Feed my lambs

I just "found" an old htm file on our hard drive... The Arizona Daily Star did publish the 2005 "Feed my lambs" letter. They just put it in their on-line editorial page. And of course I saved it as an htm file so I could go back and look at it. Tooting my own literary horn, I have been able to see quite a few "letters" published in the Star in the last few years, not just in 2005.

I guess that qualifies me to be one of those crazies that puts an opinion forth for all to see in the (probably) least read of all newsprint pages. My local freinds (when they have been unlucky enough to be bored into reading the editorials) always ask me "is that you that wrote that letter....? Andy Rooney I'm not, but every now and then something in the paper (probably I shouldn't read it every day) triggers that old twitch in the literary area of what's left of my gray matter.

Then there's this compulsion to sit down and vent... You know what? I always feel a little better for having done so. Not that it will mean anything in the long run. Other than inspiring a few "oh, there goes that nut again!" comments which, fortunately, I never hear. Should probably stick to writing this blog, which no one seems to read anyway.

Hipocrisy in Faith...

I sent the following to the Editor or our local paper, but since they probably won't publish it, am publishing it here. It looks like no one has hit on my Blog as yet, so probably no one will read it here, either. I'll feel better though. It was cathartic to write it and send it off! .....

To the editor:

In the lower right corner of “Cartoon Corner” in your March 26 Op Ed pages is a cartoon that says it all. It is a tiny cartoon, tiny by comparison to the top cartoon that has a groom promising his bride death by starvation in an elegant church setting. A box in black with a world globe turned to Africa and a dialogue balloon asking “What’s a feeding tube” points out the hypocrisy of American thought on moral issues of the day. The very size of the cartoon (which of course fits nicely into the space) says something about our priorities. The cartoonist, Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald-Leader, has hit on what should be the priority of all Christians who, at one time or another, must have heard that The Lord told his followers to “feed my lambs.” Note the plural, please. Seen any emergency congressional or presidential actions taken lately to feed starving children and adults at home and abroad?

When millions are starving world wide, and most Americans pay more attention to one unfortunate woman dying in Florida than to pictures of hundreds of malnourished African babies dying because they can’t be fed, it is hypocrisy. I, too, am a Christian, and a believer in the right to life. But only when I am sure that all of those praying for the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube have sent at least a dollar to Food for the Poor or the Food Bank will I retract my opinion, and publicly eat the paper it is written on.

Joel