How Much Do We Deserve?
Reverend Holly Horn
First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA
From Denise Levertov, Two Threnodies and a Psalm
I.
It is not approaching.
It has arrived.
We are not circumventing it.
It is happening.
It is happening now.
We are not preventing it.
We are within it.
.
The sound of its happening
is splitting other ears.
The sight of its happening
is searing other eyes.
The grip of its happening
is strangling other throats.
.
Without intermission it spins,
without cessation we circle its edge
as leaf or crumb will float circling
a long time at the outer rim
before centripetal force
tugs it down.
II.
The body being savaged
is alive.
It is our own.
While the eagle-vulture
tears the earth's liver,
while the heart-worm burrows
into earth's heart,
we are distant from what devours us
only as far as our extremities are from our minds,
which is no great distance.
.
Extremities, we are in
unacknowledged extremis.
We feel only
a chill as the pulse of life
recedes.
We don't beat off the devouring beak,
the talons. We don't dig out what burrows
into our core. It is not
our heart, we think (but do not say).
It is the world's, poor world, but I
am other.
III.
Our clear water
one with the infested water
women walk miles to
each day they live.
One with the rivers tainted with detritus
of our ambitions,
and with the dishonored ocean.
Our unbroken skin
one with the ripped skin of the tortured,
the shot-down, bombed, napalmed,
the burned alive.
One with the sore and filthy skin of the destitute.
.
We utter the words
we are one
but their truth
is not real to us.
Spirit, waken
our understanding.
Out of the stasis
in which we perish,
the sullen immobility
to which the lead weight of our disbelief
condemns us,
only your rushing wind
can lift us.
.
Our flesh and theirs
one with the flesh of fruit and tree.
Our blood
one with the blood of whale and sparrow.
Our bones
ash and cinder of star-fire.
Our being
tinder for primal light.
.
Lift us, Spirit, impel
our rising
into that knowledge.
Make truth real to us,
flame on our lips.
Lift us to seize the present,
wrench it
out of its downspin.
Each year, this season of hope, this season of giving brings to us a heightened awareness of those who are in need: those who are sick or lonely, the shut-ins; those who are homeless or hungry. Although the weather has not yet driven the legions of homeless to the steam-grates, they will come soon enough. The Salvation Army soldiers will take up their sidewalk positions.
This year, in this season of hope, in this season of giving, we are acutely aware of those who are in need - their numbers grossly enlarged with the survivors of September 11; the Afghan survivors of drought and war, who now endure the bitterly cold winter; the survivors of suicide-bombs inside the Israeli Green Line, and of targeted retaliations outside that line.
We will, many of us, give generously to charities, to relief and aid funds. We'll make special gifts to the church. We'll find seasonal opportunities for service, even as we continue our monthly C2125 dinners, offering support to people in transitional housing. We will continue to collect food to help fill the local pantries. We'll reach out to the elderly and shut-in among our congregation with a card, a phone call, or a visit.
All of these acts of generosity and kindness are important. They make a difference in people's lives. They make a difference in our lives. And they are especially important this year, with so many in need.
Yet, this year, as in every other year, there are millions of others who are in need - whose need escapes below the radar of our awareness; millions who do not appear on the front page of the newspaper.
It is not approaching.
It has arrived.
We are not circumventing it.
It is happening.
It is happening now.
We are not preventing it.
We are within it.
In ours, the wealthiest nation on earth, 32 million people were living in poverty before our current recession began. (Gilbert) Mind you, this is poverty "calculated by the archaic method of taking the bare-bones cost of food for a family of a given size and multiplying this number by three. . . In 1999, food took up, [on average,] only 16 percent of the family budget, while housing had soared to 37 percent." (Ehrenreich)
In contrast to the Federal Register in February of 2000, which put the poverty level for a family of three at $14,150, "The Economic Policy Institute. . . came up with an average figure of $30,000 a year for a family of one adult and two children. . . the budget includes health insurance, a telephone, and child care at a licensed center . . . which are well beyond the reach of millions. But it does not include restaurant meals, video rentals, Internet access, wine and liquor, cigarettes and lottery tickets, or even very much meat."
The majority of American workers, about 60 percent, earn less than the $14.00 an hour this budget would require. (Erhenreich) The fastest-growing group in poverty is this majority of workers, the working poor - at least 9 million of them.
A year ago September, the U.S. Department of Commerce revealed that nearly one in seven Americans is poor, and almost 17 percent of American children, over 12 million, are poor. At the same time, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that over 42 million Americans did not have health insurance, over 15 percent of the population.
In any given year, 1 to 2 million Americans experience homelessness. And the typical homeless person in the United States is a child. A 2000 U.S. Census Bureau/U.S. Department of Agriculture report found that 12 million children and 19 million adults "still suffer from hunger or live on the edge of hunger." The AARP reports that among the elderly, some 6.5 million either cannot afford food or must choose, at times, between buying food and other necessities.
And all of these numbers predate September 11. Most are, I am sure, increasing. Our collection for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is helping those economically hardest hit - the hotel and restaurant workers, the janitors who've been laid off in New York City.
What's it like being poor?
Barbara Ehrenreich, in her book Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, reports on an experiment she performed: to see whether she could match income to expenses in a low-wage job. In Portland, Maine, Key West, and Minneapolis, she worked for a maid service cleaning houses, waitressed in a diner, cleaned in a nursing home, and tidied shelves at a Wal-Mart.
She learned many things, in addition to the near impossibility of just getting by. She learned that much so-called "unskilled work" actually requires a great deal of skill, and that low-wage workers take pride in what they do. She learned about the ways in which low-wage workers are stripped of their dignity, and even their civil rights, by employers. She writes:
"Most civilized nations compensate for the inadequacy of wages by providing relatively generous public services such a health insurance, free or subsidized child care, subsidized housing, and effective public transportation. But the United States, for all its wealth, leaves its citizens to fend for themselves - facing market-based rents, for example, on their wages alone. For millions of Americans, that $10 - or even $8 or $6 - hourly wage is all there is.
"It is common, among the nonpoor, to think of poverty as a sustainable condition - austere, perhaps, but they get by somehow, don't they? They are 'always with us.' What is harder for the nonpoor to see is poverty as acute distress: The lunch that consists of Doritos or hot dog rolls, leading to faintness before the end of the shift. The "home" that is also a car or a van. The illness or injury that must be "worked through," with gritted teeth, because there's no sick pay or health insurance and the loss of one day's pay will mean no groceries for the next. These experiences are not part of a sustainable lifestyle, even a lifestyle of chronic deprivation and relentless low-level punishment. They are, by almost any standard of subsistence, emergency situations. And that is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans - as a state of emergency." (Ehrenreich:214)
Yet, to that top 25 percent of Americans who possess 50 percent of the wealth, this state of emergency is invisible. For, as James Fallows wrote: ". . . [T]hey are less and less likely to share spaces and services with the poor. As public schools and other public services deteriorate, those who can afford to do so send their children to private schools and spend their off-hours in private spaces, health clubs, for example, instead of the local park. They don't ride on public buses and subways. They withdraw from mixed neighborhoods into distant suburbs, gated communities, or guarded apartment towers; they shop in stores that, in line with the prevailing "market segmentation," are designed to appeal to the affluent alone."
And these are the people among whom our nation's political power is concentrated.
The body being savaged
is alive.
It is our own.
While the eagle-vulture
tears the earth's liver,
while the heart-worm burrows
into earth's heart,
we are distant from what devours us
only as far as our extremities are from our minds,
which is no great distance.
.
Extremities, we are in
unacknowledged extremis.
We feel only
a chill as the pulse of life
recedes.
We don't beat off the devouring beak,
the talons. We don't dig out what burrows
into our core. It is not
our heart, we think (but do not say).
It is the world's, poor world, but I
am other.
As Unitarian Universalists, our history is distinguished by our optimism about human nature and human community. We have long held that individuals are capable of growth and change; that societies can be improved. We believe in the efficacy of human effort toward both spiritual and social transformation; and we value our common efforts above any creeds. Such convictions have propelled us to leadership in the founding of this nation, in the abolition of slavery, in the struggle for women's rights, for civil rights - ongoing struggles, to be sure.
We affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person, compromised for so many by poverty.
And since, according to the 1998 United Nations Human Development Report, "The additional cost of achieving and maintaining universal access to basic education for all, basic health care for all, reproductive health care for all women, adequate food for and safe water and sanitation for all is roughly $40 billion a year. [And] this is less than 4 percent of the combined wealth of the 225 richest people in the world. . ." the problem is clearly one of the distribution, not the production of wealth. Equity, and not scarcity, is the issue.
And, in this richest of all nations, until we have restored our own citizens to dignity, how shall we lead the world to this same end?
How much do we deserve? This is the title of a book by Richard Gilbert, senior minister of our Unitarian Universalist congregation in Rochester, New York. He writes of an ethic of enough; that is, "beyond a certain level, income is not only superfluous but can be morally and spiritually corrupting." An ethic of enough means that none should have luxuries while some lack essentials.
He does not advocate an equality of income or wealth, but equity; equity understood as the guarantee of decent food, clothing, housing, health care, education, rest, and leisure for every citizen. This is achievable. Not easily or painlessly, but it is achievable.
There are many solutions and formulas, of course - from a living wage to a progressive tax structure. And we need to learn about these things, and to become advocates for 32 million impoverished Americans, as well as the other 20 - 30 million whom no one counts.
It is vital that we continue and expand our programs of service to the poor. But, we must also begin to address the systemic failures that create and sustain poverty. As we say every week in the Chapel services, "We can't do everything, but we can do something."
For instance, there are organizations that track legislation and send emails urging people to write their elected representatives in Congress. With very little effort and not a great deal of money, we could have a table during coffee hour with legislative summaries and sample letters available. Many congregations do this.
In California, Unitarian Universalists are researching plans for a legislative action office in the state capital, similar to our UU Washington Office. We could do that here in Pennsylvania.
And in April, our congregation will be hosting the continental conference of Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community. If you are interested in helping with this, please let Benjamin or Phebe Shinn know.
The wealthiest 25 percent of Americans, to whom the poor are virtually invisible, are those among whom political power is concentrated. In the midst of terror attacks and war, I lift up to you the shameful reality of American poverty because shameless politicians are using the terror attacks and war as a cover for further concentrating wealth in the pockets of their wealthy friends; and at a time when working people are increasingly suffering. Blindness and ignorance can be remedied and forgiven. Callousness, deviousness, and greed must be confronted.
In this season of hope, in this season of giving, may we find peace and joy and comfort in our rituals of kindness and of generosity, and in the company of family and friends. And, as we look forward to a New Year bright with possibility, may we be spiritually strengthened in our resolve to live the values we cherish; to promote justice, equity, and compassion in all our human relations.
Lift us, Spirit, impel
our rising
into that knowledge.
Make truth real to us,
flame on our lips.
Lift us to seize the present,
wrench it
out of its downspin. AMEN.
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