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G21 AFRICA - Holy Poverty - STEVE OGAH writes about the crux of poverty and religion in Nigeria.Lagos, NIGERIA - One of the intractable problems facing humanity is the rising incidence of poverty. But poverty will not be a problem if man regards it as holy and spiritual. To be poor and wretched, and to live in destitution, is not the wholesome dream of any man. But the world is being lectured on the conce pt of holy poverty.
Steve Ogah Holy poverty still remains poverty. It only stretches the limits of the definition of poverty when one sees it as being ordained by God in heaven.
From a spiritual standpoint, holy poverty would be perceived as spiritual richness. It's a state where the individual lives in abject and accepted poverty on earth; and in the eyes of the world. In God's eyes, the person is considered spiritually adequate for the grace of God. This is because of their unwillingness to act and change their mode of material living.
In holy poverty, the individual is poor and free from sin or makes a conscious attempt not to be sinful in actions or thoughts against God. He or she would constantly thank God in any situation, propelled by the fact of the consolation that God has ordained that state.
Nigeria is ranked among the world's poorest countries. But we are yet to be told by those who carry out this ranking if ours is holy poverty. According to a World Bank report of 1999, Nigeria's Human Development Index (HDI) was only 0.416, with nearly 70 percent of the population living below the poverty line.
In 2001, the same body recorded that 34 percent of Nigeria's population lived below the poverty line between 1984-1997. And this was the national poverty head count. It's as a result of the incidence of poverty that the federal Government came up with an idea - NAPEP.
NAPEP is an acronym for the National Poverty Eradication Programme of the government. Critics have wondered if it is actually possible to eradicate poverty in Nigeria. They have anchored their pessimism on the insincerity government has shown in the past. And one can't really fault most of these people if there is even a little grasp of how governments function in these parts of the world.
Most poor Nigerians are now waxing spiritual. In a sense, it's wrong to fault their standing, given that they believe in a God who sees and understands their predicament. It would not be out of place to study the people who believe in holy poverty in this country. Nigerian homes stink of poverty, yet; the people are still faithful to God. This sort of faith must be strongly rooted, worthy of a critical appraisal.
The world Bank(1999) has helped us with the information that about 5 billion people struggle to survive on less than US $1 per day. With the deplorable state of living in this country, one can suspect that a good chunk of that figure lives in Nigeria. For those who don't know, Nigeria is a country with disheartening disproportions in diets and income among the different strata of our society. One needs to see poverty in order to know that it's truly an extraordinary thing to believe in holy poverty.
Don Mullan, the Irish writer, shares this opinion:
"I also have a problem with the concept of 'holy poverty.' There is nothing holy about poverty. I have seen the sinfulness of poverty around the world. God never intended human beings to live in absolute poverty, yet we see humans who are forced to think only about surviving, who cannot even raise their consciousness to contemplate anything greater than survival. What we need to talk about is 'holy simplicity', the bedrock of Francis of Assisi. As Gandhi said, 'The earth has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.'" - April 2005, Messenger of St. Anthony.Perhaps, for a better understanding of poverty, we may need to hear the views of those who believe lives are fated and poverty may indeed be holy. They are several of them in Nigeria.
PS: As i was discussing this article with a friend, he said this: "Holy poverty means not being possessive of possessions. For example, you could let go of a thing just to prove that you can still survive by the grace of God. You become poor trusting in God."
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