Blessed is the Kingdom

Seeking The Kingdom In All Things

Methamphetamine

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One truth that will stick with me from my time away from active ministry is that that poverty is alive and well in the United States. A large portion of my time on leave was spent living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. It was there that I worked first with “at risk” youth and then with those struggling to find mental health. There was no lack of job opportunities in helping those who were struggling under the burdens of poverty in the area. Ashe County is home to some of the best Christmas tree farms in the country, but it was clear to me from living there that the major sources of income were social welfare and meth labs. Only 12% of the population had a college degree. The poverty that exists there is generational. It runs deep and is very much part of the culture. But given the opportunity, I would not hesitate to live there again. There is a simplicity present in Ashe County that I have rarely found elsewhere. The beauty of the land and the people is beyond compare. But the question remains in my mind and my heart, “why is it so easy to overlook the poor?”

Perhaps in this case it is that there are no major highways running through the area. Perhaps it is the fear of driving down a country road full of residents who are very cautious about outsiders. Perhaps most of us have enough to deal with in our own struggles that we just don’t see the extreme poverty that exists right here in the United States.

Some images that have remained with me from my time living there are the houses I drove past every day on Big Horse Creek Road (one is pictured above), or the road less than a mile from my house that once served as a route for moonshine to cross the state line from North Carolina to Virginia, or the day I witnessed a man standing in front of his newly closed business shooting a pistol desperately into the side of a hill. Most present are the faces of real people who have little hope of improving their situation.

We are currently struggling to make sense of a national economic crisis, but there are places where economic crisis is the norm. As a Christian, I continue to wrestle with what I can do to reach out to those in need. The Scriptures tell us that the poor will be with us always, but Christ also makes it clear that we will be judged by how we treat the least among us. The last few years have opened my eyes again to the poor. The question that remains is, what will my response be?

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About The Author

Fr. Christian is the pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Lenoir City, TN.

Comments

  • s-p

    A very good question, Father. Do we personally go broke handing out dollar bills to “work for food” people, do we sit at our dining room table and write checks to organizations with low overhead and sweeping programs, do we pick a person or a cause and pour ourselves into one thing, or do we become social workers and beat our heads against a wall constructed by generations of marginal people and governmental programs that ultimately enable the poor? Perhaps the answer is all of the above and we just have to pick one and let someone else do another and perhaps as a “body” the issues will at least have someone attending to them if not solving them.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    Thanks for the comment Steve. I have at one point or another in my life done all of the above and they each have their strengths and weaknesses. Recently I find that I have lost much of the romanticism that sometimes goes with being a “helper” and that is a good thing. It makes it a tad bit easier to evaluate a situation and give the attention that is needed without discouragement.

  • s-p

    Ah yes, losing the romanticism of “being God” is an important milestone. It took me a long time to figure out that not even God comes up with “results” when He gives and helps. The source of discouragement is our egos that we can accomplish more than God by our good intentions and efforts.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    David,

    While I would agree that everyone has the opportunity to change, there is the reality that there are indeed levels of opportunity. Much of what I experienced in North Carolina led me to believe that there were additional obstacles to surmount. For example, being born to parents who kicked you out of the trailer all day so that they could make and sell drugs makes pulling oneself up by the bootstraps more difficult. I am not saying that this is impossible, just a bigger challenge.

    My work there challenged me to encourage others to take small attainable steps forward and to focus my efforts heavily on those individuals who were not, as Steve suggested, allowing themselves to live a life of feeling entitled to help from the government or charities.

    But my ultimate question remains. Knowing that I am called as a Christian to help those in need, how will I best follow this call. It is not a question easily answered.

  • David

    For me personally, there is a constant tension between my Catholicism, and since I am a convert, my “American Civil Religion” which is perhaps more deeply rooted in me. The stories that inspire me the most are those that begin in the “American Civil Religion” and bridge over into Christianity. I believe that the notion of salvation helped inspire a courage in those that sought to escape from tyranny (which many today cannot seem to comprehend as real) of religion, of opportunity, of property and even of movement. The poverty you witness has always existed, but within a democratic capitalist society, everyone has the opportunity to improve (or move). Examples include Madame CJ Walker, Henry Ford, Eugene Bullard, Franklin and really all the founders, the list is enormous and continues to grow.

    Which is a long winded way of saying I take the slightly hackneyed philosophy of “a hand-up not a hand-out”– like habitat for humanity and micro-loan programs.

  • David

    Yes. The obstacles are great for many, but there are so many examples of greater, or at least similar, obstacles overcome. Even the experience of the Hutu-Tutsi couple I think I’ve spoken about before is simply beyond my comprehension. And yet they made it out of that horror– unlike many I am aware, just as many were burned at the stake or crucified. It is not a question easily answered and it is not a trivial question either.

  • David

    Perhaps poverty and it’s omnipresence is yet another temptation as enumerated in the previous post.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    David,

    Can you give some more explanation to the last comment. I think I see where you are going, but not sure.

  • David

    I’m not sure where I’m going, either. I guess I was thinking that the feeling overwhelmed by a perceived evil is in itself a temptation. That we can see all five of the reasons present in poverty. And that by the second we should maintain an attempt to alleviate the kind of poverty you notice. But that also, in the third instance, we should humbly acknowledge that our perception of poverty might be limited and in that sense blind to God.

    I would guess that my feelings on addressing poverty are much like yours, but is poverty simply a temporal physical situation? Adequate food or drink, or shelter, or education, or even owning a TV can be seen as necessities, but aren’t the lack of these a poverty of this world– and there are many days when I question my own “wealth” and my children’s well being in this place. While I am in those mountains my mind is always powerfully turned towards God. I know one thing: thinking about this seems far more important than my current endeavour at work.

  • Tim

    I think it important to do whatever we can. Poverty is one of the greatest obstacles to hope. Without hope we all loose a quality of life that can never be replaced. It is sometimes too easy to dismiss the poor or talk about ways to get them on their feet. I feel it important to find ways to give them hope along with the help. Along with the hope comes a desire for a life worth living

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    Certainly there is the temptation to despair and falling into despair has to rank up there among the things I would consider most damaging to souls.

    And I agree that poverty extends far beyond the physical. I had a great many happy days living in what I refer to as the shotgun shack up in the mountains of Western Carolina, but I also would not want to romanticize it. There was a real struggle for me to just have enough money to pay the bills. The great thing was that even with this, I enjoyed the wealth of the land every single day that I lived there. I went to sleep every night and awoke to the sound of the trout stream that was just a few steps from the back porch. I drove to work every day through the beauty of the mountains. That is worth more than the usual things we refer to as wealth. But even with this, I didn’t lose my focus that poverty is damaging to people. It can keep one from eating, getting medical care, or heat in the winter. No easy answers, but glad that you see this conversation as important.

  • Anne

    Having seen abject poverty in both the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia, I would hesititate — even refuse — to call it “simply a temporal physical situation”. Those who suffer in abject poverty live a hell the rest of us can’t imagine on a daily basis. Nothing mitigates that.

    We Americans commonly pride ourselves on being from a country where all who work hard may be rewarded in this life with wealth and upward mobility. But this is one of the great American myths that must be done away with before we can really address the problem of poverty in this country. (I won’t even consider here the problem of poverty in other countries, which is even more dire and alarming.) Equality of opportunity may exist in America for a large portion of the population, but those who experience the legacy of generational poverty are handicapped before the race even begins.

    Generational poverty isn’t just the lack of means. It is a pathology, complete with symptoms and physical effects that are every bit as devastating to the human body as AIDS or cancer. Those who are afflicted with it are not just enduring some temporary discomfort. They suffer in ways the rest of us cannot imagine. For every American who pulls himself out of poverty to become the next Henry Ford, there are so many others who live and die in a state of total deprivation that cannot be redeemed in this world by the fruits of our supposedly egalitarian society.

    I agree that it is important not to succumb to the temptation to despair in the face of that what seems insurmountable. God’s grace is always there, and I trust in it to help me find ways to join with others to build a more just society. But we have to be careful when we appeal to greater meaning and end up relativizing others’ suffering in the process. The absence of adequate food, shelter, education and health care are “a poverty of this world”, to be sure. And this poverty will be fully alleviated in the next world. But that fact should never permit us to relativize the sufferings of others by placing generational poverty in the same context as being unable to afford a television.

    May we never be too comfortable with the persistence of generational poverty. It implicates all of us.

  • Mark G.

    I work with a lot of folks from India who say that a shotgun shack like the one at the top of the post would be a royal palace to most people in India.

    To paraphrase Chesterton, there has never been a nation of millionaires, but there have been any number of made of reasonable content peasants.

    I’m certainly not saying that hungry people should just be content to starve, but it perhaps seems that many efforts on behalf of the poor look more like an attempt to soothe our own guilty consciences about the luxurious lifestyle in which most of us in the Western world live, than an earnest attempt to raise poor peoples amp; nations up to the same standard.

    The family I sponsor through Christian Children’s Fund would be more than happy with new sandals, a few chickens, and that their kids can continue their education in good health. Sounds good to me.

    I believe Benedict wrote, following others, that salvation is not dependant on one’s economic condition.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    Mark,

    Thanks for the comment. I agree that we cannot just give money, clothes, food, etc. to others simply to salve our conscience. People are ultimately responsible for their own life. But we are obligated to do what we can to help those in need. The question is how can we best accomplish that? I also feel we often don’t see that we are connected to those both above and below us on the financial side of things.

  • http://annebender.blogspot.com/ anne bender

    Fr. Christian, this story really touched me. I work for the WIC program and the poor are part of my daily life, they are part of my heart. I wrote a post not too long ago titled Addict. The addicted client in my story was for me, the crucified Christ. I’m so glad to find your blog. You seem to be a kindred spirit.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    Hi Anne,

    Glad that you appreciated the post. It sounds like you have a tough job, but one that certainly allows you to see Christ in others. Thanks for commenting!

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