U: Utterly Forgotten That Their Jobs Are Finally About Feeding and Clothing and Protecting and Schooling Children

Safety net. It's not meant for the politicians, but for the least fortunate in our society. Nowadays, too many people (mostly men) are attracted to politics for the attention and glory, not because they want to serve society. They don't notice the homeless man working in the Senate. 

They seek votes by making the poor into villains, such as the proposed legislation to restrict welfare recipients from spending money on luxuries. (HOW MANY WELFARE FAMILIES GO ON CRUISES OR EAT STEAKS??) And who is going to suffer the most from the three-year limit on welfare benefits? The children. 

What boggles my mind is that these politicians who craft bills to penalize the poor actually profess to be Christians. The Bible is clear on this topic. If anything, Christianity glorifies the poor and downtrodden. It doesn't vilify them. 

U: Desperate Prayer for Patience with Politicians with Excellent Suits and Shoes and Meticulous Hair and Gobs of Television Makeup Who Have Utterly Forgotten that Their Jobs Are Finally about Feeding and Clothing and Protecting and Schooling Children 

They are driving me stark muttering bubbling insane. They are nattering and preening. They are dissembling and speechifying. They are evading the question and mouthing empty slogans. They are attacking straw men of their own devising and calculating market share.

Their words are wind and dust and meanwhile children starve and are raped and have no beds and teachers and doctors. They say they will do things and they do not do these things. They appeal to the worst in us so as to be able to make money.

They send children to war though they have never been in war and do not know the savagery of what they are sending children to do. They abuse the power and sneer at the poor and condescend to the elderly and lie about their motivations and their biographies.

They would happily soil every lake and river and pond and creek and rivulet with every imaginable searing death-dealing chemical if there was enough money in it for them. They would foul every square meter of air with choking smoke and ash if there was enough money in it for them. They do not care about our children and our children's children.

They pose for photo opportunities on the way to church but they do not feed the hungry and clothe the naked and house the homeless and slake the thirst of those who are desperate.

Dear sweet Lord, give me the patience to be reasonable and call them calmly to account. Give them the startle of guilt and the ripple of shame. Make sore their consciences and shiver their arrogance so that they may puncture it themselves and so begin to achieve humility and be of actual honest genuine service to the least among us. This we pray, trying not to snarl overmuch.

And so: amen.

Here's more information on why I chose this focus for the A to Z, and you can read all my 2015 A to Z posts here. I hope you enjoy the celebrations of the miracle and muddle of the ordinary! 

You can buy the book at Brian's favorite local bookstore, Broadway Books, at Powell's Books, or on Amazon. Brian's work is used with permission of Ave Maria Press.