Preferential Option for the Poor (04242014)

For this, I was most interested in the point raised by Lib at the start of the class.

"People who need mercy are usually outside and when we exercise mercy, we bring them close to the center. Hence, mercy being the inclusion of the marginalized becomes an exercise of love."

The way I see it, the poor are the marginalized among us the most. Well, this is sort of one of the things I learned during DS this summer....so maybe I have to thank Amartya Sen for that idea. In our class, we talked about social exclusion and the speaker started with "everybody is in some way being excluded." In that framework, we were defining poverty as being socially excluded and that there are varying degrees of exclusions. People who get excluded the most become the most poor. I knew that was true because the world is a crucified world and everybody has their own cross. People don't really think about everybody else as having a cross. It is like there is an arbitrary line that we draw when we first meet people. They are either the excluded or the excluder, and we are always part of the excluded. And we think this arbitrary line is vey vertical in the sense that there are always people on top and then there's us at the bottom. If we're using that analogy, the poorest then, must be at the very bottom and they must be carrying a heavier cross than us.

I think this is where the preferential option for the poor comes in. It becomes an exercise of mercy towards those at the very bottom. Lib talked about how we should separate the words because they have different meanings. He said that preferential means to give priority to something. Option entails a choice and here, he talked about the different things that we can choose to do. The first one is to listen. We must choose to listen to people because more often than not, they already know what they need. The next one is to look. I didn't understand this at first but the way I got it was that people can sometimes not articulate what they want. Maybe it is because they already feel so defeated, or maybe they feel too humiliated to ask for things. That makes it important to look beyond what people are saying, or not saying. Sometimes there are things that need not be said, and you just have to look hard enough to see it. And lastly, we choose to share. Lib said that we can share anything but I think the important part about it is that when we share what we have, we will all have enough. Then lastly, he talked about the poor and how they should be the focus of this. To paint the whole picture, he says that we should choose to listen to, to look at, and to share with everybody but the poor must be given priority becaus ethey are the ones who need it the most.

Then I came to thinking, when have I ever given the preferential option for the poor? When have I ever tried to look at people and share what I have based on what they don't say? I mean, I even categorize the beggars in the streets. (Not kidding, I did a whole research paper on it for Sociology) I categorized them as "really deserve the help" and "abusing the help" in so little words. What does that say about me? Does that mean I am a bad person because I choose who to help? Maybe I am just prioritizing those that I feel couldn't do it on their own at all. In a way, in my trying to give help to the people who need it more, I ended up excluding others from my help. So now I realize that was a pretty shitty thing to do. Maybe those forward beggars were just using that as a way to hide that they are vulnerable and I just judged them right then and there. But then, that leads me to think of whether my help is really helping. Again, this goes back to the idea of what true generosity means. It is not the giving of what is excess but of what I have. If we share, there will be enough. Somebody has given me what I need and beyond that, it is all want.

I realize I must be an advocate of the preferential option for all of the poor. Some do not deserve help more than the others. And I think that is a fault that I must address as I move forward in this experience. For me to truly exercise love through mercy, I must listen with more than my ears. I must see with more than my eyes. And I must share more than what I feel like giving. I know that it is hard to do but it becomes easier when everybody does it and I think that is the message that the readings are trying to get across. We can't change the world by ourselves, so let's work together.