An effective model for fighting poverty

I volunteer for a local group called Circles of Hope. Its motto is, "Working to end poverty one family at a time." I've written about this before, but I want to point out some information we received this week from the National Circles Campaign.

Circles USA keeps data on Circle leaders, which, the report explains, "are low-income individuals who have made a commitment to build social capital with middle- and upper-income Allies, attend community meetings and work toward goal attainment for greater economic stability." These Circle leaders report their progress in these areas:
• income
• public assistance
• assets
• debts
• employment
• education
• insurance.
In data collected from July 2008 to December 2012 from 518 people who completed at least a six-month survey, Circle leaders showed improvement in the following areas:
• increased social capital: 69.3%
• has volunteered in community: 71.5%
• has safe housing: 92.3%
• has health insurance: 34.2%
• has reliable transportation: 73.6% 
• has a valid driver's license: 36%
• obtained a car: 34.6%
• paid off credit: 29.9%
• opened a savings account: 38.1%
• enrolled in education:32.1%
• employed: 33%.
 Further data shows the following improvements:
• income after 18 months of involvement: 27% increase
• public benefits after 18 months of involvement: 27% decrease
• assets after 18 months of involvement: 88% increase.
The reports notes that "poverty creates severe financial hardship for communities, states and our nation. According to a report from  the Center for American Progress, our nation spends $500 billin a year on the fallout from children raised in poverty."
 OK, enough numbers, even though these are important. What I've witnessed in my three years of involvement with Circles of Hope is the building of community. Last week, five groups finished their 18-month commitment as a circle, and every one talked about the Circles community being a family.
This past Tuesday, the Allies got together, and the Circle leaders got together. We do this every time there's a fifth Tuesday in a month. We Allies heard that a Circle leader had said that we shouldn't be discouraged if we're not seeing a big improvement in their meeting their goals because the experience of having people around them who care about them is worth more than we'll ever know.
So the numbers above are good, and they're important. But those results are more a byproduct of what Circles is about. At its core, Circles builds community and thereby builds hope. And the community that is built is not just for their good but for the good of us all. The more we work together to end poverty, the better off we all are. 
For more information on those numbers, check out www.circlesusa.org.
And for anyone in the Newton, Kan., area, there is a training for Allies on May 11. To learn more, call 316-284-0000. 

Complex humanity

Yesterday I went to see Bernie, the new film by Richard Linklater, who is one of my favorite directors. It's a different kind of film, hard to describe.

It's based on a true story set in the small, east Texas town of Carthage, where Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a mortician who is gay, sings in the local Methodist church and gives caring attention to older widows, befriends Marjorie Nugent (Shirley McClaine), an 81-year-old widow who is also a millionaire. After several years of accompanying her on various trips to far-flung places and serving her every whim, he snaps after too much nagging and put-downs and shoots her. Being a dedicated mortician, he stores her body in a freezer in her garage rather than disposing of it. He then carries on with his life, donating much of the money he gets from her account and making excuses for her absence.
Eventually the local district attorney (Matthew McConaughey) investigates and finds the body. Bernie confesses his crime, saying it was like someone else doing it. Clearly, in the film's interpretation at least, it was not premeditated. Nevertheless, a jury from another town convicts him of first-degree murder, and he's sent to prison for life.
Black gives a good performance and shows off his singing ability. But what makes the film work and provides the laugh-out-loud humor are the interviews with townsfolk in Carthage who by turns adore and admire Bernie. They overlook his homosexuality, more impressed with how nice he was to everyone. The townspeople's heavy accents and colorful language, such as "that dog don't hunt" or "he only shot her with four bullets, not five," are funny but also endearing.
Although many may look down on these people, the film reveals a community that is quite complex, able to include a variety of people and absorb a variety of emotions. These people don't hold onto stereotypical prejudices. Many of them embrace a gay man who murdered an old woman and believe he should be exonerated.
Granted, much of the film feels over-the-top. It's that rare film that doesn't feel realistic but is actually based on facts. One more evidence that truth is often stranger than fiction.
I understand that some Carthage citizens, including the district attorney, and relatives of Ms. Nugent, disagree with the film's interpretation of events. It's not a documentary, more a mockumentary. But it's not quite that either. Is it a dark comedy? Yes and no.
It's one more fine film by Linklater, who has also made Dazed and Confused, Waking Life and the outstanding Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
If you happen to go, be sure to stay through the credits. You get to see the real Bernie, conversing from prison with Jack Black.

A poet and prophet for our time

Bruce Springsteen's latest CD, Wrecking Ball, gives voice to the sorrow and anger many feel who are suffering under the injustices of our economy. It also expresses the gospel (good news) of welcome offered by God's embrace.

The CD opens with one of my favorite songs on it, "We Take Care of Our Own," the kind of anthem Springsteen has become known for. I read the refrain, "Wherever this flag's flown / we take care of our own," as both an ironic indictment of current practices in our country (i.e., we don't take care of our own) and as a call to live up to our ideals. Like a good prophet (there are bad ones, according to the Bible), Springsteen is "knocking on the door / that holds the throne" as well as "stumbling on good hearts / turned to stone." He challenges the powers that ignore the poor and feels with the poor who are being trampled on. Then he calls on the community (the United States) to take care of our own. A simple yet powerful request.
"Jack of All Trades" is narrated by a man trying to assure his "honey" that "we'll be all right" as he pursues work that others may not want to do. He wants to be hopeful that "we'll start caring for each other / like Jesus said that we might," but he realizes that "the banker man grows fat / working man grows thin." By the end, he's so frustrated that he admits, "If I had me a gun, I'd find the / bastards and shoot 'em on sight." In good folk tradition, Springsteen tells a story that expresses the feelings of many who struggle to believe "we'll be all right."
As if to show that he's not really in favor of using guns to oppose injustice, the next song, "Death to My Hometown," a rollicking Irish tune, vents its anger at "the marauders [who] raided in the dark / and brought death to my hometown" but encourages people to "get yourself a song to sing / and sing it 'til you're done. / Sing it hard and sing it well / send the robber barons straight to hell." Singing our sorrows together gives us courage and helps us stand against "the greedy thieves … / who walk the streets as free men now." It's not hard to figure out who he's referring to.
The haunting "This Depression" carries the double reference to economic and personal depression and confesses, "I need your heart." Don't we all.
The title track tells listeners to "hold tight to your anger / and don't fall to your fears." Like many other songs on this CD, this one says, Don't deny what you feel, but don't let it control you. This raises the question, How do we gain the strength to do that?
The CD's final three songs use gospel and hip-hop to express both the community of the faithful and the broad arms of God that embrace us all. "Rocky Ground" uses biblical references and calls listeners to "use your muscle and your / mind and you pray your best. / … The Lord will do the rest."
"Land of Hope and Dreams," another of my favorites, moves me to tears as it pictures a train that "carries saints and sinners," including losers and winners, whores and gamblers, lost souls, the brokenhearted, fools and kings. On this train, "dreams will not be thwarted / … faith will be rewarded." That strong hope can keep us going.
The final song, "We Are Alive," reminds us that our faith carries us beyond suffering and death. It begins with the reminder, "There's a cross up yonder on Calvary hill." It promises that "though our bodies lie alone here in the dark / our souls and spirits rise." Springsteen here and throughout this inspiring CD calls us "to stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart" and proclaims, "We are alive."
I don't want to get technical about whether Springsteen is a prophet in true biblical fashion, but he has the unique position of being able to speak to a wide audience, and he uses that podium, his art, to feel the pain of those downtrodden to speak it. He also calls us to care for each other and stand together. And he provides the hope that only faith can provide.
 

The cult of the individual--part 3

For decades the mainstream media generally ignored religion. Now we see articles on religion, which is a major factor in American society, with some regularity. For example, the April 9 issue of Newsweek proclaimed on its cover, “Forget the Church: Follow Jesus,” while the April 16 cover of Time ran the headline “Rethinking Heaven.” Even more notable than the prevalence of articles on religion is that many are written with some understanding of religion.

 

Even though I don’t agree with everything in the two articles I’ve mentioned, they are worth reading and discussing.

Andrew Sullivan, a Catholic, writes in Newsweek about “The Forgotten Jesus.” He laments how in America faith has become too politicized. Early in the article he asks two questions: “What does it matter how strictly you proclaim your belief in various doctrines if you do not live as these doctrines demand? What is politics if not a dangerous temptation toward controlling others rather than reforming oneself?”

He refers to Thomas Jefferson’s Bible, from which he removed all but those passages he thought reflected the actual teachings of Jesus. Jefferson (and Sullivan, apparently) considered this “a simpler, purer, apolitical Christianity.” That’s naïve, to say the least.

Sullivan assumes a certain framework for "politics." In Chapter 4 of my book Present Tense I use the word in a different sense, that of a community making decisions together. Jesus had plenty to say about politics (see John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus, for example), but he wasn't talking about American politics. 

Sullivan goes on to point out that organized religion is in decline, largely because churches have pursued power rather than faithfulness to Jesus’ teachings. He notes the Catholic hierarchy being exposed as “enabling, and then covering up, an international conspiracy to abuse and rape countless youths and children.” Mainline Protestant churches have declined rapidly, he writes, while Evangelical Protestants, to give one example, is the group that American pollsters have found to be most supportive of torturing terror suspects. He writes: “This version of Christianity could not contrast more strongly with Jesus’ constant refrain: ‘Be not afraid.’ ”

Sullivan claims that Christianity (and he means in America; he ignores Christianity in other parts of the globe) is in crisis. He notes that “many Christians now embrace materialist self-help rather than ascetic self-denial,” that “the fastest-growing segment of belief among the young is atheism” and that “many have turned away from organized Christianity and toward ‘spirituality.’ ”

His solution? Christianity needs to go back to Jesus by emulating Francis of Assisi, who did not seek power but lived nonviolently.

Sullivan makes an important point when he says this does not imply a privatization of faith, which has been a typical American response to religion. He writes that great injustices, such as slavery, imperialism, totalitarianism and segregation, “require spiritual mobilization and public witness.” But the greatest examples of such movements renounce power and embrace nonviolence.

The cult of the individual enters when we pit "Jesus" against the "the church" without designating what those words mean. The church becomes a monolithic bogey man that is the locus of all evil, while Jesus generally represents a nice person who embraces all my beliefs. We end up with an unspecific, simplistic "church" and thousands of Jesuses, all made in our image. 

Thomas Jefferson, a deist, exemplified this individualistic approach when he made a Bible that included only Jesus' teachings. Where did he think those teachings came from? Did he—do we—not recognize that Jesus was a Jew, a member of his religious community who loved Israel (the people, not the country) and criticized it from within?

There's no doubt churches and other religious groups have done horrible things, but they have also done wonderful things. And who made each of us arbiter or judge of those entities?

Generally I like Sullivan's article. But I don't like the cover title. It sets up a false dichotomy.

In the Time article, “Heaven Can’t Wait,” Jon Meacham, also a Christian, notes that while 85 percent of Americans believe in heaven, “we don’t necessarily agree on what heaven is.” 

Meacham explores the history of the afterlife and shows how understandings of heaven have evolved. He points out the difference between the New Testament's view of heaven and the way many Christians view it today. He quotes New Testament scholar N.T. Wright: "When first-century Jews spoke about eternal life, they weren't thinking of going to heaven in the way we normally imagine it." Instead, "eternal life meant the age to come, the time when God would bring heaven and earth together, the time when God's kingdom would come and his will would be done on earth as in heaven."

Today, Americans have different understandings of heaven. "Many Christians," writes Meacham, "often focus more on accepting Jesus as their personal savior and the subsequent enforcement of biblical laws in preparation for the world to come."

Others, Meacham writes, argue that “the alleviation of the evident pain and injustice of the world is the ongoing work that Jesus began and the means of bringing into being what the New Testament authors meant when they spoke of heaven.”

But Erik Thoennes, chair of biblical and theological studies at Biola University and a pastor, thinks this focus “tends to come from white dudes wearing skinny jeans who live in the suburbs and not poor, suffering people.”

Meacham seems to agree more with Wright, who is white but as far as I know doesn't wear skinny jeans, that this as the work of religion: “bringing reality closer to conformity with theocentric aspirations in a world in which loving one another as we would be loved is a sacred act and a way of expanding the dominion of God—or heaven—in the world.”

I also fall more on Wright's side, though I understand the need for comfort and encouragement in the midst of suffering, and I do believe God embraces us in life or death. One thing I like about this view Meacham describes is that it focuses on God's bringing justice to the entire creation. It's not just about my soul.

Both these articles are worth reading and pondering. They are also worth talking about with others as we do politics, discern together how we should act in our faith community.

The cult of the individual--part 2

In last week's blog, part one of three on creeping individualism, we looked at Eric Klinenberg's book Going Solo, which points out the increasing isolation of Americans. He writes that in 1950, less than 10 percent of American households contained only one person, whereas in 2010, 27 percent of households had just one person.

This week, in Part 2, I want to look at an article in the May issue of The Atlantic, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” by Stephen Marche.

It's an important question, and though it sounds simple, the answer is more complex than a yes or no.

Many if not most of us use Facebook, which has 845 million users and took in $3.7 billion last year. In fact, one of every 13 people on Earth is a Facebook user. And I place my blogs on Facebook. 

While Klinenberg considers the increase in isolation, Marche is interested in the increase in loneliness, which, he says, “makes us miserable.”

He acknowledges that loneliness is hard to define or diagnose. He says the best tool for doing so is the UCLA Loneliness Scale. According to one major study, 20 percent of Americans—about 60 million people—are unhappy with their lives because of loneliness.

Though loneliness and being alone are not the same, both are on the rise. “In 1985, only 10 percent of Americans said they had no one with whom to discuss important matters. … By 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to.” 

And with the social disintegration that many have described, including Klinenberg and  Robert D. Putnam in his book Bowling Alone, "we have essentially hired an army of replacement confidants, an entire class of professional carers." Today we have in this country 77,000 clinical psychologists, 192,000 clinical social workers, 400,000 nonclinical social workers, 50,000 marriage and family therapists, 105,000 mental-health counselors, 220,000 substance-abuse counselors, 17,000 nurse psychotherapists and 30,000 life coaches. "We have outsourced the work of everyday caring," Marche writes.

Further, he writes, “being lonely is extremely bad for your health.” Lonely people are more likely to be put in a geriatric home at an early age, less likely to exercise, more likely to be obese, less likely to survive a serious operation, more likely to be depressed and to suffer dementia.

Marche then asks if Facebook contributes to loneliness or brings us together. Determining an answer is tricky. For example, he asks, “Does the Internet make people lonely, or are lonely people more attracted to the Internet?”

Many studies have been done, and more are ongoing. John Cacioppo, director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, in his 2008 book Loneliness, notes that loneliness affects not only the brain but the basic process of DNA transcription. "When you are lonely, your whole body is lonely."

Cacioppo says that Internet communication allows only ersatz intimacy. “Surrogates can never make up completely for the absence of the real thing,” he writes. And “the real thing” is actual people, in the flesh.

He points out that “using social media doesn’t create new social networks; it just transfers established networks from one platform to another.”

Our experience of loneliness corresponds to the proportion of face-to-face interactions to online interactions. “The greater proportion of online interactions, the lonelier you are.”

Cacioppo doesn’t blame the technology but calls it a tool. “It’s like a car. You can drive it to pick up your friends. Or you can drive alone.”

At the same time, you could argue that cars and other technology have contributed to isolation. 

"The problem," writes Marche, "is that we invite loneliness, even though it makes us miserable." When grocery chains like A&P arrived, customers stopped having relationships with their grocers and helped themselves. When the telephone arrived, people stopped knocking on their neighbors' doors.

Sherry Turkle, in her 2011 book Alone Together, says that the problem with digital intimacy is that it is ultimately incomplete. “The ties we form through the Internet are not, in the end, the ties that bind,” she writes. "But they are the ties that preoccupy."

On Facebook we're always presenting ourselves, and it's planned, not spontaneous.

An Australian study found that “Facebook users have higher levels of total narcissism, exhibitionism and leadership than Facebook nonusers.”

"Rising narcissism," Marche writes, "isn't so much a trend as the trend behind all other trends." In a 2008 survey, among people older than 65, 3 percent reported symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. Among people in their 20s, the proportion was nearly 10 percent, while across all age groups, just over 6 percent of Americans experienced symptoms of NPD.

And narcissism, Marche writes, “is the flip side of loneliness.”

He says the danger of Facebook is that it threatens to alter the very nature of solitude. More than half of Facebook users log on every day, and among 18- to 34-year-olds, nearly half check Facebook minutes after waking up. So it's not just our use of Facebook, as a tool, say, but its ubiquity in our lives. "The relentlessness is what is so new, so potentially transformative," Marche writes.

Whereas solitude used to be good for self-reflection, we now think about ourselves all the time. Marche concludes his article thus: “Facebook denies us a pleasure whose profundity we had underestimated: the chance to forget about ourselves for a while, the chance to disconnect.”

So is Facebook making us lonely? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly contributes to an environment that produces many lonely people. 

For those of us who believe community--and I don't mean a virtual community--is not only an important value but healthy to us as individuals and to us as a society, we need to pay attention to these forces that contribute to loneliness. 

While Facebook can be a useful tool, we still need human contact. We need others around us with whom we can discuss important matters. We need to care for one another.

Otherwise, our health and the health of our nation and world will continue to worsen.

The cult of the individual--part 1

That phrase, though not original with him, comes from sociologist Eric Klinenberg in his new book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, which is getting lots of attention now. 
I haven't read the book but want to comment on some of its implications. My comments will be based partly on reviews I've read of the book, particularly one by Nathan Heller in the April 16 New Yorker. 
You'll note that this is Part 1. In future blogs I plan to comment on an article in The Atlantic about the psychological effects of Facebook (Part 2) and on some recent articles on Jesus vs. Christianity (Part 3).

Klinenberg and his research team interviewed more than 300 people over seven years and learned that living alone has become much more common. He points out that in 1950, 4 million people in the United States lived alone. Today, that number is 31 million. He notes many possible reasons for this shift: Americans are getting married later than ever, and half of marriages end in divorce. The sexual revolution and feminist movement have helped make it possible for more women to live independently, he notes.
In his review, Heller writes that the solo life, which used to be "a mark of social abandonment," now "tends to be a path for moving ahead." This has implications. Heller writes: "The single life is inherently self-interested; it calls for vigilance on matters of self-preservation both large (financial autonomy) and small (dish detergent), and, in many cases, it frees the solitary from the sorts of daily interaction that help craft a sense of shared responsibility."
He refers to Robert D. Putnam's landmark book from 2000, Bowling Alone, which noted a three-decade decline in what he called "social capital." 
The basic point of these books is that people are not only living alone but not getting together much for social interaction, particularly civic participation.
One example is meeting people to possibly date. My parents, who weren't regular churchgoers as I grew up, nevertheless met at a church because that was the setting in their community for social engagement. (Actually, Jeanne and I also met at church, but that was at a worship service, not a dance or a game night.)
Today, many feel the need to go online to meet others.
Please understand, I'm not seeking to judge people's choices--and neither are these books. Instead, they're descriptive. They show us where we've come. And as people seeking to live healthy lives, it's important to pay attention to the environment in which we live and ask, How is that environment affecting us and our neighbors?
Klinenberg's first book was about the Chicago heat wave of 1995, Heller writes, "in which hundreds of people living alone died, not just because of the heat but because their solitary lives left them without a support network."
That's one implication of where we've come.
Part of the American identity is what's been called "rugged individualism." I grew up with a strong sense of the value of self-reliance. Most of us are affected by this ethos. It's not just the libertarians. We place a high value on meeting our own responsibilities and not being dependent on others.
The Bible, on the other hand, does not talk about self-reliance but about community. I write about this in my book Present Tense, particularly in Chapter 4, "Politics." In our faith we learn that we need each other, that we cannot make it on our own. And the Bible is clear that those in our community who are especially vulnerable--the widows and orphans--are to be cared for by the community.
I've seen the power of community not only in my church but through my involvement in Circles of Hope, which I've written about in an earlier blog, a group works with people who are seeking to get out of poverty. Poverty is particularly isolating, and one of the most effective strategies in fighting it is community. When people are part of a larger group, they not only have access to more resources, their sense of self changes, expands, grows stronger. 
The cult of the individual is strong (and if cult sounds too negative, think culture). It affects us in ways we often don't notice. We need each other to grow as individuals and as a society.