Recently, my faith community, Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church, has partnered with Undue Medical Debt, a national nonprofit that buys medical debt from creditors. However, instead of charging interest or collecting payments, the debt is canceled for individuals who cannot afford to pay it. The results are incredible; on average, Undue Medical Debt retires $100 of debt for every $1 donation. My recent contribution of $97.90 in honor of my friends at Chapelboro and 97.9 The Hill wiped out nearly $10,000 of debt! You can join us and make a donation here.
I acknowledge that eliminating the underlying problems that incur overwhelming debt is not as straightforward. Medical debt is expected to rise in North Carolina due to recent legislation, sins of omission and commission. The federal subsidies for the Affordable Care Act were allowed to expire, meaning that skyrocketing prices will force many to forgo insurance. Other “big, beautiful” legislation defunded Medicaid expansion, leaving hundreds of thousands without coverage. Premiums will now rise for those who have health insurance. (Read more here)
These disheartening developments could have been avoided by our elected officials; like it or not, these people wield incredible power over our lives and seem only concerned with maintaining their power. I, too, am prone to despair about what can be done.
At such low moments, I return to Wendell Berry’s essay in The Progressive (December 12, 2011) about collective action. The farmer-poet acknowledged that, especially in terms of his proactive efforts against coal mining companies, the results have seemed futile. The rich get richer at our expense, and we are unable to stop them.
But Berry remembers a lawyer he met at a public hearing in 1966. There were only a dozen or so people gathered to protest the abuses of “contour stripping,” which was a precursor to mountaintop removal. This lawyer did not own property that was impacted. Nor was he in any official representation for the plaintiffs. When Berry asked him why he was there, the man replied, “I want to be on the side of the right.”
The hard truth is that doing the right thing is rarely going to result in an exponential difference. It’s doubtful that you will receive proper credit or acknowledgment. Most of the time, the powers and principalities will not notice in the slightest. And yet, you can hope that your efforts of kindness and your gifts of attention will echo in the days to come in ways you will never know or imagine.
What you can know is what you believe in and what you stand for. As Berry wrote at the conclusion of his essay, being on the side of the right is “the one reason that will always be enough.”
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of the book with Wipf and Stock Publishers titled This Is the Day: A Year of Observing Unofficial Holidays about Ampersands, Bobbleheads, Buttons, Cousins, Hairball Awareness, Humbugs, Serendipity, Star Wars, Teenagers, Tenderness, Walking to School, Yo-Yos, and More. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he is a student of joy.
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