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Reality's Twisted Fist and Outstretched Hand
by Peter Falconero I've seen them on television. The living skeletons, with their potbelly stomachs, aimlessly sauntering dirt roads. Shoulders cocked back. Glazed looks. Vultures looming. I've seen them in the magazines. Naked kids wildly sorting through the roadside trash heaps in a posture similar to the 1st world pajama-clad children on Christmas morning. I've heard stories. Boys missing limbs begging for morsels with their cartoonish puppy-dog tears. And their elder counterparts soliciting sympathy and funds employing their violently abstract facial disfigurations. Faces more Picasso painting than human. The anti-climax of the stories is when these same paupers refuse corrective surgeries because "how will I make a living with a normal face" or with both legs. So what do you do when these fleeting second thoughts become bleeding in-your-face realities? What does a white man from the 1st world do when a malodorous child painted with a month's soil stretches out her slender hand? They swear with their eyes that for this one moment their fate is in my hands- their sustenance in my pocket. And it could be; the paper in my wallet feeds them until April. Do I reach out and reach in? Or keep on walking? When I see a delirious woman wading in the open sewers, clothes and sanity gone with the wind, do I leave bad enough alone? Go on my merry way? See I break the rules of the "affluent" foreigner. I look the beggars, the crazies, the lowest of the low in the eye. Our souls thus meet and I'm stuck making a decision. Oh no. What do I do? WWJD? Whatever you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to me. Uh oh. Was He serious? Was He speaking literally? Now I'm in a multi-faceted moral dilemma. Do I practice the way of The Way, those free-willed do-good "socialists" described in Acts? Well, this has been my struggle since I first touched ground in Bangladesh. Yes, ever since I laid eyes on the filthy kids waiting for me outside of the airport, their eyes too big and too brown. Their faces too soiled and too cute. Now, not everyone in Chittagong is poor or homeless. In fact, some privileged folk live in buildings that look more like mini-temples, with the swanky fixtures and monstrous gates. But on the other side of their golden fences is a man or woman swathed in their newspaper bed sheets next to their refuse-fueled campfires. A piece of sidewalk is home, if only for a night. Extreme destitution is as much the norm, if not more, than the relative wealth. I've seen the former much more often than the latter. Beggars wait for us to leave our home, especially on holy days (Fridays), to plead their case. I can't say that I've done anything particularly heroic or Samaritan-esque. I haven't solved the problem of poverty in my 4 weeks here. I've given dried apples to the kids- a gesture that generated smiles and a few tag-a-longs. Pray I can be of humble spirit and learn to be astutely compassionate when I meet face to face the next victim of inhumanity. Pray I be the hands of Christ in this place of problems and promise. Pray that the rumors are accurate. The gossip being that Dr. Mohammed Yunus, a 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and godfather of the microloan, is planning a run for Bangladeshi prime minister. If you've read his book "Banker to the Poor" or followed his plights, you'll know he's a man of conviction and voice for the underprivileged here. While this would surely improve this county, I believe, we need to remember that it's not evil rulers or poverty to which we either fight or concede. First and foremost it is the principalities of the unseen world to which draw arms (Ephesians 6:12). Understanding this will help me not be overwhelmed when I walk out of my arched doorway past the gargoyles and open the golden gate to meet the monster of poverty face to face once again. I am Peter Falconero, resident of the US but currently teaching science in a private school on the other side of the world - in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Married to a beautiful and vivacious lady for 3 years now, we are parents of a one-year old and another on the way. thefalconeros.blogspot.com Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |