When Faith Hurts

How can it be possible that the lovely Madelyn Simone will be celebrating birthday #6 this week? It seems like yesterday that I was first smitten with this beautiful new granddaughter, and now she’s six (going on sixteen). She’s a chatterbox who loves going to the mall (only because it’s been too cold to go to the park for Nana), and finds a new best friend wherever we go. She adores her sister, the delightful Elizabeth Holiday, although she currently pronounces her name Elizabeff, as she has recently lost two top and two bottom teeth.

While the loss of that first tooth can be distressing, teeth are a necessary loss in childhood so permanent teeth can emerge. Yet other childhood losses are truly traumatic and tragic. The loss of safety, the loss of protection, the loss of innocence – all have a cumulative impact on the growth and development of too many children in our world.

But this is Ashland, Ohio, someplace special. Why do we need to have this conversation here? Surely our children are safe. Well . . . In 2013, 408 cases of suspected child abuse and/or neglect were opened by children’s services in our county. That’s why we need to talk about keeping children safe.

Ashland Theological Seminary, the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County, Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, and University Hospitals are teaming up to bring this vital discussion to our area on March 1-2. The two-day conference, “When Faith Hurts: Understanding, Recognizing and Responding to the Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Impact of Child Maltreatment,” will connect voices from the faith community, law enforcement, mental health and child protection, as we learn together how to lessen risk and how to increase effective intervention when abuse does occur. Victor Vieth of the Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center is coming to Ashland to bring his expertise and experience to our conversation (register at ashlandmhrb.org/whenfaithhurts).     

Alison Feigh, another conference presenter, remembers the day when her eleven-year-old classmate, Jacob Wetterling, was abducted at gunpoint from the end of the gravel driveway at his Minnesota home. Although his picture has been on thousands of milk cartons, Jacob has never been found. You could “taste fear” in the days and weeks following his disappearance, Feigh remembers. Yet instead of crippling her, that early exposure to fear has motivated her life work. “We learned at a very young age the importance of speaking up for people who don’t have a voice because of that.”

How does the faith community fit into this picture? Vieth knows that “the spiritual impact of abuse can be devastating,” but he also recognizes that “spirituality can be a source of resiliency for many children, and that those who are able to cope spiritually, also do a better job of coping emotionally and physically.”  

Within the church, when abuse does occur, it is often shrouded in secrecy and shame. We struggle to believe that this could happen within our congregation, youth group, scouting program, or community center. We’ve rocked this baby when on nursery duty and we know the family. Who could possibly hurt this precious child? Often we’ve eaten a meal at the table with the perpetrator and his/her family. How can this be? And in our response, if there is any, we may meddle more than heal, not intentionally, but because we just don’t know what to do. Yet what I also know is that the path from abuse to wholeness can be powerfully supported and strengthened by the faith community.  

     

I would do anything in my power to protect Madelyn and Elizabeth from the abuses of this world. I long to do so for every child. But too many years in the trenches of social services force me to agree with Vieth: “We may never be able to prevent all cases of child abuse.” Yet he continues, “We can, though, make sure we respond with excellence to the cases that come to light.” I believe “there is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole.” That’s why I plan to gather with the care-givers of our community at AU so that our compassion might be extended with capable hands and voices.

It's Not Easy Being Green - or Poor

“It’s not easy being green,” is Kermit the Frog’s theme song. I’ve recently spent some time helping out at a Salvation Army center here in Ohio, and the more I talked with shelter residents and those looking for housing, the more disturbed I became. In my frustration, I changed one word to sing along with Kermit, “It’s not easy being poor.”

Their faces were unique. The twenty-one-year-old woman who had to take custody of her siblings because her mother couldn’t care for them. The family of five who cope daily with chronic illness and the lasting effects of a horrific car accident. The elderly couple with a disabled son who were evicted from their rental property because it was sold. The young man with $1000 in his pocket who can’t find anyone to rent to him because of his felony conviction. The family of six who sent the wrong amount as a payment for their electric bill, and now face disconnection and subsequent eviction from the trailer park where they’ve lived for fifteen years. They’re exhausted and discouraged. “It’s not easy being poor.” 

If the faces were unique, the themes were familiar. Systems bound by rules that make sense on paper but have little flexibility. Lack of transportation. Systems with departments that don’t talk to each other. Endless paperwork. Workers with unrealistic caseloads. Barriers to employment. A tight housing market. Poor communication skills. Hopelessness.    

 

Here’s what poverty looks like in Ashland County. The University of Washington School of Social Work developed a self-sufficiency standard, factoring in housing costs, child care, food, and other needs, taking into account the earned income credit and child tax credit. For a parent with one pre-school child, a wage of $14.01 an hour (at a full-time job) is needed to meet that minimum self-sufficiency standard here in our community. With two small children, it’s $19.72 an hour. Even with two adults in the home working full-time, they both have to make at least $11.59 an hour to make ends meet at the bare minimum.

But don’t we have a safety net of services and support through the government and local agencies? Well, yes and no. According to the Center for Community Solutions, a family that receives TANF (cash assistance), SNAP (food stamps), and WIC (supplemental food for pregnant women and young children) will receive the equivalent of $7,595 per year. To be fair, this doesn’t include the value of Medicaid or of a housing voucher if they can get one (the wait is 2+ years). Still, I’d hate to jump off a roof into that safety net.

$7,595, with a work requirement of thirty hours per week. In comparison, a full-time worker at minimum wage earns $16,848, the federal poverty level for a family of three is $20,090, and the self-sufficiency standard for that same family is $39,581. According to the Census Bureau, 8300 people in Ashland County lived below poverty level in 2013, but the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services reports that only 136 assistance groups (families) actually received what we’ve known as welfare payments in Ashland County that year. No wonder food pantry use has increased 375% since 2006. “It’s not easy being poor.”     

Have some people who are mired in poverty made unwise choices? Absolutely. But I’ve made a poor choice or two myself. Yet I have family support, overdraft protection, accident forgiveness, and credit cards as a cushion. They don’t.

In 1890, Salvation Army co-founder William Booth illustrated his concern for the poor with his Cab Horse Charter. In Victorian London, cab horses pulled carriages around the city every day, and the standard of care for them was this: When the horse is down, he is helped up. While she lives, she has food, shelter and work. Shouldn’t human beings deserve this minimal standard, asked Booth?

Kermit’s song continues: “It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things. And people tend to pass you over ‘cause you’re not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water – or stars in the sky. It’s not easy being green.” As one out of six of our neighbors know first hand, it’s not easy being poor either.