i like it. and i think that there’s a lot of truth to it. it reminds me of a bumper sticker: “you’re a republican until it happens to you.”
funny that this ties into a lot of things that have been discussed here recently. let me explain…
as an independent, raised by right-wing republican parents, i believed much like you do about social programs. of course i was middle class, made good money for my spouse and kids, paid little attention to the plight of the poor.
then one day during an economic downturn, my employer threw me to the ranks of the unemployed. i would apply for several jobs per day, but there were no jobs to be had. so i started applying to jobs in surrounding states, and my luck was no better. we got by on what we had saved and what unemployment payments supplemented, but eventually, our funds ran out and unemployment payments dried up.
i was forced to swallow my conservative pride and fall back onto those social programs that you call “failures” in order to keep my house and food on the table. if it weren’t for those programs, i wouldn’t have lasted long enough to find that next job. you conservatives talk about this fictional “welfare state” populated by lazy people who just live off of our tax money and have no desire to work. except for a few who game the system, you couldn’t be more wrong. i know from experience that in colorado at least, you can’t remain on these programs unless you prove every second week that you’re looking for work. every time that i went all that i saw were people who were desperate to work. try living for a few months just on what little you get from these social programs and you will understand why.
suffice it to say that began a turning point in my life. since then, i have seen that many of the popular conservative policies toward the poor and middle class are flawed.

What’s a moleskin? I’m assuming you don’t mean the blister dressing.

Why the Christian life? Why not the human life?
A quote I like (but forget the author): Only the heart that is broken can hold the world.
Oh, and ZZ, a moleskin is a little notebook (usually black) with elastic around it popular with many writers because it is easy to carry.

Thanks for sharing your story here, A.R. I was reminded of a great book by Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed in America. She decided to find out what it was like to live on the mininum wage; in short order she discovered she had to work two jobs and even then she would be living very close to the bone. Housing was a major problem; so was transportation. Neither job offered benefits. Of course she did not suffer the same anxieties as the working poor who cleaned the motel rooms and waited tables alongside her, because she knew she had money in the bank and a place to go if she couldn’t make it for the six months she had planned. But even so the experience was extremely difficult. And she had no kids to worry about.
I think what bothers me most in this discussion is the callous, smug, self-righteous and mean-spirited tone of some comments. It’s as if people forget that “there but for the grace of God go I.” I’m sure there are lazy poor people, just as there are lazy rich ones; I’m sure that some government programs make far better use of our tax dollars than others (early childhood education being one). But if we can’t as a society, as the wealthiest nation in the world, make a commitment to provide decent health care, good (why not excellent?) public schools, a living wage and a helping hand when people truly need it, then what kind of people are we? You’d think we would do it out of self-interest if nothing else; when you’ve got a healthy, well-educated populace you have more productive workers, more people contributing to the good of the whole, less crime, less of all the social evils that affect all of us directly or indirectly–and cost us big money. So I wonder why, decade after decade, nothing much ever seems to get done. And I wonder if it’s because a healthy and educated and confident citizenry would be more likely to DEMAND that its government act in their interests instead of serving the interests of the few, the pharmaceutical and insurance companies, Halliburton and KBR, Exxon and Mobil.

P.S. The quotation brought to mind one of my favorites, from a book called Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade. He was a 17th century French Jesuit, if memory serves.
“God instructs the soul not with ideas, but through pains and contradictions.”

“Why the Christian life? Why not the human life?”
Because it explains Christianity so well, I didn’t say it to exclude anyone. Sheesh! I can’t even put up a nice quote and say what it means to me with out getting questioned.

Oh Michelle, I knew what you meant.

“it popular with many writers because it is easy to carry.”
And it has a little pocket in the back where you can stick notes. Much nicer than a spiral notebook because it’s bound (it’s like a little composition book).

Eh, I pass.
What was the WCF quote?

WCF 7:1
“The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto Him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of Him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which He has been pleased to express by way of covenant.”

“i was forced to swallow my conservative pride and fall back onto those social programs that you call “failures” in order to keep my house and food on the table. if it weren’t for those programs, i wouldn’t have lasted long enough to find that next job. you conservatives talk about this fictional “welfare state” populated by lazy people who just live off of our tax money and have no desire to work. except for a few who game the system, you couldn’t be more wrong. i know from experience that in colorado at least, you can’t remain on these programs unless you prove every second week that you’re looking for work.”
Are you talking about pre-reform or post-reform of welfare?
BTW, I understand that it can be a help when you have no other option (I have seen it first hand, btw) but I also understand that it doesn’t address the underlying problems that this nation faces when it comes to poverty. If you would get over you suspicion and hatred of people like me, and we stop playing one-upman maybe we could have a real conversation about the poor (of course it will have to wait until after finals because I’m not against local government help for the poor, I’m against the federal government doing it.

Sheesh! I can’t even put up a nice quote and say what it means to me with out getting questioned.
That’s because it seems you so often go out of your way to express divisive, snarky, us/them comments, which seem very disconnected to the spirit of grace, forgiveness, and spiritual generosity that I think of as the foundation of Christian practice. Especially since, as you acknowledge, the quote comes from a religious Jew, a group who have as much a history of both tears and thoughts as Christians, even more if you’re counting the centuries, your comment — and your response to my earlier comment — come across, in the cold light of a computer screen, as insensitive and ungracious.
I’d like to know more about your support for local programs over federal, though I expect you know that most programs combine both in terms of funding and administration. The history of federal programs being turned over to local control — the Reagan-era block grants and the expulsion/liberation of the mentally ill from institutional care that was supposed to lead to better local programs but instead led to homelessness and abandonment, for example — has often been one of increased inefficiency, increased expense, increased corruption, and increased neglect. This is a genuine question; I am completely sincere when I ask you which local programs you think are more effective than which federal programs and what your evidence is.