I received a phone call recently from Dr. Donald Amy, who had received compassionate care from one of UUCC’s parent congregations in the late 1950s. At the time, Donald was a struggling dental student who had no family support and no financial reserves to pay for food while he attended school.
The church hired Donald as a night watchman (which it probably didn’t need), and a member of the congregation, Tom Peterson, gave him a summer job doing a menial task that seemed arranged just to provide Donald with a “respectable” source of income. The minister at the time, Rev. Robert Killam, had subsidized this income with a significant loan, which he forgave completely when Donald graduated from dental school.
Dr. Amy writes, “With a degree and no place to practice, I joined the Air Force. To my surprise, I found a place I enjoyed. I could practice my profession without charging my patients. I was financially secure. I had comradery and could see the world. I retired after 22 years in the Air Force as a colonel with a major in prosthetics.”
At the age of 90, Dr. Amy now looks back and realizes the tremendous gift of support he received from the Unitarian Universalist congregation, and he followed up our delightful phone conversation with a donation of $10,000 in memory of Dr. Robert Killam. He requests that we use “at least some part for a hungry student.” And so we shall.
It’s impossible to know what Donald Amy would have done for food during those years if it hadn’t been for the generosity of our congregation’s predecessors. It’s quite likely he would have found a way, as many do. But one never knows what might have been. What we do know is that the gift of meaningful and compassionate care left a lasting impression on Dr. Amy, such that he feels deep gratitude these many years later.
Our generosity doesn’t always result in a monetary return on investment. But perhaps there are other dividends equally worthy of our consideration. A message of gratitude might not always follow compassionate care. But a person’s life might still have been deeply affected.
Sometimes it may feel like living into our values with integrity doesn’t make much of a difference. We may not see radical results in the world around us. So I’m grateful for letters and conversations with people like Donald Amy, in which I am reminded that the ripples of our actions extend out further than we can ever know.
For every Donald Amy, how many other lives have been nurtured toward wholeness and well-being? How many others might never pick up the phone or write a letter, yet have received and passed along what we might justifiably name liberating love? May we continue to be compassionately generous in all of our opportunities to foster a world in which all people thrive together.
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