The Tides

Dear You,

I'm staying in a rented house on Cape Cod, and Sunday's sermon at Our Lady of the Cape was a troubling one. The readings concerned a rich man, who had the best of everything all his life, and on whose doorstep was a poor man with sores all over his body. Ultimately they died, and the rich man saw from his place of eternal torment that the poor man was at the side of Abraham. The Bible is full of related lessons about the rich and the poor.

A couple of days later I took the ferry to Nantucket, seated in the first class cabin where I enjoyed coffee on the way out and wine on the way back. And in both directions my eye fell on hundreds of luxury boats -- at this season sitting at anchor where they probably won't be moved for weeks at a time. And I thought about the poor who were, as usual, invisible in my range of vision, but who must have been nearby somewhere -- there are so very, very many.

Some economist -- a Presidential advisor, I seem to remember -- justified the programs that benefited the rich by saying that a rising tide lifts all boats. And as I looked at the vessels around the ferry, I knew that to be so. The problem is that not everyone has a boat, and far too many will never have the means to get one.