priorities

I encountered a new blog last week, thanks to my Catholic and Episcopal Facebook friends. It’s leave it lay where Jesus flang it, written by Margaret, who describes herself as “an Episcopal priest in Eagle Butte, South Dakota on the Cheyenne River Reservation.”

Last week she wrote about the real human cost of the sequester among the rural poor Native Americans.

Regarding the local social services program she says:

…the clients themselves have been cut off –they have received no monies since the beginning of March. They are coming to my door asking for heating fuel, food, clothes, diapers. Children are at risk. There are no Tribal programs that can assist these folks, they are mostly disabled, elderly with grandchildren in the home, or are desperate for work. Last night, after a funeral, I delivered left over food to people’s homes. Funeral food to a family of six of baloney sandwiches, biscuits, two apples, two oranges and some chocolate cake.

Meanwhile, Congress has passed a bill to allow the FAA to shift around funds and avoid the furlough of air traffic controllers. The wealthy and influential, those with a voice and those with influence, cannot be inconvenienced. The poor, the young and elderly, are forgotten and ignored.

It is a tautology to ask what is wrong with our society.