So it’s
again three piles; the ‘keepers’, the ‘giveaways’, and the, ‘to the dump’! The
‘keepers’ as you’d probably expect haven’t changed in numbers very much through
the years, and include some my father gifted me in the 60s and those given me
by well respected
teachers and preachers.
They are well-worn books that immediately bring light to my two favourite
subjects, philosophy and theology. And, since leaving as an executive in the
travel industry to enter the ministry and subsequently university teaching and
corporate training, I often used the books for sermon preparation, lectures and
seminars. And, of course, in my six years of blogging.
One book
that will definitely depart the ‘keepers’ pile is’ How Good People Make Tough
Choices. I used it as a basic introduction to Ethics in several of the ethics
classes I taught at 4 different American universities, under and post-graduate
courses. I’m not sure why, but I picked up that book first and began to
thumb through it. It’s not a particularly challenging book on either the subject of ethics or morality (yes the are as
different as cheese and chalk) but my recall of assigned student
essays suggested there was a reference that related to the ethical quandary
presented by the actions of three elderly matrons, two aggressive Salvation
Army ministers, the gracious hospitality of the SA THQ leadership, Harare and
the local peace keepers, the Zimbabwe policemen.
My first
mental reraction on seeing the book was to re-title it: How Good People Make
Really Really Bad Choices!
Well I
quickly learned why my mind had been drawn to the book! Page 77, Chapter Four –
Core Values, was well earmarked, along with page 78,79 and 80.
My notes
at the top of the page reads in large letters; essay possibilities:
Assignment
1.DO NO HARM or 2. PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.
The last
stanza says, "I thought hard for us all” - "for us all"? I have
concluded that he was thinking "for us all" as in the deer, the fawn,
and the oncoming car and each possible outcome for the choices he was given to
make. Linking the word swerving with this line though, is a real puzzler. Swerving definition is: Change or cause
to change direction abruptly.
“Traveling
through the dark” The
narrator had no way to foresee the moral challenge he was to encounter. What
was he to do? What would you do? Did he do the right thing? At least he faced
up to it and “thought hard for us all”.
Stafford’s
analogy applies, I believe, to the HH tragedy. We may all wish that it had
never happened, but it has. Do you not feel compelled by some internal force, a
sense of obedience to your values, the unenforceable principles to do
something?
Lord Moulton’s definition of ethics is “obedience
to the unenforceable”. We have first the domain of Positive Law, where our
actions are prescribed and binding upon us by laws. Next comes the domain of
Free Choice, which includes all those actions as to which we claim and enjoy
complete freedom. “But between these two there is a third large and important
domain in which there lies Obedience to the Unenforceable. Man is the enforcer
of the law upon himself in rules where neither Positive Law nor Absolute
Freedom aaoply. In that domain there is no law which inexorably determines our
course of action, and yet we feel that we are not free to choose as we would.
Some call it the domain of Duty, another the domain of Public Spirit, another
the domain of Good Form, but Moulton prefers to look at it as all one domain,
for it has one and the same characteristic throughout — it is the domain of
Obedience to the Unenforceable. In that domain there is no law which
inexorably determines our course of action, and yet we feel that we are not
free to choose as we would.
The FSAOF
has posted 1306 articles in our 6 year history and
some 100 or so focusing on the HH and Dr. Thistle debacle. To that number we
can add a thousand persons who shared comments in support of our questioning
the unfair dismissal Paul Thistle. If we’re honest with ourselves, I don’t
believe any of us expected that the SA would reverse its decision and call Dr.
Thistle back to a position for which God equipped him; Chief Medical Officer,
Howard Hospital. We have observed and acted in accordance to the Obedience to
the Unenforceable. Man is the enforcer of the law upon himself - and there is
no time constraint on how to continue doing what is ethical.
The same
holds true of countless hundreds of others – not least Jan Corley, a
Salvationist from Peterborough, Ontario, Canada who last month, along with
another Salvationist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Shirley Watkinson, an emergency
room nurse and a retired doctor Lorraine Irvine from Victoria, B.C.,
traveled to Howard Hospital in Zimbabwe; these weren’t strangers to the
hospital. One was a physician who’d spent months just a year earlier as a HH
volunteer working with Dr. Paul Thistle, and many years earlier. Shirley was a
Salvationist well known for her fundraising efforts for the nearby orphanage.
Their narrative follows tomorrow.
Sven Ljungholm
Their narrative follows tomorrow.
Sven Ljungholm
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