Yesterday, a woman came into the church office asking for help obtaining fire wood. Her house doesn't have central heat, evidently, so they use the fire place for heat. They had been out of fire wood for a couple weeks.
She had been to the service agencies in town, who sometimes have money to help people with heat. But they do that by paying utility bills, not by chopping down trees or hauling logs. They didn't quite know what to do with her, I think.
We called a church member, and he said he'd bring a load to her on Sunday when he comes back into town. In the meantime, I sent a tiny space heater home with her. At first, I said she could borrow it. But by the time I had fetched it from the other building, I decided just to let her keep it.
She has a 9-month-old baby and, I believe, a sick grampa she's caring for. It was 32 degrees this morning. I know it would be worse if we lived farther north and it had been colder longer. But this is so not okay.
Last night, long after she'd left, I realized we had a few logs left over from a cook-out a while ago. I thought about calling her and dropping them off. But I didn't. There weren't hardly enough of them to help much. Except that there probably were. Did I mention that it's 32 degrees out this morning?
I hate poverty. I hate inequality. I hate that people who need heat don't have it. It's simply not okay.
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3 comments:
Wow. A good reminder as I teach students about energy "crisis." That is truly a crisis.
You're right. That is simply NOT OKAY. The recession is hitting people hard, but it is not opening people's eyes to the general problems of wealth, poverty, and inequality. This is the shadow side to prosperity: poverty does not exist except in relation to wealth. So it's not enough just to end poverty. We can't do that unless we put an end to wealth. But that kind of talk gets you in a lot of trouble. Everyone wants to hold out for the hope that they might be wealthy. What if the "American Dream" was not the dream of more, but dream of enough?
Update: a local colleague and reader of this blog had one of his church members drop some wood off the next day. Thanks, CT!
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