This thought is a work in progress.

What do you think of when you hear the word “poverty”? Do you think of rags, beggars, or dirty feet? Maybe you think of familiar faces in Malawi, or Honduras, or Haiti. Maybe you think of starvation, sickness, or sewage.

I was thinking this morning as I was running. Everyone here has shoes. I don’t know why I’ve been fixated on this the last few months. No one in Namitete wears shoes. But in Blantyre, everyone has shoes.

I started to think – people here must be richer, more educated. Then it hit me – perhaps poverties aren’t more or less, only different. Just because the people in Blantyre have shoes, are they richer than the people in Namitete who walk barefoot? How do we measure wealth? How do we measure poverty? Is it in coins, or assets, or fertility, or days of life? Is it in happiness, or in strength, or in wisdom? Is it in dollars per day, or per capita income, or some other measure?

I might even venture to say that some of the deepest and most intense poverty exists in the wealthiest parts of the world. Perhaps, for many, poverty has nothing at all to do with money. After all, I can think of hundreds of people with all the wealth in the world, but who are in desperate need of love. This poverty is absolutely comparable to a lack of shoes or clean water. If you’re living in the States, look around you, at your work and in your family. Although it might be shadowed by expensive shoes and heavy wallets, I wouldn’t be surprised if you came across some of the world’s most intense poverty.

Poverty (n, v, adj) – to be in desperate need; physical, emotional, spiritual

“Those in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position.” -James 1