Have we decided,
in this Americanized faith of ours,
that God is too holy to feed the poor through WIC,
too ethereal to be incarnate within Head Start?

Are we so certain
that God cannot work new miracles
through healthcare, medical research and flu shots?
Is God too big — or too little — for such work?

Is God no longer hindered
by covenant but freed to be all-sufficient, because
we have loosed ourselves from participating in God’s plenty
for brothers & sisters in need and without justice?

My God, my God!
This is not faithful fasting but willful gluttony
while others starve, so that our conflation of the one LORD God
with the American Dream can remain intact.

Be merciful and abundant to those
who receive no mercy and only begrudging support.
Unsettle me wholly and compel me into a season of fasting:
mind and body, personal and political.

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