Today my class has to take the bus, or walk, from the clinic to the pharmacy to the grocery store, then plan a grocery list for a family of 3 for a week with $128.00. It’s an assignment designed to allow physicians-in-training to understand a little of what many of their patients have to cope with.
The alarm, dismay, and consternation displayed by some of my classmates when we were given the details of this assignment were a revelation. It’s no secret that I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks—which, not coincidentally, is where I live now (on which more in a moment). Public bus systems just aren’t that scary to me; I walked, or took the bus home from school, on and off from ages 12 to 16.
I came to medical school with a car that might or might not last, so my house is 9 blocks from school, and only 1 block and 6 blocks from St. John’s and Memorial hospitals (hence the high-risk location), with a grocery store 4 blocks away. I don’t expect grocery planning to be terribly challenging, either: Eating nutritiously (if uninterestingly) on the cheap is another ongoing hobby of mine.
All of which is to say that when I got the assignment, I wasn’t anticipating trouble completing it—unless I got really unlucky crossing the road.
But it turns out that there was another component to the assignment: Spent.
And that feeling smug goeth before a fall, and complacency before a kick in the rear.
I thought I understood some of my patients’ challenges. Turns out I don’t. No matter where I grew up, or where I live now, or what my intimacy with public transport, I’m not an adult with a family trying to survive at the federal poverty line.
Play ‘Spent’ in the next week, even if you do nothing else to understand those outside your circle and circumstances. Because no matter what you think you know about what it takes to survive on a low income…you don’t. You really, really don’t.
Go play. Have a good week. And share the game, where and as you can.
We’re all in this together. Pass it on.
Labels: finance, homelessness, poverty, social justice
A dedicated iconoclast, I normally don't plug nonprofit organizations- even those to which I belong.
As an organized-religion-phobe, religious nonprofits normally don't register on my radar- with the exception of those with which I worked growing up (if you want to know about either set of organizations, contact me).
But Magdalene is something different. It's a community of women who are working to escape prostitution and drug addiction, founded by an Episcopal pastor.
Magdalene is free. It doesn't discriminate based on race or religion. And Becca Stevens, the pastor who founded it, set the program length at two years- long enough for the women to truly kick their habits and restructure their lives, to begin healing and building new lives for themselves.
It's a program that's not only compassionate but genuinely useful- that's designed to ensure that the women it helps really escape the horrors they work to leave behind.
I bring up this amazing place at this shopping-crazed time of year for a reason.
One of the ways in which Magdalene funds itself is by its bath-and-body "Thistle Farm" products. (Thistle, because it's considered a weed and it grows anywhere- including the concrete alleys where some of the women of Magdalene used to live. But its flowers are beautiful, and strong, and its roots grow deep and wide.)
Made by hand by the women who live at Magdalene, they're not only all-natural and high-quality, they're also an integral part of the rebuilding that Magdalene does.
The women of Magdalene make products that are wonderful, useful, healing. And with them they build the knowledge and confidence that they can contribute positively to the world around them, can create beauty and happiness both directly and indirectly.
The products are excellent (I love the Rose Grapefruit body balm), and the people who make them are outstanding too. All funds received go directly to the Magdalene program and residents.
Here's the website: Thistle Farms
And the story that goes with any gift you buy- the knowledge of what the people who buy (and use) Thistle Farm products are doing for the women who make them- is as good as the products themselves.Labels: diary, human rights, nonprofit, social justice
