Agreed. Macedoniandeacon nailed it.

Obviously your sister was disabled in a very real way. Psychically if not physically. What I object to is people who malinger and have talents and skill sets and demand to be coddled by others.

Thank you!

Sure. 🙂

Thank you.

Can I quote this? Or just plagiarize it? 😉

I used to supervise a day center for developmentally disabled individuals. I would say about 50% of them had jobs, some doing the work that a lot of able bodied would not do at a local grocery store, the others spend all day putting the toys in plastic bubbles for the bubble gum machines. Local companies would contract these jobs to the center and would actually bring the materials for these folks to assemble while at the center. The pay was meager, but the work, at least to them, was priceless. These people, who we would label “wards of the state” were busting tail every day. What was more interesting was that they never complained, they smiled, and lived for that work. A much better attitude that I have most of the time.

I will never be able to reconcile the image that I saw there to that of those who are “able” and chose not to work in order to live off the state, or to most of us (me especially) who grumble at our jobs. It sort of breaks the stereotype of who is handicapped and who isn’t. Perhaps it redefines things.

I would also suggest that those whom I “supervised” knew and understood the value of their work, they understood (even if not completely cognitively) on some level, spiritually perhaps, that they were making a living or even serving. It was almost a sort of liturgy, a joy that I don’t know that I had ever felt.

Work, fulfilling work, taking care of oneself and others, providing a service, is MOST DEFINITELY a spiritual sense or attribute and I would suggest that this is what is lacking in American society. Especially among those who live off the state. This is the real evil of the state. It takes away our ‘spiritual sense’ on all levels of society. It slowly kills on a spiritual level by getting in between God and His creation.

Yes, I agree they will, George. I think it’s human nature.

I guess I was speaking literally when I used the word “unable”. I had in mind a couple of scenarios — not hypothetical. I was thinking of someone like my sister who spent 15 years or so on the streets as a crack addict and an alcoholic. She was disabled — completely nonfunctional — by her alcoholic disease. It wasn’t until she engaged a treatment program and her own spiritual healing that she regained the desire to make her own way.

And then there are those like my daughter who is 21 and has autism. She is and always will be unable to make a living or take care of herself independently. She functions on the same level as a 5-year-old. She doesn’t even comprehend the concept of “making a living.”

Good question, Andrew. One could also ask why Metropolitan Savvas Zembillas’ committee has yet to meet. Going on 3 years now?

Good point, but the whole concept of “disability” has become elastic. My dad used to work part-time at the local Goodwill (as did my grandfather in his retirement). I often accompanied both to work and saw many people who were mangled or amputees. Some were mentally challenged. Yet there they were giving meaning to their lives and trying to pull their own weight, often helping others.

On the other hand I saw dozens of able-bodied people who are “disabled” and receive SSI benefits. Are they 100% whole? No, but nobody else I know is (myself included).

Except for a few hard-core cases, if public assistance is removed, people will go out of their way to at least try to make a living.

See there website here: http://www.assemblyofbishops.org/

Which assembly of bishops?

And how do you know it is or it isn’t “approved”?

Sorry; obviously I don’t know.

Not that I believe you need your bishop’s permission to do something Christ commands……. but I am curious.

Unless, of course, he is ill physically or mentally and consequently unable to work?

I know a homeless man who went to Yale and is articulate and sharp. Odds are, he could teach me more than I could teach him.

If he went to Yale and is articulate and sharp, he is poor by choice. He’s actually the servant who buries his talent. St. Paul instructed the Church at Thessalonica to deny charity to such men.