November 16

Today marks the death, in 2000, of Rev. Hosea Williams, World War 2 veteran, Black activist, civil rights leader, and Georgia politician who was part of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s inner circle. He founded an organization for poverty assistance and advocacy called Hosea Helps, and continued the fight against white supremacy for decades after the Civil Rights Movement. He was physically assaulted by white mobs, the KKK, and police officers multiple times over the course of his life and work. 

Today is the feast day of Gertrude the Great, German nun and mystic, who died on November 17, 1302. Her writings on the Sacred Heart of Jesus became powerful influences on medieval theology. 

Today also marks an awful day of the Reign of Terror in France, in 1793, when 160 French Catholic priests were drowned in the Loire River at Nantes. This was the beginning of a series of mass killings carried out by Jean-Baptiste Carrier which would ultimately kill more than four thousand people, including women and children. 

This also marks the U.S.-supported Salvadoran Army, in 1987, murdered six Jesuit priests and the caretaker’s wife and daughter at the University of Central America. Like Oscar Romero, they had been working for peace, but were characterized by the U.S. press as “leftist intellectuals.” Their murders prompted the U.S. government to decrease financial support for the dictatorship in El Salvador. 

Reflection: 

Hosea Williams said: 

I find Rev. Williams’ words problematic, though they do have the “wisdom of the trenches” of those who do direct service to the poor. “A hand up instead of a hand-out” is a truth about doing anti-poverty work that is seized on by right-wing capitalists, and it becomes dogma about poverty and government assistance. It reinforces the notion that poor people are just lazy and need to work harder, and that those who require assistance are morally inferior. 

But anyone who does long-term work with poverty and justice knows the danger of well-intentioned “assistance” that creates dependency and demotivates people. Christian missionaries and system reformers who’ve lived close to poverty know that certain kinds of help can hurt or sabotage people’s sense of agency. Hopelessness and helplessness are not only symptoms of poverty, but also forms of poverty themselves.  

This is precisely why I believe we need to seriously talk about Universal Basic Income as a policy. When people have a steady stream of cash and access to essential services (like medical care and public transportation), they can make their own decisions about their goals and what will help them the most. If everyone receives UBI, shame is no longer part of the poverty trap. So much of our classist and capitalist form of life is about restricting access and putting barriers in people’s way and using shame as a social punishment. Poverty in this country is manufactured, and I believe it is the Christian duty to fight manufactured poverty and classist shame.  

A prayer of Gertrude the Great: