Most of my career, I have been a nurse practitioner working at the Veterans Administration hospital performing disability exams. I love my job. It is my joy and my passion to be the best medical provider to the men and women who have served our country. But for me, it is even more. My veterans are my blessing.
As we remember the terrible events of Sept. 11, 2001, I’d like to share my story. My husband had an all-expense-paid business trip to New York City. My mother-in-law took care of our 2-year-old daughter, so I could go along. It was perfect. We were wined and dined by the company. Life couldn’t be better. The night before we were scheduled to leave New York, my husband said, “Why don’t you call your boss and ask for another day off? My mom loves taking care of the baby and your boss at the VA will let you off. How about it?”
Wow, another day in New York City. But then I remembered the story of one of my veterans. I remember him telling me about his last Compensation and Pension Exam being canceled. The veteran was disabled and lived solely on the money he received from the VA. He received a notice that if he didn’t get his exam updated, his pension would be reduced. Well, he waited for his exam to be scheduled and then at the last minute the VA canceled his appointment. His appointment was rescheduled for two months later. The veteran shared with me that because his appointment was rescheduled, his disability check was reduced and, as a result, he lost his home.
I thought “Could canceling my clinic for just one day impact a veteran? It’s just one extra day in New York City!” Reluctantly, I told my husband, “No, we have to go home.”
So, the next morning, I was driving to work at the VA and feeling sorry for myself.
I thought, “I could be in New York City.” Then I had to quickly pull over on the highway. “What? A plane flew into the World Trade Center?” My eyes filled with tears. Our hotel in New York City was the Marriott World Trade Center. It also went down with the Twin Towers.
“Think about it, Kathleen,” I said to myself. “If you worked in the private sector, you would have asked off for an extra day. And your baby might not have her parents.”
My veterans saved my life!
Kathleen Kelley is a member of St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte.
“Man has forgotten God,” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn declared in 1983. After recent news of more mass shootings in our country, we must face these prophetic words. Most Americans will address this news with political solutions: tighter gun control laws, increased security in public places, or loosened concealed carry laws are the fix, depending on who you ask. But these political solutions will not correct the spiritual problem that our culture faces. We must examine this problem at the philosophical and theological levels.
First, who commits mass shootings? Usually the killers are young white males, described as loners, have few or no close friends, and more often than not come from fatherless homes and broken families. They’re alienated from family and the society as a whole. But the most important factor here is their religion: they are usually atheists and militantly so. Mass shootings, statistically, are a rarity in the set of violent crimes. However, the phenomenon of young men coldly murdering defenseless and unsuspecting strangers in public places an indicator of a serious cultural sickness, a nihilism that results from rejecting God and searching for meaning in ideologies that oppose the faith.
There is no truth, beauty or goodness apart from God. Man is created by God to search for Him. But when this search is made without faith, man loses hope of eternal life and finds himself hating, rather than loving, God and neighbor.
To cure this cultural sickness, we must make known to others that the emptiness they experience is filled by God’s love and that they can only be healed by His grace. St. John Paul II wrote in “Fides et Ratio”: “The mystery of the Incarnation will always remain the central point of reference for an understanding of the enigma of human existence, the created world and God Himself.” Fulfillment of our desires and our search for meaning comes in Jesus Christ, and this is the hope that the Church must offer the world.
Matthew Bosnick is a member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Charlotte.