“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” – John F. Kennedy

  From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

25 December 

I find the following image profoundly comforting: a baby lying in a manger, on his back, vulnerable as an upturned turtle - yet tranquil for all that. This particular baby, born in a stable, will end up dying on a cross and in between, if Scripture is to be believed, as an itinerant hand-to-mouth preacher will have not whereon to lay his head. 

Translation:  

Poverty of the most profound sort seems to have been integral to everything about the person this child became. In a sense this kind of wall-to-wall poverty was unremarkable – it was the lot of billions more before and after Him. More remarkable was the fact that such abiding poverty doesn’t seem to have been something He was stuck with. Instead it seems He actively and willingly embraced it as a kind of liberation from materialism, the kind of materialism you and I find utterly seductive at our every turn. It seems the impact He had on this world was somehow directly related to the immense power inherent in that embracing of poverty. 

This poverty bridges the gap between Him and all of us enmeshed, as we are, in a plethora of poverties as distinctive to each of us as is our retina scan. And finally, maybe you and I can become strong in our weakness[es] as He Himself apparently was. 

As I say, vulnerable as an upturned turtle - yet tranquil for all that.