Monday, July 20, 2009

Nature and Policies

Nature does not always conform to people-made policies and regulations.

Our hospital had stopped offering deliveries since the beginning of the year (factors include risk, cost, unable to offer some services). Births mean that the mother must travel to one of the larger hospitals in the area: Ketchikan, Juneau, Anchorage, Seattle, etc.

Last night, however, nature decided one baby was not going to follow the published policy. Petersburg has one more resident this morning that it did not have last night.

People may try to control the path nature takes, but it seems that in many cases the most we can do is to influence it. Does that mean we shouldn’t try to mold nature’s path? No. But it does mean that we should acknowledge our limitations and recognize that nature can overpower even our most carefully crafted plans in the most unexpected ways.

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