We are ALL beggars in God’s sight.

When I was a kid and my Dad was in the military, we were stationed in Turkey.  Whenever we lived overseas my Dad insisted we live on the economy.  My Dad felt strongly that in order to really experience a country, you needed to rub shoulders with it’s citizens.

There’s lots of new to experience when living in an apartment building where your neighbors are mostly Turks.

Like the time my friend brought me the blue eyeball of the sheep her family had just killed.   The same sheep she and I had been feeding and petting the week before the holiday that included slitting it’s neck.

Or the man who came around with the real, live bear that danced when you tossed it’s owner a Lira.

Being able to see Cyprus from our balcony.

Walking the same paths Cleopatra once strolled.

Aqueducts. The kind built upon the lives of slaves.

My first Turkish wedding.

There were also some not so wonderful experiences.

There was no social infrastructure in Turkey.  You lose your legs in an accident and can no longer work?  Life sucks for you.

I can remember waiting for the school bus each morning and watching as a homeless mother and her young daughter went through the apartment building garbage cans looking for food.

There were no food banks for this mother to turn to.  No food stamps.

As a matter of fact, if the building manager walked by as this woman was searching for her daily bread, he would throw rocks at her until she ran.  I watched more than once as a rock would make it’s connection against this young mother’s head.

Walk down any street in our Turkish neighborhood back then and on most corners there would be men…..some missing limbs…..others missing their sight….holding up cups before them hoping for a stray coin to come their way.

My parents’ hearts always required them to give to these poorest amongst them.

Our Turkish friends would, without fail, chastize my parents for their charity.

“These people are in the situation they are because some unknown sin.” “They are not worthy of your thought.”

And I would watch as other Turks walking by would spit at these men.

Our Turkish friends truly believed that these beggars deserved their status.

As I read yet another modern day ‘Patriot’ declare their disdain of any kind of social infrastructure such a Medicaid and Medicare, I can’t help but compare their words to the rocks thrown at the Turkish mother and the spit sent flying at the blind man.

Once, as my Dad stopped to offer a coin to a Turkish beggar, the man looked at my Dad and reminded him that ‘we are all beggars in God’s sight.”  These words, this memory, has stayed with my Dad all these years.

Many legislators in Utah believe that programs such a Medicaid are unconstitutional.  They don’t want any sort of Federal funding coming into their state and so they slash budgets that rely on this funding.

It’s so easy to stand outside a circle and point a finger while never actually having to experience the consequences of your legislation.

Legislation made with no input from parent advocacy boards, because here in Utah parent advocacy boards don’t exist.

Utah, as you make deep cuts to the budgets that keep children alive, I’d like to remind you:

We are ALL beggars in God’s sight.

Even you.