Hunger Amidst Plenty

“The poor here have plenty compared to those in some countries.”  Often this is said just before a person tells me that he/she is unwilling to help the poor in our community because they really aren’t as desperate as they pretend.  Well, I don’t know how to answer that.  I’ve seen the bloated bellies of undernourished children in other countries, and I can see that our country is very different.

 But if a kid is hungry, it doesn’t really matter if ALL the kids are hungry or if it’s just him.  It may be even worse to think that ANY child in a country such as ours goes hungry when there is such an abundance of food just thrown out every day.  Grocery stores, restaurants, and families throw away tons of food every day, and yet there are still people who go to bed hungry.   If you live in a country where there is not enough food being produced to feed the children, then it’s at least understandable that people will go hungry, but in countries like ours, there is no excuse.  Here are several articles which talk about food waste in different places. The first one is actually written by a man in Melbourne, Australia, and his experience at an “all you can eat” restaurant in Melbourne.

Later, we were deciding whether to take the food straight to the pantry, or wait until Monday when people were there to unload.  John, getting food for the STARR House, offered to bring some of the pantry food in his truck and bring men to help unload.  When Bill asked Cathy if she was coming to unload her car, she said, “Well, I wasn’t going to, but now it sounds like a party, so I’ll come!”  It’s people like Cathy that make helping others a blessing!  She has a wonderful sense of humor and a positive attitude that always makes me smile.

It was amazing how much food was collected for the hungry in our community by these letter carriers!  It just gives me a good feeling to know that efforts such as these go on every day in our community. Often no one knows the time and effort that is put into this kind of project by a relatively small group of caring people.  Several different groups benefited from the food drive held by the letter carriers. 
                                                                                                          

As I see people on the street with little to wear and who appear cold, I envision my closet which I can hardly cram all my coats into.  However, when I look in the closet and think about giving some of my coats away, I keep thinking “I might wear that” and keep most of them. Then I think of those who have no place to sleep, and I think of beds in my house which are seldom used. I can drown in guilt if I allow myself to think of how much I have and how little some people have.  How do I deal with this guilt? 

I decided to do a little research on the idea of a guilty conscience.  I learned that the phrase was the name of a band, the title to a rap song, and the name of a writer’s web site.  According to a free on-line dictionary a  guilty conscience  is “remorse caused by feeling responsible for some offense.”  I really don’t feel responsible for the misfortune of others, but I feel like I am so fortunate that I should help them.  When I don’t, I feel selfish.

First of all, I know that I can’t take care of all the people who have needs.  At the same time, I don’t want to be selfish, using my resources without consideration for those without any.  The thing is, wallowing in guilt does not solve the problem.  What I’ve decided is that I need to find ways to increase my ability to be generous with others.

One thing I’ve learned is that I am more likely to be generous when I really see a need.  What that means for me is that I have to put myself in a position to know some poor people well enough to recognize their needs.  One of the things I’ve tried to do in the last year or so is to visit those in the shelters and get to know them. 

A few weeks before Christmas I was pulling out some of my Christmas vests and sweaters and found a long-sleeve knit shirt decorated with holly that I had received as a gift the previous year, but it was very small and I knew I would not wear it.  I immediately thought of one of the women at the shelter who was very small.  I thought “I bet she could wear this!”  Had I not known her, I would probably have just put the shirt back in the drawer.  As I get to know these men and women, I also get to know their needs, their likes, and dislikes in a way that allows me to care for them and meet a few of their needs.

Several years ago while teaching school,  I directed  a one-act play called “Us and Them” written by David Campton.  In the play two families are wandering around, looking for a place to live. They agree to share a space and mark the line between their territories.  At first they live side by side peacefully, but eventually they build a fence between them.  As time went on the fence was built higher and higher until they could not see over.  Then they got suspicious of one another.  In the end the two groups explode in conflict.  I think the play has lots to say about the way our society has become, particularly as it relates to the rich and the poor.

As the gap widens between the “haves and have nots” the perceptions become more and more distorted, and that adds to the problem of closing the gap.  Many people who have lots of resources glibly imply that if “those people” would just get out and get a job, they would not be asking for a hand-out.  On the other side of the gap, the poor often think that the people with money are uncaring and unwilling to help people who have fallen on hard times.  Neither perception is accurate.  While we all know lazy people and we all know stingy people, we find them all along the economical ladder.  If we get to know people on both sides of the  chasm we realize that plenty of poor people work hard and plenty of rich people are very generous. 

I read an article in “The Observer,” a newsletter of the University Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College, where a man named Willie Baptist (that’s his name, not his denomination), a scholar and an activist for poverty, who had once been homeless, had spoken to a group at the school.  He said, “The public perception of homelessness as a self-inflicted condition has presented an obstacle to fighting the issue because it overlooks the knowledge and talents of homeless people.… Despite the public opinion of homeless people as those who can’t fight for themselves, there’s a rich reservoir of geniuses having to manipulate with meager means how to get from one day to another, but we allow that to lay waste in considering the consequences of poverty.” If you want to read the entire article, go to http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/news/activist-shares-story-of-poverty-1.2850587 .

On the other hand, many of the rich are very generous.  In an article in the Business Insider,  titled “The 25 Most Generous People in America” (http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-25-most-generous-people-in-america-2012-2) the writer gave pictures and a little information about each of the generous Americans who gave away millions of dollars to good causes in 2011.  Although I was impressed with the amounts these people gave away, I also noticed that most of the gifts were given to colleges and universities, a few to medical research, and several to various charitable foundations.  None went specifically to help hungry or homeless people in America.  I think it illustrates a point I’m trying to make that there is such a tremendous gap between the rich and the poor that those very generous people often do not view the poor as being worthy of their gifts.

Having said this, I do know lots of generous people who are giving back to those in their communities because they make the effort to get to know those around them and to close the gap between the “haves and have nots” in their own world.  It takes work to get to know the needs of your neighbors, and unfortunately we live in a society where we often do not know the person living next door.  In a Bible study class recently, I heard several stories from people who said that their close neighbors had been ill for weeks or months before they even knew about it.  It’s no wonder we don’t care for one another.  We don’t know each other!

When we think of being generous, we often think of the “haves,” not the “have-nots.”  Most of the time we think that poor people don’t really have anything to give to others, but maybe we need to rethink this.

Generosity, like most other traits among people, is a trait that people can exhibit, regardless of their position in life.  In my previous post I mentioned the “Appalachian Trials” readings which I attended last week.  One of them contained a story about these people who drew a welfare check each month and they helped each other out until they got checks.  If one of them ran out of food before they got a check, others in the neighborhood would share their food. 

The reading reminded me of a story related to me by a good friend.  She said that she had taken some food to a lady who was very poor and needed some help.  Later the lady called her and said, “I just wanted to know if it would be all right for me to give part of this food to my neighbor.  She has very little food and we usually share what we have with each other.” Of course my friend told her that she could certainly share the food with her friend.  Another thing I remembered was the time we were finished distributing food at the Christian Church, and just as we had given out the last meal, another person walked up needing food.  As we told him that the bags were all gone, one of those leaving turned around and handed one of his bags of food to the person needing help. 

So it’s not how much you have that determines whether you can be generous; it’s just how willing you are to share what you have. 

I attended a reader’s theater production called “Appalachian Trials” (NO, not Trails) last Monday at Berry and Tuesday at First Baptist Church.  The readings included many good Kentucky authors.  First of all, Dr. Randy Richardson’s students did an excellent job of presenting some of the poverty issues in the area where I lived the first twenty-six years of my life.  Second, the readings gave lots of “food for thought” regarding the plight of the poor anywhere, not just in Appalachia.  In today’s post I want to share just one idea that I had not thought much about.

In one of the readings, a woman had bought a painting of the Lord’s Supper.  Someone criticized her because she spent money on a piece of art when her children needed shoes.  Her response was that when she went to church the next Sunday, people would notice that her children needed shoes and someone would give them some, but no one would notice that they needed art.  It was a truth that I do not often think about. We focus so much on providing food and clothing for the poor and sometimes forget that they need so much more.  The following are just a few thoughts about cultural deprivation.

My own experience in Southeastern Kentucky was that I had plenty of food, clothing, and a good warm place to live.  I actually felt that I was much more fortunate than most of those in my community.  I never realized that I was missing anything until I got to college and realized that many of the other students had been exposed to much more in terms of literature, music, art and travel.  Appalachian children today may have a little more exposure to the arts than I did, but we didn’t know we were poor until someone told us.  In one of the readings, the writer said that she didn’t know she was deprived until someone told her and then she tried to “dredge up” some sort of feelings of deprivation.  I kind of felt the same way; I was fine until someone told me I had lacked these things.

Some conclusions: 

(1)   I want to be more aware of the reality that the poor can only make progress as they experience more than just the things necessary to live.  Sometimes we might do well to share tickets to a concert, a trip to an art exhibit, or a good book with the poor.

(2)   I want to be less critical when the poor splurge a little and spend some money on a luxury beyond food and clothing.

Expect to hear more insights from “Appalachian Trials” in future posts.

We all make mistakes, right?  We make a bad judgment about a friend, a bad choice of who to trust, or a bad investment or a purchase that was a waste of money.  Some mistakes make a bigger impact than others, depending on your circumstance.  It is often not the mistake itself that is the problem, but the context in which the mistake is made.  The first two years I taught school, money was tight.  Most of the time I made wise decisions, but occasionally I didn’t.  When I was planning my wedding, I bought a set of china that I later realized was a poor choice, and I’d spent a good bit of money.  The mistake, however, did not have a serious impact on my life.  The next year, after my wedding, I bought a nice wedding album from a salesman who visited our home.  I was astonished when my new husband did not approve.   As a young couple with very little money, the amount was significant enough that he thought we should have made the decision together—and he was right of course.  So, our mistakes are often significant or not depending on our situations.

Now let’s think about poor people, those on the verge of becoming homeless.  Do you think they’re any less likely to make mistakes regarding their lives?  I’m thinking they’re about like I am in that regard—making some good choices and some bad.

If you make several million dollars a year, a $100 mistake in purchasing is not an issue, but if you’re living on minimum wage, it could cause you to go without groceries, or get you evicted from your apartment. Now you may be saying, “But people living on minimum wage should know that they can’t afford to make that kind of mistake; they don’t have extra money to throw away.”  I agree, but I realize that when I have made mistakes like that, I don’t usually say, “Well, I think I can afford to throw some money away today.”  I just see something that seems reasonable to buy and I buy it.  It’s only later that I realize it wasn’t a good idea—and even then someone else may have to tell me it wasn’t a good idea.

Let’s think about other types of mistakes that impoverished and homeless people often make.  Recently Angie, a girl living in the shelter, found a friend that really seemed to understand her.  The other girl lived with some girls in an apartment downtown and began encouraging Angie to come join them.  Angie knew that if she left the shelter she could not go back, so she gave it some serious thought.  In the end though, it was appealing and she left the shelter to share an apartment with her friends.  Three weeks later, she became aware that her friends were involved in drugs, and they were not the kind of people she thought they were.  She was frightened and realized she’d made a big mistake, but she could not afford to pay for an apartment with her meager salary.  She wished she had stayed where she was.  For some people, making a mistake about choosing a friend would be just a matter of dropping the friend from their social activities, but for people like Angie, it may become a major crisis. 

Before I become too critical of people like Angie, I’m trying to realize that we all make mistakes, but people who are on the fringe of society may suffer much more for their mistakes than I do.