Charity

In 1887, a small group of women in the then separate towns of Winston and Salem, organized the Ladies Twin City Hospital Association to raise funds for the community's first hospital which began operation six months later. Today that hospital is the 983-bed Forsyth Medical Center, a non-profit organization serving the citizens of Winston-Salem, Forsyth County and surrounding areas.

Nearly a hundred years after its founding both my Mother and Father were patients there at various times. Once, while waiting for one reason or another to see them I visited the hospital's small museum furbished with photographs and other items from its early days. I've long since forgotten the details of the bone saws, syringes and otoscopes on displays. What remains with me is a recallection of an early book listing the names of the hospitals patients along with their addresses, ailments and charges for services rendered.

The charge for services for about one in four of the patients was "C" which the caption indicated stood for "charity".

I was reminded of that book yesterday when I received an email from Large with a suggestion to go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLJxmJZXgNI and watch the YouTube video.

Before you do so, be aware that Martin Memorial Medical Center is a 344-bed non-profit private hospital in Stuart, Florida. It began in 1939 and, according to their Web site:

The hospital was founded on the principles that patients should have access to medical treatment regardless of ability to pay, and treatment would be given to all people, regardless of race.

Now go have a listen to their Director of Corporate Business Services. While I am personally sickened by the total lack of compassion and ethical considerations in her presentation, it does bring to light the conflict between the Christian nation we profess to be and the realities of the nation that we have become.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

1Corinthians 13

I fear we have become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.