One a Tuesday a month, I have the awesome privilege of going to Autumn Leaves, a senior care center for those with dementia and Alzheimer’s and similar diseases. (It is across the street from our old building in Orland.) I am there with some of our high school kids in our youth group. Our goal those evenings are just to hang out and get to know some of the residents there and provide them with some companionship for a couple of hours.
One of the things that struck me last Tuesday when I was there was that no matter who you are, everyone has a story. It might not be easily accessible in their memory banks for some of those residents, but everyone has a life story. It reminded me of something that I heard somewhere about how on each headstone, that line between the birth and the death contains that person’s whole life.
And that line, that person’s story is what lends them a special kind of dignity. Just like a fingerprint or a snowflake, no one life is ever the same. Everybody has experiences, both wonderful and sorrowful, that makes them who they are: a special, unique individual. This is a fact that we forget often, if even it shows up in our head at all.
When we yell at the waiter for messing up our order, we forget. When we mutter in exasperation at the “driver who doesn’t know how to drive” in front of us, we forget. When we dismiss children because they’re younger, we forget. When we belittle an older person just because they’re old and “don’t know any better,” we forget. We forget. We forget.
Jesus never forgot. In all of his life, he hung out with society’s rejected: the tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers and the socially forgotten. Why? Because he knew that each and every one of these people had value. They had dignity. He wanted them – along with the rest of the world – to know no matter who they were, what they had done, God loved them all. They were all God’s precious children.
I am reminded of that as I sit with people like Ernie at Autumn Leaves one Tuesday a month, asking him questions and listening to him talk. As he laughs and adjusts his gray newsboy hat, I smile and I do not see an older person ravaged by disease, but a whole person with a wonderful kind of dignity. The dignity that is being a child of God.
– Matt
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Everyone Has Dignity
November 4, 2010
Calvary
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Matt
One a Tuesday a month, I have the awesome privilege of going to Autumn Leaves, a senior care center for those with dementia and Alzheimer’s and similar diseases. (It is across the street from our old building in Orland.) I am there with some of our high school kids in our youth group. Our goal those evenings are just to hang out and get to know some of the residents there and provide them with some companionship for a couple of hours.
One of the things that struck me last Tuesday when I was there was that no matter who you are, everyone has a story. It might not be easily accessible in their memory banks for some of those residents, but everyone has a life story. It reminded me of something that I heard somewhere about how on each headstone, that line between the birth and the death contains that person’s whole life.
And that line, that person’s story is what lends them a special kind of dignity. Just like a fingerprint or a snowflake, no one life is ever the same. Everybody has experiences, both wonderful and sorrowful, that makes them who they are: a special, unique individual. This is a fact that we forget often, if even it shows up in our head at all.
When we yell at the waiter for messing up our order, we forget. When we mutter in exasperation at the “driver who doesn’t know how to drive” in front of us, we forget. When we dismiss children because they’re younger, we forget. When we belittle an older person just because they’re old and “don’t know any better,” we forget. We forget. We forget.
Jesus never forgot. In all of his life, he hung out with society’s rejected: the tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers and the socially forgotten. Why? Because he knew that each and every one of these people had value. They had dignity. He wanted them – along with the rest of the world – to know no matter who they were, what they had done, God loved them all. They were all God’s precious children.
I am reminded of that as I sit with people like Ernie at Autumn Leaves one Tuesday a month, asking him questions and listening to him talk. As he laughs and adjusts his gray newsboy hat, I smile and I do not see an older person ravaged by disease, but a whole person with a wonderful kind of dignity. The dignity that is being a child of God.
– Matt
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