How Blatant!

My husband and a couple others were standing by the side of the road the other day waiting for the bus. A guy drives by in his pick-up truck and bellows, "Get a job!!!" Hmmm . . . I can't help but grumble . . . Does that not reveal a deep-seeded attitude in our culture????

The truth is my husband has a job. In fact he was standing with two others from his job who have been helping to promote the Christian value of caring for God's creation by curbing their consumption of carbon-based fuels. Many of the workers at my husband's office have been intentionally riding the bus or carpooling to and from work each day both to make a statement for Creation Care, but also to stand against the injustices of funding cuts for public transportation, the life-line for many low-income families who can't afford a car and are trying to keep a job!

Some might say, what difference does what my husband and his friends do really make in the scheme of things. I guess that is one way of looking at it; that attitude will certainly lead to NOTHING being done. But to not try SOMETHING is like condoning the sin of omission . . . movements for a better society need to start with individuals willing to try something.

Another truth and irony of American culture is that while we all have taken advantage of this "land of opportunity," we have created a land of unequal access to economic stability. I have said it before, we are a "pull YOURSELF up by your bootstraps" society. Dependence is weakness and weakness is scorned. We think that since our immigrant ancestors had to WORK for everything they got, we should not help those who are needy now. THEY should work for their economic status too! No help, no government hand-outs, no welfare - they need to WORK FOR IT!

How Christian of us. In our pride of where we've come, we ignore the fact that our wealthy life-styles make it hard for the lower economic levels to find access to jobs, fair wages and affordable goods. Our nation's government struggles between appeasing the controling middle class and the needs of the lower class. We want the government to be "for the middle-class and by the middle-class" instead of for ALL the people.

And as I've also lamented before, we equate independence with being good and Christian. I hear Christians imply that depending on government funding is bad . . . why? . . . because we don't want our tax money going to people who don't want to work for it! Funny how I just don't see that in New Testament.

And getting back to the bus system . . . I heard a Christian complain that he thought it was a crime that when Governor Ed Rendell would not sign off on the budget until some funding for public transportation was reinstated, that Red Rose Transit Authority suddenly had all kinds of work requests put in, quickly spending a good amount the money that was finally alloted to them. Now why was that a crime? I think the crime was that we all could care less about the needs of the lower working class who need the bus to get to work! Paying for insurance, gas, license upkeep, maintenance and repairs . . . . How can we expect that everyone can drive an SUV to work? And then, from a Creation Care point of view, why should we?