Demotivator of the Day

Courtesy of: http://www.despair.com

Why calling myself a Republican makes me cringe (because I'm too conservative to be a Democrat)

Over the summer I took some time to re-examine my political party affiliations and was nonplussed to discover that my own brand of politics, for the most part, doesn't match up with that of the Republican party. I agree with the pro-life agenda and the idea that big government is bad government, but here is where I found myself beginning to separate from the party line: the manner in which Republicans go about "proving" their point is so full of informal logical fallacies that it gives me philosophical indigestion.

For example, rebuttals to democrat attempts to advance an argument are met with ad hominem fallacy or attacking the person making the argument as opposed to the argument itself. I don't think I need to give an example for this one, just turn on FoxNews.

Another favorite tactic is when a certain radio talk show host attacks a misrepresentation of a democrat's argument. This, I have noticed, is a favorite on both sides but it seems that the republicans have a lot more material to work with.

While I realize that both sides employ these fallacies to differing degrees (I mean, we are talking about politics), the way the party defines a persons life in terms of economics gives me moral ulcers. If you are rich it's because you've worked for it (not always true), and if you are poor it's because you're lazy. I think you can see where I am going with this. These are just a few of the things that make me want to separate from the party line, only I don't know where else I would go.

And so I am left with questions. Are these musings simply a product of the stage of life and post-modern culture I am in? Will I ever be satisfied with my political party of choice? Why am I still going into the field of social work knowing that I cannot stand the politics of it?

At least I have an answer to this one question: why there are so many antacid commercials during presidential campaign season.

My thoughts on the field in general

As classes begin again and I am bombarded with theories and speculations about the human condition, I am once again faced with a very stark reality: the field of Social Work is very materialistic. This truth is something that I struggled with last year because I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around it. How could a profession that is devoted to helping the helpless be so short sighted? I talked this over with a friend who is also in the same program I am in and she pointed out that a lot of emphasis is placed on students doing social work because helping people makes them feel better, thus setting the stage for them to provide their clients with an easy fix so that the social worker can then get their "fix". For example, I read a case study about a social worker in Los Angeles who thought that the best way to stop youth from joining gangs was to give them jobs so that they could earn money and feel like productive members of society. The social worker didn't address any reasons why youth would find gang affiliation attractive, nor any underlying social expectations that may exist within the community. This article is just one example of many that represents a big problem in the social work field: a lack of depth and emphasis on holistic care. I wanted to be a social worker because I thought that staying within the church walls would limit me to only providing spiritual care and encouragement but, I am finding that there is just as much of a limitation in the secular field on the other end of the spectrum.

Can a middle ground exist? Yes, at least I think so. As long as the social workers motivation is to help people, not to make themselves feel better, but to show God's love and acceptance then a middle ground can exist there and it can give great comfort and help to those who are in need.

I think one reason God has me in this field is to bring depth and holistic care to the way practitioners view their clients situation. That, at least, will be my goal for my own practice.

BBC News- Technology
“A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed.”
This artificial brain will be able to process sight, allowing researchers to trace the neuronpath through the brain, the same is true for other types of stimulation like smell, etc. The scientists even said that this brain will be able to process emotions!
“You need one laptop to do all the calculations for one neuron,” he said. “So you need ten thousand laptops.”

This research could help develop new treatments for the mentally ill and those who have suffered brain trauma. While all of this is really great, innovative stuff, I am amazed by something else that is much bigger than an artificial brain manufactured by a bunch of scientists. That is the fact that God created this marvelous machine, the human brain, that interacts not only things seen, but also with things unseen. We can take reality and change it to metaphor and back again. God made a special neuron pathway in our brains just so that we could feel love, understand truth, and experience the touch of another human being. He gave us the ability to enjoy his creation and to glorify him for it! He gave us the ability to feel wonder, bewilderment, anger, pain, and peace. He has revealed his love for us in these things; he has revealed his lovingkindness for us in Jesus. And he created us with the ability to know that love.
That, my friends, is truly amazing.

Ready to Be There

Have you ever had one of those moments when you feel that life is moving just a little too slowly and you feel so impatient that you wish you could find a fast forward button?
Well, that hasn’t been just a moment for me it’s been the last few months.
I know that for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1) but I am ready for this one to pass because it is just so frustrating.
I want to be out there doing social work and really making a difference, not just trying to make my mind about intellectual questions; not that that isn’t worth while, I’m just ready for some work. While I do believe in being educated about your chosen field, I think there is only so much you can learn in a classroom or from a book. The majority of my big decisions are going to be made not based on theories I learned in grad school, but based on experiences of what has worked in the past, my knowledge of resources, my own intuition and God’s providential guidance. That last one isn’t something they teach you about in the College of Social Work either (yet it boggles my mind that I am paying for this education).
I pray that God will give me patience to get through these remaining two years of my degree without going totally insane. Who knows, maybe a little insanity will do me some good.

Future Plans and Present Battles

It has been a while since I have written and, just as before, much has happened. I will be starting my second year of graduate school in August and will also be registered as a student with a disability because I have night-blindness. I have never been formally recognized as having at disability because the state I live in (South Carolina) has no set standards for night vision- that is totally up to the ophthalmologist as to whether or not a person is declared officially “night blind”.
Frankly, it’s a little strange being on the other side of all this paper work. I worked in the office of Academic Services for 3 years at my college and served many students with various disabilities (loved every minute of it) but never thought I would end up being the one requiring services. Also, it’s an odd sensation because I’ve only had this informal diagnosis for 6 years and some days I still feel like I’m just starting to get used to it. One thing I know for sure, God has caused this to happen at this time for a reason. I don’t understand what that reason is right now, but I do have faith that he will make that known in due time.
Also, I will begin my first internship at a senior primary care practice that will last for the whole year. Geriatric social work isn’t an area that I know much about and I have zero experience in the field, but I think that is the purpose of an internship; to give students the opportunity to try out something that is completely outside of their comfort zone and yet still be able to build up their skill set and resume. I am very excited about this internship because my supervisor is wonderful. I knew I was going to like her when she told me that even after being in the social work field for over 20 years, she still learned new things every day. I am looking forward to learning all I can from her.
In addition to these changes, this spring semester (09) was mentally challenging for me in that many of my beliefs and assumptions about politics were challenged and are still in the process of changing. I am reassessing my own understanding of my chosen political party (republican) and I am trying to come up with answers to some questions that are vital to my development as a Christian in the social work field. For example, what is the role of the church in relation to government run programs like food stamps, affordable housing, and unemployment? Also, to what extent is the church to be involved in issues of social justice such as the sex slave trade, marital abuse, equality for women, etc. This is just the tip of the iceburg. Thousands more questions like these are swirling around in my head with no immediate answer available, it can be somewhat overwhelming. However, one thing God has impressed upon me is that this is where he wants me to be at this moment. I have struggled and prayed over the last month about whether God really wanted me to finish my degree. Even in the midst of this struggle, God has made it clear that I am where I am supposed to be and while that may not include having the words to give some grand answer to the hard questions my professors are sure to ask me in the coming semester, I can at least be confident enough to say that I know what I am going to be doing for the next two years. That and just being a faithful student is all that he asks of me now. Not having all the answers now doesn’t mean that I never will, it just means not now.

A Separate Morality

In class last night, during a discussion about belief systems and Socail Work, a fellow classmate began saying that one could have morality and make moral decisions without those morals having any basis in religion. Her arguement was in support of helping clients make the “right” decision without imposing one’s own beliefs on them.
I disagree. I think that separating one’s beliefs from one’s morality leads to either a false morality, or empty beliefs. Consider this, as a Social Worker you encourage a group of young men in the juvenile justice system to be good and do right because that is the right thing to do. You have not given them: a) reason to do good, b) the means to do good, or c) the motivation to do good. Those are things that belief provide to morality. Without belief, morality has no basis whatsoever because belief gives morality a purpose and a direction. Morality without belief is nothing more than a pious proscription; it is empty, meaningless, enslaving, and false. A false sense of morality can enslave one to a cycle of self-doubt, self-reproach, and depression. This is not what any one trying to better themselves should be told.
Now, for clarification, I am speaking from the view point of belief based on Jesus Christ as Savior and recognition of ones’ sin. However, reguardless of whether or not you believe in Jesus, the beliefs you hold become your basis for morality. That is the basic relationship of beliefs and morality. It is not morality that supports the belief (although some may live it out this way), but it is belief that support the morality.
Here is some food for thought: in South Carolina public schools they teach mainly abstinence in sex ed classes. Is it effective when taken out of the context of the sacredness of marriage?

Conflict of Conscience?

The title of this post really defines the struggle I am going through on a daily basis in this profession of Social Work. On one hand, I have faith that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and that I, nor anyone else, could ever hope to be whole and live a fulfilled life without Him, and on the other I am entering a profession that is humanistic in nature, hoping that man can live a fulfilled life if he just believes that he is good enough. That is not to say that I am going to stop doing Social Work; I am convinced that God has equipped me for this task, both mentally and emotionally, and I am going to continue to wade through these muddy waters until God decides otherwise.
The most recent issue that brings this struggle to the surface is an opportunity that I have to go with the College of Social Work to Azerbaijan to help University students teach a family camp for 8 days. It sounds like an amazing opportunity on the surface, but the conflict is not with my desire to go (believe me, I want to go!), but with the things that we will be teaching to the villagers in the family camp. The core belief of the model we will be using is that man is basically good, and that if you boost your self-esteem, you will be able to function better in your community or family unit (this is a very gross interpretation of the Satir Growth Model). This humanistic idea really flies in the face of my belief system and my motivation for being in this field. I believe that man is inherently broken and flawed and that the only way we can hope to function well within our communities is if we ask Jesus to fix our brokenness and put His Spirit in us to make us good. I think the growth model is good once you start in the right place, not with man but with God. I’m not sure that I can participate in teaching something that I do not believe, no matter how much I want to go. This is a matter I am going to continue to pray over and I hope that God will give me some sense of peace about this decision because right now my head and my heart are not in agreement.
This leads me to another area that has surprised me since I started this program, I have seen that many of my peers and professors separate what they believe from their actions and that concerns me. Maybe it’s just a product of this postmodern age. I find it very difficult, personally, to act in a manner that would conflict with what I believe. For example, I believe that abortion is wrong because life begins at conception and in my mind that is murder. If a pregnant female client came to me asking for help to get an abortion, I would explain to her other options and if she was still insistent on having the abortion, I would have to refer her to another professional because I would not be able to support her decision without violating my conscience. When I brought up this example in class, the majority of my classmates disagreed with me, saying that I should support the client regardless of my beliefs. This is simply something that I cannot and will not do, since my belief is what fuels my desire to practice social work. Remove faith from the equation and everything falls apart.
What do you think about this? What is the professionals’ duty when faced with a conflict of conscience?

Faith and Practice

As you can probably tell, my faith has a big influence on my reasons for going into the field of Social Work, but in class my professors have been encouraging (some more than others) that I separate my faith from the work I do as a Social Worker. None of my professors have given any reasons why they think this is necessary. Personally, to do so would mean removing my desire for social work. I talked to another classmate about this very issue. He is Catholic and although we have some differences of interpretation, we both agree that our faith is the driving force behind our interest in social work. Without our love for God guiding us, we are ineffective in this profession.
I wonder why faith is discouraged. Could it be the strictly academic arena that wants to expel faith, or is there something else going on? Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey addresses the dividing wall that has been built between a persons beliefs and their profession (whatever that may be). The book is about the role of faith in public life and, more specifically, challenges the idea that Christians should leave their faith at home when they go to work, and that Christians can only be effective in the “Christian” realm. The main argument of the book comes straight from Genesis 1:28 “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that move on the earth.” (The First Great Mandate) and Exodous 20:8-10a “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.” In the first mandate that God gave man, He told him to be productive and take joy in it. Man was made with a drive for work that is purposeful.
“This means that our vocation or professional work is not a second-class activity, something we do just to put food on the table. It is the high calling for which we were originally created. The way we serve a Creator God is by being creative with the talents and gifts He has given us.” (Pearcy 2005 p. 47)
In the fourth commandment, God tells Israel to work and rest on the seventh day of the week. Pay attention to the wording, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work,” God didn’t command them to sit at home and be “spiritual”, or to work for the sake of money. At this time in Israel’s history, they were wandering in the desert where there were no fields to be planted, mostly just livestock to care for, and it was God who gave them food every day. So He wasn’t commanding them to work so they wouldn’t starve, He was commanding them to work because that is what they were meant to do. In doing so, they brought glory to God; the chief end of man (Matthew 5:16). These passages encourage believers to be faithful and dutiful in their work, not to separate themselves from the world (as many do). Yet, the message we receive from the world encourages separation and does not want us to bring our motivating beliefs (at least not this kind) into the public forum or work place. It is difficult to not give in, especially when you are told in class that your particular beliefs are not welcome and are considered some what suspicious.
However, I want to prove them wrong. I want to be the employee and/or Social Worker that proves that her faith in God helps her to do her job well. I want to play a part in building a bridge between faith and practice, both in the secular work place and even in the research world. I have been thinking and praying about what to do after graduate school and I find that I am still very interested in getting a Ph.D. and doing research. I would like to track (statistically) the impact of faith-based social organizations so that there would finally be some real hard data about the effectiveness of such organizations (and maybe also provide some accountability for the organizations). The way I see it, I would be glorifying God by pursuing that degree because He has given me the ability and desire to do so.
This task is not easy and I am going to get discouraged. I already have had days where I felt like giving up because I felt like so much was against me. On those days, I ran to God with my burdens and he gave me the strength to leave my worries about my clients with him.
I have claimed the last sentence of this prayer from The Valley of Vision (A Collection of Puritan Prayers) as my own and one that I pray often:
“O God, make me worthy of this calling, that the name of Jesus may be glorified in me and I in Him.”
Amen

A Different PoV?

COLUMBIA, SC (AP) – Members of a gay-rights group who traveled to Columbia International University say they had a good discussion with school administrators and students.The group Soulforce scrapped plans Monday to try to enter the campus against school administrators’ wishes.
The group is protesting school policies that Soulforce says discriminates against gays. Columbia International University’s student handbook forbids homosexual behavior.
More than a dozen students came to the area that university officials had set aside for the group. About 10 police officers were on hand in case any protesters tried to enter the campus.
Soulforce’s 2008 national bus tour of Southern faith-based colleges kicked off last week at Liberty University in Virginia.
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9129046
Being a graduate of CIU, I am glad that Soulforce handled this opportunity with dignity and respect. I was told by a friend there that the main concern about having Soulforce on campus was Bin Lippen and the kindergarten classes that are at that school and the effect this would have on the little children.
I think CIU handled this exceptionally well, given the fact that I didn’t see any thing on the news today (and you’d better believe I was looking), is a good sign.
Not to burst the bubble or any thing, but what is Soulforce really accomplishing? They are showing the Gay and Lesbian communities to be disrespectful. They are traveling to privateChristian campuses to tell them that their ideas are wrong and discriminatory, and if they are asked not to come on campus, they call the police and find out how much bail is going to cost and inform the cops that they are going to trespass (and manage to create a media frenzy before they even arrive). What exactly is the purpose here?
At the same time, I would critique the fundamentalist Christians who parade hate and call it God’s love. They disgust me more than the Soulforce group because they are the worst kind of hypocrites; they have experienced God’s forgiveness and the love and security of a relationship with Him, yet they deny that very thing by their words and actions(Romans 2:1-4) to people who need it the most.
The NASW policies take a stand in nondiscrimination and education and public awareness. I agree that the public needs to be informed of their own ignorance and bias when it comes to the Gay & Lesbian community (also including Bi-sexuals) in order to prevent discrimination, but I don’t think that this issue can be handled like any other issue because we are speaking about the part of the human relationships that is sacred- sexuality. Putting a persons sexuality on the table as a bargaining chip is never good. I don’t think it is right for an employer or a insurance company, much less a hospital to deny basic human rights based on a persons sexuality. That said, I cannot endorse that lifestyle and I think most people get there looking for an escape from harder things, but I also cannot agree that denying human rights is in any way justified on the basis of their sexual preference.
My personal thoughts are that people are going to do what they want to do and to force them to stop is not something that Social Workers should do. We are not morality police (although the profession has been used in that way in the past). I do think that homosexuality and bi-sexuality are a product of a damaged view of sexuality due to the separation of mankind from God. Because God made us, only He knows how human sexuality is to function so as to lead to the greatest fulfillment- which is what so many hurting people are searching for.
I pray that the church will begin to turn around and show love instead of hate.