Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Some years ago, I attended a lecture on homelessness and the presenter shared some words that have stayed with me these many years. She talked about society’s tendency to “prioritize the politics of aesthetics over the politics of survival.” Another way to say this is that we tend to value what we find attractive over what keeps people alive. I’ve mulled this pattern for many years. I’ve noticed it it in myself. I’ve noticed it in others. When people criticize the presence of homeless people in a park, I’ve wondered how much of that is simply because people don’t like how it looks. I struggle with that. I sometimes worry how appearances at the park affect people’s willingness to help. I think about that when we become so bothered by litter but not someone sleeping in a bush. Litter bothers me. I don’t like it when I find trash on my lawn or in front of the Shalom Center. I wonder how often the dislike of the appearance of something makes us assume it’s unhealthy or criminal or dangerous. Even after 15 years in this job, I sometimes feel uncomfortable for no other reason than a group of people looks a certain way. When our discomfort or even disgust (strong word, strong feeling) overrides our basic compassion, it unfortunately allows us the space to feel justified in doing certain awful things in order to rid ourselves of that feeling. We externalize our discomfort and make it someone else’s problem. That allows us to destroy another homeless camp without providing a home or build a criminal justice system that punishes instead of redeems. I heard a meditation story some years ago where a student is meditating and outside his window a bird is cawing loudly. He tries so hard to concentrate but just becomes angrier and angrier at the crowing bird. He becomes so frustrated he speaks to his teacher about how he can deal with this. The teacher answers him succinctly: “Stop bothering that bird!” One thing has become very clear to me over these years as your Executive Director: to remain engaged with people struggling with extreme poverty and all its causes, you have to have a fairly high tolerance for disorder and imperfection. You have to accept ugliness. You have to accept dirtiness. You have to accept unpredictability. It’s part of it. It always has been, and perhaps always will be. The idyllic image of a person escaping poverty does not exist. And it’s a mistake to chase it. It’s harmful, even cruel, to try to fit people into our perfect box. Father Greg Boyle, founder of an anti-gang program in LA, wrote some words that also inspire me every day. He said, “Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it.” “A compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” Poverty is often ugly. Love shines wherever it is placed. Let us set them a place at our table, where love knows no bounds.