Give us this day our daily bread

God Our Father, it is you who gives us this food.
Help all people that you made find this food.
Thank you Father, thank you Father
for this food that you give us.
Thank you Father, thank you Father
for this food that you give us.


A simple expression of faith.
What, or who, keeps all people God made from finding food?
It must have been intercepted.

Uncomfortable Truth: READ THIS ARTICLE

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/2_10_8/2_10_8.html

This piece by Kevin Pina is about the recent deluge of articles about Haitians eating dirt cookies in the slums (see my Feb. 6 post). But it asks the question few do: WHY are they eating dirt?

Could not our feelings of charity be also feelings of justice?

Haitians eat dirt because we have robbed them of everything else.

Please read this article.

What is she saying?

I had a conversation with a friend today about whether it's right to take photographs of people living in situations very different from ours, of poor people in poor places. While I've often despaired at the exploitive photography--poverty pornography--that abounds in our media, my friend reframed the issue for me. He told me it's not about "taking" a picture and robbing someone's identity for personal purposes. When done correctly, rather, photography is about communication: people tell their stories through what they show the camera. We don't take. They give.

This is Phalla, speaking to you from Cambodia--half a world away. She is blind, but at the end of my weeks with her, she wanted me to take her picture. She told me to show people at home, so they would know our friendship. She also asked for a copy, so she could show people. This photo is all I will ever see of her again.

What is she saying to you? What story is she telling?

Haiti in Ashes

“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Catholics around the world today heard these words and received the mark that begins a season of repentance, preparation for the salvation of Easter.

As I walked up the aisle—under the ornate, vaulted roof of the Basilica at Notre Dame—I couldn’t help but think of recent “news” from Haiti. “Haitians so poor they eat dirt” read the headline for an AP story run in publications across the country, even in my small community newspaper. Desperate Haitians in Cite Soleil and other slums eat dirt cookies to assuage the constant hunger pangs. Filling their stomachs with dust instead of nourishment.

Apparently, Haitians don’t even need to return to dust at the end of days. They have never left the dust. We are different. In our excessive material possessions, meticulously sanitized homes, and even overly decorated prayer, we need Ash Wednesday to attempt to return to humility—to faith only in the transcendent.

But in Haiti, children play in the dust, bare soles waiting for parasites. The old and frail sleep on the dust, offering no comfort to weary bones. And the hungry—the many many hungry—eat dust, simply having nothing else.

Where is the Bread of Life for them? I can’t help but wonder…

During Lent, Christians remember their charge to be Christ’s hands and feet on earth.

If we are to remember our beginning and eventual end in ashes, what better way to do so than to serve those who have never been allowed to forget their ashes?

Christ died for our sins and rose to bring us out of ashes. Haitians live in ashes. We are Christ on earth. So we must go to those living in ashes and offer them a chance to rise, as Jesus offered to us.

“Mwen te grangou, nou ban m manje….chak fwa nou te fè sa pou yonn nan pi piti pami frè m yo, se pou mwen nou te fè li.”

“I was hungry, you gave me food….each time you did this for one of the least among my brothers, you did it for me.”
Matthew 25