Marching to Close the School
of Americas and for ordained
women Catholic priest

Today, a day of giving thanks, we celebrated with my son and his family and a friend from Chicago. It was a low key celebration but with lots of good food.

Today, when it was near 60 degrees, will probably be the last fall day. Tomorrow the high is around 35 degrees and the future forecast is for more cold. I was able to do a little bit of insulating windows on the outside today with Air insulation system. From now on it will need to be insulation from the inside with the window inserts for sun room and other air methods.

Between eating, watching football on TV and talking I did not do much else after our friend and family came over. I realized that the attitude of gratitude that I often talk about is much harder to achieve when one is full than when one is hungry.

My friend wanted to volunteer in one of the many meal programs today for those who are poor and hungry. He did get the opportunity. There also are lots of food drives for those in need during the holiday season. Sometimes I feel like crying out to people that poor people go hungry more than 2 days, Thanksgiving and Christmas, a year but I do not do it. People mean well and they get a lot out of the annual giving of thanks by helping those in need during these holiday days. In fact when I was a youth minister at a church I used to take advantage of these giving days around Thanksgiving and Christmas to collect money, food and gifts for those in need.

The poor and hungry are appreciative of the food and gifts during these holiday season but are used to being neglected and do not expect much during the rest of the year.

In Milwaukee the poorest and most segregated area is the North Central side of town. This area is the most segregated, over 85% African American in the most segregated city in the USA and the poorest area of the city in the 4 poorest cities in the USA. People in this area take what they can get in terms of food, jobs and housing, which is not much. The great American dream our politicians talk about, that in the USA you can successful and what you want to be with hard work does not really apply to them. They are becoming systematically and institutionally being denied of their rights to health, opportunities, shelter, work and food that we all talk about and many just do during this time of year. (See The Church in North Central Milwaukee.

Feeding the poor is good and praised, trying to change the system that represses the poor makes you an outcast, just like those in need. However, without a basic change in our economic and justice system the poor will become poorer and the rich will become richer. For this we cannot give thanks to but are thankful of our rights to struggle to change the system and create a new one in the shell of the old one.

Comments

(:commentboxchrono:)