The Painful Nowning Process

ABC News story about the rising generation of India’s bright young things:

At age 21, [Nisha] Mehta has five people — all older than she is — working under her. And her boss says the sky’s the limit.

This is a seismic change in a country where women have, until recently, been restricted to traditional family roles. And it’s a change that has transpired within one generation in one household.

…

The changes going on in India right now — the breaking down of old barriers of gender, religion and caste — are incredibly exciting. But it’s important to realize that these changes — as of right now, at least — are only affecting a minority.

…

Mehta says she’s concerned about these inequities, but still believes there’s no place on Earth she’d rather live. In fact, she was — to my mind, at least — shockingly ambivalent about the United States…. She has no desire to live [in the US] and only lukewarm desire to even visit.

This story pins an awful lot on one young woman as a representative example. Nevertheless, it should give  overly self-satisfied US readers food for thought.

Fun fact: if you have to fly to Toledo, Ohio, the closest airport is Detroit, Michigan. Fortunately, a significant number of my Rambo relatives actually live in Ohio or states within driving distance, so only a few of us had to fly in to join what rapidly grew into a family reunion when the Medical Mission Hall of Fame, affiliated with the University of Toledo College of Medicine, announced that my grandfather, Victor C. Rambo, M.D. (d. 1987), would be one of the four 2008 inductees.

My uncle Thomas Rambo gave a talk about Grandfather’s work, one of several speakers at a symposium on Saturday. In addition, my father and his younger sister were there, and all their children. The Mobile Eye Service clinics my grandfather started are still operating in India.

From Dec. 1 NYT, professor of Biblical studies at Rice University April D. DeConick reveals that the “Gospel of Judas” everyone was shouting about last year doesn’t say what the shouters thought it said.

For example, in one instance the National Geographic transcription refers to Judas as a “daimon,” which the society’s experts have translated as “spirit.” Actually, the universally accepted word for “spirit” is “pneuma ” — in Gnostic literature “daimon” is always taken to mean “demon.”
Likewise, Judas is not set apart “for” the holy generation, as the National Geographic translation says, he is separated “from” it….
To its credit, National Geographic has acknowledged this mistake, albeit far too late to change the public misconception.

Deconick, who has written her own book and translation of the so-called “Gospel of Judas,” speculates that one reason these kinds of mistakes were made is that the original translators were bound not to discuss their work with other scholars. She concludes that the eager reception of the good-guy Judas may have been motivated by

an understandable desire to reform the relationship between Jews and Christians. Judas is a frightening character. For Christians, he is the one who had it all and yet betrayed God to his death for a few coins. For Jews, he is the man whose story was used by Christians to persecute them for centuries. Although we should continue to work toward a reconciliation of this ancient schism, manufacturing a hero Judas is not the answer.

Last week CNN reported an outbreak of ebola fever in the area of Kasai Occidental province where my parents lived and worked as medical missionaries from the mid-1960’s to early 1990s. BBC updated the story two days later, confirming that

Five people are confirmed to have died from the virus, but at least 166 people have died in total in the area and WHO says it is aware of 206 more cases.

Apparently people had been falling ill for at least three months before the fever was identified as ebola. This week reports have come from Presbyterian and Baptist missionaries in the area, who are responding to help along with Doctors without Borders, the Centers for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization. News today reports

“In the past week we have seen a slight dip in suspect cases. On average we have one new case every day and a death every two or three days,” said Dr. Fortunat Mtumba, health minister for the affected Western Kasai region….In the past four months there have been 170 fatalities from 378 cases of either Ebola or shigellosis, Mtumba said.

Please pray for the people of this troubled nation, and for the medical professionals and others aiding them.