Those Damn Lazy Poor

All God appears to want from us is honesty and humility (and they are

finally the same thing). If God is holding out for human perfection, God

is going to have a long wait. There is no other way to read Jesus’

stories of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32)or the publican and the

Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14). In each story, the one who did wrong ends up

being right—simply because he is honest and humble about it. The one

who is formally right ends up being terribly wrong because he is proud

about his own performance.  Richard Rohr

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Today food stamps get cut

Some would like to pretend the recession is over and there are no hungry kids is America

A for many this is a time of rejoice

Just a few comments

From one article on food stamps

·         If I spend my own money on food, How am i going to make my Escalade payments?

·         As a conservative Christian, I'm so glad these lazy freeloaders will no longer be suckling on the government's teat. Jesus would tell them to get a job!

·         I have always found hunger to be good motivation to work harder

·         Cry me a river. These low-class, lazy, overweight moochers need to get off their behinds and pay for their existence. Imagine working in a welfare office when good-for-nothings like this come in and cry for more benefits. About 70% of my income is taken from me through various taxes and these cry-babies want more and more.

·         Feeding the hungry is one thing, feeding the lazy is an entirely different matter. If someone is truly in need because they are ill or lost their job by all means feed them. If they did lose their job, they should be out all day, 5 days a week, looking for another one, or creating one. You can walk dogs, rake leaves, mow lawns, build fences, clean houses, etc. Sitting on your duff, playing computer games and whining won't get you another meal.

I am going to admit the family they chose to highlight in the article was a horrible example.  But the words of these people, and these are not the worst, reflect an attitude about the poor that is disturbing to me.  In a country with high unemployment, and high costs, we have a lot of people who for no fault of their own are struggle to keep food on the table.

And yet, instead of looking with the eyes of compassion, we look with eyes of judgment, and we make it all about us…. Oh look at how much I have to pay in taxes!  And we infer that we are morally superior to the poor (I refer back to Rohr).

And we somehow overlook how much we spend on death (on wars)

We overlook subsidies to corporate farms

Subsidies to Banks

Subsidies to all kind of “big businesses” who turn around and make obscene profits

And pay their CEO’s obscene salaries

We somehow overlook the fact that there is an increasing amount of economic inequity in our country

And that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer

From an ethical standpoint

America is regressing

We will soon be back to where we were during some of the darkest times in our history

I have heard people crying for years that there is a “war”

On Christianity in America

There is

And this is one face of that war

The fact that some people say “Happy Holidays”

Instead of “Merry Christmas”

Is not

And NO

Jesus would not say “get a job”