The various properties of Presbyterian Homes are places you don't have to visit to get a feel for, with an online virtual tour just a click away.
Cybervisitors get led through dining rooms, atriums, lounges, a cafe, fitness center, cinema and chapel. When the short video was done, it was difficult to even remember any images of private rooms.
With a pandemic now underway, it's tempting to see a terrible vulnerability in senior-care centers like those in Presbyterian Homes. And not just in those places but also in offices or on a bus or in a church or a stadium.
In fact the COVID-19 pandemic goes right after one of our great strengths — genuine, face-to-face and know-each-other communities.
There's a danger that people might take a lesson from the pandemic experience that it's better to retreat from each other, that private spaces are much safer. Working from home on video forever? That would cost us.
We are going to have to work to maintain those communities as best we can through the pandemic.
When you think about it, the supportive communities of elder-care centers can be thought of as a metaphor for healthy neighborhoods, towns, cities and workplaces.
In a senior-care center, "the opportunity for our residents to be in relationship with others is vitally important," said the Rev. John Goertz, campus pastor at Presbyterian Homes & Services. "They are not left isolated in their home. There are other residents and certainly staff in tune with them, and want to support them at this point in their lives."