And the pondering continues...

I appreciate so much what all of you have offered about giving and sharing and being a generous member of a community, while at the same time being honest about the complicated nature of poverty. There are so many perspectives--religious, spiritual, practical, personal. What Josh Brown wrote about the potential presence of Allah in the person begging for a rupee or some food is part of the Christian tradition as well--Christ is in everyone, particularly in the poor and oppressed. The Catholic radical Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Workers based on that belief. Robbie shared the Jewish tenants on giving, and particularly the value of giving so that God is your only and ultimate witness. From a more secular perspective, the great American poet Walt Whitman wrote in his preface to Leaves of Grass: "Give alms to all who ask."

I strongly believe that generosity must extend beyond giving material goods to someone, although I'm still convinced that human to human interaction is valuable when motivated by compassion and empathy rather than guilt, and when you make the effort, as Jina pointed out, to know someone as a person and not just a "begger." I have been lucky to work with many people and organizations dedicated to attacking poverty at its roots--lack of education and skills, lack of job opportunities, lack of resources, lack of self-sufficiency--and I have witnessed sometimes small and sometimes huge successes as men and women celebrate the reality of providing for their families' bellies, minds and spirits, which is really all most of us are looking for.

I carry an article with me that my father gave to me several years ago--it's travelled with me from Portland to Boston to Guatemala to India. It's written by a Catholic priest, but I think the principles hold regardless of religion (let me know if you think I'm wrong on that point). The main thrust of the article is that we live in a world of plenty, although that plenty is not distributed in a particularly fair way (side note: when I worked for Heifer Project, kids asked me all the time why we couldn't just fill airplanes and ships full of food and send them to hungry people around the world. A sweet, though not truly sustainable idea.) What really wreaks havoc though is the human fear of scarcity, on a personal level as well as on wider community levels. We are so scared of not having enough even when we have MORE than enough, that we often, without true cause, deny those around us the chance to have enough. The article always reminds me of what Dorothy Day said about her unfailing belief in pacifism even during World War II which many people around her called a just war. They asked her time and time again how she could hold to a principle when reality dicated another route. Her response was (and this is paraphrased a bit): "how do we know pacifism doesn't work? Have millions of people and their governments dedicated themselves to peace? Have we really tried?"

How long would poverty last in the face of individual and collective action on the part of all of us?


Paz y Amor,
J&J