MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, ARE YOU LISTENING?

My dear friend Margaret wrote the following letter to her senators and representative:

Dear....,

My name is Margaret. I am the Episcopal priest serving the Cheyenne River Reservation. It is a difficult job, at best, but I have never felt more fully alive than when serving the good people of South Dakota.

Here is my concern: The "Sequester" cuts have cut to the bone here on the Reservation. Our Social Services workers will be working without a direct office supervisor, and will be expected to absorb the work load of their supervisor when she is laid off beginning May 1. They already each have over 150 clients. I have heard one serves more than 260 clients --adding more is going to make a difficult job impossible.

But more importantly, the clients themselves have been cut off --they have received no monies since the beginning of March. They are coming to my door asking for heating fuel, food, clothes, diapers. Children are at risk. There are no Tribal programs that can assist these folks, they are mostly disabled, elderly with grandchildren in the home, or are desperate for work. Last night, after a funeral, I delivered left over food to people's homes. Funeral food to a family of six of baloney sandwiches, biscuits, two apples, two oranges and some chocolate cake.

I cannot afford to feed all the people who come to my door asking for help. I have emptied my own freezer, my own cupboard in order to help these desperate folks.

I would like to invite you and any one else who is interested to come and stay here for ten days. Just ten days. I would like you to open my door and hear the stories, see the faces, see the desperation and despair. I would like you to feed the people from my freezer --and when it is empty explain to them why it is they have to go hungry and cold.

I would like you to attend the funeral I would probably do sometime in that 10 days and see the faithfulness, the generosity, the generational grief. I would like you to come with me on home visits and see the extreme poverty out of which that faithfulness and generosity and grief springs.

In the last six months, I have done 40 funerals --six infants, two teen suicides, and many, many folks under the age 40.

And food, shelter and heat are not the only problems here --the Indian Health Services were also part of the Sequester cuts. And the cuts are affecting the Head Start programs.

Have you all become so twisted up in your political lives that you have forgotten the people you have been called to serve?

I think so.

Look, it's really easy --have no cap on Social Security payments --everyone pays, all the way up. Including you. Don't make me pay 25% and more on taxes while the ultra-rich pay 15%. Don't give yourself healthcare benefits and raises and then deny them to others.

Don't punish the children and the elderly and the poor and the disabled by cutting the programs that at least keep them alive at poverty levels.  Oh, and by the way, don't sacrifice the environment for monetary gain --that will kill us all.

I'll say it again: Don't exempt yourselves from the burden the poor must bear every day.

I can only say I am shocked and depressed by my own government. Do better than this. The people you are supposed to serve deserve better.

Shocked and depressed,
The Rev. Margaret Watson

For you members of Congress who apparently believe that the inconvenience of delayed flights is the most serious consequence of the Sequester,  may I remind you of your oath upon assuming your offices?

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

The very first words of the Constitution are as follows:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (My emphasis)

When Native American citizens of  the richest country in the world live as Margaret describes the situation of her parishioners, something is very wrong.  In the best of times, her people number among the poorest.  In bad times such as these, their plight is desperate.

My prayer for you is that the words from the song of the prophet Ezekiel become the reality for you that will move you to exercise your power to end the Sequester and relieve the suffering people in these United States of America.

A new heart I will give you
and a new spirit put within you.
I will take the stone heart from your chest
and give you a heart of flesh.
I will help you walk in my laws
and cherish my commandments and do them.
You shall be my people,
and I will be your God.

(Ezekiel 36:26-28)

FOR MY FRIEND MARGARET

Margaret and Joel are doing what needs to be done before heading out to their new home in the Episcopal Mission on the Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota, home to Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Today at her blog, leave it lay where Jesus flang it, margaret speaks of the move and about leaving Richmond, Virginia:

I have loved it here. Truly loved it. The people. The foods. The worship. It hurts to pull on these roots....

Perhaps I can braid them, clean them off and make them strong, and carry them with me as an unexpected gift. One body. One Spirit. One calling. One Lord. One faith. One baptism. One God. Through all and in all.

To the big sky country, big wind country, sight equal only to the horizon... a new river to come to know.

I am so ready. Got so much to do. Amen.

From the wonderful book, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, by Kathleen Norris, who now spends half her time in South Dakota and the other half in Hawaii:

Communal worship is something I need; that it is an experience, not a philosophy or even theology. Whatever the pitch of my religious doubts, it is available to me for the asking. It seems a wonder to me that in our dull little town we can gather together to sing some great hymns, reflect on our lives, hear some astonishing scriptures (and maybe a boring sermon; you take your chances), offer some prayers and receive a blessing....

We all know that margaret needs communal worship, because she urges us each week, "G'wan. Go to church!" And nearly every Sunday, I follow her advice, because I, too, need communal worship, which is, indeed, a wonder. Margaret will preside and preach at the services in her churches. I have never heard margaret preach, but I have read her sermons, and I've read her blog for a number of years, and I have never been bored by what margaret writes. I rather doubt that the flocks in her new churches will be bored by her sermons. I just don't see it happening.

Almighty and everlasting God, from whom comes every good and perfect gift: Send down upon our dear margaret, and upon the congregations committed to her care, the healthful Spirit of your grace: and, that they may truly please you, pour upon them the continual dew of your blessing. Grant this, O Lord, for the honor of our Advocate and Mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The picture is lifted from margaret's blog.