To the editor:
The other day I drove into Smith's Shopping Center and noticed a couple at the entrance with a sign "I am hungry - will work for food." They had that "gray" look about them that only the genuinely poor have - you can't fake it.I went into the store, thinking about them as I walked down the aisles, stacked and piled with food, finished my business and left. As I came to the same entrance, I saw them again. I stopped and gave them a small amount of money and drove away embarrassed and humiliated that I could not do more, that people in our society would have to beg (for work) only a hundred yards from so much food.
As I drove down the street, I thought of the millions of dollars to be spent on an Olympic sports facility, the dollars spent on wining and dining fat (literally) cats who could easily afford their own meals and of some $200,000 surplus from the Olympic PR effort that "they" didn't know what to do with.
What's wrong with us? This is not the responsibility of any one church or charitable organization - it's a duty of all of society. God will forgive us some shortcomings, but he will condemn that society that does not feed its poor.
Ray Heidt
Magna