For the past thirteen years that I have worked for the WIC Program, I have tried my best to see the face of Christ in everyone I serve. It is very difficult and I struggle constantly to keep the beam of judgment from my eye, yet somehow, I know that I can never shave it down small enough to keep from my own judgmental thoughts when I see new fathers wearing their pants down around their knees, or women covered in tattoos and body piercings, or when I hear mothers yell at their children and call them names that I could never repeat, let alone use for my children or any children.
There are many days when I know that I am merely going through the motions; just "doing a job" instead of "living a vocation" of service. I use lots of excuses such as being distracted by family worries, feeling exhausted from poor sleep or irritated by the constant sound of crying babies, whining toddlers and scolding mothers in the clinic. There are times when I am more focused on the challenges of the state requirements for WIC Counseling and Charting instead of focusing on the client in front of me, and other times when I just want to get through the day and go home instead of really giving my all to the women in need who bring their worries and cares to my attention.
But what I do know is that these families who live day in and day out in poverty, most of them raising a family on a meager $673.00 monthly state benefits and maybe $200.00 a month for food stamps (if they are lucky-many only receive $10.00 a month), while living in cockroach infested rental houses that are full of hazards such a lead paint, deserve the best care that I can possibly give to them. I also know that most of the women I serve do this without the presence of a male figure in the household, and a great deal of them begin their families while they are still teenagers, really children themselves, which is something I never would have had the courage or the strength to do.
It is a depressing way to live life, and many cannot see a future that will help them rise above their present despair, so they continue the patterns they know, the way in which they were raised, which I believe boils down to taking love where ever they can find it, even if it is only temporary and not really true.
One of my favorite quotes is from Ruth Sidel in her book Keeping Women and Children Last. She says, "Statistics are people with the tears washed off." There are so many different types of poverty and before we can even begin to address financial poverty, we need to look at the poverty of loneliness, the poverty of faith and the poverty of true and lasting, loving relationships. Calling people names and using stereotypes doesn't help anybody, but only continues the cycle of hurt and despair that keeps people in poverty. Young women want to know that they are loved, and if they cannot find it among their family and friends, if their entire lives all they have known is criticism and neglect, they will learn to make their own love, in the creation of a new life. A lonely woman often feels that her own child is the only one who will ever love her and in her desperation, she is unwilling to wait for the perfect, God-given love to come into her life and take her away from her misery, because she knows that the chances of that ever happening are incredibly slim.
"Loneliness is the most terrible type of poverty." Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa realized this when she stepped off that train from the girl's school where she taught, to a life of serving the poor in her own ghetto of Calcutta. She knew that the poor would not escape from their hardship, so she set out to bring a little bit of the peace and love of Christ to the poor right where they lived and died. When she held the face of a poor child in her hands and gazed into his eyes, she knew that she was looking into the face of Christ and that it was her duty to give all the love she had to each and every person she came into contact with. She didn't use statistics and stereotypes, she didn't belittle or condescend. Instead, she took the words of Jesus to heart and lived them every day. She heard "The poor you will have always," John 12:8 and so she entered into the world of financial, spiritual and relational poverty and worked to quench the thirst for love and care that she found everywhere she looked.
It is my prayer that I will be able to follow her example, to cast aside my worries about those in the world who would rather criticize and stereotype, and my tendency to join in their complaints, and get busy quenching Christ's thirst in His little ones.
My poor, sweet Jesus,
here you are in your own slum,
your own inner-city ghetto,
thirsting for love and affection,
desperately wanting to be loved
and to have someone to love in return.
Let me always treat you with
tenderness and compassion
so that in some small way,
I will relieve the hurt you
suffer from and live with each day.
Let me love you,
as love is what we all deserve,
what we all need and crave,
and what is desperately lacking
in the world today. Amen.
