Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Anchoress

Home
Catholic
Steak & Godly Intimacy: Poverty Plus Personal Perspectives

Steak & Godly Intimacy: Poverty Plus Personal Perspectives

Last updated on: April 18, 2015 at 9:47 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

Steak & Godly Intimacy: Poverty Plus Personal Perspectives 2015-04-18T21:47:48+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In different ways, a few Patheos Catholic bloggers have been talking about poverty, and from a personal point of view, and all unplanned.

It started off with Rebecca Lane Frech thinking back on the paradoxical freedoms and intimacies that came with being short of money, when she and her family had to lean on others, who in turn leaned on them:

When we were poor, we shared and there was a joy in sharing. I can remember the phone calls to my friend S where I would say “Payday is tomorrow and I don’t know what we’re doing for lunch. I have a jar of peanut butter, a banana, and a handful of grapes..not even enough grapes for a snack.” To which she would reply, “I have a loaf of bread and an apple. Wanna come over for sandwiches and fruit salad?” And I would, and we ate pretty well. An unexpected windfall of $20 meant that not only did I get a boost of groceries, but my friend did too. It was a communal pot of good luck, and we shared it. While I do not wish for the bare pantry, I do miss the idea of the safety net of friendship. I knew that there was no way my children would go hungry as long as she had food, and she knew the same. I miss that feeling of camaraderie.

It’s a good, painfully honest look at how prosperity can make us less intimate with God and less dependent upon each other. We may have bigger and nicer living spaces, but they also tend to put us at a distance with both, and even with spouses who managed to be home by 5PM when struggling but — with success — are essentially working, if they are awake. A thoughtful read you’ll want to check out.

Speaking of painful honesty, Simcha Fisher, responding to ideas like this, pretty much broke the internet as she rather fearlessly made an argument against the idea that people on food stamps have no business occasionally experiencing a joyful meal that actually makes them happy:

So there we were, in a dead end town. But we were getting by. I budgeted like a maniac, playing Scrooge with the precious hoard of toilet paper, detergent, and apples we could afford. I once bought a used linen toddler dress for four dollars and blushed the whole way home, nauseated with the extravagance of my purchase. It wasn’t a great way to live, but as long as my husband could get enough overtime hours and WIC kept us in cheese and Kix, and as long as the kids could stomach a rotation of pasta, hot dogs, bananas, and tuna noodle casserole, we were okay.

Until they weren’t:

Now the kids got hot dogs for supper, and the adults got a hot dog bun with ketchup. We figure and figured and figured, and discovered that, no matter how hard we squeezed, we were always going to be about forty dollars short of being able to eat and pay our basic bills.

Read the whole thing. It’s passionate and it’s damned good writing to boot.

So good, in fact, that it inspired Jen Fitz to ask: Why is everyone so persuaded that buying meat is some kind of luxury for the elite?

This is the point of food stamps. If you want people to subsist on boxes of spaghetti, you don’t need a mechanism to allow for the frequent purchase of fresh food. Meat, vegetables, fruit, butter, eggs . . . There are not two standards of human, deluxe and reduced-for-quick-sale. If it’s allowed in your grocery cart, it’s not a sin for other people to put it in theirs.

Having been poor in my life, while working a full-time job, I know what it’s like to be surviving on a pound of baloney, a loaf of white bread, a tin of tuna, bananas and a box of mac and cheese for the week. Sure, it’s survivable, but after a while dis-spiriting, too.

Fortunately, I was usually able to get a good meal once or twice a week from my future Mother-in-Law, but not everyone who is poor has someone ready to invite them over for roast beef of a Sunday. Someone on food stamps wants to have an occasional steak or fresh fish, and maybe even a dessert, like a human being? I’m not going to tell them “no, that’s for the respectable people who work; you stick to your rice and beans…”

I was the respectable person who worked and sought as much overtime as I could get but whose grocery budget could not withstand the assaults of New York City housing and transportation costs. When people are rolling coins to be able to afford a haircut, and doing the best they can, and you see them buying a flank steak with food stamps, maybe keep your thoughts to yourself and bring something extra for the parish outreach pantry on Sunday — maybe even a luxuriously “expensive” box of cereal for people who usually get the generic cardboard stuff.

We think back on the Depression era and talk about how awful was the poverty and deprivation — and it was very tough. My parents were children who lived through it and yes, they were dirt-poor. But my mother would also talk about how people helped each other. Everyone was in the same boat, working hard where they could, and looking out for each other, too. And looking to God, because people in need tend to do that.

That’s part of that paradox, again, and it makes me wonder if the devil doesn’t find a measure of glee in the wealth-divisions we see in the West.

Read this Facebook post by Leticia Adams. We have been trained to think of prosperity as an unconditional good — but it is a double edged sword, and one of those edges separates us from each other in terrible ways; it destroys inter-dependence upon each other, and it destroys intimacy with God as well.

I disagree with those who say Jesus preached against wealth — he supped with the rich, and clearly didn’t push them out from his presence; he accepted the expensive nard; it was the wealth and connections enjoyed by Joseph of Arimathea that had him down from the cross and placed in a new tomb on Good Friday.

Wealth itself is no sin. I think, though, that when we get wealth, we don’t understand that we’re not supposed to cling to it, but are meant to share it, and joyfully. Wealth itself is not an evil, but attachment to it is. “Love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Tim 6:10) When prosperity comes, what ruins it is our natural, original-sin-rooted instinct to preserve it, make sure it keeps rolling in.

Then, it become ruinous, both to the individual soul, and to society, because as we lock up all the valuables into our greedy little hearts, we lock out love.

Perhaps the shared deprivations that came with the Depression made neighbors more neighborly — it seems to me my parents said as much — but we live in less intimate times, and barely know our neighbors, anymore. You never know which respectable working person sharing your pew might actually be going hungry.

Related:
What it really means when you have to “try really hard to care about money.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com

Previous Post

April 17, 2015

Chicago's Cardinal Francis George has Passed: Many Updates

Next Post

April 21, 2015 Bishop Finn Resigns: Bishop Accountability Begins

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said: "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

James Peter Jesus Paul