...And the Bad

Even though my break has been good so far, there was one story I heard from my Dad that depressed me quite a bit. Since my blog is primarily used for my venting, I'm going to write it out here.

Anyway, it happened down at the nursing home where Dad works. The building down there is split into two parts--the nursing home on one side and the retirement center on the other. Well, last week a couple in their eighties moved into the retirement center together. The man is in pretty good shape, but the woman isn't in very good health, and several people think that she should have gone into the nursing home instead. Nevertheless, the couple are in the retirement center where they get meals and participate in the nursing home activities, but they generally take care of themselves. Anyway, the other day, the woman fell in her room, and her husband walked through the halls looking for someone to help him lift her off the tile floor. He found the nursing home administrator, a middle aged man in good health who likes to where his conservative brand of Christianity on his sleave. The husband asked the administrator to please come help him lift his wife. The administrator said no. If she expected his help, she should have gone into the nursing home rather than the retirement center. Then, the administrator walked off, leaving the eighty-year-old man without someone to help him pick up his eighty-year-old wife. The old man eventually found one of the many other people down at the building that had at least the basic human compassion to help him lift her from the ground. But it's that administrator's denial that sticks in my mind.

I'll never understand how people, particularly people who call themselves Christians, can be so cruel. A lot of times, it even seems as if Christians are, in fact, the most cruel and unmerciful people there are. I remember reading the Frederick Douglass's autobiography how slave owners would become more cruel after converting to Christianity (and Douglass was a Christian too). I also remember seeing a preacher on tv bring military tanks onto the stage with him in order to urge support for the Iraq war. I could go on for a long time this way. Of course, I, much like Frederick Douglass, would say that Christians who display such cruelty aren't actually living out the story of Christ. That's evident. And it's clear that Christ warned about this over and over when he rebukes the Pharisees. But it's still so despairing when you see this so often.