Tag Archives: Self-sufficiency

Self-Sufficiency

Lent

March 21, 2022

Scripture Reading: Joshua 5:9-12

The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.

While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

I worked in the public welfare arena for 35 years and took a lot of negative blowbacks from friends and relatives, even some strangers, who classified the poor as lazy, no-good, people. I had an aunt who attacked me at every family reunion about all the welfare queens she knew. My observation over those years was that people receiving public assistance were essentially no different than the general population. It may come as a surprise but there are lazy, no-good people at every income level. I have been a waitress and a nurse’s aide (now called a nursing assistant, I think) and can assure you that neither job is for the weak or the lazy. The minimum wage in Oklahoma for waitpersons is $2.12 an hour they are expected to make up the difference between that and the minimum wage of $7.50 an hour with tips. According to the MIT living wage calculator, a living wage for a single person in Oklahoma is $13.53 an hour. What we strive for in the human services realm is helping people become self-sufficient.

Sufficient means to meet one’s obligations or satisfy one’s needs: competency also: a modest but not parsimonious scale or way of living: adequate comfort*.

I thought of this as I read the scripture above regarding the Israelite need for manna after their escape from Egypt. Eventually, they learned to be self-sufficient in planting and growing crops.  I hated the change in the law in the mid-1990s when the federal government changed the work requirement for receiving public assistance to taking the first job offered. Most of those jobs were minimum wages. With an 18-month vocational education course, an individual could move from being a nursing assistant to becoming a practical nurse that would pay enough to make them self-sufficient. Nursing assistants to survive would need food stamps, Medicaid, and if they had children childcare supplements, and they would still face the judgmental biases of their neighbors who are called to love them.

Prayer: Lord, you provided manna when it was needed and people to guide your children into self-sufficiency. Help us never forget our role in helping others to reach that standard. Amen.

*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/sufficiency

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Stereotyping

Epiphany

February 5, 2020

Scripture Reading: Psalm 112:1-9 (10)
Praise the Lord!
   Happy are those who fear the Lord,
   who greatly delight in his commandments.
Their descendants will be mighty in the land;
   the generation of the upright will be blessed.
Wealth and riches are in their houses,
   and their righteousness endures forever.
They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;
   they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.
It is well with those who deal generously and lend,
   who conduct their affairs with justice.
For the righteous will never be moved;
   they will be remembered for ever.
They are not afraid of evil tidings;
   their hearts are firm, secure in the Lord.
Their hearts are steady, they will not be afraid;
   in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.
They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor;
   their righteousness endures forever;
   their horn is exalted in honor.
The wicked see it and are angry;
   they gnash their teeth and melt away;
   the desire of the wicked comes to nothing.

I must confess I have a visceral reaction when I read scripture that relates God to wealth. As in the above scripture, wealth is included in a long list of things like being generous and righteous, gracious and merciful, all of which I consider to be good things. I cannot explain my reaction except perhaps to connect it to dealing with people who where trying to do everything as right as they could working hard to support their families, and being stereotyped by many as lazy, no good, welfare cheats.

I once volunteered for a child abuse and neglect hotline designed to give parents an outlet to get help with a goal of preventing neglect and abuse. One young mother of two small children who had been deserted by their father, moved to the city from a rural town, got some training, got a good entry level job, got her first paycheck, and for the first time in her life paid her rent with money she had earned, bought groceries, and essentially had nothing left. When her kids begged her to take them to McDonalds because she had all that money now, she totally lost it. Thank God there was a pay phone across the street from her apartment where she could call and still see that her kids were safe. Thank God she did have enough money to place the call because she could not afford a phone. I could hardly understand her she was sobbing so hard as her story poured out in great waves. Once she was spent, I asked her, “Do you realize what you have accomplished in such a short time?” I thought I had blown it because she was silent for so long. She finally said, “No, I had not seen it that way.”  We talked for some time longer and my prayer after she hung up to return to her apartment was that she would build on her strengths as she sought just enough for her little family.

When I read riches and wealth in the scripture above, I stopped to look up the Hebrew root of those words. Riches is apparently the root for riches that did not help a lot. Wealth*, however, is related to having enough, sufficiency. Isn’t that what God wants for all God’s children. Isn’t that part of our calling to be merciful and do justice so all can have enough.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us for stereotyping people when we have no idea what their lives are like. Help us to be light in darkness as we strive to assure that all have enough. Amen.

*https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1952.htm

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Manna to Crops

Lent
March 26, 2019

Scripture Reading: Joshua 5:9-12

While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year. –Joshua 5:10-12

When I worked in human services, I lost count of the number of times people on hearing what I did, telling me I surely did not understand about the worthless lazy poor who lived off the speakers hard-earned tax dollars. I grew weary of it and soon learned they were usually not opened to dialogue. So, I nodded and planned a graceful escape as soon as possible.

What I learned over my career is that people are just people at all income levels and in every stage of life. I worked with people who could make a dollar stretch to meet many needs and others who could earn a dollar and never get home with it–rich people and poor people alike. I have walked unexpectedly and unannounced into poor people’s homes that were spotlessly clean and homes that were so bad I did not want to sit in the chair that was offered. I once visited an adoption applicant to begin their adoption study with a two-week lead appointment to find general chaos

That said, my life mission is largely targeted at assuring that everyone has enough which equals at least a living wage, accessible affordable health care, quality education from birth to career, and a general sense of maintaining self-sufficiency.  For many people it is a major transition from poverty to self-sufficiency. It may be like moving from manna to eating the produce of their own productivity.  Christ calls all of us to be conduits of self-sufficiency. We do that best when we take the time to get to know our neighbors who live in poverty or in mansions and journey with them out of their wilderness and into self-support and self-sufficiency.

Prayer: Lord, forgive me when I judge people by stereotypes when I really do not know them at all. Help me to learn to love first and assess situation from the eyes of love an growth toward self-sufficiency. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

From Dependence to Self-Sufficiency

Today I ChooseLent
February 29, 2016

Scripture Reading: Joshua 5:9-12

While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year. –Joshua 1-12

It is a momentous event to witness a person, family, or whole segment of society move from dependence to self-sufficiency. It usually does not come easily and often accompanies a wide array of emotions including regrets from the past and hopes for the future. We experience a small taste of it when we celebrate a family’s acceptance of the keys to their new Habitat House.

Many years ago when I worked as a social worker with persons receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children, I walked the long journey with one mother who had become a mother too soon. When I met her she had three stair-step children all under the age of five and a long-gone husband. She had not completed high school and had no work experience. She was very intelligent, passed the GED test without any pre-study. She also wanted the best for her children but had never experienced that kind of love herself. She was fearful she would do something or everything wrong. We call it low self-esteem. I think I was the first person who had ever told her she was smart as that was not an important asset in her upbringing. She got a job at a new factory being opened in her home town, started at the bottom and quickly earned her self-sufficiency badge. I closed her case but a few months later she called me in a panic. She had been rushed to the hospital with appendicitis. She thought she was going to lose everything she had gained. I visited her the next day at the hospital where I was greeted with a joy-filled, tearful smile. Next to her bed was a bright bouquet of flowers from her co-workers. The births of all three of her children had been paid for through the Medicaid program. She had become use to the least treatment possible. She was amazed at the different way she was treated because of the wonders of her work related insurance and that bouquet of flowers.

We do need to help people in need to have the basics of life and more than anything else we need to enable them to become self-sufficient like those Israelites in our scripture today who cooked their first meal out of their own crops and no longer needed the manna from heaven.

Prayer: Lord, help us create a world where everyone has enough and no one has low self-esteem. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.