we've been having these structured talks these past few weeks at community group per red mtn's request. normally our motley crew gathers in one house or another, imbibes, and tries their damnedest to get in the best "that's what she said" joke. but not these past few weeks. the past few weeks its been: how do we know the poor, love the poor, become the poor?
i have a lot of thoughts about this and i'm not sure where to start, but i'll try and be concise.
i've said this before, but clint really does have this gift of being able to get to the heart of an issue with unmatched precision. as we were having the discussion tonight, i think he said it well: there's freedom to have an existential crisis about being a middle class white person when it comes to helping the poor, but there's also freedom to fucking help the poor. for those of us who believe, say what you want, but jesus talks about helping the poor more than anything else. there's no getting around itnow i don't think it looks like (as josh had said earlier) "the travelling whitey show" but it's also not NOT doing anything at all.
he really is so beautiful. sigh.
back to liz world though. so in between all this is talk about doing stuff with kids, teaching them to cook, putting together a music festival, volunteering at certain events... i'm honestly just getting more and more uncomfortable the longer i sit there and apparently my face was showing my distress. hunter looks over at me and says, "well what do you think liz?"
all eyes on me, and in true liz fashion, i just let it rip.
i am really not interested in going somewhere and doing volunteer work with my community group once, twice, however many times a month. i work an 8-5 job. factor in 30 mins there and back and i'm spending 10 hours 5 days a week doing work or in my car getting to work. i come home and tuesday nights and all day saturday are devoted to doing hair. wednesday night i have community group. clint plays, on average twice a week which takes him away from the house until sometimes 4 in the morning. i spend most of my life working to scrape the minutes together that i actually get to do what i really want to do: just fucking hang out with my husband.
and i don't like kids either. never have. not interested in spending my free time with them. if i did, i would have some of my own.
and the thing is: i don't have to go very far to find people who are struggling. my dad got laid off of his job right after we got married and is still struggling to this day to foot a mortgage he took on when he made twice as much money because NO ONE WILL BUY THEIR HOUSE. my mom busts her ass and makes almost half what i make and saturday, i'm going to help them work a garage sale where they're getting rid of half the contents in their house to try and cut their losses and make ends meet. another friend of mine has just recently been able to rejoin the work force after almost a year off from a horrific motorcycle accident. he's trying, really trying, but he doesn't have insurance and he needs medicine for some seriously intense (almost crippling) social anxiety he lives with on a daily basis. my girlfriend who has two kids and is in school full time trying to get her degree is trying desperately to get healthy and take care of her body is having to wait for her stimulus check to get some sneakers so she can run without her knee killing her. THOSE are the things that are on my radar. those are the things i care about.
maybe one day it'll be really important to me to go out and find people that need my help/time/ears/support, but for right now, they're all around me and i feel their need with everything i got. i don't know if its wrong or right, but i feel free at this point to not really give a fuck about it either way.
i have a lot of thoughts about this and i'm not sure where to start, but i'll try and be concise.
i've said this before, but clint really does have this gift of being able to get to the heart of an issue with unmatched precision. as we were having the discussion tonight, i think he said it well: there's freedom to have an existential crisis about being a middle class white person when it comes to helping the poor, but there's also freedom to fucking help the poor. for those of us who believe, say what you want, but jesus talks about helping the poor more than anything else. there's no getting around itnow i don't think it looks like (as josh had said earlier) "the travelling whitey show" but it's also not NOT doing anything at all.
he really is so beautiful. sigh.
back to liz world though. so in between all this is talk about doing stuff with kids, teaching them to cook, putting together a music festival, volunteering at certain events... i'm honestly just getting more and more uncomfortable the longer i sit there and apparently my face was showing my distress. hunter looks over at me and says, "well what do you think liz?"
all eyes on me, and in true liz fashion, i just let it rip.
i am really not interested in going somewhere and doing volunteer work with my community group once, twice, however many times a month. i work an 8-5 job. factor in 30 mins there and back and i'm spending 10 hours 5 days a week doing work or in my car getting to work. i come home and tuesday nights and all day saturday are devoted to doing hair. wednesday night i have community group. clint plays, on average twice a week which takes him away from the house until sometimes 4 in the morning. i spend most of my life working to scrape the minutes together that i actually get to do what i really want to do: just fucking hang out with my husband.
and i don't like kids either. never have. not interested in spending my free time with them. if i did, i would have some of my own.
and the thing is: i don't have to go very far to find people who are struggling. my dad got laid off of his job right after we got married and is still struggling to this day to foot a mortgage he took on when he made twice as much money because NO ONE WILL BUY THEIR HOUSE. my mom busts her ass and makes almost half what i make and saturday, i'm going to help them work a garage sale where they're getting rid of half the contents in their house to try and cut their losses and make ends meet. another friend of mine has just recently been able to rejoin the work force after almost a year off from a horrific motorcycle accident. he's trying, really trying, but he doesn't have insurance and he needs medicine for some seriously intense (almost crippling) social anxiety he lives with on a daily basis. my girlfriend who has two kids and is in school full time trying to get her degree is trying desperately to get healthy and take care of her body is having to wait for her stimulus check to get some sneakers so she can run without her knee killing her. THOSE are the things that are on my radar. those are the things i care about.
maybe one day it'll be really important to me to go out and find people that need my help/time/ears/support, but for right now, they're all around me and i feel their need with everything i got. i don't know if its wrong or right, but i feel free at this point to not really give a fuck about it either way.
5 comments:
great post. and I feel like I'm kind of in a similar place.
I think we're all a lot more poor than we realize.
and at the same time, jesus said a whole lot about loving the poor.
I'm tired. I'm wearing out. I'm realizing this more and more.
How's that for honesty?
I think most people are afraid to say what you've just said, because they think it'll make them sound callous or cold-hearted, but it doesn't sound that way when you say it. It's not like there's this huge divide between the poor and us. Everybody's got their burdens. There's nothing unloving about just caring for those around you.
brian - it makes me sad to see the spillover of exhausting ourselves with jobs we don't love and then realizing we've worn ourselves out too much to enjoy the things we spent working to get to. and i definitely agree that we are a lot more poor than we realize.
jen - man, thanks. you always make me feel so good about putting it all out there. i think this stuff all the time, and you're right: sometimes i'm afraid to say it because it could come across as harsh. the look of distress that hunter noted on my face that night was me deciding whether or not i needed to exercise my small filter. i walk a fine line of learning the meaning of the phrase "truth for truth's sake is for the birds". so yeah, thanks :)
Liz - it's awesome that you don't have to go out to find the poor. you've put yourself in a position that you are surrounded by poor, helpless, hopeless people, and i imagine that your presence in their life gives them a lot of hope.
i'd love to get in on some of these conversations. the more i interact with "poor people" the more confused i get.
house - thank you.
and dealing with the poor can be so confusing/frustrating. ESPECIALLY in terms of health care and taking care of your body. i was ready today about how most of the deaths from high blood pressure occur in poorer families because they can't/won't take medication for it. medicaid bullshit takes up so much of my time at work it's not even funny.
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