In my last entry, a couple of weeks ago, I ended with some questions about how we should traverse an uncertain path. If we are unwilling to slink back into the old kingdom, the old empire and yet don’t feel a calling to the specifically urban or rural concentrations of the poor, how do we go forward? Certainly those urban and rural communities are under-served and I’m so grateful for those Christians (and others!) who follow a calling into the city or the country to dwell with and learn from those in poverty. That is a genuine kind of moral heroism. And yet, the starkness of that poverty, I’m convinced, can become a kind of catch-all for our felt-sense of responsibility to the least of these. And maybe that’s not so bad for the forgotten corners of the empire. Maybe that status draws those of us with more compassion in our hearts than intricate theories and clearly discerned vocations in our heads.
But what about those places, so far from being forgotten by the empire, which are occupied most fiercely by the old kingdom. In our culture, in our country, I think that means “Suburbia.”
And here I’ll stop being so abstract for a moment and tell you a little about my own sense of “calling.” I grew up in suburbia. Californian, automobile-centric suburbia with row after row of ranch-style homes (or, increasingly, McMansions) packed onto quarter and eighth acre lots. I went to a suburban church, nestled into a suburban neighborhood, populated by blue-collar suburban folks and white-collar suburban folks and ultra-super-white-collar gated-community suburban folks. When I say I think that my family probably landed somewhere near the middle of middle class, I hope that isn’t just oblivious self-centeredness talking. You know, the way people with obvious political biases usually call themselves “centrists” or “moderates”? In any case, we were far from the richest and far from the poorest. It never felt like we were in need and it never felt like we had much extra.
I grew up with two parents with disabilities, but for all of their bodily unhealthy, we were a fairly emotionally healthy family. We fought sometimes, but we also apologized often. We laughed and argued and played together. Dad worked weird hours and Mom worked three days a week. There was a kind and supportive baby sitter. There was a church that supported us in times of crisis and nurtured us in between crises. We were a family that couldn’t hide its needs and those needs were almost always met. Meals showed up on our doorstep. We got rides from neighborhood friends. There was always an ear to hear our frustrations or confusions or struggles. But we were stable enough to appreciate that help and give back to our community family in times and places.
As I got older, I began to realize that other families had as hard a time as us. Some of those families were rich and other families were not so rich. As I began to say in high school, “Everyone gets their own special brand of ‘fucked up.’” And “fucked up” didn’t seem to have any particular correlation to a family’s tax bracket. Death and suffering and divorce and eating disorders and suicide refused to respect the accomplishments, earning potentials or best laid plans of anyone. Nothing, it seems, holds those things at bay for any of us. At best, money could keep ‘set backs’ from becoming ‘death spirals’ and virtue and good friends could help you survive the messes and carry on with some lessons learned or enriched relationships.
But that’s best-case scenario.
And all the resources and privilege have this awkward side effect: they don’t keep us from experiencing the fundamental poverty of human life, but they do let us hide that poverty from others. Sometimes, even from ourselves.
“I made $100,000 this year. I can’t be a junky.”
“My kid got into an Ivy League university. They must be doing fine.”
“Our refrigerator is full of food and our mortgage is getting paid every month. What could I be anxious or depressed about?”
In hiding our poverty from ourselves, when we suffer that poverty, there is little hope of relief. The whole experience seems even more mysterious than suffering in general is already.
In hiding our poverty from one another, we of course preclude ourselves from their help that might bring some relief or comfort. Furthermore, we also deprive others of the opportunity to be of service in offering that relief and comfort. As Christians, I think we believe being of service is a blessing. A chance to be like Jesus.
I’ll say that again: When we hide our poverty behind resources and privilege, we deprive others of a chance to be of service and that deprives them of a blessing.
In other words, we have a responsibility to our communities to be honest about our impoverishment. Covering it up with resources and privilege hurts everybody.
So, wait… What exactly am I saying about Suburban Christians and Suburban poverty?
I believe that privileged, suburban Christians don’t need to leave the privilege of suburbia to find poverty. We have our own personal poverty to discover through confession and humility. We have our socio-economic poverty to discover by bringing it out from behind the scenes of suburban life. Which is not to say that privileged, suburban Christians shouldn’t get a well rounded-education in poverty. No, it’s imperative that we come to know all kinds of poverty, both that which is closest (if not most transparent) to us, and the more foreign, unsettling kinds; urban, rural, and international poverty. But let’s not pretend that “the poor” are other than ourselves. Let’s not pretend that there is “us” and then there are “the poor.” Let’s not pretend that we’ve corralled poverty in Cabrini Green or the Reservations of the Dakotas.
Poverty is what we all share in common. Just some of us are blessed because we can’t delude ourselves about our poverty.
(Next time: The Heuristic Structure of Good News to Suburban Poor)
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