Poverty: Search for an Unbiased Perspective

I’m going to preface this blog with the following comments:

1) I am obsessed with asking questions about the nature of God and the universe in which we live.

2) This blog will try to represent only a handful of thoughts that have been in my mind during these past few weeks since coming to Nicaragua.

3) For those of you who don’t know me personally, I am a Social Justice Major in college and issues of poverty and wealth deeply affect me. I do come from a wealthy background, but I have set out on a path that is leading me toward community and solidarity with people on the margins.

Last week our sisterhood traveled to a local hospital to visit and pray with those who are ill. The experience of visiting the hospital deeply affected Leigha, and she had to leave the hospital partway into our visit because she felt physically nauseated by walking the open-air hallways and experiencing the overpopulated rooms of a Nicaraguan hospital.

Later that evening Leigha and I sat and talked in our kitchen long after dinner was over as we both tried to process the implications of our hospital visit. Although Leigha was overwhelmingly saddened by the material poverty we witnessed earlier that day, through our conversation I surprisingly wound up at a very un-Jennifer-like conclusion.

As we compared the Nicaraguan hospital we experienced with the average American hospital, there is very little question that American hospitals are more spacious, grant more privacy to patients, are probably more sanitary and have more advanced equipment. My question to pose to you is this: are American hospitals necessarily the ideal? Do we need to pity the Nicaraguan hospital just because it does not quite match up with what we are used to? My point is this: America is not the norm, and even the majority of the American comforts we currently enjoy were not available even a century (or less) ago.

I think that too many of us (myself included) take pity on third world countries like Nicaragua and want to do everything in our power to ensure that we help our third world neighbors get “up to speed” so they can enjoy the same material comforts we enjoy (as if these luxuries are the norm). What I am trying to say is I am beginning to think that certain forms of material poverty are not necessarily an injustice. Perhaps our standards are skewed. Before I continue, please understand that I am not trying to defend or justify total destitution or hunger; I am merely addressing sustainable yet extremely simple living  I have witnessed day after day as I have walked the impoverished Nicaraguan barrios and talked with the people.

We pity homes with dirt floors because we think hardwood, tile and carpet are the norm. We pity the children who have to share a room with several of their siblings because we think that privacy is the norm. We pity the woman who has to wash clothes and dishes by hand because we think that washing machines and dishwashers were created by God right along with the plants and the animals.

People have been living in homes with dirt floors, sharing a room with several other people and washing clothes and dishes by hand for several millenniums; we do not need to pity those who continue to live this way when only in recent decades have we moved above and beyond these “primitive” aspects of life. Horse-drawn carriages are normal; cars were only created in the last century. Having only one or two outfits to your name is normal; only in recent years has it become common for each person to own  an entire closetful of perfectly clean and pressed clothing.

If we cease to be satisfied until all the global “poor” have all the amenities that we enjoy in America – washing machines, multiple cars per family, hot water, manicured lawns, the latest toys, cosmetics, air conditioning and so on – our delicate planet would literally die because it could not – nor was it created to – support so much hyper-consumption.

America is not normal, and neither is it the ideal.

After all, Jesus did not own a washing machine, and I’m pretty sure he had a dirt floor too.