"Egoism, in a broader sense, has been... presented as the source of moral action. It has been said that we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bind up the wounds of the man beaten by thieves, pour oil and wine into them, set him on our own breast and bring him to the inn, because we receive ourselves pleasure from these acts... These good acts give us pleasure, but how happens it that they give us pleasure? Because nature hath implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses... The Creator would indeed have been a bungling artist had he intended man for a social animal without planting in him social dispositions. It is true they are not planted in every man, because there is no rule without exceptions; but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule... That a man owes no duty to which he is not urged by some impulsive feeling... is correct, if referred to the standard of general feeling in the given case, and not to the feeling of a single individual... Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality. But I consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of morality. With ourselves, we stand on the ground of identity, not of relation, which last, requiring two subjects, excludes self-love confined to a single one. To ourselves, in strict language, we can owe no duties, obligation requiring also two parties. Self-love, therefore, is no part of morality. Indeed, it is exactly its counterpart." ---Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 1814---

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On any given night in America anywhere from 700,000 to 2 million people are homeless according to estimates of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

This is the sin of a society where executives of a failed global enterprise take home millions in “bonus” earnings, passing the victims of corporate greed and criminality in their BMWs and Mercedes-Benzs. This is America. This cannot, must not, should not continue to be the only America.

We who still have jobs, homes, cars, checking accounts, cell phones, computers, warm meals, a bathtub, dry socks, a toothbrush, a clean toilet, and who sleep peacefully at night, unafraid of being robbed, beaten, or killed — we must not let this continue. We must act, give, pray, cry, organize, open our churches, do whatever it takes to care for those kicked down by a system not of their making.

Our shame should stalk us like death until we repent, reach out, and restore those who have been displaced. This is America. We are God’s people. This must not stand.

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