Night of the Meek

I love the Twilight Zone.  I have always loved that.  So you know that we watch it on New Years Eve except one episode.  I should back this up as I explain.  My husband's parents have a rule about being out of the bedrooms on Christmas Eve.  As such, we were stuck in a room with one Christmas Eve trying to find something to watch.  I've never liked a Wonderful Life and Todd is hard to please so I found an episode of the Twilight Zone that has been a favorite of ours and apart of our Christmas routine.  Its called Night of the Meek.  Its a rare Twilight Zone written by Rod Serling that was rather gentle.

In this episode, a department store Santa, with a drinking problem finds a magical bag that can give people what they need.  Why I bring this up? Well, there is a part where the Santa delivers a speech, in fact its right here:

Henry Corwin: I can either drink, or I can weep, and drinking is so much more subtle. But as for my insubordination, I was not rude to that woman. Someone should remind her that Christmas is more than barging up and down department store aisles and pushing people out of the way. Someone has to tell her that Christmas is another thing finer than that. Richer, finer, truer, and it should come with patience and love, charity, compassion. That's what I would have told her if you'd given me the chance. I don't know how to tell you, Mr. Dundee. I don't know at all. All I know is that I'm an aging, purposeless, relic of another time, and I live in a dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people, where the only thing that comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve is more poverty. Do you know another reason why I drink, Mr. Dundee? So that when I walk down the tenements, I can really think it's the North Pole, and the children are elves, and that I'm really Santa Claus bringing a bag of wondrous gifts for all of them. I just wish, Mr. Dundee, on one Christmas, only one, that I could see some of the hopeless ones and the dreamless ones. Just on one Christmas, I'd like to see the meek inherit the Earth. And that's why I drink, Mr. Dundee, and that's why I weep.

You might be able to see why I love this episode.  there's a pure message about hope and charity for those who need it.  So here I sit at the end of a conference for my church as we talk about being able to reach out and growing out church.  Then, once all our business is done we sit down and we have a banquet and pat ourselves on the back.  This year, there was a raffle for a lovely handmade quilt to benefit Haiti.  Our Diocese has raised thousands of dollars for it.  The Bishop will even give money out of his discretionary fund for it.

I am devastated.

This seems like a disconnect then I'll make my point.  About two hours away from Roanoke Virginia sits Welch, WV.  Why is this important?  Welch is the county seat of McDowell County which is one of the poorest counties in the United States.  As of the writing of this the UN is doing a poverty study in the United States including this.  I find it maddening to realize that there is no real help for these people.  If they are starving in Haiti they are starving in West Virginia.  They are starving in Virginia and no one is talking about that.  

I don't know what to do, really.  I have screamed.  I have cried.  I have fought and I'm tired of fighting.  I can't fight anymore because I don't see the point.  How does one keep going when they don't see.  So here we are.  I'm writing an angry post and this is where it is.  What am I asking?  

I don't know.

S.