By Cathy Hird

When I started farming, we did our hay in square bales and fed it in long wooden feeders. We tried to make sure there was a space for each ewe's head so they could all eat as soon as the hay was put down. Still, the end of every winter we would find a couple really skinny sheep. These were the ones who got shouldered out of the way so that the big ones could eat more.

Since we shifted to round bales, there is always feed available. Even though the strong ones get to eat first, the weakest get a share.

We still have an issue feeding grain. As soon as the sheep see or hear a bucket, they come running. They push and shove, reach their heads to pull the bucket down, try whatever tricks they can to get more than their share. We try to put it down in enough troughs that each has a space, but the strong ones gobble, and then move, push, and shove their shoulder to get smaller animals out of their way.

To keep the flock healthy, we have to work at organizing the way we feed so that each sheep gets what it needs.

How do we keep a community healthy? Job stats that came out recently say that a lot of new jobs were created and full time ones at that. A good sign. The same reports, however, never tell us how many people are on welfare at that time.

Job statistics hide as much as they tell. Reports indicate how many people quit looking for work, but they do not tell us how many of the unemployed are young people just out of school or in their late 50s. Young people who are working at McDonald's rather than in the field they studied for also do not show up.

We get reports on Gross Domestic Product and average family incomes. If the total is going up, it seems things are improving. If the average is going up, things are getting better. But the average is affected by the executives and the upper level managers. As those incomes improve they pull up the average no matter what is happening at the bottom.

A few years ago, I worked in a resort community. Once, this town had a strong industrial base, but the factories closed one by one. There were good teaching and medical jobs still, a couple engineering firms, but most of the work was in stores, restaurants, golf courses, ski hills. The jobs were minimum wage, no benefits and seasonal.

Long term residents joked that you dared not go to the hospital on a weekend in January because the skiers owned it. The unspoken truth was that people who worked in the community could no longer afford to live in the community. Housing prices were through the roof.

The community prospers by some statistics thanks to weekenders and to those who retired there. But there is another group of people who are more and more pushed aside.

The question is do we measure the health of our society by the average? By the top? Or do we measure the communities health by the most fragile and vulnerable among us? From this last perspective, the measure of the health of our area is the people who couch-surf, the elderly isolated in a cold house in the country, the youth desperately wanting to start their life on their own, who cannot get work.

Recently, I ran into a teacher who announced she had retired in June. "I looked at the young people coming up and said it was time. I also announced I would not take any supply work because that's how the new teachers get into the system," she said. That decision would not work for everyone, but the perspective is important: She did not look at her own position, but at who was left out.

Whatever our place in the society, we need to notice who is weak and who is vulnerable. We live in community, so we need to pay attention to the whole community, not just those close to us. Those who are struggling need special care.

A healthy community does not "live and let live." It is a place where no one is left out, a family where everyone has a place.

Cathy Hird is a farmer, minister and writer living near Walters Falls.