I go to a very comfortable, mainstream Lutheran Church in a small town. I'm an anomoly there, one of the 3% of the congregation under 60. It's everything you would expect in a small Lutheran church--modest, unassuming but friendly people, mostly upper middle class, with a few token upper class members. We do bake sales, bazaars, and deliver cookies to senior centers. You really ahven't lived until you've heard a crowd of 60 blue hairs singing Jamaican Hymns of praise--the Pastor and God both have healthy senses of humor. We have mission work overseas and at home, but always removed from our congregation, i.e., never on behalf of anyone in our church. We all appear to be in good shape. That's why I felt a cold, cold chill run down my spine this morning when I read our service bulletin.
In addition to the Christmas Coat Drive, and the usual stuff about meetings and the general business of the church, there was a brief article asking for help for a member of our congregation who had become homeless, and needed someone to take them in.
Homeless? In my little mill town of St Helens, Oregon? From our congregation? How? How? I lifted up my head and did a quick survey of the people I've worshipped with over the last three years. They're all nicely dressed, the cars in the parking lot are Volvos, Hondas, Buicks, and Toyotas--except for our old Pastor, she drives a Scion xB. Mysterious Ways, indeed.
I wondered who among us was suffering, wishing I could help. I thought I was the token charity case around here, having been unemployed for four months. Since nearly everyone else is retired, I assumed their income was adequate to at least provide them shelter. Then I remembered how many times in the last year we've prayed for someone who was in the hospital, or had taken ill. Though we never found out who needed our help to simply survive the night, it occurred to me that the healthcare crisis has really, really come home.
A fellow community member who drives a nice car, is well dressed, and cheerfully donated to others in the past has come to a point where they are being forced from their home (renters, in our congregation? Not too likely. You can still buy your own home 'round here for $79k.) Where else in the world could you work hard your whole life to provide for a comfortable retirement, only to take ill unexpectedly and lose... everything? A whole life's accomplishments, the home where you raised your family, all gone, becuase you had the audacity to get sick?
It's wrong. It's wrong, dammit, and we all know it. You hear the counter-arguments about how we have the best healthcare in the world. What good is the world's best healthcare if you only turn the healed out to freeze in the streets? You hear arguments that the beaurocracy would be too great and inefficient. Who cares if you have to fill out extra paperwork, if it means you get to keep your home?
I'll offer my fellow congregant my bed, I can sleep on the couch for a while. But seriously, is this an acceptable solution for any of us? A retired person sleeping in an unemployed guy's bed? Six months ago, they were in their own home, and I was earning a nice living. Now, we have two desperate people sharing a cold house neither can afford to fully heat. It's all hitting the fan here in the middle class in St Helens, Oregon. And it doesn't seem like anyone's safe.