The Place of Honor

 Since I was twelve years old, I have always worked. I started with a paper route, getting up every morning at 4:30am before school to deliver newpapers. Every summer I worked as well, in a variety of jobs. I portaged canoes, edited blue prints for an architecture firm, tested welds and repainted tanks in a propane factory, worked in greenhouses, did data entry, waiting tables in a restaurant, washed dishes...the list goes on and on.

I always thought I had a decent work ethic because of this, but one off-hand comment by an adult co-worker when I was nineteen stayed with me and cast doubt on that.

I was servicing swimming pools for the summer for a friend's father's local business. It was a small crew, a combination of seasonal staff like myself and the full-time guys. Most of the clients we serviced were rather wealthy, and we got an inside look at some rather opulent houses. I was taking a break sitting down on a tree stump when one of the full-time guys called me "lazy." He was a hard-working, blue collar guy. His comment stung, because it was mostly true. 

You see, my work wasn't by necessity. If I didn't work, I still ate. If I didn't work, I still had a place to sleep. It was a sort of "privelege work" to pad up my savings account and give me some spending money. 

But this isn't the crushing reality of the truly poor that most of us are rather removed from. The poor work not to build up their resume or network, or to pad anything, and certainly not as a "choice." They are working to simply survive, with a thin margin for error. 

Most, also, are not lazy, and most are not visibly panhandling on street corners. Many are largely hidden in plain sight right in front of us, stringing together an endless hamster wheel of low wage, low-skill jobs, cobbling together child care, and feeling like they are powerless to get ahead. These are the jobs that I may have taken when I was a teenager, but to consider them now would be ludicrous. 

This is the nature of my privilege, and for many of you readers, yours as well.

Now, I know many conservatives get triggered by the p-word used above. It does wrinkle the narrative of hard-working people changing their badly-dealt hand through tenacity and grit to become successful business owners or entrapenours. And that certainly does happen in some circumstances. Because of this narrative, the temptation is to place the onus for not getting ahead at the feet of those trapped in poverty. Their existence can sometimes feel like an indictment against ourselves. 

The collective poor in the scriptures appears with such regularity, however, that it cannot be simply ignored. The most damning and sober justice that appears in Matthew 25 ("I was hungry and you did not give me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink...") is also underscored by the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31, when Lazarus is carried to the bosom of Abraham seemingly on account of his poverty, and the rich man to his damnation on account of his privelege. And our Lord says as well, "the rich he has sent away empty" (Lk 1:53) and "Woe to you who are full now, for ye shall hunger" (Lk 6:25). The Lord speaks to those of us who have never gone hungry in this way, and reminds us of our fate:

"Those who shut their ears to the cries of the poor will be ignored in their own time of need." (Prov 21:13)

I had an interesting experience that led me to think twice about what part of the Lord's table I was sitting at in regards to my disposition on this topic. I had driven out to mushroom farm country (the mushroom captial of the world), which is about a thirty minute drive from us, because I had scored a good deal on some organic avocados (the fact that I am buying organic avocados in the first place should be a tip off of my standing in the social order). Because it was a longish drive, I figured I would stock up while I was there at this random mushroom farm with a walk-in cooler and buy 14 boxes of avocados containing 40 each, for a total of 600 avocados. Since they are so expensive in the store, and we have a chest freezer, and my wife and I are trying to do the low-carb thing, this made perfect sense in my mind (ridiculous, I know). 

When I got home, though, and started quartering, pitting, and bagging the fruits, I realized I had perhaps overbought and it would take me several hours to get this task done. It was a Saturday evening, and so it was a race against the clock on two fronts--complete the task before the Sabbath, and before they over ripen. After doing this for a couple hours, I started thinking, "is this really worth my time?" As if preparing food was beneath me, meant for migrants (who do this work in mushroom country every day for 10-12 hours a day). My co-worker's words from over twenty years ago resurfaced: "you are lazy." I didn't feel like processing these avocados for storage. And so I went to bed around 2am, after only a few hours, with about nine boxes remaining. 

The thing is, I had that option....to take a break, walk away, choose to work on something, etc. The poor don't have that privilege. They work in factories, in hotels, on farms, in restaurants, doing the things we wouldn't want to do ourselves for more than a few hours, and get paid a fraction of what many of us middle-class skilled workers do for their efforts. Because, really, they have no bargaining chip. No power. No voice. This is the mark of the truly poor--those with no options, no rest, no hope for a better future in this life. And yet, God

"saves the needy from the sword in their mouth; he saves them from the clutches of the powerful. So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth" (Job 5:15).

It is sobering to realize we are not blessed Lazarus', but often the unnamed rich man setting off for perdition. That we are not the hungry dependent being filled with good things by Providence, but rich fools padding our nest eggs saying "You have plenty of grain laid up for many years...eat, drink, and be merry" (Lk 12:19). 

How does one learn radical dependence on God and charity to our neighbor when we are filled with good things in this life, to be sent away empty-handed in the next? What is our "privilege" (to use that word again) in having a voice, and how is it a spiritual liability? It is easy to write a check from our surplus, but to feel truly the pain, the helplessness, the dependence of the poor and the widow's mite--this is a grace from God if it does not allow us to ignore them. For again, there are thoes terrible words from scripture: "Those who shut their ears to the cries of the poor will be ignored in their own time of need." (Prov 21:13)

I will admit I am calloused to the poor...I get annoyed seeing them panhandling by the Home Depot, get righteous when I judge how they handle their money, get impatient when their EBT card declines in front of me at the supermarket, and get judgey when it comes to their uncoothness and language in public spaces. I am in my own world. I have gotten used to my place of honor, of stature, or not being in want for anything.

And sometimes, too, the Traditionalist blanket we wrap ourselves in to keep the outside world at bay as we recite our rosaries in church can close us off to these messy realities as well in our hearts, as if serving the poor directly was something "normie" Catholics do. Let it be a challenge, then, to surpass in charity the low bar we set for ourselves. Maybe these little instances of doing the tedious, thankless, tiring work of the poor every now and then--like pitting 600 avocados, or whatever--when it is their every day reality, be a reminder that we should not ignore them, lest we ourselves are ignored in our time of need.