Re: is poverty really noble?

Glenn,

Just a brief thought while it's in my mind.

I don't think there was anything in what I said that could be
interpreted as saying there was "nobility" in poverty. I said there
may be richness (spirtually) in poverty, just as there may be
spiritual poverty in richness. That's a different thing entirely than
saying poor people are "noble".

One of Sundar Singh's famous sayings was a parody of Christ "Come unto
me, all who labour and are heavy laden WITH GOLD, and I will give you
rest".

The point I was making is not that poverty is desirable, no, it sucks
and we should do our utmost to help the poor, as the bible teaches.

But in our Western materialistic society there is tremendous spiritual
poverty, high rates of depression, and suicide etc. In my work as a
Samaritan volunteer, I speak to many people whose lives are absolutely
hopeless, in a trap of depression, just as the poor are in a poverty
trap. Such people, though they don't want for food, are equally
unable to control their lives. Though I've not suffered depression
myself, I am given to believe that it's absolutely unbearable - as a
depressed friend of mine said, it's like inside your head isn't a safe
place to be. It is no wonder so many people with clinical depression
see suicide as a way out.

One other interesting statistic that comes to mind is the present
epidemic of self-harm (cutting etc) among teenagers. Interestingly,
the highest rates are white, and middle class. Why do they do it?
Perhaps because life even when one is materially well off, is
increasingly seen as pointless. One can't help feeling that Singh had
something right when he said "heavy laden with gold".

Iain

On 5/30/06, glennmorton@entouch.net <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
>
>
> Iain's note yesterday made me think deeply about poverty. It made me think
> and that is good, even if my thoughts might be considered bad by some. Iain
> wrote:
>
>
>
> >>>>
>
> The story of Sundar Singh seems (to me) to reconcile eastern
> spirituality with Christianity in a remarkable way. Singh was the son
> of a Sikh father and Hindu mother. He was sent to a Catholic school
> that was in the old tradition of trying to destroy Indian culture and
> replace it with westernised values. As a teenager, Singh was so
> incensed that he publicly got a Bible and tore out the pages and
> burned them one by one. Then, later in life, he asked God to reveal
> himself to him, while threatening to commit suicide by lying under an
> oncoming train. A short while before the train arrived he received a
> vision, and to his amazement, it was of Jesus. He then devoted his
> life to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to his fellow Indians in a
> uniquely Indian way - adopting the life of poverty of a Hindu holy man
> (a Sadhu). Reading this book (which is a collection of his writings)
> made me appreciate once again just who Jesus is and what he has done,
> and also connected me with the way Eastern spirituality works. Singh
> is able to explain so well what Jesus offers that the religions of his
> own culture could not.
>
>
> I don't offer this as a complete answer to your very valid questions,
> but nonetheless I think it's a valuable perspective.
>
>
> Be warned! Sundar Singh is VERY anti-materialistic, and is quite
> scathing about Western values - and would probably have arrived at
> much the same conclusion as the Okri poem, that there is richness even
> in poverty.
>
>
> le <<<<<
>
> Ok, I would ask this, isn't the view that poverty and anti-materialism
> merely a reformulation of Rouseau's noble savage?
>
> And, It made me think about the relativity of poverty. Abram was rich. He
> had a lot of sheep. I wouldn't want his life at all. For those who have
> been to Mt. Vernon, you know that George Washington was rich. But I
> wouldn't want his house either, at least not to live in as he did, with
> candles to illuminate the night. My grandmother was orphaned, but she lived
> with a very rich oilman uncle in the early part of last century. This guy
> was really really rich. Yet, I wouldn't trade my warm loo for the Kansas
> outhouse she had to use in the winter.
>
> Now we come to Mr. Singh. He was poor. Fine. Does that make him more noble
> than you or I? Somehow I doubt it. He lived in the 20th century, with
> electric lights, cars (I know there were few in India but there were some).
> He lived in an age of trains. If he is so anti-materialistic, one must ask,
> did he use trains?
>
> I strongly suspect he occasionally lived inside buildings. I have met and
> know some people who live in tents. Isn't mr. Singh rich by comparison? I
> know he has clothing. Compared to the Tiera del fuegans (whose early 1900
> pictures appear in a book by the son of a missonary to them), he was
> exceedingly wealthy. They didn't have clothing and they hardly had a cloak.
> Would the Tierra del Fuegans be more noble than Mr. Singh?
>
> Maybe I am tired of the sham view that poorer is better. No one wants
> poorer. Talk to the poor of China. My driver has a salary few in America
> would want, nor could they live on it. He is a good friend of mine and I
> will miss him, but I do not find him more noble than I. We are equals.
>
> My daughter-in-law, when I once mentioned having to save enough money for
> retirement, said, "don't store up treasures on earth,". Maybe I am a wee
> bit cynical but somehow I doubt that she and my son really want to feed me
> and give me a room in their house in my cranky old age. (OK, I am cranky now
> and maybe not so old).
>
> My point in this, materialism is bad only if one loves the material. Taking
> care of me and my wife over 30 years of expected retirement is doing what
> the Bible says, if we don't provide for our loved ones, we are worse than an
> infidel.
>
> While I have defended not being poor, I think the concept widely out there
> that God owes us a million dollars for going to a Word of Faith Church is
> entirely over the top.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
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After the game, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.
- Italian Proverb
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