I was late driving into church, so it was a rare time for me to hear my local NPR’s broadcast of its BBC news program. They were discussing poverty in America. The story led with some of those sound bites that we’ve heard this year from conservatives mocking what we call poverty in this country, pointing out how the majority of our poor have televisions and refrigerators. The talking heads also opined that most of America’s poor never go without missing a meal.
The attitude these commentators revealed, and what appears to be a talking point campaign these comments represented; suggesting the poor are a figment of someone’s imagination, certainly nothing worth worry about, well, except maybe to ask them to pay some taxes was harshly skewered by Jon Stewart on his Daily Show. That clip is floating around the web & I recommend watching it sometime. Personally I find this view shocking for the brazenness of those who want to minimize or deny our domestic problems. It was heartbreaking for its callousness toward those who are most hurt within our country.
But this NPR story only started there.
They went from those comments to an interview with some children at a school in Nevada. They were homeless, an increasing part of our American population. Several of the children spoke of going to bed without eating. They struggled for words to describe their experience. “My tummy growled.” My eyes began to water. And another said, saying how hard it was to sleep. “I waited until the next morning when I could go to school and eat.” I choked.
Another child waited. And then spoke very softly. It was hard to understand. The interviewer had to ask for sure what the child said. It was, “We ate a rat.”
I pulled over and wept.
Just anecdotes. Limited statistical significance.
Not long ago someone commented on one of my blog postings that I always am using my comments on my primary spiritual discipline koans, to tell people to support gay marriage or get involved with ecological concerns or some other social issue. Also recently someone else stated flatly they found me a socialist, and they meant this as a bad thing. I should add not long before, but close enough, following a different posting suggesting the dear folk in the Occupy movement might profitably be a bit more focused on specific issues, for instance electing people, I was characterized by someone as an apologist for a broken system.
I seem to annoy lots of people.
I’d like to be clear on how I see this. After being a person, and a family person, and a spiritual practitioner, I consider myself primarily a spiritual director, and after that a pastor. I advocate a practice of paying attention, of not turning away, from what is going on inside us and what is going on around us. Doing this we, I assure folk, will discover a perspective, a place to stand that is healthy, marked by wisdom. It is a seeing of how profoundly we are connected. One metaphor I like to use is that we’re one family. Actually our connections are even deeper. But, family, that’s a good enough. Plenty good enough. from that place I suggest we’ll know what to do. And, that we should do something.
No kid should have to eat a rat.
Not in our family.
And, who, our spiritual path lead us to see, can be excluded from the family?
One family.
I in fact don’t have a lot of judgements about what precisely any one of us should be doing. You like legislation. Good. You think a picket might help. Good. You want to help out at our food pantry. Good.
But.
Know who you are. And how we fit together.
And then.
For goodness’ sake, for the sake of the family,
Do something.
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