Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
Matthew 5:1
Why do I think Jesus focused His message so intently on the poor, both the poor in spirit and the financially disadvantaged? I think a conversation from The Breakfast Club offers a sort of insight. Allison, who behaves differently than typical yet has a very similar and sensitive heart as her peers, does not understand why seemingly snobbish Claire is being kind to her by giving her a makeover. Allison asks, “Why are you being so nice to me?” Claire answers, “Because you’re letting me!”
I think poverty evokes a mindset that is inherently outside of the typical and that can result in an openness to letting deeper answers be more relevant to you. When you are living in a nonstandard way, such as on the streets or in your vehicle, the world is a very different experience for you than middle class or higher life. You grab a few essentials from the grocery store at an enormous cost to you while knowing that the vast majority, if not all, of your fellow shoppers are taking their larger food spreads to a home. A home that is in some manner their own – with rooms and appliances and conveniences and safety and familiar decorative accents and a kind neighbor. And you are not. You realize that one moment of lack in life can build a momentum to more moments of further lack and there just isn’t an easy answer to fix this. You are still alive and yet you are gone in the sense that you no longer fit in any nice compartment like “everyone else.”
You no longer have the convenience of allowing props to fill the gaps in your life. You cannot distract yourself with typical busyness. Your hygiene or lack thereof might make you less than interview ready for jobs. You can’t hide yourself in typical mental comforts because considering the next moment or the next hour or the next day can be quite demanding. It is hot. It is cold. It is wet. Someone nearby appears up to no good and there is not a lot you can do to protect yourself. A nearby animal is in a very surly mood. According to a conversation you overheard, two people nearby just experimented with a drug for the first time and are quite uncomfortable. You just got word of an outreach event, but other people started lining up three hours ago to receive a free meal. A clothing item just got unexpectedly completely dirty and now you have a laundromat expense if you want it clean. And more.
The scent of clean laundry is the scent of home, the scent of family, and it is a note of affection and warmth that we all need,
Daniela Sironi, president of the Community of Sant’Egidio Piemonte
Out of all this heartache, the poor are made acutely aware that there is an entire world beyond typical experience where what everyone casually accepts as true just does not apply to you. You are painfully aware that no typical solution is ever going to redeem your life and so you are open to solutions others may not initially see the merit of.
I think that awareness is what gives Jesus and Christianity and other world faiths the opportunity to be welcomingly received into someone’s heart. When you see that typical answers have very strong boundaries, you realize that for anything good to happen in your life you have to look beyond the material world and beyond its typical solutions. You have a set apart awareness that it takes a Divine act to redeem such profound hopelessness. I think Jesus responds to that awareness by teaching that when all is lost, you stand out to God to be found. The poor are aware of their lack and God is aware of the opportunity to be known to that person when nobody else has chosen to be known to that person.
All men and women from any religion must see in the poor the message of God who comes close to us and made Himself poor to accompany us in life.
– Pope Francis
The path to homelessness is not always an individual’s immediate fault. And when someone is in need, sometimes individuals and communities and faith circles and other social constructs just can’t be everything to everyone. Sometimes there is a lot of complexity as to how someone wound up in need and it is really difficult for that person to find the words to describe their journey much less for others to understand even if the words are eventually found.
I think we still have a huge stigma in our country in general, talking about how we do struggle, and it’s okay to struggle,
Courtney Nolan, Social Worker
The life of poverty can be incredibly overwhelming. But in some manner, and with the help of the kindness of others, sometimes a person can transform that overwhelm into a powerful guidance to tools and beliefs and inner strengths that are a journey built solely within a single individual soul at a time.
Homelessness didn’t only change me but the world around me. I could never look at the world the same way again. I can’t see the light, the goodness, around me like I used to.
But perhaps, even with that, there’s a silver lining. My inability to see it anymore motivates me more to create it.”
– Jocelyn Figueroa
I think if you want the “Kingdom of Heaven” or your equivalent idea of paradise, you have got to come to the end of accepting daily life as your Heaven and your comfort. I believe Jesus said the poor are blessed because they have, as a necessity, developed an honest vision of lack and of frailty that others are prone to overlook or to deny. I think one reason Jesus reached out to the poor is because they let Him; they allow themselves to consider solutions beyond the typical because they have personal experience that typical solutions don’t work for every single circumstance. Each of us must look to a spiritual world where things may not look how we expect, where the poor are who is considered blessed. You’ve got this!
—
This Post is republished on Medium.
—
Photo credit: iStock
