The editors have been busy months before readers ever see journals. They spot talent, locate subjects, assign articles, schedule them-and then, finally, begin to edit them. Many editors share the opinion of Second Opinion's team: we like to have variety within every issue, so that on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, the greatest percentage of readers will find something (we hope many things) that interest them in each issue.
The editorial road less frequently taken at Second Opinion is, or will be, to produce theme issues. They have great appeal for the readers they target. For example, we can envision a very helpful issue titled, say, "Nursing" or "Chaplaincy Today." But would as many non-nurses or non-chaplains read articles on those issues as they would on either theme if they hadn't been worked into a general issue?
Somewhere between the first and the second strategy is where I come in. After we have put together the mosaic of pleasing and effective pieces, I get the assignment: "help readers find some sort of thread, some kind of common reflection of the times, some preoccupation that to some extent unifies the articles in an issue." Of course, I have read them independently, often weeks apart. Now it is refreshing to read them together, to see what kinds of perspectives those who share expertise in the years 1999-2000 bring.
This struck me: as we move from the outer ranges of medical experience to the most intimate grasp of things related to health and spirit, our authors reflect concern over the various efforts to control situations.
Thus, in the case study of conflict among giant health systems, powerful labor unions, and the largest church body, we find that the question of control enters at all points. Should unions control most of the aspects of employment, from salary and benefits to the details of work life? Should papal teachings on the rights of labor be instruments of control over managers of hospitals founded by religious orders? Do the sisters themselves have control over what had been theirs, and that they still run-even if in partnership or under the partial control of someone else? What role does the archdiocese have in mediating and representing the causes? J. Duncan Moore, Jr., cannot answer them, but he poses the issue well in a narrative style. As the issue is settled in Los Angeles, his reporting will not lose relevance.
The next zone in has to do with denominations and congregations in respect to questions about human sexuality. In fact, there is little reference to denominations in this story that enlarges upon a Park Ridge Center project; they are in the shadows beyond the steeples of local units. But the question comes: how controlling should the theology and confessions of church bodies be in respect to the way congregations deal with sexuality questions? How much do history and tradition control? What is the role of the individual in congregational life?
Next we come to a still more intimate zone, wherein care is given. Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore writes poignantly about the role of caregivers in a society that cares so much about the bottom line, status, and the like. Patriarchy remains a controlling force, but Miller-McLemore does not rest her whole case on it. In a world where reason ruled, one would expect that the caregiver closest to a patient would have control and salary commensurate with her or his burdens. In fact, it works another way. Societal pressures, tradition, custom, convenience, ideology, and unreflective practice conspire to devalue, sometimes degrade, certainly to underpay the most crucial and probably hardest-working caregiver in the chain of command. All this is a sign of what, and probably who, is in control.
Finally, in the most intimate circle, we read of another kind of control, in this case something as socially neutral and scientifically perplexing, the social scientists' need to have controls in their experiments. We like the idea of being close up to people in need of prayer, who pray for themselves and are being prayed for. Yet so many variables enter into the experiments about the effects of prayer that there is a strong sense that the social scientist will never have sufficient control to be truly scientific. What kind of evidence will be convincing as the experiment publishes word of its pursuits and findings?
I wish I could say that in any of these cases the author has complete control of the subject matter. They are too modest, too aware of limits of medicine and religious institutions, to be insulted when pictured as not fully controlling. But they would go further and say that in the nature of the case the observer cannot control everything.
Could it be that, in the midst of conflict and experiment, the fact that we are not in full control might be a great liberating force, a compliment to the human spirit, a puzzle that exacts and encourages imaginative responses?
Whenever authors in issues like this talk about "limits," there is an impulse to grumble about the way the universe is put together, with the way the human condition reveals itself. Wouldn't it be nice to be Prometheus-for-a-Day and break limits, taunt the fates, and have one's own way? Such has been the dream of those who have nostalgia for paradise and dreams of utopia. But if there were not limits to resources, there are such among humans. As interest versus interest-union versus hospital, defining denomination and practicing congregation, status-giving patriarchs and virtual serfs, scientists who demand to be able to manage what they can measure versus those who admit that some things will always elude the observer-as these interests challenge each other, one learns to be a realist about what can be accomplished. But realism is not hopelessness or a license for giving up. So the issue of who or what controls whom or what is permanently challenging, as this issue of Second Opinion makes clear. Not in control. Limited. Marginalized. Words like these are clues to issues of our time.
That's what I read. But you read the issue your way. I am not in position to control your reading approach. Just to be glad you are aboard.
