Ida Lou

The comment to my last post by Debbie K. was deeply moving. She is an exceptional professional who serves in the formidable front line trench of a local congregation, sometimes known as the Church Office. She is, in other words, a congregation’s Office Manager, Secretary, Receptionist, Scheduler, HR Director, Building Supervisor, IT Guru and Computer Programmer, and the person whom people first encounter when they contact the Congregational Complaint Department (that is if they haven’t caught the pastor coming out of Rax’s and proceed to lambaste him there in front of God and the public). She is a Christian minister of the highest order! Church office personnel – usually just one person in most churches – are a rare breed. Their unique qualities include, but are not limited to, being aware of the inner workings of congregational politics, often discovering the dark, deceptive side of some “Christians,” and yet, not allowing such odiousness to overwhelm their spirit. Debbie, in addition to her proficiency in business and clerical administration, is a master of maintaining confidences and treating “all” those with whom she comes into contact through her work with dignity, respect and hospitality. What a privilege it is to have had a colleague in ministry with such gifts and graces, and with the added blessing of a terrific sense of humor! Debbie, I salute you!

Debbie’s comment also led me to recall others of her ilk I have known, and as with any group, some stand out because of the high commitment and skill they bring to their service, and others less so. Indeed, rather than helping to stave off ill winds that threaten to fan the flames of congregational confusion, some church office personnel I have known have exacerbated the confusion with driving destructive gales of their own. Other than simply alluding to that reality, however, I’ll not waste my time or yours by dwelling on it. No doubt, such individuals have their unique stories also, and if we understood their stories better, we would better understand them and their motivations.

One former Church Secretary who came to mind did so with deep gratitude and even deeper regret on my part. She was a gracious woman and long-suffering. I know that because she lived for years with an alcoholic, abusive husband, having been a stay-at-home mom whose uppermost devotion was to raising her two sons and providing as much as possible a “Jane Wyatt” atmosphere in which to grow and become credibly human. The fact that her two sons thrived and are doing well with families of their own attests to Ida Lou’s character and influence in their lives. (Unlike Billy Gray, aka Bud Anderson, teen-age son of “Father Knows Best” fame, who, if memory serves, fell into drug misuse, despite his “act” in the idyllic, sappy content of a television series of an unbelievably perfect home.)

After her boys were grown and on their own, Ida Lou finally threw in the towel in her seemingly unending boxing match of a marriage. Because her home had been a part of her birth family’s property prior to her marriage, she was able to keep it following the divorce. But (provided my recollection is accurate), that’s all she got in the divorce decree. She was cut out of her husband’s employee medical benefits as well as needed income to be able to continue to live in her home. That’s when she began to work as the Church Secretary of the congregation I was serving at the time. She brought with her considerable skill from her high school commercial education, and in no time at all, had acquired enough modern office machine technology to perform the day-to-day administrative operations. Moreover, her gentle spirit of cooperation and kindness provided exactly the kind of atmosphere that is a boon to any office setting.

But, she had no health insurance. She had been treated while under her husband’s health coverage for coronary problems, and I believe she even underwent surgery for the same. But after the divorce she could not afford follow-up treatment, and her only hope was to be able to make it to 65 when she would be eligible for Medicare. (I think she had one or two years to go.) The congregation I was serving at the time did make some inquiries into the possibility of providing Ida Lou with health coverage, but the cost was prohibitive, and as happens so often, the issue was tabled and forgotten.

Then one Sunday morning after Sunday School and before Worship, I met Ida Lou sitting outside her office and complaining how exhausted she felt. I made some stupid comment about being sorry to hear that, and then ran off to get robed and check in with the other worship leadership before lining up for the grand processional that marks the beginning of the worship service. After the worship service, Ida Lou joined three of her friends for lunch at a local restaurant, and then went home and laid down for a nap. That evening I received a call from one of her sons who, because his several attempts to reach his mom by phone went unanswered, went to the house and discovered that she had died.

Thus, Ida Lou became one of those 45,000 persons in the U. S. who die every year for lack of medical services. If only I had advocated more aggressively to find some way to help her get health insurance; if only I had pleaded with medical practitioners known to me on Ida Lou’s behalf, if only I had listened more carefully to Ida Lou’s complaint about being so tired (especially since she was a person who never complained, at least to me), then maybe the medical attention she needed might have been provided. I continue to regret my obtuseness in failing to advocate more strenuously for Ida Lou’s medical needs. All that can be done now is to ask for forgiveness from Ida Lou’s sons and their families, her friends, the members of the congregation, and the Source of forgiving love, for not doing more.

That, and to do what is humanly possible to help sway our national policy toward a single-payer Medicare-like medical coverage system for ALL!