It applies to every aspect of life, not least health.

Actions have consequences. If you stuff your face with cream cakes from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, don’t be surprised if you get fat, develop diabetes, have a heart attack, and suffer from joint disease because your joints weren’t expecting to have to support a ten ton truck.

Part of the blame lies with the NHS—or rather the way we have allowed it to develop. Having it as a safety net is one thing, but now we expect it to deal with the consequences of our stupidity. We think that we have a right to feel as good at 70 as we did at 30. We refuse to take responsibility for ourselves in the expectation that the NHS will sort it out for us.

It’s a bit like praying to a sky-pixie to sort out problems that we have brought on ourselves. Indeed, it is exactly like that. The Dalai Lama has pointed out how silly it is: “humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place.” 

And so with health.

Make a weekend visit to a casualty department (after covid, if it ever ends). Wade through the vomit on the floor caused by alcohol overconsumption. Is this what the NHS is for? Why should doctors be non-judgmental? When I was a teenager, my GP told me I was too fat and should do something about it. He was right, and I did. 

None of this is easy to manage. Some of us eat to make us feel better about ourselves. At least the food loves us even if nobody else does. Some of us have genetic predispositions to certain conditions and there is little we can do other than manage them. Life is difficult. We are at the mercy of our obsessions and addictions – and don’t kid yourself that you don’t have any because we all do. Here’s a list.

Nicotine/tobacco. Alcohol. Exercise, Porn. Golf (I’m not old enough to play golf, but I’m told that it’s popular amongst the brain dead). Recreational drugs (cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol; cannabis rice krispie cakes are delicious). Religion: ecstatic trances of mystics are orgasmic, and for some people religion is merely a prop like smoking or drugs or booze to help them get through the day. Some people are addicted to money, power, controlling others, pleasing people, wanting to change people, gambling, internet, social media, books, buying stuff you don’t need, gossiping, criticizing, moaning, being miserable.

We’re all addicted to something—several things in my case. Look at your addictions. If you think you haven’t any, you deceive yourself. We are all in recovery from something.

You hear people compare themselves to others: “if she can eat it, why can’t I?” The sad truth is that as with everything else, our bodies and our metabolisms are unpredictable. We are not all the same. Swallow a handful of paracetamol and see what happens. Some of you will have no detectable symptoms; some of you will die. Or covid: some people have mild or no symptoms, some have serious symptoms that last ages; some die. 

And all of you will die sooner or later. The longer you live, the more likely you are to die. Life is not fair. Life is uncertain. Get over it. 

One of the first things that medical students do is study a dead body. It is a ritual that helps define them as trainee doctors. All their patients will die, and so will they. As a priest, at every funeral I took I pointed to the coffin and said “every single one of you is going to go in a box like that, and it might be later today, so get your affairs in order, make peace with those you need to, and if there’s something you need to do, do it now. And stop moaning”. I had more complimentary remarks as a result of that stark advice than ever I expected.

My reading of Scripture tells me that we are to be responsible for ourselves. You are no good to your neighbour if you don’t look after yourself. The NHS encourages some of us NOT to take responsibility for ourselves, instead remaining as infants expecting nanny (NHS staff) to deal with the consequences of our idiocy.

You could say that the NHS is UNChristian in tolerating irresponsibility.