I wonder how often we judge people by saying that all they need to do is work harder or be smarter in their decisions and they will not be poor. But once a person is in a certain scenario it is very difficult to change. Someone who holds three “fulltime” jobs at retail or food industry may be very intelligent yet not have the resources to find a “better” job that pays more and has less hours. Someone who has a child very early in life, before finishing education, may not ever have the opportunity to make something “better” for themselves.

It’s very easy for me to think I have all the answers. I’m finding more and more that the answers I think I have are not really feasible at all.

I think intelligence helps with education, and I think education generally teaches you that there is more to life than mere existance and not to settle for less.

Also, often your status is not static. At times in your life you are poor, and at times you are relatively wealthy. If you read a lot of biographies you see this pattern often enough.

It is not that your intelligence changes. More often there are circumstances beyond your control that affect your wealth. In your families’ case it sounds like the price of oil was a factor, for example.

The skill of attracting money seems to be different than intelligence. People who are good with money often hire intelligent people to work for them and solve problems that lead to more money for them, and not the intelligent person that works for them.

Also, the skill of keeping money once you attract it is different than the skill for attracting it.

This post makes me feel old. I was in West Texas in the early 80s, too. But I was getting married and starting a family at the time.

So I was not under the impression that being poor made you stuid.

In the fourth grade, I moved into a private school which put my mom into a great amount of debt. In my private school, I was almost always in the bottom of my class. I graduated from that private school seventh in my class, which sounds great until you realize that there were only 12 people. For the most part, my classmates lived in nice houses, drove new or semi used cars, had a parent who stayed at home (or both worked by choice not force and had the nicest clothes. By definition, we were no longer “poor” however, we were not wealthy by any standard in America. However, I went to church with one particular family whose standard of living was close to mine most of the time but had 4 extremely intellegent children and two parents I thought were and still think are brilliant. All that to say, I have since been conflicted what I think of this theory.

It is very hard not to judge the poor, especially those who have ability but no drive to change their situation. It is especially hard to not judge the poor in America if you have ever spent any time in a other countries whose poor are far worse off than most of the poor in America.

Sorry this is so long, but I think this is a great discussion to have.

Compassion, compassion. I’m still learning!

One weekend my husband and I took a trip to the Bush library in College Station. On our way, through the back roads, we saw miserable trailers with filth and broken down cars and lots of unsupervised children playing in the road. I’m ashamed to say that I was pretty judgmental. I mean, come on, its America. You don’t have to live like that. Three hours later, having toured the Bush library, seeing the “elite” of America – lobster rolls, Kennebunkport, family estates and presidencies for goodness sake it occurred to me – as hard as it would be for me to ascend into those elite circles, is as hard as it would be for those kids in the trailer to ascend into my circle. I don’t have the connections, the experiences, the mannerisms, the education and finally, I just flat out don’t have the drive. I think it could be fun, oh yeah, I’m sure I would love to dig into a big pile of lobster rolls on cool summer night in Maine, but not enough to sacrifice who I am or interestingly, where I came from. Side note…There is a great PBS special from years and years ago called Social Class in America. Its phenomenal at showing the subtle contrasts in our culture.

Thank God for showing us what stupid really looks like.

I never knew that I believed that poor people were stupid until I became poor. It was much easier for me to endure the lack of money than it was to think someone might think I was stupid. God clearly showed me this despicable lie I had come to believe. Why did I believe it? I guess I could try to blame it on society but it was my fault, my responsibility.

I’m so grateful that God showed me this disception because you’re right, it definitely would always have affected my ability to serve the poor.