They were lined up waiting for us.
Politely, to be sure, patiently even. Standing in the cold (and thank heavens it
wasn’t a truly cold night as a January night should have been) with minimal
coats and few, if any, hats or gloves.
Waiting for the arrival of a spoonful of warm, if not particularly
tasteful food, a few slices of bread and a couple of ounces of juice.
They were lined up waiting for not much. But it was all they had to wait for.
The real face of American poverty, standing in a deserted
parking lot on a cold dark evening is a stark reminder that we are not all
living in the same country. For many,
for too many, for far too many of our neighbors and fellow citizens, poverty is
not a statistical anomaly or a poor economic outcome, it is a daily disaster, a
personal struggle for survival, an unsecured free fall. For those few folks on that one January
evening, waiting for a bite to eat before they shuffled back to their
substandard housing or the car they lived in or the steam grate they slept
over, it’s something to be actually worried about.
Mitt Romney, candidate to lead all of the people of this
nation and be caretaker for its soul, did not, as many commentators, make a
political gaffe this week. He promulgated
our great national lie; that poverty is just a minor inconvenience that affects
a small portion of the population who are kept fat and lazy by overdone
government largesse and a vast and effective network of religious, charitable
and beneficent persons and organizations.
It’s a lie – not because there isn’t help, but because
help is not a good enough answer to the real truth of poverty in America.
Fifteen percent of Americans, or 46 million human beings,
men, women and children, live in poverty right now. That means absolutely that they do not have
enough money for food, clothing and shelter, certainly not at the same time. More so, thirty percent of us live within the
reach of poverty, perhaps having just enough money for the most minimal
needs. Yes, those have TV’s, but they
don’t have reliable transportation, or health care, or money to send their
children to college. And sixty percent
of Americans, the experts say, live within one missed paycheck, one unaffordable
medical disaster, of increasing the ranks of the most poor among us.
No, Mr. Romney, the poor are not fine, they are not kept
by the so-called “safety net,” which at its worst, prolongs their suffering and
never, even at its best, changes their circumstances. No, they are not just a few percent of surplus
population (to borrow the phrase from another well-known Scrooge) who can be
disregarded for the sake of some more important political demographic.
Actually, I am not worried about the poor, either. I am scared to death for them.
As long as we live in a country where care for the least
among us is treated as a hobby, a diversion for those needing occasional penance
or the few who can afford the luxury of feigned, sometime interest, the empty
stomachs and the long lines waiting for a warm meal will grow only longer and
longer. Until it becomes our national
responsibility, our common calling, then we will share together the guilt and
the savage price of the poor among us.
A wise man wrote some 500 years ago: “Nobody ought to go begging among Christians.
It would even be a very simple matter to make a law to the effect that every
city should look after its own poor, if only we had the courage and the
intention to do so.” (Martin Luther, a
Letter to the Christian Nobility).
Our apologies, Dr. Luther, for our failure to hear your
word, and for our continual selfish willingness to tell ourselves lies in the face
of our Lord’s sacred charge.
They are still lined up, waiting for us.
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