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PDF versionApology to my brothers and sisters in developing countries
by Joyce Rupp on Oct. 08, 2010
To my brothers and sisters in developing countries:
While I was deciding which oat bran cereal to eat this morning, you were searching the ground for leftover grains from the passing wheat truck.
While I was jogging at the health center, you were working in the wealthy landowner’s field under a scorching sun.
While I was choosing between diet and regular soda, your parched lips were yearning for a sip of clean water.
While I complained about the poor service in the gourmet restaurant, you were gratefully eating a bowl of rice.
While I poured my “fresh and better” detergent into the washing machine, you stood in the river with your bundle of clothes.
While I read the newspaper and drank my cup of steaming coffee, you walked the long, dusty miles to a crowded schoolroom to learn how to read.
While I scanned the ads for a bargain on an extra piece of clothing, you woke up and put on the same shirt and pants that you have worn for many months.
While I built a fourteen-room house for the three of us, your family of ten found shelter in a one-room hut.
While I went to church last Sunday and felt more than slightly bored, you stood on the land with those around you and felt gratitude to God for being alive for one more day.
My brothers and sisters, forgive me for my arrogance and my indifference. Forgive me for my greed of always wanting newer, bigger, and better things. Forgive me for not doing my part to change the unjust systems that keep you suffering and impoverished. I offer you my promise to become more aware of your situation and to change my lifestyle as I work for the transformation of our world.
"Apology to My Brothers and Sisters in Developing Countries" taken from out of the ordinary: prayers, poems, and reflections for every season, by Joyce Rupp Copyright 2000. Used by permission of Ave Maria Press. All rights reserved.
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Wonderful, moving words.
Wonderful, moving words. "While I built a fourteen-room house for the three of us your family of ten found shelter in a one-room hut"
Joyce, it is beautiful the read your heartfelt appology for the sins of poeple you dislike. So many fail to do this, having their own sins to repent for.
Submitted by chris haynes on
Submitted by chris haynes on Oct. 08, 2010.
You stated:
"Wonderful, moving words. "While I built a fourteen-room house for the three of us your family of ten found shelter in a one-room hut"
Joyce, it is beautiful the read your heartfelt appology for the sins of poeple you dislike. So many fail to do this, having their own sins to repent for."
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What makes you think that Sr. Joyce is writing about "people she dislikes?"
As a member (and a major superior) of a religious community---Joyce has had the responsibilies of building houses for members of her own religious community.
I don't think that she was composing an Examination of Conscience for any one in particular---among her readers. I do believe that she was stating her own sins here---and humbly, desiring to repent. If she didn't stop and reflect upon her own sins of commission and omission---the rest of us wouldn't even think about our brothers and sisters in the Third World and how they survive
Do you think it's having a
Do you think it's having a "family of ten" that's a big part of why they're poor to begin with? Have you considered providing the poor with reliable and safe birth control as one of the greatest things you could do for them?
A nation that can't feed what it breeds is a failure.
Submitted by Brad Evans on
Submitted by Brad Evans on Oct. 08, 2010.
You stated:
"Do you think it's having a "family of ten" that's a big part of why they're poor to begin with? Have you considered providing the poor with reliable and safe birth control as one of the greatest things you could do for them?
A nation that can't feed what it breeds is a failure."
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How about sending this note of yours to all the bishops of the Third World Nations? Any practicing Catholic who distributes birth control to women in these nations would be excommunicated, for doing so.
Lets just get rid of the
Lets just get rid of the concept of sin and Hell and punishment. It is just not Pastoral.
Great idea, Brad. The best
Great idea, Brad. The best way to end poverty is to eliminate the people who are poor. So, first let's make sure that they have fewer children, then we can, in our wisdom so far superior to God's, we can "humanely" euthanize all those of a certain age and all the sick, infirm and disabled, all of whom are drains on the limited financial and economic resources of the developing world. Then we can impose mandatory abortions on women who do not meet certain income criteria. Pretty soon, we will be left with a nice, small manageable population and we can eradicate poverty.
Really good idea, it's easy to overcome poverty as long as we eliminate the poor. Thank you so much for your brilliant, compassionate and humane suggestion!
Dear Sr. Joyce: I read your
Dear Sr. Joyce:
I read your reflections with much enthusiasm. These reflections do indeed make a difference in my journey.
However, I have a request. Recently I attended s lecture/discussion on "mutuality." From what I could gather this is yet a "newer and improved" perception of interdependence which for me has been part of my life long experience. What disturbed me about this conversation of very educated women was their starking neglect of the role our poor brothers and sisters in the developing world (including here in America)play every day as they live out this "mutuality" or interdependence for sheer survival. Interdependence is not a "new" phenomenon as it represents the best of us in all religions..certainly a basic tenet of each!
It truly saddens me that we only seem to look to the developing world in terms of "helping and aiding the poor." There is so much we can learn from from our brothers and sisters...hope, faith, and "mutuality."
Can you pen a reflection on this topic?
My goodness. This says it
My goodness. This says it all, doesn't it? Jesus wants me to have material things, and He wants my brothers and sisters to have them as well. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me, as I make decisions each day that could help the poor if I choose to make them.
Sr Joyce that is a wonderful
Sr Joyce that is a wonderful reflection. Thank you!
Thank you
Thank you
I found Sr. Joyce's
I found Sr. Joyce's reflection very offensive, misleading, over-generalizing and demeaning. I am not quite sure how well travelled she is, and if at all, if she ever cared that much to look the other way round to see the life freshness in those generalized developing countries. Her reflection is a sale of consumerism which is anything but spiritual and redeeming. Why does she think that unless life is viewed from her lens of life, it is pathetic? Is every soul in the developing world deprived of access to those things named in her reflection? How many towns, cities and villages has Sr. Joyce visited in developing countries? Authentic spirituality is not demeaning or minimizing, but uplifting. it is not sympathetic but empathetic. It is not negatively generalizing but affirming and restorative. I do know there are people in developing countries that are having better opportunities than Sr. Joyce's. To think that everybody in developing country is depressed and deprived is to hallucinate that there are no street beggers in the developed world, or everybody in Europe and America has heat during winter in their homes. Is this the case Sr. Joyce?
Clearly, Sister Joyce's gifts
Clearly, Sister Joyce's gifts lie in the realm of spiritual compassion, not the realities of the Third World. She appears to fit quite well into the NCR leitmotif, according to which we're all supposed to feel guilty about almost everything, but offer no solutions.
Submitted by Andi on Oct. 09,
Submitted by Andi on Oct. 09, 2010.
You stated:
"I found Sr. Joyce's reflection very offensive, misleading, over-generalizing and demeaning. I am not quite sure how well travelled she is, and if at all, if she ever cared that much to look the other way round to see the life freshness in those generalized developing countries. Her reflection is a sale of consumerism which is anything but spiritual and redeeming. Why does she think that unless life is viewed from her lens of life, it is pathetic? Is every soul in the developing world deprived of access to those things named in her reflection? How many towns, cities and villages has Sr. Joyce visited in developing countries? Authentic spirituality is not demeaning or minimizing, but uplifting. it is not sympathetic but empathetic. It is not negatively generalizing but affirming and restorative. I do know there are people in developing countries that are having better opportunities than Sr. Joyce's. To think that everybody in developing country is depressed and deprived is to hallucinate that there are no street beggers in the developed world, or everybody in Europe and America has heat during winter in their homes. Is this the case Sr. Joyce?"
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Usually when people respond in such a 'touchy' manner as you did to Sr. Joyce's reflection, it implies general GUILTY feelings on their own part. It has nothing to do with the content, style or subject matter of the one who wrote the reflection. If you bothered to read Joyce's bio---you would know that she has been on every continent in the world. And she has SEEN a majority of people in Third World countries suffering depravation.
For example, go to Haiti (the 'Lazarus lying at the door of the West')---and the people there are still waiting for members of their government (who are very comfortable, and who have better opportunities than most)and who have done nothing to take care of the basic necessities of a large portion of the people both before the earthquake and, now after it.
Your comments about "authentic spirituality" also shows that you are hungering only after the "frozen-food--microwave it" variety. You seem to equate 'I want to feel good about myself' as authentic spirituality---and so 'quick, serve me up some.' Jesus' words and examples in the Gospels were authentic spirituality----but they did much to ruffle the feathers of the comfortable and elite of his society. One side of the authentic spirituality coin is that it is to CHALLENGE and SHAKE us OUT of our COMPLACENCY.
Another definition that you gave about 'authentic spirituality' was "it is not sympathetic but empathetic." Sympathetic means having a sensitivity to the plight of others. Empathetic (and I'll define it from the dictionary) means 'vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.'
(Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary-10th Ed.).
If Sr. Joyce has been on all continents (and she has been), she has seen how so many of the people live. So, of course, she is has a sensitivity to the plight of others---she is sympathetic. YOU can be empathetic---and imagine the people, in brightly colored native dress, dancing and singing in the streets---as they do in Broadway musicals. But that is not the reality of the lives of a vast majority of people in the Third World---and that is not the basis of an authentic spirituality.
well said, little bear. Sr.
well said, little bear. Sr. Joyce knows what she has put into words and very true. thanks.
Sad,Beautiful,and so
Sad,Beautiful,and so true....... Thank you
Your reflections are very
Your reflections are very good.
If someone is offended by 'a
If someone is offended by 'a family of 10 in a one room hut' then why are you not offended by the term 'working poor' here in the United States?
While I was attending mass
While I was attending mass said by a priest rented from India by my bishop because our church denies ordination to women and married males, Catholics back in India were going without mass and the various sacraments for the lack of a priest.
I do not apologize for, nor
I do not apologize for, nor feel guilty about, that material wealth which I am blessed to have. I work hard for the material things that I have and that I am able to afford. I did not get what money I have in an illegal or immoral way, and what's more, the products and services that I purchase benefit myriad workers both at home and abroad.
My purchase of the brand new iPod supports the people who are employed by Best Buy, the truck drivers who delivered the iPod, the people who loaded the trucks, the people who put the iPod together, the people who provided meals for the folks at the iPod factory, and the people who manufactured the components that go into the iPod.
I realize that mine is likely not a popular opinion on this particular issue, but that is neither here nor there. I support my parish, I support local and international charities whose outreach and philosophy I agree with and find important, I help to care for those of my family and friends who are in need. I pray for the needs of family, friends, community members, and those I do not know and have never met. I also purchase those "luxury" items and services that I desire and can afford on what income my daily work is able to provide, even if it appears that I may not "need" them. I do not apologize for my spending habits nor my material possessions.
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