The Poor

Posted on October 19, 2004 in IRC/Chat Morals & Ethics

I dropped in, briefly, to a chat room where I heard a Bush supporter “explaining” that it was in keeping with Christian doctrine to not help the poor until they had “shown themselves worthy of your help”. Immediately, I asked him to cite the words of Christ, to show me which Beatitude supported his position. As he sat in stunned silence, I went on to say that he would not find any such words because Christ set no conditions on healing and helping the needy.

“What you preach is contrary to the spirit of Christ,” I found myself going on. “And the New Testament teaches us is that there is only one sin which will not be forgiven. That is blasphemy against the Spirit. If you fear Hell as you say, I would stop and reflect because you are perilously close.”

Words stopped appearing from his keyboard. I found myself a little surprised at my outburst and left it there.

How they make themselves suffer for the sake of avoiding compassion! What a terrible price to pay for their poor silly substandard testament. Later, as I went to bed, I read a vignette from Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen in which he contrasts his feelings about seeing a poor family gazing at him as he ate in a fine bistro with those of his lover. The author of Flowers of Evil has been called by the miscomprehending a Satanist. “The Eyes of the Poor” should dispel that notion, for in these words come the sentiments of a true lover of the Universe:

Not only was I touched by this family of eyes, but I was even a little ashamed of our glasses and our decanters, too big for our thirst. I turned my eyes to look into yours, dear love, to read my thought in them; and as I plunged my eyes into your eyes, so beautiful and so curiously soft, into those green eyes home of Caprice and governed by the Moon, you said: “Those people are insufferable with their great saucer eyes. Can’t you tell the proprietor to send them away?”

So you see how difficult it is to understand one another, my dear angel, how incommunicable thought is, even between two people in love.

This chatter and I were both Americans. He said that he was Christian: I cited the words and deeds of Christ.

I do love the American people and I do admire Christianity as it was taught in Galilee 2000 years ago. What aches is how that message doesn’t get through to those who go to churches where moneychangers speaking the language of rabbis teach them ways to maintain their prejudices.

Along similar lines, read Sarah Dylan Breur’s The Parable of the Ninety-Nine Sheep.