In this first week of the Christian Eastertide an elderly woman I met years ago named Mrs. Elliott is on my mind.
It was during an unusually cold winter in my hometown. Two of my friends and I took Mrs. Elliott wood to burn in an old tin heater she was using to keep her home warm.
The night before we arrived she got a neighbor to break-up one of her chest-of-drawers so she would have something to burn.
There was a chill in the house as we entered. Pictures of FDR, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesus hung on one of the walls of her tiny living room.
We stacked the wood next to the stove in the even smaller kitchen. As we turned to leave Mrs. Elliott said, “Thank you, boys. I might have frozen tonight if you hadn’t brought me that wood.”
That wood delivery was the first of hundreds that winter, and the beginning of a inner city ministry of providing free truck loads of wood to the poorest of the poor.
All of us involved discovered a startling reality that first year, that Mrs. Elliot was one of hundreds of people we didn’t even know existed, people hidden in plain sight whom we had never seen.
They lived in shacks and hovels, some with rotted boards that left half the living room floor exposed to dirt. More than a few had no running water in the winter because of frozen pipes. They kept blocks of ice in the bathtub and would chip off pieces to melt for water to drink and cook with.
More often than not only one stove burner worked. Broken windows were covered with cardboard, and in a few instances some of the people were using buckets as toilets.
Most of them rented these places that should have been reported to the city for code violations, except the residents begged us not to do anything. The slum landlords would just evict them, they said, pretend to shut the place down, and then rent them out again after the city stopped paying attention.
I remember all the times those of us doing the deliveries would get back in the truck and say absolutely nothing as we pulled away. We were simply stunned at the level of poverty that existed in our own city.
Mrs. Elliott, and all the people I met over the years, changed my life. I want to believe they made me into a better person than I would have been.
More than anything, they are the reason I don’t believe in small government, why I am not a Republican, why I recoil whenever I read or hear a conservative say that the best solution to poverty is a free market.
It’s for sure they’ve never met anyone like Mrs. Elliott. They’ve never seen up close and personal living conditions like those of the people to whom we delivered wood.
They only look at statistics rather than real people to justify unfounded, broad generalizations about wasted government spending on social programs, as if the lives of real people don’t matter when making public policy.
I wish conservatives who criticize the modern welfare state could spend some time with people like Mrs. Elliott.
I wish Speaker Paul Ryan would leave his privileged life and spend a day with an American poor family to see firsthand what life is like for them every day.
Maybe it wouldn’t do any good, but after my own experience of meeting Mrs. Elliott and so many like her, I have to believe that he would moderate his views.
I believe he would see that insisting the expansion of health savings accounts is the key to providing assistance to people who cannot afford insurance works only for people like him, that a family with both parents working, but still struggling to put food on the table will never have a health savings account, or any kind of savings account.
Of course, I know that will never happen. My sense is that Ryan and people like him will believe a free market works for everyone even if it doesn’t, and that a smaller government is what our country needs even when it isn’t.
So Paul Ryan – or anyone like him – will continue to live in his privileged world and never bump up against the real lives of people who are as far removed from his way of life as he is from theirs.
And that is why I – and everyone like me – will continue to fight for them, for those who have no power, no voice, no influence.
We will continue to demand that millions of Americans like Mrs. Elliott will not be forgotten by their own government led by politicians who boast to the world that we are the wealthiest nation on earth.
The former WWII Army General, Dwight Eisenhower, began his presidency in a speech in which he said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
We were once an America that could be inspired by words like those, but it doesn’t seem like we are anymore.
But every time I think about meeting Mrs. Elliott on that cold winter day a long time ago, I feel a tinge of hope, perhaps a last gasp wish, that somehow, someday, we might become that kind of nation again.
linnposts.com 
How well I remember those wood deliveries with you Jan. Indeed it changed our lives and made us better people. The awful consequences of an unregulated, smaller government can easily be understood by looking at the history of fines leveled against the Koch brothers, champions of small government and free market. It’s a history of exploitation of individuals and environmentally destructive practices. It’s certainly not a world where Mrs. Elliott is cared for.
Ironically, Wilbur, those were some of the best years of our lives precisely because we were touched by Mrs. Elliott and many others, as well as creating a bond between all of us who served them that has never been broken. Thanks for sharing.
Blessings come in the most unexpected ways and you and your friend were certainly blessed by and for Mrs. Elliott. I do believe that there are countless occasions where such humanity exists which gives me hope in my present darkness. Thank you
You are so right, Eleanor. Blessing come in unexpected ways and so unexpectedly. We cling to any small ray of hope we encounter. Thank you.
As much in my country as in yours, Jan, when the costs of neo-liberalism are taken into consideration, with levels of inequality going through the roof, then the words “small government” really mean “big jails”.
And the jails here in America keep getting bigger and bigger, Nigel, but never seem to figure into the costs of trying to shrink government.
Good morning, Jan. You are a true soldier of love and humanity! The story of Ms Elliott’s life touched my soul. I just wanted to reach out and express my appreciation for your thoughtfulness and beautiful prose of such a profound moment in your youth. And I need to confess, of which you might already know, this comes from a privileged white male conservative that has always believed in small Federal government, but one that strongly believes in personal responsibility of love, kindness, and charity. I love moments of truth that create turning points in my life where I am able to pivot into truth and a clearer understanding of reality. I will not soon forget Ms Elliott. Thank you for sharing her story. I know she is not alone. May God continue to bless you and your family and your personal ministry and journey! Much love! ~dave
Dave, I am genuinely touched by your heartfelt response to my telling Mrs. Elliott’s story. Writers sometimes – even often – wonder if the intention behind what you write ever gets fully conveyed. Because of what you wrote, in this instance I think it did. For that I am very grateful. You are a good man, not least because of your open mind and open heart. The world could use a lot more people like you. Thanks for writing.
Having grown up for the first ten years of my life in the southwest corner of Sioux City, your story of Mrs. Elliott rings true and my memory drifts back to those days some 80 years ago. A “Mrs. Elliott” lived over the hill behind our house. My dad and others around us would check on her, supplying wood, others in the neighborhood shared food from their own scant pantries, many of us being on one kind of welfare program or another, my dad and others working on WPA projects.
Like you, that early life-experience has led me to see government as a solution, not the problem, informs my conclusion that the Republican mantra invoking the “virtue” of the free market and small government, makes me suspicious of grouping people statistically.
There was much good in that life, in spite of being poor; then, we all were.
Thank you for Mrs. Elliott’s story and for sending me back in memory and confirming my belief in a better America.
Cheerz!
Gene, what you said is another confirmation that experience can change a person’s worldview more than arguing about an issue. Yet the arguments also matter, so we need both. Reagan did no service to the country when he said that the government was not the solution, but was the problem. It played well to his base, but that one statement has done enormous harm ever since. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thanks Jan…our morning meditation. at the breakfast table..how much harder we need to work !
Karen, hearing from you made my day. Our best to you and Larry.
You are so right. Thank you.
________________________________
Thanks, Treasure. Good to hear from you again.
REPUBLICANS MOST GENEROUS PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, DEMOCRATS: NOT SO MUCH
APRIL 15, 2015| BY ROBERT GEHL
When it comes to giving to charity, Republicans in the United States on the whole are more generous than just about any other people on the planet.
Republican states are more generous than Democratic states by a wide margin. In GOP states like Utah and Mississippi, families donate more than seven percent of their income to charity. In liberal New England states like Massachusetts, the number is less than half that.
The same holds for the nation’s 50 biggest metropolitan areas. The Chronicle found that residents of Salt Lake City, Memphis, and Birmingham, Ala., typically give at least 7 percent of their discretionary income to charity, while those in Boston and Providence average less than 3 percent.
An interactive tool on philanthropy.com shows the counties that give the most and the visual is stunning: Western and southern Republican states are a deep green, indicating high rates of charitable giving. Liberal New England states? Not so much.
Because Republicans give at such a high rate, it boosts America’s generosity compared with other countries. Investor’s Business Daily reports:
In no European economy are the people more generous with their own money than the people of the U.S. According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data, which have been thoughtfully assembled by Cato scholar Dan Mitchell, the total of Americans’ voluntary social spending reached 10.2% of GDP in 2009, the latest year for which numbers are available.
The only country that is remotely close in its generosity is the Netherlands, where the total was 6% of the nation’s economy. Only two other nations, Canada and the United Kingdom, exceeded 5%. The U.K. totaled 5.3% of GDP, Canada 5.1%
It is important to note that your source for this article is the website, “downtrend.com,” a radically conservative source for fake news.
That said, Gehl is correct when he says conservatives (not necessarily Republicans) give more to charity than liberals (not necessarily Democrats). What he and you don’t pay attention to are other important details:
1. Most conservative charitable giving is to conservative churches which may not be generous with the poor at all. In fact, most of them spend millions on themselves.
2. If donations to all religious organizations are excluded, liberals actually give more to charity than conservatives do, though not by a lot.
3. Overall charitable giving by Americans is dismally low – about 1.67 percent of G.N.P.,
4. The working poor give more as a percentage of income than the entire middle class.
5. One of the most generous groups in America are gays and lesbians.
These facts put Gehl’s argument in a broader context that he completely ignores.
But here is the heart of my response: Your comment via Gehl’s column simply reinforces the fact that Republicans continue to believe that private charitable donations can take care of the needs of people like Mrs. Elliott. That belief flies in the face of facts to the point of making it an absurd position to take. The very social programs Republicans want to cut arose precisely because poverty here in the U.S. was morally indefensible.
Over lunch today a colleague who has left pastoral ministry and I were lamenting the blindness of many in the pews. He said, “I don’t think I could possibly be serving as a local church pastor since November.” We talked about my experience while in college that opened my eyes to how limited was my world-view and how wrong were my assumptions. That one experience shaped the rest of my life.
Thank you for this compelling post. I walk on the edge of despair most days this spring. Just when I feel I’ve regained some equilibrium another cruel decision is made by this administration and lauded even by those who join me at Christ’s table. I lose my balance again and again and again.
Thank you for helping me find balance for today.