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!

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.

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.

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.

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.