Suffering is the Face of Poverty

At 26 years of age, I moved from Eau Claire, Wisconsin to Vallejo, California. Driving a 1977 Ford LTD, I fit all my possessions in the car, along with my six-month old malamute-shepherd mix, Sara. There was a feeling of freedom traveling the open road, unburdened of belongings. I hoped to continue this minimal living with the ultimate goal of carrying all I possessed on my back like a hermit crab. However, shortly thereafter I married and had children and filled to the brim the same vehicle with just an outing to the beach or a day trip to grandma’s!

Greed is accumulating and hoarding more than needed. Greed can be inherent in individuals, communities, and even nation states, while poverty is the inability to accumulate enough to live on. However, this presupposes limits on abundance. If abundance is energy, it is limitless. Energy is limited by our mindsets and by our thoughts. However, it does not take away from the suffering of those experiencing poverty.

Poverty can be a life choice, a chosen path. Poverty could be seen as heroic; the placing of one’s total being in God, letting go of all worldly things, trusting one's basic physical needs will be met.

We like having. We fear lack. We accumulate because of our fears of lack. We see others who lack and suffer because of poverty. Fortunately, many give and share their resources with others to alleviate as much suffering as they are able.

If there is anyone in your community who does not have food, feed them. If there is anyone in your community who has no access to healers, provide for them the needed help. If there is anyone in your community who does not have the shelter of a home, provide them with one even if it means opening your own doors and inviting the homeless in. These are acts of love.

Photo bybill wegeneronUnsplash

Poverty needs to be looked at in a different perspective. We are all born into poverty as our head crowns into the world. We are poor in this world to the wealth of the Eternal. We seek after pleasures and riches of this world, but all the pleasures and riches of the world still leave us poor if we have not a relationship with God. There are the poor who have not enough to eat, clean water to drink, a home to shelter them, family/friends to help them in their need, including access to healing medicines, and the freedom to come and go as they please on the earth.

Those who have must give so all have enough. Giving expands spirit. Giving away what one has to another in need makes the giver less poor in spirit and the receiver less poor in worldly goods. Receiving in gratitude allows the poor in worldly goods to expand their spirit as well. Giving is more important than accumulating and hoarding. Those who accumulate and hoard are the truly poor ones.

Living a simple life allows one freedom from the material. Possessions take up time and energy. The more one wants or has, the more energy and time they take up. Living with less offers one freedom from possessions and more time and energy for the pursuit of service.

Unless one does not have the resources to live at all, one may not know they are poor unless they compare themselves with another. It is not the poverty that causes discontent, but the comparison. Seeing the abundance of the few, while you scrape and beg and work more hours than your body has energy for, creates discord and resentment. It is a ticking time bomb. Poverty without education, without learning about opportunities available, is an equation for hopelessness. If you have been blessed, give, and make a difference for another.