Cycles

During our work with Katrina evacuees, I (Karen) mulled over “cycles of poverty.” What causes them? How can those trapped transcend them? I discovered that the poor have many more opportunities to do so than I had ever before realized, but they can’t see them.

We returned home and listened to neighbors and friends through their trials of divorce, debt, illness, and frustrations at work. We considered some of our own, like Chris’s battles with “the machine” of university regulations. That got me mulling over “cycles of the middle-class.” The more the middle class tries to “get ahead,” the further behind it gets. It’s on this stationary bicycle, exerting much energy, quarreling in relationships, and getting nowhere.

But my “mulling” kept going. Since we were already as far east as Louisiana last year, we took the chance to visit family in the NE. With all of them quite successful, to us, their homes were large, their technical equipment ubiquitous, and their GPS systems symbolic of the need to get places as quickly as possible. Their schedules are busy and some have moved from jobs they enjoyed into ones with more stress. We had a delightful time with all of them, but their life seemed to us a tad bit exhausting. Meanwhile, according to my cousin’s friend (who has really “made it”), my cousin's life is “boring.” That got me thinking about “cycles of wealth.”

Last week, as we spent spring break back in Baton Rouge, I shared my “cycles mullings” not only with Chris, but also with friends Larry & Krista Lain. Inspiring bloggers themselves, they encouraged us to do more. So Cheers, Larry & Krista, this one’s for you!

“Could it be,” I mused with them, “that what pulls people into ‘cycles of wealth’ is exactly the opposite as what keeps the poor in ‘cycles of poverty?’” The poor see too few opportunities and the rich see too many! Those stuck in the cycles of poverty think they can’t do anything and those stuck in the cycles of wealth think they need to do it all. Maybe those of us in the middle suffer from a little of both: we don’t see the right opportunities and we see too many of the wrong ones.

In agreement, we next asked ourselves, what do we all need to do to transcend these cycles? We need to see the right opportunities and seize those. If we look close, we’ll probably discover that the right ones bring joy, life, and love, but not what our socio-economic culture tells us we need. Jesus tells a great parable in a book that didn’t make the canonical Bible, so I can’t recall it perfectly, but it goes something like this: “The kingdom of heaven is like a fisherman who pulled in a magnificent catch of fish. He found one great fish and threw the rest of them back. He left with his great fish, rejoicing.”

May the Lord open all of our eyes to the right opportunities and to that one great fish!