poverty porn….
it’s a term that’s been thrown around a lot lately.
there are a lot of things that enrage me…that make my
stomach turn and that get me on a soapbox…
the exploitation of children or the people that i live and
work with, is at the top of that list.
however, when these two words are used together…there is no
soapbox that can contain my rage…that can express the distain i have for the
term or can encompass the perpetual harm caused by this line of thinking.
not only does this term make poverty a “dirty” word…it makes
the individual in the photograph a “dirty” individual.
beyond that…it desensitizes us to the very real issue
of….exploitation.
i very much dislike all of those things….to say the least.
so…
…i am left with a choice.
i could rage and rage…and then rage some more.
i could try to find a way to shock the world into thinking
and understanding with a different mind….and into seeing with a new heart.
i could do that…
you all know that 90 % of my spirit wants to do that!
but i could also make a different choice…
i could choose love.
i could get on my soapbox and ask us all to engage in the
very thing that this world lacks enough of….
love.
i could choose to collapse judgment. i could choose to
dialogue. i could choose to embrace diversity rather than burn it to the
ground.
i could choose to be better than i am.
i could choose jesus.
oh, jesus…give me the strength to always choose love…to
always choose you.
a couple weeks ago, reimagine haiti released a photograph of
a beautiful little girl with the words, “reimagine poverty.” we stated that we
were going to spend the month of september redefining poverty and attempting to
change the way the world sees those living it.
there was no financial plea, only an invitation to get
involved and learn ways to make a difference.
this barefoot little girl stood with stunning grace and
immeasurable intensity in the middle of a dirt road that, speaks not only to
her physical journey but, represents the road that god has laid out before
her….
one of purpose and intent.
the dress she is wearing comes nowhere near american
standards…her hair is disheveled and she is not smiling.
she is beautiful.
she also has a name….
dafka is 3 years old…she lives in baie d’orange with her
mama and five siblings.
dafka’s daddy works on a bus that travels between port au
prince and jacmel…with this money he is able to send her school age sibling’s
to school.
this dress is the only dress she owns, but it is her own and
she wears it with elegance and pride…
dafka has one pair of shoes and she saves them for church.
she doesn’t know that she should be sad to play barefoot…unless we tell her.
so we don’t.
when she plays, her laughter fills the mountainside with
pure, uninhibited joy.
dafka, like every child, has a name, has a story and has a
future.
more importantly, every child has infinite value and purpose
in the eyes of our creator.
to “reimagine” poverty, is to see dafka through his eyes and
to search our hearts….
when was the last time we filled the mountainside with pure,
uninhibited joy?
two weeks after this photo was released, our
media/communications guru and the woman that has poured her heart into these
images, wrote a blog to expound upon our vision and released the next image:
i literally cried when i read it…this was the heart of
reimagine haiti.
i will write about maria another day…for now, i will simply
say that i am honored to work with a woman so fearless…a woman who is willing
to speak truth…no matter how uncomfortable it makes us.
today…this:
poverty…since when did “poverty” become a dirty word?
since when did the idea of poverty become offensive?
and since when did we decide that people living in poverty
are “less than,” or to “be pitied?”
if we walk far enough back on that red-dirt road…. we will
find ourselves standing in a little stable, in another little village, with
another little girl….
this little girl…who likely also had on a dirty dress and no
shoes…happened to give birth to a king.
his name was jesus.
she laid him in the best bed she could find…one that only
moments before had been the feeding trough for the nearby goats and donkeys.
this king grew up the son of a carpenter…playing on dirt
roads (most likely barefoot).
i am willing to bet that he was rarely, if ever, clean.
when jesus looks at dafka, what does he see??
does he see a pornographic image?
an exploited child that needs to be pitied?
does he see the word, “poverty,” and label her as “unclean”
because of it?
no…
i would venture to say that he sees his sister…his
playmate…his child…
himself.
we have been conditioned to aspire to something more than
material poverty….to work hard and climb to the top.
but this is not what we were created for.
we were created to emulate our savior….
and he commanded us to aspire to “less.”
in our quest to climb to the top…we have hit the bottom.
in our quest to not see color, to not see gender , to not
see class….
we have created a world that is spiritually poor.
creation is full of beauty, including the diversity of
color, class, size, shape, gender, etc….
why do we waste our time attempting to make ourselves blind
to it….when he who created it has commanded us to celebrate it??
here’s my challenge to us all…
to open our eyes, our ears and our hearts.
to stop closing our eyes to that which makes us uncomfortable
but to start embracing it.
to stop trying to paint our world over in one shade of
gray…but to open our eyes to the vibrant color of creation.
to stop trying to abolish material poverty and start trying
to abolish spiritual poverty.
to stop using terms that are shocking but start living in
away that is shocking….
at the end of the day, we all have a choice.
will we stand?
will we celebrate?
will we see dafka for who she is and not what she has?
will we reimagine poverty….and reimagine this world?
will we change the course of history?
will we start a revolution?
