Courage to speak

Paediatrics and geriatrics have been 2 of my favourite attachments - often because those are the ages when we’re least afraid to say the things that we can be afraid to say!

Sometimes, not saying what we think can be a good thing - if our thoughts are unkind, judgemental, unloving. I’ve seen the effect of that here, too - one lovely girl here has been admitted with a severe eating disorder, which started when some kids at school called her “fat”.

But I loved this story on the wall at today’s clinic...

“This man designed a plane, a £500 billion fighter jet, a smart plane that could clap its wings.
Everyone watched, the plane flipped and spun. A wee girl shouted “that’s really stupid -
What about the hungry people, and sick people, and all the poor people with no houses”
The children decided not to smile, time passed, and babies cried for longer
Adults were under pressure
Someone painted the plane yellow and renamed it the happiness plane
Children filled the plane, with all the things they wanted to share, and it was delivered to people everywhere”

Today is also the birthday of another lady who demonstrated much courage, for the right reasons.

“You and I may not have Rosa Park’s particular battle to fight… But if the Rosa Parks story is to help us discern our own vocations, we must see her as the ordinary person she is. That will be difficult to do because we have made her into super-woman – and we have done it to protect ourselves. If we can keep Rosa Parks in a museum as an untouchable icon of truth, we will remain untouchable as well: we can put her up on a pedestal and praise her, world without end, never finding ourselves challenged by her life.” (Parker J. Palmer)