I've been reading a lot about the plight of the poor in a class on Theology of Hope, and I've got to tell you, it's getting harder and harder to find hope the more that I read. But the interesting thing is that it is relatively easy to find hope among the poor. After all, in many cases just surviving another day is something to be thankful for and inspires them to hope for a better tomorrow. The bigger challenge is for me to find hope for the "haves", i.e. the non-poor.
Who would have thought that those of us who are fortunate enough to have more than we need would find ourselves in need of hope? We just expect that tomorrow will be better than today - hope actually doesn't play into the picture because we have something better. We have 'certainty'. And what makes us so certain? Well in some cases it is because prosperity is all we've ever known so we just expect it to continue and don't even recognize how lucky we are. But in many cases we feel that we've gotten what we have through the sweat of our brow, and as long as we continue to put forth the effort we'll get the reward we deserve. So we don't need to hope because we're in control.
But what about when we're not in control? When jobs are lost due to the larger economy. Or health fails and there doesn't appear to be a way to stave off the death that we all logically know will come someday but we're emotionally unprepared for on this day. Will our "hope muscles" be strong enough to keep us going or will we simply fall into despair. Has our belief in self-reliance diminished our capacity to hope in something larger than ourselves?
I wonder about this when I see the resiliance of spirit among poor people who've suffered great tragedy and compare it to the tendency of millenials to become nearly clinically depressed at the thought of their vacation benefits being reduced from 4 to 3 weeks per year. Or getting a "c" on a paper conjures up thoughts of suicide for a well-heeled high school student who's feeling peer and parental pressure to succeed.
I'm not suggesting that we measure the problems of the middle class against those of the poor, but rather that perhaps the middle class can learn something from the poor about faith and hope in something beyond themselves as individuals. Because if you live long enough eventually you'll be confronted by seriously bad news that is beyond your control, and the capacity to hope will be the only source you can tap into for a solution.
Excellent! I was just reading this morning (preparing for Sunday's sermon) that in the US, the "have-nots" give a larger percentage to charity than the "haves". And in my own experience, one of the larger (read "richer") churches in the community I used to live in found themselves suddenly not able to afford two full-time pastors. Their knee-jerk reaction, based in suddenly fear after the collapse of our economy, was intersting to watch. My rural community has not reacted this way. No, I didn't get my usual raise this year, but we are all certain that we have "enough" to do what god wants us to do. We've "done without" before, and having experienced God's faithfulness to us, know that all will be well.
ReplyDelete