The Grocery Bill is Just a Warning Sign

We went to the grocery store tonight and spent $140 -- and we didn't purchase any meat! I didn't even consider this a "big order" it was just sort of stocking up on a few things and filling in. Yowsa! - That’s a lot of money for toiletries, a few canned goods and some produce. We gave up deli meat a month ago because the price of turkey at the deli counter is outrageous. (Oreo (our cat) loves that we have switched to tuna!)

The recent increase in the cost of food and gasoline – two major necessities in our culture are putting some people over the edge. I am thankful that I can’t really imagine what this means to people already living in poverty. I have made the faux sacrifice of cutting out fresh deli meats from my grocery order – what are others cutting? -- milk? fruit? proteins? medicines? What does a family do when they fill their gas tank (so they can get to work), pay for daycare (again so they can go to work), and buy a few groceries, and then the rent is due or the utility bill comes and the well is dry? What are their choices? -- live on credit? miss a rent/house payment? skip the utility bills? How do you set priorities when you can’t even cover the basics?

This is just the beginning. For the population that is already experiencing poverty, even minor increases in cost of necessities will drive them to extremes -- people will suffer from malnutrition, people will die of exposure, people will turn to crime out of desperation to survive and provide for their families. As for the sliding middle class who are losing their jobs and losing their homes, it will lead to depression, mental and physical illness, and domestic violence. So what? -- the middle class sinks in to poverty and the poor go extinct? Is that the society our “great nation” has built?

That’s a bleak and admittedly dramatic prediction, but some part of that is very certain to become reality. We need to look at the big picture and recognize what is really happening. People are starting to get scared, and they are looking at their own situations and how all of this will affect them. But what is desperately needed is for people to look at themselves as part of the whole -- no ONE will be saved from this mess – we are all in it together. We have to take care of ourselves, but we also have to take care of each other. Forget about all the details that might divide us – we are all part of the same society, and if one of us is suffering, we are all suffering, and we are all to blame.