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Faithfully yours - Caring for people — the principle

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Published on Sunday, October 4, 2015

By Neil Strohschein

The Neepawa Banner

In last week’s column, I suggested a simple strategy to help us look after the planet. In a caring society, we take personal responsibility for how we relate to the environment around us. We do all we can to keep the place clean and if we make a mess, we clean it up.

Today we tackle the thorny question of how we look after the people on the planet. How does a caring society look after its citizens and what role does government play in the process?

This question is easy to answer—in fact, deciding how to care for people is as easy as deciding how we should care for the planet. All we have to do is follow a principle that has been with us for over 2000 years; but that works as well today as it did when it was first written down.

The principle is found in two quotations from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2) “For all must carry their own loads.” (Galatians 6:5) These verses help us pinpoint the fine line that separates individual responsibility from our duty as a society to care for the needy.

Personal responsibility is the foundation of caring. “We must carry our own load.” For example, my wife and I own a home. We have mortgage payments, utility payments and regular expenses for food, clothing, home repairs, transportation and vehicle maintenance. We are responsible for these bills. We cannot (and we do not) expect anyone to pay them for us. And so far, nobody has offered to do that. They are our responsibility. They are “the load” that we must (and do) carry.

We also benefit from services that we, as a society, work together to provide. Our children were educated in public schools. We have access to quality health care. We drive on good roads and our home is served by municipal water and sewer systems. We pay taxes on our income, on goods and services we purchase and on our property. These revenues help cover the costs of the services mentioned above. By working together and each paying a portion of the cost, we are able to provide services for our community that none of us could afford to provide for ourselves. We still carry “our load;” but we carry it in partnership with other citizens in our community.

But we have a soft spot in our hearts for those who suddenly find themselves in need. We know how they feel—we’ve been there and done that. When Kathryn had her stroke and we were making several trips a week to Winnipeg for Outpatient Therapy, we received three monetary gifts that helped us cover those costs. They weren’t much, but they were what we needed at the time and we continue to be grateful for the help we received in our time of need. 

Those who gave us these gifts were “burden bearers.” They helped us meet needs we incurred through no fault of our own. That’s what a caring society does. We do not take on costs that are the personal responsibilities of others. But when people have emergency needs (due to health problems, tragedies, job losses, etc.) we become “burden bearers.” We provide financial and other aid to meet emergency needs. But we do not do it forever. When they can “carry their load,” the “burden bearing” ends.

Next week—how do we care for the weak and vulnerable among us?