The Relativity of Wealth - Part 3

The Relativity of Wealth - Part 1
The Relativity of Wealth - Part 2


Who is poor. I mean really poor, not just that they feel poor because of comparing themselves to others who have more possessions or income. I believe the best definition would be, "someone who does not have and cannot provide for themselves the necessities of life such as food, clothing and shelter". I understand that a precise definition would require developing each one of those three items to determine what conditions can legitimately be considered to have met the minimal standard of say adequate shelter. Trying to precisely pin down the minimums is not necessary for the purpose of this post.

Lets just go back to persons "A" and "B" from part 2 of this series:

This person lives on the "wrong side of town" in a very simple 900 square foot house and drives a rusty old car. We will call this person "Person-A". Now let's add someone else to our thought experiment. We will call this person "person-B". Person-B lives in a 6000 square foot house, owns several nice vehicles, a boat and vacations frequently.

My assertion is that neither person in this example should be considered poor. Remember that on the global scale they occupy the same fraction of a percent of possible financial situations. They both have houses, a motor vehicle, clothing, refrigeration, electricity, running water, air conditioning, etc... The difference in their situations is more in style than substance. If you can really grasp this truth it will have a profound effect on how you view the world. If you live in a "poor" area and you come to the understanding that you are essentially in the same financial situation as those in the "rich" part of town it will help you battle envy, dissatisfaction, covetousness, greed, self pity, etc... in your heart.

Now the societal elites such as those in Hollywood recoil at the thought of having to drive a rusted out car or wear modest clothing that is out of fashion. They see this as an injustice that no one should have to endure. But they are preaching a materialistic gospel. The version of the materialistic gospel that says "no one should have to live like they do on the poor side of town" is essentially the same as the version that says "God wants you to get a flashy car and move out of the poor side of town". I doubt that God is to concerned about the stylistic differences between the lives of "A" and "B". Especially considering that both in many ways live more comfortably than royalty did in the time of Jesus.

If you look at people with out of style clothes and ugly cars and you pity them and label them as "poor", you need to check your heart. This seems to be especially common among the young hipster crowd (I probably fit into this category) that places a lot of stock in their fashion. That pity you feel for the person in the uncool clothing is not a virtue! Why are your cloths / hair style really any better than theirs? Pity where none is needed is as good an indicator as any that there is pride in our hearts. Lets all try to work on our hearts to get to the place where we don't see a "poor" and a "rich" side of town but rather recognize that most of us are in a very good financial situation when viewed on the historical and global scale.

I think I am finished with this series but not this theme. I am going to work on at least two more posts in this theme. One will be called "The Gospel of Envy" and the other will be "The Materialistic Gospel".

I will end this series with a description of my childhood. I grew up in Fillmore MO, a small farming community. My mom has six siblings so I had plenty of aunts, uncles and cousins to run around with. It really was a pretty idealistic small-town childhood. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I grew up in a 900 square foot house with my sister and I sharing a bedroom. Everyone I knew lived a very modest life. I'm sure many looking in from the outside might have labeled us as "poor". I know one thing for sure and that is we never considered ourselves poor. No one I knew did. We were perfectly happy with our houses and rusty vehicles and jeans with holes in them... I never heard anyone griping about the rich man... we didn't envy the "rich" man... we didn't consider ourselves poor... no one had evangelized us and converted us to the materialistic gospel of envy. We would rightly have viewed anyone who attempted to come in on their white horse and deliver us from our "plight" condescending and ignorant.

I promise that i will stamp out any pity in my heart for anyone who is not really poor. I promise that I will not condescendingly label someones life a social injustice just because it differers stylistically from mine. I promise I will not view those on the "wrong" side of town as something that needs fixing but instead as my equal in all ways that matter.

I could also write some promises that those who live on the "poor" side of town should recite. Like, I promise I will not resent someone or label them greedy just because their life differs stylistically from mine... How about you ponder this and see what other promises you could come up with.