The Wealth of Poverty

Poverty, Dorothy Day said, is an elusive thing.  We are always deploring it while advocating it at the same time.  Dorothy's words here ring true to my own experience as encountered recently through my stay on two farms. 

While reading one day at the picnic table outside, close to the outdoor kitchen where Karan was preparing lunch, I asked my host who was mindfully maneuvering between tasks, "So, would you say you live in voluntary poverty?"  I asked this question because Karan and her family live without many of the things typically found in a modern household.  Also, being familiar with the Catholic Worker and therefore likely the term's general definition, choosing to live with less in order to gain some moral or spiritual benefits, I thought she might understand my language.

She paused, and responded, "Actually, I feel like we are really wealthy so I probably would not use that term."  

Her comment struck me because it was true.  This family was so wealthy though they barely could pay the few bills they owed each month.  Their wealth was displayed in the everyday beauty of their lives: meaningful work; a deep connection to nature; time for family and friends; time for shared meals and daily prayer; time for music and worship; a creek to wash off in; good food; no commute; rest on the Sabbath: so many good things!  How much do people pay for these things today?  Money, and more money, can help bring these things about, perhaps, but money too can prevent their acquisition.  Many are, as Wendell Berry once wrote, "helplessly well employed" (emphasis added).  The seemingly good benefits of career and other pursuits, which attempt to bring us the good things of life, may actually take them further away.  The broad road our culture presents, like that of "progress," may actually lead to destruction.  Thus, Karan and her family, in choosing to limit their technology use and do subsistence farming, are attempting to get to the roots of things, ignoring the lies of our culture so to obtain the good things of heaven and earth, and their success is demonstrated in the beauty of their lives.  

My understanding of wealth has been put into question and now I am understanding more the old adage, "the best things in life are free."  Yes, what is wealth when it cannot buy the good things in life, what is poverty when it can provide all we truly desire? 

For the record, I still find the language of "voluntary poverty" helpful because it articulates a way of life based on the everyday understanding of "poverty," namely that not owning many things is disadvantaged.  Saying, then, that one lives in voluntary poverty communicates a choice to live without some of life's goods in order to gain some other benefits.  So, I continue using the term, though now I'll have Karan's comment in my head whenever I use it.  

Oh poverty, you continue to elude us.