{"id":185,"date":"2003-09-05T01:00:56","date_gmt":"2003-09-05T01:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:19","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:19","slug":"what_goodness_looks_like_from_the_inside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=185","title":{"rendered":"What Goodness Looks Like From the Inside"},"content":{"rendered":"

I followed the referrer logs (as I do obsessively) over to Donald Sensing’s, and got a present. He writes about<\/a> the nature of poverty in the U.S. and the world, and talks about a couple of hours he spent lessening the burden on one specific poor person he met as she walked down the highway away from her flat-tired car. If you haven’t read it yet, go read it now. He manages in one post to do three things:<\/p>\n

* He illuminates what the life of the struggling poor looks like here in the U.S.;<\/p>\n

* He compares it effectively with what it looks like in the rest of the world, and talks about the hopeful changes that are happening with little notice (linking to M. Simon’s piece below<\/a>);<\/p>\n

* And most of all, he lets you see what goodness looks like from the inside, and the cascade effect that one good act can have in inducing others to do good.<\/p>\n

“She was en route from Murfreesboro, 30 miles distant, to my town of Franklin to appear in court appearance for a non-traffic misdemeanor charge. She was late, so I took her to the court and went in to verify her reason for lateness to the judge if necessary. It wasn’t, but I hung around anyway.<\/p>\n

Rhonda was in her mid-thirties, a single, welfare mom with a four-year-old daughter. She had no family in Tennessee, nor any real friends, being a fairly new resident to the area. She had lost her job last week (she had been a restaurant hostess) because no child care was available for her evening shift. She had been taking her daughter to work but management had let her go for that reason. <\/p>\n

I had called the sheriff’s dispatch and asked them not to tow her car if possible, but when thunderstorm moved in the deputy on patrol decided it had to go. Knowing the road, I can’t blame him. But the tow charge would cost Rhonda $75, which she didn’t have, and she’d still have to fix her tire. <\/p>\n

The judge threw out the legal charge. Her public defender wrangled a deal with the tow operator and the sheriff’s department that if the department called that tow company for the next tow, they’d not charge Rhonda. Everyone agreed, so that was a relief. The tow lot hosed enough air into her tire to get up the road a stretch to a a Marathon gas station that had a garage.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now I know that things like this happen almost every day. I make it a habit to stop and help people – I’m a first responder. To be honest, I’m also somewhat less vulnerable than the average highway user, so it’s pretty safe for me. And I’m forever in the debt of people who’ve stopped to help me and mine; Miguel, who stopped his pickup truck and offered his cell phone – mine, being digital, of course had no signal – when Tenacious G had her motorcycle crash outside Bakersfield two years ago, and others over the years as well.<\/p>\n

I’ll also toss in a (doubtless controversial) policy suggestion we can take where the French actually do something right: My ex – sister in law runs a creche in Paris. The French have a system of public childcare that plugs directly into the public school system, and can deal with children as young as 18 months. <\/p>\n

Sensing commented: “That’s the nutshell problem: babysitting or child care, low wages and generally unreliable transportation.<\/i>” The leg of this tripod that can best b dealt with is childcare. While in an ideal world, a parent would stay home with children, for low wage workers this isn’t remotely an option. <\/p>\n

And while I’m not thrilled with the job our public school systems are doing, they’re nonetheless doing a pretty good job as I can directly testify from the experience of my three sons.<\/p>\n

I’ve been lucky (and hardworking and disciplined) enough that childcare for my sons was never an issue, and been able to be at jobs where I could walk off for a day to take care of a sick child without feeling my job was at risk. Rhonda, and the millions like her in the U.S. aren’t.<\/p>\n

I’m glad beyond belief that Donald was there to help, and that he’s the kind of man he obviously is.<\/p>\n

I’d hope that I, and those of you reading this, might think to do the same.<\/p>\n

And, in case you wonder why I’m a liberal, it’s because I’d love to see if there is anything we can do to lighten the burden and smooth the path of all the Rhondas out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rev. Donald Sensing writes about the nature of poverty in the U.S. and the world, and talks about a couple of hours he spent lessening the burden on one specific poor person he met.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}