My family is coming in to town. We've bought the food and will soon start preparing the squash apple bisque and my mother's famous cornbread dressing for the big event tomorrow. Thanksgiving shows are on the radio, shared recipes abound, and I'm trying to ignore the Christmas decorations hanging on store windows and doorways --as always.
Unfortunately many people in the United States aren't experiencing a traditional Thanksgiving this year. Jane Black in today's Washington Post states that: "Breaking the symbolically important 30 million mark [of requested food stamps] comes on the heels of government data showing that 11.9 million people went hungry in the United States at some point last year. That included nearly 700,000 children, up more than 50 percent from the year before."
Clearly, we're in an economic crisis of a magnitude that many of us have never seen. Now that the middle class has been affected -- the government is paying attention. While that makes the people who have been working against extreme poverty a bit cynical, there is some good that comes from this.
My hope is that these hard times will get the attention of hundreds of thousands of middle-class Americans to see the hardships that some folks all over the world face on a daily, weekly, yearly basis. We need to work on structural change. That's the point of sustainable good: we don't spend our weeks pointlessly shifting dollar figures around to this and that agency. We work -- at a grassroots level -- to bring structural change within our economy and within the minds and hearts of all.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Celebrate the hope that everyone can have 3 full meals a day.
-Karyn Wingard-Manuel
dear sir daily i have received your e letters from you what can i do for your e letter what use for me .i am a pastor and i dooing gospal work with my frendly pastors .i need some of help for gospal work can you do any help to my ministries please tell us how can i get help fropm you r org .i dont know how to apporch to get finacieal help to my ministries .what use for reading your e letters so i requst you please tell us how to apporch please give us helpers mail addrases to me thanku yours salikity vaikuntarao .if i reding your e letters in my long life i never get any help from you
Posted by: pastor salikity vaikuntarao | July 16, 2009 at 04:53 AM