Is Poverty Relative?

Ever since leaving the days of my pre-adolescence naivety I have strongly believed that the words “rich” and “poor” were relative.  You are always richer than someone and you are always poorer than someone.  However, my views may have been more accurate when I was a kid. 

I remember when I was young anyone with a two-story house or more than one functional vehicle was placed into the category of “well off” (aka rich) right along with Bill Gates and President Clinton.  Rich people could buy whatever they wanted, go wherever they wanted, and eat as many chips and snickers bars as they chose.  They had no worries in life; they were rich.  While us poor kids envied their Schwinn bicycles and weekly allowance, we also condemned the rich kids to lives of spoiled ingratitude and incapacitating weakness.  If I learned anything at all from the Boxcar Children, it was that poor kids always won the fistfights. 

As I grew older I found that a lot of those people with two-story houses and multiple cars described themselves as poor and placed the magical line of wealth that divided worry-free lives from suffering at some arbitrary level even higher.  I also became aware of a people group referred to as “the homeless” who lived in dumpsters and begged for food.  I corrected my naive world view and concluded that it was all relative.  Even an aerospace engineer had to worry about finances; compared to a CEO who just picked out whatever car he wanted according to his fancy, he could be considered poor.  The same way, even a homeless person begging outside of McDonald’s is rich compared to those impoverished pot-bellied orphans in Africa. 

The World Bank doesn't think like that though.  They place the international poverty level at exactly $1.25 a day.  There is a definite line and if you earn less than that you are poor.  As I began to travel a little bit I started to wonder if maybe it really was that black-and-white after all and I had only believed otherwise because I grew up in such a rich country.  I’d never met anyone who lived on less than $1.25 a day.  I’d never met a poor person in my life until I went to West Africa.  I’m not sure poor people actually exist within the States. Even the poorest homeless person lives on more than $450 a year.  Suddenly it seemed obvious though; there are a certain number of people in the world who are lacking the necessities of life, somebody out there is the poorest person in the world and somebody is the richest and that's where the scale ends.  

Though I was convinced from my travels that there is an actual black-and-white line between rich and poor, I still didn't necessarily agree that that line was $1.25 a day.  After all, $1.25 goes quite a bit further here in India than in the States, at least in some categories.  Recently I came across a definition of poor that came from an actual poor person (not sure why I never thought to ask one before).  “The difference between poor people and rich people is that poor people are hungry.  If you aren't hungry then you’re rich.”  He wasn't talking about being hungry between meals, he was talking about being hungry all the time, from sunrise to sunset, even during and after meals. 

Imagine removing all the unnecessary things from your life.  Your vehicle, your washing machine, your roof and walls, your clothes, your oven, your hose faucet, your health insurance, and your toilet paper.  Just bare survival.  Now imagine that even with all those expenses gone, living barefoot on the sidewalk, you still can’t afford to feed your family or even yourself.  I don’t mean you can’t buy yourself a happy-meal, I mean you can’t afford more than one meager portion of plain rice per day and a small pile of cow dung with which to cook it.  Now imagine you have lived that way for years.  Now you are poor. 

As far as whether it is ‘better’ to be poor or not or whether countries like the US who have far less poor people in them are ‘better’ I am not qualified to say.  I don’t have the ability to experience or even understand all the effects and implications of true poverty; the hopelessness, lack of education, disease, and everything else inferred by being poor.  I can, however, share a small glimpse I had into what it feels like to be hungry, not because I couldn't afford food though, it was only self-imposed. 

About two months ago I did a 5 day fast while, like the poor people around me, still working full time.  It was the longest 5 days of my life.  I became extremely lethargic, unable to focus or think straight, void of all motivation, distant from my surroundings, and by the last day even dangerously ill.  I remember sitting at the bottom of the stairs up to my hotel room trying to work up the will power to climb them, thinking that it surely will have been one of the biggest accomplishments of my life.  At least I had a comfy hotel room to look forward to.  My work isn't even as physically demanding as most of the poor people here in Kolkata, who carry giant loads of goods on their heads or strain against rickshaws all day.  Imagine every day exerting yourself to your physical limits but only eating a single bowl of plain rice; and for years on end!  For billions of people in the world that is just life.

That’s my limited understanding of poverty.  But don’t take my word for it, ask one of the 1,500,000,000 people in the world who experience it every day.  One thing I know they definitely won’t say: it’s all relative.  

First World Problems

Yesterday I spent most of my day sitting on a wooden stool reading a book about Captain Scott’s catastrophic 1910 expedition to Antarctica.  I sat down on the stool at around 9:30 AM and got up at about 2 PM with many breaks between spent talking to Josh, getting water, changing diapers, replacing the dressing on a wound, and serving lunch.  To other people.  Most of my thoughts not taken captive by icebergs, penguins, and impossible turn-of-the-century British phrases revolved around my stomach.  I could easily have eaten my weight in rice and dal from about 10:30 AM on.  I could have also given a fair fighting chance to a similar weight of Chipotle spicy steak burritos dipped in guacamole or Lola’s chicken and waffles smothered in real grade-B maple syrup and hot sauce.  Come to think of it, I probably could have eaten a pile of fingernail clippings and been happy.  Even the frozen seal blubber being fed to the dog teams on page 209 was making me hungry. 

The person sitting (actually it was more of a lying position) next to me was undoubtedly having different thoughts.  We were both in the Kolkata public hospital but for different reasons.  He was there because his femur had been snapped in two by a train and the two giant wounds on his posterior were deep and infected.  He was in constant agonizing pain as he had been for the last two weeks since the accident.  If his thoughts were rational despite his raging fever and emaciated body, he was probably hoping with any hope left in him that his wait for surgery wasn’t in vain.  As it was, the only audible sounds that came out of his mouth were faint, somewhat forced Muslim prayers.  I was there to feed him his lunch, change his diaper and catheter bag, replace the dressing on his wounds, and wait for the big moment when it would be announced whether he had been selected for surgery or not.  Mostly though I just read my book and dreamed about Mom’s sausage and egg breakfast braid.  She wraps it in those flaky Pillsbury croissants so the outside is crispy and buttery but soft and light at the same time.  Heavenly. 

Now to me, sitting on a stool reading a book all day interspersed with a few small tasks doesn’t feel even a little bit important.  It doesn’t feel like mission work and it certainly doesn’t feel like love.  To the young man referred to by me as “the new patient” though, it’s quite literally the difference between life and death.  Without family, friends, or an MC volunteer to fight for his admittance into the hospital, he would already have died on the street.  If he had somehow been admitted but didn’t have anyone to keep the diarrhea out of his wounds, refill his water bottle, and pay his miniscule hospital fees, he would have already died on his public hospital cot.  His short life would have had a lonely and desperate ending.  To him, the bearded white man sitting on the stool reading his digital book might as well be Jesus himself. 

I mostly write this blog to myself.  When you do this kind of thing every day you sometimes forget its significance.  When you spend a morning thinking only of your own stomach and forget to put yourself in the people’s shoes around you it can get a bit discouraging when you are processing your day later on.  Unless you remind yourself that the person you are sitting next to probably feels more loved than they have ever been in their entire life, regardless of how engrossed you are in the study of emperor penguins and how many piping hot, grease dripping, bacon-wrapped lil’ smokies go through your mind.  

Perspective

Yesterday I was reading through a journal entry from 2010.  I was transported back in time to a different world.  A world in which I drove a green motorcycle to work each day, tended a garden, and gasped at the thought of a friend leaving her job to travel the world for a year.  The entry ended and as I closed Microsoft Word I saw my reflection in Josh’s laptop screen, the same reflection I look at now as I write this journal entry.  My hair is an odd variation of a greasy afro which my patchy beard is trying to replicate on the lower half of my face, my thinning shoulders are bare to allow for efficient evaporation of the sweat that drips down my neck, and in the background is the poor excuse for a bed I am leaning against as I sit on the bare floor.  Mixed smells of curry, feces, and baked goods waft in through the glassless windows and though I normally tune everything out, for a moment I listened to the background noises of continuous honking, bartering, and barking coming from the streets below my room.  It is nearly inconceivable how one person can live two such dissimilar lives, laid out side by side in neat rectangles on a time-line. 

I used to get mad at the societal norms and implied obligations within American culture that disagreed with me; now I get mad at taxi drivers who try to double my fare to 100 rupees because I’m white.  I used to read books about adventurers and controversial theological topics; now I slowly sound out Bangla words on shop fronts as I ride the bus.  I used to carefully match my evening clothes so as not to appear overly hipster or borderline hippy; now I remind myself to stop and cover up men sleeping on the sidewalk who have let their longgee get a little too loose.  I prefer tandoori roti to paratha, but a well-made nan can be better than either.  I know the exact metro car to get on at Jatin Das Park so that when the train arrives at the Park Street stop I am the first one through the turnstiles.  Every person I pass sleeping on the street I consciously analyze as to whether or not they have family members, if they are sick or wounded, and if I should stop to check on them without slowing my pace or turning my head.  I used to live the American dream, now I just live. 

I had this afternoon free.  I decided to devote it to a long neglected task: buy a pack of 3x5 notecards.  I spent three hours wandering around a market slightly smaller than the state of Alaska and with 7000 times the amount of people before finally compromising on the closest thing Kolkata had to offer at the only paper product stall I could find.  It was a tiny pad of paper about the size of a cell phone and it cost 2 rupees (0.03 USD).  I bought two of them.  Today was a productive day; I sang aloud to myself as I walked back to Afridi Guest House in high spirits and swung my miniature grocery bag to the beat, unaware of a world in which a productive day consisted of pushing through the FAA approval of a turbine engine for the new Gulfstream private jet, running 6 miles, leading a Bible study, and cooking myself a delicious dinner of pork loin and home-grown summer squash.  I suppose I’ve changed the world.  

NOTE:  Thank you to my readers for reading, you would hardly be a reader without it!  Just to tie everything up from two weeks ago, I am long over my illness and feeling 100% now.  I spent a week in Thailand recovering with some good friends and have gained back probably half of the weight I lost.  Welp, I'm off to a World Cup party at the German embassy, ttyl!

Can God Microwave a Hot-Pocket So Hot He Can't Eat It?

Can God microwave a hot-pocket so hot that He can’t eat it?  Maybe you have been asked this question in your Philosophy 101 class, or its cousin, “Can God make a rock so big that He can’t move it?”It’s called the “Omnipotence Paradox” and is used by atheists to ‘prove’ an omnipotent being cannot exist.  This is a “yes or no” question, so there are only two possible answers.  Try to answer it yourself first.  If you say “Yes” then you are admitting God cannot move the rock and so He is not omnipotent; if you answer “No” than you are admitting there is something God cannot do.  So either way God is not omnipotent/an omnipotent being cannot exist. 

Today I am going to point out the flaws in this question and its implications.  In order to really understand the two answers I will write them out as full sentences. 

1.       Yes, God can make a rock so big that He cannot move it.

a.       Implication: God cannot move rocks if they are too big

2.       No, God cannot make a rock so big that He cannot move it

a.       Implication: There is something God cannot do. 

These are full sentences but there is still a little bit of flushing out we need to do.  There is a tricky pronoun hiding in answer #2.  “There is something God cannot do.”  What is the word“something” representing?  God cannot do something; God cannot make a rock so big that He cannot move it.  The word cannot is used twice; there is a double negative here.  Basically, by answering No, you are stating “God cannot can’t”.  To put it another way, there is nothing an omnipotent being can’t do.  So actually there is a logical answer and it poses no problem to the idea of omnipotence.  God cannot microwave a hot-pocket so hot that He cannot eat it, because an omnipotent being can eat any hot-pocket no matter how hot and move any rock no matter how big, the apparent problem not being that God can’t build really big rocks but that it’s not possible for such a big rock to exist.

This question, though used by philosophers, is actually poorly worded and indirect.  A more direct question would be to ask, “Is God capable of being incapable?”  If He is truly omnipotent then the obvious answer is “no”.  By definition, an omnipotent being can’t be non-omnipotent. 

In reality the word “omnipotent” is never even used in the Bible.  In fact, some theologians argue that God purposefully chooses not to be omnipotent.  The issue here isn’t really whether or not an omnipotent being exists, the issue is who do you trust?  I, like atheists, tend to put a lot of trust in my own logic and reasoning skills.  When I learn something about God that I can’t reason out with my own logic, I tend to disregard it altogether which ends up leading to a lot of doubts.  I can’t just accept what God says to be true, I have to check it thoroughly and approve it with my own logic first because I trust myself more than I trust God.  It seems really silly when I think about it though.  Who would you rather trust, the God of the whole universe who created everything, understands everything, and controls everything; the God who knows you better than you know yourself, or your own tiny limited knowledge and understanding?  Do you really want to rely only on your own reasoning skills?  You will end up basing life-altering beliefs on silly philosophy questions about hot-pockets. 

Over time I’ve found that I can justify just about anything.  You can use logic to prove a point right or to prove it wrong.  Any argument you come up with to defend any of your deepest help beliefs someone else has already thought of and formed a counter argument that makes much more sense.  You are not the smartest person who has ever lived.  I am not the smartest person who has ever lived.  We are not God.  Obviously.  I’m ok with that though, I don’t need to be right about everything and I don’t need to have the answers because God is right about everything and He does have all the answers and I can trust Him.  So whenever an apparent discrepancy arises between what appears to you to be true and what God says to be true, put your trust in God.

Now, just in case anyone points out the contradiction of my use of logic to point out that logic is overrated, let me say that’s not really the point. I am not claiming that logic is bad, or that truth is relative or unattainable, I am only saying that it is possible to put too much trust in our own logic and understanding. Obviously using your logic is a good thing and I even believe God trusts us to make our own decisions with the brains He gave us without running to Him every time we need to choose between Wendy’s and Subway. However, if there is ever even an appearance of a contradiction with God we have to be humble enough to admit we don’t understand everything and just trust that God knows what He is talking about. Now, go ask your friend the hot-pocket question and you will seem really smart when his face starts to contort from the acrobatics his brain is doing.

The Craziest Experience of My Life

I never thought I would be the one writing about a supernatural experience like some weirdo from an "aliens are real" show, but here goes.

So before I really get into this story I think it's important to share a little bit of my past to those who don't know me.  I grew up in average midwest conservative churches, the kind that disdainfully refer to anyone who claims any kind of supernatural experience as a "holy roller".  I went to college for engineering but found myself enjoying philosophy and math classes most because I was good at anything involving logic and theory.  I worked in aerospace for almost four years but quit two years ago in order to travel and do full time missions because I found it more fulfilling.  Anyway, I have never before claimed to have heard the voice of God but I have had increasing faith and even though I have always had doubts I can honestly say I have always looked back and saw that following God in my decisions had definitely always worked out in my best interest.

One week ago today I was lying on my bed in a slum hotel in Kolkata India with a raging fever.  It was the middle of my 5th day of fasting, by far the longest I had ever gone in my life without food.  Lately I had been focusing hard on what Jesus calls the greatest commandment "Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind" in a very practical way by praying and fasting.  The main focus of my prayers was to be closer to God but that evening I had also prayed for a revelation.  It would take a long time to explain everything about what led up to these prayers and why I had a fever so I'll just go back to me lying on the bed.  Suddenly I slipped into a kind of dream but I was still conscious.  God started speaking to me in the 'dream' but as He did I would open my eyes, prop myself up on my pillow, and write everything down in my journal.  It felt so crazy.  I don't think I was literally in Heaven (I haven't ruled that out either though) but I felt the presence of God just as strongly as I think it would be in Heaven.  I actually have felt the presence of God before, in fact quite often during worship services, but it was always just a temporary feeling, all of which felt like minuscule brushes with God compared to this.  It's really hard to try to put into words.  Have you ever thought about what it would feel like if you died right now, met Jesus face-to-face and immediately found out that Heaven is real, Jesus is real, and Christianity actually had it right?  You would feel an overwhelming sense of joy that for some reason you were chosen and now you had eternal awesomeness to look forward to.  That is how I felt in that moment.  Near the end of it in my head I said to myself, "All this time I wasn't crazy, God is real and He was guiding me and now that I'm here with Him it all makes sense."  Anyway, I'm having a really hard time putting it into words but it was a real encounter with God, the kind you read about in the Old Testament, the kind that turns people's lives around 180 degrees.

I guess you could explain it away in a lot of ways, after all my fever was very high and I was pretty delusional after fasting for 5 days, but I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that God took me into his presence and spoke to me.  As proof, in my journal is a list of 8 revelations from God, written down as they were given to me.  Some are very personal and some of them are embarrassing so I won't share them all but I will share the first one at least.  I'll have to write a separate blog about it though since this one is already too long.

Well that concludes this blog for today.  It is a mess of a story and has no plot or punchline or moral (other than maybe "seek God and you will find Him") but it happened to me and it was really weird and also life-changing so I thought I would share it as best I could.  I haven't really started to process it yet, what it means or how it's going to impact my future since i am just now getting over the sickness; maybe someday it will be a neat little condensed story that leads to something else and I'll write another blog about it then.  

Do Actions Really Speak Louder Than Words?

I don’t know about you but I’ve always been told that actions speak louder than words.  If you say, “I love you” while punching someone in the face what is going to be communicated to them?  Definitely not love.  In the Bible James asks us, “If a person is poorly clothed and hungry and you say to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled’ without giving them the things they need what good is that?...It is dead.”  Words don’t communicate love, action communicates love. 

This is what I believed for a long time.  In fact I believed it so strongly that I hardly spoke at all.  Why bother to talk if words are meaningless?  Most of my life-lessons taught me that words were vain and negative and led to disunity and pain anyway.  However, it is this last point that also eventually gave me a new perspective. 

Words can lead to pain.  James also says in the same letter that “the tongue is a small member yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.”  He likens it to a rudder on a ship or a bit in a horse’s mouth, as powerful as a deadly poison.  He says, “With it we bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing.”  Our words are dangerous.  They have the power to bring death.  You see it as a student; kids keep telling someone they are stupid and after a while the kid believes it.  A parent tells their kid they will never amount to anything and they eventually lose hope of ever accomplishing anything.  An insult leads to a fistfight, a word of gossip leads to hurt feelings and insecurity. 

“Life and death are in the power of the tongue,” it says in Proverbs.  Most of my life I think I realized that the tongue holds the power of death, but what about life?  If words have the potential to kill shouldn’t they also have the power to resurrect?  Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead with a few words; God created the entire universe by speaking it into existence.  Every day I have the choice to use my words to bring life or to bring death.  I can build someone up, make them feel encouraged, and share God’s love and hope just by being intentional with what I say or I can tear them down and promote negativity.  

I guess the phrase “actions speak louder than words” isn’t wrong, but it does under-emphasize the power of words because words can produce actions.  Every word spoken is out there forever, creating death or creating life.  It sounds scary but it is actually good news, you don’t need to be rich to change the world or to impact someone’s life, you don’t need to be the CEO of an NGO to reverse oppression, just use your tongue.  

Roger

Roger is my age – 27.  Every time I ask him how he’s doing he smiles a giant, perfect white smile and says “Very strong!  I am young, I will recover fast!”  He is one of the few patients in NimralHriday (The House of the Dying) who speaks English and can communicate.  He loves having someone to talk to and will gladly share with the volunteers his story if they sit down next to his bed. 

Roger is from a town about 12 hours from Kolkata.  He grew up without a father but was able to support his mother and younger siblings by working as a coolie on the train – someone who moves goods by carrying them on their head, getting paid by the kilogram.  One day he was carrying a load of over a hundred pounds and a taxi ran into him.  His femur snapped and he crumpled on the sidewalk, the taxi disappearing as he lay on the street hemorrhaging.  He lay in that place for three days.  I don’t know what went through his head during those days on the street but I’m sure he came to a place where he thought he had met his end.  Finally a volunteer happened upon him and he was admitted to a hospital where after a lengthy wait surgery was performed and a metal bar inserted to hold his bone together.  

Typically the beds at Nirmal Hriday are reserved for much more severe cases but since Roger had nowhere to go and couldn’t travel by train with a broken leg the Sisters welcomed him in while he recovered.  He spent most of his days slowly trying to bend his injured knee and convincing everyone that he was ready to go home and start working.  After a month and a half he finally left on the same fateful train he had arrived on so much earlier, ready to reunite with his family and start work at a chai shop. 

I was obviously glad that Roger was able to recover and go home but I was sad to see a friend leave.  A lot of people come through the MC homes.  Not many of them have as successful of outcomes as Roger but all of them have touched someone’s heart.  Roger touched mine.