Donation or Investment – Part Two

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”   Dom Helder Camara

A reason that I do not like asking for donations is that whatever we contribute to  has a remarkable way of staying the same ….. no matter how much money gets thrown at it.

There seems to be a literal acceptance of Jesus’ words, “The poor you will have with you always…” [Mark 14, 7] and this almost always comes as a handy absolution for people who are in not poor.   I do not like it and I do have to include myself in this radical accusation.

One of my heroes from my university days and my first missionary zeal was Dom Helder Camara.  He was a Brazilian bishop, better known as the Bishop of the Poor, who wrote about the link between poverty and violence.   He also wrote a small book called “Spiral of Violence” that supported my opposition to the Vietnam War and placed it in a larger religious context. 

I remember him now for his perspective on understanding social injustices by suggesting a needed paradigm shift.   He wrote, “When shall we have the courage to outgrow the charity mentality and see that at the bottom of all relations between rich and poor there is a problem of justice?”

Not only do I see poverty as “a problem of justice”; I see that justice is a problem for us all by itself.   Charity implies kindness and voluntariness while justice calls for duty and obligations.   Being charitable makes us feel good and virtuous, while doing our duty well is just that – doing what we should.   There are no “virtue” benefits; however, a failure of duty leaves us shamed.  Not good.     

It is no wonder that we prefer the world of the charitable rather than the demands of justice.    Who feels good about paying their taxes?  Obeying red lights?  Getting to work on time?  Feeding your children?   Who gets a reward for doing what they should?   In fact, when we are told what our duty [or fair share] is, we get downright hostile.    I would rather have the feelings that I get from doing good deeds that are outside, over and above the realms of obligation.

Since Camara and others have been unsuccessful in making any significant changes with their logic, let’s just pretend the demands of justice do not exist.  

 

Recently, I read an article by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett from the Sheldon Chumir Foundation.    I liked the article because it agreed with me, but was better at expressing my beliefs.  I‘ll just stretch some of their local and country-wide conclusions to a world application

The evidence shows unmistakably that more equal societies – those with smaller income differences between rich and poor – are friendlier and more cohesive:  community life is stronger, people trust each other more, and there is less crime and violence. So the deep human intuition that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive is true.

While the authors were speaking of a city or a country, I think their conclusions are applicable to the whole globe.  This is why I wrote in my last blog, “I am not asking for saintly altruism; I can accept ‘informed selfishness’”.    A world that has a more equitable sharing of its resources will benefit everyone at home and abroad.  If we want to improve our lives – social, health, economic, that improvement may be intimately connected with the improvement of everyone’s life.  

Ever since those days of youthful idealism, global problems seemed past my comprehension and certainly my abilities to fix – Vietnam War, Civil Rights, Farm Workers.   I focused my energies first on improving the small darkroom of a Chicano newspaper, then a small department in a hospital, and now a small school of nursing in a small hospital in a small country.     I know I will not change the world, nor Guyana, nor even the nursing school.   I have already changed, and will change, the lives of a few students.   They will have to change the hospital and health/health care in Guyana.   

I need your help to provide these two dozen students with the best resources and tools possible for their studies, and for their future responsibilities to make Guyana a more equal society with all the benefits that come with that – safer, more peaceful, less violent, friendlier and healthier……

And since we agreed to pretend that you don’t have any obligations to make a donation, just think of how virtuous you will feel!  

Here, however, is another thought from Camara:  “More and more I pray for the Prodigal Son’s brother… The Prodigal awoke from his life of sins. As for his brother, when will he awake from his life of virtue?”

Enough …… I’ll try a Part Three later...