For the past 40+ years I have been a chaplain at varying times in a city hospital, a community mental health center, an academic medical center, a community not for profit hospital setting. I have seen patients from all places on the economic spectrum, gender, disease modalities, injuries, emotional difficulties and reactions and more. I have seen the staffs that work with these people – some of whom are bright, curious, well educated and highly motivated; and some who are simply putting in their hours of the job, dull in mind and spirit, and uncaring.

Tom Murray, president of The Hastings Center, discussed how and why health reform should reflect our values in an interview on NPR’s Science Friday.

To exercise stewardship, or not—that is the question. Why put the point that way? Because one path leads to an abundant life, and the other is a dishonest, if elaborate, form of suicide.


Stewards distinguish themselves first by accepting responsibility, and then by acting on that responsibility to preserve, protect, and nurture something precious, through recurrent threats, for the purpose of delivering that precious thing to future generations.

The atmosphere was tense. Representatives of the insurance industry were huddled in one corner. The other members of the Task Force on Genetic Information and Insurance, mostly academics and consumer representatives, were bunched across the room. As chair of the task force, I was in the middle, trying to make sense of the disagreement, which was growing more intense by the minute.