This past week, I attended the gathering of the Minnesota Conference of The United Methodist Church (usually just called “Annual Conference”). It was great to greet old friends, to worship together, to take care of business and simply to be The United Methodist Church in Minnesota. I serve as our conference parliamentarian, and I enjoy working with Bishop Sally Dyck as she presides over the business sessions of our conference. It is also my privilege to serve as the chairperson of our conference committee on episcopacy, the committee which supports the bishop in her work and serves as a liaison between the bishop and the conference. Bishop Dyck is deeply appreciated here and it was a joy to be able to be the one leading the parade for her.

In addition to spending time with some people I don’t often see, a highlight of the conference for me personally was the conference endorsement of my candidacy for bishop. The support of colleagues who have known me for years means a great deal, and I was overjoyed by their endorsement and by the fact that I had the opportunity to tell them how much it meant to me.

Among the legislation we considered was an item encouraging our congregations to join in statewide efforts to eliminate poverty in Minnesota by 2020. The Minnesota Council of Churches is working toward this goal. Our state legislature has established a commission to end poverty by 2020. Just before Annual Conference, the Duluth-area Churches United in Ministry (CHUM) hosted an event in which Senator John Marty, Representative Carlos Mariani, and Greg Gray from this commission spoke with local clergy and laity about this effort to end poverty in our state. We at First United Methodist Church were delighted to host this event.

Poverty has been a topic of interest and a concern of mine for many years. I have a passion for the 1960s, and an important part of that decade was Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, a war that was lost, in significant measure, because there was another war demanding the country’s resources and attention. In my reading of the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, especially the Israelite prophets, I have become convinced that how we deal with persons in poverty is a significant measure of the success and value of any social arrangement. But this recent confluence of events has pushed me into thinking more deeply about poverty, and to examine more carefully how I can be involved with, and help my congregation join in this significant effort to eradicate poverty in Minnesota by 2020.

A great deal has been, and could be written about poverty, but I share a few of my recent musings. If we are to end poverty, we need to have some idea of what it is we are seeking to eliminate. There are the federal guidelines which define poverty. For a family of four, you are in poverty if you earn less than $21,200. That seems like a ridiculously low figure. So if we in Minnesota bring every family above the poverty line, will we have succeeded? Certainly that would be a worthy goal and call forth a valiant effort, but would that really be a meaningful end to poverty. If you are making $21,200, but have no health insurance, are you out of poverty? If you earn that much but don’t have a safe and secure place to live, is that being out of poverty? While I applaud the goal of bringing every person and family over the federally defined poverty level, I can’t help but doubt that this is really an adequate end to poverty.

As I began to think more deeply about poverty, my mind traveled to the work of one of my intellectual heroes, Abraham Maslow. Maslow’s work has it flaws and I disagree with him in places. Some feminists criticize Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” because of their individualistic focus, and they make a good point. But Maslow is helpful in my thinking about an number of things, including poverty. To read Maslow is to encounter a generous intellect and a caring human being.

Anyway, bringing Maslow into my thinking about poverty pushes me to consider the elimination of poverty more than just bringing the household income of persons and families above the federal guidelines. For Maslow, human needs included physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem and self-actualization needs. Maslow did think that physiological and safety needs usually remain front and center as long as they are not met – hence the idea of a hierarchy of needs. I think it might be more helpful to consider the elimination of poverty as meeting basic physiological and safety needs at some adequate level. The word “poverty” has roots in Latin words that mean “giving birth to little.” If human lives lack food, clothing, shelter, health care, a measure of safety and stability, they will, indeed, tend to produce little, or less than what they might were such needs met. Poverty is a more multi-faceted notion than simply annual income – at least that is where my thinking has been going.

Of course, following Maslow even further, one can reasonably speak of poverty in the other areas – love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. By the way, Maslow should not be held guilty of offering the idea that esteem should be bolstered no matter what. “The most stable and therefore most healthy self-esteem is based on deserved respect” (Motivation and Personality, 46. Second Edition). Nor should we accuse Maslow of neglecting the spiritual or transcendent, even if we might not agree with all that he might say about it. Without the transcendent and the transpersonal, we get sick, violent, and nihilistic, or else hopeless and apathetic. We need something “bigger than we are” to be awed by and to commit ourselves to (Toward a Psychology of Being, iv. Second Edition). The Minnesota State legislative commission to end poverty will not be considering poverty in relationships, poverty of esteem and vocation, poverty of spirit – nor should they, at least not directly. It will be challenge enough to end economic poverty, to see basic needs met. It will be challenge enough and it must take priority. As a Christian and a citizen of one of the wealthiest nations that has ever existed, I cannot sit by and watch as thousand scrape by in such a rich land. We can and must do better.

Yet even as I join my efforts with the efforts of others to end poverty, I will also keep in my mind and heart the task of working against these other kinds of poverty – in love, in self-respect, in vocation/actualization, poverty of spirit. And somehow, I don’t think these are all separate. As we help people move out of poverty, I hope we find ways to build community with them, to love them and let them love us. I know they will need to build the kinds of skills that bolster esteem and help them become more those they dream of being. Some will need to overcome the spiritual poverty that is addiction. And as we try and find ways to end poverty, we will need to break free of our own poverty of imagination and spirit – for the way will not be easy. It will call forth our best gifts and efforts and creativity. There will be no room for hopelessness and apathy.

2020 is not that far off, but strange things are happening every day (see P.S.).

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

P.S. I was introduced to a wonderful song during our opening worship, courtesy of Bishop Dyck – Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s Strange Things Happening. Here is a You Tube version of it. No wonder we love our Bishop!

Sister Rosetta Tharpe "Strange Things Happening"