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The War on Poverty
A man stands barefoot in the sand wearing ethnic clothes and leaning on a staff. He lives in a mud hut. He doesn't have a car. He doesn't have a checking account. There are no roads to his village. He has a collection of goats and a small well. He has never been to college or formal school; anything beyond what his father taught him concerning the raising of sheep and goats. He has tattoos all over his chest as proof of his devotion to a long list of demonic false gods he is certain run the universe and who must be placated before any success. He sometimes is attacked by raiders. Sometimes he raids.
A woman sits in a hut cooking over a wood fire with pots she made by hand. She isn't wearing any clothes to cover her breasts but instead has tattoos and scars on her face as proof of her admiration of her ancestors, which are in fact demons that deceive her. There is a long list of rituals she performs which she couldn’t list if asked but which she never fails to do to placate the gods of everything from the pots to the forest.
Both of them suffer many things. Both of them grow to be old by any standard. Both have extended large families who live exactly as themselves. They have all lived in that area for many centuries.
Are they poor? If so wherein consists the poverty?
It is plain that among their own people they are not poor at all but would be considered at the least middle class. It is also plain that they have enough to eat and get by much the same as any western counterpart.
Are they poor? How so?
A man sits smoking a cigarette. He cradles a Kalashnikov in his lap and looks out over the urban scenery with a pair of expensive binoculars. He is wearing a crisply pressed uniform with shiny decorations and buttons. The nation in which he lives has seen five governments in ten years. He has American dollars and German marks in his pocket, besides the worthless currency of his own nation. He wears an expensive watch, drinks the best vodka and has a stable of prostitutes he runs on the side from his regular business as police commissioner. He is very religious and tosses some money whenever he thinks about it toward a priest or the Church.
Is he poor? If so, wherein consists his poverty?
A woman sits in a Church. She:
- worships demons and thinks she worships God through saints.
- lights candles for blessings.
- bows before images for blessings.
- makes motions in the air with her hand to ward off evil spirits.
- Makes regular payments to the Church so as to buy her mother out of a place that really doesn’t exist, but that she is absolutely deceived does exist and is called Purgatory with a capital P. She is deceived that if she doesn’t make the payments, she will have to make the lump sum of her mother’s entire estate and that if she doesn’t she will have left her mother in the flames of pain on purpose. There is no one she knows of that will do the same for her when she dies
- works as an attorney and makes over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year
- lives in the United States
- does many works of material charity for those with less stuff ( to include less intricate beliefs) than she has
- has many neighbors who are as herself and who think she is a saint as compared with themselves
A young man sits in a crack house. He isn’t on crack or any drug. He is there to help. Yet his only speech is demonic and he doesn’t know it, he can’t stop even one person from becoming a crack addict or even one crack rock from being manufactured or sold and can’t help anyone stop taking crack. He describes himself verbally as “not being religious” and says that “everyone has a valid point of view” and “nobody really knows any truth”.
There is an older couple, married for over fifty years. Their whole speech is constantly against each other yet they are deceived that the very definition of good, of godliness is to feel an emotional positive. He is a retired pastor. She teaches school. They tell each other demonic and archetypical jokes to reinforce their idea of how the world works ( or at least should work if God were not supposedly asleep at the wheel ) that makes them smile in such a monstrously fake way as to make them despise each other for being fakes. They are afraid of the surrounding “culture” and so always are careful to think and speak in such a way as to placate the gods of that “culture” even when each one is alone. They argue with the tv in a conservative way. They really are deceived evangelism has ‘happened’ when some one of that “culture” ‘chooses Jesus’ and begins to live, at least outwardly as they do. They give money regularly to make sure that such a thing takes place at all times in every corner of the world, especially after natural disasters. They feel sorry for the man and his tattoos, the woman who doesn’t have clothes to cover her breasts, the woman who thinks she is genuinely getting her mother out of Purgatory and the man with the Kalashnikov. They think the young man in the crack house is nice, but should go to college instead so he will get a good job later.
There is a young man and a young woman who are deceived such a thing as "gay" exists and that they are not simply being devoured by a particular sin over and over with repetition but that they ARE that sin, so they are not actually sinning at all because they are a being as separate and distinct from all other creatures and that supposed mere 'fact' alone excuses them.
A black man looks longingly at a white neighbrohood. He has never in his life been hungry or without on a scale to match any other part of the world. Yet he has also never once had enough money to play 'keep up with the Joneses' the way he really wants to. In his eyes, to be poor is to have no defense against the mouth of accusation and the money and keeping up with the Jonese would be that defense. He doesn't want the money or the stuff just to have it. He wants it as a safety, a shield against the mouth that accuses him of 'not having used his free will properly' everywhere he turns. That's why he (and all men) wants to keep up with the Joneses.
A woman is driving to an abortion clinic even now so that she will trade her life now along with the life of her child for more emotional opportunity and a seat at table of the big emotional banquet the future surely holds minus the child.
An older man, who can't be satisfied until he has incited a host of younger men to blow themselves up while running through a large crowd, sits quietly smoking some hashish.
A group of other men, deceived that they must fight the host of younger men while they leave the demonics/what-made-the-older-man-send-them-out intact and indeed falsely honored not only as a supposed real and geuine model of how the universe works, but a "religion of peace" as well, plot how to protect themselves in a dangerous world they do not understand but must pretend to understand because among their own people, they are the Security Czars.
A 'pastor'/'priest' is preaching to a group of souls that never include what is known among them as the metally handicapped or the comatose because he knows good and well his words have no affect on those with no supposed mental agility to keep up with his 'why you should choose Christ' arguments.
Are they poor? If so, wherein consists their poverty?
Psalm 10:10, 11 He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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