Covering symptoms, covering problems

Recently my sister sent me a CD from a singer/songwriter named John Lester. One of the songs, "Out of the clear blue sky," intrigued me because the artist makes an analogy between himself and his country. I thought it was fitting because we can also draw the same analogy in relation to health and healing.

Out of the clear blue sky
When I was a young man so many troubles seem to come my way
I didn't see that I sewed the seeds of my anger, it grew a little every day
Always a battle for my ways, always someone else to blame
So many enemies but never did I wonder from whence they came
I never stopped to look inside, to see if I held the reasons why
The world was coming at me from out of the clear blue sky

Here the songwriter explores his personal responsibility for his trouble in life.

Interestingly, many people think that when they lose their health it's simply a matter of bad luck or that they are victims of genetics. It's pretty rare for someone to consider their personal responsibility for their illness. While I don't deny genetics play a role, there are other factors that exploit weakness in our bodies. When it comes to health it's not a matter of luck, rather one of cause and effect. In other words, things don't happen without reason. Even if we don't know what the cause or purpose is. We do have the choice either to take a look our responsibility in our own health or give up our power and become a victim with no control of our lives.

Now comes a time when my country's also come of age
Hell hit the homeland, everyone's rightfully filled with rage
The president's pointing his finger and from the pulpit I heard him say
We're one nation under God and by God we're gonna get them back one day
With no admission to reason why, we put all the blame on another side
And said the evil one came at us from out of the clear blue sky

In this song the solution is to place blame and destroy the enemy. In our culture when someone gets cancer the normal procedure is to eradicate it with radiation, drugs or surgery. And although I may or may not choose that route for myself, I can certainly understand the argument for it. I'd like to point out though, that even if we cut out or kill the cancer we haven't necessarily had any net gain in health. In fact, there's a strong chance that our health has actually diminished even if the cancer is controlled. (Medical treatment is the third leading cause of death in this country according to the American Medical Association.) And who's to say it won't come back.

They were crazy, they were evil and they were wrong
But the weak take a desperate measure when they're backed into a corner by a fool to strong
My brothers, my sisters, my countrymen and my friends
I think we'd better take a really hard look at ourselves if we want to keep this from happening again
And if we search beyond our pride, perhaps we'll find an answer that has long been denied
And peace will reign upon us from out of the clear blue sky

Health is a state of harmony and when all parts of an entity communicate and work together it ensures that it not only survives, but thrives. If there is disharmony or dysfunction, things just don't work right. In the human body that usually means a cascade of physiological events that lead to the symptoms that we label disease. The same principles would hold true for the environment or for that matter the state of the world. If there is disharmony in the world it leads to a cascade of events which we call war and terrorism. The long term solution would be to take a look at why the situation was created in the first place and work to change that instead of just treating the symptom.