chasing the sun

I had dinner with a good friend last night that I haven’t seen in months. It was good to catch up. She’s a little down about things going on her life, and I’m always frustrated with things going on in my life. It’s like I live in a constant state of frustration. Anyway, she’s the kind of person I can work things out with. She sits and listens patiently to my ramblings and responds truthfully and lovingly to me, knowing exactly what I am getting at nearly all the time. It’s nice to be known so well.

This morning my research class was discussing poverty, wealth and injustice and I was thinking about why the poor and rich respond so differently to the gospel. Most would say it’s realized versus unrealized needs. The poor realize their need for God; the rich are often unaware. And then I was thinking about my friend and why I respond better to her than to many other Christians I know and something occurred to me.

Maybe it’s not that the rich are fulfilling their need for God with other things, but maybe, like Adam and Eve in the garden, they are hiding from God. The poor can be very humble, but can also be very aggressive and confrontational about their needs. Some stare in awe and wonder at those who beg for change, wondering “should I or shouldn’t I."

I wonder if I would have the guts to beg for crumbs and small change. There is such vulnerability and risk involved in being poor. But when you feel “secure” in your poverty, you’re working with no mask, no front. Maybe poverty is not so much about neediness, but about having nothing to hide behind. Think of it as having faith like a child. As we grow up we are taught to be secretive and phony, but as children, we have not built up all those pretenses. We are still sinful, but we wear our sin on the outside, rather than keeping it hidden.

And the peace I find sitting and sharing a meal and my heart with my friend is not in what I have to keep hidden, but the freedom I feel to share it all and beloved anyway.