Dana Reardon - Hard Stories, Hard Choices

Hard Stories, Hard Choices

We all have moments when we feel generous and are proud of ourselves later. We all also have moments when we were really uncomfortable. Perhaps someone came begging and we said no. Maybe we were tired of being taken advantage of.

My story is about one midnight in the hospital, in my former career as a nurse. I was the night supervisor. I was called by the postpartum unit because apparently a mother and daughter had set up housekeeping in the lobby area by the elevator on the floor of the postpartum unit. They weren't patients, they were just homeless people who had decided that this was a nice warm place to be. There was a restroom right there. Of course there was no place to bathe, but at least they were warm.

But it was disturbing to the nurses, and since these two were dirty and frankly looked like they might have psychiatric problems, the patients worried about the safety of their babies. So however much my heart went out to them because they were homeless, I had to evict them. I didn't do it without offering to take them to the crisis center so that we could find them a homeless shelter. The daughter heard mention of the crisis center and got very upset. She looked to be in her late 20s, although it is hard to tell when people are in such bad shape as she was. It was clear that she had been to the crisis center before for admission to the psych ward and she did not want that.

I tried to reassure her that we weren't going to admit her, just find them a place to say. Her mother wanted to take the help. But she did not, and so I gently but firmly escorted them to the doors of the hospital. I felt horrible about throwing them out. All I could think of was, "I was hungry and you did not feed me...."

A week later they were back. The weather had gotten worse. The mother wanted to talk shelter. The daughter was still scared but had come along. But the daughter kept saying, "What about your niece? She has plenty." At one point she was screaming it at her mother. She was very angry at her cousin for having more and not caring.

So the person in charge of the crisis unit called the niece. It turns out the niece was a doctor. She had worked hard to get through medical school and residency and was doing well. She had been supporting these two for years, and when they got evicted from their apartment because they had made a shambles of it, she even took them in. They lived with her until she couldn't take it any more. They didn't bathe and didn't clean up after themselves and she finally threw them out.

Being good stewards isn't always easy or pretty. I had a lot of mixed emotions being caught in the middle of all this. I worked hard all night every night and so did hundreds of people in that hospital. We worked hard to care for others and to earn money to take care of our families. That niece had worked hard to get through medical school and still worked many hours caring for others to earn what she had. And here were these people demanding and feeling entitled to be taken care of for doing nothing.

The niece finally agreed to pay for a hotel for one week while she figured out what to do with them. She was struggling with her feelings about all of this, as I was.

It has taken a lot for me to sort out these feelings.

First, none of us is entitled to anything. Everything is a gift from God who doesn't have to give us anything. So I am not wrong to feel uncomfortable when people demand what is not theirs as their due.

But God has given to many of us generously. Not just in money, but in talents that help us to do the jobs we do. God has given us opportunities for education and put us in places where we can feel fulfilled as well as earn more than enough to care for ourselves and our families.

We will struggle always to find the right answers when faced with those who demand what is not theirs. As we try to hold on to what is not ours but God's, hopefully we will all learn something.

Giving them another handout teaches them nothing. It teaches us maybe to remember and be thankful for what we have. (I always figure that when Jesus said to "sell all your possessions and give alms," he was not so much worried about the poor as about us. The hope is that at some point they will also learn what we often forget, that working and caring for others brings as much joy as receiving.

So we give not because the other demands but because it might be Christ (although it is hard to see Christ when the hungry and the homeless are so angry and demanding). And we pray that their lives might be changed. And we pray that all of our hearts might be changed to be grateful for all that we have.

Lord, be with us as we struggle with the hard questions of life. Soften all our hearts to see you in the midst of it all. Amen

The Rev. Dana Reardon is pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Warwick, RI. A lifelong Lutheran, she came to ordained ministry after 21 years in nursing, mostly in pediatric intensive care. She graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1998 and served 4 ½ years in Upstate New York before becoming a New Englander. She is still trying to understand the accent. While in the Upstate New York Synod she chaired the Stewardship Team. That began her fascination with what makes stewards -- and more, what makes for generosity. She has three amazing daughters: Pastor Reardon says much of what she knows of life she learned from them.