Outlasting Adversity: Patchwork Central’s Evolving Mission with Amy and John Rich (Part 2)

Phillip Amerson [00:00:00]:

Go. Greetings, everyone. This is Phil Amerson again with the To Be and Do podcast. And this is the second interview we're doing with Amy and John Rich at Patchwork Central in Evansville, Indiana. Let's see, the address used to be 100 Washington Boulevard. 100 Washington Avenue, Indiana. What's the zip code?

Amy Rich [00:00:28]:

47713.

Phillip Amerson [00:00:30]:

Still is 47713. We heard about your call to be there, your wonderful commitments to education and to. Well, we didn't hear exactly how you captured John, Amy, but that may be something for another recording. I don'. But, but boy, was Patchwork fortunate that you two showed up there and then were willing to come back as co directors. Tell us a bit about some of the other programs. We heard about some of what John does, although I'm sure there, there's a lot more to that story. But I'd like to push in two directions.

Phillip Amerson [00:01:31]:

The first, and both of them have to do with the future. What programs do you think are important to the future, John? I'd be interested in also hearing you talk a bit about what you perceive the changes to Medicaid will mean for your work and for that community. So I'll just toss it to both of you. Amy and John, what do you see in the future for your work at Patchwork?

Amy Rich [00:02:08]:

Yeah, I guess I would. As you may very well expect, it is. I think a big part of the answer is that there is so much in Flex right now that it, it is. It is one point where it's hard to know exactly what's going to happen in the future. I think we, we both enjoy what we do here, find it really rewarding. So it's. So it's difficult when you look around and see, you know, things like funding wise, things are a challenge. And, and hopefully, I guess our, our hope is that, that we can.

Amy Rich [00:02:55]:

Patchwork can hold on. We can hold on and can continue to be here. But, but kind of acknowledging that, that there is a major headwind at this point with, with just so many cuts to funding that may not directly cut, you know, may, may not even directly impact us, but impact the entire environment that Patchwork is in, whether it's cuts to services to the people who are coming through Patchwork, cuts to all of the different organizations that, that we work with or that the people we're serving work with also. And so any cuts anywhere in the whole system start to kind of make the system start to fall. Fall apart a little.

Phillip Amerson [00:03:55]:

Are persons without shelter? Is, are the number of those persons growing in your community?

Amy Rich [00:04:01]:

I Don't. I haven't heard that there's been a significant change yet. But it's one of those things that it feels like there's just the gathering storm of, I mean, Evan, Evansville now is, is, I think, becoming, it's becoming well better known that even in the state of Indiana, like, utility rates are the highest in Evansville of everywhere. Anywhere in, in Indiana. So, you know, the people, the number of people who are struggling for just paying, paying utilities, paying rent. Yeah. And then, then you add in, yeah. The concerns about Medicaid, concerns about food access, and it all starts to.

John Rich [00:04:57]:

Yeah. So I'll, I'll say a little more about Medicaid and again, I, I could get even further into the weeds, but I'll try not to know. Put you to sleep here. So, yeah, it's. So I guess I'll start even before the cuts that are coming. The cuts and the different policies that are, you know, sort of de facto cuts, even if people try to argue they're not real cuts, they are. But the, even before all of that, there's been a huge problem with Medicaid reimbursing for mental health, for therapists, for psychiatrists, and even when they reimburse for psychiatry, we have a shortage of psychiatric providers and prescribers in this area. And what people don't realize are sort of the ripple effects of that when people are living with mental illness that prevents them from seeking care that they need for physical illness, when that prevents them from being able to maintain housing and employment and education and all of those different things, and all of that is just an absolute drain on the health and the vibrancy and the flourishing of our community.

John Rich [00:06:09]:

So, I mean, we're already starting from a point of we needed to bolster Medicaid, not cut it. And, and, and even more now we're. So I'll just take a, for example, the work requirements that are coming down the pike. And some people say, well, oh, well, there should be work requirements. Well, first of all, the majority, literally over 50% of Medicaid recipients do work, you know, already work. You know, this is, this is clearly not a, some kind of, oh, there's a, there's too little employment. We need more employment. And then the studies clearly show in places like Georgia and other places that have tried work requirements that the work requirements do not increase, increase employment among Medicaid recipients because it's just adding a bunch of red tape that kicks people out of Medicaid.

John Rich [00:06:59]:

And it's, it's really a cost cutting Measure. It's really designed to kick people out of the system so that you can save money. And so again, I could go into more detail on that, but I'll sort of leave it there and say what that means for me and for patchwork is. And I really, again, it feels like a gathering storm, but it feels like people are going to be kicked out of their clinics, kicked out of their primary care practices. And even though I am explicitly not primary care, I am nursing level care, I can't diagnose, I can't prescribe, I can't do any of that stuff, but people are going to come to me and since I'm free and available and they can walk in and talk to me, they're going to try to get primary care from me. And that's, you know, and I just can't do that. But I'm going to be, or I'm afraid that I'm going to be really overwhelmed by a lot more need and a lot more sort of medically complex or medically needy things than I can really handle, which is kind of the case already.

Phillip Amerson [00:08:02]:

I'm sure you're right. And actually they're pretty good indicators already that all of us are going to be impacted by this.

Amy Rich [00:08:15]:

Right?

John Rich [00:08:16]:

Yeah. This isn't just poor people. This is all of us. Because this, this is going to mean that hospitals can't get reimbursed for by Medicaid when people show up at the ER and don't have Medicaid or in Indiana, there's hip, you know, the Healthy Indiana plan, if there's no reimbursement and no payment, you know, especially these smaller rural hospitals are going to have to close and that means less services and worse health for all of us.

Phillip Amerson [00:08:41]:

So what I'm going to ask you a theological question. I should ask Amy.

Amy Rich [00:08:50]:

I am not the theologian at all.

Phillip Amerson [00:08:54]:

Why do you, why do you think? What's the offense of the poor? Why theologically, are people able just to, to blame the poor for their situation?

John Rich [00:09:18]:

You want to take that? I'll, I'll say theologically, I don't know, because I think it, you, you need to put the theology in, in conversation with our cultural history and with things like psychology. I think there's, you know, there's, that there's a psychology of tribalism. There's a psychology of them and us. And, you know, that works along racial lines, that works along socioeconomic lines. So I think part of it is just a, they're not like us. They don't deserve the things we do. And it's really interesting how even people in lower income brackets will look at other poor people and for whatever reason, justify, well, that person doesn't deserve Medicaid, but I do, you know, things like that. So there's.

John Rich [00:10:03]:

There's definitely the. The tribalism and the. And I think that is intentionally exacerbated by upper classes and those in power. Those in power, both politically, economically, and religiously, in people in religious power. So I think that's part of it. I think there's a culture based on the Puritan work ethic that plays into it. I think. You know, so there's a lot of different factors that we would need to put in conversation here.

John Rich [00:10:33]:

But theologically, you know, Jesus was dealing with this same stuff, and the. And the prophets were dealing with the same stuff when they were writing and saying, you know, these are your kin, these are your family, and you're treating them like they're not family. And that's the problem.

Phillip Amerson [00:10:49]:

So I came across an interesting insight from W.E.B. du Bois, the black historian, scholar linked to Milhouse College in Atlanta. And he said that what happened after the Civil War was that poor whites did not receive money, they did not receive land, but they were given one thing, and that was the false sense that they had status over others.

John Rich [00:11:26]:

Right. Yeah, I think. Yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:11:29]:

And. And that's part of what. What I'm seeing unfold. I also am concerned, and I don't want to beat up on any church, but, you know, there's still the First Amendment, I think, about free speech and establishment. Yeah, it's barely. Barely available. We had a lot of allies back when patchwork started in mainline churches and in the Catholic Church and in the Jewish community. And I'm sure they're still there.

Phillip Amerson [00:12:08]:

I mean, disciples in UCC were terrific. Oh, my goodness. Ed and Marion Willette.

Amy Rich [00:12:15]:

Oh, yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:12:16]:

Oh. You know, and. And other disciples folks, the Jewish community, the Catholic community. But I sense that in all of those places, there's a lessening of commitment to addressing issues of wealth disparity. Am I getting that right, or is that just a Bloomington problem?

Amy Rich [00:12:45]:

No, I like to.

John Rich [00:12:46]:

It's. It's hard to say. It's hard to generalize. I think. I think you have to go congregation by congregation. But I. I think there is a. A sense of.

John Rich [00:12:57]:

There's just so much going on. It's so overwhelming. I do hear from a lot of people, including a lot of church people that, you know, they now see, I think, in the past, where. Whereas they may have seen church as a means to try to address some of these social ills and disparities. I think now, especially with the 24 hour cable news cycle and Internet, you know, clickbaiting and things like that, I think there's, there's so much stimulation and intentional incitement of anger around political issues that I'm hearing more and more that people want to go to church to get away from that and not necessarily to address it. So I think that may be a dynamic that's going on that's very apt.

Phillip Amerson [00:13:44]:

You know, very helpful. So, Amy, where. Where will patchwork meander in the next.

Amy Rich [00:13:52]:

I. I don't know. I guess. I don't know because I guess that's, that's been in some ways kind of patchwork strength, I think, through all of the years is that, you know, there, there have been times where either that, that we've been here for or that we've heard all the stories about that that were, I think, potentially more difficult than, than what I'm anticipating, you know, the next year or two being. Being here. And, and a remarkable thing about patchwork that it, that it has managed to kind of. Because it's so many different things, because it's. Yeah.

Amy Rich [00:14:42]:

Because its vision is so broad, because it's this whole group of people. I mean. Yeah. Still is not a place that there's a single person saying, this is how we're doing things and this is where we're going. So I, I hope that, that, that sort of meandering kind of moving where, you know, with the group, wherever it's moving. You know, my, my hope would be that that'll. It'll. It will find some, we'll find out where we're going when we get there.

Amy Rich [00:15:24]:

Yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:15:27]:

Oh, now that, that is theology. I like that.

Amy Rich [00:15:32]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:15:36]:

Well, so I, I indicated that I might ask you, is there some symbol or some artifact or a story or a photo or a movie or something that you sort of hang on to and, and that represents your sense of hope or something sacred about your work.

John Rich [00:16:00]:

You want me to go?

Amy Rich [00:16:01]:

You can go first.

John Rich [00:16:02]:

So, so I thought, and I have one serious answer and one sort of tongue in cheek answer. And my serious answer is that for the occasion of my ordination, Amy created for me an amazing stole. And it is a, it is a patchwork stole. It is literally patched together from. And I gave her some different fabrics. There was one that was a shirt that my grandmother gave me and another was some of the fabric that she had used in some of her art and different fabrics. And then. So she made me this wonderful stole that I get to wear in worship.

John Rich [00:16:38]:

And then she. I chose a passage for her to write on the reverse side of the stall that no one else can see. But I know it's there. And it's not a. It's not a biblical passage, but it's a passage from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idols of the King, and it's Merlin's poem, and it's a poem about. It's. It's about the intersection of the eternal and the temporal. It's about resurrection, about all those things.

John Rich [00:17:08]:

So that's the serious answer. And even when I'm not wearing that stole, my mind will often go back there as an anchor. And then also. And part of what it represents is this partnership with Amy that is not just. I mean, she's a woman I love. But one of the big things that happened early in our relationship was I very clearly heard God speaking to me through her. And so especially when God was telling me to kind of knock it off. Right.

John Rich [00:17:40]:

So that's my serious answer. My. My tongue in cheek answer. Is that Mountain Dew, the soda Mountain Dew? Because that actually played a role in my call story. Because what happened was I was 17 years old. I was a junior in high school, staying up late, working on a term paper, and I had just drunk two. Two liter bottles of Mountain Dew to keep myself awake to. To write this term paper.

John Rich [00:18:07]:

And. And even though I had that much sugar and caffeine flowing through my veins, I lost consciousness. And I had a couple of visions. And the vision. And I had a vision of a circle of light in darkness. And I started out at a point in the middle of the circle, and then my perspective flipped to. My perspective was on the circumference of the circle, looking at the center. And then I had another vision of a multicolored tapestry of the universe.

John Rich [00:18:36]:

And I was one thread, and that thread was touching other threads and weaving in and out of them. And again, the looking back at that experience, I interpreted it to mean God was saying, look hard at what I created you to be. And the answer was a minister. And so the mountain. The Mountain Dew epiphany.

Phillip Amerson [00:18:58]:

Are you sure there weren't mushrooms involved?

John Rich [00:19:01]:

It was laced with psilocybin. No, but yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:19:06]:

Oh, that's wonderful. I love it. Both of them. Amy, how about you?

Amy Rich [00:19:10]:

Yeah. Yeah. So my. My answer is totally, totally different, I guess.

Phillip Amerson [00:19:17]:

Thank God.

John Rich [00:19:18]:

Yeah.

Amy Rich [00:19:18]:

Right, right, right. So it's sort of thinking. Thinking about. Yeah, just a random. Random stuff. So I. I started here. I as working in the children's program as an artist.

Amy Rich [00:19:34]:

And I always have done found object art. And I came and Jane Vickers, she had been here just a couple years at that point running the children's program. And she and I became friends because we both like working with found objects. And I haven't made much sculpture or anything lately, but still that, that interest in, in kind of the objects that people leave behind. So this is kind of the, the random answer, weird answer. I don't know. But yeah, I've got. In, in my office, there's.

Amy Rich [00:20:15]:

I've got this collection of. Of items from Patchwork that are the really oddball stuff that it's like, you know, so I kept adding it together so it's not so much a piece of art, but this, this sort of. I don't know what you would call it, but yeah, you know, and so the, The, the, the random coconut that had the time that the, the food pantry got coconuts and we're all like, huh, that hadn't been cracked in half or anything. It was just from the food bank. A whole bunch of coconuts. Like, what do you do with them? So, so there's. There's a coconut. And the, the.

Amy Rich [00:20:59]:

The legendary. Another legendary thing that came from the food pantry was a can of squid in ink that somebody had donated. Like, well, I'm sure those poor people are gonna want some squid in ink. And, and so, you know, the legendary squid and ink. And then there's like this ball of stuff that one of our guests a couple years ago was leaving behind. And they're these, these constructions of. Of odd items that are all kind of knotted together. And so that's there.

Amy Rich [00:21:36]:

And these. You know, there was one time a woman came and wanted to trade in these dimes that she had because they wouldn't work on the bus, but it was these dimes that somehow had been like, they were concave.

Phillip Amerson [00:21:52]:

Yeah.

Amy Rich [00:21:53]:

So, you know, so like all of these weird, you know, weird, weird items. But it's part of what I like about Patchwork is, is just getting to meet odd people, interesting people, people who are thinking different ways, unexpected items, you know. So. Yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:22:13]:

So I hope you both know this, but I suspect you look a lot more like the church of the future what Christendom looked like.

John Rich [00:22:24]:

I hope so.

Phillip Amerson [00:22:26]:

And it's a random collection of odd.

John Rich [00:22:30]:

Things that come together in community.

Phillip Amerson [00:22:33]:

That come together in community. And I want to thank Amy and John Rich for the time you spent today on this to be and do podcast. Part of what we say is that independence is important, but interdependence is so much more important. And you live that and model that, and I thank you for that. And people can find you on the website. We'll post your web connection and also maybe find a way to put the donate button. But I'll.

Amy Rich [00:23:07]:

Sure.

Phillip Amerson [00:23:08]:

Please donate to Central at 100 Washington Avenue in Evansville, Indiana. And. But there's a donate button on the website.

Amy Rich [00:23:19]:

On the website. Yeah.

Phillip Amerson [00:23:21]:

Thank you so much. God bless and keep on keeping on with your.

John Rich [00:23:27]:

Collection.

Amy Rich [00:23:29]:

Right.