Some years ago, Mother Theresa commented on nursing homes, during one of her visits to the United States. She said:
“I can never forget the experience I had in visiting a home where they kept all these old parents of sons and daughters who had just put them into an institution and forgotten them - maybe. I saw that in that home these old people had everything - good food, comfortable place, television, everything, but everyone was looking toward the door. And I did not see a single one with a smile on the face. I turned to Sister and I asked: "Why do these people who have every comfort here, why are they all looking toward the door? Why are they not smiling?"
I am so used to seeing the smiles on our people, even the dying ones smile. And Sister said: "This is the way it is nearly every day. They are expecting, they are hoping that a son or daughter will come to visit them. They are hurt because they are forgotten." And see, this neglect to love brings spiritual poverty. Maybe in our own family we have somebody who is feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried. Are we there? Are we willing to give until it hurts in order to be with our families, or do we put our own interests first? These are the questions we must ask ourselves, especially as we begin this year of the family. We must remember that love begins at home and we must also remember that 'the future of humanity passes through the family.'
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. Let us ask ourselves if we are aware that maybe our husband, our wife, our children, or our parents live isolated from others, do not feel loved enough, even though they may live with us. Do we realize this? Where are the old people today? They are in nursing homes (if there are any). Why? Because they are not wanted, because they are too much trouble, because.....Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
For someone who lived in poverty up to her neck, amazingly, Mother Theresa with all of her experiences with the dying, and the very poorest of the poor subjugates the pain of hunger to the pain of being rejected. All of us at one time or another have felt that pain. In Desert Ministries we experience that rejection every day. For when you identify yourself, your organization with the rejected, you then are rejected.
Everyday we are confronted by the images of people oppressed on every continent of the globe, yet what do not see every day is that same cruelty inflicted on the frail seniors living in institutions across the United States.
We do not see their pictures in the news when they are hurt, unless of course it is so blatant that it cannot be ignored. We do not know their names, and we do not want to know. The outcry for our killed in action is justified, yet where is the outcry for the 6,000 or more frail elderly who will perish this year alone, at the hands of a careless or neglectful staff worker, not to mention the 6,000 that died last year, and the 6,000 that will die next year. The numbers are well underestimated, and staggering, yet where is the outcry.
The frail elderly are “invisible” to us, or so we convince ourselves that they are. For the moment, we may have deluded ourselves into thinking we have got away with this charade, but one day our thin rhetoric will be exposed. In that day the delusions will end.
Even more remarkable than that ending is the ending we will all experience here. At some point in the not to distant future, you too will become deemed invisible. You, too, will experience the pain of being judged incompetent, useless, a burden on society, a burden to your family, and relegated to a devalued life full of loneliness. Why is that remarkable, because we don’t believe that will happen to us. We believe that somehow we will escape, but the reality is far different, there is no escape.
Let those that have ears hear. The good news is that Desert Ministries’ volunteers hear. Their changed lives reflect the power of daring to minister to a widow. Unexpectedly, they have discovered truth not revealed in literature, but in experience, and in relationship. Most sublime, the widow, dips into her remaining resources to feed her naïve companion. The result is, refreshment, serenity, hope, love, the knowledge that today, I met Jesus face to face.
