“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...
