Defining "poverty" - where most of us get stuck

How do you define "poverty?"
It's an intriguing question, isn't it?
If we're honest, our first instinct is to assign some kind of monetary value to poverty, as in, "earning less than X-dollars a year" or "not being able to afford X."
That's the gut reaction, and there's nothing wrong with that, because most of the world is raised on the most practical definitions of "rich" and "poor" as having to do with money.
But if you're serious about answering the question, no doubt you soon get past a dollar figure. You have to, because the people we call "living in poverty'' in the United States would be considered quite well off in other countries.
So recognizing that financial poverty is relative, the challenge is to come up with some kind of sweeping definition of "poverty" that transcends location.
And that becomes quite a challenge.
For honesty's sake, let me admit the question comes up because I'm reading a book called, "When Helping Hurts,'' subtitled "How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor ... and yourself."
I've not finished the book. But it begins with that very question, "What is poverty?"
The authors of the book provide their idea of a working definition, but that's not what is important. What is important is how you or I define "poverty."
We can talk about moral poverty, or spiritual poverty, or economic poverty, or physical poverty - and agree there are a variety of elements to poverty, or being poor.
So how do we tie them all together? Can we?
A writer named Bryant Myers defines poverty (at least as quoted in this book) as "the result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable. Poverty is the absence of shalom in all its meanings."
By "shalom" I'm assuming Myers means "peace" in all its meanings.
I don't know about that. I mean, I like what Myers says, but to say poverty is the result of relationships that do not work?
I'd rather offer another suggestion.
I think poverty is about the lack of choices - real or imagined.
If you feel you no longer have a choice in the direction of your life, then you are "poor," or suffering from poverty.
The reason I make this my definition (at least for now, until I arrive at a better one) is that it seems to encompass all the sub-elements of poverty, as well as has the ability to transcend location.
In other words, if you are trapped into place or position, you are poor.
I have known poor people who just couldn't see any way out of their economic situation, and as long as they couldn't see any way out of their lifestyle - their lifestyle was no longer their choice - they were poor.
Likewise I've known people who are economically advantaged in the extreme but who felt just as trapped because they couldn't afford to do anything other than what they did because it meant losing their lifestyle; and they were just as poor (although much more comfortable in their poverty).
Then again, I've known people who lived on next to nothing, who from all outward appearances were "poor," but who chose to live that way and therefore were not poor (think Mother Theresa, as an extreme).
Just as I've known people who were wealthy but willingly gave it up to live a different lifestyle, and were not poor. (More often than not, those people were only financially "poor" in comparison to their previous lives, but you get the idea).
Let me think this through further.
We look at the people we consider to be "poor," and I don't think they necessarily have chosen to be poor - to live on government welfare and food stamps or whatever subsidy they live on. But they just don't know any other way. That's how everyone they know lives.
While some would say they need to get a job, they would ask - and I believe in all sincerity - "why?" To get a job means you have to start paying rent and paying for food and paying for the things that right now are given to you.
And I wonder if those people look at the "rich'' who lives in their big houses and don't assume that somehow those people live for "free," too, but just somehow got a better subsidy. That is, those people have a "company'' that gives them money in the form of a giant salary. But come on - putting on a suit and sitting behind a desk all day isn't work. It's money for nothing (and the chicks are free - to quote Dire Straits).  They got it because they were born into a different form of subsidy.
Meanwhile, those of us that understand work and earning money and paying for our houses and food and necessities as well as luxuries look at the non-workers and wonder why they don't see that getting a job and earning money just makes sense, because it "works."
(I do love my italics)
It's interesting that in the Bible, there is so much written about our obligation to take care of the poor - the widows, the orphans, the prisoners, the aliens (non-citizens) in our midst.
Yet at the same time, when the prostitute pours an expensive bottle of perfume over Jesus' feet and a disciple protests because that perfume could have been sold and the money used to help the poor, Jesus says (and I'm paraphrasing), "Come on, man! Do you really think one bottle of perfume will make a dent on poverty? Despite all the encouragements in Scripture to care for the poor, there will always be the poor among us."
I had someone whose opinion I respect more than she realizes (and I'm sorry for that) who is committed to trying to alleviate poverty tell me that the way we help "the poor" isn't by giving them stuff (agreed), but rather to help them sort of come to grips with their poverty, to recognize that God is there in their midst just as much as He is among the middle class and the rich, and they need to recognize their inherent "worth" as human beings created in God's image.
We bring value to their lives.
I like that (and I hope I haven't over-simplified or missed the point).
But it has a certain far-Eastern, Buddhist feel to it. The Buddhists would say the way you get rid of poverty is for the poor to learn to eliminate their desire for "things,'' to learn to be satisfied in their poverty. The Buddha said as much.
It's kind of like the Islamic belief of "Allah wills it." Talk to people in Arab countries who ask people why they live in a valley fed by contaminated water and infested with disease why they don't change, they answer, "Allah wills it." They mean, this is the life Allah gave them, and who are they to try to change Allah's will?
Christians, on the other hand, do seem to believe that we should engage in trying to change our station in life.
Born poor and starving? Pursue something better. Born and raised in a valley of contaminated water, infested with disease? Move.
So that brings us back to why I define poverty as lacking choice. As long as we believe we can change - that God doesn't condemn us to live a certain way forever - we're not poor. We're making choices.
The difficulty, of course, is how do you convince people who believe they are "stuck'' that they don't have to be?
At the same time, at least in the case of those we consider "poor," we can't refuse to give food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, comfort to the oppressed.
We just have to figure out how to do that, without furthering their sense of "stuckness'' by doing so.
And that's where most of us get stuck.