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Good Morning One of the most obvious jobs of a priest is to visit those who are unable to leave their homes – either because of encroaching sickness or a disability. And anyone who has done this will know how grateful most of them are simply for a smile, the holding of a hand, a reassuring reminder that they are being remembered and, in the case of the church, prayed for. You can never really be there long enough because they rarely want you to go. The worst moment of such a home visit [and it happened again to me this week] is actually saying goodbye, pulling the locked door to, and knowing that this person’s life will continue for many hours in whatever the opposite of splendid isolation is. I often think of them for the rest of the day and in the night. The older I get, the more this strikes home to me: what if this were me? How would I feel or cope? Is this the culmination of life’s experience? These questions were reinforced on two fronts this week. First, ��ѿ��ý News featured the diary of Rochelle Monte, a careworker in the North West. It makes for compelling listening. “He begs me not to leave as he has little social contact”, Rochelle says with a lump in her throat: “not having the time to care” is the biggest problem, she adds, hurrying inevitably from client to client. Each of them is waiting for her. Her voice reflects how emotionally draining the offering of such sacrificial care can be. And also this week, after a number of scandals in residential homes, a report has been published illustrating how half a million people in Britain are dependent on the kind of home care offered by Rochelle and her colleagues across the country. The number needing such care is on the rise. Resources are stretched. Poverty exists in many guises. Some are more obvious than others. But when Jesus tells the crowd in the sermon on the mount “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” he turns upside down the notion that there is no hope for those who feel out of sight, without life or hope or a future. We can learn from them, he says. Whilst the focus has inevitably been on the physical health of the housebound who are part of an increasingly elderly population, my mind has also turned, again and again, to their spiritual and emotional well being. It’s about when the care worker or visitor pulls the door to. And how we can offer that kind of support and stimulus which the elderly not only need, but surely deserve?