By Peter Carey

In the midst of Episcopal Church news that includes court decisions in Virginia, inhibition of bishops, and disagreements in many congregations one might be forgiven for thinking that our church is rapidly swirling down the toilet bowl.

News Flash: It ain’t!

We don’t have too look far to see the bright spots in our church. Check out the growing network of Episcopal Internship Communities across the United States. For several decades, churches and dioceses have sponsored small groups (4-8) of young adults (18-30 years old or so) who live in community and each member works at a social service agency. There are slightly different guidelines and practices between these groups, but together they are sending thoughtful, prayerful, and dedicated young people into the Church and the world.

In 1992-1993, I had the good luck to join a community that was administered by the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. At the time, the “Cathedral Volunteer Service Community” was made up of six young adults from around the country. We hailed from Texas, North Carolina, Connecticut, Ohio and Vermont and came to the community from a variety of religious and political perspectives. We were lucky enough to have as our leader and mentor the Rev. Carole Crumley, who was then a canon of the National Cathedral (and is now a leader at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation). The CVSC was grounded in a Rule of Life that had echoes of Benedictine Spirituality. We pledged to live in intentional Christian Community, praying together daily, sharing in the work of the household, meeting once a week for theological reflection with Canon Crumley, and also pledged to live a life of simplicity. In this case, simplicity meant (in part) that we each only received $100 a month for food (which we pooled to shop for the six of us) and $100 for other expenses. That was simple living!

We were challenged to feed and entertain six people on $600 a month. We were also challenged find ways to build community across our various theological and political differences, and it was not always easy. To top it off, five of us were first-born children in our family of origin! (We had some strong personalities to manage.) Outside of our house, I had the great fortune of spending a year working at the Samaritan Ministry of Greater Washington (SMGW) where I offered employment counseling to those who were homeless or at risk of being homeless. Really, I didn’t know anything about finding work (as I never really had a job before!), but I encountered people who were decidedly different than me, and while I don’t know how much help I gave, I certainly learned a great deal.

The six people in my community followed a variety of paths after leaving the community. One became a priest within a few years after our program, two others became teachers, another worked in business and then decided to follow his heart and now does work with cancer patients, another does peace and justice advocacy with another denomination.

While the Cathedral Volunteer Service Community is no longer in existence, there are several other Episcopal Internship Communities that are thriving and growing. Trinity Episcopal Church in DC now offers a program in our nation’s capital. The Rev. Jason Cox, who is a friend of mine from seminary, administers the program in the Diocese of Los Angeles (Episcopal Urban Internship Program). There are several other communities which are offering young people a way to practice their faith by working for those in need, living in intentional community, and integrating this work and community-living into their theological views and spiritual practices. This is good news indeed! It also counters the long-standing assumption that people in their twenties and thirties will leave the church and will return only when they decide to have a family.

Some Episcopal Internship Communities are sponsored by parishes, others by groups of parishes, and others by dioceses. Not only are these wonderful opportunities for young people, they are also tangible signs that our church is doing good things in the world, and that the work is connected to our belief in Jesus Christ, our hope in the Resurrection and our call to live lives of hope and compassion.

As a new priest, I am often asked: “Does the church have anything to say to the world?” It certainly does! One of the best ways to “say something to the world” is to show the world what we’re doing. These programs say that our church is engaged with the world and is developing dedicated disciples.

Can we do more? Certainly.

Can we encourage even more of these programs to develop? Absolutely.
Is our church about more than legal battles, inhibitions, schism, and disagreements? You bet!

Check out the Episcopal Internship Communities at The Episcopal Church’s website in the section on “Domestic Internships.” There is also Facebook group “I was a member of an Episcopal Internship Community,” as well – check them out!

The Rev. Peter M. Carey is the school chaplain at St. Catherine's School for girls in Richmond, Virginia and is also on the clergy staff at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Richmond. He blogs at Santos Woodcarving Popsicles.

By Lauren R. Stanley

RENK, Sudan – On my left wrist, I wear two bracelets that I never take off. One is a black-and-white beaded affair that is quite popular in Sudan right now, called ajok, a symbol of the beauty of contrasting colors. The other is the white ONE campaign bracelet, which I have been wearing for over a year.

Recently, one of Sudan’s Episcopal bishops asked about my bracelets. He knew about the ajok bracelet, for it is part of the Dinka tradition and he is from the Dinka tribe. But this other one, he said, pointing to the ONE campaign, what is that?

So I explained that if everyone in the world actually donated1 percent of his or her income, we could end poverty, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, provide medicine and education, build up local businesses, reduce child mortality, combat deadly diseases and become real stewards of the environment.

In other words, I said, for mere pennies per person per day, we could change the world and help bring about God’s kingdom.

Where would the money go, the bishop immediately asked.

To programs that are proven to work well and that deliver on their promises.

This is a good idea, he said. How can we teach our people this?

So I pointed him to our newest project, the building of water cisterns to catch rainwater from the roof of St. Michael’s Chapel at the Renk Theological College. I pointed to the seemingly huge hole in the ground, dug by an older man named John Tho who showed up every morning and every evening for five days to dig 2 meters down, 1.5 meters around, with perfectly straight sides. John dug that hole, and is digging three others, all by hand, slowly, surely, with great professionalism.

Then I pointed to our contractor, Mohammed, and his two assistants, Solomon and Idriss, young men who are learning the craft of brick-laying and concrete-pouring. Normally, the three of them dig and build pit latrines. These water cisterns are new to them, but the idea of storing water in underground cisterns, where it will stay cool and clean, instead of in 55-gallon plastic barrels or rusted metal tanks, appeals to them. Already, they are thinking of how all this clean water will change the lives of all the people who have access to it.

And I pointed to those who gave life to this project: ECWs in two parishes in Winston Salem, N.C.; two congregations in the Diocese of Virginia; one men’s group in Southwestern Virginia; one family in Northern Virginia; and one individual, who combined their resources to finance underground water cisterns that will catch rainwater off the chapel’s zinc roof.

It’s not a huge project; the funding for the initial work was $5,400. And the cisterns, while good ideas, certainly won’t change the world.

But they will make all the difference to the students and staff at the Renk Theological College, to their families, and to the surrounding neighbors who come to take water from the College. During the rainy season, the White Nile River becomes the “Big Muddy;” the water on which all of us depend often is a dirty brown, and that is after it has been “filtered” at the water plant. It can take up to six months for the river to cleanse itself, during which time anyone drinking from the water, or bathing in it, is exposed to at least a dozen different diseases, many of which are deadly.

Catching the water off the zinc roof of the chapel will mean clean water, possibly for up to six months. During the long dry season, water from the taps (which comes intermittently at best) can be stored in the cisterns, where the silt will settle to the bottom, the water will be clean, and those who depend on it will not have to go without.

That’s the idea behind the ONE campaign: To take a little bit of money and make it go a long way to change the lives of as many people as possible. Nothing big needs to be done; grand plans do not need to be made. Instead, the focus is on little actions that change lives quickly and for the better.

Four contractors, working in brutal heat under a searing sun, are combining their professionalism with the funds and prayers and support from approximately 200 Americans who heard the story of the water shortages here in Renk and decided to do something about it.

That, I told the bishop, is how we make the ONE campaign work: We see the need, tell the story, create partnerships, pray constantly, work together.

Are we changing the world?

Not yet.

But we are changing one small piece of the world, and we are helping a whole lot of people here in Renk.

We think this is a good start.

And we hope – we pray – that once people see how well these cisterns work, they will want to do the same thing, which means we can start a small company here that will specialize in this work, thus providing jobs and training for one group of people, and clean water for another group.

Will we need more partners in this?

Yes. But that’s part of the ONE campaign: Bringing people together in the community in which they have been created, crossing all boundaries because there are no boundaries in God’s very good creation.

Our little informal portion of the ONE campaign is based on our hopes and dreams: We began this project in the hope that it will join people together across 8,000 miles. We are continuing it to help the people in most need right here in Renk. And we dream it continues to grow, with future partners who will fund the purchase of pumps to replace the ropes and buckets we will use at first. Perhaps we will even find the start-up money for a new company.

Whatever happens, we know that with these cisterns, we’ve begun something new among the people of God in the name of God.

The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley is an Appointed Missionary of the Episcopal Church serving in the Diocese of Renk, Sudan. She is a lecturer at the Renk Theological College, teaching Theology, Liturgy and English, and serves as chaplain for the students.

By Luiz Coelho

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean."

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, `Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

“Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner...” This Bible passage has always been one of the most striking to me in my whole life. I recall not receiving communion several times, when I felt not able (or willing) to allow God to free myself from a certain sin, whether it was a personal one or even a collective one. And I know this might be a very countercultural behavior, especially at a time sin has been apparently forgotten by many, and confession has become a rare event in peoples' lives.

However, it is my firm belief that there is no other way of behaving with respect to the magnificent care expressed by Jesus on that night right before he was betrayed, than with utmost respect and awe for his unconditional love towards us.

Acts of love are usually enhanced by unpredictable circumstances under which they happen, and the events that happened on that Thursday night were no different from that. The first of them was the washing of the feet. I imagine how shocked the disciples were to see their master, the Messiah, humbly washing their feet. Yes, the one who had taught them so much, was acting as if he were a simple servant. What they did not know, however, was that Jesus, on that night, was teaching them the most important lesson of all... a new commandment that resumed and consolidated his message so far.

“Love one another as I love you.” The strength of such a commandment goes far beyond our typical understanding of love. Jesus' love is so deep that it reaches even the one who would betray him hours later. His humility is so impressive that he does not care to wash tired and dirty feet, probably full of wounds and scars. Are we really following Jesus' new commandment and this new vision of love? It is easy for us to say that we love our neighbor, and in fact, many of us repeat those verses every Sunday. It is easy to strike our chests and claim we have given a certain amount of our money to the local shelter, a hospice in Guatemala or even for the Millenium Development Goals, but would we be willing to leave the ease of modern life and share all we have with the miserable? Would we live a simple life and truly be brothers and sisters of those who have no more than rice and beans to eat? Would we go to the slums and proclaim the Gospel to those for whom life has become a source of constant pain? Would we reach those who we should hate (and who hate us), whomever they are, and yet tell them we love them as Jesus loves all of us?

No, we would not. During Lent, we were theoretically called to fast, and give up on simple things that are important to us. However, how many times have we caught ourselves complaining about how hard it is to do that. How many times have we almost failed? It is difficult, it is very difficult to leave our comfort zone and realize that, for many people around the globe, our lenten fast is much fancier than what they will have in their whole lives. Do we really care? Do we really manifest this love Jesus has commanded us to show?

The apex of this love is expressed in the simple meal Jesus shared with his disciples shortly after he washed their feet. More than a memorial supper of bread and wine, more than a simple act of thanksgiving, the institution of the Holy Eucharist became a way through which Jesus' disciples could recapitulate his final act of self giving love for humankind. By giving his body and blood, he offered himself in sacrifice for us, and made us part of his own body. He shared our pain, and even in spite of all the suffering that was about to come, he was still able to love unconditionally.

The Eucharist should mean more to us than a weekly ceremony. It is the spiritual food that nourishes us and prepares us truly to be Jesus' disciples. When we take part of Jesus' body and blood, we commit ourselves to follow him with all our heart, live according to his commandment and flood this world with Christ's love. The same meal he instituted that night is a continuous reminder that, even not being perfect, we ought to struggle to be worthy of such unconditional love.

Maundy Thursday, more than a simple ceremony or a light meal, is a calling. As we remember Jesus' last moments with his disciples before his arrest, we are called to be worthy of such a wondrous love. We are called to truly love all humankind, sacrificing our own selfish desires for the common good. We are called to go to the slums and proclaim Jesus' message to the outcasts of society. We are called to embrace our enemies and to love them with all our heart. We are called to love the sick, the hungry and the needy. We are called to make a difference, and show to the world what Christ's love is about.

Luiz Coelho, a seminarian from the Diocese of Rio de Janero, spends part of the year in the BFA program at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His Web site includes his art and his blog, Wandering Christian, on which he examines "Christianity in the third millennium, from a progressive, Latin American and Anglican point of view."

By Martin L. Smith

One of the most popular expressions of outreach in Episcopal parishes takes the form of group travel to offer practical service to distant communities. The needs of communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina have called forth hundreds of such expeditions, and groups from our diocese alone are traveling all over the world.

Many of these expeditions link Christian communities, but the phenomenon is far wider than the churches. Thousands of people take part in projects such as those organized by Habitat for Humanity without any explicitly religious motivation. Nevertheless, this burgeoning of altruistic travel seems like a mutation of the ancient phenomenon of pilgrimage. Human beings from time immemorial have gone to great lengths to reach remote destinations in the quest of meaning. Our groups that set out to work for struggling communities, usually of the poor, are finding more meaning in their expeditions than merely the satisfaction that comes with being helpful.

Some of this surplus of meaning lies in the fact that in our socially stratified society middle class folk may never get the opportunity to make contact with the poor except through a mission trip. Maybe participants are being spurred not only by generosity but also a quest to find out what meaning people enjoy while living with a range of physical hardships and discomforts that our North American society is obsessed with eliminating. Many people return from their pilgrimages to Central American villages with compelling questions such as: How come that people who live with such physical discomforts seem far happier and contented, more trusting and hospitable than we are, who are so cocooned and protected?

The question calls to mind Henry Miller’s book about American culture, The Air Conditioned Nightmare. The title refers to our passion for controlling the environment through technology in order to insulate us from direct experience of the world around us. We have come to demand the right to determine the exact temperature of our homes and offices year round by the flick of a switch. Sixty years after Miller’s diatribe, our cult of technology and our worship of physical comfort is steadily intensifying as computers enable us to weave electronically controlled cocoons around us that we can fine-tune with the touch of a remote.

The nightmare consists in the disappointment that dogs so much apparent ‘progress.’ Does this ever increasing physical comfort generate any more joy or even alleviate anxiety? Does this compulsive concern with comfort and control achieve result in any healing or enhancing of our inner worlds? Our hearts remain recalcitrantly unstable and turbulent. Doesn’t all this self-coddling that almost abolishes physical exertion and muffles the impact of the natural seasons actually exaggerate our personal unease, making it seem gratuitous and intolerable? No one can invent a remote to enable us to bring our feelings into comfortable equilibrium. What we can control seems to throw into relief what stays beyond our control, the pervasive stress and anxiety that drugs can only medicate and hectically stimulating electronic entertainments merely repress.

Our people often come back from enjoying the simple hospitality of poor communities feeling that they gained more from their pilgrimage than they gave. The poor have something we are losing or have lost and their mission to us may be more important in the long run than the help we can give them. Where lies the secret of the hospitable and joyful life? What forms of simplicity, vulnerability and direct exposure to the natural world belong to our very humanity, that we lose at our peril?

We can’t answer these questions in a fog of romanticism. There is nothing blessed about dysentery, foul water, bad roofs, lack of schooling. There are fundamental human needs we must struggle to make sure are met everywhere. But there is nothing blessed either about our hyper-consumerist world that has enthroned comfort as its highest value and is obsessed with our technological ability to neutralize the reality of the natural world to which in reality we belong as creatures.

I wonder whether our local churches are up to the task of exploring these questions in depth. In the beatitudes, In the Beatitudes, Jesus prophetically congratulated the poor who keep faith with God, proclaiming that God intends the meek to inherit the earth. What they have and who they are is what God desires to establish across the globe. It is interesting that so many liberal Christians who pin their faith on Jesus’ teaching rather than classic Christian doctrine baulk when asked, “Do you long for the day when the meek inherit the earth?” (Congratulations to the honest Episcopalian whom I heard replying, “No, they wouldn’t know what to do with it!”) What have the poor got that we are losing, and that God our Creator supremely values and wants to have permanently established worldwide?

Martin Smith is well-known in the Episcopal Church and beyond as a priest, writer, preacher and leader of retreats. Through such popular works as A Season for the Spirit and The Word is Very Near You and in numerous workshops, lectures and retreats, he continues to explore a contemporary spirituality that encourages a lively conversation between new knowledge and the riches of tradition.

By Ron Tibbetts

I don’t even know her. I must admit I have seen her around, she may even have come to our dinners for the homeless on occasion, but I don’t know her. Our chance encounter this morning changes all of that though. I know she is 25 years old, I know she is thinner than she should be, I know she is an addict, and there isn’t much doubt she is mentally ill.

I know she is bright just by her choice of words, I know she has a cute little pixie look to her face and I know she is starved for someone to care for her despite who she is, where she is and even despite the history of wrong decisions that might have brought her to this day, a prostitute.

I know she hates men. Not all men but the kind of men who use her for her body, the kind of men who see her as nothing more that a sexual outlet, a human being meant only to be used and then discarded. And I know that in 25 years she has learned to distrust, to live hopeless, and to accept addiction, abuse, rape, prostitution and homelessness.

I know she is difficult, perhaps impossible to deal with at times. She is confrontational, a straight shooter not holding back on what she feels, what she sees, and she shares with street fluent language the truth about what she is certain of. It has only taken a few minutes, in this brief encounter to know she is hard beyond her 25 years, skeptical beyond the waves in her long brown hair. Behind the childlike face, with eyes that sparkle is learned deception, abuse, self interest and a lifetime of experience that should, and has, torn away the child inside and left behind a broken and tattered woman.

I have given her no more that one hour of my precious time. Time better spent in a much more productive effort, but she has had that hour of my life. Those 60 minutes that have shaken my heart, she is younger than my daughter, she has disquieted my mind, her story is the story of so many in her shoes, part fiction, mostly reality and it is the reality that is beyond my understanding. 60 minutes that have left me staggered even if only a part of what she shares is true, my legs weaken, my heart cries.

We have shared this time, God’s time, together and I can hope for only one more minute as she begins to gather up her belongings, a blanket, a pillow, a half empty bottle of vodka and a candy bar, and secrets all this away into a tattered and dirty pillow cover. She is ready to move on, to travel over the hill to the “Common”, Boston Common, and to fill her day full of the distractions that will keep her confronting her reality. Those things that will see that rather that hope, she will see despair, rather that promise, emptiness, rather that a sense of joy that she has lived through another night, only the agony of the tormented day ahead.

It is still early in the day, perhaps only 7:30 am. The morning sun begins to reach the narrow street upon which we have met, this child of God and I. The long shadows of the buildings around us begin to creep back, away from the middle of the street, and as this day in the city begins she, in a brief frantic moment, decides our time has ended. She dismisses me with “well I have things to do, I have to go now” I say only “I understand.”

And I do. I understand that we are so very different she and I. I understand that I cannot begin to know the void between us. I have never been resident where she lives each day only an outsider looking in.

I wish I could say “God bless you” or “be safe today”. I wish I could speak those words that would have her have turn away from the life she is living and begin a journey toward resurrection, I really wish I could, but for today that is not to be. She turns quickly toward the steep hill between her and the Common, and in a moment, almost running, she is off. She turns her head over her shoulder, looks back and shouts to me “thank you, God bless you, see you soon I hope, bye-bye” and she waves.

Not waiting for me to reply or even to return a wave, she turns her head forward and focuses on the hill ahead, the hill between her and “her people” the people outdoors.

This is why I do what I do, serve among the poor. This is why I step outside the doors of the church and onto the streets of the city. This is why I risk 60 minutes, one minute at a time, to seek the truth of our world but more importantly the truth of our Creator. I step out to be reminded that we are a world where brokenness is real. We are a world filled with imperfect, fractured and abused people who struggle to make it through the day. It is in this world that our Creator calls us to live. To live out the example of Jesus, to be healers, hope givers, comforters, friends, brothers and sisters.

I step outside the doors of the church to be staggered, to be stunned, to be made fully aware of the struggles of this world where we are called to be. I step outside keenly aware that I will be unsettled and I trust that God will be present in that storm. I think of the dismissal at the end of the liturgy, the time of sending out, of God’s saying to us “I call to you”- “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”.

Thank you, God bless you, see you soon I hope, bye-bye.
As once again I go.

The Rev. Ron Tibbetts, a deacon, is executive director of Neighborhood Action Inc., in Boston.

of this?

Excerpted from the Times of London:

The richest 2 per cent of adults own more than half the world’s wealth, according to the most comprehensive study of personal assets.

and

The richest 10 per cent of adults accounted for 85 per cent of assets. The bottom 50 per cent of the world’s adults owned barely 1 per cent of global wealth.

and

In terms of wealth distribution the US was among the most unequal, whereas Japan had one of the lowest levels of inequality. Britain ranked with Russia, Indonesia and Pakistan in wealth inequality

From Episcopal News Service:

Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold joined the leaders of four other Christian denominations today in a statement calling on members of the House Budget Committee to "eliminate the inequities in its federal budget and instead act to pass a budget that meets the moral test of serving ‘the common good.’"

The statement, written in the context of the Lenten season, examines the President’s FY ‘07 federal budget proposal which caps annual spending, resulting in $212 billion in cuts over five years in non-defense related discretionary spending, according to the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations in Washington.

This is the second year in a row that the leaders of the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, and United Church of Christ have called on Congress to reject a federal budget that cuts programs that serve the working poor, children and the elderly.

Under the President’s FY ‘07 budget, programs that are at risk for substantial cuts include Food Stamps, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, Commodity Supplemental Food Program, Pell Grants, Child Care, International HIV/AIDS funding, and environmental protection.

Earlier this month the Senate rejected some of President Bush’s proposed cuts in domestic discretionary spending, including cuts to Medicare. The House Committee on the Budget begins its work with a number of moderate Republican members of Congress calling on the committee to adopt a similar approach to the Senate.

All members of the House Budget Committee received the leaders’statement in advance of today’s session.

The text of the statement follows:

Read more »

I am not a huge fan of The Nation, largely because so many of its leading lights are glib yet ignorant on the subject of religion. But I recommend this blog entry by editor Katrina vanden Heuvel on poverty and inequality in the United States.

"These are times when the gap between the haves and have-nots in America has widened, when 37 million of our fellow citizens live in poverty (that's 12.7% of population--the highest percentage in the developed world), and each year more are added to the poverty rolls. (Under Bush, an additional 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line.)

Yet, poverty is, for all essential purposes, off the radar of America's political landscape. Maybe it's because there "are too many outrages to wake up to every morning? Maybe it's because the poor have no lobbyists and don't have the money to make campaign donations?"

What should people of faith be doing about the facts that she and the writers she reference present?