Lazy Days

Do you know someone who is too lazy to work?

How long will you lie there, O lazybones? When will you rise from your sleep?  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,  and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior. - Proverbs 6:9-11

I never liked being called lazy.  To me, it can be the ultimate insult, possibly because every time I take a break to rest or do what I want, rather than what I should be doing, I wonder if I am being lazy.

In today's reading, the warning is that the lazy will become poor, which is another way of judging those who are poor, accusing them of laziness.

Of course, it can be a good defense.  The fear of poverty can keep us trying, keep us out there looking for work, looking for a better opportunity.

Laziness can lead to poverty, but not all poverty comes from laziness.  Who would say such a thing?

There is talk of amending the food stamp program, requiring people to work in order to qualify.  Some say it is to keep people from becoming overly dependent on supplements, but I wonder if it stems from the idea that people choose not to work.

Some of the folks who come to our pantry do not qualify for assistance under the program we used to call food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  We don't have a requirement that they have an income.  In fact, most have no income at all.

If more people fail to qualify for SNAP, we will see an increase in the number of people who come to us.

Now, maybe that is a good thing in some ways.  We depend mostly on direct support from the communities we serve, while government programs tend to operate at a distance.

But we do not have access to job programs, so perhaps we need to connect with programs that do that sort of thing.

That's work.

Ah, but if we don't take the time to find avenues of support, people might think we are being lazy.

And we wouldn't want that, would we?

More to come...