J's Cafe Nette

Archive for March 17th, 2007

In honor of my American Indian heritage and my Christianity, I present to you Amazing Grace sung in the Cherokee language.

Amen.

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I call myself a conservative Republican for political affiliation, but I am first of all a born-again Christian above all else.

On the blog I was previously on many discussions came up about “personal responsibility”. I’m all for people taking personal responsibility and I have been guilty of enabling my own son until recently to not have to worry about how he and his wife spent their money because Mom and Dad would bail them out. That gravy train has stopped and never should have started.

That’s not the same as refusing to help people because they actually cannot help themselves.

Whose responsibility is it to help care for those people with medical conditions that make it impossible for them to work and pay for their own expenses?

Is it the responsibility of the government? Many people would say yes because we have disability benefits available through Social Security even for children and people who never worked to earn those benefits.

But what did we do with people such as that before Social Security, which is a relatively new entitlement?

Churches and charities picked up the expenses but we still had children in orphanages, sometimes being abused and neglected, and infirm adults not in any better shape. There wasn’t enough money to go around to help them.

Jesus said the poor will always be among us. In His human Incarnation Jesus was not a rich man. He had no home to call His own and slept outside or depended on friends to take Him in for a few days.

He healed the lame and the blind. We do not have the power to heal the lame and the blind.

In the United States today no one should be forced to sleep outside unless he or she chooses to do so and I can’t figure out how anyone would choose to do it in the middle of winter.

You see, my political side recognizes all the arguments against giving to the poor, but my Christian side tells me to give until it hurts.

Are we tithing and giving gift offerings in church so they can build a new addition or a new building, or is at least some of that money going to help the less fortunate in addition to going to support missionaries?

I believe since our government has made it policy to give stipends to people who are disabled we should continue to do so. I also believe there are people in the system who should not be in it and some who cannot get into it who should be in it.

I know of someone who supposedly has arthritis in her hands so bad that she can’t gain employment and is on disability. Until he died, her husband was also on disability due to a “heart” condition.

The problem, though, is that she can do very intricate basket-weaving with her arthritic hands and earns a lot of money with what she does. Her husband was able to go outside and use the back of an axe to pound on logs of ash to get them ready to be used for basket material and then he would split the wood and shave it to make it ready for the final product, all while he had a “heart” condition.

People just look the other way and say that it’s fine to scam the system. But what about the guy who was born mentally challenged to the point he can’t do anything at all to help himself? What about the person who has cancer and can no longer work due to the debilitating effects of the treatment and the disease? Don’t they deserve help too?

In a perfect world the ones who are scamming the system would be taken off the rolls and the money would be made available for only those who really need it. Just think of how much their lives could improve if they could get an amount decent enough to live on instead of $300-$400 a month.

In a perfect world, every born-again Christian would care less about his or her personal fortune and would give as much as they could give to help those less fortunate than they.

Jesus said God’s Eye is on the sparrow and if He cares for such a lowly creature how much greater does He care for us?

He’ll make sure all our needs are met.

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I’m not Irish but my husband is almost full Irish, which makes my children just about half-Irish.

No big celebrations for us such as corned beef and cabbage, but they feel Irish all year in addition to their Indian blood inherited from me.

So, to all Irishmen and all honorary Irishmen, I wish you all a happy St. Patrick’s Day and don’t get drunk on green beer.

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