Poverty Is Spirit

Katerina has brought up a topic which I find very challenging and so I would like to elaborate my own view point on this particular topic.

As a society we seem to embrace what I term a 'Jerry Springer mentality' where caution and self respect are thrown to the winds as we lay our souls bare and become public confessors. Why? Do we really need to expose our innner most being to the scrutiny of the world? A little bit of self containment wouldn't go astray. It is what I call the three 'D's, Decorum, Dignity and Discretion or what the British term 'the stiff upper lip'.

What we must not do is to take the next step into self reliance. Once we have done that then we have no need of other people and more importantly we may feel no need of God. We have become our own masters, who refuse to follow in the footsteps of our Lord and Saviour. When we take this step we grab onto our self reliance rather than be self emptying. We then step into the world of Egotism where how we look to others is more important than humbling ourselves to our Lord. Once this has been done the soul fails to understand that in and of itself it is nothing. Rather than lift our hearts to God we instead look for approbation from our peers. We have made our faith a see-saw, where oneday our faith is great and the next we are athiests.

The only way to understand our own poverty is when God by Divine Design strips away all our vain glories. We come to understand that God has no need of us but that we have every need of God. It is a painful procedure as with the precision of a surgeons knife God makes the soul aware of its nothingness. We are left to face ourselves and only then do we realise that what confronts us is unbearable and loathesome. God in His Goodness will then refine us in the fire of his Divine Love.
As we endure this painful process our hearts as if in fainting weeps for consolations, we receive none. We long to 'hear' the voice of the Lord as we listen to absolute and total, silence.

In this state and with horror we understand our inner poverty. We come to the beginning of wisdom, darkly. Until we embrace the Spirit of poverty we will be as the emporer with no clothes.

Real poverty is Spirit it has nothing to do with physical poverty.

There is nothing noble in poverty of the body where people are denied their basic rights to food, clothing, housing and medicines. This poverty is not simple. It is mean, it is viscious, it is cruel. It surrounds us.

When Jesus saw the hungry He fed them, when He saw the sick He healed them, when He saw the sinner, He forgave them. Jesus was never indifferent to the suffering of others.

Spiritual impoverishment begins when we embrace the 'god's of the world and ignore the Creator.

I felt inspired to write this post upon reading Katerina's eloquent thoughts on this topic. I do encourage you to read Katerina's post, not to compare but to see two sides of the same coin.