On Thursday, I spent several hours at the Sonrise Church in Hillsboro. (Special call out to Rachel Nelson who was also in attendance!). A homelessness forum had been convened under the title “Addressing Homelessness: A Dialogue between Faith and Government.” This gathering gave stakeholders in Washington County the opportunity to converse and share the difficulties they face in confronting the very genuine crisis that homelessness poses to our communities and most of all to those of our neighbors who live on the street.
When Shiri was nine months old we made the trek via car from Dallas, Texas to Portland, Oregon. Those five days left Duncan and me with frazzled nerves, to say the least. We’d wake up every morning praying for an easy day in the car, and what usually got us through was singing the same three songs and reading the same book over and over again.
I often wonder whether my voice is somehow mysteriously muffled like the adult voices in the animated Charlie Brown movies, or if perhaps I am just not a clear speaker. It occurs to me that occasionally my voice becomes the background noise to the rest of life.
The roads were already icy by midday on Sunday, December 24th. I wasn’t overly concerned. We had just put new tires on the Subaru five days earlier, and there’s nothing so sticky as a fresh pair of treads. That plus the Suby’s all-wheel drive made navigating the hills around us pretty straightforward.
I get emotional when I stop to think about my beautiful daughter growing up. Each phase, even the tough ones, are precious and so fleeting. I look forward to each new milestone she will achieve, but still mourn the passing of each day as she grows out of her younger self and relies less on me.
I have a variety of keepsakes I carry with me on any given day. They remind me of my father, my grandparents, and my kids. I wear my father’s Jewish star every time I’m going through a major life moment. It was around my neck at my rabbinic ordination, as I birthed both of my babies and other milestones I knew he would have wanted to be there for.
Since 2003, the answer we have given as a state has been “yes, health care is a public mandate.” That was when we began to use a mechanism known as provider assessment. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of our neighbors and tens of thousands of our children gained access to stable, quality care through medicaid.
