Poverty is the load of some, and. wealth is the load of others, perhaps the greater load of the two. Bear the load of your neighbor’s poverty, and let him bear with you the load of your wealth. You lighten your load by lightening his.
~Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!… By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
~ from James 2 and 1 John 3
Oh beloved, it is true. We say we love people, but it is almost surely not true most of the time. We walk by in such a hurry as people bleed out and pass away. Sometimes though, we can get it just a tiny bit right.
Tonight was such a night for this writer.
i was in a new grocery store on the outskirts of my hometown on the island of Occidental Negros, in the Visayas region of the Philippines. The grocery store is modern, but truly sits on the edge of the developing world.
Thousands of people who live within walking distance of this building would barely dare to dream of ever having enough money to fill up a full-sized cart of groceries. And so, to make things more realistic, the vast majority of the carts are tiny little blue-basketed things into which a customer can place the very few things they might be able to afford. And some don’t even get a little basket. There is no need. Whatever they are going to buy is going to fit in one hand and empty the small coins they have worked for all day out of their pockets.
Anyway, we were there buying stuff for a Christmas feast and to stock up on quite a few things. And for this ability, i feel no shame. G_d, in His mercy and grace has made some of us astoundingly wealthy. We get on planes and eat what we want, wearing whatever clothes we want. All of this is great, and i am so thankful for how He has lifted my family above a lifestyle of subsistence. It is a joy to enjoy the bounty G_d has given us.
And there she was.
She was a young mom with a tiny little walking doll of a daughter. The lack of protein and good nutrition can make for some very small human forms at age 3 here. Anyway, the mom was down looking at little individual packets of Milo (a malted milk beverage powder). And as i stopped to notice her, i realized she was deciding whether she could buy two, instead of one with the money she had, to make some sort of cocoa drink for Christmas Eve. Mind you, these are the little packets that most of us might just throw away if we dropped them on the floor…
And in that moment, something came undone in me.
One kind of gets used to the poverty in this part of the world. It is not that i ignore it. I (and other members of my family) work hard against it. We know that the poor will always be with us… It is just that they don’t need to be tiny and dirty and penniless in a big grocery store in my hometown. So, we made some arrangements to make tonight special for this young mom and her kids… but, tomorrow she will begin again the relentless searching and budgeting to stay alive.
It is difficult to describe the rage… Because it does not even feel like anger. It just feels like something in my heart cannot ever be the same after moments like this. She was even embarrassed to take pittance we gave her. But, to not help her would have been a crime against her humanity, and she is the daughter of the same One who has poured out everything for me.
Words fail into gibberish over times like this… So please forgive me for even trying. But beloved, there is something to see here. Moments like this rip our hearts out. But, the hole that is left is even more greatly engorged with the lifeblood of Jesus’ Love for the people we meet. And in allowing ourselves to be injured this way, we actually begin on the path to becoming whole and real and free.
So, perhaps you will come up on a moment like this for yourselves soon. I pray you do, and i pray the pain you feel is real and heals you too. Tonight is your night beloved. Time to Love the poor.
