Henri Nouwen, in his pamphlet The Spirituality of Fund Raising, says, “sometimes our concern for the poor may carry with it a prejudice against the rich. We may feel that they are not as good as the poor…The poor are indeed held in the heart of God. We need to remember that the rich are held there too. I have met a number of wealthy people over the years. More and more, my experience is that rich people are also poor, but in other ways.”
Looking at the comments from the last post, I see that others are feeling this too. Sometimes the very assets that give us wealth (our education, financial stability, easy access to health care) can in fact impoverish us in other ways. This is a fascinating thought to me: The poverty of wealth. I think we see it in ourselves, as has already been mentioned, in our ability to ignore our desperate need for God in the day to day living of our lives. I know that with steady employment, a bank account, home ownership, and family as a safety net, God is potentially pretty far down the ladder if a disaster were to strike me. This is a sobering thought. When I recite the Lord’s Prayer and pray “Give us this day our daily food”, what am I really asking for? My ‘fridge is abundantly full. I have not only my daily food, but also a couple of weeks’ worth. Certainly I pray that as a community prayer, embracing a global “we” where daily food is something to pray for, yet I’m sure I can come to a fuller understanding of what my prayer can mean to me: where is the daily hunger that only God can fill in my life? I am also poor in my understanding of community. My wealth not only insulates me from a deep dependence on God, but keeps me from experiencing the depth of community that ought to be ours as Christians. The ability to call a tow truck if my car breaks down, order a pizza if I’m ill and can’t cook, hire a contractor if my roof leaks are all wonderful blessings and yet they keep me from a deep need for others and the humility of asking for and receiving help.
Thinking about the poverty of wealth can also help us gain God’s deep compassion on those who live and work all around us; those neighbors, friends, and co-workers who seem to have no need of God. Nouwen asks, “Can we discover the poor in this person? That is so important because it is precisely in this person’s poverty that we discover his or her blessing. Jesus said, ‘How blessed are you who are poor’ (Luke 6:20). The rich are also poor.” What is the poverty of wealth? Loneliness, dissatisfaction with empty pursuits, enslavement to the ideas of youth and health and success seem to be impoverishments to me. What is the poverty that you see in yourself and in those who are materially rich? This must not be an exercise in ingratitude for all that we have. I am most thankful to have been born at the right time in the right place to the right family. But, if we are to discover the blessings of poverty for ourselves, I don’t think we need to sell all that we have to find it. It is already there lurking within us.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Friday, November 9, 2007
Poverty and Wealth: Part I
The Holiday Season is officially upon us. I flipped my calendar over to November and the plans and events of the season began rolling in right on cue. This is a time to reflect on our blessings as individuals and as a community, to stop and give thanks to God for all that we have and to remember that “every good and perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17).
It is also a season of giving. Generosity seems to well up more during the holidays, maybe because we are more aware of all the blessings we enjoy or maybe because the needs of people are so much more apparent. This is the time of year when it is perfectly normal to be asked for money wherever you go: the grocery store collects food and takes donations for the hungry, the mall has a tree up where you can buy a needy child a Christmas gift, the bell-ringers are out collecting change and the schools are gathering supplies for the homeless shelters. A feeling of Goodwill Toward Men warms our hearts. But where does it go the rest of the year? How do we come to terms with the needs of the world and our great wealth in comparison?
In my reading recently I have been paying attention to questions of wealth and poverty. Does God love the poor more than the rich? Should I feel guilty about the wealth we enjoy here living in the developed west? Is it a blessing? a stumbling block? a responsibility? Is it okay to have and enjoy nice things while somewhere in the world hunger and disease are robbing a mother just like me of her ability to live her life in peace and joy? And in the end, what can I do about it anyway? What is the call of God for Christians living in plenty?
I don’t pretend to have the answers. I am struggling with the questions and trying to find my own way here. Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness, tells of her conversion to the Catholic faith. Day is a stretch for me. She was a Christian anarchist, a believer and practitioner of voluntary poverty, a labor organizer and a prolific writer of political manifestos championing the rights of the poor. She founded the Catholic Worker movement and established many homes of hospitality for people out of work in the Great Depression. While her ways are not my ways, I admire her greatly. She lived out her faith according to her conscience and went beyond theories and writing to align herself wholeheartedly with her convictions. She never gave up believing in the dignity that belongs to each person and she was able to see Christ in everyone who came to her for help. I can learn a lot from her. Day believed that God’s preference is for the poor and she identified herself with them. There is no getting around the truth found throughout scripture that God does have a heart for the poor. He cares for them and as John says,
“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” -1 John 3:17-18
I certainly believe in God’s deep love and concern for the poor, but I don’t believe it means he loves them more than the rich. I thought it would be interesting, though, to hear your views and to explore other ideas on wealth and poverty here over the next month or so. Do you consider yourself rich or poor? Have you come to terms with life in an affluent area or is it something you struggle with? Do the needs of the world’s poor affect your giving during the holiday season? Post your thoughts and stayed tuned for Part II.
It is also a season of giving. Generosity seems to well up more during the holidays, maybe because we are more aware of all the blessings we enjoy or maybe because the needs of people are so much more apparent. This is the time of year when it is perfectly normal to be asked for money wherever you go: the grocery store collects food and takes donations for the hungry, the mall has a tree up where you can buy a needy child a Christmas gift, the bell-ringers are out collecting change and the schools are gathering supplies for the homeless shelters. A feeling of Goodwill Toward Men warms our hearts. But where does it go the rest of the year? How do we come to terms with the needs of the world and our great wealth in comparison?
In my reading recently I have been paying attention to questions of wealth and poverty. Does God love the poor more than the rich? Should I feel guilty about the wealth we enjoy here living in the developed west? Is it a blessing? a stumbling block? a responsibility? Is it okay to have and enjoy nice things while somewhere in the world hunger and disease are robbing a mother just like me of her ability to live her life in peace and joy? And in the end, what can I do about it anyway? What is the call of God for Christians living in plenty?
I don’t pretend to have the answers. I am struggling with the questions and trying to find my own way here. Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness, tells of her conversion to the Catholic faith. Day is a stretch for me. She was a Christian anarchist, a believer and practitioner of voluntary poverty, a labor organizer and a prolific writer of political manifestos championing the rights of the poor. She founded the Catholic Worker movement and established many homes of hospitality for people out of work in the Great Depression. While her ways are not my ways, I admire her greatly. She lived out her faith according to her conscience and went beyond theories and writing to align herself wholeheartedly with her convictions. She never gave up believing in the dignity that belongs to each person and she was able to see Christ in everyone who came to her for help. I can learn a lot from her. Day believed that God’s preference is for the poor and she identified herself with them. There is no getting around the truth found throughout scripture that God does have a heart for the poor. He cares for them and as John says,
“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” -1 John 3:17-18
I certainly believe in God’s deep love and concern for the poor, but I don’t believe it means he loves them more than the rich. I thought it would be interesting, though, to hear your views and to explore other ideas on wealth and poverty here over the next month or so. Do you consider yourself rich or poor? Have you come to terms with life in an affluent area or is it something you struggle with? Do the needs of the world’s poor affect your giving during the holiday season? Post your thoughts and stayed tuned for Part II.
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