The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [91]
In later conversations it became clear that his trust had something to do with his poverty: his daily life had a precariousness that reminded him of his fundamental reliance on God, something that the more affluent often take for granted. Agustino seemed to be a close friend of God, too. Many of the poor, at least in my experience, evince this quality.
God meets us where we are. And the poor are often already close by.
Still, overly romanticizing the poor is a danger. Not all are cut from the same cloth. Not all are religious. Not all are believers. Even talking about “the poor” is problematic. Gauddy and Agustino are not so much members of a vague sociological group called “the poor” as they are individuals.
Nonetheless, the refugees with whom I worked were, in general, more ready to rely on God and more ready to praise God than I was.
This gratitude made many of them more generous, too. One afternoon I visited Loyce, a Ugandan woman to whom we had given a grant for a single sewing machine. She lived outside of Nairobi in a wooden shack in a largely rural area. Upon entering her dimly lit home, I found that Loyce had prepared an elaborate meal: roasted peanuts, vegetables, and even meat, a rarity for her. It must have cost a week’s earnings. I was stunned by her generosity. Loyce gave, as Jesus said of a poor widow in the Gospels, “out of her poverty” (Mark 12:41–44).
Not every refugee was as generous as Loyce. So again, it’s wrong to generalize. But my experience with many of the refugees points out what happens when you refuse to take things, or people, for granted, and when you are able to take stock of your blessings. Your gratitude increases.
God is good, as Gauddy said.
Every time these things happened in Kenya, I thought of a line from Scripture that had long baffled me. “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” It was also a line from a popular contemporary hymn we sang in the novitiate. But why would the Lord hear the cry of the poor in particular? Why wouldn’t God hear the cry of everyone? It seemed partial. So did the line from the Psalms, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted” (34:18). Why?
In Kenya I found an answer. In many of our lives a great deal comes between us and God: concerns about status, achievement, appearance, and so on. Less stood between the refugees and God. Overall, they were more aware of their dependence on God. So, like Gauddy, they praised God in good times; like Agustino, they called on God when they were in need; and like Loyce, they expressed gratitude with generosity.
The poor place themselves close to God, the poor have less between them and God, the poor rely on God, the poor make God their friend, and the poor are often more grateful to God. And so God is close to them. This is one reason why Ignatius asked the Jesuits to love poverty “as a mother.”
DOWNWARD MOBILITY?
Here’s what you might be thinking: Those are inspiring stories about Gauddy and Agustino and Loyce, but what do they have to do with me? Do you expect me to live like a refugee?
In general, whenever I speak about living more simply, people’s reactions tend toward extremes. They fall into two categories.
Are you out of your mind? I can’t give up everything I own— that’s ridiculous! (That’s the most common response.)
I feel guilty when I think about how much stuff I have that I don’t need. When I think about the poor, I feel awful. But there’s no way I can live simply. It’s impossible for me to change. (This is closer to the response of the “rich young man” in the Gospel of Matthew.)
The two responses display (1) anger and (2) despair.
Both responses block us from freedom. If we dismiss the insights that come from the poor and reject the invitation to simplicity by saying, “I can’t live like that,” then these insights and invitations will never make a difference in our lives. Making the message unattainable also makes it easier to reject. Likewise, when we wallow in guilt and decide that it’s impossible to change, we are subtly letting ourselves off the hook, excusing ourselves from