Definition of Rich

 

We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. ~William James

Since the end of 2010 to right now as I type this blog poverty and learning how to live without has been a very humbling experience for me. As 2013 arrives and I look at my past, my present and my future I see a change in how I view myself and how I view the people who cross my path.

There was a time in my life (pre 2010) when I looked through people instead of at them. It was nothing for me to do a whole day of errands and never have a conversation with anyone or look a person in the eye. Strangers, especially poor strangers, were but figments of my imagination. They never really existed to me because they didn’t affect my life in the immediacy; in fact, not only did poor people not exist, they had no existent in my thoughts.

I have been without a vehicle for the 3^rd time in as many years and I have to tell you that asking for rides, taking the train (which I am very grateful exists) and waiting at bus stops has brought me from a place of humiliation to one of humility. A few weeks back I met a Jamaican woman on a bus and after shopping separately at a Wal-Mart we met again at the bus stop and as we got to know each other a bit she told me a parable about the truly rich. The parable goes:

A poor hungry woman was walking down the back alley and she saw a man walking towards the rubbish with a huge platter of leftover food. The woman approached the man with the food and asked if he would share the food with her and her family rather than throwing it away. The rich man looked at her and emptied the platter of leftover food onto the ground. The hungry woman bent over and picked the food out of the dirt and thanked the rich man for his graciousness.

The moral of the story is the woman asking for help feeding herself and her family is far richer than the rich man who threw his scrapes on to the dirt ground in from of the hungry woman. As I stood there listening to the Jamaican woman tell her story I reflected on how many times I had been the rich man and how now I find myself being the hungry woman. As much as we may desire material abundance we will never be able to take such items in to the afterlife with us. In an age when what we have defines who we are it is a constant battle to believe the richest people are those who love our fellows with kindness, gentleness, compassion and true humility.

The true poor are those people who humiliate others of their own race.