On Poverty II: Once You Know

“If you know these things, you are blessed to do them” (John 13:17).

Some of my friends in the medical field refer to a condition they call the “burden of knowledge”—the more practitioners know, the more responsibility they bear. I remember in lifeguard training being cautioned that upon certification we could be held negligent if a person keeled over in the mall and we walked the other way. The world isn’t the same after you leave the cave (or the Matrix). Once our eyes are open to certain realities, we cannot go back.

Our planet has shrunk with the spread of global communication and the interconnectedness of peoples across the globe only further illustrates the point that the future of one country cannot be isolated from all others. My eyes have been open to a radical poverty that truly exists beyond television infomercials and UNICEF donation boxes. Fr. Francis and I spent time today at the local Missionaries of Charity post. I saw the glaucoma-glazed eyes, I smelt the urine stained trousers, and heard the cry of babies in the throes of hunger pains.

We are not all called to be missionaries, nor are we called to become Franciscans and totally empty ourselves of our material goods. The Gospel does not condemn earthly goods and riches in themselves—Christ condemns the attachment to money and goods, as if “one’s life depended on them” (Luke 12:15). Sometimes feelings of guilt over our possessions or comforts, while good-intentioned, may be arising from the spirits not truly of God, those false spirits tempting us towards the wrong mission or the wrong timing or the wrong degree of involvement. The question could be asked, who is lacking a relationship with Christ, the destitute African or the affluent American? Who is truly more impoverished? Where do my talents and the needs of the world meet? There are plenty of people in our work and neighborhood settings in need of compassion and human warmth—not everyone can or should ship off to Africa.

But those deep movements of peace and courage can also lead us take right action for our global brothers and sisters in need. Again, I am daily face the question of what will I do for this country once I return home. What can I do? Here I shall attempt to relinquish an active role and give God space to move me towards His desired end. There is a time for everything, but now is apparently the time for me to go play soccer. The kids are telling me so.

-Bob
written 06/15/11