Random Fate on poverty

[This one I want to keep. I'm stealing the whole post. Thanks in advance to Jack Grant.]

Some things are all too easy to say… that others should do, things that are impossible for those others to accomplish.

From the email inbox:

I left work early yesterday to deliver to one of the shelters here in San Antonio clothes, toys, and other items after raiding my own house this weekend. I spent some time talking to a few refugees and those caring for them. The ones with whom I spoke were from inner city New Orleans - 9th Ward area. None of them owned their own homes, but lived in government housing or rented shotgun shacks decades and decades old. They have no desire to return and look upon this event as an opportunity to begin again. They intend to remain in San Antonio, look for work, and send their children to school.

There was great loss for these people, but they are optimistic and hopeful for tomorrow.

One woman told me but for Katrina, she would have never been able to get her and her children out of there.

Re-read that last sentence carefully: One woman told me but for Katrina, she would have never been able to get her and her children out of there.

For those who say, “If you are too poor to evacuate a city known to be in danger, move somewhere else,” I respond, “If they had enough money to move, they would have enough money for a car to flee the danger!”

I am glad that so many have absolutely no conception of true poverty and how difficult it is to escape, because that means they have never had to experience it.

I am furious that so many have absolutely no conception of true povery and how difficult it is to escape, not when they feel free to appoint themselves judges of those in poverty.

Two lessons, taught by a teacher far better than I will ever be, appear to have been forgotten by many who claim to follow that very teacher:

The story of the Good Samaritan

The statement, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (I linked to a long passage for a reason, read the entire passage)

Nothing I can say is more profound than either of these teachings.