On Friday, I took my first day off in a little over a year.
Beginning with a 5:30 a.m. email alerting us that a truck we were counting on to help deliver food to people shut-in for medical reasons would be unavailable, in rapid succession our web page crashed, our truck started leaking fluids from the rear wheels, and the Cubs lost on a brutally cold day. The staff here at Food For Greater Elgin rallied and managed to deliver the necessary boxes of food, and the day almost went off without a hitch.
The keyword being ‘almost’. Nothing that can’t be remedied, but it leads me to two thoughts:
First: For us, this translates into a day when there are more challenges than usual. We have a staff, and money, to be able to negotiate life’s hiccups. But for many of the people who rely upon us for food, a day like this one serves as a metaphor for a time in their lives when everything crashed: medical bills mounted up, jobs were lost and careers disappeared with the changing economy, and they were not merely inconvenienced, they were crushed.
On a concrete level, we provide our friends and neighbors with food for the week–one problem they won’t have to worry about. On a more abstract level, we help stop the free-fall that we are in when everything seems to be going wrong: We plant hope in people’s lives.
Second: There is an old Tibetan saying that when everything is going wrong, that is because there is something beautiful that is about to be born. What is it? Working to create a better future is what gives me hope for our work at Food For Greater Elgin.
Thank you for your support!
Michael Montgomery,
Executive Director