"the poor"

​I listened to a friar and wanted to put the conversation in my blog, but I said no. The talk about serving the poor sounded self-serving and self-congratulatory.

Case 1. Take the guy who is 30 and drives a delivery truck for a large company. Because it is a large company, he has health insurance. He can walk into a Kaiser emergency room and be taken care of. However, he rents, owns an average car, and has some possessions but, basically, lives from paycheck to paycheck.

Case 2. Take the guy who is 30 and lives on the street. He has no job and begs all day. However, he has money. Homeless people do. How else do you think they buy their booze, cigarettes, and drugs?

Who is poor?

Both, but the second man is treated as “the poor” by the Church and the first man is not. Working people who are poor are excluded as if work were not important. I think Joseph worked his whole life as a carpenter.

I am a realist. I would rather listen to Flannery O’Connor, Shakespeare, or music than a dreamer or do-gooder.
​
Henry V
William Shakespeare
… for so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom:
They have a king and officers of state,
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed Justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy, yawning drone.