Poverty is feared, even despised, unless one sinks into despair.  Poverty is, of course, a relative term.  One might live on a tropical island, a virtual paradise, and feel blessed until television brings images of a materialistic and exciting lifestyle. Never mind that the lifestyle is sheer fantasy.  Dissatisfaction emerges.

Photography, a hobby of mine, taught me firsthand how a camera can focus on a rose growing among garbage and exclude the garbage.  Television images often exclude the smog, the slums, the alcoholic, the drug addict, and the AIDS victim.

A wren singing joyously to greet the dawn believes in the new day, spirit unbroken.  A broken spirit has no song, no hope in the new dawn.  How sad that so many in this material paradise of America have no song.  Spiritual poverty is the great problem, yet spiritual poverty is ignored.  We focus the camera on the economic blooms and exclude the surrounding garbage.

Don’t misunderstand me.  I know of an instance where an old man on a tropical island felt he lived in paradise.  His generation never felt poor as they lived a simple life, enjoyed the beauty around them, and planted family plots to supplement the diet of fish and fruit.  His son’s generation, after the advent of television, felt poor.  In America our society is different: money is power.  If you want to purchase food, medical care, and education, someone must pay the bill.  We should not neglect the poor in America, and we should empower them to meet their material needs.  We should also have compassion on those who cannot help themselves.  One cannot pick fruit from an empty tree.  Material poverty can break the spirit as well as the body.  Yet, spiritual poverty is the ultimate poverty.

 Spiritual poverty remains when one is fed and warm and surrounded by plenty.  Spiritual poverty gnaws at us so we dare not stop running.  To be alone, to reflect, to have time to think is the great horror, for in still moments we realize we are empty.  Often a crisis will become the mirror in which Reality stares us down and we finally smell the garbage.  Or a joyous holiday like Christmas may confront us with regrets, with loneliness, and with dead dreams.  If we dare to acknowledge the garbage, we can see our existence in perspective. 

Unless Love enters our hearts, we are doomed to live in spiritual garbage.  The writer of Ecclesiastes in the Bible summarized all his accomplishments with the recurring phrase, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”  At Christmas we celebrate Love coming in Jesus, revealing to us the heart of God.  Jesus was born in a stable to a peasant couple rather than in a palace replete with luxury.  He taught that only by acknowledging our spiritual poverty will we allow Love to enter and rule our hearts (Matthew 5:3).  Only then will the crushed soul heal.