Our humanity being tested

Columnist Leonard Pitts has the ability to challenge a humanity that is often anything but humane. The prophetic stance he took in “Christians lack follow-through” (May 6) confirmed much of what I’ve been thinking. So I want to offer a few statements.

Do you realize:

•Children who grow up with poor nutrition will often be mentally challenged?

•Children who are born of a parent who used alcohol and/or other drugs during pregnancy are often mentally challenged? Ninety-plus percent of those in prison have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

•Mentally challenged doesn’t just mean learning disabilities but also the inability to evaluate action versus consequence?

•Teenage pirates and other young people who choose violence also have parents who love them, parents often so poor they cannot provide healthy food and despair as a child dies?

It is one thing to put $10 in the collection plate to serve the poor. However, what would we do if a smelly, dirty, coughing street person sat beside us in church and, at the sign of peace, reached out a filthy hand that had just cleaned the mucous from a sore, runny nose?

Jesus said, “Father forgive them; they know not what they do.”

Sister Julie Wokasch

Spokane