{"id":848,"date":"2011-07-29T09:59:50","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T13:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fearofwhales\/?p=848"},"modified":"2012-06-22T07:51:56","modified_gmt":"2012-06-22T12:51:56","slug":"leg-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2011\/07\/leg-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Bus: Leg 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The woman sitting next to me talked about her story, how she has a black eye from when her son and one of his friends broke into her house\u00a0 last week to beat her up because they were drunk and he was mad at her for abandoning him. It struck me how nonchalant about this she was \u201cI did it, to have a life\u201d she said and then went on to tell about how happy she is that he\u2019s in jail now. She\u2019s riding the bus to visit her father who she hasn\u2019t seen in 15 years because he is dieing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I expected when I was in Junction City and first realized that this would be a deeply cross-cultural experience, that it would help me to appreciate and empathize with the lower class people all around me. Alter all, despite the fancy clothes and Yankee upbringing I\u2019m pretty underclass myself. I don\u2019t have a car, I\u2019m technically homeless, and I beg for a living.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fearofwhales\/files\/2011\/07\/Picture-6.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-849\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/236\/2011\/07\/Picture-6-300x185.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"185\" \/><\/a>In actuality though so far it\u2019s done more to make me appreciate the rich Christians I know. There\u2019s a sense I get sometimes that a lot of people are way to focused on success and getting ahead, as if that\u2019s what matters in life, and it has often seemed idolatrous to me. Sometimes it probably is authentically idolatrous, but today I\u2019m also learning that it\u2019s pretty efficient!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Generational poverty is a massive, systemic, social justice issue. If you\u2019re poor, the chances are your kids are going to be poor, and so are their kids. And with that generational poverty comes hopelessness, a sense of detachment from your own destiny that causes you to feel like stuff just happens to you independent of you. As a result we see much higher rates of crime, domestic abuse, child abuse, obesity and alcoholism.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So if you\u2019re not poor. It\u2019s actually a very good thing for the world if you continue to not be poor, and make sure you\u2019re kid\u2019s aren\u2019t poor. Cycles are hard to break and we don\u2019t want to start another one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The woman sitting next to me talked about her story, how she has a black eye from when her son and one of his friends broke into her house\u00a0 last week to beat her up because they were drunk and he was mad at her for abandoning him. It struck me how nonchalant about this&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,311],"tags":[520,519,518,521],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-helping-people-and-social-justice","category-my-life","tag-cycle-of-poverty","tag-generational-poverty","tag-poverty","tag-rich-christians"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bus: Leg 2 - A Fear of Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2011\/07\/leg-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bus: Leg 2 - A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The woman sitting next to me talked about her story, how she has a black eye from when her son and one of his friends broke into her house\u00a0 last week to beat her up because they were drunk and he was mad at her for abandoning him. 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