A cyclist was struck and killed while heading home from work in Florida and his obituary was posted by The St. Petersburg Times.
About 11 p.m. Sept. 12, a car struck Neil Alan Smith and threw him off his bicycle on Fourth Street N. The car didn’t stop.
Mr. Smith, who was pedaling home from his job as a dishwasher at the Crab Shack, struck his head on a light post.
He was taken to Bayfront Medical Center. He died there six days later. He was 48.
Police have not located the hit-and-run driver.
Shortly after the St. Petersburg Times announced Mr. Smith’s death on its website, a reader posted a comment stating the following: A man who is working as a dishwasher at the Crab Shack at the age of 48 is surely better off dead.
Web editors removed the comment, deeming it an offensive and insensitive insult to a dead man’s friends and family. Though hardly unusual — check out the comments beneath stories about any recent tragedy — this one spurred the Times to make Mr. Smith the subject of this story, as a reminder that every life matters.
The comment which lead to the article? “A man who is working as a dishwasher at the Crab Shack at the age of 48 is surely better off dead.”
Read the story of Neil Smith, indeed, every life matters.
Kudos to ChristianWeek for publishing this article from a nurse who works at InSite – Why I help addicts shoot up. This won’t win the magazine any brownie points with some Conservative Party ChristianWeek readers. Good. Every life matters.
A participant walks up to me and gives me a hug. She comes in to use drugs multiple times in a day to feed the habit gnawing away at her. The previous week, she had overdosed and stopped breathing, her whole body shaking with a seizure. Now, she has returned to thank us. “You guys saved my life!” Then she adds, more quietly, “Sometimes I think that’s not worth anything—what’s the point? I’m just gonna use again anyways.” A moment passes, and her face brightens a little. “Well, at least I got hope, I got another day, another start, another chance.” This is a woman who understands grace.
Something about seeing people at their lowest and most desperate, half-clothed from turning tricks for drugs while hating themselves for it, opens into a profound level of intimacy. I am blessed to enter the darkest place of people whose sins are far more public than those of the rest of us. Constant humiliation makes the people I work with especially vulnerable, and vulnerable in almost every way: to violence, to exploitation, to false hope and finally to despair. When allowed into these dark places, it is my privilege, and that of all InSite staff, to communicate worth and love instead of judgment and scorn.
Go. Read.
Update: A YouTube of the author (Meera Bai) is linked up in the comments below and she has been showing up at Dr. John Stackhouse’s blog to address comments.
And finally for now, I have an email sitting in my inbox which has a list of businesses and organizations (some now defunct) registered with the State of Georgia by Eddie Long, New Baptist Missionary Baptist Church and a couple of his associates. I am inclined to think it’s not a full list and I noticed some were folded around the time the Grassley investigation was asking for information. My first thought was how much a mega-church is like a town or small city. My second thought was Amway – pyramids. I’m far from the only person who has thought that. It’s been a busy week for Long, thousands of news articles and blog posts have been written. Two of his accusers spoke to tv news reporters. A top Georgia private investigator has been hired to help his defense team. He’s coming out swinging.
One of the things I’ve been pondering is how someone gets so powerful, how a cult of personality can be built to the point that no one says no to the leader. Rachel Tabachnick is a top notch researcher and she has dug deeper than what most media does when scandal breaks. Her two posts at Talk2Action are not a skim read. If you want to understand how a mega-church leader like Long reach a place where no one says no, start with: Eddie Long Has Apostolic Authority Over 79 Churches in Georgia and More Nationwide. Part 2 is: Bishop Eddie Long – Dominion Theology and Disdain for Separation of Church and State.
This one shouldn’t have been an afterthought, but I have a head cold and can’t think my way out of a paper bag tonight. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Dr. John Stackhouse: Criticizing Christians Is it ever right to criticize other Christians in public? 1. Public criticism of other Christians is a clearly established as a normal part of Christian discourse. 2. We are given examples of public criticism, (but) also commands to undertake it. 3. Public criticism of mistaken Christians can be a legitimate defense of the reputation of God and the Church. Yes, there is a caveat for motivation.:^)
“Every life matters”
I’m absolutely certain that this is how God sees it. However, I confess that I often don’t think that way.
Thanks again BD for this important reminder!
Here is a video of the Insite nurse talking about her experience.
My minister likes to remind us that God doesn’t love us because we are worthy. Rather, we are worthy because God loves us. We are all God’s people. Not just those of us whom society deem acceptable.
Ro: Thank you.
Thank you for getting it – for linking our article about InSite with the fact that every human being matters. Society teaches differently – we pay lip service to the idea that we are all equal, but then force those with disabilities to live off of less than many people spend on their pets. Christians know better – because we have a deeper understanding of ourselves as created beings, we are able to see the Image of God in the stranger, the prostitute, the drug addict. Because of this, we should be the ones fighting loudest and hardest for InSite.
I teach, and sometimes it’s hard to remember that every kid counts. Every life counts. Even the ones who are rude and treat you badly. Even the ones who talk badly about your family. Even the ones who never work or who manipulate others or who disrupt the class. As a matter of fact, it’s precisely these people who need extra amounts of our love and care.
Re: criticizing other Christians…brings to mind the old Quaker practice of “disowning” someone or “reading them out of meeting,” a practice that was not actually so much aimed at the person disowned but the rest of society. Disowned members were welcome to continue worshiping with Quakers, and maintain friendship and business relationships–there was no sense of shunning. What disowning did was announce to the world that this person was not living in accordance with Quaker testimonies.
It seems to me that some criticism of fellow Christians might serve the same purpose, and rightly so.