Our current health care crisis is really a spiritual crisis and, until we recognize this, we will never resolve it.

We live in a soulless high-tech world in which we find our souls to be under a daily assault. Disease and ill health are the natural by-products of living under such de-humanizing conditions. In a truly human, humane natural society, humans rarely get sick. Good health is a state of being and our natural birthright as "children of God."

Health care, on the other hand, is an after-the-fact response to the physical symptoms that develop as a result of our living in such an unhealthy environment.

In an unnatural, de-humanized world maintaining a healthy state of being becomes a full-time job. We must "be vigilant" for individuals or circumstances that would create such an unhealthy state. For instance, it does 1ittle good to eat right and exercise if we go to work every day in a toxic psychological environment.

Because our current health care system only responds to symptoms after they have already developed, it may actually be regarded as a "disease system" rather than a health system. A true "health system" would teach us how to attain and maintain a healthy state of being. This means not just eating right or exercise but some kind of spiritual practice.

Now that our current disease system has become increasingly costly, conflicted and often ineffectual, what was originally a spiritual issue has become a medical issue and now a political issue. As such, it will never be resolved.

Joseph H. Vanderpool

Rensselaer

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Letter: Include spirituality in our health system - Albany Times Union