For the Love of Lady Poverty

Within the last few weeks I've been feeling a new attraction to, a new appreciation of, Lady Poverty. It could very well be linked to the psychological breaking point of having seen gas reach $4 a gallon. But there is something strangely joyful that I think I am discovering.

If I look objectively over my life, I have never been what one would call wealthy, although I have always felt rather well-off. There's an interesting story here. A few years back when my brother ran for his local Assembly seat, I read his campaign bio. He told the story of his origins -- our origins -- and it sounded to me a rather dismal, up-by-the-bootstraps type story of a poor, working family. Trying to figure out what he could possibly mean by it, I said to him, "I see you're trying to spin a certain image here." (He tends to fall off the left wing of the Democratic party.) He shook his head at me, equally incredulous, and said "No image..." I suddenly realized that while we grew up with roughly the same experiences, we had perceived and translated those experiences in vastly different ways.

Another memory: when I was 13 and was confirmed as a Lutheran I had the customary party where relatives gave me money. In 1981, $40 was quite a sum to me, and I spent it all on Beatles albums. To this day I feel twinges of regret for the frivolousness of this purchase, and never since have I purchased so many "goodies" for myself all at once.

But not even these things are what I'm driving at with what I feel burgeoning in my heart. Let me see if I can reach it.

When the price of gas spiked up, my family began walking more, and given our current gorgeous weather, I love it. Some years ago I started learning about edible wild plants, aka weeds, and so I just love to look at them all as we walk and wonder about what secrets they hold. My son and I have a chance to talk, as my daughter rides in a stroller and therefore has her connection with me differently during that time. I see tremendous value for my son as he sees me push the stroller up our hills here -- one hill being unpaved unless we can momentarily hoist the stroller onto the road -- on the way to and from Mass at Franciscan University. The first few walks we took as a family, he had some complaints. But watching the much harder time I have of it pushing his sister, he has actually begun to catch himself and to realize that perhaps he really doesn't have every justification in complaining. In these and other ways, the time we spend is far more precious that the time we'd save by driving.

On top of the price of gas and the price of food, we just had two huge car repair expenses that were mostly unexpected. So even though I don't typically buy lots of things for our family, I now have the realization that I pretty much shouldn't, for now. Last summer when my husband was laid off, I went through a season of buckling down and setting myself with fierce determination to "make do." The "do" I made turned out to be completely unnecessary, and my effort (aka stress) backfired on me. Now, thanks be to God, my husband's employment is secure, but like many others I look at the rising costs and realize life has to change for us. I had such a joyful moment at Mass the other day when I realized with a tremendous sense of balance that God truly gives us all we need. Now, I spent five years amidst folks who were affected by what John Michael Talbot calls the Great American Heresy of the prosperity gospel, which links financial prosperity with being saved and being blessed by God, and financial poverty with sin. What I saw at Mass is that God cares far too much for our real selves for that nonsense. He wants to give us the real good stuff -- Himself, His love, His grace, His wonder, His companionship, His secret embrace. Doesn't it run chills down your spine? Wouldn't you trade some fancy-schmancy object of yours for an embrace that says you are loved down to your very core, and beyond? If only there were some exchange counter set up for this! I think it would be packed.

But there is, isn't there. We meet Christ, and He bids us to leave all we have and follow him. The stuff. The worries. The plans, the stuff we think we can't live without, the stuff we think we won't be ourselves without. And I think He bids us just not to leave, but to pursue. We have basic needs, our brothers and sisters have basic needs, and we need to meet them. I believe it is our needs that God promises to care for. Ah, our needs. If we could but see our needs clearly! If we could truly see how much we need the core of our being touched and how some of the other stuff dulls and deadens our true sense of need.

Rich Mullins had a great song called Hard where he reminded us that when God promised to care for our needs, we was promising that we would "dress like flowers and eat like birds". Perhaps all this verbosity tonight boils down to catching a glimpse that one can eat like a bird with great, tremendous rejoicing when in the loving fellowship of God, the Maker of all, who is my Father.

Proverbs 17:1 -- Better a dry crust eaten in peace than a house filled with feasting -- and conflict.