John Kelly the Quintessential Good Samaritan
Foreword by Congresswoman Jackie Speier
John Kelly was a saint….an irreverent saint who refused to play by rules that made no sense and prevented him from offering shelter, food and health care for those in pain. He was never politically correct but always correct in his politics. I admired him more than words can communicate. I always felt like I was in the presence of a holy man who pushed the limits of human goodness.
As these thoughts are being written, the world is in the grips of a mighty pandemic. I wonder what John would say if he were here today. I have an inkling. While the captains of industry shake and ask for government assistance, John would ask for help for the poor. While the powerful delay questions of state due to partisan differences, John would counsel us to first pay attention to the welfare of children and then to rest assured that all else would be resolved accordingly.
I read an article recently which asked if all politicians lie all the time or just some of the time. It was a disheartening question, but not an uncommon sentiment in our times. John was quite different. He inspired politicians to be better than they thought they could be and when that didn’t work, he embarrassed them to the same end. Woe be to anyone of authority who failed to look John in the eye or who stumbled in making a commitment to those with no means for, assuredly, they would know their own weakness from John’s calm judgment.
Samaritan House was and remains John’s gift of generous spirit to one of the most dynamic communities on the planet. If we truly believe in equal opportunity, then John’s great masterpiece and his enduring legacy will be that this gift teaches the community how to turn the ideal of equal opportunity into reality each day. It’s an important lesson for a community that might otherwise slip into soulless self-absorption born of historic wealth.
Thank you, John, for your spirit and the institution that it built. Our community may survive on water from the Sierra Nevada mountain range, but we thirst for the humanity and humility that you bequeathed as your example.
Jackie Speier, U. S. Congresswoman, Democrat, from California
