The poor will always be among you

I am reading through a number of applications for a fellowship. Its heady stuff. Amazing folks who show so much promise. I find myself enriched by being able to glance into so many lives - and amazed at the diversity of Kingdom-builders in our wonderful land. The reading has covered quantum computing to the colonial use of road-building to subdue the north-eastern frontier... Do I detect a trace of jealously in me? Perhaps there is just the tinge of desire to plunge back into the world of books...

At the same time one thing that I missed was anyone who seriously dealt with poverty. There were a few who had volunteered with social groups - and one advertising student who was deeply touched by having taken in a beggar-girl on a train once - but none who saw their calling to bring about real change in our nation by addressing poverty as a subject.

Its a big subject, of course, but one that we actually don't like to mention. Sort of like the proverbial 'elephant in the room.' At the same time it keeps riling us to hear others point it out. Like this evening's piece on BBC website:

For all of India's impressive progress the number of Indians living in extreme poverty is roughly equal to the current population of the United States.

Unless India commits itself to greater social spending and intervention, there is growing recognition here that it cannot hope to reduce poverty and those living on the margins of its society will continue to be left behind.

Ah yes - we need to spend more. Then it will all disappear. It is easy to describe our poverty - all it takes is an open eye - and an ear to listen to the horrible stories of what people live through.

But to actually say anything that remotely makes sense about changing things? Well that's a different stories. Though we have seen more people move out of the extreme poverty line (basically the most bare subsistence measure) that the government uses to define who is really poor - we also see that most of what goes as 'assistance' never even reaches the 'beneficiaries' and when it does it is so diluted that you just want to despair.

I came back armed with my double degree from the US a dozen years ago. My basic idea had shifted from 'poor people are poor because they are stupid' (phrased more elegantly of course in the language of illiteracy etc.) to 'people are poor because they do not have access to resources' (hence get more stuff out there and things will change).

The last 6 years of working with the poor in Thane has shown that we have a lot of other reasons too. Perhaps the most disturbing and disheartening being a horrible blindness to change and a spiritual bondage that we see in so many lives.

We tell Asha and Enoch that India is a rich country with a lot of people who are poor. We want to love our neighbours. Really. The only way forward is to do so one family at a time. One set of ideas at a time. One community at a time. One group of Christ-followers living out their love for each other and those around them at a time. No simple solutions - but lots of simple people being used together in following their master. No solution without the cross - without picking up the rude symbol of shame and moving forward in humble service to our Lord and to each other.