Measuring Malfunction

As I was awaiting the arrival of some men for our weekly breakfast, the radio station announced with great pride that Food Share had surpassed its projected goal this season and was able to more than fulfil its target of 12,000 food hampers. As I thought about that, I wondered why it would be something of which to be proud. In my mind it was a statement of the tragic failure of our society and government to insure the well being of the people, which is its job.

Lest we think that the failure can be blamed on someone else, some unnamed perverse entity, we should consider the fact that our government and our society is we, the people. We have either by commission or complacency allowed our society to degenerate to the point that we have an increasing segment of the populace who either cannot or will not take care of themselves.

One would think that the goal of a modern healthy society would be to decrease the need for social assistance and not increase it. One would think that in our technologically advanced culture, new and greater heights of equanimity would be scaled every year. One would think that the ever-increasing tax burden and national debt would begin to show some positive return on our investment. However I suppose in order to realize all those things someone at some point would actually need to …think.

It seems to me that we are measuring the wrong matrices in order to determine success. I would think that a city could take true pride and celebrate an announcement of fewer people in need of social assistance not more, fewer children left hungry by neglectful parents not more, fewer single mothers, the victims of deadbeat husbands not more, fewer incidents of vagrancy and homelessness not more. What pride can we take in announcing that our social system is failing and needs to be propped up by non-profit organizations?

I appreciate the work of Food Share and other non-profits for their valiant efforts. Their willingness to fill what should be a non-existent gap in our social system needs to be applauded and celebrated. However I see in their success a cultural failure in upholding the values that have allowed us to by and large enjoy a standard of living among the best in the world.

It seems to me that we need to not only change our method of measurement but we need to re visit our biblical roots and begin to reintroduce our eroding historic values into our social psyche.