What is Possible

“What is service?” someone asked me at an event today, followed by the question “what does it mean to serve?”

Service, I shared, is the manifestation of love – not romantic love, but altruistic love. And the meaning of service is simply to become more whole. We are intimately connected to one another – I as connected to a person in southeast Washington DC as I am to my left leg. That is how we truly exist – and we would see that if we were just able to see things in their true form, as microscopically as we could get, with all of our energy visible to the naked eye.

When I help someone “else,” I am surely just helping myself. And as the recently released poverty figures showed us, each of us has a lot we can do for ourselves.

Before sharing some of the Census report below, it is important to note that the poverty figures are clearly under-estimates of how many people are living in poverty in this country. The folks most needing to be counted are hard to count, giving us an idea – but just an idea – of the needs of those among us.

In the United States, 2010 real (inflation-adjusted) median income per household was $49,445. This was more than two percent below the 2009 median (2.3% to be more exact), and it was the third year in a row that the median household income level decreased. It was first time since the mid 1990s that the figure was below $50,000.

The percentage of of us living in poverty increased for the third year in a row in 2010. It is estimated to now be 15.1%. That is up from 14.3 percent in 2009, and it is based on a very silly poverty threshold of approximately $22,300 in household income per year for a family of four. The number for a family of three is about $18,000, and families of different sizes have equally silly thresholds. The reason the thresholds were set that way dates back to the mid 1960s, when President Johnson and his team used a few different formulas to set them low and give us a better chance to win the “War On Poverty” that was declared in 1964.

Given those extremely low thresholds, there are still an estimated 46.2 million of us in poverty. This is up from from 43.6 million in 2009, and it is the largest number of us in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.

Let’s change it.

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Each year, A Wider Circle brings on young professionals with a passion to serve and a skill set to match that passion to fill our Fellowship positions.  Fellowships have become very competitive, and this year we have four truly remarkable Fellows: Korrin Bishop, Kerry Bowen, Katherine Buck, and Elizabeth Luckey.  Korrin, a recent graduate of the University of Oregon, shared some of her passion when writing about why we ought to care about poverty:

“I care about poverty because I don’t believe that we can be a strong nation until each of our communities is strong.  When people blindly turn their gaze away from the poverty that is around them or try to justify it by saying that other countries have it much worse, this weakens the foundation of our nation.   We become an oxymoron, as we tell other countries how they should be treating their people, while leaving our own to battle some of the harshest living conditions.

“One of my favorite quotes is from Martin Luther King Jr. He said, ‘It is trite, but urgently true, that if America is to remain a first-class nation, she can no longer have second-class citizens.’  Currently, our country is unintentionally telling people living in poverty and people who are homeless that they are second-class citizens.   Our country is reinforcing the beliefs people caught in poverty often come to feel every day – that they are not good enough, that something is wrong with them, and that they did this to themselves.   The reality is that we are doing this to each other, and now is the time to change that, to reach out our hands to our neighbors, to love one another unconditionally.

“I care about poverty because whenever I see someone homeless on the street or see a mother trying to scrape together just enough to get her children to school, I do not just see another face – I see a story.  I know that person is not just another person, but someone’s daughter, son, mother, father, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, and my friend.  I see the heartache, the hope, the pain, the excitement, the journey that lives behind each of their eyes.

“I care about poverty because everyone deserves a hug and deserves love.  I care about poverty because the day that we stop caring about the well-being of one another is the day that we have truly failed as a people.  I cannot and will not continue on, pretending that it doesn’t hit me to my very core every time I see a human being huddled under an old blanket, sleeping in the rain on a bench in the park.  I cannot fake that it doesn’t make me feel ill when I hear friends or family members talk down about these people.   I love these people and I believe in them and I believe in us as a people to solve the poverty crisis we are experiencing now.”

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It is another good day of service here.  We feel the storm looming and hope families can come to get their stuff before it hits.  Our three trucks are out picking up donations, and our drivers are already working in some hard rain.   Their determination makes this place go.

Our volunteers and staff here at the Center are managing the day with their usual great compassion.   It is inspiring to watch volunteers here bring so much love and understanding as they help families select their items.

One of our staff members shared a story yesterday relative to the likely power outages. For so many along the east coast, power outages are going to turn their lives upside down. As this staff member pointed out, power outages are a normal part of life for our clients. She shared how she had spoken to a woman a day ago whose phone had been disconnected when we tried to call to confirm her appointment.  The woman shared that she had to make choices – her priority was to get her kids school supplies so they could start school last Monday, so she couldn’t pay for the phone.

The families we serve have their lives turned upside down often, with phones and power cut off whenever their choices do not allow them to keep up with payments.  Our staff member shared the following from a book she was reading about a woman raised in poverty:

“Poverty has so brutalized the family that the ordinary laws and rules governing humanity have eroded, turning systems of behavior upside down.”

As we prepare to have things turned upside down by Hurricane Irene, our minds stay with those are born and raised in poverty – and who always get hit the hardest, storm or no storm.  Those we serve, including the the very young and the very old, live in fear of power outages all the time.   As our staff member shared, it is no wonder that crimes, drugs, violence, and abuse are rampant in areas where so many are mired in poverty.   If we can help lift these friends and neighbors from poverty, she wrote in an email to me, their humanity would be restored. Her email to me finished with an emphasis on the restoration of humanity, as she wrote:

“How can we not all want such a life for everyone?”

A Wider Circle’s Saturday recap:
1. We had 9 families come to get their homes furnished, despite the rain.
2. We picked up items from 19 families in the region – again, thanks to some above-and-beyond efforts from the guys.
3. We had 24 volunteers join the interns and staff to manage the day

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Today a case manager from a local social service agency brought one of her clients to A Wider Circle to get her items. This happens every day, many times over, but her experience here seems worth the tell – the short version.

Near the end of the woman’s visit here, the case manager walked up to our Deputy Director and broke down because her client was being so difficult. The vehicle the agency had was a pick-up truck and the woman wanted the case manager to help her fit three times more stuff than would fit. The woman was yelling at the case manager about how she wanted to make two trips and how her list should have been bigger. The woman also yelled at our team, so the case manager could find empathy here. Perhaps most impressive in this, however, was how understanding everyone was, for this was a woman who had been homeless for many years and who came and saw all the great items she could get. Of course she would be emotional, and for the case manager and our whole team here to get that and have such patience and be so supportive of this woman’s journey was special.

Last to break down today was the woman, herself, who cried when finally realizing she could not fit everything she wanted for her new home. We will work ever-harder to to serve these friends of ours.

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For so many in our country, the future is like an open cone.  From the first day of kindergarten, opportunities are before us, so much so that by the time we reach college age, the stressor that is front and center is simply, “What am I gonna do?   Do I want to be a journalist?  A lawyer?  Do I want to follow my father or mother and teach or sell insurance?  Go into medicine or pursue a science?”

It is stressful… but hopeful, as well.  And these questions are in the minds of so many of us, with that very first part played over and over again, “What am I gonna do?”

It is the cone opened up – wide – and so many opportunities, so many paths possible.

For those born and raised in poverty, it is the same question with a different tone, “What am I gonna do?  Minimum wage job?  Gang?  Should I get pregnant?”  Starting so far behind, sometimes 20,000 words behind by age 5, school represents nothing but failure and misunderstanding.  Each passing year removes the joy.  Each passing year snuffs the light.

Do we wonder hard enough why low-income neighborhoods, crime, drugs, drop out rates, etc., all overlap on any map that contains them?

Do we wonder hard enough?  Because that cone is upside down for these kids – their opportunities shrink as others grow.  When they reach the age where the cone is wide open for so many, theirs seems all but closed.  What are they gonna do?

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I often hear that it is crazy to believe that we can end poverty.  As I watch people around the world develop individual and community solutions – using their great talents and creativity – I believe it is crazy to think that we will NOT end poverty.

Change of this magnitude takes a critical mass believing and acting differently. We are approaching that critical mass; you can see it in communities every day. It is only our vision of what is possible that keeps us from seeing how close we are to the end of poverty in this country. The changing priorities among our youth, in our schools, and in our civic, religious, government, and corporate sectors also tells me that we have the perspective and priority to get it done.

The model for ending poverty will come from channeling all the talents, creativity, and focus on one neighborhood or group of people for whom it has been a cycle – entrenched poverty.  As we help them rise out of poverty, using all the resources a community has to offer, we will arrive at a model that is replicable.

Poverty is a social disease, and like any disease in our history, once we have a solution that is replicable, we can spread it.

This focused approach to eradicating a disease that kills so many, so young, and leads to more social ills (drugs, crime, poor health, drop-out rates, etc.) than any other issue – that is what will lead to our brothers’ and sisters’ rise out of poverty.

Unlike a medical break-through, which requires advanced technical skills and knowledge, we can all participate in a social break-through. We can eradicate this social disease, just as we eradicated polio just a half-century ago.  Believe it.

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In so many ways we stand things on their heads. We see them in opposite to how they are. For example, we see problems as weights on our shoulders and we see inherited problems as inevitabilities. We see poverty as something that has always been and always will be. It is neither. We have an opportunity to end it.

Every day we can create dramatic change – if even for one person. And that is enough.

Every day we can create dramatic change for hundreds and maybe thousands or more. That is the opportunity we have.

Opportunity is what we see when our perspective is clear and unencumbered.

Opportunity is best understood and seized when we look both fearlessly inside and when we get out of ourselves and see our place as part of the dynamic whole.

Living small keeps us imprisoned in a cycle of issues that are created and conditioned as we move forward each day. We worry about physical, social, and other elements of our being that develop, or mis-develop, with each passing year. Freeing ourselves means leaving so many of those issues behind, overcoming even how our ego is able to handle that. Freeing ourselves means connecting to the possibility that is present in each day – the opportunity to create and grow. Do it for yourself. Do it for those who need you to do it. For the two are one and the same.

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In 1994, President Clinton called Sargent Shriver the strongest warrior he had ever seen in the effort to end poverty. Indeed, Mr. Shriver’s life was characterized by his work to create effective programs to help those mired in the poverty he saw around the world. Mr. Shriver’s travels paved the way for millions of us to make contributions to the end of poverty for children and adults worldwide. Yet, here in our backyard, hundreds of thousands of people live daily in conditions that I doubt most of us would allow our mothers or children to endure. We let them reside in homes that are barely livable (most who come to us have no beds, no dressers – nothing but a chair and television). We let them remain under-educated and under-prepared to live the life most of us get simply by being born into different conditions.

Every day, children are lost to poverty right around the corner from where Mr. Shriver created programs to keep that from happening. Ending poverty for the families stuck in it is not difficult; it is simply a matter of priority. Let us honor his life by more actively serving others to make sure this happens.

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In the 18th century, we fought for freedom and liberated an estimated 2.5 million people. In the 19th century, we abolished slavery and gave freedom to 4 million people. In the 20th century, the women’s suffrage and civil rights movements gave freedom and equality to nearly 70 million people. In the 21st century, it is poverty that keeps people from being free, and our next major accomplishment must be to use the resources we have to free the 44 million people currently held down by poverty and its many effects.  For there is no freedom in poverty, and there is no reason for us to let it endure.

Each of the efforts of past three centuries took commitment in the truest sense of the word. And we made changes happen that many did not think were possible. We have an opportunity today to make this same type of commitment to eradicating poverty.

Even as we adjust for the cost of living in various parts of our country, and the number and percentage of people in poverty increases, there are still far more people who are not living in poverty, who have the ability to be part of a solution that is characterized first and foremost by connection. The mathematics of this are clear; if the majority of children and adults not living in poverty make it a priority to support those who are, and we use our energies to create clear pathways and foster collaborations among organizations of all types, the response will soon outweigh the needs.

Every two years we see large metropolitan areas transform as they host the Olympic Games. If we were told that the next Olympics were going to be held in our town, city, or county, we would ensure that every athlete had housing, every athlete had food, and that their rooms were nice and adequately decorated. We would ensure that they had the time to learn and practice their crafts, and then the opportunity to succeed. That is what it takes to end poverty – an Olympian effort.

I believe that only if we truly believe we can eradicate poverty will we succeed.  We do what we think we can do – that is how our minds and bodies tend to work. This effort can not have in the back of its collective mind a creed of “I’ll believe it when I see it.” It must be, “I’ll see it when I believe it.”  Believe… and join us in this effort.

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Tonight I spent some time with an old friend, Dwayne, a young man whose home we furnished four years ago after meeting his mom through a social worker.  Dwayne was fortunate enough to get to Florida for college after graduating (barely) from a DC high school.  It looks like he may have a chance to succeed – to actually graduate college and get a job where he is independent and – mostly – alive when he is 22.

I remember his group of friends from high school and I asked Dwayne about them.  None actually graduated high school, and this was how he matter-of-factly caught me up on their lives:

“Lashan has a kid and he is always fighting with his baby’s mother.  He works at CVS.  J.T. gets out of jail next month after serving two years for assault.  Donald is serving seven ‘cuz he used a loaded gun when he tried to rob someone.  So, if you have a gun that is loaded, they will give you more time.”

I remembered these guys, and even though I hear these stories every day, I was still surprised that the two in jail could do what they had done.

Dwayne told me how dangerous his neighborhood has become; you can barely walk anywhere at night because people are sticking other people up all the time.  Police are everywhere, he said, but not enough to stop people from killing one another.

We said goodbye; I drove away and honked as Dwayne headed to the bus.  I feared something would happen to him tonight – or tomorrow night.  He goes back to college on Tuesday.  Seeing him turn and wave left an uncomfortable feeling – it was as if time stood still for a moment; his image like a photograph.  I hope it is not the last image I have of him.

I drove back to work realizing how hard it is for the mothers of these kids – how they must worry every night about whether or not their children will be alive in the morning.

Sitting down at my desk, I thought back to a conversation I was having with another friend last week – someone whose life has been blessed enough to not know the kind of poverty Dwayne and his family know.  I had shared with him the goals of A Wider Circle, and the fact that we are driven by one thing – ending poverty.

“You need to be realistic,” he said, convinced that my goal was idealistic and unattainable.

“Nope, we need to create a new reality,” I offered, convinced that not enough of us realize that we do, in fact, create our reality each day.  For Dwayne’s mom – for each of us – we need to create a reality where our resources go to solutions, real solutions, right now.  And we can not just talk about it, we have to act.  And we can not do small things, we have to do all that is necessary to save these lives.  For what kind of a species has the resources to care for its most vulnerable and does not do it?

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