Amen

I was working the room at Savannah Day in Atlanta, the annual lobby-fest when a thousand people gather in the old train Depot and feast on boiled shrimp, bar-b-q, and steamed oysters. Bars are dotted throughout the room so there is plenty to drink.

Making my way from one end of the giant room to the other and back again, I probably had a hundred conversations that night. One sticks in my head the most, and it is the one that will require follow up.

As I made my way, I came to a less crowded area and there stood Jim Lientz, smiling at me as he took steps in my direction. Jim is Georgia's Chief Operations Officer. All of the various Commissioners of the state's department report to him. He reports directly to the Governor. He and I go way back. My mother used to work for him.

"You never come see my anymore," he said.

And it is true that over the past several years I visited his office countless times and he has visited Union Mission numerous times, often bringing various Commissioners with him.

"That's because I learned that it really doesn't do much good to come see you," I replied.

He stopped dead in his tracks and the smile vanished from his face. "What do you mean?"

"Ah Jim, you try to do good and you certainly have done some good things for me. But those people who work for you don't really follow through because they didn't believe in the same things that we were trying to accomplish. I don't want to do that again."

He just stared at me for a moment before saying, "You need to come see me."

"OK, I'll come see you." And we warmly shook hands and then made our way in different directions which is symbolic of what we're doing anyway.

But I'll go and see him. I owe him that. Jim was the one who orchastrated the Savannah Area Behavioral Health Collaborative to receive state contracts. He was convinced that combining all of the state's resources into one seemless delivery system was the most appropriate and cost efficient way to meet the needs of the poor.

And that is what SABHC was doing. Primary care, behavioral health, oral health care, housing, and employment training and placement were all being blended into one system of care. And it was on a grand scale in little old Savannah. No one had ever done this before. Anywhere! And in in the end it proved to be too ambitious and ahead of its time.

It collapsed and fell apart largely because the people who worked for Jim failed to appreciate what we were trying to do. They were used to things being a certain way and we were forcing massive change. Sure, we had our challenges and some setbacks, but the benefits far outweighed them if you remained focused on the big picture.

And in the end that was what killed it. There were too many people who did not have the ability to see the big picture. They only saw what affected them. They magnified the failures and ignored the successes. They were like drops of water dripping on a large stone and the stone eventually shattered in spite of a few who did everything that they could to hold it together.

So I will go back and see Jim again. And it will be a reflective conversation. I will tell him these things and he will ask a great many questions and take a great many notes. We will talk about this person and that person. Then I will ask him how we could have done things differently so that the next time we do it right.

I owe him that. I owe Union Mission that. I owe Memorial Health University Medical Center that. I owe my community that. I owe it to Julie because it costs her most of all.

But I also owe it to the mentally ill woman who came to me on the last day that SABHC was in operation. We were in the cafeteria where mentally ill people received two hot nutritious meals everyday.

She threw her arms arouund me and burried her head in my chest and pleaded. "Please don't take our lunches away from us! Please! PLEASE!! PLEASE!!!!"

And a chorus of mentally ill people began yelling at us. "Yes!" "That's right!" "Tell him about it!"

I hearded it as "Amen." But I have learned something. Amen is not the end. It is the chorus of believers saying "Yes!"