The Poverty Gap Poverty Is A Very Real Part Of Spokane, Whether The Middle Class Wants To Admit It Or Not. In This Essay, A Downtown Minister Says The Church Needs To Lead The Way In Building A Bridge Between The Middle Class And The Poor

Tom, Dick and Harry are middle class men who were doing a good deed the other day. They were moving rummage from a truck into the church for future sale. They needed some help so they asked Larry and Little Joe (a couple of downtown Spokane poor guys) if they would help.

So Tom, Dick and Harry brought down the first truckload and Larry and Little Joe helped unload the truck. That is, they helped unload for a while. Then ole Larry and Little Joe got to talking and productivity fell way off.

Tom, Dick and Harry left to pick up another load but when they returned Larry and Little Joe were gone! As you can predict Tom, Dick and Harry got angry. They got bitter.

They made accusations: “These lazy no-good moochers. They come to our free meals and stuff their faces but they won’t lift a finger to help!” The Republican Party obtained three new recruits.

But what really happened? Tom, Dick and Harry were willing to do hard volunteer grunt labor mostly because they’ve done it before. Tom, Dick and Harry have shared cups of coffee with each other. They have swapped family stories. They’ve told jokes together. They have been in each other’s homes. They’ve prayed together. They’ve been together for a long time as part of a community that has cared for them and supported them in good and bad times.

But Tom, Dick and Harry don’t know Larry and Little Joe. No coffee, no stories, no jokes have been shared among them. They certainly haven’t set foot in Larry’s two-room apartment. They have not invited (nor can they imagine inviting) Little Joe into their own home for a night of relaxed dinner and conversation.

Larry and Little Joe know each other a bit. They see each other around. They both help out in the kitchen at the church. They’ve swapped a few stories, a couple laughs and a beer or two. But mostly they live isolated lives of boredom and loneliness.

They wouldn’t mind being invited to dinner and conversation in a 2,000-square-foot home with a two-car garage and spacious back yard. They would enjoy the fantasy of living there. They would enjoy the fantasy of family, friends, neighborhood and space.

But afterward, when they returned to their rooms, they would turn within, usually with a good dose of self-rejection mixed with remorse. The tavern is only a block away.

As I hope you can see, building a bridge that will connect the middle class with the poor is a very difficult endeavor. There is so much we don’t understand about each other. There are so many assumptions that are not articulated. There is so much suspicion of one another.

I recently read in the Journal of Business that times are good in Spokane. Unemployment is not only low but laborers are needed. There is even a bit of fear that the work force will not be sufficient to meet the needs of business. Either more folks will need to move to Spokane or business will need to move out. But here in the downtown we see every day hundreds who aren’t working. What gives?

Downtown poverty, however, has very little to do with employment. It has a lot to do with spirituality. It has a lot to do with community. If Tom, Dick and Harry, for example, would spend a bit more time downtown in the apartments sipping coffee, swapping stories and telling jokes, then Larry and Little Joe might become friends and partners. Maybe next time Tom should stay with Larry and send Little Joe up with Dick and Harry for that second load.

I am a pastor in a downtown Methodist church. On our reader board is a message that asks: “God is on the side of the poor. Whose side are you on?” Although we are primarily a middle-class congregation, our focus is on liberating the poor from their poverty. At stake is our own deliverance from fear. Fear causes distance between people. This distance has led some to cultivate attitudes of anger toward the poor even as it has led others to pity the poor.

I must admit that I’ve grown weary of pitying the poor. It doesn’t do much good to pity those caught in poverty. I’m also weary of feeling compassion for the poor. That and 25 cents will get you a phone call and not much else.

All of my old responses to poverty are fading away now that I’ve actually become friends with folks who are poor. I seem to see more clearly each day that it is friendship and invitation into community that is needed. I also see clearly that time for friendship and community is exactly what middle-class folks like myself don’t have enough of.

One lesson that poor folks have taught me is that poverty and bad habits are very often bed partners. Some folks seem to think that if you give a man a job and a place to stay then “presto!” a new life will emerge. But what we find is that, like a dry drunk, old habits die hard. The money quite literally gets “pissed away.” Other folk say if we do therapy and work on habits, get a guy into recovery groups - then new life emerges.

But recovery groups and psychotherapy, although useful, are not solutions for all people. Looking back in my own life, I’ve realized that my own bad habits were not healed through work nor therapy. Growing up in an alcoholic household of multiple marriages, living for a year in an orphanage, following the script of bad grades, troublemaking, and drugs and alcohol, left me, as a young adult, with a whole truckload of bad habits. I hated myself and didn’t care too much about you, either.

Healing only happened in my life through friendships. It came about through time spent moaning, groaning, laughing, playing, story-telling, walking, talking and sitting around together being goofy. It happened on car trips to the store to buy the stuff to fix a car because it broke down again. Healing only happened in the context of community - multiple friendships among people that didn’t want to hurt me nor see me hurt myself.

When those friendships happen and when community begins to form then some of the folks here downtown will take a shower, sober up, put a smile on their face and go to work.

Until then, therapy and recovery groups will do the required Band-Aid work because the church forgot to practice hospitality. Until the church opens its doors, hearts, resources and lives, the poor will be stuck in their damnation. Because the church forgets to practice hospitality, all hell breaks loose. And who picks up the pieces?

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ABOUT THE AUTHOR The Rev. Rich Lang is pastor of Central United Methodist Shalom Zone. He will return to the subject of poverty again on this page in the future. You can e-mail him at central.umc@juno.com