Maybe it's just the future English teacher in me talking, but I strongly believe that ignorance is at the root of many of society's problems-- especially this one. Sadly, ignorant acts of "charity" are often ineffective and even counterproductive. This is at the root of many of the internal struggles Kent Annan addresses in Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle, and it is also the topic of several essays I wrote for my Advanced Composition class last semester.
In light of that, I figured I would share the satire I wrote for that class. I tried to "expose the ignorance that many have when it it comes to philanthropy, and how that ignorance cripples their well-intending attempts to help... [as well as] comment on several of the key misconceptions people hold about poverty." And of course I had a lot of fun in the process. :)
Relief
Meet Joe.
Joe is an average guy. He lives a comfortable life in a spacious suburban home, complete with wife, honor students and safety-rated mini van. A sensible fellow, he always pays his bills on time and routinely clips coupons from the Sunday paper.
But there’s one thing that bothers Joe.
It occurred to him one day while flipping channels on his moderately-sized plasma television—large enough to save face on Superbowl Sunday, yet not so large as to dominate the exquisitely tasteful living room décor, of course— that his life seemed to be missing something.
At first he couldn’t put his finger on it. His cubicle job was all well and good, he loved his wife and kids, and he hadn’t missed a Sunday church service in several years. What could possibly be missing?
As he was pondering, the evening weather report was interrupted by a commercial break, and before Joe could reach the remote to change the channel, something caught his eye.
Cardboard—but not like the boxes in his attic.
Trash—not on the curb shrouded in black plastic.
Dirt—dusty and uninhibited by concrete sidewalks or planter box walls.
Then children. Small children, dark children, dirty children, naked children. They stared back at Joe with forlorn eyes and bloated stomachs.
The face of a white-haired man in a collared shirt appeared. He seemed kindly; Joe thought of his late grandfather and smiled. The man was saying something about “poverty”. He walked across the screen and picked up one of the children, who looked a bit bewildered and exceptionally dirty against the man’s clean-pressed shirt.
“All it takes is 70 cents a day. All you have to do is pick up the phone.”
The chief meteorologist reappeared with his pointer.
“Looks like another sunny week…”
Joe turned off the TV.
Poverty…
The next day Joe pulled out his suitcase. He went through his closet and pulled out all the over-sized T-shirts he had tucked back for casual Friday and days at the beach. Next he went into the attic and pulled down the boxes of backlogged possessions he had accumulated over the years. Cloth baby diapers from when his children were young. A set of flannel bed sheets. A lava lamp from the 70s. He stuffed the suitcase as full as he could.
Later that night Joe booked a plane ticket to Southeast Asia. Normally he would have been shocked at the $3,691 airfare, but all he could think about were the faces of those dirty, hungry children.
The following morning Joe kissed his wife and children and hopped a cab to the airport. Seated in his lumpy, economy-class window seat, he daydreamed pensively. He saw himself in a pressed collared shirt, dusting his brown leather oxfords with a liberal coating of street dirt, lifting sad-eyed children from their poverty-stricken existence. He was going to make a difference.
Fifteen hours later, he exercised caution when retrieving his suitcase from the overhead compartment and exited the plane briskly. He had work Monday morning and there was no time to lose.
Outside the airport, Joe called a cab and instructed the driver to take him directly to the city slums. The driver spoke little English, but convinced he was cheating him, Joe argued fiercely over the final fare and left behind less than a third of what the driver had asked, but tacked on the equivalent of a few cents tip for good measure.
A bit miffed, and thoroughly frustrated that his pressed collared shirt was now wrinkled with sweat and heat, he suddenly found himself in the midst the commercial. A mob of children ran laughing through a maze of lean-to houses. A barefoot woman lugged a baby and a basket of laundry down the street. He breathed a sigh of satisfaction. This was what he came for. This was poverty.
A disheveled child stood outside one of the houses nearest him. Joe walked up and opened his suitcase. He pulled out a few of his oversized T-shirts and a cloth diaper and handed them to the girl. She looked at the gifts, perplexed, then dropped them and held out her hand. “Money,” she said in practiced, though heavily accented English. He laughed, tousled her hair good-naturedly and handed her 70 cents. She pocketed the coins and ran off.
Feeling good about his contribution, Joe then turned to his open suitcase. Struck with inspiration, he pulled out piece of paper, scribbled the words: “Free to those in need” and placed it, along with the entire contents of the suitcase in a pile on the road side. Caught up in the momentum of his generosity, he even tossed the empty suitcase on to the pile.
The next morning found Joe once again in a lumpy economy-class airline chair. He replayed his encounter with the girl from the slums and wondered pleasantly whether he could count the purchase of a new suitcase as a tax-deduction.
***
Joe settled down in his spacious suburban home in front of his moderately-sized plasma television with his wife and kids.
As they sat enjoying a family-friendly movie, a commercial break brought them back to reality. Once more, sad-eyed children and the white-haired gentleman filled the screen. Thinking back to his weekend in Asia, Joe realized suddenly that he no longer felt the nagging sense that his life was missing something. As he nestled in closer to his family, he smiled, understanding now what the man in the collared shirt meant by relief.
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