More Musings

The real answer to poverty is education. Some other first world countries like Sweden and Norway make education available to all. Their taxes are high but there are no real rich and no poor because through taxation the wealth is redistributed more fairly. Health care is also provided through higher taxes.

We too have high taxes. If you count income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, personal taxes, luxury taxes, and various and sundry other taxes, ours are probably just as high. But the benefit we get from the taxes here is negligible, compared to other first world countries.

Our roads and highways and the infrastructure everywhere in America is falling apart. The tax money we do have is wasted on non essentials and roads to nowhere while the essentials are postponed indefinitely. Health care for every American should be a right

I have a friend from England who came to America for a month's vacation. He was appalled, not only with the poverty but with the squalor everywhere. The streets are strewn with trash. People put their old refrigerators on their porches and park their cars on their lawns. And this is allowed. He noted trash along the highways that people just toss out of their cars. It's a tragedy the way some people live here. They seem to have no pride in their property or themselves.

Our church, too, along with some other Christian churches, work to alleviate poverty and hunger in the world. We have missions in all the third world countries and we send agronomists to help the poor to know what crops to plant for the best return. We provide seed. Also we provide goats and cattle so that those folks can make a decent living in their culture. But first of all, we provide schools and education, knowing the road out of poverty is education. We're a tiny church but our oblation funds provide all this. Everywhere we go, our mission is to teach people about Jesus and his teachings about the kingdom of God on earth, where everyone is accepted and loved and all enjoy the benefits of whatever there is to share. The very early church shared the common meal. That is our way of sharing.

In God's kingdom, there are no rich or poor. Those who have, share with those who have not... and teach them how to make the very most of what skills they already have, sometimes even providing markets for what they produce.

If all churches worked together with these goals in mind...making life better for all in this world and not worrying so much about salvation in another world, it would be a far better world in the here and now for all.