{"id":741,"date":"2007-11-08T16:59:29","date_gmt":"2007-11-08T16:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=176"},"modified":"2007-11-08T16:59:29","modified_gmt":"2007-11-08T16:59:29","slug":"11807","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"11\/8\/07"},"content":{"rendered":"

I attended a Bible Study at the Catholic Worker House<\/em> in Cleveland last night. \u00a0 The subject was the “rich man and Lazarrus (the beggar) at his gate” parable. \u00a0 “Average Joe” cliff note: \u00a0 The rich man doesn’t help Lazarrus much because he’s too focused on his own comfort. \u00a0 He dies and goes to Hell as a result… \u00a0 One Bible study member works for the Inter-Religious Task Force here and talked about the abject poverty of the ‘Lazarrus’s’ in Central America he’s seen. \u00a0 Another woman said as a college project she lived with poor, Hispanic immigrant ‘Lazarrus’s’ near the border. \u00a0 I said I just opened a correspondence from Food for the Poor <\/em>the day before and was met with the horrifically tragic stick-thin figure of Guillermo, 6, (a young ‘Lazarrus’ in South America) who would starve to death three weeks after the picture was taken. \u00a0 He died clutching a teddy bear and pleading with his mother for help… Meanwhile, most of us in America (lower-middle class, middle class, upper middle class…) are tremendously “rich” by comparison. \u00a0 Yet we have blanketed ourselves in a sea of tremendously deluded rationalizations about why it is acceptabl<\/em>e that we live these \u00a0tremendously comfortable lifestyles \u00a0(pursuit of “The American Dream,” wanting it “better” for our children, ad infinitum, or rather: ad naseum)… \u00a0 “Do you think when we’re standing there at Judgement \u00a0with God that He is going to buy into America’s socio-economic strata system about what’s “rich;” or do you think He might go by, oh, a more global perspective?” \u00a0 I asked. \u00a0 What’s more, I postulated: \u00a0 “Lazarrus was at the rich man’s gate day after day. \u00a0 And just like an alley cat, he must of stayed there because he was getting just enough scraps from the rich man to barely sustain himself, no more.” \u00a0 I continued that a modern analogy would be us “rich” people making sure we are comfortable on every level (nice bed, three meals a day and snacks, the heat \u00a0at 68 at home, air conditioning, comfortable furniture, a \u00a0fairly full \u00a0wardrobe…) and then<\/em> we give a small bit (percentage wise) — \u00a0not out of our perceived comfort needs, of course; but rather out of our excess. \u00a0 But like the rich man, we delude ourselves into thinking it’s enough. \u00a0 \u00a0This is quite an eternal bet we’re making. \u00a0 I wonder if the rich man said to God at Judgement: “But what about \u00a0You’re mercy?” \u00a0 And maybe God said: \u00a0 “What about yours, toward Lazzarus?” \u00a0 …Last night I said that we needed to stand in solidarity, cutting back to two meals a day (no snacks) and sending the savings to the scores of kids who are starving to death. \u00a0 We need to house share (to halve expenses) and cut the heat back in our American homes to 50 (or less), sending \u00a0the savings to the millions freezing in refugee camps. \u00a0 I once told the Portland News<\/em>, in Portland, Indiana, that \u00a0Americans should sleep in sleeping bags on the floor and take the savings (on the comfortable beds, bead spreads, etc.) and send it to the scores of children with AIDS sleeping \u00a0atop burlap bags on dirt floors in small huts in Uganda, Biafra, Nigeria… \u00a0 “It is all that simple,” \u00a0 I said. \u00a0 “And all \u00a0that hard.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I attended a Bible Study at the Catholic Worker House in Cleveland last night. \u00a0 The subject was the “rich man and Lazarrus (the beggar) at his gate” parable. \u00a0 “Average Joe” cliff note: \u00a0 The rich man doesn’t help …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}