Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Who you gonna call?

So said the ghostbusters in the 1980's.

That was my problem in the face of my chronically bad back. You might think it would be simple but there is so much to choose from and everyone has a view. Here are just four that were suggested: cranial osteopath, osteopath, physiotherapist and chiropractor. To be honest, I didn't much care, didn't know the difference between any of them and just wanted the pain to go away. 

A few factors came into play and here's how I made my decision:

1. Go with a recommendation

2. Go local- (I needed to be able to walk)

3. Go where you can get an appointment quickly and to a place and person you like the look of

So I opted for an osteopath called Phil recommended by my friend Millie. 

On my form, I put my occupation which then led to an interesting discussion. I asked Phil how you know which of the back disciplines to choose. "Much like your game" he replied "It's all spirituality isn't it- you just have to go ahead and choose and hope you pick a good one"

So this is my ecclesiological thought. To most people the church is like a back remedy. They have no idea where we are until the problem comes and when it does have no idea what we do.  They pick one someone recommends, make a visit and give it a go untrusting themselves to the person up front. At the end, they are asked for money, may or may not feel any recognizable difference and are left almost as bemused as when they began. They may or may not come back, might try another discipline but, there again, it might just get better over time anyway now the pills have started to work.

What you really wanted was good news and you surely know when you have encountered it.

Still chewing this thought, I called my friend who is a GP. What she said was interesting. "They all do the same thing but give it different names" ....."What matters is the person doing it and whether or not they do it well". 

Church as back remedy. Confused? You will be and they certainly are...


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps you should read this
http://www.cmf.org.uk/literature/content.asp?context=article&id=1604
before you go back?
Not all forms of High Street medicine are all they seem at face value.

Saturday blog-sweep

 Some interesting books for pastors The State we're in Attack at dawn Joseph Scriven Joy comes with the morning When small is beautiful