...we were supposed to go to the middle of town and stay there untill all the people were fed? What happened to that idea?

I commend you and the LW.

I respect and admire you LW because you recognised that something wasn't quite right, and you felt the need to do something about it. But what to do? The easy thing would be to go along with the crowd and accept their views on the matter. You know, you've done your duty, get back to your real life, drinking mimosas and whatnot. And they have a point, they've done their part. The thing is it hasn't changed them in the least. It's the checkthebox version of christian charity.

The alternative for you is to see this as a call to do more, maybe find other ways to help the shelter or some other disadvantaged group. Satisfy your inner desire to give and do more and you will probably feel happier for it. But whatever it is, take the time to consider what you are feeling and acknowledge it for what it is.

Good luck.

One can agree wholeheartedly with the following, powerful sentiment,

"A good and just society would feed and house all its people. A society that is rich and powerful and has not found a way to use its great wealth and power to feed and house all its people fails this fundamental test in a spectacular and historic way. I fear that such a civilization will be mocked and scorned by future generations."

and yet still object to the sentence that follows it as simply the leftist way of looking at things stated as dogmatic fact:

"Since our government is the principal organ by which we exercise our vision of a good and just society, this failure is primarily a failure of our government."

I'm not saying it's false in some cosmic way -- personally, I have some sympathy for the collectivist point of view --, but Cary states it as if it's beyond dispute, ignoring the rich and varied literature which intelligently rejects the idea that "government is the principal organ by which we exercise our vision of a good and just society," not to mention the large portion of the population who still believe churches or other private civic groupings ought to be the principal organs by which we exercise our visions, and that government is at best a big, clumsy, unloving, unlovely fool in such matters.

Salon is best, in my opinion, when it remembers to edit out the reflexive Leftism.

Even though I'm your typical late-20s liberal, I too was struck by the quote about government being the primary organ of charity and such. But I couldn't figure out why, so I wasn't going to say anything. But, I agree with Ben Johnson.

And I think maybe one reason why is because leaving it all to the government is a cop-out. Because then you're two steps removed. You can say you don't have to do anything, because the government will. And then you can avoid any blame, because when the government doesn't do it, you can say "it's not my fault, the government's just not doing it's job." Nevermind that people fight against having their taxes raised to fund the types of programs Cary thinks the government should be running.

If you're going to leave it to the government, you have to help the government - fight for programs, don't fight against higher taxes for the programs, etc. Otherwise, get your mimosa drinking behind to the soup kitchen (and for god's sake, don't serve people food you wouldn't eat yourself!)

About 10 of us from our church go to a shelter and feed dinner to 150 one night a month. (Other churches take the other nights.) We chat with people while we serve, we clean the tables for them like wait staff and we hang around to talk for a bit.

Not everyone is comfortable doing that, so they stay in the kitchen and wash dishes while the more social serve and chat.

Now, some shelter clients love the conversation, but I'm sure others feel like zoo animals, just entertaining the tourists to get a meal.

If you have a question, talk to the staff about what the clients want -- after all, that's the point, to do something for someone else, not yourself.

I'm with you that the brunch thing is lame, but it's not for us to judge or feel superior. Personally, I believe in a national guest room policy: if everyone who lives in a four-bedroom house took in one person in need and they and their friends pitched in to help them, we could close all the shelters.

The shelters and meals we serve can be great works of love and comfort that bring us closer together. They also can be the wall we build that lets us keep them from getting too close to us. Your gut is telling you it's time to figure out which direction you want to go.

We host a community meal at my church one Sunday evening a month. The food prep and serving is done by a group from a different church each month, in a rotation. The servers go around, serve coffee and juice, and often engage the servees in conversation before they serve the meal. I go around and do that myself, but some of us are a little shyer than others. Some of us share the meal, others don't. The meals are always nice, and the people who come are always appreciative (as a group - an individual here or there will be grumbly). There are still hits and misses. The occasional comment of disappointment or relief that it was/was not ham or peaches again. Or the expression of deep gratitude for the extra touch - chicken cordon bleu or the youth group drawing messages on the place mats.

Cary's right that your friends' journey is their own - and they are doing more than many people. And, aside from a few people who may be the true saints, most of us can't make that gulf go away completely. We still have our choices and our nice homes, and the people who come to a shelter, or a community meal, have a different reality.

What makes this situation feel bad is the direct contrast between the feeding and the eating. Too bad there can't be a different reward for doing the work. Also, while people eating at a shelter might not want to eat some of what the group eats afterward, they just might appreciate some better quality ingredients and some healthier fare.