Richard E Kelly

I received a telephone call from my granddaughter on June 4, asking me if I would like to hear a speech that she had written. She planned to present it at church the next day. I am curious if you will have the same response as I did. It reads:

What is Faith?

By Erika Waalkes, Age 15

For me, “Faith” is a very complex word. For many people this is the word they live by, and for others it is not even part of their life.

When I looked up faith in the dictionary, one of the definitions was, “any set of firmly held principles or beliefs.” This can mean so many different things. It can refer to religion, what you believe, or it can simply be how you live your life.

For me personally, I see faith as how I journey through life and my values; being a good person, helping others, and working hard to achieve my dreams. In other words, I try to live by the golden rule. Treating others how I want them to treat me. I think this is a rule everyone should live by.

Ironically, the golden rule is found in all major religions, just in different words. In Buddhism it is, “hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” In Hinduism it is, “this is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.” And what I appreciate about these words is that growing up and going to All Souls Church, I have learned that these are powerful words of wisdom. If everyone lived by them, the world would be at peace.

For many people, their faith is dependent on their belief in a higher power than themselves. They worship and pray to this God or Gods. Living in west Michigan, I have been asked many times about my religion. Depending on who the person is, I’ll explain what I believe and what kind of church I go to. After describing my faith, I am often asked, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” I’ll say, “No, but I respect what you believe.” Normally, I’m criticized for what I believe, and the person tries to save me. I wonder why? If I respect and honor what they believe, why can’t they afford to do the same for me?

Many people who believe in God say that it helps them to be a good person; it gives them comfort in their journey through life. I respect this. However, at this point in time, I don’t believe in God or any higher power.

For me growing up as a Unitarian/Universalist has significantly influenced my life. I think that learning the “Seven (7) Principles” has made me a better person. It has taught me that if you are kind to everyone, life will be so much more enjoyable. It has also helped me in school. In seventh grade, my history teacher handed out a quiz on Buddhism. I was the only student to receive an A. I am sure that was because I had learned about all the major religions in church.

Being a part of the “Coming of Age” program, I have learned more about Unitarian Universalism. I have many good memories, and I have improved my public speaking. I look forward to taking the skills that I have learned through this program, and applying them throughout my life. I have also discovered what “faith” means to me, and how I apply it to my life. I ask that when you go home, to think about if faith is part of your life. If so, what does it mean to you? How does it guide your life?

By Richard E. Kelly & Mark A. Evans

So what happens if the 2010 Health Care Law is repealed? If the health care system in the U.S. is not broke, why fix it? Right?

The engine that drives U.S. health care is health insurance, which will be an unregulated industry if the law is repealed. Unlike bankers and Wall Street, this industry will then be able to police itself, with no government regulations to get in the way of keeping Americans healthy, at least for those who can afford health insurance.

Unfortunately, there are a few doomsayers. Warren Buffet, for one, warns, “If we repeal the current law and do nothing, everyone’s health care will be in jeopardy. The way we are going, within a decade we’ll spend one dollar out of every five we earn on health care – and we’ll keep getting less for our money. Fixing what’s wrong is a necessity we cannot postpone.

“The high costs paid by U.S. companies for employee health care puts them at a competitive disadvantage internationally. That kind of cost, compared with the rest of the world, is like a tapeworm eating at our economic body.” And feeding his warning are the following facts:

• Health care premiums have doubled in the last eight years at a rate 3.7 times faster than wages have increased.
• The U.S. spends 17% of GDP on health care while the rest of the world spends 9% and it has fewer doctors and nurses per person.
• The average cost per person/year for health care is $6,714 for U.S.; $3,678 for Canada; $3,449 for France; and $2,760 for the UK.
• Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills.
• 25% of all medical spending goes to admin/overhead costs.
• Antiquated paper-based record keeping and information systems needlessly increase health care costs.
• Only four cents on every health care dollar spent is on prevention.
• Many businesses cannot provide health care coverage to its employees as it’s too expensive.
• The constantly rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid could lead to fiscal meltdown in the near future.
• Inefficient and poor quality health care costs the US somewhere between 50 to 100 billion dollars a year.
• Millions of dollars are lost each year due to profiteering, resulting in people paying more without receiving better care in return.
• The number of uninsured is growing at an alarming rate. Today it’s 51 million, up from 46 million 9 months ago. If it balloons to 100 million, could that trigger a U.S. health care crash?
• $2.3 trillion plus was spent on health care in 2008.

One knowledgeable insurance executive checked the facts here cited and said, “To the best of my knowledge, this paper is factually accurate.”

“The case that your paper doesn’t make—and as far as I can tell no one has made—is that the proposed health care reform actually addresses the issues that your paper highlights. I understand that this would require a massive explanation. Personally, it troubles me that the government has not attempted to explain its analysis of the problems you’ve outlined or demonstrate how HCR solves those problems.

“Yes, one can imagine how some of the proposed elements of HCR will help, but it would benefit the American public immensely if the government would thoroughly and explicitly describe the problem, explain all of their root cause analysis, describe the potential solutions they explored, justify the solutions they chose, and connect all the dots between problem and solution elements.”

Okay, so what does one expert know? Once the law is repealed, we’d suggest setting the following two goals to improve health care in America:

1. Cut National Health Care Spending by 2 Trillion Dollars in 10 Years
   • This includes Medicare and Medicaid
2. Provide Quality, Affordable Health Care for all Americans
   • Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of HC costs
   • Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
   • Invest in prevention and wellness
   • Maintain coverage when a person changes/loses their job
   • End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions

P.S. Oops! I think those were the goals President Obama and his team set for the current 2010 Health Care Reform Law. So why doesn’t the President just explain the damn law so the average American can understand it?

I don’t recall enjoying myself more. When Mark suggested the idea eighteen months ago, I had no reservations, thought it would work, but didn’t have a clue about the positive energy the reunion would unleash.

Mark Allen Evans, a first cousin, called me on the phone in the fall of 2009 from Boise, Idaho and asked if I was amenable to getting together with him and Keith Edwin Stansell, another cousin, at my Tucson home. He said something about the commonality of our intellectual gifts and his intuition some serendipitous good could come from it. Keith (71), Mark (63), and Yours Truly (67) have never been close. Other than being first-born, we couldn’t be more dissimilar, or so I thought, as we’ve traveled such totally different roads during our lifetimes. In spite of it, I thought it would be fun to share family stories and our unique histories because of the diversity.

Mark and I knew the biggest roadblock to a visit was Keith. I’m not sure what scared him most. Perhaps it was the idea of riding in a car with Mark for 2,000 miles or his apprehension of spending too much time with me. But, it was Mark’s problem to convince Keith to join us. While the two of them were never buddies, most of their adult lives had been spent circumventing the road of hard knocks. Both of them were married three times, were now single, had survived years of addiction problems, and now had no retirement nest eggs. However, they were cum laude graduates from the School of Hard Knocks.

When Mark called thirty days ago, he was convinced, although not certain that the two of them would begin their journey to Tucson in late February. I’m not sure if it was Keith’s kids or siblings who convinced him, but all of them told him to go, that it would be good for him. Maybe at his age, this would be the last time he’d be able to make such a trip. On the day before they left, Mark called to say it was a go and that Keith’s chance to see his son Mike on the way down had clinched the deal.

However, there was one big hitch on their trip down. Mark ran out of gas just north of Flagstaff. But, with lady luck, he hitched a ride within a few minutes of their untimely stop, albeit on the bed of an open pickup from two attractive Navajo women. Fortunately, the nearest gas station was two miles away because at thirty degrees, you can hunker down only so far in the bed of a moving truck. Cold is cold.

When Mark and Keith finally arrived at our home at 11:00 PM on Wednesday, they were starving. My wife, Helen, was prepared with hot chicken tomatillo posole soup and quesadillas. That meal commenced a four-day talkathon. You’d think the guys would’ve been exhausted, but they were ready for some serious reminiscing and we didn’t head to bed until 12:30 AM.

Keith and Helen were the first to get up. When I joined them, Keith was wound up like the energizer bunny, ready for conversation. A few minutes later, a disheveled Mark staggered to the kitchen, telling us he had been awakened by the lively chatter and hoped he hadn’t missed anything. From that point at 8:00 AM, there wasn’t a lull in the conversation until thirteen hours later when we decided to call it a day. (If someone had told me beforehand that this was possible, I wouldn’t have believed it.) We packed the day with non-stop stories, heart-rending confessions, gut-wrenching laughter. We were old-men shedding tears, boys being boys, and trying as best we could to do animated imitations of our Grandpa Vern Evans. Despite several Mina moments (memory lapses), we were grateful that Mark acted on his intuition.

On Friday, we started at 7:00 AM and did not take a break, except for meals, and even then didn’t stop talking, until we went to bed at 10:00 PM. At no time during those two days did I get bored, thinking I had enough. I knew such a point would come if we allowed it, but plans were for Mark and Keith to leave on Saturday. And for the three of us, it turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a poignant, soul-stirring reunion.

After Mark returned home, he made the following Facebook post: “It was a week both magnificent and sublime—an experience that cannot be lost or taken away—for three first-born cousins who’ve come full circle in their lives and found each other again in time and space with nearly identical intellectual, philosophical and emotional states of being. It was an elevating and emotional experience filled with extreme synchronicity.”

Keith said several times that he couldn’t remember ever having a better time. In an email he confessed: “After the first fifteen minutes with Mark, what with us exchanging stories so easily, I had no more reservations about spending four days in a car with him. From experience, I’ve learned it’s hard for me to go on a road trip more than twenty-four hours with even the most compatible of companions. Even when Mark insisted he knew a better route than our GPS system suggested, I smiled and said to myself, ‘I don’t have a time limit.’ I hope Mark enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed his. Extending the trip a few hours gave us more time to gab.”

So what made the reunion work so well? I think it’s because we have so much in common—the same intensity, drive, and need to say what we say loudly (it’s probably because we’re hard of hearing). We are three peas in a pod when it comes to our politics, religion and compassion for the human condition. We unconditionally love our families, in spite of what we or they may have done inappropriately. We can openly admit mistakes, have learned from past errors of judgments, want to continually improve our thinking skills, aren’t inclined to blame the supernatural for the good and evil in the world, and we are unable to believe in faith-based assumptions.

Before sharing a few of the stories we told, let’s fast forward to Saturday afternoon. While Mark and Keith were driving home, three hours from Las Vegas, Mark called his sister Lynn. To his surprise, she and her sisters Nina and Ruth were in Vegas celebrating Lynn’s 60th birthday. It didn’t take long to schedule a second serendipitous reunion.

Keith described this chance meeting as “an amazing coincidence to have Mark’s sisters attending a Scrabble marathon in Vegas, when we had no idea where they were before deciding to take a different route home.”

Keith went on to say, “I’m so glad ‘the girls’ decided to come find us after we reached the MGM Grand parking garage. That place is so big, and they knew we’d get lost. While wandering through the MGM maze, Lynn and Ruth magically appeared. At first I thought it was a mirage. The girls laughed hysterically at the puzzled look on my face. How they found us, I don’t know—maybe luck or divine intervention by a higher power.”

Maybe it’s an Evans thing to get sidetracked but I wanted to share that story before sharing more about the Tucson reunion. Keith had the most to say and his openness and naiveté were catalytic. He loves telling stories, although is easily distracted. When you close your eyes and listen, it’s Grandpa talking, and he imitates Grandpa’s GODDD damn IT! to perfection.

The most heartbreaking story Keith shared was about the time he went to visit Grandma at the rest home near the end of her life journey. When Grandma saw Keith, she said, “I think I know you.”

“Yes, you do,” Keith replied.

Grandma looked into his eyes and said, “Yes, but I don’t know your name.” She hesitated and thought, “You’re someone who loves me.”

That story still brings tears to my eyes. Oh my, how we loved Grandma and Grandpa Evans. We paid tribute to them many times during our reunion, bringing tears or laughter depending on the story we told.

Continue Reading »