The "I'mAlreadyRich" Experience

Someone I know stopped by the parish today and complained briefly about the quality of Poor that were lining up to get free stuff from the foodbank. I think he said, "Are we really sure all those people are unable to work for a living?" I told him not to ask, that it would only get him all upset.

But the point is a good one, that has been examined systematically somewhere, I'm sure. The truth is that there really are almost no genuinely poor people in Canada.

It is nearly impossible for a mentally competent person to really be poor in this country. To be, in other words, irretreivably close to starvation most of the time through no fault of his own. The kind of poverty you see in...well...most of the rest of the world, come to think of it.

We were discussing it yesterday while going through Parkdale on the streetcar. The poverty we suffer in this part of the world is almost entirely spiritual poverty. And that is nearly universal. Almost everyone in the post-Christian West is a spiritual pauper. Is, in fact, on the brink of spiritual starvation. I remarked that the material poverty of a place like Parkdale, is almost entirely due to the spiritual poverty everyone here suffers. People who are spiritually rich, or at least well-fed, are people who are able to manage their lives in a reasonable way. People who have their spiritual heads on straight, do not spend a lot of time on welfare.

But material stuff, we got plenty.

I was having another conversation with the Sister Superior of the Clear Creekies the other day and complaining that I was far too rich to go into a monastery. I have, quite frankly, become attached to my stuff. I admitted, as forthrightly as I could manage, that I am rich in many things and I like it. I don't mean just actual possessions either. I am very fond of my clever friends and the conversations I have with them. I'm very fond of my autonomy and my various forms of fun.

When I was thinking about relative wealth, I had to admit that, though in comparison to most of the white people of my class in this society, I am woefully underfunded, I am rich beyond the wildest dreams of most people in the world right now, and rich beyond the fondest imaginings of anyone in Christendom before the French Revolution. The fact that I am sitting at leisure writing this on a new laptop computer, having just eaten an ample lunch from a fridge full of food, while surrounded by books that I can read, is an indication of a level of wealth to which most people in the history of the world could never begin to aspire.

In my conversation with Sr. Annunciata, she asked me what sort of things I had that I thought would be hard to give up.

I was happy to be well prepared. I said, "Here, I've made a list..."

My books.
My sofa.
My hats.
My collection of antique china tea cups.
The Oratory.
My clever friends.
My conversations with my clever friends.
Blogging (obviously very very hard to give up...)
My job.
Politics.
My antique carpet.
My antique dresser.
My antique phone.
My antique typewriter.
My antique desk.
My fountain pen.
Buying things. (Retail therapy.)
Foreign food. (It's mango season!)
Swimming.
Traveling.
Saying out loud all the time what I really think.
Single Malt whiskey.
Youtube.
Ska.
Henry Purcell.
My bike.


all good things.