Poverty 101

Today was a hefty day.

Rachel, my niece who is in the service, was supposed to arrive from Italy last night, but she got hung up in NYC due to weather. That bummed all of us out, who had been anticipating her return, expecting this incredible homecoming event, complete with signs and speeches. Don't travel JetBlue. They had posted on the flight marquee that the flight was 'on time' when in fact it had been canceled. We waited and waited, and waited some more.....still, no Rachel.....finally Tom called the company. No one seemed to know what was going on. Eventually we found out that the flight had been caneled due to weather. Scary thought..... Who's driving the plane? It turns out that the flight has been rescheduled for tomorrow at 1:30ish.

So we awoke this morning and I drove Sue into work. On the way we stopped at Sheetz and inquired into employment there. They said you had to apply on-line, so after dropping Sue off, I headed home to fill out the app. Well I got on-line on my mighty Mac, and it seemed the browser was not adequate for filling out this particular application, so I went down to the PC downstairs to fill it out on that, and I had to wait because Tom was on the internet. ARGH! So back upstairs to my puter to continue searching on-line job ads while I waited to get thru the next hoop. After a bit, I heard the shower in the bathroom and knew the PC was available so I went and filled out the app. It took a long to time fill out, and each step of the way, indicated how far away I was from completion. "You are 10% complete.......your 12% complete...etc" And of course I am not 16, so I had tons more info to enter than most people, which took extra long. I am sick of entering this info; I feel like a broken record! It seems all I do these days is say the same things over and over and over..... how annoying!

After that application was filled out, by now its 9:30am and so I took the car off on an excursion to slay two dragons: the DMV dragon of license transfer, and also make inquiries into giving plasma.

I drove downtown and after a lot of circling the downtown area for available parking.
What a trip and a sobering experience the trip to downtown was. I had to park far away from my destination and walk down the Blvd of the Allies, and I can tell you I did not see any allies. What I saw was the remnant of a forgotten humanity. A whole group of indigent people wandering the streets with vacant eyes, and in them, saw myself, defeated after failure in finding a place to connect thru employment. In them I realized my own potential fate; that if it were not for Sue and family and friends, I would be there. I actually felt that these walking wounded WERE my friends and family, and for one brief and fearful moment, saw my fate as being theirs.

And in that vision, I realized what God was calling me to: a deeper understanding of poverty beyond the support of institutional christianity. REAL poverty, as in the be-atitudes kind. For a moment, I wanted to separate myself from them, and make myself, in my own mind, better than them, to give myself an upper hand, and imagine myself a healing balm, a potential savior, who could become one of them without really synthesizing my life into their. To be able to provide them with basic human necessities: food, shelter, clothing, jobs....love.... and then...... go home. Back to my own safe harbor. Then I realized what a fraud and a coward I am, passing them by with barely a recognizing glance into the pools of their eyes, for fear they would look back, and dare me to be authentic....to reveal my own fear of them, and fear of myself as sharing in their fate.

I quickly as possible arrived at the DMV center at the State Bldg., and the line was practically out the door! Jeez! Once again, I encountered a frazzled queue of humanity; I abandoned that and decided that I would go for the other option which was the center at the Char Val Shopping Center near Bridgeville. I hurried back to my car past the clustered vignettes of forgotten humans, back to the safety of my getaway vehicle.....which by the way, was not even mine, but borrowed from Sue. I sickened in the realization of my romaniticization of the encounter with poverty at its purest. How do you shrug this off? You don't. (It made me think about these 'reporters' who do special stories on folks like these; going undercover, then emerging with a truth to share, as if they had some pertinent information to give, that would somehow enlighten the rest of us who had managed to control our circumstances more successfully.... "thank God, WE'RE not one of THEM".....but WHO ARE THEM????)

Even with all of my frantic employment seeking, I weep to know that people have been reduced to such a level of existence, and at the same moment accept and surrender to my own potential fate as one of them. I mean, after all, I have the right teeth for the role, and the right spirit of John the Baptist. Still, beyond the christian paradigm, any attempt to eliminate poverty is a band-aid solution.

Yes, He said , the poor you will always have; still I think that in that little 'aside' we have failed to peer into the what this comment mirrors back to us of ourselves...and I think that that is because we are DAMNED AFRAID to look, for fear of what we'll see looking back.