Presbyterian Mission Agency social and economic deprivation Archives

social and economic deprivation

Minute for Mission: A Season of Peace

Posted August 21st, 2019

In his poem “In the Soul of the Serene Disciple” Trappist monk Thomas Merton flips the reader between two vantage points of a shared condition — one in which “poverty is a success” and one where it is “no achievement.” That poverty could be a success in any way is a difficult premise to accept. When we think of poverty, we think about a crushing system of social and economic deprivation that isolates and destroys lives. That is a reality for too many and a challenge that the church is called to help address. But the discipline of Christian poverty, in which a disciple might willingly give up a life of excess and extravagance in order to better focus on all that God provides, is another thing altogether.