A MODERN PARABLE, ALL IN THE FAMILY

The patient had been sick for some time. The situation was growing critical.

The patient, always strong and vigorous, had been steadily weakening. In frustration, the family chose a new physician. But after months of treatment, there were few signs of recovery. The family grew restless, The physicians who had been on the case before grew critical. Somehow, the new man was not delivering.

Huddled discussions throughout the house debated what could and should be done. More bed rest...less bed rest...more drugs...less drugs...experimental therapies...shock therapies....different medical advisers to the physician...even prayer sessions. But no consensus seemed possible, and so the arguments persisted while the patient became nearly comatose.

It was just then that the building inspector happened upon this grim family scene.

He raised an issue few had faced before. The house itself had grown unhealthy...! "Anyone living in here over these last many years was bound to get sick," the inspector observed. "Some of the basic foundations had rotted from excessive extravagance...too many people had been stripping the place of its value...many of the neighbors no longer considered this to be the finest home on the block nor were they any longer willing to follow its lead..and, frankly, many of the family members themselves had failed to keep up the payments on the mortgage and the on-going repairs required of any great building.

One of the relatives asked the inspector, "So you're saying virtually anyone living here over these last 20 or 30 years was likely to fall ill?" "That's how I see it, having studied the history of great buildings like this." "And so then the doctor on the case isn't bungling the job, just fighting something bigger than the usual instruments in his bag?" The inspector nodded: "I'm afraid so..."

The family members started talking to one another, wondering if perhaps the inspector was right. Maybe they had had a part in letting the old building slip, and in denying the fact that the new neighbors were coming into their own. The case was not just another winter cold as will happen during the usual cycles of booms and busts. Apparently this was something far bigger.

The inspector had a file full of case studies where other great buildings had aged poorly and eventually collapsed. His suggestion to the family: "Check the records. This took a long time coming and it will take a long time curing. If I were you, I wouldn't expect ANY doctor to wrap this up quickly. Besides, he can't do much without you facing some hard facts. And without you stopping the infernal, dis-informed backbiting..."